hopeless romantic

I adore this show, but agree that I can't watch it except in binges.

I think that my problem comes from the fact that it didn't have a formula, per se. Each episode went into a freefall of imagination that precluded a formula, even as each episode built on the last (and I can say that freely, except for the second, third, and fourth episodes, until P.K. Tech Girl seemed to point the entire series towards its future of John Chrichton saving the Universe).

There are lots of T.V. shows that I can watch one at a time and never get bored of them (police and crime procedurals come immediately to mind, because the "who-done-it" aspect tends to hide the nuts-and-bolts aspects of both the scripts and the acting).

But then I go on a Farscape binge, every now and then, and keep noticing that I didn't notice aspects of the plotting before (this most recent one was of season four, and seeing how much of the plotting foreshadowed The Peacekeeper Files (aka, the missing fifth season).

One tiny bit stuck out at me this time that bothered me, but I was able to soothe away Jewel's prior attraction to D'argo by reminding myself that he (finally!) reunited with Chiana in The Peacekeeper Wars, so of course she needed to be more attracted to Chrichton in the brief finales than to D'argo -- but the foreshadowing of Sikozu being an agent of the Scarans was... masterful writing -- and no, I don't regret her being shoved out of that airlock!

Masterful writing is what made Farscape the show that it was.

And it's not like you can read Shakespeare's Sonnets every day of the week. Good writing deserves to be savored....

Meliana

It was masterful writing for sure. I must watch some more soon.

ChakotaysLover

And that was one of the things I found truly fascinating about them. They had no prior knowledge of each other until she was pushed into his grave and he saved her life. Then, aboard Moya, they spent most of their time together and you could see how they had this effect on each other.

Meliana

Yes they both were outsiders in a way.

ChakotaysLover

They were and I loved it!

hopeless romantic

I think that's why I love the writing of this show so much.

Who amongst us isn't an outsider?!?

But, now that I think about it, that was the enduring theme for the show -- being an outsider, never quite knowing how you fit in...

How could I have ignored the fact that the entire opening involved Chricton talking about how "alien" he felt in this new world....

But we are all strangers (and yes, I do mean you, my Internet friends, because we don't really know each others secrets, and you don't really know ours, and we don't have a pact between us to hide our secrets past death).

Instead, we only know the faces we make for the world, and one of the faces John Chricton made for the world was that he was brave (and who doesn't want to have people think that they're brave!?!) -- and the John Chrictons -- both of them -- were really good at convincing people that they were strong and that their plan might work, until it didn't, and even then they (those aliens) trusted that he would get them out of it... until (not saying because I have never figured out how to use the commands that indicated a spoiler alert) died, and everything became real because... if you don't cry when __________ dies, you may not be anymore human than Sikozu.

ChakotaysLover

dp

ChakotaysLover

That's what made this show my favorite! A ship of outsiders, taking in the ultimate outsider, Crichton, and some how, they make Moya their home, and they become this weird, dysfunctional family that would do anything to protect each other.

When that death happened, I bawled like a baby...... but since that first time, I haven;t cried about it since cause.... I don;t watch it happen. I can't.

hopeless romantic

Hugs.



That's the best I can do -- because I watch it every single stinking time, because I know that ________ is toast the moment that ________ tells him that she will move to live with him on that farm in _______, and at that point, I just kinda have to cry out the knowledge that courage dies without sacrifice, and the only miracle I know of (and yeah, this is meant as a joke, so please smile of laugh) is that Crichton junior never cries until everyone needs to be silent.

Because I live in a place where casting newborns simply can't happen (by law), so seeing a newborn on camera is... rare... but seeing one who can film a single scene while seemingly happy... kinda makes me happy too, but also a bit bemused by how they pulled a trick like that... lol.

ChakotaysLover

I get to a certain point in PKW and I just stop watching. I know what happens, but I don;t wanna see it for two reasons.

Meliana

I loved the fact that when Crichton had the opportunity to stay on Earth, he had changed so much, he wanted to be with his new family instead. Unthinkable at the beginning of his journey. And yes we all feel like outsiders, that is very true.

ChakotaysLover

Crichton knew, as much as he loved his planet, he couldn't stay. His heart wasn't there anymore.

Meliana

It wasn't that's true. He had to go back to find that out though...

hopeless romantic

I love the fact that the show took him through various versions of the fiction that he could somehow go home again (as in, the show never quits riffing off of versions of "Kansas;" aka, the sort imagined in the Wizard of Oz, even though it's clear from most of his back-story that John grew up in Somewhere Unknown in the South, U.S.) but especially that none of them (even in cartoon form) ever worked out the way he wanted them to, because his desires to return to "a simpler past" are always depicted as the sort of fiction that proves the rule that "you can't go home again."

Every single episode seems to have elements of, as Queen queried so ardently, Is this the real life, or is this just fantasy?" from Bohemian Rhapsody.

Which is not to say that the sensibilities were the same as the legendary song, so much as that there was meaning in the broader strokes that Farscape used to prove that, no matter how much John wanted to go back to a simpler world-view, in which all he had to worry about were the technical specs of getting his Farscape module okay'd by IASA (as an American, I always laugh about that abbreviation, even as the real NASA is essentially hamstrung these days), cheating on D.K.'s SAT's so that they can both get into the program, keeping his girlfriend happy enough that she doesn't demand too much, and trying to forget his anger over how he felt like his dad didn't really appreciate his mom enough -- but still wanting to be just like his old man!!!! -- mean that there's no going back for him to any sort of simplified past in which everything was perfect, because John's past was never even remotely perfect....

It's an incredibly nuanced take on precisely how tempting it is to want to return to a known reality (no matter how many unknowns it encapsulated) from a world in which nothing is "a given," -- no, nothing for John ever became a "given," -- never....

Whether or not you can watch every moment of the PKWs, even the last few moments of it prove out two things: that you are the sum of all you have ever been plus the addition of all you have ever wanted to become....

... And, for all of the characters on the show (because John's experience of this fact, I would argue, is simply a totemic role), I find that reality to be incredibly heroic (and am kinda trying to say that one of the reasons I love Farscape so much is that this theme is emblematic for all of humanity!!!!).

John Chricton happens to have been the hero of the show, in a narrative sense, but I find it incredibly moving that I can say precisely the same things about every other character on the show, to wit, "you can't go home again, but you can chose which aspects of the home you came from that you take into your future, and by choosing them, you can chose to become a hero just like John Chricton."

obisgirl

There’s good news if you never saw Farscape and have always been meaning to dive in: All four seasons and the wrap-up Peacekeeper Wars miniseries, which had been unavailable on streaming for a while, arrive in HD on Amazon Prime Video on Tuesday, the show’s US anniversary date. (Stream Farscape on Amazon right here beginning March 19.) The Amazon deal makes it available to Prime customers in the US, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Nordic nations and several other countries (Farscape is also available on iTunes and DVD).

https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/03...-sci-fi-series