Farscape Returns Tonight

Silverhammer writes "After a seemingly interminable winter hiatus, SciFi Channel's Farscape returns tonight with the first part (of four) of the Season Three finale. The 'Farscape Undressed' recap show starts at 8 pm EST, and the episode itself -- titled 'I Yensch, You Yensch' -- starts at 9 pm EST. Here is a spoilerific review." God it's about time. Debatably the best scifi on TV.

Comments

Bout time....

[Britissippi]

Farscape started off kinda cheesy (the whole Buck Rodgers thing), but over time its really blossomed into a good show. I've been waiting for the new series for a while too. The only thing I can't understand is why Scorpius has to wear a bloody jockstrap on his head.. ;)

Why such a long wait?

[CS_Snapple]

Anyone know why they decided to delay these episodes so long in the U.S?

Seems like they're doing themselves a disservice. These episodes aired in the UK about 2 months ago. That's plenty of time for the fans to find "alternate ways" of viewing them, rather than waiting the 2 months until they decided to air them in the U.S.

From what I've heard, Sci-Fi usually does this sort of thing to avoid competition from network television. Maybe I'm just overestimating the number of fans who were seeking the episodes out on the net rather than waiting for two months.

Good Farscape, Bad Network

[fm6]

I do like Farscape. It's not earthshakingly good, but it's certainly the best TV SF I've seen in a long time. Fairly imaginative, interesting stories, good acting, cliche-phobic. Knows how to be bizarre without going over the top. Very funny at times.

The best thing about Farscape is the way it turns the typical white-man's-burden storyline on its head. The hero is the standard ruggedly-handsome, super-brilliant cowboy-astronaut, of course. But for once the aliens aren't with the program. They won't admit to his Obvious Superiority no matter how many times he saves the day.

It is hard to accept that anybody can fart Helium -- but that kind of absurdity is all part of the fun.

As for the scheduling idiocy -- well, I won't repeat my previous rant. Suffice to say this is class media monopoly stupidity. Farscape is supposed to be a key part of SciFi's strategy to convince people that they're a real network, not just a dumping ground for cancelled shows. That's why they ordered two seasons in advance. But that strategy won't work until they start showing their viewers some respect.

Re:'Farscape Undressed' is a MUST

[JabberWokky]

Good Ghod, that sucked. Not the show (not having really watched it, a group of SF geeks got together to watch the Undressed and season opener).

The show was okay - probably pretty good when you get into it (although the cheesy set of the battleship biomechanical ship evoked a "Hey, I think that's the arcade I used to hang out in in the 80s" from someone). Nifty aliens (which I knew), nifty costumes (which I knew), and okay dialogue and pretty decent acting. All in all, a show I would have no problem getting into.

But the "Farscape Undressed" almost made me not want to watch the show. HIDEOUS acting (what the *hell*... it looked like a few people doing high school book reports in front of the class) cheesy interaction with the Henson characters (either you're in character or not. Having the humans be their acting selves and the aliens be in character is jarring), and really nifty but ultimately uninformative seizure inducing quick flashes of nifty SFX does not an intro to a show make.

It looked like a fairly simple, very detailed plot (no giant leaps to follow, but lots of interesting little threads), but they tried to make it a semi-documentary, semi-in character discussion, and wound up with an incomprehensible mess. The writer and editor of it should be shot. I'd say I learned significantly more about the show by watching the episode than seeing unrelated action clips introduced by actors uncertain of what they were supposed to be playing.

Gah. As someone else put it - "It was a pretty neat show. That undressed thing, though - I wish I had that hour of my life back".

About the only defense it has is that it looked like it would be really cool to watch if you had seen all the shows - a really neat montage of the highlights. But for anybody who hadn't seen the show before (who is was theoretically addressing), it was utterly useless.

--
Evan