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I occasionally run into people who complain about Farscape and how its science isn’t “real”. This always stumps me because I think that of all the scifi shows I’ve seen on television, Farscape seems to me to be the most realistic. When I ask people what they mean by that since nothing in a scifi show is “real”, they point to one of the Star Trek iterations, or the Stargate shows, as an example of shows that make the science more “real”. By that, what they really seem to mean is that because these shows have a lot of expository dialog (long-winded speeches) where people explain the science (or pseudo-science) behind all the scifi gizmos in the show, then to them it seems more real.

It is true that Farscape rarely explains the technology you see in the episodes. Most of the technical gizmos that the audience sees are merely used as part of the action in a scene. In an early first season episode, Throne For a Loss, there’s a scene down on a planet where Aeryn puts on a set of weird looking oculars. Afterwards Crichton also puts them on. We see his reaction to the sudden magnification. Then we see what he’s looking at through the oculars. Throughout this scene no one stood around explaining that this gizmo is an “ocular”, and then explained how it works. Aeryn does not say, “Here, Crichton, put these on and you’ll see everything more clearly.” and Crichton does not say “Wow, Aeryn, these are just like the binoculars we use where I come from, only more convenient.” We are left to infer that for ourselves. More importantly, these little interactions with the weird looking oculars are not central to the scene, which is about figuring out how to rescue Rygel from his kidnappers.

In the Farscape world technology and the way it makes life easier is taken for granted. This is exactly the way we handle technology in our world. When we plug our microwaves and hair dryers into a wall outlet, we expect them to turn on and operate. Even if we knew that electricity was generated with a steam turbine and then transmitted through copper and aluminum wires, and even if we knew how an airdryer or microwave harnessed that electricity to do our cooking or dry our hair, we wouldn’t really think about all those things as we were using those devices. Real life doesn’t work that way.

In our world we put itty-bitty lenses in our eyes to improve our vision, use devices as small as a candy-bar to talk across vast distances, and capture the sound of huge orchestras on shiny little disks. Most people have no idea how this stuff gets done, and yet it all just works.

In the Farscape world, little parasitic microbes can translate sounds into brain-waves so that everyone understand each other’s speech, chakan oil can be used for deadly fire power in hand guns without that irritating recoil, and DRDs zoom around cleaning things up and fixing them. Here, too, nobody spends any time explaining how these things work — not even to the “slow” human, John Crichton. Farscape expects the “slow” human (and us) to figure it out for ourselves, but even if we don’t, the action isn’t interrupted by taking time to explain things that really don’t matter to the story.

Of course, part of Farscape’s charm — for me, anyway — is that although not a single moment in any episode is wasted on useless technobabble, I can while away my idle time when I’m waiting in line, or trying to fall asleep, or sitting in a boring meeting at work, pondering how technology in the Uncharted Territories works. Gosh, if during starburst Leviathans disassemble in one place and reassemble in another place, isn’t that a lot like the transporter in Star Trek? And if that’s how starburst works, then that might explain why neither Moya nor Pilot ever seem to know exactly where they are after starburst. How do you suppose translater microbes translate songs? And man, wouldn’t it be NEAT to have my own DRD! It could do the dishes for me, make the bed, have dinner waiting when I got home maybe, and vacuum the carpet. Oh wait, they already have robots that can vacuum. Well, maybe I CAN make myself a DRD if I just put my mind to it.
To say that Farscape is more “fi” than “sci” is to say that in Farscape, the story is more important than the technology. And really, isn’t that also true about the story of our own lives?

Boom Studios announces its second year of Farscape comic book publications, featuring the title Farscape: Scorpius Ongoing.  (Careful, the link to the announcement has some spoilers for those who haven’t read the previous comic book series but who intend to.)

As noted before, these comic books are conceived by Rockne O’Bannon, and are considered Farscape cannon.  They take off from the Farscape Peacekeeper Wars miniseries, and are intended to fill out the Farscape story until such time as when the webisodes appear.  (Which will happen as soon as Brian Henson finds some financing.)

This series will be scripted by David Alan Mack, and inked by Mike Ruiz.  There will be two covers, by Nick Runge and by Chad Hardin.

I won’t be reading these, since I loathe the comic book medium and not even my love for Farscape can overcome this.  (Anyone want a pile of unread Farscape comics??)  I would love to hear from someone who has read them and can let us all know if they’re worthwhile.  Are they worth it as stand-alone works?  Or are they strictly for Farscape fans?

Dukeshire’s blog has a post about finishing the lettering for the first issue of the new Farscape comic series, but sadly, he has little else to say about what he did.  Did he like Farscape?  Was the lettering difficult?  Was there a lot to do, or not so much?  Has he read the series and enjoyed them?  On these and other topics that might illuminate the craft of lettering Dukeshire remains mum.

Here’s a nifty interview with Brian Henson, which includes questions about Farscape.

Amazon has a video interview, with Rockne talking about future plans for Farscape, and Claudia talking about her future projects.  Ben mostly just sits there and delivers wisecracks.

The sound is a little sub-par, but it’s otherwise lovely to see them, and they’re obvious enthusiasm for Farscape.

You can also find an interview with Claudia from DragonCon at ClaudiaBlackOnline.

Reports are dribbling in from the Farscape/Stargate convention this past weekend, which was held at the LAX Marriott. 

• LilFerret’s LiveJournal report (with pictures.)
• Friday and Saturday Con Report at Terra Firma (scroll down for Saturday’s report.)
• Some photos, also at Terra Firma.

Any word on the mythical web series??  Yep.  According to Brian Henson, the creative part is done (which I think means that the script is done), but there’s no way he can get the series made for the money that SyFy is offering.  He’s still positive that it will get made, though.

Fans of Claudia Black can catch her in a new PS3 video game, Uncharted2:Among Thieves.  She plays a new character, Chloe Frazer, an amoral treasure hunter.  (That’s her character in the center of the picture to the left. )

Now…I wouldn’t know a good video game if it slapped me on my cheeks and called me Tootsie, but this review at TechCentral seems to think the game is pretty interesting. 

Check out the video trailer:

Those of you who pine for Claudia’s voice can hear her speak quite a bit in this trailer.

Whoah!

Lionsgate and A&E Home Entertainment announces that a NEW, exclusive Farscape DVD megaset which will include the Peacekeeper Wars will be EXCLUSIVELY available from Best Buy on November 17th, 2009.  This will be a LIMITED run of 5000 sets, for the low low price of $149.95, so be sure to pre-order your set.

For those who have never been to DragonCon, someone wrote an excellent description about it, including a quote from Farscape alumni, Ben Browder.  LINK.  Having been once to both ComicCon and DragonCon, I prefer DragonCon.  ComicCon is clearly rooted in comic books and has a very strong Hollywood TV/movie presence.  DragonCon is mostly about science fiction, and covers all aspects of the genre, including writing and other media.  Both the conventions are big, interesting, and despite what most press accounts would lead you to believe, offer much more to attendees than just celebrity panels.  Although I have a preference, I recommend that if you get a chance to go to either one, take it.

Claudia and Ben both recorded greetings for the website WormholeRiders.com.  (And WormholeRiders promises to post an interview with Claudia in the near future.)  WormholeRiders.com also posted a brief description of the Farscape panel at DragonCon.

Here’s a brief description of the Farscape panel from the DragonCon’s daily newsletter.

ClaudiaBlackOnline.com has FIVE pages of photos of both the Stargate panel and the Farscape panel — Ben and Claudia appeared in both panels.  (They also have video of her at ComicCon.)

Pictures and videos of the Farscape alumni at their recent appearance at DragonCon are already appearing on the web.  I haven’t sighted any written reports yet, but I imagine that most attendees are still staggering home.

Video

More Videos

The Cast discusses when they realized Farscape was special.

My apologies to all the Farscape fans who are still on dial-up.  I’ll try and scour the ‘net for written reports and more pictures.