xVladx

Yeah, so I'm finally having the chance to sit down and go through Farscape through Netflix (streaming). A couple things are bugging me, though, so hopefully one of the Farscape fans on here can help me out:

1. A few episodes into the first season, I noticed that something was just off about the way the characters were interacting, and sure enough, a quick check confirmed that the Netflix episode order for the first half of the first season is WAY off for some reason. I'm just starting the second season now, and I'm wondering if there are any other instances where the order on Netflix might be a little wacky. I'd do the looking myself, but I'm trying to avoid spoilers, especially since there seems to be a more consistent plot forming now.

2. Is it just me, or did the guy with the metal mask (Stark, I think his name was?) just disappear after the episode where they rescued him? At the end of one episode he's helping that blonde Peacekeeper that John had the thing with die peacefully, then <poof>, never to be seen again. I've only seen three episodes since then, but this show hasn't been one to let characters just disappear for long stretches, and I was kind of expecting to see the usual stretch of episodes where the new person gets used to being on Moya (like when they brought Chianna on). Again, if this is addressed later (like, maybe he's some sort of being that retroactively made them all forget him once he was off the ship or something), then that's fine. I just want to make sure I didn't just miss something, like a complete episode. For reference, the next one I watched after they all escaped from the Peacekeeper base was "Bone to be Wild".

spainlinx0

Stark floats in and out from what I remember.

Farscapeworld.com/episodes has an episode guide with no descriptions unless you click synopsis. I watched on DVD so I didn't experience the Netflix issue, but maybe this will help you make sure you're watching in the proper order without being spoiled.

starman9000

Stark does come and go.

It sucks that they are out of order, I would just print out a list and check 1 by 1 while you are watching to avoid spoilers, though I don't think most of the names are too spoilery.

xVladx

Hmm... so this might be one of those "out" moments? I don't know if I just completely spaced and missed a scene or some dialog or what, but as far as what I've seen goes, he's just vanished.

Ah, thanks for that. I had the hardest time finding a list of episodes that didn't have the synopses right there next to the titles.

And apparently I already missed an episode . Farscape world shows "Dream a little Dream" as the first episode of the second season, while Netflix has it as the 8th.

spainlinx0

That is really odd for a show that takes the continuity pretty seriously. I have been watching Burn Notice that way, and I hope it doesn't suffer from the same issues.

xVladx

I haven't watched many shows through Netflix, but so far, this is the only one that I've seen with these problems. The only other issue that I'm aware of on the service is that the Breaking Bad pilot is missing several scenes and is censored.

Thankfully, other than the Incredible Disappearing Stark (and that seems to be more of a problem with sloppy writing on the show so far) the out of order episodes didn't have too much of an effect on the overall experience. If I'm remembering correctly, I think the thing that really made me wonder if the episodes on Netflix were out of order was the general attitude of the characters towards one another. A few episodes go by and everybody seems to be getting along, then all of the sudden Dargo's back in "I'll never trust a Peacekeeper" mode after he's been seemingly getting along with Erin just fine beforehand.

Now, though, the show seems to be getting a little more serialized, so I definitely wanted to make sure that there's no other hiccups like that further down the line.

spainlinx0

When looking up your issue, I notice it does seem to be a problem with a few shows on Netflix as there is even a website to document the issue.

xVladx

Well, that's annoying. Apparently "Dream a Little Dream" is actually in its correct place in the series, and the FarscapeWorld.com episode order has it wrong. Sure, most of it's a flashback episode that takes place between the two seasons, but it still takes place right where it should. Heck, there's even a reference to something that happened right at the end of the previous episode which would have made absolutely no sense if the episode was actually watched first.

Still an interesting one, though. I was wondering what the other half of Scorpius was (I'm assuming the other half is Sebacian?), and I was amused that he turns out to be half lawyer.

Gotta say, though, the show doesn't seem to have the most consistent quality. My wife were getting a little concerned when we hit the Vita Mortis/Taking the Stone/Crackers Don't Matter stretch of episodes. I think we were both regularly looking at the clock on each of those. Still, "The Way We Weren't" more than made up for it, and even if they're not getting back into the Peacekeeper stuff yet, the general episode quality seems to be improving.

resinrats

Farscape did seem to be the most oddly balanced show. Some episodes are great then there are ones that are boring, make no sense, or proof writers were on crack. The worst were the boring ones. Sitting there watching then glance at a clock and realize the damn episode is only 1/2 over.

xVladx

I think the thing that's really bugging me about the episodes that don't have anything to do with the Peacekeepers seems to be that, no matter what, whatever alien they run in to is going to screw them over eventually.

I know that there needs to be some sort of conflict or something to make the episode interesting, but it always cracks me up that the show seems to constantly be portraying every person who sells the crew something or runs whatever colony or planet they're on as a nice person, when they always end up betraying them at the end. I almost had my hopes up in "Bone to be Wild", when it turned out that the "monster" was actually an intelligent scientist, but then they made it so both of the aliens they were dealing with were out to get them, either by kidnapping Zan or by eating them.

Navinabob

The actor who played Stark didn't really want to give up his stage work so they let him vanish every so often. With him being a bit crazy it wasn't so much of a stretch for him to hide off by himself. I thought the first two seasons were uneven partly because of the Peace-Keepers. It was strange how they went serial & monster-of-the-week back and forth, it killed momentum. Thankfully the show hits its stride in season 3 with one of my favorite bad guys in sci-fi history.

Superboy

Farscape is going to be like any serial sci-fi show: high points, and low points. I consider the high points to be up there with the best of Star Trek, TNG, and DS9. I also love muppets, so it was definitely my cup of tea.

There are worse episodes from the Star Trek franchise than what i've ever seen on Farscape. About 90% of Voyager and Enterprise is dreadfully boring, pitifully stupid, and completely unwatchable.

spainlinx0

I actually really liked the Crackers Don't Matter episode. But then again, I like when the crew acts a little nuts.

xVladx

True, and I might have liked it if it was somewhere else in the season/series, but as-is, it was just kind of repetitive. It went:

Vitas Mortis: Dargo gets infatuated with the Luxan priestess woman, acts a little nuts.

Taking the Stone: Chiana's brother dies, she goes a little crazy for a while.

Crackers Don't Matter: The whole crew goes nuts, just because an alien made them do it.

Now, even though I didn't care much for the first two episodes, at least there was some sort of reason that the characters in question were acting a little strangely. Although it would have been nice to have seen Chiana's brother at some point so we could better sympathize with her.

xVladx

Ok, so we've definitely hit our stride and have been plowing through the series recently. Up to the beginning of the fourth season now, and overall, still enjoying it, although not quite as much as we used to. Both my wife and I are finding that when the show focuses on the ongoing Peacekeeper stuff, we quite like it. However, some of the standalone episodes are still lacking a bit.

So, a few random comments/questions for the Farscape fans here:

- What was the general consensus regarding the cartoon episode? Personally, I thought it was a neat idea at first, but I found that it just got kind of old after a while.

- What were the circumstances regarding the different cast replacements? Right now it seems like they keep losing actors so they bring in a character with the same skillset/traits that can fill the shoes exactly. Zan, a character who's basically the ship's doctor, dies just as Jewel shows up, who ends up acting as the doctor-type after Zan's death. Then Jool ends up staying behind on that planet (just as they stopped making her gratingly annoying, too) right around the time they rather abruptly introduce Noranti. Amusingly enough, they seem to have Noranti pulling double duty as the token "crazy character" after Stark left.

- Is it supposed to be a running joke that Scorpius keeps escaping seemingly fatal experiences with no explanation? At the end of the third season, they show Scorpius acting rather defeated and seeming to stay behind on the imploding command carrier, then the next time we see him he's stuck in the Aurora Chair, with no explanation yet of how he got off the command carrier. Did he change his mind and make a run for an escape pod? Did Braka or Grayza (and I'm sure I'm spelling most of these names wrong) capture him and drag him off? Same deal with the fact that, a few episodes later, he was shot point blank, buried, and left for dead. Again, he miraculously shows back up in the time it takes the rest of the gang to screw around on a lava planet, seemingly fine, with the only explanation as to his survival being that he was "prepared"?

Now, if they revisit this later on, that's great, but as is it just seems like kind of a cop-out to keep bringing the character back out of the blue like that.

- And speaking of the imploding command carrier, it was a great setup and all, with Talon's noble sacrifice, etc, but both my wife and I couldn't help but crack up at all the rather calm discussions happening between John/Scorpius/Erin as everything's exploding around them.

- Since we're watching this on Netflix, we end up just leaving the "Previously on" segments running, since it would take longer for the stream to rebuffer than it would to skip them. We both noticed that, before the "What Was Lost" two-parter, there were a couple scenes between Scorpius/Braka and Braka/Grazya that neither of us could remember. Since one of those scenes had to do with Scorpius "no longer having a ship to command", it would have had to have taken place since the end of the third season, but we absolutely couldn't remember either scene. I checked a couple episode lists, and we haven't skipped any episodes, so what gives with that?

starman9000

I believe Zhaan wanted to leave the show because it was too much for her to play that character, she actually had to shave her head and eyebrows and just got sick of it after 3 years, which stinks because Jool and Noranti were horrible replacements. (some say the blue paint was causing health issues too)

I don't really recall the Scorpius stuff feeling out of place and would have to revisit the show. I wasn't a big fan of the cartoon episode or the funhouse one. I love that they took risks, but at the end of the day those episodes are the weakest IMO.

Honestly, I loved Farscape, but unlike most shows, I didn't really like plowing through the episodes but enjoyed taking my time with it. Maybe that helped with the inconsistencies you are talking about.

Derrich

I remember that the actress who played Zhaan left partially because of creative differences. She wanted John and Zhaan to have a romantic relationship instead of John and Aeryn. And you can see her playing it like that during the episodes.

D

spainlinx0

I always remember Scorpius having some escape planned. I don't remember him magically appearing. I thought he headed to an evacuation pod when the command carrier was exploding. Maybe I just filled in the blanks in my head.

starman9000

Yeah, and his suit is pretty much body armor, I remember him acting as a shield on a few occasions.

xVladx

I'll have to re-watch that part of the episode, but I could have sworn that the last we saw of him was when he slowly walked back into the imploding carrier after he and John had their little chat. He basically was acting all defeated, and was in no obvious hurry to get off the ship, so it really seemed like they were setting him up to die when the ship was destroyed.

There was that episode back when they were meeting at the restaurant that got held up where he did say that he was wearing armor, but I don't remember them ever saying that his suit was armor.

In any case, in the instance that bugs me, he not only got shot at absolute point blank range, but we saw sparks go flying out the front of his chest (he was shot in the back), making it seem like he got a hole blown through him.

So, given that, it was really odd for him to just pop back up. So odd, in fact, that I was thinking that the show was just being intentionally silly about it.

starman9000

Maybe it missed a vital organ? This is a guy that functions with a hole the size of a coke can in the middle of his head after all.

As for the armor, you might not be there yet, but I know he does act as a shield in an episode. I really need to pop these in again.

Navinabob

They also showed early on that Scorp was in it for the long game (neurochip & a two other plans you'll see later) and had no real issue with being "defeated" or humiliated when the odds were not in his favor or when he land another goal in mind. I loved the first real fight with John where Scorp just gets his ass kicked, then after John leaves, he just pulls showing it was all an act. He is a fantastically complex villain with no problem cheating or killing allies one day, yet risking his own life the next.

"I long ago learned the advantages of patience." ---Scorpius

starman9000

Yeah, I think the episode where he gets shot, don't they pretty much say it was just an act to get away from Graza?

aynrandgirl

Jool was at least tolerable. Noranti was a horribly stupid idea for a character.

starman9000

Jool only really got tolerable when they made her easy to ignore. Her 'powers' were really stupid.