Sci Fi Confirms Forthcoming Farscape Miniseries

Albinus writes "The Sci Fi Channel has decided to continue the Farscape series in the form of a miniseries, according to a short article on SciFi.com. Apparently, 'The four-hour miniseries picks up where the cliffhanger series finale left off and will reunite John Crichton (Ben Browder), Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black) and the rest of the Moya crew.' Hopefully this will generate a renewed interest in the show and bring it back permanently." We reported on earlier rumors to this effect late last year.

Comments

Re:What is farscape's appeal?

[jdray]

It's a fair question.

If you only saw an episode here and there, you'd probably find it disjointed and hard to follow. Farscape was a serial rather than a series, in that the story continued from week to week, and changes in the characters relationships (or mortality) were developed over time and maintained. Dialog in one show referred to events in others. This is in direct contrast to shows like Star Trek, where you could re-run episodes in all sort of order and no one really cared (Borg episodes notwithstanding).

The other thing that attracted me to Farscape was the dry wit and the pure humanity of the hero (John Crichton). He screwed up on several occasions and had to figure his way out of jams. Or maybe something didn't go the way it "should have," and plans were shot. No phasers from space or transporters to get them out of trouble. Occasionally fistfights broke out, often among the main characters.

This isn't to say that the show was all violence. Romance showed up a lot, and the bounds of friendships were tested (some failed, some didn't). Many times, characters weren't either "bad guys" or "good guys," but just had their own way of getting through life. The character of Scorpius was played brilliantly as one who is evil on so many levels that you can't keep track of them all, but in certain situations can be trusted to be true to his word. Others, like Chiana (what a babe), were good at heart but sometimes did bad things. I'm reminded of Jessica Rabbit ("I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way.")

So, if you have a chance, watch Farscape for several episodes in a row. It starts to make sense after a while, and then you're addicted.

Re:Full series return unlikely

[TobiasTheCommie]

Ever heard of Babylon 5? Want to know how many times that series returned from cancelation? 4 times. After season 1 it was canceled. After season 2 it was canceled. After season 3 it was canceled. After season 4 it was canceled. It made it all 5 seasons, JMS never wanted more, actually, he wanted exactly 5 seasons. Thats what he got. So YES shows have recovered from cancelation. Also take a like at Saturday Night Live. That have been canceled And the star trek franchice. what about that?

Re:Full series return unlikely

[kannibal_klown]

Yeh, but you obviously don't know the backstory...

SciFi was on the fence about having one more season. After going back and forth, they told the writers and cast they had their final answer: there WOULD be another season.

So they changed the script around a little and set it up for a cliffhanger. They made it look like 2 of the main (well, face it, THE 2 main characters) die in a weird kind of weapon blast that turns them into dried matter (like a banana after being frozen by liquid nitrogen, then shattered). This weird thing probably means they're alive, but just transported or whatever.

THEN, AFTER they wrapped everything up, shot the last scene, edited the film, added the sound track, etc, SciFi dropped the bombshell. "We changed our minds. Sorry about the inconvenience."

They immediately cut funding and VERY shortly after started tearing down the sets.

This gave them no choice but to air what they filmed. Though I would have liked it better than they just used a pair of scissors and cut out the last 10 seconds.

Giving Sci Fi way too much credit

[shiffman]

"The Sci Fi Channel has decided to continue the Farscape series in the form of a miniseries,

Uh, no. Henson and Hallmark decided to continue the series and got funding to produce the miniseries. That all happened last November, or at least that's when word began to leak out and was later confirmed (unofficially but with plenty of nods and winks) at the Farscape convention in Burbank. What's new is that Sci Fi will be the broadcaster for the mini, which is already in post production. The quoted line makes it sound like Sci Fi reconsidered its decision to cancel the series, which gives them way more credit than the facts warrant.

Re:Trends

[dnahelix]

I know you're just trying to be a Troll, but you've just come across as Stupid.

Several of the actors have had other roles, which is suprising considering the relatively short timespan between Farscape being cancelled and the big push to start a mini-series.

Ben Browder (John Crichton) has been in an episode of CSI: Miami, played Lee Majors in Behind the Camerea; The Unauthorized Story of 'Charlie's Angels' (which was pretty campy but entertaining, especially with Dan Castallaneta), and a major roll as Sam Moss in the film A Killer Within which is in post-production.

Claudia Black (Aeryn Sun) is the character Lady Briana in the game Lords of Everquest

Anthony Simcoe (Ka D'Argo) plays the character Scott Seaton in the two part TV movie Marking Time. He has also had a role in BlackJack, another TV movie.

Gigi Edgley (Chiana) has played the character in Liz Kempson in BlackJack, a TV movie, which has turned into a TV movie series. She has played the same roll on BlackJack: In the Money, BlackJack: Ace Point Game, and BlackJack: Sweet Science (which is currently still filming)

Lani John Tupu (Captain Crais/Voice of Pilot) has played the character Sharky Garcia in the movie Liquid Bridge, also the character Chief Finau on the TV show Revelations.

Wayne Pygram (Scorpius) has played Col. Langdon in the TV movie Heroes' Mountain.

Tammy McIntosh (Jool) has played Melissa on the TV series Jeopardy and also the character Charlotte Beaumont on the TV series All Saints

Mellisa Jaffer (Noranti) has played Gwen Walston on the TV sereis Snobs

David Franklin (Braca) was the Maitre D' in The Matrix Reloaded (bet you didn't know that)

Kent McCord (Jack Crichton) was in the movie Run Ronnie Run!

This is what these actors have been doing since Farscape, it doesn't even touch the huge list of work from before. Several of the actors whe played smaller roles in Farscape have also been appearing in various things. So stop being an idiot.