"Farscape"

1999-2003
This series is not a crashing disaster.
It just feels like one.
It starts promisingly, with beautiful production values, winning performances, and top-notch space visuals...but the derailment comes quickly. Filmed in Australia and produced by the Henson Company, with advanced puppets alongside human actors, it's the tale of an astronaut hurled to the other side of the galaxy, who falls in with a band of escaped prisoners on a living spaceship. Amid mistrust, they work together to survive...and save the galaxy.
As concepts go, it could work.
The problem is, the writers want it both ways. The mistrust is undercut by a touchy-feely vibe. The reality of the former is negated by the needs of the latter, in a way that feels forced. Get ugly, get raw, or put on a production of UP WITH PEOPLE. Yet it still might have worked, if the lead weren't such a whiny asshat. John crichton (ben browder - STARGATE SG-1, PARTY OF FIVE) too often says or does the wrong thing, making it hard to root for him. Part of the show's charm was supposed to be his pop-culture references (that only the audience would get), but he's too much of a macho pretty boy for it to work (that may be bad casting and bad writing - the americana references feel a bit forced). Zhaan (virginia hey - MAD MAX 2, THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS) has great potential, but her nudism and seeker's wisdom peter out through writerly neglect...and despite her failings, the show never recovers from her departure. Chiana (gigi edgley - RESCUE SPECIAL OPS, TRICKY BUSINESS) should also be fascinating, as an alien whose non-possessive hypersexuality is a hallmark of her species, but the writers never dive deeply into the reality and ramifications. Dargo (anthony simcoe - THE CASTLE, NIM'S ISLAND), a hulking warrior with anger issues, has too much of his character arc eaten up by maudlin, regressive sexual possessiveness. The puppet character rygel (jonathan hardy - MAD MAX, MOULIN ROUGE!), an arrogant, selfish slug, is rendered little more than a prop. Kent mccord (ADAM-12, AIRPLANE 2) is charming as the father back on Earth. And dehumanized soldier-turned-fugitive aeryn (claudia black - PITCH BLACK, STARGATE SG-1) is the best of the batch. But the only fully-realized character is crichton, and it's just not a happy realization. Plus, something about the chemistry and tone just never locks in. The fact that the show is almost clever, almost innovative, and almost daring make it more frustrating than all those shows which are none of those things. Did the producers think a group of good writers could make greatness, without a visionary to guide them? Had jim henson been alive, could he have been that missing spark? There's one great episode in four seasons, the tight and dark "A Human Reaction", and another, "A Constellation of Doubt", that manages to be simultaneously brilliant and tedious (yep, that's a head-scratcher). The last season is the best, but also shows the signs of a series in crisis mode - like a string of new female characters who look like they were found not at the Melbourne Academy of Arts, but the Perth Hardbodies Yoga Center. With the female villain in particular, they should have embraced their costuming choices completely and just made her a pair of six-foot breasts with little feet. The reunion movie is actually fantastic for a while...filmmaking so tight it hums. But around the time of the childbirth, it becomes gratuitously violent and cringingly overwritten.