Pilot Rewatch: Farscape

Lost in a distant part of the universe, on a living ship with alien creatures.

Farscape – Premiere

Season 1, Episode 1 – Original air date: 3/19/1999

The show opens with our hero staring off into the distance at his shuttle. What I find most interesting about this scene: What the heck is on his shirt? First assumption; pineapples. Then I noticed they didn’t look quite right, next assumption; octopus? Still doesn’t look exactly right. Alien pineapple octopus? Yeah, I’m going with that. What? This is an important detail.

The basic description: Farscape is about an astronaut with the IASA, named John Crichton. He’s a wiseass, who has a bit of a rebellious streak, he’s also the son of famous astronaut, Jack Crichton. John takes his shuttle, Farscape One, on an experimental mission into space. He accidentally gets sucked into a wormhole, and sent into a distant part of the universe. He finds himself in the middle of some sort of battle between ships with obvious advanced tech, one of those ships hits his, veers off, and crashes. That’s when John gets pulled aboard the Leviathan, Moya, a living ship. On board the first things he encounters are small robotic units, called DRD’s. He’s taken to meet the crew, escaped alien prisoners, they are trying to release Moya from her control collar so they can escape the Peace Keepers, and want to know what kind of technology John posses, hoping it can be of help to them.

A DRD injects Crichtion with translator microbes so he can understand what the aliens are saying. This is where we meet the crew; Ka Dargo, a Luxan warrior, Pa’u Zotoh Zhaan, a Delvian priestess, and Dominar Rygel XVI, a deposed Hynerian ruler.

Soon after their encounter Crichtion is put into a cell, he awakens naked, and finds he shares the cell with someone else. Captured Peace Keeper, Aeryn Sun.

Crichtion and Aeryn escape to a commerce planet, where they connect with Captain Crais, who, as it turns out, has it out for Crichtion. Because it was Crais’s brother who died earlier, after colliding with the Farscape One shuttle. The Peace Keepers have also captured Dargo, and Crais declares he will torture and kill Crichtion. Aeryn tries to speak in John’s defense, so Crais says she is “irreversibly contaminated”, due to her contact with this unknown species.

Crichtion, Dargo, and a reluctant Aeryn, manage to escape back to Moya. Now the lost human, escaped alien prisoners, and shunned Peace Keeper, must all learn to get along, and work together. Because they have a lot of adventure ahead of them.

Notes of Interest:

I might be wrong with what I’m thinking here, but I noticed that when Zhaan was at a set of controls her hands were moving super fast. I can’t seem to remember that ability in later episodes. Or am I just forgetting it?



Notable Guests:

Kent McKord plays Crichton’s Dad, but back in the day I originally knew him from a show called Adam-12. He was also in Galactica 1980 (which I try to pretend never existed) and SeaQuest 2032.

My Thoughts:

I first discovered Farscape in it’s original run on the Sci-Fi channel, and I was instantly hooked. This show is filled with colorful, engaging characters, interesting stories, action, adventure, and fun. It’s simply great science fiction television, and sadly it’s often over looked. If you have never seen the show before, you really should give it a try. It’s usually streaming somewhere, either on Netflix or on Hulu Plus.

And just because…Here’s a Farscape trailer that Ken made in 2006 for a school project…

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