Why FARSCAPE is AWESOME

so far in this wee series of mine we've had a look an epic space opera and a sci-fi anthology series now let's get a little bit weird but no less awesome Farscape was a science-fiction show which aired from 1999 to 2003 where it was cancelled and eventually concluded in a miniseries it occupies a curious place in the realm of science fiction some familiar concepts but show quite unlike any other when it comes to execution join myself and a living ship of escaped prisoners in examining all the reasons why Farscape is awesome a truly alien feel a word to describe the tone of Farscape is bizarre seeing as were following John Crichton an astronaut who gets lost an alien region of space it makes sense to make this region truly feel as alien as it would appear to our protagonists everything in the show is engineered to not be familiar for a start the living ship of Moira is quite the change from the exploration vessel space stations and battleships of other side flight universes the biological aspect of its design result in an ambient sound design which resembles a pulse the interiors would like arteries or veins and the camerawork inside the ship is always swaying and floating and that's just the main setting add to this all the various aliens and planets with equally out there designs and we understand immediately how Crichton must be feeling Capital offered the true unique psychedelic dance beat stroke singing or cash flow theme song and the tone of the show is complete Jim Henson's work powerful ants the alien feel is the incredible work by Jim Henson Stephen bringing the various creatures to life by the time we got to Voyager in Star Trek so many aliens were just normal humans with forehead appliances but with Farscape these aliens are spectacular in their design construction and operation the work that went into the creation operation of the puppets animatronics is a speed which would make del Toro jealous even when the creature designs our actors into prosthetics the designs are always interesting and beautifully captured on film compelling characters for all the cool concepts and special effects in the world isn't worth much if the story doesn't have great characters just ask Andromeda but luckily Farscape has great characters to spare what becomes immediately apparent after just the pilot episode is the incredible chemistry between the main cast Ben Browder is John Crichton is like a half-drunk Indiana Jones but as an astronaut rather than an archaeologist Claudia black is Aronson is a badass to where no badasses Virginia Hayes on is a more spiritual character that actually does useful things Deana Anthony simcoe's daughter was pretty much Worf 2.0 and Jonathan Hardy's Rigel is a comic relief in the best way possible and that's just a cast of Episode one more and more interesting characters come and go as the show progresses most of the fun comes from watching the big personalities each with their own moral code clash with one another it's a group of characters who all want different things for different reasons and just happen to end up on the same ship being so well defined it resists the scenes write themselves and while this is often played for laughs they also lends to character interactions to hugely poignant moments and sometimes shocking betrayal it's a crew that ends up feeling like a family they have their spots and they fall out but when it comes down to it they stick together through thick and thin the villains an old saying goes a story is only as good as its villain if that's true then Farscape is one hell of a story sack to some amazing villains first there's Crais a ruthless military captain on the edge of moral bankruptcy then there's marilyn manson's wet dream Scorpius the seductive but heartless grazer and all the monstrous scarrans much like our main cast these villains had their own well defined personalities and each brought something new to the table crisis emotional trauma made him unpredictably dangerous Scorpius seemed to have no moral code to speak of and would devise new and horrific ways to torture our characters grazer was a mistress of manipulation only out to amass power for herself and the scarrans are big scary monsters which will terrify kids the world over but first gets true genius is how it contorts story reasons to actually force our heroes and villains to work together almost entire seasons will be dedicated to establishing them to the threat only for a climactic too hard to come along and have a kind of rooting for them but those are only the physical obstacles let's look at trip out crazy this is also part of that bizarreness aspect of the show but the mental state of our characters becomes a huge plot point in the show sometimes this is mainly due to Crichton being only human in light years trying to spend off the most evil people in the galaxy and trying to contend with the people on his own ship as well as timey-wimey dimension-hopping hallucinations and well it all gets a bit too much for in sometimes this often lead to the Crichton freakout which I kinda like the Nicolas Cage freak up where rather than getting worked up about something it's more as if Crichton has just given up caring nowhere is this more apparent than when interactions with Harvey a version of Scorpius which exists only in Crichton mind these themes are amazing it offers some truly creative visual ideas character exploration for exposition and a dash of comedy as well by the late seasons it becomes a staple of the show to have these mental acrobatics almost play out as fall episode but rather than the bottle being a ship it frightens on mind the true pinnacle of this idea is an episode which features Looney Tunes style cartoon segments with a cameo from but of course Crichton's mind is also the subject of epic storylines much like Babylon 5 Farscape was way ahead of its time and creating vast overarching plot rather than simple episodic stories but while other shows deal with the rise and fall of Empires Farscape takes the cosmic ramifications of its law and places them on the personal choices of our main characters traditional sci-fi staples like space battles and Raygun fights take a backseat to psychological horror and temporal and spatial one-upsmanship this allows everything to tie together smoothly the changing dynamics in the characters are placed in such a way that they affect the galaxy itself the eventual love story between Crichton and Aeryn is already good enough but when the sake of the galaxy itself depends upon it each time it's jeopardized the plot and character drama jumps a few miles up in scale it keeps the epicness without ever losing focus on the characters conclusion in the end Farscape plunders the audience right into our main character's head sometimes literally we encounter bizarre and outlandish people places and scenarios which you'll cut off in a wild alien universe yes and serie motional core is never sacrificed in doing so and that is why Farscape is awesome [Music]

Channel: Rowan J Coleman

Views: 308,569

Keywords: rowan j coleman, farscape, farscape theme, farscape season 3 theme, farscape opening, farscape season 3 opening, farscape soundtrack, farscape funny, farscape funniest moments, farscape series review, farscape crighton, claudia black farscape, farscape bloopers

Id: 0S4dbCDHvZQ

Length: 6min 25sec (385 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 19 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/kecou]

"a" short. I meant "a" short.

[u/Alicia_deaun]

This is perfect. Thank you for sharing.

[u/frellus]

Yes! Yeeeess! I could hang with you, man. Awesome video, captured it perfectly for me.

[u/XGPfresh]

I just spent the last hour watching most of the videos on this dude"s channel. He knows his scifi! Thanks for the link OP!

[u/rans0m]

Awsome

[u/zombikila]

"It's awesome because it is"

[u/ElChristoph]

Good video with lots of good points. But playing the exit theme on repeat in the background is really distracting.