My guest blogger for today is writer, Thaddeus White. I absolutely adore Farscape, and Thad does too.
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This blog contains
minor spoilers about Farscape and major spoilers about past episodes
of Doctor Who.
Pick's a freeview
channel (11) in the UK which has shown quite a lot of good sci-fi,
and I've been catching up with Farscape (7pm, weekdays).
I did watch it when it
initially came out, but missed the start, so I saw that for the first
time on Pick. Memories can easily be rose-tinted, but I was
pleasantly surprised to find Farscape was even better than I
remembered.
The tension between the
disjointed crew works well, the monster of the week and longer plot
arcs are very well-balanced, and the storylines are coherent and
actually make sense.
I was watching one of
the first few episodes, and was actually surprised when the plot was
coherent. No inexplicable rescue from danger, no technobabble poorly
trying to hide a plot hole, just good quality writing and a storyline
that holds together.
But why the surprise?
Partly because one of my overriding memories of Farscape was how
crazy it could be, but also, I think, because much of the most recent
sci-fi I'd seen had been new episodes of Doctor Who (New Who).
Doctor Who started in
1963, and had a prolonged interval between the end of the original
run (with Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor) and the start of New Who
(with Christopher Eccleston). Resurrecting the series had certain
challenges, but also lots of advantages (a ready made viewership
ready to get drunk on nostalgia and a huge body of lore being the
most obvious).
Certain episodes
(Blink, the two-parter introducing the Silence) have been excellent,
but some have been bloody awful (typically, season finales). On the
whole, I think Farscape's the better. And not by a small margin.
Consider the best parts
of New Who. The Weeping Angels and the Silence are new creatures,
unburdened by past lore or what the writers (themselves fans of Old
Who) feel could be an 'interesting' interpretation of something old.
But when the episodes
do focus on old favourites (particularly the Master and Davros), the
inexplicable lack of understanding from the writing team has led to
characters that share a name and little else with their Old Who
counterparts. The Master was a violent, brilliant, self-confident
chap, the Doctor's equal in cunning. And how does he 'get revenge' on
the Doctor after he thwarted the Master's plan in New Who? He refused
to regenerate, thereby (apparently) killing himself and making the
Doctor cry. Fearsome.
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| pic by Simon Howden @freedigitalphotos.net |
After Davros was
introduced in Genesis of the Daleks (which remains the best Doctor
Who story and which I highly recommend) he was the focus of just
about every dalek-related story afterwards. The running theme was his
effort to gain control over his creations, and their desire to either
kill or capture him, to use for their own ends. This wasn't a one or
two adventure thing, it lasted almost two decades. Yet when Davros
was (for the only time so far) brought back in New Who he had
'reached an arrangement' with a Supreme Dalek, which left him stuck
in a vault as a prisoner doing the daleks' bidding. As well as being
rubbish in itself (why not just have Davros in charge?), it was also
diametrically opposed to everything Davros had done before.
Another problem with
New Who is the sonic screwdriver, (the handheld plot resolution
device). It opens doors, it fixes machinery, it assembles cabinets
(allegedly, we haven't actually seen it do that, I think). It was
used now and then in Old Who, but has become really overused with the
new series.
Farscape doesn't have
30 years of history to draw on: and that's a bloody good thing. Yes,
there are no inside jokes about reversing the polarity of the neutron
flow, but there's also no hero-worship of the protagonist. And
because there are no 'old favourites' there's no danger of them being
screwed up. Like the Weeping Angels and the Silence, the
Peacekeepers, Scarrens and Nebari are all new, giving the writers no
baggage to try and handle, and freedom to do whatever they like.
Then there are the plot
arcs and monster of the week issues. A monster of the week approach
means each episode is self-contained with a storyline that is
entirely begun and resolved in that singular episode. Having that
approach makes it easier for new viewers to get into a series, but
longer plot arcs enable a deeper world, better characterisation and
are more rewarding for longer term viewers.
Farscape handles this
extremely well. The Look At The Princess three-parter was a great
example. Scorpius, the main antagonist for much of the show, makes an
appearance but it's very much as as a secondary character for those
three episodes. Instead, the focus is on the political intrigue of an
independent third party which is being courted by the rival
Peacekeeper and Scarran empires, and is undergoing a tussle over the
succession. Any newcomer to the series would entirely understand the
three-parter, and a longer term viewer would appreciate the greater
depth revealed about Scorpius and the Scarrans.
Contrast that to the
plot arcs in New Who. The Bad Wolf was deus ex TARDIS (akin to
finding a magic Reset button in the TARDIS), and the three-parter
with the Master made no bloody sense (and the antagonist's character
was completely contrary to what had gone before). I did enjoy the
daleks versus cybermen, however.
I hope New Who can
improve. A bit less ADHD and screwdriver-waving and a bit more
coherence would go a long way. The best episodes show that it can be
done, so perhaps a shift away from old favourites would help enhance
their impact when they do appear, and avoid hero-worship and
strangely detrimental nostalgia.
Incidentally, there is
to be a new Farscape film. There are rumours, if it's well-received,
a new series could kick off. Hopefully it won't fall into the
nostalgia trap of New Who.
Thaddeus
