t was to be a momentous occasion: American astronaut John Crichton (Browder) was going to prove his extraterrestrial theories during an experimental mission to the stars in the Farscape One transport module. Instead, in the premiere episode of Farscape, creator/producer Rockne O’Bannon’s SCI-FI Channel series, Crichton finds himself catapulted through a wormhole and into the middle of a battle far across the universe.
Crichton unwittingly becomes embroiled in that battle when his ship accidentally destroys one of the warring ships--which happened to be piloted by the brother of Captain Crais (Tupu), a commander of the Peacekeeper forces. Crichton’s ship is drawn aboard Moya, a living ship with three prisoners escaping the authoritarian Peacekeepers. Now, in Crais’ mind, he’s no longer just after the prisoners-—he has a personal agenda to avenge the death of his brother.
Meanwhile, Crichton is very much a fish out of water in this new world. He ends up joining with the band of renegades—who include the mystical, blue-hued Delvian priest, Zhaan (Hey), the righteous warrior D’Argo (Simcoe), and the former ruler of the Hynerian Empire, Rygel (Hardy). Rounding out the group is Aeryn (Black), a Peacekeeper officer who is forced to stay on board Moya by circumstance, not choice, for after contacting her commanding officer, Crais, with the prisoners’ location, her loyalty is rewarded with a death sentence due to her "contamination" from contact with alien life.
In the second episode, "I, E.T.", the crew of Moya discovers a Peacekeeper tracking device on board the craft. But in order to remove it, they must first obtain an element from the planet on which they’ve landed. While searching for this element, Crichton is discovered and taken in by a local humanoid woman--whose life-long goal has been to prove the existence of extraterrestrial life. The episode is a poignant role reversal—at one time, Crichton was the one who grew up with tales of E.T., now suddenly he’s the E.T. who’s forever influencing another boy’s dreams and another culture’s reality.
A journey back to the beginning
Packed with excellent special effects and truly out-of-this-world makeup effects, Farscape is one of the more imaginative sci-fi series currently on the air. And this two-episode DVD is a perfect means of highlighting the creativity with which O’Bannon and the Jim Henson Company infuse the show. (Six episodes, including these two, are also being released on VHS by AVD Films.)
The DVD features easy-to-navigate menus, 5.1-channel Dolby Digital sound and 2.0-channel sound, and a running audio commentary with O’Bannon, Browder and Brian Henson discussing the making of the episodes.
In addition to audio commentary, the disk has a number of extras, some of which are more valuable than others. There’s a 10-minute video profile of John Crichton, with Browder and Henson discussing the character and his motivations, how it is working with the puppets, and more. There’s also an intriguing 22-minute behind-the-scenes documentary featuring interviews with the cast, the creative powers and the producers, as well as eight Farscape conceptual drawings (unfortunately, you can’t view these at full screen or zoom into a specific section of the drawings).
Less interesting are the image gallery and links to the Web sites of the companies involved in Farscape. But those nits are small ones. Overall, Farscape devotees--or even casual viewers who want to know what the fuss is all about--will find much to like in this DVD.
