DVD Review: Farscape – The Complete Series DVD Collection
This set has been a long time coming for fans of the popular space saga but also for someone like myself who never got a chance to take the journey that is Farscape.
Dubbed as Muppets in space, this sci-fi jaunt is so much more. Its Buck Rogers meets Babylon 5 with yes…muppets.
Whats key with the series, that you’ll find on this dvd experience, is that it is dated a bit, but whats fascinating is that the series really came out of the sci-fi comfort zone of the Star Trek formula. It certainly along with Babylon 5 at the time really pushed the genre in a different direction probably leading to creatives to lean into the reboot of Battlestar Galactica and the newly favored SGU.
The series went beyond the bridge of a starship and showed other elements to the worlds beyond combining sexy and edgy motifs with a little bit of fun.
The shows star is Ben Browder, who many may know from the final seasons of Stargate SG-1, he was first known to the genre as John Crichton in the series. An American astronaut, scientist, and good old boy, he finds him and his spacecraft flung into another galaxy, Buck Rogers style, during a test mission that goes wrong.
Once across the universe he finds himself thrust into new worlds teaming up with a group of alien fugitives on the run from the Peacekeepers, this show’s Galactic Empire. The ship he lands on is named Moya and is in fact a living organism with a Pilot (muppet voiced by Lani Tupu), who is physically connected to the living ship. The other muppet on board include the formerly royal Rygel XVI (voiced by Jonathan Hardy). The rest of his other allies include: Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black), a former Peacekeeper and eventual love interest; D’Argo (Anthony Simcoe), a Klingon/Ronan like alien who manages to be sort of half warrior/half comic relief; and Zhaan (Virginia Hey), an empathic blue hottie and sort of hippy, who’s often nude.
One things I will point out immediately is how the show creatively dealt with the language issue on the show with a simple Babel fish time communication implant into Crichton as he arrived on the ship, allowing him to understand the aliens and they to understand him.
The shows best seasons are the first 2, which seems to be the consensus among most the shows watchers. I like the whole series and the yes the first two are the best as it milks Browder’s fish out of water experience very well. The final season are hard to follow relying on tons of material explored through the first seasons. The show was cancelled prior to shooting its planned fifth season, the true finale to the show, The Peacekeeper Wars miniseries which wraps the story up, is not included on this set, unfortunately, as the rights belong to Lionsgate and not AMC.
The video transfer is pretty good. Its not as dated visually as it might seem but doesn’t differ much the previous solo dvds released years ago. English 5.1 Surround and 2.0 stereo options are both offered for all the episodes. I am highly recommending this journey for fans to take again with a plethora of special features and commentaries that will make you want to be zapped across the universe as well.
Each season is gets its own six-disc keep case (with about four episodes and some extras per disc), while a fifth case has two discs of additional extras. There are 31 audio commentaries total with lots of directors cuts and stuff for various episodes. To conclude there has been no better time to check out Farscape and find out what other sci-fi billings have to offer.
Total Score: 8 out 10
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