Farscape first reactions, also DVD sale!

[marycrawford]

I've been watching Farscape for the first time the last week or so -- I'm still in season 1 and have managed to avoid all spoilers so far, so please DO NOT SPOIL in comments, thank you! But please do join in if you've watched the series.

I never caught this show while it was on the air, and I have been hearing from a lot of people that I missed out. So far, I'm definitely inclined to agree. The show looks amazing, and has a lot of actually alien aliens, which is one of my favorite things in SF. They live on Moya, a ship that is a sentient being, with a pilot who is in a symbiotic relationship with her! J'adooore.

It also doesn't hurt that this isn't a standard Trek-ish story of human explorers with token aliens; the main cast has exactly one human, John Crichton, whom I really like so far. He has Very Nice Arms, and keeps making these completely inappropriate geeky cultural references that nobody else gets, because duh, he's the only human on board. This could be really annoying, but instead it just delights me. In the very first eps he calls a planet Dagobah, and later on he introduces himself and Aeryn to alien bounty hunters as "I'm Butch. This is Sundance. We're the Hole in the Sky Gang."

I also enjoy how everyone else thinks John's kind of a backward species from a primitive planet, and he can't really disagree. "Human. It’s kinda like Sebacean, but we haven’t conquered other worlds yet, so we just kick the crap out of each other." And in the episode I just watched, John tells Aeryn that yes, he does want to go back to Earth even though it's primitive and has wars and disease and no spaceflight -- "but you guys don't have chocolate."

One of the aliens looks human, but she really isn't. That's Aeryn Sun, whom I ADORE. Oh Aeryn. Snarky, gorgeous, stiff-necked and supremely competent. I think she stole my heart first when she got annoyed at John flirting with someone else and expressed her feelings by lifting a massive piece of equipment over her head. She then carried it down the corridor, glaring and yelling something like "Am I the only one around here who gets any work done?". <3

And then there is Zhaan (spelling thanks to flambeau, I sure couldn't tell from the dialogue) -- lovely blue alien priestess who gets orgasms from sunlight and who seems very relaxed and zen at first, right up until she cuts off someone's arm. And D'Argo the Luxan warrior, who has just mournfully said that he and Crichton can never be friends. I bet he is wrong wrong wrongity wrong. At least I hope so, having seen sdwolfpup's adorable Moving Right Along vid. And Rigel, who is a muppet but that is just to fool you -- he is not cute. He is mean, and will sling snot at you if you displease him. Which you will. When you die, he will be first in line to steal your shoes.

I got the complete Farscape dvd set thanks to an Amazon sale that is still ongoing: the Farscape: The Complete Series dvd set for just $50. They last had this sale around Christmas, and I waffled about ordering the set, and then when I finally decided to do it, the price had gone back up again. But it's been $50 now for a while.

Caveat: this dvd set has a lot of commentaries and other extras, but it doesn't have The Peacekeeper Wars, which is a miniseries made after Farscape the series ended. But I figure by the time I've gotten through all the seasons of Farscape, I'll be able to pick it up for cheap; it's less than 10 bucks now.

The British DVD set does have Peacekeeper Wars, but it's also well over 60 pounds, so that doesn't seem like such a great deal in comparison.