Anthony Boyd
03-26-2003, 02:48 AM
Don't read this if you want to be completely spoiler-free.
I've just started watching the entire series over again. Tonight I saw the first show and I, ET. It's been so long since I've seen them, I was surprised to find my memory had made them out to be FAR different. My memory was that I loved the first show, and hated I, ET. On second viewing, they're both OK, no more, no less. Here is what I found to be remarkably different about these first episodes:[list=1]
The music is really bad, spacey disco. The music gets MUCH better later on. I squirmed a bit because my wife was half-watching it, and I'm sure a couple of her smirks were due to the cheesy music.
The scenes of battles in space are far better in these first episodes than in the later shows. With talk of armadas, and frag cannons, and huge numbers of ships flying in formation, I really get a sense that Farscape is about war in space, at least more than I do from the much more interpersonal episodes that characterized the 4th season.
John is battle-weary and jaded by season 4, but here in season 1, John's ability to act awestruck helps me to feel the same. When he is pulled into Moya for the first time, it REALLY seems foreign, even though I've seen 88 episodes of it. I think the first season somehow really portrayed the alien quality of this well.
Building on that, while the later seasons appear to be about how the crew works together, here these aliens really appear to be NOT human-like, and not harmonious. They are weird, and are byproducts of radically different worlds. By season 4, everybody seems like they'd be fine hanging out on Erp. The culture-clash of the first season plays well with me. I wish it had been explored even more.
Unless I missed it, season 4 tried to talk about why John's module can withstand wormholes, but you never actually got an answer. Here in the first episode, the first comment about the module is that it was built specifically to withstand friction from a planet's atmosphere. Hmm.
In I, ET, John has translator microbes, but he's found a civilization that is NOT space faring. They would have no notion of translator microbes. How did they manage to communicate as if both speaking a native tongue?
Wow, I really miss Zhaan.
Wow, I really don't miss Crais.
[/list=1]
I've just started watching the entire series over again. Tonight I saw the first show and I, ET. It's been so long since I've seen them, I was surprised to find my memory had made them out to be FAR different. My memory was that I loved the first show, and hated I, ET. On second viewing, they're both OK, no more, no less. Here is what I found to be remarkably different about these first episodes:[list=1]
The music is really bad, spacey disco. The music gets MUCH better later on. I squirmed a bit because my wife was half-watching it, and I'm sure a couple of her smirks were due to the cheesy music.
The scenes of battles in space are far better in these first episodes than in the later shows. With talk of armadas, and frag cannons, and huge numbers of ships flying in formation, I really get a sense that Farscape is about war in space, at least more than I do from the much more interpersonal episodes that characterized the 4th season.
John is battle-weary and jaded by season 4, but here in season 1, John's ability to act awestruck helps me to feel the same. When he is pulled into Moya for the first time, it REALLY seems foreign, even though I've seen 88 episodes of it. I think the first season somehow really portrayed the alien quality of this well.
Building on that, while the later seasons appear to be about how the crew works together, here these aliens really appear to be NOT human-like, and not harmonious. They are weird, and are byproducts of radically different worlds. By season 4, everybody seems like they'd be fine hanging out on Erp. The culture-clash of the first season plays well with me. I wish it had been explored even more.
Unless I missed it, season 4 tried to talk about why John's module can withstand wormholes, but you never actually got an answer. Here in the first episode, the first comment about the module is that it was built specifically to withstand friction from a planet's atmosphere. Hmm.
In I, ET, John has translator microbes, but he's found a civilization that is NOT space faring. They would have no notion of translator microbes. How did they manage to communicate as if both speaking a native tongue?
Wow, I really miss Zhaan.
Wow, I really don't miss Crais.
[/list=1]