A cosmic flop, to finish off a once-great series

//Not to derail this discussion, but I resent the fact that you seem to be implying I am not also a fan of this show. It drew me inside its world like no other piece of fiction since Babylon 5 and held me in the palm of its hand to the very end.//

I never implied anything of the kind, and I loved Babylon 5 from beginning to end as well, though some of the middle got muddled. A good ending can fix a muddled middle, which is why it's such a shame Farscape will never get one. I consider the last episode of the series to be "Into the Lion's Den: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing". That's the closest thing to a decent ending it'll ever have, imperfect though it be.

//In case this was unclear; I was, am and remain a devout fan of FarScape//

Me too--that was my point. Which you badly misconstrued. I obviously think I'm a better fan than you, and understand the show better, and you think the same about yourself. It's not exactly an original disagreement, is it? (g)

//- the substantial difference between you and I is that we disagree on the merits or lack thereof of the final season and subsequential mini series.//

Good, and that's all I'm saying. You can be a huge Farscape fan, love the show to death, and think season four is worthless garbage. Some people think David Copperfield is one of the greatest novels ever written, but is marred by a horrible ending that makes the characters behave in ways inconsistent with their personalities. Actually, that's a pretty good summation of what went wrong with Farscape.

// That's all. You can quote ratings, but let's be frank - I think in the end other people's opinions and commentary hold as much water with you as they do with me. Not very much.//

It's not a matter of agreeing or disagreeing with the negative opinions clearly expressed by the show's falling ratings in season four--it's a question of acknowledging that the opinions WERE so expressed, and accepting that this made Farscape's longterm continuance impossible. How MUCH you liked season four is immaterial--there weren't enough who agreed with you.

//Besides, I think discussions of this sort are far more interesting when they're one-on-one. If it's all about "my friend thinks so too", it more or less gnaws away at the foundation of personal interaction.//

Okay, I will agree to refrain from commenting on the opinions of others--if you will likewise refrain. Let's just pretend we're the only two people on the planet who ever liked it. It's not as much of an exaggeration as one might think. :-)

//Because people with questions left unanswered want to see conspiracies behind the demise of things they hold dear, no matter how deep in quicksand those notions may be.//

Good!

// Big, slimy corporate swines poisoning a tv show to death, faceless poster boys of evil rubbing their hands together while spouting a sininster grin, as the man-in-the-streets loses once again - it's a safe illusion, so rather than accepting the fact that there is a very substantial financial machine that needs to be fed dollar bills to function and FarScape simply didn't "feed the beast" as well as it should've to maintain the machine, people make up delusions about faceless nemesis-types willingly going against their wishes & desires. As if the SciFi Channel could function as a company purely on good intentions alone but they simply choose not to.//

Excellent!

//To some, that's a far better alternative to just accepting the fact that FarScape got killed because it wasn't financially profitable. People have an impossibly hard time coming to terms with things like the fact that most people (aka "the masses") will never get a show like FarScape and want to excuse this sad but true fact by twisting it into people wanting to sabotage the show out of spite etc. People make up excuses and bend truths to reflect their own anger as they search for a target to pour their discontentment on. It's nothing ground-breaking.//

You're talking nothing but sense here. Giving me nothing to work with. I'm powerless against the truth. ;-)

//I've come to terms with it just like with the ending/cancellation of every show I've ever liked or loved. Things come, grow, flourish and die - as you said - and should be set down when their time has passed. But it's the sad truth that many people are totally and wholeheartedly unable to set these things down and move on. But then again, that wasn't the issue here.//

No, but it IS the issue that the ratings fell because a lot of people who had liked this show a lot began to hate it, no? Again, you're not obliged to agree with them, nor they with you. But while I cannot present their opinions as evidence of the show actually losing its greatness, I can point out that I'm not some kind of isolated anomaly. Well I am, but not in this respect. :-|

//No no, what I meant with my inadequacy to differentiate the seasons was more in tune in the internal timeline of the show; the evolution of the characters in a more day-to-day sense, if you will.//

What you call evolution, I call DEvolution. They lost themselves. The light behind their eyes died out. They stopped being living things, albeit fictional, and became Kemper's little robots. He just wasn't up to running the show without O'Bannon's constant input. Season four was where he took over completly, and it shows.

//Theoretically you of course have a point, but this is more direct and substantial than just comparing A to B. Bringing the Star Wars debacle into this is a bit of a stretch, not only because there were a number of years between Return of the Jedi and The Phantom Menace (which does play into it, specifically from the viewpoint of an audience member), but also because of lost momentum.//

But momentum can be lost in a moment, on a TV show--none of the things that happened in season four were planned in season one. The car was pointed in a new direction, and lost momentum as it switched gears. Kemper wanted to make it HIS show, when it was really O'Bannon's, and he was just the conductor.

I've read enough interviews to know for a fact that almost everything in season four, including Aeryn's pregnancy, was improvised on the spur of the moment--and badly. As John himself says at the beginning of season four, change is NOT always good. Kemper half-realized what he was doing--he actually wrote an article for the official Farscape magazine where he effectively said he was driving the show over a cliff. I guess being a Looney Tunes fan, he thought that wouldn't be fatal to it. But Farscape ain't Looney Tunes, except in that one episode (the last good one Kemper ever wrote).

//I truly believe Lucas has fallen out of love with the world & characters (apart from Anakin Skywalker perhaps) long ago, and was/is merely trying to cater to an audience one eye blind.//

And you're free to believe that, but he had the rough outlines of this story in place for a long time, and it's the execution that was at fault--he tried too hard to make The Phantom Menace family friendly, and he was also trying to hard to make it "relevant". Also, the influence of Joseph Campbell was not a good thing--it's never a good thing for mythmakers to THINK of themselves as mythmakers.

// In a sense, the passion is gone from the work as the "sense of touch" has faded with the passing of time. All that's left is what is practical, what is expected and what's profitable - not exactly a smart move when talking about a world (SW) many generations have come to embrace. Besides, I've always believed the back story of IV-VI to be a short sketch that Lucas didn't even think through in a practical sense. Forming a rough outline into three full features would be a monstrous undertaking for anyone.//

Hey, I was just mentioning Star Wars as a counterexample, I wasn't actually asking to discuss it, you know. For what it's worth, Kevin Smith says ROTS is utterly awesome. I intend to go and find out. And so do you. And so does half the planet. (g)

//Agreed, but there is a very inherit dichotomy in what you're saying (one which you yourself pointed out), at least from my perspective. I've always admired artists like H.R. Giger and Luis Royo, while having no emotional response from one single painting by Pablo Picasso.//

Well, I personally think Picasso is overrated, but he was a great painter, and also much superior to whoever does those motel paintings. :-|

// Does that means that my opinion is wrong or - to tone it down a bit - simply inadequate to be substantial because it does not support the status quo of acceptance and reverence people have for Mr Picasso, which goes well off the scale when measured against the success of the duo I mentioned? //

It's not about "right" and "wrong"--it's about "good" and "bad". Picasso is good, but maybe others are better. Billie Holiday is good, but others with very different styles may also be good. But if you have moved (as I'm sure you haven't) to the point where you can listen to "God Bless the Child" and "Hit Me Baby One More Time" and then deem the latter superior, then all I can say is God help you. You're wrong, and I am not obliged to pretend our opinons are equally valid. That's taking relativity too far. Anything can be taken too far in one direction or another. Farscape was taken too far--it lost its balance, and fell hopelessly into the realm of extreme mediocrity and self-indulgence. .

//Will my opinion be valid in one hundred years when the two artists have passed away and ceased to be contemporary? Is skill a value that can be measured and if so, what's the measuring stick to use? Renown? Appreciation from critics? Financial gain? The passing of time?//

The passing of time--yes. Once people have the objectivity and perspective that comes with the passing of decades, centuries, millennia, then you can separate the wheat from the chaff. And the Billie's from the Britney's. And (though I doubt Farscape will be remembered centuries from now), the season fours from what came before.

//Art as a form of function draws its effectiveness from perception; and the emotional thrust art pushes into us is subjective to emotional feedback;which, again, sets the tone to subjectivity and individuality.//

I have no idea what you just said. And I think I've displayed that my English is pretty good. So you really ought to pull back on the crap a little, okay? This is a goddam internet discussion board about a canceled space opera that hardly anybody watched. I hate it when people try to intellectualize pop culture. It's trash, and we love it because it's trash, as Oscar the Grouch might have said. But there's good trash and bad trash. As I might have said, and just did.

// And this, I feel, is ultimately what you and I are discussing and debating upon - and in that context, there is no room to back up one's opinions with rhetoric. It's subjective. The question at hand is subjective. And perceiving it as universal applies only in the same sense as drops of water creating an ocean.//

But Farscape was ABOUT the universe. How could it not be universal? You seem to have blundered into a conundrum. ;)

//Quoting the renown of artist X does not hinder my sense of self as a person who admires the work of artist Y over artist X, nor should it.//

Who said a damn thing about your "sense of self"? I'm not TALKING about you, I'm talking about Farscape. I don't know you. But believe you me, I know Farscape, and I know it turned to crap, and I know that because I EXPERIENCED it. If you're saying all our experiences are valid for each of us within the privacy of our own minds--well, not to be offensive, but DUH.

//Should my opinion carry less weight because it's not shared by more people?//

No, but nobody's asking it to carry any weight. And it couldn't if they did. You asked me to explain to you why I hated season four. Well, do you honestly think you could ever explain to me why you didn't? We were having different experiences of the same show, right from the start--we liked it for different reasons, so the show that still satisfied your needs in season four cruelly disappointed mine in that season. Fair enough?

// Of course not. Whether or not a certain creative spirit is more skillful within his or her realm of creativity than another certainly doesn't apply to the amount of success they may or may not achieve in the world we live in. Just look at Britney Spears. Living proof that screaming mediocrity can conquer the world.//

But there are people--lots of people, ten times more people than watched every Farscape episode ever aired, who would say she's brilliant and wonderful.

So if you can (rightly) view them as applauding a "screaming mediocrity", why not give me the same right? Because "screaming mediocrity" is exactly what Farscape became. In fact, it's very much in the same spirit as Britney Spears that season four was made. Hell, what do you think Sikozu was supposed to appeal to? Do you think the bared midriff is some kind of universal constant?

//Just to pull out the ol' Magic Marker here; we were talking about personal opinions, right? It is not my intent to compare numbers and see who comes out on top - merely to exchange ideas and opinions. I just want to make that clear.//

Mine is to have a good fight, which I win, but preferably with no hard feelings afterwards. Hopefully our agendas are at least partly compatible. (g)

//Agreed, but I should point out that one shouldn't blame more active FarScape fans for at least trying, putting forth the effort to get their favoured and much loved series back on the air with online petitions and whatnot.//

You can point it out, but I think they're reprehensible, and so is anyone who makes reviving a dead commercial TV series their life's work in this day and age. Whether it's Farscape or any other show ever made. I'll make an exception for the original Trekkers, since there was no other show on the air remotely like Star Trek at the time, and it remains a matter of historical conjecture whether they even had much effect on the process (it was syndication in a time when that meant something that brought back Star Trek, and it will never work again). But even so, they weren't one quintillionth as whiney and self-pitying as those people I do so love to call "Fauxscapers".

// It relies on the principle of "do what you can," and to many, that's all they can do. //

NO IT MOST CERTAINLY IS NOT.

In her commentary for one of the Farscape DVD's, recorded after the show was canceled, Claudia Black called on Farscape fans to stop trying to save Farscape, and "save something even more precious--namely Earth."

The reaction of one fan was precious.

"Screw the planet, I want Farscape!"

He meant it to be funny. :-(

Anyone who thinks it's a matter of life or death whether this or that TV show gets a fifth season or not is simply beneath contempt. But not derision.

//It is, after all, purely good intentions that drive their motivations, even if the desired effect is ultimately a selfish one.//

The end of your sentence contradicts the beginning. Was that intentional?

// You don't support their cause, that much is evident//

And here's me thinking I was being all subtle and obscure. :-|

,// but I would say you should at least try to respect the essence of what they're trying to do, even if you don't second the thought of FarScape returning to television. And besides, their efforts, wasted or not, are no skin off your back.//

No, but they're still damned silly. And ultimately ineffectual. The miniseries was not what they wanted, and it's made their ultimate objective LESS likely to be achieved, not more. One of my original points on this thread, surprised as I am to find it again. (g)

//As a side note, there is one substantial financial market that only fan participation can make flourish - merchandising.//

True, but you need more than a few thousand fanatics for that, don't you?

//For that, if anything, Lucas deserves dubious credit. //

No he doesn't, it goes back much further. Edgar Rice Burroughs, maybe. Lucas invented nothing.

//It is actually a pretty interesting pattern of thought to ponder on whether or not extensive fan merchandising could've contributed to the salvation of FarScape. Quite improbable, but ya never know...//

Nope. I know. It wouldn't have. I mean, the whole point of a market-driven entertainment biz is that the market--you know--DRIVES it. Demand gives rise to supply, which gives rise in turn to more demand. The demand was nowhere near sufficient to create this feedback effect. Farscape was too obscure, too specialized, too self-referential. It was a closed universe, only intelligible to a scattered few. I tried to get a lot of really intelligent tasteful people involved, and they walked away shaking their heads. If we're respecting all people's opinions, let's respect theirs as well, please. Particularly since I now have to admit they were right to walk away, and I only wish I'd joined them sooner. :-(


//And that's what it comes down to - "woulda coulda shoulda". The question of FarScape's quality as a whole, the show's demise, people's reactions to its cancellation, even this discussion - it's all down to probabilities and possibilities after the effect. 20/20 hindsight through individual perception.//

Which is an overly elaborate way of saying "Them's the breaks, kiddo." Many far better shows have lasted much shorter times. And if only inadequate runs for good TV shows was even in the top BILLION of things we need to worry about now.

//Of course. As much as I am qualified to challenge that notion by offering an opinion that contradicts yours.//

But you're not challenging it--to challenge it, you'd have to offer something more than your opinion in exchange. That's not a challenge, it's just contradiction. Now if you know your Monty Python, you know how to respond. (g)

// Remember that I do not wish to make this into a confrontation but an exchange. Much more interesting that way.//

No, a fight is always more interesting--but again, one without hard feelings. On my side, anyway. I offer you my hand--please don't mind the joy buzzer. (g)

//From my point of view, we are all accountable for our actions; as much in death as we are in life. And sooner or later, in life or death, we get our just dues. Balance, karma, yin & yang; whatever you wish to call it.//

Good, then David Kemper is in for a real treat. I heard some nasty stories about the way he treated some of the Farscape writers, from somebody who works in television.

//But moreover, it's just a quote from Gladiator that stuck with me (due to what I described above; //

Oh right, I thought it sounded familiar.

You do know that film is rubbish, don't you?

//the notion of forever is one I constantly ponder upon and play around with in my head). I just figured it'd fit a person's profile on IMDB's boards on that account.//

I personally don't use standardized quotes at the end of my posts--I don't find them to be much in assistance of anything.

Why not just say actions have consequences? As to eternity, I don't think there's going to be any such thing for any of us. We're temporary creatures, and the more we obsess over our entertainments to the exclusion of all else, the more temporary we are likely to be.

And yes, I am well aware of the contradiction contained in THAT statement.

Self-awareness is not one of my deficiencies.

Manners probably is, but it's a good fan's failing.

;)

[deleted]

Heh-heh...yeah, he was awesome :)

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