When Farscape came to Netflix I was excited to start watching the whole series. I was surprised and disappointed to find I couldn't rewatch the series at all. I just couldn't force myself.
I think part of it was Moya. You can write "living ship" and "starburst" but it doesn't make any sense. While watching the convoluted plots and wild character gyrations of seasons two (partly I think,) three and four, being invested in the characters and what happened made it easier to ignore that. Then, on trying to rewatch, when I knew what happened and how the characters changed, Moya wasn't lost in the background. I know a lot of people feel a sullen rage at the insult of big words, but leaving Moya just there really doesn't work if you're paying attention. This is a huge problem for Farscape since Moya isn't just a cool prop but a kind of character.
I think the rest of it is the slovenliness of the characterization, the arbitrariness of the plotting and the wayward drift from the themes. The last is pretty clearly illustrated if you remember the visit to Earth, where the alien characters D'Argo and Chiana pretty much shout out that one theme is the folly of human triumphalism and the provinciality of sexual puritanism (embodied in the characters respectively.) Except you know that Crichton really was the savior of the universe (included the unmapped territories!) and even China didn't really sleep around that much.
By the end, Crichton and the crew, Aeryn with babe in arms, stride forth blasting the foe by sheer force of good looks and terminal coolness. Then, minutes later, Crichton rejects violence (
) and defeats the foe by demonstrating the folly of war with WMD. You can have your heroes win and you can have your heroes make a statement against war, but having them do both is having it both ways, which is no way.
As for the arbitrariness of the plotting, the return to Earth, which should have been the climax of the Crichton's story, was suddenly turned into the discovery that they had to leave Earth. Way to piss on years of motivation folks.
The amazing fact that Skarran intelligence depended upon a flower that didn't grow on their home planet asks how they ever got out into space. Ignoring the awkward moment, we saw Crichton and crew save somebody/everybody (who were they working for, again, as they did all this earthsaving stuff?) by blowing up the space garden where the flower was grown. Just the one? Then we discover that the flower does grown naturally...on Earth. Uh huh.
As to the slovenliness of characterizations, Crais' weird gyrations from villain to tragic hero were not understandable. I never could figure out what Aeryn really thought of the Peacekeepers. D'Argo was sometimes hyperrage and sometimes wise and kindly. Crichton was sometimes smart and sometimes a comic fool. Only the muppet characters were allowed to stay in one character. There is such a thing as character change but mulitple personalities is something else.
What was good about Farscape? There was quite a bit about it that was wonderfully well done, it's just not characterization, plot and theme. The dialogue was well done. The actors certainly were emotive (they had to be,) and getting to do many versions of a character certainly kept it fresh. The poplit humor was very well done indeed. The metafictional extravaganza, where the show consciously played with SF tropes, was also very well done indeed, a combination of light touch and affectionate regard rarely achieved. The set designs were wonderfully imaginative and owed nothing to Hollywood space opera. The music was good, avoiding Williams-lite but achieving the proper mix of exoticism and the familiar.
Most of all, the show had a determination to entertain that would admit no foolish embarrassments about being SF. It didn't follow the Enterprise schema of naturalizing the fantastic but reveled in the garish. It deliberately went over the top to entertain. The ride doesn't bear repetition but it was a really fun ride, once.
B5 however I can and have rewatched, and will again if I live long enough.
