Farscape

This column was first published in the Age on January 24, 2004

Tonight is the final episode of the third season of Farscape (Channel 9, 10.30pm), a show many of you will never have heard of, despite the fact it was, for three years, one of the largest television productions in Australia, taking up seven Sydney sound stages, and boasting a largely Australian and New Zealand cast.

Farscape is hard core SF. The series begins when Astronaut, John Crichton (American actor Ben Browder) is flung far across the universe after a freak electromagnetic effect sends his ship through a wormhole. He ends up hanging out with a bunch of very weird dudes on a space ship of escaped prisoners. Some are beautiful, like love interest Aeryan Sun (Claudia Black), some squidgy, like Pilot, whose voice is provided by New Zealander Lani Tupu, and some gorgeously weird such as as Chiana (Gigi Edgley) who is, not to put too fine a point on it, a space slut.

Farscape is derivative of shows such as Star Trek and Lost in Space but pushes beyond them into much edgier galaxies. It manages to remix and revitalise it's influences so they take on a life of their own. The result is a truly original show - perhaps too original to be highly commercially successful.It's co-produced by Animal Logic, Jim Henson's company, and part of their brief was to create a more 'adult' image for their puppet creations. This means, to cut a long story short, that these Muppets can be creepy, angry and get to have sex. No wonder Farscape bombed when Channel 9 tried it in a 5.30pm timeslot.

Farscape goes beyond Star Trek in its depiction of different and inhuman races mixing and one of the show's real achievements is to make these non-human creations characters you care about. In the end, it was Farscape's complexity that bought it undone. A bit like Alias, this isn't a show you can watch occasionally. Increasingly dense and sophisticated plotting made it impossible for newcomers to enjoy the show unless they got their hands on some DVDs or cable reruns and went back to the beginning. But those fans who hung in there were beyond loyal. There was picketing of production offices when the show was cancelled during its fourth season because it was felt the audience size didn't justify the cost. A group of fans, called Save Farscape (SaveFarscape.com) bought the cover of an American weekly Variety magazine in protest as well as doing radio and television commercials across the US.

So, if you want to see what all the fuss is about, watch tonight's episode, 'Dog with Two Bones', in which John Crichton has to choose between love and friendship, and returning to earth. You may be confused, but you will also be moved, and see that puppets aren't just for kids. Perhaps it would be wise not to get hooked, as I now am, as Channel 9 is unsure as to whether it will screen the fourth season.

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