Battlestar Galactica vs. Farscape
By stephanie - Sunday, June 18th, 2006
I’m a member of the WELL, and there’s been a discussion going on about the best shows put out by the Sci Fi Channel. In response to quite a few people putting Farscape down, saying Battlestar Galactica is the best sci-fi show ever, I wrote the following reponse, included here, unedited:
Honestly, I don’t get comments at all where people are saying Farscape isn’t high quality or wasn’t well-written.
BSG is higher quality? HOW? It’s a heck of a lot easier to look “real” when you are stealing standard military uniforms for costumes than trying to come up with aliens that actually look *alien.*
I just don’t get it. I don’t find BSG to be bad, but it’s not CREATIVE in the way something like Farscape was creative.
Farscape was a classic fish out of water story. It took an average human and propelled him into the farthest reaches of the galaxy. It was weird. It was *supposed* to be weird. I thought it was brilliantly weird.
And after more than a decade of Star Trek shows going downhill, where aliens started to look like nothing more than human beings with a funny nose ridge or other simple facial prosthetic, Farscape was exceptionally refreshing.
(Yes, we did have human-looking peacekeepers, but that was a necessary device for a number of reasons in my book.)
When Star Trek Voyager was started, the Star Trek writers would say they’d need to move out of the universe to make things more interesting…somehow, in their existing universe they couldn’t come up with anything more creative. Yet, in Voyager, they just showed that it was *their* failing, not the universe they were in. Voyager just ended up being the same Star Trek cliches, just in quandrant D instad of quandrant A.
Farscape somehow took sci-fi and made it fresh and fun again. They also did this with PUPPETS, which is a dying craft, if you ask me. Don’t tell me that Farscape’s “Pilot” wasn’t a real character, or that it looked cheesy. Pilot was ten times better than any CGI alien I’ve ever seen. Rigel managed to work too. Rigel was well done too. I suppose, with being so brainwashed by CGI these days, it might be initially jolting to see a puppet character that is actually 3D, but the quality of his facial expressions was terrific. He seemed real to me.
Let me also remind that Farscape came out four-some years prior to BSG, and was using CGI from that time…things change fast in the computer world nowadays.
As for gripping story arcs or melodrama, Farscape had that in spades, particularly at the end of season 2. It was also not “all is good or all is bad.” We had bad characters that maybe were good guys and sometimes vice versa. People were constantly switching sides. Crighton ended up working with Scorpius at the end. This wasn’t just some mindlessly cliched story going on here.
Beyond that, the writing was so funny, so fresh, and so witty. The observations Crighton made, constantly, were a joy in and of itself. His pop culture references, in relation to the alien world around him, were not only hysterical but intelligent and pointed commentary, both on what was going on around him and the real world.
Now, some people who are more into “serious drama” may think that BSG is somehow “better written” or “higher quality” because of its realism or dark quality, but that’s just pretention, in my opinion. I watch sci-fi for a lot of reasons, but one of them is its ability to entertain me.
BSG hits me over the head with a hammer. That’s not brilliant nor entertaining. It’s just overblown drama – which is sometimes good, but not in any way creative genius.
End of rant. Thanks for watching!
June 20th, 2006 at 12:17 pm
Yes, Farscape was out before BSG, but Babylon 5 was out before Farscape, and it used CGI to great effect, combined a lot of story lines over its 5 year arc, had mostly humanoid aliens with the exception of the Shadows and one of the best climaxes I have seen in a Sci Fi TV show.
Farscape does use puppets, but so does the Muppet show. One of the reasons why having the cylons as humans works so well is that you don’t know who is a cylon (I have only just gotten over the fact that Boomer was one) and a lot of people have drawn parrells between this and the situation in the world today with terrorists. I tend not to think that hard about a show I enjoy. It is realistic, it doesn’t have sliding doors or a hologram suite, it is similar to ST Voyager where it shows how the technology.
Because the humans don’t have lasers etc… they appear more vunerable and therefore the drama is hightened.
June 24th, 2006 at 5:12 am
You are definitely right on about Babylon 5 and the fantastic climax – that really was the best, ever. I need to rent that whole series and experience it anew.
July 2nd, 2006 at 10:24 pm
Now, some people who are more into “serious drama†may think that BSG is somehow “better written†or “higher quality†because of its realism or dark quality, but that’s just pretention, in my opinion. I watch sci-fi for a lot of reasons, but one of them is its ability to entertain me.
It is “better written” and of “higher quality” certainly more so than fartscape and the early part of babylon 5.
The acting is better and it’s very entertaining. No, that’s not just “pretention”.
March 1st, 2007 at 12:33 pm
First off BSG is one of my favorite sci fi series but… it doesn’t even come close to touching Farscape. Amazing writing, fantastic characters, superb twists, Farscape is absolutely my favorite sci fi of all time. I can’t stand when people describe Farscape as childish or “not as adult” as BSG just because it had puppets.
June 12th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Not to be critical of BSG, but that show has never interested me.
Farscape is/was a classic! I still would love to see it come back, and would make it a point to watch anything that came out. I still enjoy old Farscape reruns when time permits.
I’ll agree that Babylon 5 did try to break out of the Star Trek mold. I watched it some, but it didn’t do all that much for me either. It got stale for me after a while. Farscape never got stale and was always highly entertaining to watch.
June 24th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
Farscape is simply the best! Now how about a feature film!
June 29th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
I thought email wasn’t to be published? Seens mine has been!
January 30th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
One question only to the Farscape bashers.. Do you think for a second that if BSG was cancelled, there would be anywhere near as big of an uproar from fans as there was for Farscape? Not a chance, admit it.. Farscape blows BSG out of the water.. Why? Well I think it was said best by stephanie, but I’d like to add my 2 cents… Farscape has characters that are so well developed you forget they are fake, even the puppets.. they have humour, intelligence, and personality galore. It draws you in from the start, it’s like being there.. BSG doesn’t achieve that, it is cold, distant and frankly unengaging. Farscape has a level of realism, you can see/feel it being a reality, BSG just seems too far removed you can’t relate to the characters as akin to yourself. Farscape achieves that even with it’s alien beings, friend and foe alike. Hell the ship which never even talks in the real sense, becomes a personality of it’s own. BSG may have a good story, and neat CGI but it doesn’t have the realistic depth of character that Farscape does. Farscape makes you laugh, cry, and everything in between. BSG doesn’t match that emotional depth… not by a long shot.
March 31st, 2008 at 10:32 pm
My problem with Battlestar Galactica is that I want to shove about half the characters out the nearest airlock. Their endless soap-operatic whining drives me up the wall. The rest of the show, I kind of like.
The characters in Farscape, even the ones i didn’t care for, seem much more substantial to me. They’re melodramatic at times, but it’s not like watching Melrose Place in space.
May 25th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
I think both shows are allright, yet far from perfect.