Review of Farscape: Volumes 1.5 & 1.6 (2 disc pack)

Introduction

Filmed entirely in Australia by Channel 9 & Jim Henson Home Entertainment, this series has grown to almost cult status here and in the USA, Canada and Australia. It is not hard to see why. The series combines good acting, scripting and directing; excitement, action, fun and some really great CG effects. It is aimed at the older audience (thankfully!) and is an intelligent sci-fi experience. It is certainly a match for the well-established favourites such as Star Trek.

This double-DVD boxed set contains 3 episodes on disk 1 (volume 1.5) and 2 episodes on disk 2 (volume 1.6). It is planned that additional volumes will be released every 2-3 months and eventually build into the entire first series (22 episodes). At the time of writing, BBC-2 is showing the season 1 episodes, whilst the US and Australia are enjoying season 2.

The basic premise is that during a test mission, astronaut John Crichton (Ben Browder) is swept across time and space into a parallel universe. Landing directly into a raging space battle, Crichton immediately has enemies and allies forced upon him. The key characters are: Ka D’Argo (Anthony Simcoe), a fierce Luxan warrior; Rygel XVI, the slug-like Dominar of the Hynerian Empire; Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black), a deserted Peacekeeper warrior; and finally Pa’u Zotoh Zhaan (Virginia Hay), a serene Delvian Priestess. All the characters are interesting and accessible and with the exception of Rygel (who is a puppet), are convincing actors who the viewer will ultimately grow to care about.

A run-down of each episode is shown in the above preamble, so I won’t repeat that again. Instead I will concentrate on the DVD itself and the material it contains.

Video

We are greeted with a sharp 1.33 full-screen picture, which manages a good amount of detail, colour stability and contrast. There are plenty of darkish shots in these episodes and these are handled well, with deep blacks and no sign of bleeding. There are no signs of artifacting or other compression problems. I was impressed to see disk 2 running to over 110 minutes on a single-layer DVD5 disk.

The various CG effects are sharp and impressively rendered. Certainly a match for those in other sci-fi shows such as Babylon 5.

The late, great Jim Henson lends his talented Creature Shop to the project and is responsible for some of the amazing alien creations we see. Although we are in an age of computer-generated everything-ness, I feel nothing can beat his wonderful animatronic characters.

Audio

This is one area in which this collection really shines. The DD5.1 soundtrack is superb - the full 5 channels are used to great effect with good bass extension. I wasn`t expecting the audio to be of this standard, and was very pleasantly surprised. Thankfully the vocal channel wasn`t drowned by the surrounds, and provided a clean and articulate experience.

Features

Although there aren`t a huge range of extras here, they are of good quality and worthy inclusions to the package. Disk 1.6 contains a video profile of Ka D’Argo, the fierce Luxan warrior. This turns out to be interesting viewing and gives us a good insight into the actor behind the character. It is amazing to hear how his extensive and colourful makeup is applied, and Simcoe also gives us some useful behind-the-scenes information. It is amazing to see him without makeup too and shows just how advanced make-up techniques are these days.

Also on volume 1.6 is a gallery of the artwork featuring 12 of the original conceptual designs for the series. These are as good as you would expect for hand-drawn artwork transferred to DVD. I always think that this type of feature would work better if it were accompanied by a narrative track by the artist involved. This would give us a better understanding of the initial thoughts behind the works shown and what end result the artist was trying to achieve.

Conclusion

I am now a big fan of this very promising series. I was slightly skeptical at the beginning, but as the story lines have built and the characters developed, I now find that I am hooked. I have missed all the television broadcasts of the series thus far and instead am buying the DVD`s as they are released. The only problem with this is the frequency at which they appear in the shops. Still, I suppose a few months isn`t that long to wait for my next fix.

“The hottest sci-fi series to hit TV since Babylon 5!” – Total DVD, “A colourful, outlandish fantasy that contrasts with the standard antiseptic SF fare.” – Starburst.

I really couldn’t have put it better myself.