Farscape 1-01: Premiere - Part 2

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm still writing about Farscape's first episode. It's not a double length story, pilots just give me a lot to write about. Click THIS LINK if you'd like to jump to part one instead.

It's not even really a pilot to be honest, as Farscape cost so much to set up that they needed a network to commit to at least 11 episodes before shooting a single one. Sets and animatronics aren't cheap, but once you've got them built you can keep using them and spread the cost out. For a while it seemed like Fox was going to be the one to greenlight the series, but the Sci Fi Channel was the one who finally came through for them. Which probably worked out better in the long run as sci-fi shows on Fox don't tend to last very long (just ask fans of Space: Above and Beyond or Firefly).

The creators are American but they decided to film and produce the series in Australia to get more on screen for their budget. They did hire one American for the cast though, star Ben Browder. This had a side-effect of dropping his character in a distant part of the universe where everyone either speaks with an Australian accent or like an Australian trying to put on a British accent.

Alright, I've already given you all the SPOILERS I can for the first half of the episode and now I'm going to go and spoil the second half too. With pictures! Enjoy.

Farscape 1-01: Premiere - Part 1

Episode:

1

|

Writer:

Rockne S. O'Bannon

|

Director:

Andrew Prowse

|

Air Date:

19-Mar-1999

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about Premiere, the first episode of cult 90s sci-fi series Farscape! That's 'late 90s' by the way, not 'early 90s'; late enough for them to have deliberately given it a unique name so that the series would be only thing that comes up if you do an internet search. It was originally going to be called Space Chase, but thankfully they swerved away from that at the last moment.

Farscape first aired in 1999, back when Deep Space Nine and Voyager were still defining space sci-fi, Stargate SG-1 was starting out and Babylon 5 had just finished. Trek was losing its shine at this point and there was a feeling that space opera fans were tired of well-trained military crews following orders on starship bridges and wanted a bit more... anarchy. And muppets I guess?

The series was produced by Hallmark and The Jim Henson Company, so it belongs to the same family as Fraggle Rock and The Dark Crystal. The puppeteered aliens actually put a few people off at the time, probably still does, even though everyone loves puppet Yoda in the Star Wars movies. I'm trying to dig into my memories to excavate my own first reaction to learning about the series, but I'm not getting much. I think I saw a review or a preview in a magazine next to a photo from a series about Vikings and assumed it was going to take place in a mead hall or something.

I do remember liking the series, but I only watched it the once and that was years ago, so who knows what I'll think about it now. Maybe it's horrifically dated now. Perhaps it's been utterly surpassed by its successor/clone Guardians of the Galaxy. I'm hyped to find out if it can still hold my attention.

There will be SPOILERS below for exactly half an episode, no others. I'll be going through Premiere scene by scene, recapping and sharing my thoughts along the way, so this will kind of be like a commentary track. Except you can't put it on in the background while you get other things done. All the screencaps will be from my PAL DVD, but you're not missing much as the Blu-rays aren't particularly HD either. Seems like the original 35mm footage was lost and they weren't keen on spending the cash to recreate all the CGI visual effects in a higher resolution anyway. It's a bit of a tragedy, considering that even Babylon 5 eventually got a HD release.