Wormhole!
John Crichton is an astronaut with NASA. One day he is part of a bleeding edge experiment in space that goes horribly wrong. He’s shot through a wormhole — a short cut through space and time — and manages to land on a spaceship in a time and place he’s not familiar with, surrounded by creatures that he has no knowledge of. These ‘aliens’ are currently breaking out of prison and are getting away from the Peacekeepers. Crichton’s goal is clear: survive and get back to Earth. Obviously, it isn’t that simple, and his road home is destined to be much harder; but for the audience, it’s a consistently fantastic journey.
Crichton and the others aboard the leviathan biomechaniod ship known as Moyo come to trust each other in due time. There is Claudia Black’s character, Aeryn Sun, the tough and beautiful commando. Virginia Hey plays the blue-skin priestess, Pa’u Zotoh Zhaan. Anthony Simcoe is Ka D’Argo, a fearless warrior who was accused of murdering his wife. Many characters, both reoccurring and not, are created by the talented team of Jim Henson Productions. These include Pilot, the creature who calmly and smartly guides Moyo through the galaxy. There is Dominar Rygel XVI, the small funny looking puppet that believes he should be treated with royalty even though he’s been mixed up with this rag-tag group.
Each character is well established and developed throughout the series and their relationships are nothing short of intriguing. The variety of villains they encounter — including the reoccurring Scorpious — are also, simply put, amazing. An extra feature focuses specifically on the villains.
To be blunt, I don’t think I can effectively put a ‘wrapper’ around this entire series and hope to convey the genuine great show that it is. At the same time, it’s not my purpose here to give a detailed synopsis of each episode. For that, I would point you towards a site like tvrage.com. More importantly, I’m here to examine this DVD set as a whole, so lets start with the packaging.
The Complete Series comes in a large box that contains five keep-cases of normal thickness (not the slim cases). The box art isn’t as compelling as it could have been, but it certainly works. Far better is the artwork on each individual season’s case. The art style of each case is similar in that it prominently features one of the main characters from the show along with a color. Each season has a color associated with it: purple for 1, orange for 2, green for 3, yellow for 4, and red for the two disc “Archives” case that has additional bonus features. If you’re curious, and for thoroughness, the art for season 1 features Crichton, Zhaan for season 2, D’Argo for season 3, Aeryn for season 4, and Rygel for the Archives case. Each case has six discs (except for Archives), that are securely snapped into place in a book-type layout. Season 1 also includes an insert about further adventures of Farscape in graphic novels. I would have loved to have seen an included episode guide with each season, but that’s a small gripe. Overall, I’m really pleased with the packaging.
The menus are also consistent and nice. Each disc from a season matches the front box art for that season in terms of color and image. The theme song booms nicely when the menu first appears, but goes silent after you navigate into a menu option, which I thought was a good move (lets face it, the theme song does get a little nagging after a while). Each disc has these basic options: Play All, play a particular episode, Bonus, and Options. The Options only include to switch between Stereo and Dolby 5.1. The episode selection is nicely done in that you don’t navigate to another sub-menu. Each episode (four per disc generally) is listed directly on the home screen. Once selected, you can choose to start at a certain point with the on screen chapter index that shows a preview image of each chapter. As for the bonus material, each disc has at least something, and I’ll provide a full and detailed breakdown here shortly.
The Set from a packaging and presentation standpoint is excellent, but that level of quality extends for more important aspects as well. Each episode is presented in full screen with Dolby Digital Sound, and I found every episode that I watched to be of great image and sound quality. Even most of the deleted scenes — of which there are over 90 minutes of — are shown in broadcast, i.e., finished, quality.
As for the extras or bonus features — wow. There’s enough here to keep you busy to be sure. Between the extra features and the show itself, you’ve got a solid seventy-five-plus hours of entertainment. The extra features account for over fifteen of that. As far as I can tell, there aren’t any new extra features here that haven’t been released on DVD before, but I’m not 100% certain of that. The extra features are mostly made up of audio commentary tracks, deleted scenes, and several miscellaneous making of or behind the scenes features. Before I get into a full disc-by-disc breakdown, let me point out a couple of conventions and general notes to help streamline this article:
A/C = Audio Commentaries – I will represent these like “A/C with Browder/Black” if the audio commentary is done by Ben Browder and Claudia Black, for example. There are several that feature these two stars and they’re always a blast. Both are energetic and have a great time with it, giving all kind of interesting anecdotes. Plus, Claudia Black’s voice is fantastic as always.
DS = Deleted Scene(s) – A lot of episodes have deleted scenes. Two important points about this: first, every deleted scene, even if it’s multiple scenes per a single episode, is fronted with an informative text description that tells you what the scene is going to be. Secondly, I list the total time of the deleted scene(s) for an episode — this time value, represented in a 1m1s format (i.e., m = minutes, s = seconds), is the total amount of time for all of the deleted scenes for an episode, assuming there is more than one on a given episode. With that clear, let’s get to the details:
Season 1
S1D1 –
-A/Cs on all four episodes: “Premiere,” “I, E.T.,” “Exodus From Genesis,” “Throne For A Loss.” Commentaries are done by a mix of Brian Henson, Ben Browder, Claudia Black, Anthony Simcoe, and Virginia Hey.
S1D2 –
-A/Cs on “Back and Back and Back to the Future,” with Ben Browder and Rowan Woods, and on “Thank God its Friday. Again.” with Rocke O’Bannon and Anthony Simcoe.
S1D3 –
-A/Cs on “DNA Mad Scientist” with Browder/Black and “DNA Mad Scientist” with O’Bannon and David Kemper.
S1D4 –
-A/Cs on “Jeremiah Crichton,” known as “When Bad Things Happen to Good Shows” with Browder/Black/O’Bannon/Kemper. This is a really goofy episode that the cast and crew are really embarassed by, and they joke a lot about it. Also, “A Human Reaction” with Browder/Black.
S1D5 –
-A/C on “Nerve” with Browder/Black.
S1D6 –
-A/Cs on “Bone to be Wild” with Simcoe, “Family Ties” with Browder/Black, and also “Family Ties” with O’Bannon/Kemper.
-Making of A Space Opera (22m) – A nice behind the scenes/history/making of feature with cast and crew members reminiscing.
-In the Beginning: A Look Back with Brian Henson (38m) – This was filmed in the summer of 2004. It’s an interview with Brian Henson who talks about the show, what they were wanting to create out of it, and so forth. Also very interesting.
-Two Farscape: Raw Director’s Cut Scenes: “The Flax,” and “Through the Looking Glass.” This is a neat feature that looks at the raw footage (complete with on set quirks and miscellaneous sounds and the puppet controllers’ voices instead of the “real voice”) compared to the finished broadcast presentation. “The Flax” one runs for 19 minutes, and “Through the Looking Glass” runs for 23 minutes. Great look at some of the stages of the production process.
Season 2
S2D1 –
-A/Cs on “Crackers Don’t Matter” with Black and Ian Watson.
-Deleted Scenes (DS) for “Mind the Baby,” totaling 3m18s.
-DS for “Taking the Stone,” (36s).
-DS for “Crackers Don’t Matter” (44s).
S2D2 –
-A/C on “The Way We Weren’t,” with Browder/Black.
-DS for “Dream a Little Dream,” (4m)
S2D3 –
-ReUnion – A full special episode that isn’t a part of the actual season two list of episodes.
-S02 Bloopers – Hilarious blooper reel running over six minutes. You can definitely tell the cast and crew had a great time making this show.
-Farscape in the Raw – Director’s Cut Scenes. Same deal as with the S01 “Raw” features, but for these episodes: “ReUnion,” “Mind the Baby,” “Vitas Mortis,” “Taking the Stones,” “Crackers Don’t Matter,” “Picture if You Will,” “The Way We Weren’t,” and “Home on the Remains.”
S2D4 –
-DS for “Look at the Princess (1): A Kiss Is But a Kiss,” (1m40s).
-DS for “Look at the Princess (2): I Do, I Think,” (1m30s).
S2D5 –
-A/C on “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” with Rowan Woods and Richard Manning.
-A/C on “The Locket” with Browder/Black.
-DS from “The Locket,” (55s).
S2D6 –
-A/C on “Die Me, Dichotomy” with Browder/Black/Kemper.
-DS for “Liars, Guns and Money (1): A Not So Simple Plan,” (1.5m).
Season 3
S3D1 –
-A/C on “Self Inflicted Wounds (1): Could’a, Would’a, Should’a” with Claudia Black.
-DS for “Season of Death,” (2.5m).
-TV Promos of “Season of Death,” “Suns and Lovers,” and “Self Inflicted Wounds (1): Could’a, Would’a, Should’a,” and “Self Inflicted Wounds(2): Wait for the Wheel.”
S3D2 –
-A/C for “Eat Me,” with Guy Gross.
-A/C for “Green Eyed Monster” with Ben Browder and Tony Tilse.
-DS for “Thanks for Sharing,” (26s).
-TV Promos: “…Different Destinations,” “Eat Me,” “Thanks for Sharing,” and “Green Eyed Monsters.”
S3D3 –
-A/C for “Relativity,” with Lani Tupu and Peter Andrikidis.
-DS for “Losing Time,” (2m50s).
-DS for “Incubator,” (1m20s).
-TV Promos: “Losing Time,” “Relativity,” “Incubator,” and “Meltdown.”
S3D4 –
-DS for “Scratch ‘N Sniff,” (1m49s).
-DS for “Revenging Angel,” (34s).
-TV Promos: “Scratch ‘N Sniff,” “Infinite Possibilities (1): Daedalus Demands,” “Infinite Possibilities (2): Icarus Abides,” and “Revenging Angel.”
S3D5 –
-A/C for “The Choice” with Claudia Black.
-A/C for “The Choice” with Rowan Woods And Justin Monjo.
-DS for “The Choice,” (49s).
-DS for “Fractures,” (4m15s).
-TV Promos: “The Choice,” and “Fractures.”
S3D6 –
-A/C for “Into the Lion’s Den (2): Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing,” with O’Bannon/Kemper.
-A/C for “Dog with Two Bones,” with Browder/Black.
-DS for “Into the Lion’s Den (1): Lambs to the Slaughter,” (1m17s).
-DS for “Into the Lion’s Den (2): Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing,” (7m7s).
-DS for “Dog with Two Bones,” (7m9s).
Season 4
S4D1 –
-DS for “Crichton’s Kicks,” (3m9s).
-DS for “What Was Lost Pt 1: Sacrifice,” (1m58s).
S4D2 –
-A/C for “John Quixote” with Browder/Black.
-DS for “Promises,” (3m2s).
-DS for “Natural Election,” (2m14s).
S4D3 –
-A/C for “Kansas,” with Browder/Black/Kemper.
-DS for “A Prefect Murder,” (2m18s).
-DS for “Kansas,” (2m27s).
S4D4 –
-DS for “Terra Firma,” (4m26s).
-DS for “Twice Shy,” (1m53s).
-DS for “Mental As Anything,” (25s).
-DS for “Bringing Home the Beacon,” (52s).
S4D5 –
-DS for “A Constellation of Doubt,” (18m5s).
-Farscape: The Story So Far (27m) – Lots of recap of the show so far with lots of footage and on screen text.
-From the Archives: On the Last Day – Farscape Wrap Speech w/ David Kemper (3.5m) – David Kempers speech on the final day of filming for the show.
-Inside Farscape
-Save Farscape (30m) – Cast interviews talking about the ending of show, lots of interesting anecdotes.
-Villains (15m) – Cast talk about the different villains, with a lot of footage from the show to get their point across.
-Season 4 Visual Effects (9.5m) – A technical look at creating the visual effects.
S4D6 –
-A/C for “Bad Timing,” with Browder/Black/Kemper.
-DS for “We’re So Screwed (2): Hot to Katratzi,” (1m17s).
-DS for “Bad Timing,” (2m46s).
Bonus Disc 01:
-Farscape Undressed (43m) – Browder hosts, with some appearances by Claudia and other cast, a full length show that is filmed on one of the sets. This was filmed before season three aired and it gives a detailed synopsis of the situation so far in hopes to pull in new viewers for season 3.
-“Listening In” with Composer Guy Grossman – The composer for Farscape spends about ten minutes per each of the following episodes; he talks about what went into composing the music for these episodes. Most of these clips are shot from his studio, but a lot of footage from the episodes are shown as well. The episodes are: “The Way We
Weren’t,” “My Three Crichtons,” “The Locket,” “Die Me, Dichotomy,” “Eat Me,” “Revenging Angel,” “The Choice,” “Into the Lion’s Den Part II: Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing,” “Crichton Kicks,” “John Quixote,” “Terra Firma,” and “Bad Timing.”
Bonus Disc 02:
-Behind the scenes interviews with the actors of D’Argo, Scorpius, the Voice of Rygel, Commandant Grayza, Crais And the Voice of Pilot, Braca, and Stark.
-Video Profile – Creator/Exec Producer/Writer Rockne S. O’Bannon talks about the show (20m).
-Video Profile – Exec Producer/Writer David Kemper talks about the show as well for twelve minutes.
-“Zhaan Forever” with Virginia Hey (30m) – Virginia Hey shares with us a lot of her memories about her interesting character and the show in general.
Conclusion
This is a fantastic set that could have only been improved with an episode guide and the inclusion of the Peacekeeper’s War movie. Of course, some brand new extra features are always welcome, but that goes without saying. That aside, Farscape – The Complete Series is a superb set of an excellent show.