2015-02-07

In 2009 I was able to see all episodes in chronological order for the first time! When Farscape aired back in 1999-2003, It was airing very erratic in my native country and when it aired, it was on a Sunday afternoon, around noon. So for the first decade of it's existence I only watched a handful of episodes because it's not, like in many other countries, that TV series aren't regularly repeated on public TV channels. Back in 2003 or 2004 there was a try-out for releasing Farscape on DVD. The first 8 episodes were released on DVD but probably due to low sales, there weren't any DVD releases after that, until this day I might add!

When trying to purchase Farscape on DVD online, I was always held back because of the high prices, but then, back in 2009, I purchased the complete DVD set on amazon.com for a very reasonable price. Of course this set wasn't English subtitled which was a downside, because although I do think my English understanding is okay but a lot of times it's hard listening through all the surrounding noises and subtitles come in handy in those scenes. Still I watched the entire run on DVD and although I do not love it as much as I love Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Babylon 5 or Stargate, it did grow on me. I admit I had to get used to Ben Browder as the always yelling John Crichton but seeing him in Stargate SG-1, helped me appreciate his character on Farscape.

So last night I started to re-watch Farscape, this time on the upscaled Blu-Ray release, I sold my DVD set. And probably for the first time, Farscape has English subtitles, which, as I said, can come in handy. It's fair to say I only watched Farscape barely two times in total so it's perhaps obvious I do not love it as much as I do the earlier mentioned TV series.

I only watched the pilot and I have to say I quite enjoyed it. The picture quality is not fantastic and although it's hard for me to make a comparison between DVD and this upscaled Blu-Ray set, because it's been a long time since I've seen it on DVD, I was pleasantly surprised by the picture quality. The opening episode reminds me a bit of the premise of Buck Rogers but only that part, from there on this becomes a completely different series. The SFX looks okay too which of course hasn't been upgraded to HD also.

The Pilot episode introduces the characters, first the setting is familiar, on Earth, but that's only for the first 10-15 minutes, after astronaut Crichton gets lost through a wormhole on the Farscape-1 space module, arriving on the other side of the universe, in the middle of a space battle. When he is being pulled in Moya, a very big bio-mechanoid living ship, which is helmed by another being, connected to Moya, who simply is called Pilot, trying to escape Peacekeeper captivity, he wanders to the bridge of the ship and looks at these two beings, clearly not human, whom he cannot understand. One is a woman with blue skin, a Delvian called Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan, the other, a Luxan Warrior called Ka D'Argo. Then later on he meets Dominar Rygel XVI. They are aliens trying to escape the Peacekeepers who are ruthless.

At first he is deemed expendable and without a higher intelligence, but he earns some respect in the pilot episode when his plan to escape those ruthless Peacekeepers, succeeds. They bring with them a Peacekeeper, Officer Aeryn Sun, who is fallen out of grace with the Peacekeeper commander, Captain Bialar Crais, when she insists that Crichton was not intelligent enough to kill the Commanders' brother  intentionally when Crichton arrived in this universe.

So stuck with one another, not by choice but by necessity, they roam the universe to evade capture. John Crichton only has one goal at that time, and that is to go home and he knows they only way to go home is the same way he came in this universe, via a wormhole.

That was the pilot, and as I said, really enjoyed it. I am looking forward to see more Farscape in the coming months and it is my intention to write a few blogs about a whole season or perhaps a few episodes and write down my views about that particular season or episodes.

Pictures: Farscapecaps.com