Farscape : season 3 review

2001

22 50 minute episodes

SF elements

living with aliens

Review

This just keeps on getting better, and with season 3 has now for me become the best ever SF TV show.

With most TV shows, if there is a pause in the conversation, I find I can often fill in the next line. But with Farscape , everything is unpredictable -- cliches are subverted, our minds are severely messed with, and everything is all refreshingly original and inventive. There was only one event I guessed correctly this entire season (which character would die, and why) and even that was strung out for so long I was beginning to have doubts.

The season combines episodes of stunning hilarity, ones of wrenching sadness, and ones of bizarre complexity [You find yourself thinking things like "So, which of the John Crichtons learned that previously? Oh yes, the one in Scorpius' head, that makes sense."]. The characters are sufficiently complex that they can have a range of reactions without acting out of character. And their interactions grow and develop and change in believable ways. Part of the solid grounding is given by the realistic moral dilemmas -- what do you do when the Bad Guys you've been fighting turn out to be not nearly as bad as the Really Bad Guys?

Babylon 5 is famous for its five (okay, four plus one) year arc. It did that stunningly well, but the problem with an arc is that after it rises, it falls again, and ends. Farscape is an ever-growing, ever-complexifying, but still satisfyingly unified, tale. (And the acting is so much better, too.) I just hope the writers can keep it up. But there's no hint yet that they're getting tired...

Rating: 1