OT Farscape Best Scifi Series Ever?

[phaet2112]

Must weigh in...faxes to sci-fi being ignored...

I cry each time I watch Farscape, and think "Hmm...they cancelled this for Battlestar Galactica: TNG or Tremors: Mr. Keaton Kills Stuff" OH my GOD I HATE absolutely HATE scifi for cancelling farscape. I loved Dr. Who because of the way the actors filled out their roles. That is why Farscape is fantastic. Yes, there are some episodes which are *by themselves* somewhat iffy (I think of the stone one with Chiana jumping and getting all dredd-ed out offhand).

But everyone must give credit to the writers and actors for having the courage to
A) Keep women in roles of power, far outnumbering the men on the show (what other show was there? Xena is the only one...)
B) Mess with the main characters. ST and ST:TNG are fine, but I get tired of the morality on there...resulted in the same stories ep after ep. The writers for Farscape were like little boreworms- digging deep into Crichton's brain and squirming around, wreaking havoc with their main character and his emotions. Who else would have their main person go insane? Or be twinned and then die? Or become a nuclear terrorist?
C) Have the best darned production values of ANY show on TV. Farscape has had the best looking, most original villians and creatures of any show (as opposed to the ST "let's put a ridge on your brow" creature shop). Anyone remember the spider lady on Farscape? Or just the Delvians and Saark? (Mmm..blue...)

*sigh* so much energy...no ability to change evil vivendi/usa conglomerate...

[Foiden]

Actually, what made Dr. Who rule was definitely the dependancy on acting. When you don't have the funds to produce high quality special effects, the whole life of the show rests upon the actors. That's probably why I love Dr. Who. They did a good job of screening people and made people act their butts off.

[phaet2112]

The dvds for Dr. Who, like the key to time, have fantastic commentary by the original actors. Its great to listen to them chum around and remember little tidbits about the sets and dialogue coaching and stuff

[Radhil]

Best sci-fi....

Farscape ranks up there. *The* best, I dunno, but it's filling my DVD collection of stuff to be watched 20 years from now, and most of Star Trek does not fill that honor (why Enterprise is still on the air is beyond me).

I see some people comparing it to Babylon 5, which is also on my top list. In my mind they're two different shows - one's an epic drama that tries to be Shakespearean, one's a roller coaster strapped to a rocket booster. Both are great, but vastly different flavors. So I wouldn't put them side by side.

And yes, Farscape's acting at times fell flat, but nine time out of ten, it was leagues beyond any other show. Claudia Black I don't think was ever anything BUT Aeryn Sun, and Browder has gone through so many different evolutions it's a wonder he's sane - as a character OR an actor. Ditto B5, who's leading men (Sinclair and Sheridan) early on tended to grin too much and make the show look goofy. But when they hit their characters... some of the best bits of TV. *Especially* the rest of the cast, who in other shows would be made bit characters serving basic plot functions. And the writing (Stracynski is a tiny god for all the amazing work he's done - check out his comics, even if you don't do comics) easily eclipsed any awkward acting moments.

Blathering over.

EDIT - Oh, and that guy in the beginning who thought Firefly was a Farscape rip-off... maybe it did borrow the tone a bit, but there are worse things to rip off. And the show had show it's first glimmers of genius before it got pulled. Pity. Joss Whedon needs something good after the Buffyverse, don't see why Firefly couldn't do it. All the good shows are leaving...

[ March 19, 2003, 16:55: Message edited by: Radhil ]

[Narrew]

phaet2112, your so dead on. The Sci-Fi channel has stoopid shows like The Dream Team, Tremors, Scare Tactics ect... I cant see how they couldnt get the money to keep Farescape going, unless some of the actors were leaving *shrug*.

I liked B5, and even was into Crusade, but that didnt Last either.

John Doe is pretty good, cant be ranked the best ever since this is the first season though.

[ZeroAdunn]

Only saw a couple of episodes of Firefly, but it looked decent, given time to hit its stride I'm sure it would have been excellent.

B5 was a great show, unfortunately a high budget and TNT killed it. Oh well. Crusade was excellent, it drives me nuts having all of those loose ends unresovled.

Haven't seen Farscape in several seasons (I'm missing the end ) it was one of my favorite shows when I could watch it.

[Foiden]

Actually, B5 was one of the lowest budgetted shows of the group. Thanks to such cheap hardware to push it. A show that got started with a few Amigas and good ol' Lightwave software. B5 didn't suffer as much as one would. It was a show that was planned to end from the beginning. If I'm correct, with TNT, the show Lasted the whole 5 seasons it was planned to have since its inception. Or did it not go through a 5th season. My bad, as a lack of cable didn't have me see much of B5 since it left regular television. But I definitely remember the interviews about the show when it first started airing. They said it was to go 5 seasons and then stop.

[ZeroAdunn]

Yes, I know B5 had a ludicrously low budget, but when it got a decent budget, it went to crap.

[Owlman]

Damn what a crappy ending to Farscape!

[Narrew]

it was a lame ending, and the "to be continued" may be a bit optimistic. There was an commercial for a web site that was asking to save farscape, but it is down, haha.