Farscape - The Best of Season One

Director: Tony Tilse, Geoff Bennett (II), Ian Watson (II)
Studio: Adv Films
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Amazon.com
Farscape: The Best of Season One collects six episodes selected by series creator and executive producer Rockne S. O'Bannon. "Premiere" introduces American astronaut John Crichton (Ben Browder), who is flung into an interstellar prison escape on the other side of the universe and must ally himself with the colorful convicts: D'Argo, a hulking warrior with a fleshy Rastafarian mane; Zhaan, a blue-skinned priest of indeterminate age; fugitive Peacekeeper Aeryn; Rygel, a greedy and troll-like exiled king; and Pilot, the giant insect-like nerve center of their living ship, Moya. The title character of "DNA Mad Scientist" offers them a way home in exchange for a sample of their DNA... and one of Pilot's arms. In "A Human Reaction," Crichton finally gets back to Earth, but with unfortunate results for the rest of Moya's crew. Leading toward the climax of the show's first season, "Nerve" and "The Hidden Memory" make for a bold two-parter in which Crichton is reunited with his Peacekeeper Tech girlfriend, Gilina, and emotions are strained as he infiltrates a Peacekeeper base to find a cure for Aeryn's wound. But the story's most important function is to introduce the dreaded Scorpius, who uses his Aurora Chair torture device to extract what he mistakenly believes is vital knowledge from Crichton. Finally, in "Family Ties," the season ends on a tense cliffhanger as Rygel plots with Scorpius, Crais intervenes unexpectedly, Moya's child turns out to be something of a handful, and Crichton and D'Argo must take a desperate gamble.
Description
Farscape: The Best of Season One is a three-DVD set honoring the best of the award-winning series airing on SCI FI Channel. The six episodes selected for this DVD set were personally handpicked as the best by Rockne S. O'Bannon, Farscape's creator and Executive Producer: "Premiere," "DNA Mad Scientist," "A Human Reaction," "Nerve," "The Hidden Memory," and "Family Ties." DVD special features include character profiles, audio commentary by Farscape stars Ben Browder and Claudia Black, notes from each episode from O'Bannon, and the documentary "Making of a Space Opera."

Amazon.com

Farscape: The Best of Season One collects six episodes selected by series creator and executive producer Rockne S. O'Bannon. "Premiere" introduces American astronaut John Crichton (Ben Browder), who is flung into an interstellar prison escape on the other side of the universe and must ally himself with the colorful convicts: D'Argo, a hulking warrior with a fleshy Rastafarian mane; Zhaan, a blue-skinned priest of indeterminate age; fugitive Peacekeeper Aeryn; Rygel, a greedy and troll-like exiled king; and Pilot, the giant insect-like nerve center of their living ship, Moya. The title character of "DNA Mad Scientist" offers them a way home in exchange for a sample of their DNA... and one of Pilot's arms. In "A Human Reaction," Crichton finally gets back to Earth, but with unfortunate results for the rest of Moya's crew. Leading toward the climax of the show's first season, "Nerve" and "The Hidden Memory" make for a bold two-parter in which Crichton is reunited with his Peacekeeper Tech girlfriend, Gilina, and emotions are strained as he infiltrates a Peacekeeper base to find a cure for Aeryn's wound. But the story's most important function is to introduce the dreaded Scorpius, who uses his Aurora Chair torture device to extract what he mistakenly believes is vital knowledge from Crichton. Finally, in "Family Ties," the season ends on a tense cliffhanger as Rygel plots with Scorpius, Crais intervenes unexpectedly, Moya's child turns out to be something of a handful, and Crichton and D'Argo must take a desperate gamble.

Description

Farscape: The Best of Season One is a three-DVD set honoring the best of the award-winning series airing on SCI FI Channel. The six episodes selected for this DVD set were personally handpicked as the best by Rockne S. O'Bannon, Farscape's creator and Executive Producer: "Premiere," "DNA Mad Scientist," "A Human Reaction," "Nerve," "The Hidden Memory," and "Family Ties." DVD special features include character profiles, audio commentary by Farscape stars Ben Browder and Claudia Black, notes from each episode from O'Bannon, and the documentary "Making of a Space Opera."

Customer Reviews:

Imaginative episodes but awful DVD quality.......2006-05-24

Warning: The last disc did not even contain the last episode. The first three episodes played smoothly but after that the episodes started to skip and freeze which was so annoying to me.
Also two of the episodes were sort of redundant and boring. This show seems to have good ideas and good plots sometimes but it seems to be hit and miss at others times.

Check out the Starburst Edition before buying this.......2006-05-03

Now that the Starburst Edition of Farscape Season One is available - for approximately x1.5 of the price of this set of 6 episodes you can get the whole 22 episodes of season one.

In addition watching the whole season lets you see how the characters and the relations between them develop - which is one of the things that makes Farscape such a good series (The 1 star is for the packaging, I'd give Farscape 5 stars).

Just a note regarding subtitles and close captioning...........2005-06-01

I read one of the reviews below in which someone said that the episodes weren't all captioned for the hearing impaired. I found that the first episode has subtitles available. The other five episodes were closed-captioned. I have trouble hearing as well, but my experience was that all of these episodes had either subtitles or captions.

This is truly the best of Farscape's first season........2003-05-09

If you have never seen Farscape before now, this is a perfect start to the roller-coaster ride through the Uncharted Territories. I have to warn you, though, by the time you finish this DVD, you will be hooked.

Farscape is a truly amazing ride. The characters, even the ones that are puppets from the Jim Henson Company's Creature Shop, have real depth and emotion (and that's saying something, for a puppet!) and quickly become real people to the viewer. Farscape will engage your mind and your emotions. You find yourself thinking about almost every episode for days afterward, and each time you re-watch an episode (and you WILL watch them again, trust me on this one) you will get something new out of the experience.

This show does not deserve its premature cancellation. If there is any justice in this world, Farscape will be back for a fifth season and beyond. But even it it isn't resurrected, you will not be disappointed.

Great way to get your feet wet (as long as you're not deaf!).......2003-03-12

Not having cable or satellite, I had only watched Farscape a few times when I was at a friend's or relative's house (normally after watching an episode of Stargate SG-1). I always thought of the show as weak, with the "muppet" characters as a poor attempt (though at least SOME attempt) to have regular alien characters that weren't always humanoid. But I kept on hearing people rave on and on about the show, so I figured this "Best of" set would be a way to get the background story, and see if I'd get hooked.

Good news: This is a well thought out SF series (though be warned that I am only judging it from the first season. I thought "Earth: Final Conflict" was great, and was saddened as it consistently got worse season after season). You do need some background to appreciate some of the subtleties of what actually is going on in later episodes, and this set will help you make sense of other episodes. I do now plan to buy/rent later discs and follow the continuing storyline.

...

Bad news #2: The last episode in the set is a season ending cliffhanger (with the conclusion in the next season). While this isn't the fault of the series, I would have preferred NOT to be not-so-subtly coerced into buying more discs. Save that for the complete season sets, not for a "Best of" collection.

Bad news #3: This disc is not consistently captioned - some episodes have CC, others do not, and none are subtitled. I read someone else's review of another Farscape set which said that subtitles WERE available via the DVD remote, but that is NOT the case here (believe me, I tried). If you're deaf or hearing-impaired, this set may frustrate you. And lip-reading isn't even a remote possibility when two of the main characters are puppets!

Bad news #4 (well, not bad but annoying): Can somebody PLEASE produce a science fiction movie/series that DOESN'T take place at the "other end of the..." (universe, galaxy, dimensions, etc)? Space is big, REALLY big, REALLY, REALLY big. If someone went through a wormhole that took them into the galaxy CLOSEST to our Milky Way, that is going to be far enough away to convince the viewer that they aren't going home for awhile (hopefully at least for 5 seasons!). Saying "the other end of" insults the intelligence of many of the viewers. Remember, Gilligan got lost for years after only a three hour tour (and rumor has it that he was actually on a Hollywood soundstage for the entire series!). :)

All that said, this IS a good set to watch if you feel the need to try it on for size to see if it fits your style of SF. Even if you end up not buying any more, having only the "Best of" set will look more complete on your DVD shelf than having volumes 1,2 & 3 sitting there whispering at you to "Buy volume 4... Buy volume 4...".

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