the wonders i've seen

[xparrot]

Just watched Farscape - I'd seen eps here and there, but not the whole show before - and we finished with The PeaceKeeper Wars miniseries tonight. Don't know the general fandom opinion but I thought it was a fitting end to the series, very satisfying save the one sad thing, and that was handled great, just...sad! Overall, wow. What a show. I mean, the crack levels are through the roof (the cartoon ep? Harvey? the last 30 seconds of the series finale?) but that just makes it...special. And when it dials up the intensity, man, it grips you tight.

It is an unfortunate series to be watching concurrent with Smallville fanning, though, because it does much of what SV does, only it does it so much better. Heroes and villains who are comic-book-style larger-than-life; family and friendship; kick-ass action and wild adventure; romantic relationship drama amidst world/galaxy-shaking events; guys in leather pants with incredibly nice asses...yeah, this is what television should be. Farscape has a sense of humor and a sense of wonder that few shows manage. And a certain moral ambiguity that it embraces and explores; it doesn't let you forget or ignore when the heroes make the wrong decisions, or when the right decisions have terrible consequences.

And crack. Oh, the crack. You have to love a show in which the hero is a scifi geek and, finding himself trapped in a distant part of the galaxy, starts quoting movies. Because that is totally what I would be doing, in Crichton's place. "That's no moon, that's a Budong!"

Also, I have to say, anyone who wants to accuse me of defending Lex just because he's hawt - don't tempt me, because I will turn Scorpius-apologist on you, just watch me. Well, except that I don't need to, because the show does a fine job of that on its own. But I could. And believe me, it's not because I find Scorpius hot. I find him awesome, but that's different. Scorpius sex scenes make me cover my eyes (and oh, yes, he has them. This is Farscape! Never think that they won't go there, because they absolutely will.)

(And Scorpius gets a minion! Yay for Smithers Braca!...okay, yeah, I may have a slight thing for loyal minions. Why can't Lex have just one who survives? *whimper*)

Comments

[aerynvala.livejournal.com]

hehehe, I fucking LOVE Farscape. It is such a beautifully awesome show. I didn't think it would have the depth and darkness that it had when I first heard about it, I mean there were Jim Henson's muppets for god's sake! But it turned out to be one of the best television shows ever, ever. So cool. And Aeryn Sun? Oh yeah, I'm a little fond of her. :)

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

I know! I knew it was a cool show from first season, someone showed me an ep and I was caught by the beginning, the "My name is John Crichton..." I mean, just, cool! But it's more than cool, it's funny and touching and yeah, Aeryn is great...I love all the chars, really, don't know if I have a favorite. But John & Aeryn...awww! <333

[naye]

Farscaaaaaaape! Wanna watch it! It's so awesome! Need to get it, all of it!! Oh, it's wonderful and beautiful and exciting and - the characters! The adventure! The imagination! Love, love, love. ♥ I'm so glad you've seen it all now!

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

You really need to see the whole thing! It's fantastic! The 4th season has a rough start...it's very random. Er. Cracky. Even for Farscape. But the second half is just totally unbelievably awesome and the climax is amazing and...yeah. You gotta watch it!

Farscape! Farscape! Farscape!

[greenlady2.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love, love, love Farscape. I love all the characters. And I'm totally a Scorpius apologist, too. He's a villain whose motives are clear and understandable, if you know his backstory. Loved the Scorpius sex scenes, even though EWWW. :-)))

I'm a total Aeryn/John fan.

I cried my heart out over the sad scene in the Peacekeeper wars. Waaaah.

And oh, yes. The moral ambiguity. The terrible scenes when several of the characters did that thing to Pilot. And when we found out that Aeryn was one of the characters who did that terrible thing to Moya's first Pilot. Who could hurt a Pilot? They'd have to be a monster. But this is Aeryn! Oh, that tears your heart to shreds.

What I loved most about the show, is that's it's Fantasy/SciFi/Comic book television, but it's adult, too. The people are real, even those played by muppets. Their feelings are real. There are real moral issues involved, amidst all the fun and the jokes about various bodily processes. (A character who farts helium!)

Okay, have I mentioned how I love Farscape? :-)))

Re: Farscape! Farscape! Farscape!

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Heck, Scorpius was reminding me of Lex. Doing terrible things for the sake of vengeance and saving his chosen people...Lex might be there, in five or ten years. SV Lex would need quite the IQ boost to catch up, though. I love that Scorpius by the end isn't even one of the villains, exactly. I mean, he's never going to be a good guy, except he's sort of on that side anyway, by default...there's no ultimate good in Farscape - everyone does...questionable things, monstrous things, even. But there's no ultimate evil, either...

Who isn't an Aeryn/John fan!? Really, now! I don't know how you can not love them. I love pretty much all the chars and relationships, really (like Aeryn & Pilot's friendship/understanding...yeah, that ep about her past was just heart-wrenching.) But John & Aeryn...awww! (the, er, marriage scene in the PK Wars? HEEEE!)

And wow, the emotional intensity. Tear out your heart... (and with muppets! Though I don't really think of them as muppets, I mean, Pilot! Rygel! They're people, too! And Moya and Talyn, too...)

[ladydreamer.livejournal.com]

I love Farscape as well, but I've had long periods of being without cable, so I missed large chunks. The cartoon ep killed me. Along with many other things. They never lost their sense of humour, which is vital when you're doing a lot of drama.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

That was my problem with FS too - I saw eps from every season, but never enough to make sense of the show! You really ought to see the whole thing (you can rent it nowadays!)

And the cartoon ep! Heeee! I died...I love a bit of humor to leaven my drama, and FS's cracky, often-black comedy suits me fine!

[littlethyme.livejournal.com]

Freaky, just finished watching it (again) the other day.

Re Scorpius; brilliant end for him, the smile/smirk at the end. Oh and love the Mr Burns line.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Scorpius's end was fantastic! I think he was genuinely happy for the first time in his life... (And Braca was there, too! heee~)

[spacealien-vamp.livejournal.com]

I tried to watch Farscape. Many of my friends gushed over it. It just...didn't appeal to me. It seemed too fake. Most of the time when I watch a TV show, I can get into the universe and the characters and treat them as real. With Farscape, though, it never seemed to be any more than actors saying lines. On top of that, none of the characters actually appealed to me. I couldn't drum up the interest to watch more than a few episodes.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

FS might be an acquired taste. If you're not into SF TV, or crack, it can turn you off. The look of it appealed to me from the first time I watched it, but I didn't really get invested in the chars until just now, watching it straight through. They take some...getting used to? Depending on what eps you see, they can come across as shallow and uncaring and pretty nasty, but the little dysfunctional family they eventually form really got to me...

[spacealien-vamp.livejournal.com]

I adore SF TV. I was a Star Trek fan from way back (my pre-teen years), I taped Babylon 5 starting with the first airing of the pilot, I watched The X-Files and Highlander and Quantum Leap (and ficced all three)...and so on.

Farscape just didn't grab me. I expected great things, the way my friends gushed, but what I saw didn't live up to that. Aeryn, for example, couldn't hold a candle to Delenn. What I saw seemed to be...I don't know how to put it in words well, but...trying too hard, I guess. It was trying too hard to push the viewers' buttons, and that made it seem contrived.

The wonky humor made it worse. If the humor flowed naturally from the characters' personalities, like X-Files, that would be one thing. If it were all about the campy humor, like Xena, then I would have been able to appreciate it as such. But I was trying to take it seriously, and then it would throw something like the cartoon episode at me, and I was like...heck with THAT, it's wasting my time.

[littlehollyleaf.livejournal.com]

Farscape is indeed awesome! Just thought I'd say...

Hmmm, perhaps this is why I have such an urgent desire to fic Smallville and nothing else. It's because SV NEEDS re-writing, dangnamit! Farscape, however, was great as it was. Though there should have been more Zhann/Stark, of course :p

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have no especial interest in reading or writing fic for FS; it pretty much gave me everything I wanted, and did it better than I probably could!

And eeee, Zhaan/Stark! I loved them. Total mad love, yo!

[lukita.livejournal.com]

... You should watch SG-1 season 9 and 10 then, according to my friend who's been trying to get me to watch Stargate since I've know him, they pretty much stand on their own and the crack is suppose to be awesome.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

I was into SG1 back around s4...which has made me very reluctant to see the later seasons, since I rather loved those chars and don't want to know what they were reduced to. But I am sorta curious to see the FS actors...

[sholio]

Well, your fannish mileage may vary, but I've really enjoyed Season 10. I quit watching SG1 at about the same time you did, and basically started watching it again because I was into SGA and the two shows cross over occasionally. There's obviously a huge chunk of canon that I'm missing, and I gather from other people's reactions that the show really tanked for a while, but IMHO, it's had some really outstanding episodes in the 10th season (as well as some clunkers, but you can't have everything). Vala (Claudia Black's character) has honestly become one of my favorite female sci-fi characters -- she's playful, irresponsible, fun, and morally ambiguous in a way that usually only the guys get to be. In fact, when SG1 was cancelled I really hoped that they'd incorporate her into SGA ... but no dice. *pouts*

Even if you're not interested in watching the whole season, though, as a former Stargate viewer you SHOULD see if you can get hold of their 200th episode (I think it was 10x06 *checks* Yup). It's HILARIOUS, and chock-ful of in-jokes, most of which should be comprehensible even if you haven't watched the show in years. Crackity CRACK CRACK CRACK. There's even a nod to the slashers with a Jack/Daniel wedding scene (which has since been icon'd all over LJ, of course).

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

heee! I've actually seen "200" because we heard there was a FS parody so went and d/l'ed it and WOW OH SO SPECIAL. Killed me all the way through. The puppets!!! oh great googly moogly. Yes, very special. It did tempt me to watch more, because Vala was quite funny and I am, er, rather in love with Ben Browder as mentioned. I wonder if I can watch the 10th season pretending it's an AU in my head, since it's not the future I'd've wanted for SG-1...

[sholio]

The puppets! oh god yes. The strings getting cut when they went through the gate ... I nearly *died*.

As far as the series in general, I know what you mean, about not wanting that future for them; on the other hand, after watching some episodes and getting used to the new characters, I think that I'm actually happy with the future that they *did* get, and it didn't spoil my warm-fuzzies for my preferred incarnation of the team. Unlike, say, pretty much every Joss Whedon show I've ever watched...

[sholio]

I ought to give Farscape another chance. I would tune in for occasional episodes during its original run -- which was probably exactly the *wrong* way to watch it; I liked its cracked-out sense of humor (like Star Trek on acid) but I found the characters very unlikeable, which is just the kiss of death for my enjoyment of a show. I've generally gotten the impression from talking to people, since so many of my friends are FS fans, that you need to start from the beginning and watch all the way through in order to see the characters as something more than a bunch of antisocial, backstabbing social retards. *g*

And it it didn't help that something about either Ben Browder, or his character, kind of rubbed me the wrong way -- I originally thought it was Browder, because some actors I just don't like, for no particular reason, but I actually *do* like him on Stargate, so it must have been the character.

I'd like to give it another chance, but there's just so much on my to-watch list that it'll probably take me quite awhile to get around to shows that I'd already tried and then tuned out. I've heard so many good things about it, though, that I'll probably try it again eventually. It wouldn't be the first time I've dismissed a show on the basis of a couple episodes and then turned out to really like it when I watched the whole thing in order -- SPN, Firefly and Stargate Atlantis have all been that way for me.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you definitely need to watch it all the way through! When you have a chance, I mean. ^_^ Catching occasional eps (which is what I did, and I had a similar impression of the show) you can get very much the wrong idea about the chars. They're all pretty much crazy (with reason) and have so many flaws, but they can be amazing and heroic and wonderful, too. And there is actually a lot of friendship stuff. The main crew forms a very tight family (like, a self-sacrificing, cry-for-each-other, die-together, might-let-the-galaxy-burn-or-will-walk-into-fire-to-save-it-because-their-friend-asks sort of family). Even Rygel has unexpected moments that he shows himself to be more than a self-serving toad. And John and D'argo are best friends and will say it and show it in many ways large and small. And Pilot and Aeryn have a strange but wonderful bond. And John and Chianna have this big brother/little sister connection that is so freaking adorable. And the pairings and romances are sweet, too. ...Yeah, actually this is one of those shows that I don't feel the need for fic because it emotionally satisfies me on the relationship end (if not as blatantly and exploitively as SPN ^^)

Can't help you with Ben Browder, though, because I'm sort of madly in love with John Crichton ^^; In the beginning of the show he's just hopelessly heroic, compassionate and clever and cute; later on he's completely insane and broken, but with very good reason. And he's always the hero (he doesn't always do the right thing - but when he does the wrong thing it haunts him...) And also always hysterically funny, which goes a long way for me liking a char!

[sholio]

The main crew forms a very tight family (like, a self-sacrificing, cry-for-each-other, die-together, might-let-the-galaxy-burn-or-will-walk-into-fire-to-save-it-because-their-friend-asks sort of family).

Ack! *hides* That does sound like very much my kind of thing. *bumps Farscape another few notches up the to-be-watched list*

I'm not sure why I didn't like Crichton. I mean, it went beyond mere indifference into actual dislike. I'm afraid that I just found him smarmy and annoying for some reason. On the other hand, one of my (current) favorite characters on SGA gave me the exact same kind of allergic reaction on initial exposure, and grew on me over time -- and I like Browder on SG1, so maybe all it'll take is watching his development over some sequential episodes rather than dropping in on random ones.

[egelantier.livejournal.com]

very belated thanks for this post - it made me actually watch farscape, and as last ~10 posts in my lj indicate, that was best ride a had in last few years. incredible good, I'm so high on this... pleasure, when you watch and can't turn away and want to talk and talk and talk about this show, and so on. and you gave me this with your rec, so I'm very, very grateful.