Farscape

Friday nights these days one way or another you are going to find me glued to the TV set with the Sci-Fi channel on at 10pm. Sure, there are other shows I appreciate and watch, but none of them actively draw me in every week the way Farscape does. It’s a show that doesn’t try to follow the tried and true plot patterns of Star Trek. It seems to follow its own path meandering through the universe, sometimes doubling back on itself, sometimes jumping so far ahead you think they’ll never find the path again. But it all seems to move along. To see the timeline that the writers have for this show would be great fun. Every week it seems that they throw a new twist out there for people to question and analyze.

What really just gives me shivers every week is the dialogue that happens between John and Scorpious. It is so tasty! With just the top level back and forth patter to the underlying current to the deep down and dark meaning that can sometimes be put into a single word. I predict there will be betrayal and trust created and destroyed a dozen times between the two of them this season. The whole idea of teaming the protagonist and the antagonist is brilliant. The subtle nuances that both actors bring to their characters and the way that they are able to use each other’s performance to heighten the tension is wonderful.

Scorpious is without a doubt one of the best-written, finely tuned adversaries that ANY sci-fi hero has ever met. In my opinion no other series has ever dared to put so much thought and history into a quality nemesis for the heroes.

• Star Trek – (TOS, Next Gen, DS9, Voyager) The franchise almost had it close when the shape changers were taking over Starfleet in DS9 or maybe when the Borg were originally introduced. But even they quickly became a force that could be dealt with.
• Enterprise – The bad guys? Themselves … . Sure they have the ‘Suliban’ but they seem to be more of a threat to the entire quadrant. Besides, we know that they are eradicated by the time TOS comes to fruition.
• Babylon 5 – They never even had it close with 'the Shadows'. One of my favorite shows, but they never seemed to want to get out of the shallow end of the pool.
• Andromeda - The bad guy there is whoever decided that there SHOULDN'T be a definitive bad guy
• Stargate:SG1 – Do you really watch that show?

In many of the examples above the 'evil' was a group of characters instead of just one. What makes Scorpious so deliciously evil is the fact that if it weren't for John Crichton he'd be a bad guy but just a bad guy in a legion of bad guys. But because of the knowledge that John Crichton has locked in his head Scorpious has been allowed to rise in power without becoming an unstoppable monster (witness Grayza and her attempt at elimination of Scorpious).

I’m willing to listen to other points of view, but you are going to have to work hard to slap down Scorpy…