The Rumor Buster

And concluding our coverage of the Farscape world in honor of the show’s recent release on Blu-Ray, we turn to the trigapods and jilnak of the matter: the release itself.

Story

Obviously the highlight of the release is the show itself.  It’s been available before, again and again, on DVD, and with every previous release, the price has dropped a little.  The Blu-Ray release steps the price back up a hair ($200 msrp compared to $150 for the previous DVD release) but that’s to be expected with a Blu-ray release.

There’s many ways you can tell the tale of Farscape.  It’s the tale of an ordinary man that loses everything he had but gains a family.  It’s an intergalactic space opera detailing the flights and fights of a starlost crew of prisoners, outcasts and rebels.  John Crichton accidentally ends up across the universe, responsible for the death of an imperial muckity-muck’s brother and on the run with a troupe of freaks and misfits.  It’s a love story between a cold hard bitch and her human contaminator.  It’s a story of the royal machinations of dominar Rygel and a Nebari rebel.  Zhaan is a spiritualist and a madwoman and by the end, she saves them all.  Crais and Scorpius are villains in the grand scheme of Farscape; multi-faceted, driven, sometimes sympathetic.

There’s just too many beats to pigeon hole this series as one thing or another.  They’re lost warriors who find their place.  They’re underdogs that defy the odds.  It’s a Star Trek inspired space exploration story full of frelling aliens and mysterious planets.  It’s a sappy love story.  It’s a space-bound Oceans 11 with manic capers and planets at risk.

In simplest terms, which do the story great injustice, an earthman, John Crichton, enters a wormhole and ends up flung across the cosmos.  After exiting, he realizes that he’s no longer in familiar territory, especially when he notices the alien ships circling nearby.  His ship is damaged by another ship and he is picked up by the crew of Moya, a large sentient ship, prison transport ship, in hopes that his unfamiliar technology will facilitate their escape from Peacekeeper forces.  Naturally events spiral.

The damaged ship was piloted by the brother of a high-ranking Peacekeeper who vows vengeance upon Crichton.  Another Peacekeeper was trapped on the ship after it performed a starburst, and attempts to betray the crew only to learn that the Peacekeepers have deemed her irreversibly contaminated and must be terminated.  Together, the fugitives escape and lead various forces on a journey across the uncharted territories.  They meet friendly and unfriendly aliens.  They return to Earth.  Then back to space.  They love, live and die.

For much of the series, the heroes are chased by Scorpius, a master strategist who believes that Crichton has a body of wormhole knowledge that could make him the most powerful man in the universe, but it doesn’t alter the show’s main mechanics.  They continue to run, and as they run, they encounter strangeness.

Quality

On the technical side, the video’s got a few problems.  As many people know by now, the original masters have disappeared somewhere between mastering the ADV Starburst editions and  A&E’s complete series and so this offering was made using higher-than-US-broadcast-but-less-than-true-HD PAL encodings that were upscaled.  The end result is a slightly less than awe-inspiring transcoding.  Don’t get me wrong, by and large the quality is great, exceptional in parts, but not a true representation of the 1080p power.

Believe it or not, it’s not the worst thing in the world.  A better-than-broadcast quality version of the series is better than… well… a broadcast quality version of this series.  If the original masters are truly lost and gone forever, then this may in fact be as good as it gets.

The original effects were done in SD, which means that to best experience the series, they would need to be completely redone, which would have been a costly proposition. As those wanting a complete Smallville blu-ray release know, remastering old effects can be a dealbreaker.  If it costs too much it could nix a release.  The upside is that unlike a lot of more modern sci-fi, many of the effects are physical or mechanical, not CGI.

Extras

The extras come from previous DVD releases and either you have them or you don’t.  They provide a lot of insight into the show and its fandom, and because they span several years you get a feel for the way in which the property grew in time.

A new documentary, Memories of Moya is included and features interviews and commentary from various cast and crew such as Virginia Hey, Ben Browder, Claudia Black, Rockne S. O’Bannon and others.

There’s some interesting talk about the show’s economics, and the savings involved with amortizing the show’s costs over a season, and the expected self-inflated sense of importance.  The show was great, and popular, but there’s a fair amount of over-indulgence and hyperbole when it comes to discussing efforts to save Farscape, at one point claiming that the outpouring was so massive television interviews were being routinely crashed by sign-bearing Farscape fans.

Of particular note is the acknowledgment of Farscape’s female audience and its appeal as a show where the female characters are smarter than their male counterparts.  While the legendary “geek girl” is an ever evolving creature, it owes credit to shows like Buffy, X-Files, Xena and Farscape which appealed to female audiences sci-fi can often overlook.

A large portion of the documentary is centered on the Aeryn/Crichton relationship. The taboo of bringing major characters together, both characters realizing they can’t ever really get back to their homes, the emotional awakening of both characters, the devastation caused by his Season 1 torture and how that informed his later years.  Long story short, they start out as enemies, develop a relationship, die and have a baby. With bumps along the way.

Scorpius and Crais are briefly evaluated as villains that aren’t entirely unredeemable. Bad guys with good stories. But ultimately, Zhaan is the only other character given significant focus, which is not surprising because her actress is one of the few to contribute to the documentary.

The series finale is referred to as “reckless”, and as a necessary element to the story, though as fans who sat through the finale can testify it was downright brutal.  For those that haven’t seen it, and are afraid of spoiling the ending of a show that’s been off the air for the better part of a decade, the series ends with lovebirds Aeryn and Crichton apparently murdered.  Turned to crystal.

The Peacekeeper Wars, a miniseries that wrapped up the Farscape television universe, brought the crew back to status quo, revived Aeryn and Crichton, and finished up with a tale of epic star wars, though obviously it can’t be referred to as such.  It’s not included in this release because of licensing issues, which can often pose a problem for feature film or mini-series releases that accompany television shows, though it is a necessary part of the storyline.

It’s not like missing Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles or Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.  It’s like missing Return of the Jedi, or the King for that matter.  It’s not visiting an old friend for one last adventure, it’s a frantic attempt to find out what happened to your friend after hearing they met a grisly fate. And, worst of all, Peacekeeper Wars isn’t available on Blu-Ray unless you hunt down a European import, making it one for a select die-hard fan.

Overall

It’s a great set, with a lot of bang for your buck.  Especially through online merchants offering fairly steep discounts, you can pick up the complete series, extras and all, for a price that works out to between $1 and $2 an episode depending on the sale.  It’ll take a while to plow through the 88 episodes and abundant content such as audio commentaries, deleted scenes and documentaries, but the show still holds up in terms of dense plotting, interesting visuals and vibrant characters.

It’s also a milestone in genre television, one of the cornerstones that may not get the acclaim of Battlestar Galactica, or the widespread familiarity of Lost, but an important show that really moved the genre ahead.

The original masters might turn up someday, or there might eventually be an agreement to produce a complete set including Peacekeeper Wars, but there’s no guarantee of either and while the slightly reduced picture quality and cliffhanger ending might be frustrating for some, there’s no reason to deny yourself such an interesting and bold program just because you’ll have to pick up a DVD to see the ultimate ending.

The studio provided a review copy.