Farscape series: season 1 re-watch

Starting with fresh eyes, it's surprising to see how dated the CG already appears. Crap, "already" but it's actually been 25 years. Holy mackerel. The space battle has telltale graphics limitations that are clearly predating the proliferation of Physics (or Physically) Based Rendering (PBR). At this point, every recent videogame has more realistic graphics in real time than Farscape's pre-rendered sequences. Still, these are beautiful for their time. 

Probably the more interesting element is, of course, the collaboration with Jim Henson's Creature Shop, and the use of puppets of main characters in a post-Return of the Jedi landscape. 

Season 1, Episode 1 — Premiere

John Crichton takes off from Earth, his dad is the cop from Adam-12, and his bestie is the Hotel Manager from White Orchid s1; that's a really interesting drama, by the way! Very human in its portrayal of each character. Crichton takes off to perform an experimental maneuver. Surely nothing will go wrong! 

It goes wrong. 

Crichton is slingshotted across space and lands in the middle of a pitched battle. A massive, teardop-shaped, biomechanical ship is yoked by a purely mechanical collar, while snub fighters and nearby battleships harry it. Crichton's ship, inactive in the crossfire, is clipped by one of the small fightercraft, causing it to explode. The large biomechanical ship draws Crichton's tiny shuttle into its bay. Crichton is injected with "translator-microbes" by mousy roomba-analogs called DRDs. Suddenly he can understand the other aliens on the flight deck: 

1. Pa'u Zhaan, a blue lady. 
2. Ka D'Argo, a massive, fleshy owlbear. 
3. Rygel, a pudgy muppet in a flying salad bowl.
4. Pilot, a sessile, purple insect muppet displayed in a clamshell hologram projector

The ship is a living being, and is used currently as a prison transport, with the characters (except Pilot) all escaped prisoners! The ship is called "Moya" and is, by dint of breaking any number of important control components, freed from its yoke. It flees the battle. 

Caught in its astro-backwash, a fighter pilot named Aeryn Sun is knocked out of commission, brought on-board, and thrown in the same holding cell as Crichton. It is another human... NO, they're called Sebaceans, and are visually identical to humans, what a co-inky-dinky! Crichton tries to make nice-nice with her, and she uses her military training to introduce his face as a cleaning utensil to various furnishings, walls, and the floor. Crichton, so far, has lost every fight he's had. 

In the aftermath of the space battle, the Sebacean oppressors regroup and plan how to proceed. Lani Tupu and his plaited ponytail portray Crais, a commander of the "Peacekeeper" forces. He, and all the other Peacekeepers, are Sebacean. It is immediately interesting to me that the protagonists are non-human species, and the bad guys are all human. Is this about underdogs? Heterogeneity?  I will keep an eye open for this theme as the series progresses. Crais learns that his brother was killed by Crichton in the battle (the accident mentioned earlier) and, enraged, Crais defies orders to regroup and instead pursues Maya to wreak revenge for his brother's death. 

The protagonists visit a planet to get replacement items and fuel. Crais and his attending forces arrive and briefly re-capture the escaped prisoners. Aeryn tells Crais that Crichton is not smart, strong, or tactically aware enough to have intentionally caused any damage -- he did not seek to kill Crais' brother. Crais warns Aeryn that she may be "contaminated" by alien contact with Crichton, and the PUNISHMENT IS DEATH. Well, shit. Now Aeryn is in trouble with the rest of them. Underestimating the clueless human, Peacekeeper guards ignore Crichton long enough that he can wrestle a weapon off one of them, and the are cowed by a number of (one presumes) warning shots. The prisoners free themselves and return to their ship, and flee again toward territories un-claimable by the Peacekeepers. 

WHAT HAVE WE ESTABLISHED? 

• The main characters are assembled, and we have an antagonist. 
• We have a driving force: Crichton's desire to return home. 
• The protagonists are not friends
• The protagonists do not share common values and in fact have Alien belief systems that may be incompatible with Crichton's western civilization / American centered thinking.

New learnings: 

• I've seen most of s1-3 of Farscape, and ALL of Defiance; I had always assumed writer and creator Rockne O'Bannon was a woman, he is not. 
• Andrew Prowse, the director, I had falsely remembered as being Anthony Simcoe (Ka D'Argo), like Jonathan Frakes directing a ST:TNG episode in which Riker also appears. Sadly, my memory here also loses a point: they're different people. 
• Anthony Simcoe as D'Argo is impressive and scary, but the actor is not - this is like seeing Andy Serkis in real life and he doesn't look like Gollum, not even a lick.