According to ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ director James Gunn, ‘Farscape’ is his favourite sci-fi TV show ever and the look and feel of the ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ movies owe a great deal to this early noughties Australian/Jim Henson collaborative masterpiece. In fact ‘Farscape’ lead Ben Browder makes a cameo in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol 2” at James Gunn’s request after a chance meeting between the two at a sci-fi convention. All the elements that people love about ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ are here, the constant bickering and competitiveness amongst the main characters, laugh out loud black humour, constant pop culture references made by John Crichton (Ben Browder), the lone human character amongst a group of diverse Aliens. It’s even got an almost ‘meta’ like feel that ended up being so important to the success of the Marvel franchises years later. Perhaps the show’s visceralness is due to the Aussie quirkiness that helps it ooze charm and chemistry between the cast members. Compared to the sterile rigid vibes of 1990s Star Trek this is heavy metal sci-fi that borders of the insane in some episodes. Some episodes are literraly taking place inside Crichton’s head or an alternate universe which visuals and music to match. ‘Farscape’ is as much a journey of the mind, the inner space as it is of outer space. One of the reasons why I love Farscape is its spirituality. The spiritual themes are ever present here, much like ‘the force’ is essential to the ‘Star Wars’ universe, or the spiritual mythology of ‘The Fifth Element’ . Zhann one of the principle characters in ‘Farscape’, is a blue humanoid priestess, her species having evolved from plants. She’s like your hippy herbalist light worker friend, she it often making herbal remedies and meditating nude. Farscape made blue aliens sexy a full decade before James Cameron did in Avatar. The main characters live aboard a living ship named ‘Moya’ which contributes to the organic feel of ‘Farscape’. ‘Farscape’ for me is science fiction if it was made by new agers. The organic aesthetic of Farscape is probably influenced a great deal by ‘The Fifth element’ (1997) which was released a couple of years before ‘Farscape’ (which first aired in 1999). What a great year that was for sci-fi, first ‘The Matrix’ (which was also filmed in Australia) and then ‘Farscape’. I remember Farscape at the turn of the millennium being the most interesting show on TV at the time, but despite being better than many of its contemporaries it never truly reached the levels of popularity of some other sci-fi shows of the era, such as ‘Star Trek: Voyager’. If you remember ‘Farscape’ first time around, it certainly deserves revisiting, If you’ve never seen it before, then lucky you, you are in for a thrilling ride to the stars. It’s currently free to stream of Amazon Prime.
