Farscape: The Complete Season Four

We all know how badly it sucks that Farscape was abruptly cancelled. BUT, in season 4 you get the brilliance of an amazing, complex show, truly hitting it's stride. They nailed this, it's one of my favorite single seasons of all time.

The acting and directing is phenomenal. You can sense that cast and crew have learned how to trust each other, and that they are not afraid to take risks. Both acting and directing is confident, intense, and also not afraid to be playful. They made me cry, they made me laugh, they made my jaw drop open. Multiple times.

The special effects and costumes and set design remain some of the most impressive ever on TV, and superior to many movies. That they were able to make this much magic 22 hours a year (7 years ago) blows my mind. And season 4, of course is the best ever for visuals and effects. They all have the basic visual language down cold by now, so they are able to polish and enrich existing props (notice how much more detailed the Droids are this season, or Rigel's puppet) The show has a much richer, more organic look this season. And while computer graphics have come a long way since 2003, Farscape still has some of the most visually arresting CGI ever made for the small screen.

Just don't expect a clean ending. It ends on a cliff-hanger, the whole team was expecting at least one more season. You want to watch Peacekeeper Wars after.

This season has some very disturbing images (Scorpius boot-licking, John's sexual enslavement, Aeryn's double with 1/2 her head blown off in loving close-up, various torture scenes)I definitely would not recommend it for pre or early teen viewing, and if I had a mature teen I'd want to at least talk about it before and after.

And it's got a few scenes that I thought didn't work. (including big chunks of "John Quixote")

The DVD is a bit disappointing. While it has a number of special features, including deleted scenes and actor interviews, it is completely lacking any commentary tracks. This show cries out for multiple commentaries from writers, producers, directors and crew, special effects, etc. I was very let down that they did not do a commentary for at least a few episodes.

Despite that. This is one of the most visually captivating, emotionally moving, and intellectually stimulating single seasons ever to be broadcast. While I strongly recommend you watch Farscape from beginning to end, if you were only to watch a single season, make it season 4. If you give it a chance, it will rock your world.

The third season of Farscape ended with the tried and true method of separating the main characters at a time of crisis so that the opening of the next season could involve their slow and painful attempts to reunite - with the added revelation that one of them is pregnant. A battle had been won but the cost was great for the crew of Moya: though successful in destroying a Peacekeeper research facility that was coming dangerously close to unlocking the secrets to wormhole technology, they lost two of their allies and were divided amongst themselves as they fled from a galaxy that placed even larger bounties on their heads.

To backtrack a little, it's worth giving a short summary of the show in general. A quirky and off-beat sci-fi series, "Farscape" centers on the adventures of American astronaut John Crichton (Ben Browser), flung through a wormhole to the far side of the galaxy and thrown in with a group of escaped prisoners on board their sentient ship. Since then he's been hunted by the militaristic Peacekeepers and the war-like Scarrans, both of whom are after the wormhole technology that's been implanted in his head. All John wants to do is work things out with his beloved Aeryn (an ex-Peacekeeper) and make it back to his family waiting on Earth.

Of course, there's no point in starting your "Farscape" adventure this late in the game. In fact, it's very difficult to jump on board after the mid-way point of season two, and naturally it's best to begin right back at the start of season one. If you make the investment of time and money, then you're in for a well plotted, well characterized and immensely creative and colorful show, which takes the best of the sci-fi genre and twists it on its head. Our heroes are not Starfleet soldiers, but a motley bunch of escaped prisoners, and their aims are not lofty ideals of truth or justice, but the desire to live out their lives in relative peace.

That goal is becoming increasingly distant with the growing conflict in the galaxy, and the fact that its resolution lies locked in John's brain. Having been entrusted with the key to wormhole technology by the Ancients, John knows that he alone has the power to prevent war and ensure peace - if only he can figure out *how*.

The start of the season finds him scrounging out an existence on board a dying leviathan, joined quickly by a gold-skinned, red-haired, increasingly impatient alien named Sikuzo (Raelee Hill). Arrogant and brash, but with a keen mind and the ability to move her gravitational centre (giving her the ability to walk up walls and ceilings), she becomes a new regular cast member.

One by one, the crew of Moya reunites: warrior D'Argo (Anthony Simcoe), thieving Chiana (Gigi Edgley) and ex-emperor Rygel (voiced by Jonathan Hardy). Last of all is Aeryn (Claudia Black), waiting aboard Moya with a surprise guest in tow: Scorpias. The half-Scarran, half-Peacekeeper (Wayne Pygram) is now on the run from the law along with the rest of them, and after spending the last three seasons trying to escape, avoid or outwit his insatiable desire for wormhole technology, Crichton now finds him necessary for his foster-family's survival. The real game-changer comes when Crichton finally makes his way back to Earth and the long-awaited reunion with his father, sister and the friends he left behind. But his presence there only poses a danger to his race, and after a time-traveling escapade back to the 1980s, an awkward reintegration with the world he left behind, an episode-long television expose on Earth's first contact with aliens, and the realization that he's been tracked by his enemies, Crichton makes the decision to return to space and work toward securing the safety of his home planet.

From there the episodes are continuously linked all the way up to the grand finale as Moya's crew enters the peace negotiations (better described as intrigues) between the Scarran Emperor and the Peacekeeper Commandant Grayzer. The fact that the three part episode finale is called "We're So Screwed" should tell you how well that goes, but the writing team excels with another tightly-written, nail-biting conclusion that ends on an equally jaw-dropping cliffhanger.

Season four is not my favorite "Farscape" season (that title still belongs to the third season), but by this stage the writers know their characters inside and out, as well as where exactly the plotlines are going. It was therefore an outrage when the show was abruptly cancelled despite the network's promise that there would be a fifth season for the writers to wrap up their planned storylines - but never fear, there was a reprieve in the show's imminent close in the form of a four-part miniseries that brought "Farscape" to a swift, though satisfactory finish.

With this in mind, the forth season of "Farscape" definitely feels as though it's building toward something. There are far fewer filler episodes this time around (although there is invariably always room for the two that turn up every season: the one where Moya is attacked by some sort of parasite or virus, and the one where the crew wanders onto an alien planet and causes trouble amongst its culture). There is also some incredibly dark content this time around, including torture, slaughter, mind control, humiliation fantasies, and even the rape of two main characters - not graphically, but certainly explicitly. Don't be fooled by the bright colors of the packaging; this show isn't for the kids.

Among the supporting cast there is a late return from Stark (Paul Goddard) in the series finale, and we are also joined by a mysterious and rather batty three-eyed seer known as Noranti (Melissa Jaffer), who seems to know more about the circumstances than she's letting on. In her place the character of Jool (Tammy MacIntosh) is dropped, which is something of a mixed blessing. On the one hand, Jool was never a popular character with audiences, on the other, she had been steadily improving over the course of the third season and by her last regular episode she had formed very sweet bonds with the core cast. It was a shame that the writers didn't trust their own development of Jool, as by the time she's shed her obnoxious exterior to become a useful team-member, they get rid of her.

Another nitpick is that the show is constantly let down by the weak acting of its extras. It's not so bad when they're hidden under layers of prosthetics, but some of the humanoid characters are painfully stiff and awkward sounding. And the only thing more grating than an Australian accent in uncharted space is an Australian accent disguised as an American accent in uncharted space (not that there's anything wrong with Aussie accents in general!) It wouldn't be so bad if it were not for the inconsistency of the accents used across the show, and as Joss Whedon said in a commentary for Firefly, a show relies on the good acting of its extras and bit-parts to create a sense of reality in their created world. When Crichton was reunited with his family and fellow humans at the season's midway point, it was the terribly stilted acting that pulled me right out of the emotional power of the scene.

Season four essentially revolves around two main plotlines: the relationship between John and Aeryn, and John and Scorpias's never-ceasing search for mastery over wormhole technology (with a rather intriguing alliance between Scorpias and Sikozu on the side). One of the side-effects of this is that many of the other characters are shunted to the side, and there is precious little development given to Chiana, D'Argo or Rygel and no real exploration into their cultures and home planets. In lieu of the promised fifth season, the spotlight never returns to them - one suspects that the proposed fifth season would have extended the Scarran/Peacekeeper conflict into a galaxy-wide war that involved all the alien species so far introduced to the show, a development that is sadly never to be realized.

Disregarding the Sci-Fi network's lack of foresight in canceling the show before its time, the forth season of "Farscape" pushes story and (most) character ahead into the future, once more raising the stakes and increasing the odds against our intrepid heroes. Make sure you have The Peacekeeper Wars handy for the conclusion of one of the most innovative and imaginative sci-fi shows ever to hit television.

I'm a sci fi snob. Harshly putting down lame attempts at story telling etc. This topper for the 4 season long Farscape epic DOES NOT DISAPPOINT. You gotta watch this one if you even vaguely like
Farscape.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 11 reviews  4.8 out of 5 stars