Customer Reviews

Farscape Season 2, Vol. 2 [VHS]

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Vol 2.2 is a mixed bag; on one hand it has the moving, visceral episode "The Way We Weren't" one of the best of season 2, and on the other it has the sub-par "Dream a Little Dream" which was canned as the s2 premiere and re-worked to little effect. Still, Farscape deserves its accolades and is the best sci-fi show on TV. BUT SCI FI IS CANCELLING THE SHOW PREMATURELY! Search the web, fans, and join the massive fan effort to save FS from a series-ending season 4 cliffhanger!

I am a big fan of Farscape in particular and science fiction in general. I watch Farscape for entertainment and as long as I am entertained by an episode, I give it high ratings. Even so, Farscape is one of the most original series on tv. There are good stories, interesting characters and the alien monsters are original and unique. Some episodes are better than others I'll admit, but quite honestly I enjoy them all. I am pleased to see the season two DVDs in a four episode format. The more episodes I can get with one purchase, the better. I too would like to see more extra features on the DVDs so the viewers can learn more about what it takes to product this great show and see what goes on behind the scenes. I have all the season one DVDs and plan to collect all episodes that are released. Thanks to Jim Henson and company.

This two-disk set begins in magnificent style with one of the finest episodes in the show's history, "The Way We Weren't." I don't want to give too much away, but suffice it to say it is extremely moving, almost brutal at times, and is one of the episodes that reminds us just what makes "Farscape" so special--extremely realistic, flawed characters, despite their alien bodies, and the ability to always surprise the audience. Pilot's character, usually underused, in very in the forefront in this episode, and Claudia Black deepens Aeryn's character by leaps and bounds in the short 45 minutes. An absolutely brilliant episode.

The next episode? Not so brilliant. That is not to say that it is not worth watching, however. "Picture If You Will," featuring the return of an old villain is disappointing not because it is boring (like "Vitas Mortis" and "Taking the Stone" from the first second season set), but because there just isn't that much to the story. On repeated viewings, a great deal of plotholes appear, and what, the first time, seemed like an okay episode, soon lessens greatly ("The Way We Weren't," in contrast, gets better each time, as one notices more and more details.). This episode is definitely not one to avoid, but isn't that great either, besides some cool special effects and M.C. Escher-esque set designs. It is very nice to see Zhaan kicking [rear], however, so it gets bonus points for that alone.

"Home on the Remains" would have been the grossest episode ever, except its title was taken in the third season's "Eat Me." With that said, it is a good episode. Better than "Picture If You Will," but galaxies behind "Way We Weren't" in quality. Still, a good episode with some excellent character development, very dark overtones, and even a "Return of the Jedi" reference. Great fun!

And with "Dream a Little Dream," we finally get to see what happened to Zhaan, Rygel, Chiana, Pilot, and Moya in the gap between "Family Ties" and "Mind the Baby." Originally slated to be the season premiere, it was bumped, because the production team was worried that the fans would be upset if the answer to John and D'Argo's fate weren't answered right away. Which was unfortunate, since this is an excellent episode. There is some amazing acting work by Gigi Edgley, as Chiana, and also a very interesting courtroom plot. Zhaan's mad delusions of John and D'Argo appearing to her and telling her they are dead, yes, would have driven me crazy, not knowing what would happen, but are, to be honest, a little less meaningful seen in retrospect like this. But, what can ya do? At least now we know why Zhaan thought John and D'Argo weren't really there in "Family Ties."

So, to round-up, we have one masterpiece of an episode, one lightweight, easily disposable, but diverting episode, one good episode that doesn't quite reach greatness but shouldn't be missed, and one above average episode. All in all, not bad...and much better than the last set, which had two very mediocre ones. Just wait until the next set, which is populated completely by episodes of excellent to masterpiece status!

...

As always, the video and audio are superb. The features are lacking. The deleted scene are only present for the latter 2 episodes (so what about the first 2?). ADV informed me these scenes ARE the material aired in other countries (and in previous volumes in the series they were integrated into the shows-but now they have been seperated for season 2-my question is WHY?). Strangely, I for one believe I HAVE seen at least two of these scenes previously...

Like the last DVD, no more interviews and no more documentaries. Big disappointment. The second best feature (in my opinion) next to the deleted scenes, are the conceptual drawings. LOTS of those. Unfortunately the rest of the features are either text files or recycled video from the episodes on this DVD. The text features don't give any information you couldn't get from watching a couple episodes or spending 5 minutes on a Farscape fan site.

All in all, ADV is giving me the impression they are running out of resources for these DVD's. I for one hope will see some more interviews, commentaries and documentaries in the next installments.

It quickly became clear during the premier season of "Farscape" that the default mode for the show was to have stranded Earthling John Crichton (Ben Browder) save the day at the end of each episode. That is why I appreciate that this collection of early episodes from Season 2 of "Farscape" makes an effort to break that mode:

"The Way We Weren't" drops a bombshell on Moya's crew when Chiana (Gigi Edgley) digs up an old datacam tape showing that several years earlier Captain Crais (Lani Tupu) showed up and had his Peacekeepers kill the ship's original pilot. But the bigger shock is that Aeryn (Claudia Black) was one of the members of the firing squad. Except for Crichton, the rest of the crew are suddenly doubting Aeryn, but it is Pilot (voiced by Lani Tupu) who suddenly wants the former Peacekeeper dead. This episode certainly offers higher drama than we have seen before on the series, and apparently the reason behind Crais killing that pilot had something to do with Moya's pregnancy (to be continued?).

"Picture If You Will" has Chiana returning from a Trader's ship with a picture whose image keeps magically changing. Functioning as a "window in time," it shows a future that becomes real, including the deaths of D'Argo (Anthony Simcoe) and Chiana. This time it is Zhaan (Virginia Hey) who learns the secret of the picture's origin and while it is indeed Crichton who has to save the day, it is totally appropriate given the identity of the villain.

"Home on the Remains" finds Moya's crew starving. However, Zhaan gets the worst of it, with his body sprouting buds that emit a toxic pollen. Aeryn stays behind while the rest of the crew head for a mining colony on the giant carcass of a Budong to get help from some old friends. Of course, there are a few complications at that end while Zhaan becomes convinced she has to kill Aeryn to save her life. We also have some movement on a possible romantic front apart from Crichton and Aeryn.

"Dream a Little Dream" is the episode that finally gets us back to what happened in between the end of the first season and the start of the second when Moya StarBurst from the Gammak Base leaving Crichton, Aeryn, and D'Argo behind. Overwhelmed by nightmares of guilt, Zhaan tells Crichton what happened during that time, when Zhaan was framed for murder on Litigara, a planet where 90% of the citizens are lawyers. However, that comic aspect (and the fact that Chiana and Rygel) get to be her defense counsel) has nothing to do with the torture Zhaan is going through in this episode because of her guilt.

The tally at the end of the day is that we have one classic "Farscape" episode, another great episode, and two above average efforts (in that order). On balance, this is the best collection of four episodes to date. Yes, it pretty much ignores the whole Crais has Talon development that was part of the explosive climax of the first season, but pretty much that is what you find to be the case in most of the second season episodes to this point.

The second DVD set for FARSCAPE'S second season has finally come out, and once again it is very disappointing in many, many ways. The fans of the FARSCAPE series who live in Canada and the US are being ripped off by the folks at ADV Films with these DVDs, and this volume follows the same pattern in that it has very few additional features to appeal to the fans of the series.

As with the first double DVD set for the second season, this one has four episodes of the series on two DVDs, with a variety of "special features". The first DVD begins with the wonderful episode "The Way We Weren't", in which the crew of Moya learn of Aeryn Sun's having been on the Leviathan before, and how she was involved in the replacement of the former Pilot for the current one. It is an episode that deals with the matter of Peacekeeper love and sex, trust, and betrayal by someone close. It's also an episode that alters some of the relationships between the various characters on Moya, and resolves the matter of how Moya became pregnant (back in the first season's "They've Got a Secret"). It's a wonderful episode with all kinds of story elements to it that other writers could learn from. The second episode here is the disappointing "Picture If You Will", in which an enemy from the first season (Maldis from "That Old Black Magic") returns to wreak havoc and revenge on the crew of Moya through the intermediary of a painting that shows events that come to pass. While there is some interesting character interaction and Zhaan gets a good bit of the action here, the characters we've come to know and love have a very weak set of material to work with here, and the episode falls somewhat flat. There appears to be a couple of scenes in each episode that I didn't remember from the televised versions of them, but there's nothing extra to them that I could find. The Special Features on this first DVD are very weak indeed. The Claudia Black Actor Bio, the Officer Aeryn Sun Charcter Backstory, the Alien Encounters, the Weapons and Ships are all text files, and a lot of the material here (which isn't all that much to be honest) can be found on the internet and FARSCAPE sites. The conceptual drawings are very nice on their own merit, offering a bit of insight to the series background, but this DVD has nothing else on it of note. There aren't even any deleted scenes for the two episodes, something that seriously annoyed me, since reading several other sources have indicated that both these episodes had several scenes which were deleted.

The second DVD begins with one of those episodes that you either love or hate, "Home on the Remains". Chiana has led the starving crew of Moya to the corpse of a budong, a giant space creature that could swallow Moya as a bite-sized snack, where she and her brother, Nerri, stayed a long time ago. Meanwhile, Zhaan's hunger is causing her to bud and create spores that are the Delvians' means of capturing animal prey and devouring them in times of famine, so it is doubly important to get some meat for Zhaan. Naturally Chiana's past comes back to haunt her, and things are not as simple for the crew as one would expect. In addition, this episode has one of the silliest beasties seen in the second season to this point, the keedva - a dog-like creature with big fangs that is obviously a man in a suit. One tends to expect a bit more from a series that is using the famed Creature Shop for stuff like this normally. The episode is an entertaining one, since it shows the relationship between Chiana and D'Argo that is developing into something else, and gives Crichton the chance to flex his muscles. There's also some
terrific humour here, notably several scenes between Crichton and Rygel, but the episode is not all that memorable - or perhaps it is, depending on your taste in these things. The second episode is "Dream A Little Dream", which was meant to be the second-season opener for FARSCAPE, but which was deemed too non-action oriented after the first season finale (see my review of the first double set of DVDs for the second season for more on this). While the episode is told by Zhaan to Crichton in flashback, this episode is a good story set on the planet Litigara (inhabited primarily by lawyers) that has a few plot problems and inconsistencies, but shows why Zhaan, Rygel, Pilot, and Chiana were as they were at the beginning of "Mind the Baby". Chiana and Rygel both sparkle in this episode, having to defend Zhaan for the crime for which she has been falsely accused without lying or using falsehoods to get her acquitted. The story has some wonderful moments and is worth the viewing simply to see Gigi Edgley's performance. This DVD has the Deleted Scenes on it, but there are only three of them - and all of these come from "Dream A Little Dream". There's nothing really exciting here, although there are a couple of good scenes here that are worth viewing, but there's nothing extra from the other three episodes in this DVD set. There is a Farscape Dictionary of Technical Terms and an Alien Encounters section once more, but these are again *text* versions of material that can be found elsewhere. The Conceptual Drawings are very nice once more, but that's all there is on this DVD as well.

One of the most annoying things about the FARSCAPE DVDs from ADV continues to plague this one. Upon loading the first DVD into one's player, the first thing that comes up is an advert for the ANDROMEDA line of DVDs from the company. For frell's sake - aren't they charging enough for this stuff that we don't need to *pay* for advertising of their other products? The second irritiating thing here is the fact that once again, the DVDs do not have menus at the beginning for actually picking the episode that one wants to view. If one actually wishes to see the second episode on a given DVD, one has to go into Scene Selection, and pick the first scene of the second episode on the DVD. Waste of time, and the folks at ADV must be the only ones who do this sort of thing. Highly annoying. Unlike the first second season set of DVDs, this one doesn't even have a Commentary version of any of the episodes, and one has to wonder what the new deal with Henson that was worked out actually gives us. There are no commentaries on the episodes, no interviews, no chats with the stars or guest actors, nothing about the making of these episodes, nothing that really makes the DVDs any better than having the tapes one could record off the televised episodes. Sure, the quality is better, but when push comes to shove, these DVDs are lacking in any bonus materials that make their purchase price worthwhile.

When all is said and done, the FARSCAPE Season 2, Volume 2 DVD set is a dud. While it's nice to have good quality recordings of the episodes (the sound is terrific on these), I have to look at some of the other series that are being DVD-ed these days, and wonder what the folks at ADV Films are giving us here. There's no real special features on these DVDs at all, and to be honest, this is something of a cheat to the fans of the series. That said, the ADV version of these DVDs is the only game in town, unless one wants to buy the English versions of them and get some of the nifties that come with those. I can only hope that the folks at ADV get their act together and give us something on these DVDs that's worth the cost.

"The Way We Weren't," in which we learn that Aeryn (Claudia Black) was part of the Peacekeeper crew that killed Moya's original pilot to make room for the new one, is one of Farscape's best episodes, deepening the backstories of two key characters and intensifying dramatic tension among the crew. "Picture If You Will" features the return of an old enemy. Although the surprise villain is worthy of a return and the finale is satisfying, most of the episode is unfocused and dull. "Home on the Remains" has the crew of Moya visiting the carcass of a giant space-dwelling creature, where miners search for precious minerals. This episode was one of Farscape's more outrageous premises and features some very clumsy effects. It didn't quite work for me. However, "Dream a Little Dream" ends things on a high note. This episode flashes back to a time between the first season cliffhanger and the second season premiere, when Crichton (Ben Browder), Aeryn, and D'Argo (Anthony Simcoe) were thought to be dead. When Zhaan (Virginia Hey) is framed for murder, Chiana (Gigi Edgley) and Rygel are her only hope for a legal defense. Without acting out of character, they do well even though they are completely out of their league. The writers cheat a little at the end with some unlikely technical razzle dazzle, but it remains a very enjoyable episode.

This volume posses what is in my opinion the best episodes of the series. "The Way we weren't" is crucial to the development on Aeryn's relationship with Crihton. It is also one of the most effective episodes in showing what Aeryn was before Moya. It lets us know that Aeryn's transformation is not spontaneous, despite her betrayal. We see peace keepers as something other than space nazi's and learn they are far more human than given credit.

SciFi 's (hereafter 'Skiffy') quixotic post-cancellation rerun schedule has forced die-hard "Farscape" fans to invest in sets of DVDs. Unfortunately, the kind of static, text-only "extras" ADV includes do little justice to the series. Rumor has it that the fans have been heard and Season Three's set has significantly improved.

Having said that, the move by Skiffy executives to scuttle the show after Season Four's cliffhanger is made more incomprehensible with each viewing of the previous seasons. Even the minor episodes contain multi-faceted character development - most startling in Henson Creature Shop's Rygel - and layered writing. In spite of the flaws in ADV's presentation, this set is well worth owning - and certainly provides a more convenient viewing atmosphere than the present midnight rerun madness.

Crichton and the rest of the crew go further into the uncharted territories. This installment includes The Way We Weren't, Picture If You Will, Home On The Remains, & Dream A Little Dream.

The Way We Weren't: When Chiana finds a PK recording device it brings to light dark and terrible secrets from both Aeryn and Pilots past. The crew finds out that Pilot wasn't the original Pilot on Moya. Areyn's role in the death of the 1st pilot upsets the crew, but when Pilot finds out he wants her off of Moya forever!
A great backstory showing who Areyn was and what lengths she would go to get what she wanted. By the end of the episode you'll see how much of an evolution in her character has taken place since. The soundtrack and visual direction were amazing!

Picture If You Will: A picture obtained by Chiana is brought aboard Moya that appears to have the power to foretell the future. One by one, the crew's image appears on the painting depicting some horrible calamity befalling them. When they seem to be happening exactly as shown on the picture, Zaan has a pretty good idea who is behind these strange events and with the help of John & Areyn she just might have the strength to defeat this old, but powerful enemy from the past. A good solid episode worth seeing, though not their best either.

Home On The Remains: With the crew on Moya starving, in particular Zaan, they are forced to try to get supplies from a mining settlement on a dead Budong. A budong is a giant space creature several times larger than Moya, that when a dead one is found, it's mined for precious metals within it's ample carcass. Chiana apparently had once been with this mining operation, having made both friends and enemies during her stay. Meanwhile aboard Moya, Zaan is in dire need of meat to stop her from releasing spores that are clogging Moyas ventilation system, but the crew all must work mining to pay for the meat for Zaan to survive. Of course, nobody said mining on a budong is safe. There is a creature that has been preying on the miners and who knows who'll be the next victim!
This episode is my least favorite of the four, but still better than Vitas Mortis.

Dream A Little Dream: Was to be the first episode of the season, but Sci Fi Channel wanted to resolve the 1st season cliffhanger immediately, so it was changed to a flashback episode were Zaan explains to John the emotional and spiritual crisis she experienced during their search to find Dargo, Areyn, & John. While trying to locate them on the planet Litigara (a planet whose population is about 90% lawyers... UGH!!!), she's also having to deal with Rygel & Chi's selfish and immature behavior. To top that off, Moya is threatening to leave the planet to search for her baby, Talyn- with or without the 3 of them. Zaan begins to falter and when she is accused of murdering a labor leader, she begins to crack under the strain. It's up to Rygel and Chiana to defend her in court using all their special talents to secure her release before Moya Abandons them. Quite a good episode for Zaan.

It's nice to have atleast 4 episodes per release now, hopefully ADV will improve their special features. They are way too spartan for my tastes. More Commentaries & Character bios- including those of some of their guest stars, and perhaps a blooper reel.