The Rating is based on DVD quality, not series quality
This Rating is based on DVD Quality, not Series Quality
First, I am a huge Farscape fan. I believe it is the best Science Fiction TV series - and the sci-fi channel was stupid to cancel it.
Now, the only issues I have with this DVD set is the DVD quality. The sound quality is awful!! In Relativity, it sounds as if the boom-operator was widely swinging his microphone because the sound would decrease suddenly mid-sentence. I'm not sure if it was technical errors on part of the crew or an issue with the DVD. I happen to lean towards the later, because at times, the whole soundtrack (music and dialog) will decrease in volume.
Other than sound issues, it's a great DVD
Warning about A.D. Vision and owners of disc changers
A.D. Vision has taken to labeling there DVD's with Disc1 or DiscA type of labeling. This of course makes it pretty hard to tell which disc is which when you bring your disc menu. So you are stuck using the EZ Play slot on the Sony DVP CX870D 300 +1 DVD player. Otherwise Farscape is great!
Interviews
I'm a fan so I think the episodes are great, nuff said. The extras include long interviews with Wayne Pygram (Scorpius) and Gigi Edgeley (Chiana). Pygram claimed not to have aspired to be an actor, which makes you wonder how he turned out to be so incredibly self-absorbed. He refers to himself in the third person several times, always a bad sign. I wonder if anyone has told him he's not the star of the show. Gigi was much more charming and interesting, and it's nice to see her without the gray paint. She seems to be much more like her character (fun!) than Pygram is. Each disk has a deleted scene, some trailers and promos.
In its fourth season, Farscape is as much dramatic and romantic fun as it's ever been and it's even more stylish than ever before. A pity, then, that this season is also the show's last, following its abrupt cancellation by the Sci-Fi Channel. If at times the tone seems a little lighter here than in its gloriously doom-laden predecessor, that is because its story arc is the first half of what was intended to cover two seasons and some of the material is clearly here for the long run. It is, for example, probably no coincidence that the priests' chant in "What Was Lost" has been part of the show's signature tune from the beginning.
Episodes 6-10 of Farscape's fourth season continue the themes set at the start of the year while concentrating on one-off adventures. John Crichton is still upset that Aeryn Sun has not confided in him about her pregnancy; Aeryn is still trying to cope with the loss of his dead copy; Chiana is trying in her lascivious way to get them back together; Scorpius and Sikozu are gradually becoming integrated into the life of the crew, and John and the others are trying to learn to trust their former arch-enemy. In "Natural Election," the process of choosing which of the crew shall be captain becomes more urgent when the living ship Moya is attacked by a space-dwelling plant that hangs around wormholes; "John Quixote" has Crichton and Chiana trapped in a surreal gameworld full of old... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Brendan Maher - Rowan Woods - Tony Tilse - Catherine Millar - Ian Watson (II) DVD Release Date: Released the 27 January 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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In the episodes contained in this volume, Farscape's fourth season finally kicks into gear and does some of the most surprising things a television show has ever done. The first three episodes are all Farscape classics, which take our expectations and jump up and down on them. "Unrealized Realities" takes John Crichton (Ben Browder) through a wormhole to be interrogated by a creature who regards the Ancients (who put the knowledge of wormhole technology in his brain) as annoying bumblers and who tells him a lot about time and about alternate universes. This gives the cast a chance to play each other again--Claudia Black's performance as Chiana is particularly disorientating. In "Kansas" John finds himself finally back on Earth, during his own adolescence, with the task of... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Brendan Maher - Rowan Woods - Tony Tilse - Catherine Millar - Ian Watson (II) DVD Release Date: Released the 23 March 2004 Usually ships within 24 hours
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The fourth volume of Farscape's fourth (and final) season does all those things that the later stages of any season should do: individual episodes play interesting games with how we think television works, while the tension of the overall story arc builds and builds. Of the individual episodes here, "Mental as Anything" is an ensemble piece for the male members of Moya's crew: D'Argo's back-story gets some sort of resolution and Scorpius puts John Crichton through hell for the best of reasons. "Bringing Home the Beacon" is rather more fun--the women of Moya frustrate a Sebacean/Scarren peace treaty--but ends in stark tragedy. In "Constellation of Doubt," Moya picks up, and the crew obsessively watches, a documentary from American television about their recent visit to Earth:... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Brendan Maher - Rowan Woods - Tony Tilse - Catherine Millar - Ian Watson (II) DVD Release Date: Released the 18 May 2004 Usually ships within 24 hours
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This final sequence of Farscape episodes is as effective and powerful a climax as those of earlier seasons. The three-parter "We're So Screwed" starts with "Fetal Attraction," in which the crew of Moya attempt to rescue the pregnant Aeryn Sun from her Scarren captors and end up starting a dangerous epidemic on a space station. They get Aeryn back and lose Scorpius; in "Hot to Katratzi," the necessity of saving his worst enemy--who just knows too much to be left a captive--forces John Crichton to gate-crash the Sebacean-Scarren peace conference and bluff his way to success. Seemingly betrayed by Scorpius, John snatches victory in "La Bomba," striking another deadly blow against the Scarren empire. The title of the last episode, "Bad Timing," refers both to the show's... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Brendan Maher - Rowan Woods - Tony Tilse - Catherine Millar - Ian Watson (II) DVD Release Date: Released the 13 July 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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