Farscape

FX Meister

As if the TV show wasn't bad enough they thopught they would treat us to a movie.
From the trailer it looks like the same terrible plot and the same, 'william shatner school of acting', performances. Just a slightly bigger budget so more effects and the sets are a little bigger than my sitting room.

HerrLipp

That's a mini-series not a movie. The trailer shows only the action part of the plot, from what I've heard the miniseries will spend most of its time tying up loose plot threads from the series. "William shatner school of acting?". Obviously you've never seen Claudia Black act. "The sets are a little bigger than my sitting room" - Uhm, I've watched the entire series and I've never found fault with the production values.

koneko

In it's prime, Farscape was brilliant sci-fi.

Have you ever actually even watched it, FX?

ixoy

FX Meister are you actually watching the same show as the rest of us? There's some very decent Saturn-award winning acting on the show.

You also seem to imply that it has poor production values which is astonishing given how wonderful the show can look - it has a real epic feel at times, very lavish with some superb CGI, set, creature and costume design (a stunning example, offhand, is Scorpius walking down stairs admist a tumult of cascading water - movies rarely looked as impressive).

As to terrible plot... whuh? Could you point out specific elements because I found the multi-arc storylines fascinating as well as the more standalone episodes - often far more intruiging than anything Star Dreck has produced recently (one of the only other shows in the sci-fi genre currently).

monkeyfudge

I think Farscape is pretty good too. I always loved how it would build up to those stunning season finales.

And it has aliens that look alien too.

Not like in Star Trek were all the aliens either have a lumpy nose or a lumpy forhead or lumpy ears.

FX Meister

Yeah, I used to watch it the odd time when I was too lazy to get up off the couch. The guy who plays the lead is a terrible actor, as too is the female lead. And then that goon who will never see his son again, boo hoo, dumb Worf rip off. Then that stupid hand puppet is really bad as well as the one driving the ship. And ioxy, just because it may be the best of the sci fi crap out there doesn't mean it's good.

FX Meister

monkeyfudge
Sorry to be anal here but on that monkeyfudge website you refer to Bonobos as your favourite monkeys, when in fact they are not monkeys at all.

Stark

The two leads are most certainly not terrible actors. What are you looking for exactly, Tom Hanks to play the lead role? What episodes have you seen? I admit that in the first two seasons D'argo (that goon you refer to) moaned about his son too much for my liking, but then the son showed up, turned out to be a dick, slept with his fiancé and ****ed off never to be spoken of again. D'argo was a bit of a Worf clone in Season 1, but loosened up considerably through the course of the show. In the last two seasons he went from being my most hated character to one of my favourites in the show.

Stupid hand puppet, you mean Rygel? Again he needed time to develop, but I feel he provided excellent comic relief as well as a break from humanoid/cgi aliens. And Pilot, the guy driving the ship is the best character ever, the animatronics team often getting more expression out of his muppet face than many human actors accomplish.

Terrible plots? There were quite a few bad episodes I admit, but every show has bad episodes. There were many terrific standalone episodes in the series and great multi-story arcs. What episodes have you seen in particular. Bear in mind that the show is not very newbie-friendly, I saw a few episode from the 1st season initially and thought "what weird **** is this?", it was only after tuning into the 3rd season that I got hooked. It was only after watching the entire 1st season on DVD that I realised it for the epic, character driven story that it was.

mycroft

I only saw sporadic episodes due to the impecible planning of BBC2 programming dept (2nd only to the way they screwed over buffy)

It was imaginative intelligent tv, not just sci fi but with intriguing creative plot structure and character development.

The coma episode which featured classic roadrunner esque animated sequences with Scorpius and Drago, was ingenious and a damn sight more orginal then 99% of most TV drama.

Now could someone move this to the TV forum?

monkeyfudge

FX Meister wrote:

monkeyfudge
Sorry to be anal here but on that monkeyfudge website you refer to Bonobos as your favourite monkeys, when in fact they are not monkeys at all.

You are of course correct, sir! Bonobos are chimps. I just don't get around to updating it much.

As for Farscape, I watched 1 or 2 episodes of the first season and didn't think much of it, but then I tuned in again and I got hooked when I watched the Look at the Princess trilogy from season 2.

I always like to come back to series I don't like after the first season. They do take time to find themselves.

FX Meister

I was getting at the fact they are apes and not monkeys, it's like me calling you an ape

Karl Hungus

Sorry there FX Meister, but you don't seem to know crap about Farscape.

Granted, there was a lot of Season 1 that was fairly poor altogether, I do indeed remember some absolutely cringeworthy episodes altogether, but the main thing that makes Farscape such an amazing show is the fact that it really does deviate from the "plot of the week" style format that the likes of Star Trek use, and once the main storyline kicks off it near the end of the first season, it really becomes something else altogether.

FX Meister

Well it seems like I just happened to see all the cringeworthy episodes, oh well. So was it cancelled in the end?

Stark

Season 2 was a very mixed bag I thought, the great episodes just made up for the sht episodes.

Went like this IMO:

1) Mind the Baby - Cliffhanger resolution, good episode
2) Vita Mortis - Awful
3) Taking the stone - Not great
4) Crackers Don't Matter - Hillarious
5) The Way we weren't - Excellent and one the Pilot characters finest moments
6) Picture if you will - Cheesy
7) Home on the remains - Yawn
8) Dream a little dream - original opening episode, suffered from being shown out of order
9) Out of their minds - Hillarious
10) My three crichtons - crap, some people liked it, I thought it was pretentious
11,12,13) Look at the princess trilogy - Outstanding, pretty much everyone's favourite
14) Beware of Dog - good enough, but not a classic
15) Won't get fooled again - Funny and intense, think Crichton having something akin to a bad LSD trip. Introduces MAJOR overall plot point in the midst of all the craziness. - My favourite episode from the season and one of my favourite episodes overall.
16) The Locket - After that previous one, you had to have a relatively bad one I suppose. Tender moments between John & Aeryn but terrible plot. Hints of interesting implications from this episode in later series.
17) The Ugly Truth - repetitive
18) A Clockwork Nebari - Quite good, a few gruesome bits like Crichton having his eyeballs pulled out of their sockets. Would have been better had they continued with the plot of this episode at some point. Maybe in the mini...
19,20,21) Liars, guns and money trilogy - Fast paced action, twists and surprises with some humour thrown in. - 3 of the better episodes.
22) Die me dichotomy - Outstanding.

Too many below-par episodes there for my liking, but I think I'm just judging them harshly because there are so many outstanding episodes in the series.

The 3rd season is the really great season. The 4th season plays like the 2nd a bit.

monkeyfudge

Yeah... I pretty much agree with all that.

Although I found 'Taking the Stone' to be REALLY TERRIBlE... it's the episode I hate the most for some reason...

skittishkitten

FX Meister wrote:

Well it seems like I just happened to see all the cringeworthy episodes, oh well. So was it cancelled in the end?

From what I understand Farscape is not cancelled. It will continue in October, which I'm happy to hear as I like it.

Karl Hungus

Skittishkitten, it WAS cancelled after season 4. It was supposed to go into a fifth season, and they finished up season 4 as to continue the plot leaving a big cliffhanger for the 5th, but it got cancelled then. It's just a miniseries they're doing now to finish it off, and as far as I know they did this on the back of the sucess of Farscape on DVD.

Stark, yeah, that's a rather good sum up of series 2, but I'd say that Taking The Stone was easily the worst rather than just 'Not Great'. Probably that and 'I ET' were two of the most horrible episodes. I rather liked 'Picture if you will' despite it being cheesy. Still, I've yet to see Season 3, which I'm eagerly anticipating on DVD (Come on already October!) so the best is yet to come?

skittishkitten

AH Well ! Just how it goes with me , I like it and they cancel it .... wonder what other show I can jinx now .

nadir

from what I saw of farscape it was the best sci fi in years. I think it was season 3 i watched nearly all of, really great. I remember it was a little dodge in the first season.

but FX, heh, I think you are guilty of 'sweeping generalized comments' with little or no knowlege of what you are talking about. O_o

savemejebus

I think that Farscape is easily the best sci fi in at least a decade possibly more. It was really groundbreaking in that it broke with all the sensibilities that Star Trek had installed in scifi in general. You know, the usual, wow theres a problem lets talk about it and find a PC soloution that makes everyone happy. That didn't happen in farscape and thats what made it great.

For example in DNA mad scientist, when the scientist wanted pilots arm in exchange for a map to each characters home. In Star Trek there would have been debate and headscratching and in the end some pc compromise soloution. In Farscape however they ran up held the pilot down and lopped his arm off with a sword. Pure Brilliance, admittedly there were some duff episodes but with the exception of "taking the stone" I'd watch them all again whenever they were on

Also on the subject of farscape, www.dvdsoon.com have season four for €60 if you preorder and season 3 for €72 (both region 1)

Stark

Pure Brilliance, admittedly there were some duff episodes but with the exception of "taking the stone" I'd watch them all again whenever they were on

Aye, even the first season with its makeup of average episodes made a brilliant whole with the ongoing character and plot development. And it really hit its stride coming to the end of the season with a run of brilliant episodes. Like I said before Season 2 took a more erratic approach with some poor episodes and some brilliant thrown in together. Still had some overall plot development and of course

Crichton going insane

. Season 3 was a return to epic style and was darker than previous seasons. Easily my favourite Infinite Possibilties is fantastic and gathers major momentum for the last 6 episodes of the season. Season 4 I'm still trying to make sense of, seemed like not much happened, mostly just hints which I'm sure would have been made good on had there been a 5th season. Hopefully there'll be time in the mini, I've heard there's major plot thread resolution so that's good.

Seasons 1&2 are £44 on amazon.co.uk btw.

Karl Hungus

savemejebus wrote:

For example in DNA mad scientist, when the scientist wanted pilots arm in exchange for a map to each characters home. In Star Trek there would have been debate and headscratching and in the end some pc compromise soloution. In Farscape however they ran up held the pilot down and lopped his arm off with a sword. Pure Brilliance, admittedly there were some duff episodes but with the exception of "taking the stone" I'd watch them all again whenever they were on

Yeah, excellent episode that! I really didn't quite except that to happen either, so sudden. Also, did anyone else notice that the scientist himself, Namtar was Ratman spelled backwards? Silly, but I thought it was funny.

mang87

It was the best sci-fi sceries out there. Next to Stargate SG-1

Karl Hungus

NO! It far surpassed Stargate Sg-1 tbh.

If I was making a comparison, Firefly is the next best Sci-Fi show. (obligatory plug)

Stark

Yeah that would be my opinion.

1) Farscape
2) Firefly

Rest of them like Stargate SG-1, Babylon 5, Star Trek etc. would come far behind.

Boston

Babylon 5 a head of farscape for the fact it was finished off. Also Fx farscape isn't for the dense at heart.

ixoy

Karl Hungus wrote:

NO! It far surpassed Stargate Sg-1 tbh.

If I was making a comparison, Firefly is the next best Sci-Fi show. (obligatory plug)

No it doesn't far surpass my Stargate: SG-1 I find different shows have different elements that I like. In terms of plot and scope, Babylon 5 wins out, just ahead of Farscape (which could do epic as well).

Stargate has a good mixture of elements - continuity, characters (who bond very well together), and humour.

Firefly just didn't last long enough to be judged properly. What we saw was certainly good and its wicked black humour made it perhaps the most adult of the sci-fi shows but I can't rank it with just a handful of episodes to go by.

Of the last decade then I'd probably go:
1) Babylon 5
2) Farscape
3) Stargate:SG-1
4) Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (later seasons)

Karl Hungus

I've yet to experience Babylon 5, Ixoy. Ordered 'The Gathering' and Season 1, and if things go well I'll be ordering season 2, and so forth. I'm hopefull it'll be right up my alley though. But even as a mild fan of Stargate (I've probably seen just about every episode at this stage it's been so heavily repeated on sky 1) Farscape is just miles ahead.

I agree about Firefly in part though, because I'd nearly say it far surpasses Farscape in terms of quality, it just never got a chance to really get off the ground, and only hinted at great plotlines that would've made the show something truly awesome. But after just watching another episode of it again today, I have to say I think it's probably one of the most re-watched DVDs I own. I've seen the pilot alone about 4 times.

Boston wrote:

farscape isn't for the dense at heart.

LMFAO!!! You sir deserve a cookie for that tbh!

ixoy

Karl Hungus wrote:

I've yet to experience Babylon 5, Ixoy. Ordered 'The Gathering' and Season 1, and if things go well I'll be ordering season 2, and so forth. I'm hopefull it'll be right up my alley though.

Hope so - some of us have certainly hyped it up here. But I'm just after watching Season 2's "The Coming of Shadows" and it really shows just how damn good the show could be. It won a Hugo award and deservedly so.

But even as a mild fan of Stargate (I've probably seen just about every episode at this stage it's been so heavily repeated on sky 1) Farscape is just miles ahead.

I can see why you say that. There's a certain element to SG-1 that I just really like however, a sort of fun that I've yet to find in other shows (despite their humor often being quite sharp). I can't pin point it exactly and many others don't see it, but it's what makes me rate the show quite highly. I think one magazine came closest to it years ago by saying it's like going off on a adventure with a group of friends... a sense of familiarity.

I'd enjoy my Farscape more if I got the chance to purchase the DVDs but, given their astronomical cost, I haven't got around to purchasing them yet. Maybe if they slash prices by 50% I'll reinvest...

Karl Hungus

ixoy wrote:

I'd enjoy my Farscape more if I got the chance to purchase the DVDs but, given their astronomical cost, I haven't got around to purchasing them yet. Maybe if they slash prices by 50% I'll reinvest...

Well when I got season 1 & 2 it was a 2 for 1 offer on amazon.co.uk, and it's currently £43.97 for them. Could be worth a look.

Draco

and off to TV you go