The Worlds of Farscape Read Online Free PDF

fiction narratives, as the human finds himself the sole representative of his kind, surrounded by a bewildering array of other species, and thus the real alien here—these are all signature elements of the series and attractions that readily signal its difference from our normal experience of the space opera, as well as of most other science fiction television programming. While any one of these differences might well be enough to lure a cult audience, I would suggest that no one of them would satisfactorily explain the extent of Farscape ’s following, one that would lead a mainstream publication like TV Guide to proclaim it in 2007 the fourth best “cult show ever.” 2
    At least one element of the accident, though, does help to suggest the larger appeal of Farscape and begin to justify that cult attribution. It is the sense of what I have termed accidental discovery that operates on multiple levels here and parallels John Crichton’s own sense of surprise at his situation. In his book-length analysis of the series, Jes Battis nicely captures some of this element of surprise, as he describes his own chance discovery of and original reaction to the show, particularly how he had encountered bits and pieces of the series, all of which initially struck him as “confusing and irredeemably silly” ( Investigating Farscape 21). However, they also gradually drew his attention and led him to realize that what first bothered him was part of Farscape ’s rather “innovative” approach to both televisual and science fiction narrative—its emphasis on multiple characters and multiple points of view, resulting in lines of action and of dialogue that reach across episodes and story arcs to gradually unfold in significance as viewers encountered additional characters and began to recognize and appreciate their complex relationships. Thus, while the “lost” astronaut—and only human in this mix—Crichton effectively represents the audience in the narrative, his point of view never dominates the narrative, and his sense of what is right or wrong never stands—for long—as the only rule. Rather, he, like the audience, is repeatedly surprised by new information, his perspective qualified by others as the larger narrative gradually unfolds. Thus, his comment to the rest of Moya’s crew in the opening episode, “What is wrong with you people?,” quickly forecasts what is “wrong” with him, as subsequent episodes underscore: that he is too troubled by difference, too quick to form judgments about situations in these “Uncharted Territories,” too ready to see things only from his conventional, Earth-centric vantage, a vantage invariably challenged as episode builds upon episode to unveil a complex universe.
    And certainly, the great variety of “strange alien life forms” that Crichton encounters on Moya and in the course of his efforts at trying to find “a way home” constantly underscores that sense of difference, while also challenging his—and our—conventional values. For not only is Crichton always encountering new species, both attractive to him (such as the Sebacean Aeryn or the Interion Jool) and repellant (most obviously the Sebacean-Scarran hybrid Scorpius), but he repeatedly finds his own secure identity radically challenged by these encounters. At the start of the episode “Out of Their Minds” (2.9), for example, Moya absorbs a blast from a Halosian ship that jolts the crew and, to their surprise and irritation, shifts their personalities into other bodies, so that Rygel’s consciousness is transferred to Crichton’s body, Aeryn’s to Rygel’s, Crichton’s to Aeryn’s, D’Argo’s to Pilot’s, Pilot’s to Chiana’s, and Chiana’s to D’Argo’s. The result is that each must, for a time, walk in another’s shoes,