Farscape: Peacekeeper Wars Miniseries on Sci-Fi Oct 17th

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Jack

Enthusiast
FWIW, I can't stand that Mcguyver guy. How does he continue to get work? Someone must like him. Anyway, anyone notice the very poor quality of encoding on the SG DVDs? I bought three years of the series without having seen one episode (yeah pretty stupid) and I could barely make it through the first few episodes... :(
 
D

djoxygen

Full Audioholic
So what did everyone think of the Farscape Mini? I thought the story was great, and most of the FX were beyond TV quality. I love that they brought back stuff that had long since been left behind and wove it into the current story. Supposedly if the mini was well received they will either do more event stuff for SciFi or maybe make the jump to the big screen (!!). Total viewership was about 6 million or so, so times 8 or 10 bucks a ticket - that should be enough to justify a theatrical release, no?

My one complaint about the mini - SciFi via DirecTV must have had their signal jacked way up or something because my TV was *freaking* *out* whenever there were large areas of pure red. I've never seen anything like it before. Little flecks and streaks of white jumping around in the red areas. Like what I would imagine digital clipping of an audio signal would look like if it were visible instead of audible. Any ideas on that one? I don't watch a lot of SF channel normally, but I've never seen it on any other station.
 
I don't have enough time to really comment - but I liked it overall. I wish they had had 8 hours instead of 4, but I felt they did REALLY well wrapping things up.

Can't believe they killed off a major character - that was cool.

We just got Season 4 DVD boxset last week, so we're starting on that and it will be cool to see all the stuff that leads up to this miniseries - I almost forgot all of season 4.

Has there been any talk of a movie, or is it just too hard to fill in everyone on the plotlines? I mean, it worked for Star Trek...
 
Rob Babcock

Rob Babcock

Moderator
Overall I liked The Peacekeeper Wars, but naturally I had a few quibbles. First, I didn't care for the sometimes-radical makeovers the characters underwent. Sure, partly the actors don't look quite the same as they did a couple years ago before the series was cancelled. But there's no explaination for why Sikosu has completely changed colors! It's supposedly only been 60 days! They offer no explaination at all.

It's also apparent that Lani Tupu was a little out of practice at doing Pilot's voice. While that's understandable, as two years have elapsed, it was still a shame that Pilot basically sounded like Crace- he never used to.

I didn't think killing off a major character and one minor one was really all that "cool." It smacked more of a cheap way to inject some drama, IMO. It didn't advance the story a bit. Although it probably does help them fend off fan pleas to resurrect the series- given the way The Peacekeeper Wars ended, there's really no way to do so.

My main complaint is that the pacing is too rushed. That's understandable given the circumstances. The last regular episode, "Bad Timing," was meant to be a cliffhanger ending to the 4th season, and the crew had every expectation that they were coming back for a 5th. They opted not to do a frantic rewrite, which of course meant a better episode but an awful way to let a series die. The Peacekeeper Wars then has to compress the entire intended 5th season into four hours. That's hard to do.

Still, minor quibbles aside, the microseries turned out great. The effects are absolutely stunning for network TV, and the acting & writing are top-notch, just as you've come to expect from Farscape. Given the nature of science fiction, I guess you've always got an out if you want to create a new series and bring back the dead characters (the characters that were are important enough IMO that the series wouldn't be viable unless they were brought back somehow. Or at least one of them).

Overall, a fitting end to one of the best series ever aired.
 
D

djoxygen

Full Audioholic
I thought it was a pretty bold departure from the usual SF formula to kill off one of the major characters. How they handled it could be debated, though. The compression of an entire season into 3-ish hours could definitely be felt in the pacing.

I was OK with the changes to the characters looks. Sikozu was always a bit flaky, changing outfits multiple times a day, plus she's been taken out of her culture for a long time (facial markings were never ID'd as either cultural or genetic in the series). The actress playing Grayza was obviously pregnant (visible in face and neck), but given what we already know (or learned in the mini) the timeline for this isn't much of a stretch. Jools had been living in an environment that required more practical clothing and probably less access to hair care.

We, too, were bothered by the change in Pilot's voice - at first we thought they may have changed actors. That was kind of a slip-up, although arguably minor.

I think that if they decide to do future minis or movies, they will be more of the "set in the universe of" rather than "picking up where the series left off". Trek has always had a hard time with this. First Contact was more accessible than most, while Nemesis was less. (Personally I liked Nemesis a lot up until the end, but I can see how it would be almost impossible for a non-Trek-fan to be drawn into it.) I think they could easily do a Farscape movie that would require very little knowledge of back-story. Some of the long-time fans would probably ***** a lot, but given the writing and production value of the series they could really expand the fan base. Most of the best episodes were the 2- and 3-parters. Perfect for a feature-length film.
 
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