Farscape is Back 234
cioxx writes "FilmForce has substantiated rumors of Farscape, widely popular TV miniseries, returning as a standalone project with no new episode commitment attached, independent of Sci-Fi Channel." Previously, some rumors had been flying around that the original series would be finished off in this way, but many Farscape fans are just happy to see more of the show on the way.
Original sci-fi? (Score:2, Insightful)
Not particularly directed at Farscape, perhaps, but I see a lot of criticism about various sci-fi shows for a lack of originality, in that a lot of basic tech and plot concepts seem mirrored across many different series.
I think creating an original premise for sci-fi is now extremely hard, all the main aspects of possible futures being represented in one show or another. I know I can't think of anything new to base a story on.
Can anyone point to some recent sci-fi that is truly original? Thanks.
Re:"Widely popular" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good, Original SF Recommendations (Score:3, Insightful)
Aside from that mindbending omission, I agree that SF is as good today as it ever was.
Complainers who think that there's no good SF anymore have two key problems. One is that they're forgetting about the selection effect; if you average (for example) one good SF movie every three years, then it feels like an eternity between new ones, but the past is littered with them. Second, they somehow forget about books. Partly this is because of the legions of Star Trek fans whose largest experience with written SF is Star Trek novels, and partly because, well, there's a lot of people out there who just don't read. But SF is at its best in the form of the written word.
Great News If True... (Score:4, Insightful)
Truthfully I loved Farscape but I could also see where the show had serious problems. The major one being that the story arcs were so long and the stories so complicated (often based on things that happened in previous episodes / seasons) that it just couldn't attract new viewers.. I know that for a fact since I tried to get a lot of my friends to watch it and they always had a 1000 questions about why things were happening and why the characters were acting the way that they were which pretty much required giving them a two hour synopsis of every significant event from the last two or three seasons. So far everyone who I've loaned my season one and two DVD's to have really loved it once they managed to watch them all.
The second problem is that the fourth season (for the most part) just plain sucked.. there were very few good episodes from the first part of the season but it really didn't get good until the last six episodes (I think the writers realized that they needed to pull it together).. I loved the last couple with Criton running around with the fusion bomb that had "Hi There!" (a reference to Dr. Strangelove) written on it strapped to him.. that made the rest of the bad episodes somewhat worth while.
Re:Sweet lord. (Score:3, Insightful)
You're not a very nice person.
Re:Babs (Score:3, Insightful)
It's undead. It would be nice for Paramount to cut off it's head, cut out the heart, and finally burn it. The real Star Trek died with Gene Roddenberry. The animated corpse still adorns telivision.
Re:Farscape not so great (Score:2, Insightful)
Quibble: the introduction of Americanism following 9/11 was an unfortunate downturn in the series, possibly motivated by the absurdly Americanized competing series, SG1. SG1 is so "go USA" I can't even watch it. Patriotism and sci-fi are just a terrible mix.
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Re:"Widely popular" (Score:3, Insightful)
- a lot better than Grunts in Space, er, I mean Stargate
Nice characterization. I started watching Farscape because I was running out of Star Trek disks to get from Netflix. I've looked at a few other things too, including Stargate. I gave Stargate 2 disks worth of chances, and it was nothing but GI Joe lobbing grenades from a wormhole instead of foxhole. Boring as hell - a gunslinger movie with lights instead of gunsmoke.I have to agree that Farscape's earlier episodes weren't stellar. Luckily, they were just good enough to keep getting the disks. But then, from season two on, the show became amazing, like "bring tears to my eyes" amazingly good.
I feel a lot more emotion for the Farscape characters than I do for Star Trek characters - and I'm a die hard ST fan. But the truth is, the Farscape characters are far more "human" and it is very easy to get wrapped up in the story - I've found myself actually mad at a character for being a jerk, and happy or sad for a character depending on what is going on. And none of the characters are always good, always bad, always selfish, always generous - hell, even the evil nemesis is humanized to the point that, in a lot ways, I find him very likeable. Scorpius is humanized far more than the Borg ever was. This makes things much more complex and interesting.
Anyway, Farscape was not just about lights and gun battles - it was about the characters becoming real enough so that you cared what happened to them and worried for them. As far as I could tell, Stargate never got there. Neither did Andromeda for that matter (I've given that about 5 disks of chances - frelling dren).
Re:Great News If True... (Score:3, Insightful)
While the complex stories may make it hard to attract new viewers - that is the same thing that makes the show better than most others. It just has a lot more depth and history.
Of course, I understand that to me, "good" means interesting/exciting/stimulating. To the studios, "good" only means they sell advertisements. I am looking for quality and depth - studios only care about the money. As a result, truly great SF shows are practically impossible.