Slashdot Mirror
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.
This is the first "right" thing Sci-Fi has done since cancelling Farscape. Every other series they've brought on like Mad Mad House or whatever it is, is crud. Hopefully this is a sign that Sci-Fi is learning from it's past mistakes, but I doubt it.
Real people? Real spaceship? Um, were they using a real warp drive to get around the galaxy?
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011
It won't be so hard to move on - the alien just says he will prepare them for 'naturalization' which I assume means breaking them down into little balls of their most basic atomic components. Oh - and how exactly they are writing a 22 episode season's worth of story in 4 hours (when each episode is 1 hour anyway) is beyond me. I adore every episode of Farscape - I'd hate to see it watered down.
The show wasn't cancelled for poor ratings (it was one of thier highest rated shows), Sci-fi just decided that with it's very high production costs about to increase, it would be best to turn to some cheaper programming.
If you can get ratings with cheap crap like Scare Tactics (come on, I could produce that show for 5 bucks an episode), then why shell out 3 million an episode for some quality programming?
I imagine this miniseries would have to get some pretty spectacular ratings to sway Sci-Fi on this.
I've been thinking about this lately, having been watching some of the Anime on Adult Swim. I'm not a huge Anime freak or anything, but anyways..
The (better) animes really are sort of a miniseries format, even if they have a few seasons worth of episodes. It would seem to me that the creative force behind them spells out the plot for the entire series - or at least knows how it's going to begin and end - and the series as a whole becomes more cohesive and watchable.
American animated series' tend to be open ended. No end is planned, so they can just go on forever and ever.
For instance, Trigun. I realize that this was taken from a comic, and the series follows the comic, but the series flows. The characters evolve from the first episode til' the last. Compare to something like the Batman series (which also comes from a comic), each episode is completely independent of the last.
I guess both have advantages/disadvantages. If you miss a few episodes of Trigun, you run the risk of not knowing what the fuck is going on, especially if they were key episodes.. If you miss Batman, big deal.
Anyways, back to the 'real' sci-fi.. I'd love to see more vision put into it on TV, rather than having a series finale which was pulled from some hacks ass. "Capt Kirk and Picard travel thrrough time to ummmm tell Spock how to get Janeway pregnant so they can ummmm.. Klingons, lets think.. How about prevent a Klingon war? Sounds good lets shoot it and go home"
Ie; A plan - beginning and end - for Voyager would have made it a watchable show. Instead they just toss characters in here and there and the rest of the typical bulldink. I didnt watch the finale, but I'll bet hard cash that the day was saved with some cockamamie time traveling.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Hopefully this will generate a renewed interest in the show and bring it back permanently.
Television shows are less reliable than jobs. Producers, as a matter of routine, turn their backs on audiences numbering in the millions in exchange for a short-term ratings benefit or schedule change, then sit around and gripe because creative people refuse to work on television shows.
The tremendous amounts of money invested in building a market are usually wasted by some brilliant middle manager who has absolutely no idea why people like the show that is being cancelled.
This is twice as likely when it is science fiction.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
Firefly is Gunsmoke, but set in space! Big fucking whoop. Who wants to see yet another space western? No thanks.
- Anonymous because firefly fans can give criticism but can't take it.
No!!!
Support both! Both shows are getting a new lease of life, both shows are really really good and a million times better than anything else on TV at the moment.
It's hard to know what to think about the channel. It embodies (sometimes) much of what you would like to watch if you are a science fiction/horror/fantasy fan. Yet they have made so many inexplicable moves. For example they cancel a novel award winning show in its prime. In exchange we get Tremors the Series (crap)and a lot of made for TV movies (crap).
Yet inexeplicably they revive Andromeda over Farscape? They pass on Firefly?
It really seems as if their executives are either not as in touch with the genre as they should be, or are being overruled from above. Or quite simply are just fools.
They have had so many cool shows, that they could populate their line up with them, yet often they take and mangle a shows original spirit. Sliders being a prime example. Farscape another where rather then mangle the concept they just killed it.
Sadly the alternative networks for this kind of content aren't doing much with it. Showtime being the best example as the former owners of Stargate, and current owners of Jeremiah.
Ah where do we find good quality shows these days?
Well, the secret's out now... I'm a big ol' anime nerd.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Farscape is one of those shows that's very difficult to break into because of its highly seralized nature. That is to say, the plotline is very involved, and trying to break into it is very difficult. ("Who is that guy? Why are they all looking at each other uncomfortably? Why the musical sting?") It got to the point where the "previously, on Farscape" section at the beginning of every episode packed in more story than most of the actual episode.
With that in mind, Farscape rewarded loyal viewers with a story that was incredibly involved and detailed (think: Babylon 5), coupled with character interactions that seemed effortlessly natural (think: completely unlike Babylon 5). I first started watching partway through season two. I'd just sorta left the TV on the Sci Fi channel (a mistake I very rarely make these days), and the conversation between my wife and I just sorta drifted off as we watched an episode called "The Way We Weren't," which remains my favorite episode to this day. It was about shame, and betrayal, and forgiveness: most importantly, it was about these things in a way which seemed to assume the best about its audience, rather than the worst. My wife, who generally dislikes space-opera style sci-fi, became a rabid viewer, as did I.
Anyway, watch a few episodes with an open mind and a sense of humor, and you're likely to be surprised with where it takes you.
A good lesson for sci-fi creators everywhere there: hire good writers, skimp on the actors.
"nerds will will reign supreme"
They already do. Bill Gates - may not like him but at least he is one of us (or was - though Allen and Woz were far better representives from that era).
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
"the series wasn't cancelled due to lack of interest"
So was the Family Guy.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Farscape I enjoyed as well. Good stories mostly. I would love to see them bring it back. I also have been enjoying Andromedia. It has gotten interesting in the new season. Hercules (with Kevin S. again) was a great series as well. However, if you've run out of good plot ideas, it might be better to leave it be. In Farscape's case, I'm only in the second season (no sci-fi channel), and I still think it's good.
I'm hoping the forthcoming Battlestar Galactica series will be good too. The Mini-series/Movie they showed was great. I expected it to be bad, but it was great. And I revisited the original series. I liked some of the characters, like Starbuck, but it isn't nearly as good as the Sci-fi series.
Anyhow, Farscape coming back is a good thing
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
That's because viewers are now wise to the networks' ways. Why get attached to a new series that will be canned before your car needs an oil change? Even frig'n elections campains last longer than new shows! The only garanteed hits are campy shows like "The O.C." until the viewers get bored with characters and non-existing plot lines.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Farscape ended up being put out way past the expiration date. The first/second seasons, maybe even third were great, but then the plots got weirder and more confusing. Granted, it was still humorous and fun to watch, but.. it was lacking.
Sliders is another example of a TV show gone bad. The first, second were completely awesome. Third started sending it down the drain. Then Sci-Fi picked up the series from Fox and completely ruined it with Seasons 4 and 5. It was still okay to watch, but Season 5 was almost unbearable. The only original character that remained was Rembrant, and Quinn got elimnated by some cockamamy plotline about being fused with an alternate Quinn (shouldn't they have looked identical anyways?) thus bringing in the new actor. It's sickening.
Technically, there's a distinction between science fiction and space opera, at least according to some writers in the Sci Fi genre. I once read an article written by one of Analog's regular contributors, who attempted to draw this distinction.
To the category of true science fiction belong works such as Mary Shelly's Frankenstein (the book, not the movie); to the category of space opera belong works such as Star Wars. The idea is that true sci fi has at least one science element, even if it's badly conceived science, that is integral to the plot; without it, the story doesn't work. In Frankenstein, you have the concept of reanimating dead tissue with electricity, and creating life from non-life. Space opera and its close relatives, on the other hand, could be re-cast in another genre with little or no difficulty (e.g., a western). The technology is just a replaceable prop.
Despite Gene Roddenberry selling the original Star Trek to NBC as a "wagon train to the stars," he hired real sci fi writers and told some pretty amazing stories that were genuine science fiction. Quite honestly, I saw nothing in Firefly that would classify it as genuine science fiction -- but if it's space opera, it's very competently written, proving that the term doesn't have to be a negative epithet.
Farscape was a bit uneven at times, but it did explore genuine science fictional themes at least some of the time. The rest of the time was spent on character development and dealing with plot arcs. It's pretty safe to say, though, that the story told by Farscape would fall completely apart without the underlying science concepts (wormhole travel, cerebral implants, etc.)
The miniseries is a good idea. There are some things that need to be resolved. Would I have preferred the final season in it's completeness? Sure.
... I was skeptical at first but looking at past episodes they did set it up pretty nicely). Babylon 5 -definitely- got it ... the fact that they had a time limit and planned plot is what let that show flourish.
As for bringing back the show "permanently" (as in with no end in sight purely for the sake of watching FarScape), I say no.
If I hadn't known that there was supposed to be another season and that a number of sideplots were unresolved, I actually -liked- the "cliffhanger" if it would have ended exactly where they got blasted. It is extremely rare that a show has the guts to have a tragic ending.
A series doesn't need to go on for a decade or more to be good. In fact, going on and on often ends up wasting the creativity that kept the show good at first and leads to jumping the shark. They planned one more season to tie things up but from what I understood the writers felt that the arc was almost finished.
Sopranos' creators understand this (so far at least, HBO might convince them to keep going but I don't think they should) and is ending soon. M*A*S*H* learned this though it was almost too late. Seinfeld "got it". I think SG-1 "got it", or at least RD Anderson did (Atlantis? We'll see
Sometimes an ending is a good thing. I for one still miss the creativity of FarScape (like the cartoon dream episode) and the actors, and I wish all the best for the Henson company, but I definitely don't want to see FarScape around for years past a logical conclusion and falling into the trap where every other episode is a hallucination, parody or flashback and it was starting to show those characteristics too often already (one of each category per season for a tension breaker is valid but not too much).
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
I could go into detail about how the conversation between the unknown pilot and his superiors, and the behavior of the "weapon" itself, gave strong hints to the "weapon" being a teleportation device that scans the pattern of the target without the mess of actually moving matter around (and naturally destroying the originals, they already had enough doppleganger episodes), or I could just point to the big "To Be Continued..." sign.
Oh, it's science fiction. Who was it that said "really advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic"? It is, however, SOFT scifi, as opposed to HARD scifi.
Hard scifi is what you said, extrapolating technology into the future. Technologies in hard scifi are usually based on real science or science theories. Really good hard scifi is often used to point out problems with upcoming technology or as satire to poke at flaws in our current society. The short story/movie "Farenheit 451" comes to mind.
Soft scifi is more fantastical (but not completely fantasy). The technology is less similar to our familiar technology and is often not based on real science. It's hard to keep believability in a story when it's pushed very far into the future or very far away in space without making it soft scifi. When you have huge distances in space or time it's less likely that the technology will have evolved into something we'd expect, thus writers have to resort to making up things instead of using real science. Farscape, being far in space, is soft scifi. So is Star Wars, being far in time AND space.
They both have their advantages and disadvantages and often apply to different fans. I enjoy both, but I think I favor soft scifi more because I like to escape from reality when I watch TV or read a book, and soft scifi is much farther from reality than hard scifi. And sometimes you will have soft scifi elements poking their way into hard scifi shows. Technomages in Bab5 are an example. Even the 'mages themselves admitted what they were doing was magic (or rather, highly advanced technology designed to emulate magic). You do not immediately categorize them as a fantasy element, however, because there is technology behind their magic. It's highly unrealistic technology, but it's tech nonetheless. It's soft scifi.
Yes, there is a fine line between soft scifi and fantasy, but there are things that are obviously fantasy and things that are obviously scifi. Harry Potter is fantasy. The Wheel of Time is fantasy, and so is the Lord of the Rings. Star Trek is scifi. Bab5 is scifi. In the middle would be, say, the Pern novels. Sure, there's scifi elements (the dragons were genetically engineered from the smaller native firelizards) but to the average reader who doesn't know the history, it reads like fantasy. Farscape may be closer to fantasy than Star Trek, but it's by no means fantasy. It's just soft.
Until Farscape, that was true for me too.... But only a couple of Farscape episodes even came close to that (namely, the ones that tried to be cute).
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
According to JMS, had S5 been picked up in time, the last ep of S4 would actually have been Intersections in Real Time.
A quick story, with no commitment to continuity, would work for me, and I'd possibly get back to watching more of it.
Then you're obviously not a Farscape fan. The series was all about "continuity". Viewers weren't subjected to spending 30 minutes of each hour being brought up to speed about the plot, and the story is what made the series. People with short attention spans will not appreciate Farscape. People who don't care about what happened to John and Aeyrn have no heart. *Sniffle*
Farscape is on miniseries probably becuase they didn't want to risk the investment of an entire season - sort of testing the waters.
Farscape has already tested the waters. When SciFi cancelled it, they caught hell from the viewers. Perhaps the SciFi Channel is just trying to put science fiction back in their programming?
A sacrifice for fans will get them a huge amount of respect that would probably pay off with higher viewership of the channel in general in the long run.
It certainly won't be any sacrifice for them. The viewers will be there, and SciFi will make money. If they regain those lost Farscape fan eyeballs, it is definitely a payoff for the SCiFi Channel. It has to do with content, not respect - Farscape (and other science fiction) fans have (understandably) little respect for the poorly named SciFi Channel.
Interesting.
The SciFi channel
- canceled Farscape despite high ratings
- canceled The Invisible Man despite high ratings
- got rid of just about every original sci-fi show
they did
- stopped rerunning very old, interesting sci-fi
reruns they could have rerun
- did not rerun many sci-fi movies when I had
cable
- reran a bunch of stuff that had nothing to do
with science fiction
In short the sci-fi channel stopped being the sci-fi channel and stopped caring what their viewers wanted.
I wonder if the bill to let cable users pay by channel has inspired the Sci-Fi channel to consider what their viewers ( now *their* __customers ) want.
Radical concept
Steve