Farscape [Season 1] [rewatch] - A Love Letter From A Fan

In an effort to convert irrel to all my favorite shows, she and I have embarked on a massive and intense Farscape viewing project. For her it's the first time, for me it's a rewatch. I originally saw all of FS when it aired--I think I even recorded the miniseries on a VHS tape, as we didn't have DVR at that house. While I've seen a few odd episodes here and there (I've seen "Crackers Don't Matter" about four times), most of the show I've only seen once, and sometimes out of order. I remember season 4 very clearly, but seasons 1-3 are more muddled in my recollection. Nevertheless, it remains probably my favorite tv show after Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Fullmetal Alchemist. It has one of my dearest and truest OTPs of all television history, and it broke my heart a thousand times over only to patch it up again with clay hands, booming laughter, and tentative smiles.

When I've pitched Farscape to people before, I've warned them that the first season isn't the strongest. However, having finished season 1 tonight, for the first time in complete sequential order and in a relatively short viewing period of a month, I have to eat those words. Yeah, the first half of season 1 is weak. But the second half starts to kick major, major ass. And the season as a whole is better than its disparate parts. It's full of little gems like "The Flax" and "A Human Reaction", as well as the epic, emotional rollercoaster of the final four episodes that I watched today. Man are they great! I'm noticing tiny details of characterization that either skipped my mind entirely on tv, or faded in memory. And the acting--oh, the acting. John Crichton and Aeryn Sun are stunning, together and apart. D'Argo is unrecognizable as a human actor under all that make up, but his emotions seep through. Especially in the second half of the season, once he's made his peace with Crichton and Aeryn as companions. Zhaan has almost as difficult a role of being a mystic archetype while still being multilayered character: she's not quite as subtle as D'Argo, but she's getting close. Rygel and Pilot are wonderfully orchestrated with talented voice actors giving them expression.

With season 1 of Farscape, I rediscovered the little things... ( Read more... )

I can't babble about my show anymore because I have to go to bed, but I'm planning a massive season 2 marathon with irrel this weekend, so I wanted to write down all these squishy, squealy fangirl feelings before the new season started. My love is back on, baby. I never did fandom for this show, never felt the need to because every crazy thing I could possibly imagine the show eventually did. But after I finish this rewatching journey, I might just dive into some rec lists. Because this is good eatin' my friends.

When new Doctor Who first aired, I thought it reminded me a bit of Farscape, if FS lost all its sex and its violence, if it cut out the intense moral issues and the gray-area decisions the characters make (the entire galaxy for a single person, the Doctor would never do that), if the black leather and the excessive use of explosions were traded for cleaner, clearer moral choices with deus ex machina devises that made the culpability dwindle to negligable. I love new Who like a beloved thing, but it was only ever the romance that made me actually cry. Farscape is so ambitious...it has its flaws like any show, but it just reached higher and that paid off. I will always compare DW to Farscape, not the other way around. And it wouldn't be a stretch to compare Battlestar Galactica to it too, because BSG was not the first misery-laden, wonderfully acted, heartbreaking I-can't-believe-how-angsty-and-how-great-this-show-is epic subtle insane adventure space opera I ever saw. It was #2.