Farscape. A muppet too far?
01/08/1999 . Source: Jessica Martin 
Yes it's true, we're a bit late with the August issue because your beloved Crowsnest editorial team have spent the last two weeks in the USA. Buy Farscape in the USA - or Buy Farscape in the UK  Digging up the fattest, juiciest scoops, while making commercial deals that will guarantee us untold IPO wealth and accelerate our rapid progress in becoming the Yahoo of science fiction. Heck, we're already the Yahoo of sci-fi - this'll make us the AOL of sci-fi! Well, here's something we dug up on US TV. A sci-fi show called Farscape. Think Space 1999 crossed with Muppets in Space and you have a fair idea of what is going on here. The first season has ended over there now, and here's the scoop news story, it will now return in March 2000 for a second season of 22 episodes. Farscape's main hero is one unlucky astronaut John Crichton (Ben Browder), whose shuttle has been worm-holed, Voyager-like, into a distant part of the universe teeming with many and various life forms - many of whom look like muppets (well, at least like products of the Jim Henson workshop, which they are). He then ends up on a living spaceship, Moya, with a load of ex-jail birds being chased by some ironically human-looking bad guys, the Peacekeepers, while looking for a way back to Earth (wasn't that the plot of Lexx?) NASA Johnny's companions include cashiered Peacekeeper Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black), noble alien warrior D'Argo (Anthony Simcoe), mystical priestess Zhaan (Virginia Hey), and the short but blue-blooded muppet Rygel XVI (John Eccleston). Apparently, in the upcoming second season, the Moya's crew finds itself with a new crew member - a young thief with a talent for landing them in the brown stuff. There's also a new alien enemy in pursuit. Like so much modern fantasy, this series is filmed in Australia (Xena, Hercules, and the new Tolkien movie are filmed next door in New Zealand). The episode we caught was straight Space 1999. Johnny and the blue-skinned priestess Zhaan ended up in some US chalk pit where a crashed star-ship of political refugees are slowly going mad from some religious mind disease. Zhaan has telepathic mingling of the soul-type nooky with some other blue-skinned priestess, boosting the local shamen's powers, while sending Zhaan mad. Unfortunately, the local ju-ju woman turns out to be evil, and sticks the crew of the Moya in various nightmare dream worlds, while plotting a return to her home world and a very bloody coup using her newly discovered psi-powers. Johnny breaks out of his dream world and hacks up some living-tree type thing which forms the core of the local's spaceship, the centre of the local's religion, and the source of their powers, while also helping Zhaan come to terms with her madness. This makes here even more powerful and mystic, and she gives the other priestess a good telepathic kicking. Their job done, they leave. If this sounds weird - you are right, it is. The funniest thing is the various alien muppet characters. Obviously constrained by the Sci-Fi Channel's meagre budget, the muppet characters rarely leave the ship for any of the open-air action pieces. Mostly they just sit in chairs on the ship and wave their arms about when they get excited. If you liked Space 1999, you are going to love this ! There's a screen desktop picture for your PC at http://www.henson.com/television/series/images/rygel.jpg http://www.henson.com/ has some sketchy details on the show http://www.scifi.com/farscape/ has a more comprehensive offering of episode details, character skits etc. 
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