DVD Review: Farscape: The Complete Series - Page 2

Somehow he must learn to get along with his new shipmates and find a way back home; all the while they are hunted by Crais (Lani Tupu), one of the Peacekeeper captains whose brother perished in the earlier collision with John’s spacecraft. He must also avoid capture by a creature called Scorpius (Wayne Pygram), who is only half-Sebacean and is hunting him down to learn the secrets of wormhole technology in order to create the ultimate weapon..

As both Jim Henson and Rockne O’Bannon said, they were looking for something completely new that had never been done before and wanted a more adult show, and in that they succeeded. The characters were all completely different from one another and their true motivations were not always apparent. If you are a science fiction fan and looking for something fresh and new, this would certainly be something worth having.

The extreme range of aliens created for the show is amazing. Some of them are so realistic that you wouldn’t believe they are animatronic. And then there are those like Rygel (Jonathan Hardy), looking like a cross between Yoda and a bullfrog, who at first glance seems silly but as the series progresses totally pulls you in.

The biggest problem I had with this show is that it’s not quite serialized enough. That’s not a bad thing when you’ve got the entire set in front of you to watch from beginning to end, but when it was originally airing and you would only catch an episode here and there, it made for some completely confusing television as everything always appeared to be in flux. Allegiances would change as well as cast members, plotlines carried over multiple episodes and a number of them were two- and three-part episodes, so if you weren’t regularly following the series it was easy to get lost.

Some of the more interesting story arcs involve their ship Moya, who is a living creature and gives birth to a male ship named Talyn; Scorpius implanting a chip in Crichton’s brain in order for it to discover his secrets and the chip becoming its own personality that John is constantly at war with, and finally his love affair with former Peacekeeper Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black).

It’s truly a wonderful thing that they have finally released Farscape as individual seasons and this giant Megaset. Up until now, you were forced to buy them in volumes, which are not only much more expensive, but it was difficult to find each of the volumes, leaving gaping holes in your personal collection. The Megaset includes 26 DVDs featuring all 88 episodes with two discs filled with extras such as:

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