'Farscape' wraps up galactic travels

By CHAUNCEY MABE
Copyright 2004 SOUTH FLORIDA SUN-SENTINEL

Two years ago, the Sci Fi Channel announced the cancellation of its critically acclaimed series Farscape and reaped the greatest whirlwind of outraged fan reaction since NBC pulled the plug on Star Trek in 1969.

Now Sci Fi wraps up the story of Farscape with a two-night miniseries that once again spotlights the cable network's aptitude for satisfying long-form programming and an inability to produce a decent regular series. Apart from Farscape, Sci Fi has never come up with an exceptional weekly show, yet its miniseries -- Dune, Taken, last year's remake of Battlestar Galactica and now this -- have been sterling.

As a series, Farscape was by far the best Sci Fi has ever come up with. Filmed in Australia with a largely Australian cast, the show starred American actor Ben Browder as the brash earthling astronaut John Crichton, who fell into a wormhole while testing a new spacecraft and came out in the middle of an interplanetary war on the other side of the galaxy.

Distrusted by both the fascist Peacekeepers and the saurian Scarrans, Crichton hooked up with other outcasts, including leonine warrior Ka D'Argo (Anthony Simcoe), deposed alien emperor Rygel (voice of Jonathan Hardy), gray-skinned pixie thief Chiana (Gigi Edgley), and the hardened, bitter soldier-babe Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black). Together they evaded their pursuers aboard a living transport ship called Moya, with its symbiotic Pilot (voiced by Lani John Tupu).

Crichton and his motley, sometimes unreliable crew endured weekly tribulations while foiling the mutant Peacekeeper warlord Scorpius (Wayne Pygram, exhibiting a capacity for mixing menace with comedy not seen since the departure of Buffy). Scorpius was desperate for the wormhole technology hidden somewhere in Crichton's brain during a brief encounter with the Ancients, a primordial and godlike race of aliens.

Happy to say, The Peacekeeper Wars finds the show's actors, directors, producers and writers in tip-top shape.

Crichton and Aeryn are now engaged to be married and preparing for their first child. Weary of saving the universe, all Crichton wants to do is find a nice little out-of-the-way planet where he can settle down and raise a family. But his friends call on him one last time. It seems the Scarrans are preparing to overrun the Peacekeepers and enslave the known galaxy.

You need not be a fanatical follower of the show in order to relish this miniseries. All you need is a taste for science fiction.

Production values and special effects are near big-screen in quality. The script, by David Kemper and series creator Rockne S. O'Bannon, is full of wit, irony and sexy jokes.

Not least among the marks of quality is the way Peacekeeper Wars has succeeded, after the usual long flirtation, in linking its male and female leads romantically without blowing the tension between them.

The Peacekeeper Wars takes Farscape out in a blaze of glory. It will long be remembered as one of the finest science-fiction productions to grace the small screen.
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