So that was Season Two, and it was a mixed bag for me. Whereas I found myself far more impressed with Season One this time around, Season Two slipped somewhat in my estimation. I agree with a comment from Colin R on last week’s episode—there were a lot of mediocre episodes front-loaded at the start of the year which made getting into this season a bit of a slog. It did redeem itself, and when the episodes were good they were VERY good, but in retrospect there were more duds than I remembered.
The show definitely benefitted from losing the extra Europe-only minutes, and the costuming, music and makeup all improved noticeably this year. The introduction of Scorpius as a regular threat also gave the show a huge lift—he’s the antagonist the show needed. And the evolution of Crais and Talyn has been really interesting—I like a bit of ambiguity in my characters.
But the good character work on the bad guys was nearly offset by the dreadful development of Stark, whose character veered wildly all over the place, never finding a consistent tone or place in the crew.
Ben Browder and Claudia Black were both given more and more interesting stuff to do, as the writers began paying to the strengths of their leading couple and kept finding that they were equal to anything they were given. This process will continue in Season Three which, first time around, was my favourite run of the show.
Favourite episode: ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ (with ‘Out Of Their Minds,’ ‘The Way We Weren’t’ and ‘Crackers Don’t Matter’ getting honourable mentions)
Least favourite episode: ‘Taking The Stone’ (with ‘Home on the Remains’ running close second)
Best single moment: There were so many this year, it’s hard to pick just one, but I’ll go with—HUMANS ARE SUPERIOR!
Honorable mention: ‘Go on John, do it! Then we can go to the beach. I know a place with naked Sebacean girls and margarita shooters!’
So, next week we kick off Season Three, the season of death. Here’s the behind the scenes info you need to know.
‘Season of Death’ was preceded by a one hour primer called Farscape Undressed, designed to welcome in new viewers. It’s on the DVD and Blu-Ray releases.
Episodes
1. Season of Death
2. Suns and Lovers
3. Self Inflicted Wounds I: Could’a, Would’a, Should’a
4. Self Inflicted Wounds II: Wait for the Wheel
5. Different Destinations
6. Eat Me
7. Thanks for Sharing
8. Green-eyed Monster
9. Losing Time
10. Relativity
11. Incubator
12. Meltdown
13. Scratch ‘n’ Sniff
14. Infinite Possibilities I: Daedalus Deamnds
15. Infinite Possibilities II: Icarus Abides
16. Revenging Angel
17. The Choice
18. Fractures
19. I-Yensch, You-Yensch
20. Into The Lion’s Den I: Lambs to the Slaughter
21. Into The Lion’s Den II: Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing
22. Dog With Two Bones
Unlike previous seasons the story-arc is so strong this year that it’s impossible to change the order of the episodes and so everyone got to see them in the right order.
Broadcast: In the U.S. Season Three was originally broadcast on the SciFi Channel.
In the U.K. it was shown on BBC2 in an early evening slot, normally either 6 pm or 6:45. This slot necessitated some cuts for content. ‘Scratch ‘n’ Sniff’ was completely impossible to cut for this timeslot and so was shown late Saturday night.
Titles: New music by Guy Gross, new title sequence (in which Lani Tupu, Paul Goddard and Wayne Pygram get credited as regulars), new narration:
“My name is John Crichton (I’m lost), an astronaut, (shot through a wormhole) in some distant part of the universe (I’m trying to stay alive) aboard this ship (this living ship) of escaped prisoners (my friends). If you can hear me, (beware). If I make it back, (will they follow)? If I open a door, (are you ready)? Earth is unprepared (helpless) for the nightmares I’ve seen. Or should I stay, protect my home, not show them you exist? But then you’ll never know the wonders I’ve seen.”
Scott K. Andrews has written episode guides, magazine articles, film and book reviews, comics, audio plays for Big Finish, far too many blogs, some poems you will never read, and three novels for Abaddon. He is, patently, absurd.
