Right. That’s it. I’m a Farscape fan.
The last time I had a similar moment was when I was watching Babylon 5’s The Coming of Shadows. I had previously seen some of the series and was mildly impressed by it. The first season was nothing to write home about, but what I’d heard about the characters suggested that the show had potential. Then the Shadows materialize and destroy the Narn colony and I sit down and say “okay, I’m going to watch this.”
Wayne and Marguerite introduced me to Farscape about a year back. It tells the tale of John Kryten, a NASA pilot, who accidentally slips an experimental ship through a wormhole and ends up halfway across the galaxy. He meets strange and wonderful aliens and is on the run from the resident evil doers.
Farscape was fresh and weird, as all good science fiction should be. The effects work did a lot with a little. Then, yesterday, I saw a two-parter episode from late in the first season. The writing was tight, full of action and bitter irony. The show had achieved a balance of humour and horror that had previously only been available to Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and Doctor Who.
More importantly, the characters had started to click, and the acting was all top notch. I was on the edge of my seat throughout both episodes. And, despite needing another hour of television like a hole in my head, I’ve now been forced to add Farscape to Buffy, Angel and West Wing on the list of current television shows I have to watch.