Then came Farscape
and its unforgettable, unclassifiable ensemble of fugitives, foundlings
and out-and-out villains -- and a wonderfully Zen-like theme something
like: "What goes around, comes around."
Consider the premiere
episode: While testing an experimental spacecraft of his own design,
intrepid scientist/astronaut John Crichton [Ben Browder] gets sucked through
a wormhole and finds himself in the midst of a space battle between a large,
strangely sinuous vessel and a slew of vicious one-man fighter ships. Crichton
survives, barely, thanks to being pulled aboard the large ship, Moya, right
before it "starbursts" out of the fight.
But surviving that initial
danger doesn't mean he's safe. It turns out Moya is a "she", a Leviathan,
a biomechanical ship, and a newly liberated prison ship to boot. Next Crichton
has to convince Moya's crew of escaped convicts that he's not a
threat, even as they're busy eyeing each other with sidelong, paranoid
glances. Ka D'Argo [Anthony Simcoe], a huge bad-tempered guy with tattoos
and tentacles for hair; Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan [Virginia Hey], a gorgeous blue
renegade priestess; two foot tall Rygel XVI, annoying ex-Dominar of 600
billion loyal (he says) subjects, dethroned in a coup; and multi-armed,
multi-talented Pilot, the voice of Moya, and her intermediary with those
traveling inside her:
No well-oiled military crew
in sight here -- not unless you count the guys hunting these misfits, the
deadly Peacekeepers who originally controlled Moya.
The Peacekeepers are led
by Captain Bialar Crais [Lani John Tupu], who's now bent on revenging the
death of his brother, who Crichton accidentally killed when his IASA test
ship exited the wormhole. To make matters even worse, Moya also picked
up a Peacekeeper fighter pilot, Aeryn Sun [Claudia
Black] who longs to rejoin the Peacekeeper fleet --except that her
capture has contaminated her irrevocably in their narrow vision; if she
attempted to return, they'd shoot her on sight.
So right from the start,
we have an ensemble cast of characters who don't like, let alone trust,
each other and our human hero has already earned a deadly enemy.
The only thing holding this gang together is the relative safety of numbers
and a mutual wish to get home alive and intact.
~
Let's talk about Crichton
Even more intriguing, Crichton
is not the macho, competent hero we might have expected. Remember, he's
first and foremost a scientist, with no martial instinct to speak of --which
is probably what keeps him from being killed outright his first "ahrn"
aboard Moya. His relative harmlessness only changes as he starts to adapt
and make a place for himself among a group that, as far as he's concerned,
could have come right out of Steven Spielberg's imagination.
As human viewers it's natural
for us to identify with Crichton, but he isn't a traditional hero, and
neither are any of the other members of Moya's crew. In the nearly
two seasons the show has been running, we've seen each of these characters
take center stage as their stories and the world around them grow richer
with accumulated detail.
Over time -- none of it easy
- they've learned each other's strengths and weaknesses, formed alliances,
friendships, and even closer relationships, like the evolving
romance between D'Argo and self-sufficient loner and sexy con artist
Chiana [Gigi Edgley]. They've also fought and argued, and come damned close
to killing each other more than once. This is majority rule, not exactly
a democracy, and each character has only his or her individual sense of
morality to guide them.
Inverting the envelope
Moya's crew aren't
the only characters who grow and change as the series continues. Crais'
obsession with hunting down Crichton has ruined
his own military career. The only way he can survive is through an
uneasy
alliance with Moya's crew, while bringing onstage a magnificent
new bad guy, Scorpius,
who's bent on ripping the secret of wormhole technology from Crichton's
unwilling brain.
As me might expect, leather-clad
Scorpius has proved to be more complex and thoughtful than the typical
television villain. He's actually saved Crichton's life a couple of times
now, though clearly not because of any sense of right or wrong. He's just
protecting his investment: the human's brain.
Farscape implodes
all of the most familiar, most "taken for granted" tropes of SF, reviving
a sense of wonder many of us haven't felt since the first time we saw Star
Wars.
The series also maintains
a wry postmodern commentary, mixing the alien point of view of humanity's
failings with Crichton's Simpsons-like riffs on pop culture
topics as diverse as Richard Nixon and Lost in Space.
Part of the show's power
is how it refuses to be confined within its one-hour format. Structurally
it owes much more to classic space
opera and adventure fiction than to episodic television -- a framework
also found in two other groundbreaking series, The
X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Although new viewers may
initially be drawn to Farscape's unique look and feel, the show
ultimately works because it focuses on people and their personal
stories, rather than the artificially set limits of a space vessel and
its chartered mission.
We'll be exploring all that,
and more, in this series.
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