Reviews

Farscape - Season One
by Confessor

Dawson's Creek


Farscape is a bit of an acquired taste, so much so that if I had not already paid more than one hundred dollars for the privilege of watching it I might have given up on the entire season after the first two episodes. That would have been a shame, because Farscape, if you allow it its particular indulgences, rivals Babylon 5 as the greatest science fiction show of the late 1990's.

Actors & Characters

There are no stand-out actors in Farscape; it's all about the ensemble. None of the actors are quite as good as Patrick Stewart (Capt. Picard) or Brent Spiner (Data) from The Next Generation, but, then again, none of the actors are nearly as bad as Marina Sirtis (Deanna Troi).

Two characters, however, deserve special mention: Rygel XVI, a deposed despot who has an eye for the rare and expensive, and Pilot, a creature permanently bonded to the main characters' starship in a symbiotic relationship. These characters are especially notable since, even given the handicap of being puppets, they hold there own against the 'humanoid' characters played by actors in makeup.

A few guest spots of note: Rhys Muldoon, uproariously funny as an alien scavenger in the episode 'The Flax,' Darlene Vogel, stunningly effective in a dual role in 'Rhapsody In Blue,' and David Wheeler as a frighteningly evil military commander in 'Durka Returns.'

Writing & Plot

The early-season episodes are devoted mainly to character development and are more or less interchangable. Some of these episodes are forgettable (the first four episodes are among the weakest), but others ('Thank God It's Friday... Again') stand well on their own. When the inter-episode continuity kicks in midway through the season, however, the higher-quality episodes help to make the occasional clunker forgivable.

Sound & Music

The theme song, a frantic drum & bass piece punctuated by some very accomplished female vocals, is quite good, but it is unfortunately the only memorable composition in the first season. Some peculiar accents sometimes obscure words and meaning, but the presence of closed captions makes up for this.

Extras

Character profiles, concept art, and cast and/or crew commentary tracks for almost every episode make this set one of the most impressive I have seen so far in the extras department. Unfortunately, some glaring deficiencies in presentation offset this strength.

First, most of the early discs are prefaced with advertisements for other ADV DVD series. Though this might be status quo for anime series, it is an unnecessary annoyance in a season box set. Second, the episodes are shown out of the order in which they originally aired. Continuity is preserved, but it is still a deficiency for a viewer who wishes to view the episodes as they aired.

Third, and most annoying, the episodes are not numbered in the set: if you somehow get the individual cases out of order in the box, you will have to refer to some other source to find the correct order again.

Overall a 3.5

Gets a 3.5

Content:
4/5

Extras:
3/0