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The Middle Man reviews "Farscape" ((Henson & Sci Fi Channel))
Glen here...
...with another review by THE MIDDLE MAN. This time, he's taking a look at
Farscape.
Farscape is one of those shows which may come out of nowhere to whop genre fans
up-side the head. Few people have heard about it, most people don't even know it exists. But it is
coming in March to the Sci Fi Channel, from Henson Productions (the Jim Henson folks).
To give you a little background on The Middle Man, he is a huge fan of science fiction films,
television, and storytelling. He is intimately acquainted with the television industry, and knows a lot
about what it takes to make a show "happen". In fact, when The Middle Man first heard about
Farscape, he genuinely believed it couldn't be done. The project was "too big for the
budget they had to work with" he said to me recently when justifying his attitude about the project.
None the less - for better or worse - Farscape did get made, and The Middle Man
digs it! When I spoke to The Middle man last week, he couldn't stop gushing about
Farscape's "dazzling" CGI, which are apparently tremendously well rendered and close to (if
not meeting) model quality FX work. The Middle Man is a big, big Babylon 5 fan - but
Farscape threw him for a loop - and he thinks the series could (with a double-plus
emphasis on could) give B5 and its spinoff Crusade a run for their money.
Fightin' words? I 'spose we'll see in March.
Please understand, I am not personally vouching for Farscape, or supporting
some of the "competition" statements that The Middle Man makes in this review. I have not seen the
show, so I can not do that. As such, I'm just expressing The Middle Man's deep sincerity that this
show has something to offer. .
Here's what The Middle man wrote about Farscape:
"Look, it's Lexx without the hormones"!
"No, it's Star Wars: The Series without the budget"!
"No, it's Buck Rogers without the timetravel bits"!
Well, I'll be damned.
To be honest, I never thought that this baby would
make it on the air.
It has been offered to networks worldwide for two years
(under the name Space Chase, if I remember correctly).
It always came with a bunch of scripts by Rockne S. O'Bannon,
who I hold in high regard for being one of the driving forces of the
underrated Twilight Zone remake of
the 80's. Well, he also wrote seaQuest, but who's perfect?
Anyway, the
series idea was turned down for being wayyyy too expensive to produce.
I think that's a good place to give you the lowdown on the story:
John
Crichton is a scientists cum astronaut who wants to use a new shuttle
prototype for an experiment using planetary gravitation for acceleration.
Before you know it, he gets sucked into a wormhole and lands directly in a
big space battle. A fleet of humanoids chase a big "Leviathan" cruiser that
is manned by a bunch of freaky aliens (a Chewbacca lookalike with a Klingon
attitude, a blue gal straight out of classic Trek, and a floating Joda type
who could be Londo Mollaris soulmate).
Crichton discovers that the aliens
kidnapped the ship after their prison breakout. He is forced to tag along,
together with a captured female "Peacekeeper" fighter. You see, they call
themselves Peacekeepers, and they are humanoid, but they wear black. So they
must be fascist oppressors. And indeed, they are.
Our band of misfits flees
into uncharted territory, with the Peacekeeper armada in pursuit. Their
ship, by the way, is organic, a living being. Okay, so you got tons of space battle
scenes, several aliens as regular
characters, and lots of sets. They gotta be kidding, right?
Actually, they aren't.
Jim Henson Company produces the series in Australia,
getting a lot of bang for the buck. Let's do this in an organised fashion:
THE SETS: The sets are huge, and and they use not only specially built sets,
but also giant hangars and old factories. And where that is not enough, they
use CGI-enhanced sets (check out the cool planet in the first episode). And
the design is very lush, with innovative tidbits here and there.
THE CGI EFFECTS: Awesome. I mean, I love Babylon 5, but this is much better.
The low-key color schemes make the ships look more "real", and the planet
surfaces are better than anything I have seen on television to date (and I
have seen a lot, including a Turkish Star Wars movie). The CGI looks like it
uses a higher resolution than usual. And there's tons of it.
THE PUPPETS: Since this is a Jim Henson series, there are many puppet
aliens. Sure, they are amazingly well done, and they look better than the
new Star Wars Yoda, but you never forget they are puppets. The Babylon 5
pilot had a similar problem. Maybe this will attract more kids or help the
merchandising (and it sure is a bold move), but I will have to wait and see
if I can get used to it.
THE STORIES: Well, they try to be sci-fi standards with a twists: alien
cockroaches invade the ship, a giant ghost ship is discovered, and such. But
even though the writing is not always up to par (relying a bit too much on
cliches), it's consistently entertaining and mainstream-compatible. It can
get rather rude at times ("it's a pissed Luxan warrior!").
THE CHARACTERS: Some nice touches. Crichton is totally at a loss to what is
going on, the big warrior guy named D'Argo is slightly nuts, and the blue
alien chick (Zenn) has some amazing powers.
But it's also very cliche. I
mean, the warrior carries a sword around! But man, can he spit! Rygel, the
floating Yodatype ex-monarch is quite funny, though.
THE ACTORS: Okay, here we face the big problem. Farscape stars Ben Bowder,
Claudia Black, Anthony Simcoe, and Virginia Hey. Never heard of them?
Neither have I. They are a rather bland bunch.
I think to attract a larger
audience you should have at least one recognisable face (Boxleitner in B5,
Anderson in Stargate). I am afraid, these guys and gals just don't cut it.
In a lot of ways, Farscape is probably the series TNT wanted Crusade to
be. It's action-adventure with a broad appeal. Sure, it's not incredibly
smart, but it somehow grows on you. What more, it remains to be seen whether
the Sci-Fi Channel wants another spaceship show next to Farscape. Could
Farscape turn out to be the Crusade killer?
Only time will tell.
With a better-known lead actor, this could've been a contender. As it is,
it's still good fun for the sci-fi crowd.
You can chck out a press release by HREF="http://www.henson.com/company/pr/press/051398.htm">CLICKING
HERE!
Glen again...
Below, two images of a set from Farscape - just to give you a sense of the
look of the show...
Glen
Or call:
(512) 347-1992
Mail can be sent to:
Glen Oliver
P.O. BOX 160812
Austin, TX 78716-0812
USA
P.O. BOX 160812
Austin, TX 78716-0812
USA
Austin, TX 78716-0812
USA
USA
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But I don't think it will be a Crusade Killer. If Crusade's succedes or fails, it will be on it's own merits.
Good Sci-Fi is Good Sci-Fi and I think there is room for more quality sci-fi programing. I would love to see more Sc-Fi programing on the Sci-Fi channel. For people that like horror flicks (myself included), go ahead and start a horror channel.
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Farspace has a human getting involved in some sort of intergalactic war, getting stuck with a bunch of unconformist aliens.
Sound familiar? reminds me of Douglas Adams' Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, also Adams' Starship Titanic, Jeffery A. Carver's Chaos Chronicles, and after a fashion, Robotech II: The Sentinels.
I'd like a little more originality, but they may do well with the treatment of the series. We can only wait and see if Farspace delivers... -
An interesting fact. This show is shot at the Fox Studios in Sydney, Australia, in fact it's shot in stages 3 and 4, where in a scant few months George Lucas will be creating Star Wars coolness. I was lucky enough to take a tour of the studio in November as part of the SPAA Conference where GL announced the productions of Eps 2 and 3 in Australia, and while I was there, I was able walk through a few of the Farscape sets. As Middle Man says, they look VERY impressive, especially considering the per-episode budget.
Producer_Bob -
For those of you wondering when Farscape will air....
It starts on the Sci-Fi Channel on Friday, March 19th at 8 pm ET / 5 pm PT. There is also an episode being shown on the USA Network as part of their Sci-Fi preview on Sunday, March 14th at 10 pm ET/PT. That episode is not the first episode, however. USA will also be showing an episode of First Wave and Poltergeist: The Legacy that night, both of which debut on the Sci-Fi channel on March 19th along with a new episode of Sliders.
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I completly disagree that there should be a seperate Horror channel. The lines between Horror and Sci-Fi blur far more then those between any other genres. Frankenstein. Aliens. Critters. The list goes on and on. While shows like Friday the 13th: The Series may not be Sci-Fi exactly they DO have a place on the Sci-Fi channel. THere is simply not enough horror programs out there for a Horror Channel.
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Feb 23, 1999 9:55:35 AM CST
FARSCAPE, Sci/Fi channel shows and HBO's Perversions of Science
by mckracken
WOW! This show looks cool, maybe now that the sci/fi channel is picking up mre and more original programming it will get picked up by more cable systems. Sci/fi channel is getting Poltergeist: Legacy too? even better since I've missed more than a few of those shows. And, yeah I'm probably going to be the last "Sliders" fan on planet Earth after Jerry O'Connell and his brother leave the show. QUESTION: what ever happened to HBO's "Perversions of Science"??? Are they going to resume making new episodes? (a movie was hinted at!) there hasnt been any new episodes since the first 13(?) episodes WAAAAAY back in 1997 Any news on a 3rd tales from the Crypt movie? any info would be good, thanks!! Mck
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I saw some pictures from this in a magazine; does anyone else think Rygel looks like Virgil from
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Farscape will be a success because of the brilliant group at Garner MacLennan (Sydney) who work tirelessly on every effects shot! :) And for those people like me
who see their partners, dads, mums whatever maybe once a week - its all worth it coz Farscape looks absolutely WICKED!!! (Here's a big hello to all those poor people on night shift working til 3am!)
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Yeah, totally.
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