season 4

[hippydave]

how do people feel season 4 compares to the previous 3???

[RescueFarscape]

Welcome, hippydave! :hi:

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I really enjoyed season four! Though after the cancellation watching the second half was a bit depressing, and those last eleven eps went way too fast. :)

I loved the Earth episodes, thought they were done very well. Sometimes people complain about the human reaction when John finally made it back to Earth, but I think they forget that Earth already had a few weeks of knowing about and visiting Moya before John came back. They definitely had the chance to get used to aliens. ;)

Bad Timing was amazing. They managed to cram so much into it that I was numb by the time the ending came around. I'd been expecting something horrible to happen through the whole ep (DK and his cliffhangers) and kept on waiting and waiting. I finally thought that maybe poor John and Aeryn might actually make it out in one piece :rollin: Yeah right. They still managed to rip my heart out.

And of course Rygel is the most influential. Was there ever any doubt? ;) Loved him in A Clockwork Nebari. Some of his best work. "I'm no one's puppet!"

[grapeshot]

There are some fans that are rabid haters of season 4. I'm NOT one of them. It's my second favorite season -- next to season 1. I even like the first half of this season, which I thought consisted of a number of under-rated episodes. What I especially liked this season was glimpse we were given of the political situation and the "cold war" between the two major empires.

In my opinion, the fans that didn't like this season usually did so because things didn't go the way they thought it should go. Their preconceived notions got in the way of their enjoyment. Furthermore, almost all of the epiosdes in this season are jam-packed with story-telling. That means that unless the viewer was paying close attention, they probably missed a fair bit. (Another way to look at this is to consider these episodes as particularly rewarding for those who like to re-watch them.) Unfortunately, this would seemingly make Ms. Hammer correct in her assessment that Farscape got too smart for the viewers.

[mjwillia]

Spoilers! Spoilers!












I didn't hate season 4 but I didn't like some of the "stretches" the writers made with some of the characters...

For instance:

1. John never in a million years would have let Scorpy stick that "stabber thing" into the back of his head again - I know John wanted to get rid of Harvey but Harvey was a lingering memory not "hardware" like the old chip. How could Scorpy's "stabber-thing" get rid of a "phathom chip?"

2. Chiana being able to slow things down in her vision. In seasons 2 and 3 Chiana had "heard" and "felt" events before they happened. I know Chiana told John that her "ESP" like behavior had "progressed" to the "vision thing" but it just didn't work for me...

3. Why is Comandant Graza a non-Sebatian? Her lips are gray, her eyes are a weird color and she had that gland thing put in her. Peace Keepers don't like aliens or hybrids - they only made an exception for Scorpy because Scorpy was valuable in fighting the Scarrens with his unique knowledge of Scarren methods. Couldn't Graza have just been a Sebatian with a gland added to her?

4. Scorpy a double agent? He ran away as a boy! How did he rejoin the Scarrens?

5. The baby being in "stacis" for up to 7 cycles? Do all Sebatian women do this? The writers just said it would prevent female Peace Keepers from having babies during long campaigns... What about the whole thing about Breeding Assignments and her mom having Aeryn because she wanted too...

6. What is Sikuru? A biloid? The whole radiation thing that was strong enough to kill Scarrens but not make anyone else in the room sick. Come on writers! You can do better than that!

Things I liked:

1. John and D'argo's relationship comes full circle. Very well done.

2. Aeryn whole season was like hell for her and she came out on top!

3. The mystery behind Grandma.

4. Good to see Stark again.

5. Loved how Bracka and Scorpy were still working together!

[SilentSpace]

Originally posted by grapeshot
There are some fans that are rabid haters of season 4. I'm NOT one of them. It's my second favorite season -- next to season 1.....

In my opinion, the fans that didn't like this season usually did so because things didn't go the way they thought it should go. Their preconceived notions got in the way of their enjoyment. Furthermore, almost all of the epiosdes in this season are jam-packed with story-telling. That means that unless the viewer was paying close attention, they probably missed a fair bit. (Another way to look at this is to consider these episodes as particularly rewarding for those who like to re-watch them.) Unfortunately, this would seemingly make Ms. Hammer correct in her assessment that Farscape got too smart for the viewers.

I don't think that's entirely fair - a lot of the people who hated S4 followed Farscape avidly for 3 seasons without having problems with complex story-telling. But there's no doubt that S4 did alienate many fans. I'm sort of on the fence about it. I enjoyed it, and have watched all the episodes several times. It's technically great, but its still my least favorite season. I find it 'intellectually interesting', but I felt disconnected from characters I'd grown to love. The previous seasons had been both interesting AND emotionally engaging.

For me, it has nothing to do with preconceived notions about where the story should go, and everything to do with character credibility. The characters were being driven by the plot for most of S4, and since the plot was frequently contrived and absurd, psychological truth went out of the window.

Some examples -

The writers decided, for reasons that I don't fully understand, that they absolutely had to keep Crichton and Aeryn apart ( I can understand wanting to slow down and build the relationshp again, but not why they wanted to keep Ben and Claudia away from each other on-screen). They've got a psychologically credible motive for John's behaviour - he's still hurt and jealous of a dead guy, he's been raped by Graza, Aeryn brought Scorpy aboard and can't be trusted etc. John is a guy who is hurting, and it's believable he would lash out at the woman who hurt him. Except, then we're told that's not why he's doing it at all - he's actually behaving like a cruel jerk in order to protect her from Scorpius. All his pain is forgotton (shallow characterization) AND we have to believe that John believes that Scorpius is stupid. (Dude, Scorpy knows, OK?)

The treatment of Aeryn's motivation is even worse - after NE, it isn't even mentioned. Something has made her change her mind and decide she's ready for a relationship again, but the audience isn't given the slightest hint what. Even worse than that, selfless courageous Aeryn of the previous 3 seasons has apparently become selfish Aeryn, ready to endanger the entire crew in order to save her own life. Seems to me the writers made up their minds to bring Scorpy aboard, and then forced the characterization to justify the plot. Now maybe these things would be explained in S5, but I find it puzzling that Aeryn's wierd behaviour isn't even mentioned by the rest of the crew. I just get the strong impression the writers couldn't be bothered to write for a complex character like Aeryn. Chiana also suffers from a similar kind of dumbing down/disregard for backstory/unexplained character change.

I think the worst example of bad character writing in S4 is Sikosu. My apologies to Sikosu fans (and I think Raelee Hill did her best with what was given) but this character is a walking plot contrivance and I don't find her remotely believable. She's Soooo Smart! She Defies Gravity! She's got Amazing Detachable Limbs! She's got a Heat Ray! She's a Deus ex Machina Scarran-Killing Machine! It used to be that Farscape characters got out of situations through insane courage, inspired inventiveness, dysfunctional teamwork and wild luck. Now, Sikosu saves the day with the Convenient Alien Talent of the Week! That is bad writing.

Sorry, this has turned into a bit of a rant... But many who disliked s4 were just as much 'True Scapers' as those who think it was the best thing ever- we don't deserve to be dismissed too casually. Even the actors and directors say there were serious problems in season 4 and they weren't all the result of Sci-fi's meddling (although obviously that contributed).

My feeling about s4 is that its got that Farscape shine in production quality which sets it apart from everything else on TV, but not the subtlety, wit and soul of previous seasons.

OK, so this was more than you ever wanted to know...

Silentspace

[mjwillia]

SilentSpace - I can't agree with you more! I wish I would express myself as well as you!

I've watched S4 through and through now 3x's and your analysis exactly describes how I felt about S4.

Exactly why is it that TV Producers don't think writers can keep a couple interesting once they are together? Why can't a married couple be flirty? Why can't a married couple have sexual tension? It's just harder to write these scenes but not impossible...

[grapeshot]

SilentSpace, you’re opinions are probably the most coherent ones I’ve read about season four. Many fans have been far more vociferous, and much less well-reasoned.

(Warning -- the following paragraphs are LOADED with spoilers for the entire season four. Please skip these if you haven't yet finished viewing the season.)

I agree that the separation between John and Aeryn was disappointing, and difficult to understand. However, I can totally sympathize with Aeryn’s need to take off and sort things out for herself. If you’re a PK soldier, and have been raised in the PK culture, it must be quite a shock to discover that you’re going to be a mother. I can imagine that for a young woman to discover that she’s pregnant is a profound change in how she views herself and the world around her. Most of us humans would take that sort of news more in stride, but I don’t know that an ex-PK would. Where would she even have learned about mothering?? I can also understand her wanting to distance herself from John. He’d be just the sort of person that would always be yapping in your ear about the baby, eh? He’d just be going on and on about it, and never giving you a moment’s peace. I’m also sure that wherever she ran off to proved to be totally a Bad Thing. We all know that no matter how hard you try, you can’t run away from yourself. To me it seems perfectly clear that whatever happened to her, it led to the same sort of epiphany that John had in “Dog With Two Bones”. Just as John discovered (in "Terra Firma") that you can’t go home again, so did she. In the end, I’m positive that what happened to Aeryn would have been satisfactorily explained in the fifth season.

(What was an interesting and uncomfortable surprise for me to discover during the first four episodes is how much Aeryn is central to the Farscape story. I think it was a surprise to TPTB, too.)

John’s behavior, too, was understandable. I think the realization of how vulnerable his love for Aeryn makes him only dawns on him gradually. His taking the drug Lakka is reprehensible, yet understandable. Aeryn has every right to be furious, and no, his excuses for taking it aren’t very good. I don’t think we’ve heard the last of this yet. Neither Aeryn nor John have fully explained themselves to each other yet -- but this doesn't strike me as totally unrealistic. Like any couple, they have an awful lot to learn about each other. As for not fooling Scorpy, well I’m not so sure. It always struck me that Scorpy’s very smart, but not very wise. He has no understanding of love, loyalty, passion. (He's single-minded, goal-oriented, and possibly obsessed, but he doesn't have the warmth to be called passionate.) Indeed, nothing in his background would suggest that he would know anything about "touchy-feely" stuff. If being raised as a PK is a cold and lonely upbringing, just think how bleak his Scarren upbringing was. I think that all the “soap-opera-ish” activity he observes in the PK world or on Moya probably mildly puzzles him – as if these people are behaving by a set of rules he’s never learned and can’t figure out, but nonetheless seem to be immaterial to achieving his goals. I would bet that anything going on between John and Aeryn (which is OBVIOUS not only to us, but to Jack, to Olivia, and even the Spider Woman) has totally gone above Scorpy’s head. (Consider that Harvey appears to only now be discovering the charms of women -- what does that say about Scorpy?)


As for Jool, she always seemed to me to be, like Scorpy, smart but not wise. I’ll bet any amount of money that she’s some sort of a bioloid – not completely a sentient being. Again, I’ll wait for he fifth season before deciding that she’s simply a plot device. We’re only just beginning to discover the extent of the cold war that’s been going on between the PKs and the Scarrans. Just as weapons development between the US and the USSR was spurred to new heights during the Cold War, and only now are interesting stories about this war coming to light, it wouldn’t surprise me to discover there’s more to the Khalish and to Sikozu than what we glimpsed in season 4.

With Chiana, D’Argo, and Rygel, what’s really motivating them now? D’Argo has sorted things out with his son, and sorted things out with Macton. After the revelations he receives about himself in “Mental As Anything”, he’s clearly got even more maturing to do. Why not fill in the time by being captain of Moya? He’ll have his hands full with keeping that crew in line, and he’s on a path for learning how to do so. Chiana and Rygel are both temporarily stymied in their goals, hence their return to Moya. (I’m sure there’s one solid future episode in THAT story.) To me these are all secondary characters. When Noranti points out during the tag scene of "Lava's A Many Splendored Thing" that out of all of them, only John has a clear goal, nobody disagreed with her. Heck, they might as well take a back seat to John then. Besides, the episodes that feature mostly the supporting characters (“Taking The Stone” or “Mental As Anything” or "Dream A Little Dream") are among the least interesting episodes to me.

This is the really sad thing about being denied a fifth season; not only do we never find out where John Crichton’s destiny takes him, but we never find out about all the other strands of the story that have been left hanging. What happens between the Scarrans and the PKs? Where do the Nebari, the Hynerians, the Khalish, and even the Delvians fit into all this? What is going on with the mysterious similarities between Sebaceans, Humans, and Interions? And WILL we ever encounter the Zenetan Pirates again?? Is it D'Argo's destiny to be a wise and canny leader? Will Chiana ever find her brother, and aid the Nebari resistance? Can her blindness be cured? Will Rygel get his throne back? Will Stark ultimately gain or lose his grip on sanity? Did Crais manage to cheat death? How far is Bracca fated to go? The questions are endless.