Among all the series that have tried to reinvent science fiction, there is one that looks like nothing else. It is not Star Trek. It is not Babylon 5. It is not Firefly. It is Farscape, it was never the most popular, and it was without doubt one of the bravest things television ever produced.
It was messy, visceral and sometimes clumsy, and it was free. Absurd humour next to raw drama, grotesque aliens next to deeply human characters, and it did all of it without asking permission. Yes, some of those aliens were puppets from the Henson workshop. When a puppet makes you cry, something is working.
Why it still matters
Because it is the proof that a science fiction series can be strange and emotional at the same time, and that chaos is a legitimate way of telling a story. Nobody has imitated it since. That is not luck, it is difficulty.
The one nobody imitated
It is hard to copy a series that works because it is out of control. Farscape mixes absurd comedy with genuine dread in the same scene, and it does it with a cast of aliens that look handmade, because they are. The result is a show that feels alive in a way polished productions rarely do.
Watch it for the relationship between Crichton and Aeryn Sun, which is one of the best long arcs written for television in any genre.
Keep reading: the best sci-fi TV shows.
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