Farscape ends its run - or has it?

March 13, 2003 5:25 AM

Determined viewers try to save another TV show(Salon). In this case, its Farscape, which shows its last episode on Friday in the States, and has already aired here in the UK. (no spoliers). Farscape fans are trying just about everything - from picking up 6 families in the Nielsens to fundraising to produce a last episode. Interested? Read on...
posted by rshah21 (17 comments total)

whoops. last U.S. episode airs Friday, March 21, not this Friday. The last U.K. episode has already aired. Apologies
posted by rshah21 at 5:32 AM on March 13, 2003

This campaign has been going on for a while - since Sci-Fi announced they weren't picking up the fifth season of the show about halfway through the current run. A friend of mine is heavily involved in the Save Farscape campaign. It's very professionally done, I have to say... very good-looking websites, talented people involved, media-savvy and focussed. I don't think they're going to get anywhere - the last season of the show has been pretty flat and disappointing compared to the first three - but it's a model for anyone trying to do this for a fave show in the future.
posted by humuhumu at 5:36 AM on March 13, 2003

This campaign has been going on for a while

yep.
posted by mdn at 5:45 AM on March 13, 2003

hmm. when I plugged Farscape into the search engine, I didn't find anything. That's why I went ahead and posted this. I guess the issues with the search engine haven't been fully resolved - or I don't know how to search ;-)
posted by rshah21 at 5:51 AM on March 13, 2003

as long as people remain impassioned about things that are not real, bush and company will be able to rape and pillage the planet freely.
posted by quonsar at 7:18 AM on March 13, 2003

I tried watching this show a few times, I thought it was terrible:

Bad makeup (what's the deal with the owl-nose guy? Embarrassing)
Bad acting
Bad set design (looks like a set, not a room/flight deck/etc)

I feel a real sense of disconnect with many fellow SF fans, who seem to gobble up ANYTHING if it's "Sci-Fi", i.e. dreck like Earth:Final Conflict and Lexx, to name a few. The Sci-Fi channel is Sturgeon's Law writ large....
posted by Scoo at 7:23 AM on March 13, 2003

Did anyone besides me dig Fox's Firefly? I was pretty upset to see Fastlane in its timeslot one sad day.
posted by botono9 at 7:40 AM on March 13, 2003

Firefly was great.

Shame it didn't make it to season two.

Farscape was one of my favorite shows until they started futzing with the season timing, and it was hard to figure out when the new stuff was coming out... that, and when they lost the blue woman.

*sigh*

She was great.
posted by silusGROK at 8:01 AM on March 13, 2003

Lexx itself I won't consider Science Fiction along the lines of Farscape. It is campy and cheesy but that is it's intent, and for it's budget, Lexx did a good job at least in the first four made for TV movies... so it shouldn't be in the ranks of a Sci Fi show, but more of a softporn version of the Three Stooges meets a no budget Cronenberg...

anyway, Farscape lost me after Season 2, the characters started dying and coming back too much, and the drama became to easily cast off.
posted by oninochuck at 9:00 AM on March 13, 2003

I judged Farscape on surface things, like Scoo, until I actually caught a couple of episodes in a row and realized they were doing some pretty interesting stories, for a space opera. It's a different approach, that's for sure -- it's the Jim Henson muppet people, you know, and that affected the way they did make-up [hint: it's definitely NOT the Star Trek latex applique approach] and what kind of alien characters they had, but once I realized how to approach it I got into it. There was this villain guy who kept popping up at the oddest moments, completely baffling me, and it took me a few shows before I figured out he was completely inside the main character's head. I thought that was pretty cool, especially the casual way they treated it dramatically. I think it's certainly among the best sf serials ever on TV, even if they didn't have a budget to (for instance) do a spacewalk properly. I just like a show that rewards attention like that.

As for saving the show, it's pretty unlikely at this date. There was a chat something like nine months ago, maybe more, where Ben Browder said "They're taking a chainsaw to Moya [the ship set] tomorrow!" The producers have already moved on; they spent nine years of their lives pushing the concept through to completion, and didn't have the energy. It really turned me off of Sci Fi Channel, the business; it was the best thing they had, barring perhaps Stargate SG-1, certainly since the new Outer Limits, and they killed it. Bah. Even when you look at the economics: unlike network tv, they would have had years to re-run it, and the fan loyalty would have been immense, and they get syndication kickbacks for broadcast. I go for harder sf, not the cheesy paranormal stuff, and there's too much of that on the channel now.
posted by dhartung at 11:38 AM on March 13, 2003

as long as people remain impassioned about things that are not real, bush and company will be able to rape and pillage the planet freely.

Which begs the question: is MetaFilter "real"?
posted by brittney at 11:57 AM on March 13, 2003

i'm going to be very sad to see Farscape go, it was something that brought me joy. It was also nice to see a program where the actors were also some of the shows biggest fans (i'm thinking of Ben Browder here).

i doubt that they can save the series, but i wouldn't be at all surprised to see them doing films or miniseries, the show has a big following, and if there is one thing that Hollywood has taught us, it's that there is no idea so bad that it's not worth making a sequel to. So with something as entertaining as the Farscape universe, it should be easy.

Right?
posted by quin at 1:18 PM on March 13, 2003

Farscape has (had?) to be one of my favourite Sci-Fi shows (apart from Red Dwarf. Red Dwarf ruled.) I liked it for the plot, for the characters, and for the great Loony Toons-esque episode they did.

I doubt it will be saved. But it deserves to be.
posted by wildeep at 2:12 PM on March 13, 2003

Which begs the question: is MetaFilter "real"?
real? hell, it's the only think standing between us and total rape and pillage!
posted by quonsar at 4:30 PM on March 13, 2003

I just saw that episode. Definitely one of the best sci-fi series ever. Time to go drink myself numb.
posted by Kikkoman at 6:37 PM on March 13, 2003

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posted by sgt.serenity at 3:36 AM on March 14, 2003

I was enjoying Firefly as well...

Those of you with a fat bandwidth pipe and kazaa (lite) can probably find the entire farscape series there...
posted by woil at 11:04 AM on March 14, 2003