Review of Farscape: Season 2 (2 disc pack)

Introduction

I won`t re-visit the general Farscape theme with this review, as this has been covered in detail before with the Series 1 reviews also to be found on this site.

The boxset contains 4 episodes of the second series spread over two discs, funnily enough.

Farscape seems to be aimed at the adult audience who grew up with Star Trek, but also contains elements that will appeal to the younger viewer who will perhaps enjoy the program for the visual effects and costumes/puppets rather than the deeper storyline issues that will enthral the more mature audience.

Video

Although it is presented in a full screen format, it cannot be faulted.

These discs really show how poor terrestrial television can be in the quality of broadcasted pictures.

The make up and costumes are superbly renditioned with the light and shade aspects quite dramatically handled to give a very convincing (!) alien look.

A particularly good scene is found in Episode 2.07 where the crew are in a mine within a rotting space creature (don`t ask!), which is quite mind blowing if you`ve only seen this genre of film on television.

there is no graining or artifacting evident on either disc with the colours being very stable in both low and high light situations.

Audio

Another area in which television can / will never better the DVD format is in the audio presentation.

These episodes are given the full 5.1 DD treatment and really deserve it.

Having said that, I feel that the audio does not live up to the quality of the video in places. At times the sound from individual characters could sound quite distant from their location in the soundstage. This is only a minor complaint of a rare event contained in an excellent overall soundtrack and it should not be allowed to spoil your enjoyment of these episodes.

Features

A nice touch is the inclusion of some extra features as well as the episodes.

Never before seen deleted scenes, a PC screensaver, a gallery of 30 stills including artwork as well as character and prop photography.

As well as these on disc extras, there is also a collection of postcards included in the boxset.

Conclusion

It is interesting to note the strides in puppetry that Jin Henson`s company have made since classics such as The Muppets and Fraggle Rock. The puppets in Farscape are superb with an unbelievable amount of facial expression built into them.

At the same time it is nice to note that there is still a nice level of humour included with the puppets, which thankfully does not encroach on the general storyline in a bad way.

These were very enjoyable programs to watch although I am worried that I will not be able to watch the broadcast series now without complaining about the quality of video and audio.

Excellent.