Saw it listed in 3rd place of top cult tv shows right after star trek and x-files. was it popular back then or did it become popular after the fact? i never seen it, is it worth getting into?
shareIf it was I didn't realise. I never liked it. Found it boring as hell.
shareIt was popular. It never had anywhere near the cultural currency of Star Trek, not even of Babylon 5 (which is the best sci fi show since Star Trek TOS, IMHO), but it was a show with a pretty devoted following, and for good reason: it was well written, it had a decent premise, good special effects, interesting and relatable characters with interesting and believable arcs, and a pretty good will-they-or-won't-they dynamic between the hero and his female lead, which was drawn out just long enough to maintain the drama, but not past the point where you could no longer suspend disbelief.
It was a great show. All in all, it had a great run, but it was well that it ended when it did; it didn't overstay its welcome and stick around past the point where the writers could make it work. It was never the best sci-fi show, in other words, but it was above average, and it never jumped the shark. All in all, a fantastic show that deserves its good reputation, even if it's not in the all-time best of TV sci fi.
I watched in its original run and liked it. It was a fun sci fi adventure that didn't take itself too seriously. It's sort of like Guardians of the galaxy. A bunch of criminal misfits on a ship getting into all sorts of trouble and occasional saving the Universe.
shareeh... ISH. Not really. As popular as any SciFy show could be airing Friday nights. It was definitely a cool underground show but I wouldn't say it was ever popular. Struggled in ratings with what was surely a challenging budget. I'd say most of the popularity came after the fact.
As for watching it, do you like muppets? There is a giga ton of old school puppetry and practical effects in the show. It's an absolutely radical show which I highly recommend. Very character driven with very satisfying long story arcs and good payoffs. It's kinda a mash up of Flash Gordon and Star Wars and John Carter and all those pulpy adventures. They also take a lot of familiar scifi tropes and put fresh spins on them. For instance, here's the episode where Riker or Kirk gets a doppelganger through a transporter accident. This story is always resolved by episode's end. But in Farscape, they carry that idea out for a whole season. It's really cool. And they do that with all kinds of stuff. There's also a lot of moral ambiguity which can be heavy.
Yeah, they also turned that into a really clever way to draw out the will-they-or-won't-they dynamic to the John & Aeryn romance. Aeryn finally lets go of her inhibitions and allows herself to have a relationship with one of the two Crichtons, and he gets killed (heroically of course), so she is too heartbroken to open up again when she's reunited with the other John -- and perhaps also has come to see him as not being the "real" Crichton. By the time she gets over this and is ready again, John is hurt that she ran away, and angry that she never told him she was pregnant, and he's lost the ability to trust her. And of course, it takes time for both of them to work all that out.
The John & Aeryn (I'm so glad this show came along before that trend of mashing two characters' names together when people are shipping them as a couple) romance was a central part of the show, but the problem with series that rely heavily on the will-they-or-won't-they trope, is that once you finally put them together, the dramatic tension from the unresolved feelings the characters have for each other evaporates. The show can still be good, but it loses one of the key elements that kept viewers tuning in.
The twin Crichtons proved a perfect way to draw that tension out almost two more whole seasons, and only put the characters together at the very end of the series.