Farscape Renaissance

[castalia]

So, yeah, there's this show that is quite possibly my greatest fannish love of all time, even though I fell in and out of love with it at times and missed episodes during the original run due to work and then rediscovered it just in time for the race to the finish line and then angst for a few years until the miniseries. A show that gave me a het romance I actually love, buddies to beat all buddies, a Southern character who for once isn't a caricature, and muppets. All of which thrilled me, moved me, and broke my damn heart.

Yes, Farscape. Duh.

Just before I left Wales I started watching the eps from the beginning, meaning to sit down and watch the entire series all the way through - something I hadn't done in forever, if at all. I mean, despite seeing various eps a million times or more, there were some I hadn't seen in years, some I'd only seen maybe once so long ago I didn't quite remember them. Like somehow I always managed to catch parts one and two of Look at the Princess, but rarely part three. Stuff like that. I felt the need to reconnect.

Made it up to A Bug's Life before coming home, and then things happened and I didn't get round to watching more for a while. Then Rome happened, and a new season of Dr Who, and Slings and Arrows happened, and other shows I just had to have, right then. My renaissance got put on the back burner.

Not so, now. The timing has to be right to watch certain shows, I feel, and now is just the time for Farscape. In the past few weeks I've watched as fast as I can dl, and have spent far too much time at the local Dairy Queen taking advantage of the free wifi. I'm up to the Self Inflicted Wounds trilogy now, and just wallowing in how much I love my show, and how much I've missed it. I'm looking forward to watching the rest of the "Season of Death" and all the angst to come; it's really quite enjoyable, knowing exactly what's coming and how much it's going to hurt. Heh. Maybe I'm just in the mood to cry over something, or indulge in shippiness, or maybe just enjoy the pure cracktastic JOY for a while. God knows there's nothing else on tv that gives me quite the same dose of crazy genius.

Speaking of, y'know I love having Ben Browder and Claudia Black on SG-1, and it's great that Claudia has so much great material to work with and can really shine as Vala. And I do love Cameron Mitchell as a character, I do, but damn, someone needs to give Ben something he can really work with so he can emote again. I miss the crazy and the tears and those moments of soft, brilliant pathos.

Anyone else got any Farscape memories to share? Any favorite scenes, lines, character bits, etc? I want to wallow in all of it. Share!

ETA: One thing I only mentioned briefly and would like to comment on in more detail is how much I respect and admire Ben Browder for bringing Southern characters of merit to my TV screen. This is something you don't see very often on American television. What you usually see are the stereotypes we still can't get away from - the "Bubba" character, the Bible-thumper, the Steel Magnolias type of Southern Belle, or the rich plantation owner business tycoon who insists on wearing cowboy boots and a ten-gallon hat. We all live in trailers with cars up on blocks, we don't wear shoes, we all chew tobacco, and there's always someone roaming the woods with a gun. It still pisses me off that a Southern person, especially a poor (usually white, sometimes not) Southerner, is almost the only ethnic group in the US that is still permissible to mock and disparage outright even in a polite or professional setting, and their treatment in film is typically as violent, racist, sexist monsters. Even saying so usually gets one jumped on by any number of people, especially in relation to any racial discussions. Business professionals from the South actively make the effort to try and get rid of any regional accents due to the near-universal perception that a Southern accent makes one sound ignorant and ill-educated. And people wonder why the North-South divide is still so great.

Most of the celebrities who are from the South seem to go to extreme lengths to hide the fact. Johnny Depp is originally from Kentucky, but you'd never know it. Samuel L. Jackson was born and raised twenty miles from my hometown, in Chattanooga, TN, but I'm not sure many people know that. I'm told Kyra Sedgewick is a Southern character in The Closer, but I haven't caught that show yet to see how positively she's portrayed. Probably in that "quaint" Steel Magnolias manner. Abby Sciuto is from New Orleans, but her presentation is mostly as a goth character rather than a Southern one, though I do love her penchant for giving everyone hugs.

Everyone remember that episode of the X-Files, Home, which gave us an incestuous family sporting horrific Southern accents along with all the usual redneck stereotypes, despite being set in Pennsylvania. Yeah. What otherwise might've been a good episode really turned my stomach. shanola22 made me suffer through an episode of La Femme Nikita, set "20 miles north of Chattanooga", which brought out the stereotypes in full abundance in a strange "small, Appalachian town" that looked nothing like this area. We won't talk about those accents, nor the replacement character in later seasons who was supposed to be from Atlanta.

So what (to get back to the topic of Farscape) other than the bleary red-eyed crazy look, the sharp blue eyes, and the way his ass looked in those leather pants, draws me to John Crichton and Ben Browder in general? He's a Southern boy and not ashamed of it. Ben doesn't tone down his accent (born in Memphis, TN and later raised in North Carolina - he's still got a Western TN accent and has said NC will always be "home" to him), even when TPTB writing his characters give them non-Southern backgrounds (still wondering why on Earth they made Cameron Mitchell be from Kansas when he sounds nothing like a mid-Westerner). Crichton hails from South Carolina and mentions many times during the series that he's from the South. And he's smart. FS gives me a rare Southern character with intelligence - he even has a PhD in science. He quotes his grandmother and talks about buttermilk biscuits and remembers truck stops in Macon, GA, and uses recognizable Southern slang without being mocked, or shown as simple. John Crichton is so the Southern character of my heart and I will forever adore Ben Browder for bringing characters like this to my TV screen. We need more of them.

Comments

[wishfulaces.livejournal.com]

I kinda did that, a couple years back--I scrounged up as many video tapes as I could find that had Farscape on them and attempted to watch them in order (it was a bit difficult, due to my mother's and my lack of coherent organization). And yes, I was finding all kinds of things I'd never seen the first time through, watching episodes I hadn't seen since they aired, and it was exquisite watching it all unfold. Ben Browder blew me away at the end of the second season when going absolutely starkers (I'm terrible with episode titles).

Also, the bodyswap episode is probably always going to be my favorite. (It's my sci-fi kink, it really is.)

[chazzbanner.livejournal.com]

I started watching Farscape on Netflix. I still have the fourth season to watch (for the first time)! It's hovering on my queue around the 30s, but I keep postponing it because I hate the idea of not having any left (except Peacekeepers War). And since July my DVD player has been acting up anyway. (I'm supposed to get a new one within two weeks, because of a 'lemon law').

I'm in the odd position of... being fond of Crais. I had been Spoiled about his final episode, but it was a tough one anyway.

[jazzymegster.livejournal.com]

(here via metafandom)

Sheesh, what to share about FS? *ponders*

Thinking about it, there's so much stuff I love about this show, I couldn't possibly list it all. Well, I could, but it'd take me forever, I reckon. I really need to watch the show again - I haven't for years since we did a massive thread about rating episode by episode on the BBoard I was, oof, that's five years ago now...oops. Oddly enough, I've been thinking about watching it again anyway (I've got most of it on various media, but I'm missing most of S3 & 4). Maybe I should damn well do that!

[wingstar.livejournal.com]

...Wait. Dude, how come nobody ever told me about this? I'm about to go out right now and find me some Farscape to watch, or something. Because, YES. I am currently writing this giant post about my conflicting (and angry) feelings about being Southern, and, just, yes. =)

[slashpile.livejournal.com]

Good post! I've gotta say that Kyra Sedgwick's character in The Closer is not at all quaint. She's very original, and very much herself. She's kind of appalling, actually, but she's phenomenally good at what she does, and on the personal side, she's learning. Slowly :)

I remember that one of the writers or producers said that a big reason they made Brenda southern was because of the ways that southern women can use language -- "thank you" can have 300 meanings, but each particular one is very precise. I'd definitely recommend watching an ep or two to see what you think!

[lydia-petze.livejournal.com]

Hi, here via Metafandom.

I haven't actually read your post that closely, because amazingly enough, I have only *just* discovered Farscape and wish to avoid spoiling myself for it. It was a habit of mine in the past, before I got broadband and could keep up with overseas schedules, to wait for DVD because network television in Australia is *lousy*. You can guarantee a show like Farscape will get yanked around into various timeslots and it's just too hard to follow them.

ANYWAY. Enough babble. I was looking for something to watch and found the first four seasons of Farscape marked down heavily at my local DVD pusher, so I grabbed them. OH MY GOD. It had me from the first episode, which is odd for me. I hope to be able to come back when I'm done watching and chew someone's ear about it.

[calamityjcck.livejournal.com]

I don't think I have a favorite episode, there were just too many great ones. However, the one that blew me away the most was Different Destinations. I was just gobsmacked with it and for me this episode truly defines Farscape as different from any other show on TV. Ever. Bar none!

Oh and I'm an original member of Barscape, a spinoff forum that we've had for a few years now. LOL It's a fun group of people and while we don't talk Farscape as much as we used to, it will remain the show that brought us together :)