Farscape

Well technically its both. Scarrans can be killed by ice entering their wounds. It's just two different types of extremes.

Heh, yeah. Scorpius' mom taking a pair of cooling rods to the eye sockets.

Which is why poor ol' Scorpy's so screwed up.

It's not really the problem with extreme temperatures-really nobody can take "extreme" temperatures- it's that Sebatians can't regulate raises in core body temperature well while Scarrans produce a tremendous amount of body heat which they can focus into tortuous heat beams. Scorpius get the amped up body heat production and the diminished ability to release it.

Well said.

It kind of is. :D Yeah, Crichton's brain takes a beating throughout the series. Poor guy.

Just to be nitpicky but even though they didnt have a leader to start with they did eventually elect Dargo as their captain after Pilot insisted they put someone in charge so he would have a proper chain of command to follow rather than different people giving conflicting orders. Not sure what episode or series that was but it deffinitely happened.

But even after that decision, it wasn't taken too seriously, and decisions still seemed to be reached by rather informal consensus as they'd always been. As said, making D'Argo captain was mainly a formality to reduce confusion. Contrast with your usual space opera set on a ship, where there's The Captain whom everyone defers to almost without question (and when he is questioned we know the issue at hand is a very serious one or a difficult moral dilemma, maybe warranting a big What the Hell, Hero?), and who is a clear leader type—D'Argo wasn't quite that really, and I was actually surprised they didn't pick Crichton as he had more of a knack for finding common ground and getting others to come to agreement with him... often after some arguing though. (Crichton was probably too much the obvious choice, and the writers probably didn't want that... who knows?)

But just the manner of everything was more informal—naturally so, as this wasn't a formal or traditional military unit, but a band of misfits and fugitives forced by circumstance to work together for survival, who over time became family of sorts, recognizing and using each others' natural strengths and developing organically (rather than through an imposed hierarchy) into a team that worked pretty well. I think it being a small group (rather than hundreds of people, as on a typical Space Opera starship) made this possible more than anything—communal approaches tend to break down some with larger groups.

I've been watching Battlestar Galactica Reimagined on dvd—awesome and beautifully written in its own right and at least equal to Farscape IMHO, but probably at the opposite extreme as far as seriousness of chain of command. Loosely similar overall situation (wandering in exile and surviving dangerous enemies), but totally different animal. I love 'em both.

edited 10th Feb '13 1:07:05 AM by WeAreAllKosh

I think by that point, Crichton had also gone batshit insane.

Perhaps they were struggling to find something for the character to do.

I don't know. It's certainly not the most natural choice, you're right. IIRC, within the show itself it comes across as Chricton being rather patronising.

The other (creative) choice that really confused me in the fourth season was the introduction of the Extra Uncharted Territories. Which seemed pointless, incommunicable and really authorial fiat-y.

Unless they had further plans for those further uncharted territories (they had a name for these I can't remember right now—was it actually "Extra Uncharted Territories"?), if they got a fifth season. (You're talking about those areas even the Scarrans and Peacekeepers didn't bother with, right?) But otherwise, yeah.... (Were these used in the graphic novels? I don't have these.)

edited 10th Feb '13 11:55:13 PM by WeAreAllKosh

My idea of a joke, not their actual name.

I guess it could have paid off further down the line, but at the time (and given that it's all we've received on the matter) it felt like an attempt to course correct something that didn't need fixing.

Thread Resurrection!

So, I got the 15th anniversary set and the miniseries for my birthday, and I've been watching through Season 1. This show is awesome! (Except for Jeremiah Crichton so far). The special effects hold up really well, the acting is (mostly) really good and I'm really looking forward to seeing where it goes.

It's shocking that this series came out over a decade ago and yet has aged so well. I think it helps that what wasn't done with puppetry was fairly stylised CGI, but it'd be a fantastic show regardless of the SFX.

I didn't become a massive fan until the Nerve arc towards the end of the first season, but I'm glad that you've been bowled over by the show. Particularly that you've been so bowled over; the other seasons of the show are consistently excellent, and they make the early stuff really poor by comparison.

edited 14th Dec '13 12:11:09 PM by Nicknacks

The show challenges you as a viewer, not in the sense of being deep, but upsetting expectations to where you get really irritated. I still haven't finished it.

Ah-huh. I'd venture that what you're suggesting isn't a universal phenomena.

I learned not to expect anything after my first real exposure was the episode where Crichton thinks he's a cartoon character.

New Farscape viewers tend to have one of two reactions.

"This show is absolutely ridiculous. Give me more!"

OR

"This show is absolutely ridiculous. I don't get it."

The mood does jump around a bit.

It's absurdist at the core, but the overall tone is a straight melodrama. It's like Downton Abbey in Wonderland.

Downton Abbey? I don't see it. I'll give you that both shows are melodramas, but the two express a different quality of soap.

The Wonderland thing strikes me as accurate though.

Well, fine, take any melodrama with the power couple who can never be together. Anna and Bates is still fresh in my mind, Ok?

Oh god yeah, I'd forgotten about that. I always thought they handled that well enough, but I've never been a fan of that kind of plot event. I guess it features so little in my memory of the show that I just can't think of it as being fundamental to the show's make-up.

I finished Season 1! (And the first episode of Season 2). I definitely want to keep going.

IMHO, the show only really hits its stride by the middle of the second season, so you're in for a treat.

I could never understand what Anna saw in Bates. The man is a walking cloud of negativity.

Funny. I just started watching this show again at the halfway point of Season 2, with Crichton on that kissing planet, and then this thread turns up.

You mean Look At The Princess, right? That's one of my favorite two-part episodes. It has a lot of great moments, particularly from Scorpy.

-gentle, melodic voice- "Who's there?" -terrifying demonic growl- WHO'S THERE???????

Damn, Scorpy, you scary.