Farscape Season 1, Vol. 3 - Back and Back and Back to the Future/Thank God It's Friday, Again

Premiere introduces each character and the basic premise, a sci-fi Fugitive by way of Voyager in a world far from the Federation-friendly universe of Star Trek. Crichton's welcome is anything but warm, and the cultural and philosophical differences of the fleeing outlaws, as well as their pure self-interest, clash under the constant threat of capture. In I, E.T., a hidden homing signal forces Moya to hide in a terrestrial bog while the crew tries to disarm the device (which has been fused to the ship's nervous system), and Crichton makes first contact with the planet's pre-space flight inhabitants. "Spielberg was all wrong," he remarks while dodging military patrols and soothing the fears of a sky-watching scientist. Well-timed to fill the void left by Babylon 5, this is the promising start of a fresh sci-fi franchise. --Sean Axmaker

Description
"Back and Back and Back to the Future": After rescuing two aliens from their disintegrating ship, Crichton and D'Argo fall victim to rather strange effects, apparently from the very presence of the alien female. Soon, Crichton begins experiencing "future flashes" where he is attacked by her--both sexually and fatally. Is Crichton losing his mind? Or does he now, mysteriously, have the gift of prophecy? More importantly, can he change the horrible future he sees?

"Thank God It's Friday, Again": When Moya's crew follows D'Argo to the planet Sykar, they find a strange, almost Utopian society centered around a certain plant. But the world's happy veneer is ripped away when Crichton is assaulted, Rygel's body becomes explosive, and D'Argo and Zhaan become pleasure-seeking cult members. As the true purpose of the plant and the planet are revealed, Crichton finds the Uncharted Territories to which they've escaped are not as uncharted as they seem...

The premiere episode does a good job of introducing the universe, the characters we'll follow in it, and the premise of their main conflicts. One of the pleasures of the show is that the status quo will shift significantlt over time, but the premiere goes a long way ot making these developments accessable, so if you're curious about the show, it will help to start at the beginning.

The biggest knock I have against the DVD they couldn't have helped; the second episode just happens to be one of those rare, weak episodes of the series. I, ET may seem a little cheesy compared to the pilot episode because it lacks the ship battles, cosmic scale and (to some extent) humor of the usual episodes but the point of it is to show that the one transplanted human in the 'alien' in the show. It's a good idea, but played better in later episodes.

People who have watched the show may wonder if the sound, picture quality and extra scenes are worth the price of admission for 're-runs'. I'd say 'no' if those were the only benefits. I really enjoyed these, the visual special effects are better, and the sound is crisp, but by themselves these were maybe an extra 10-20% goose to the overall experience. The deleted scenes are nice, but blink and you'll miss 'em.

The overwhelming argument for the familiar fan to get the DVD of these particular 're-runs' are the overlaid audio commentary tracks. It may sound technical and uninviting, but these are fun and I came away appreciating the show on a level that I hadn't really considered before. With the tracks here and on Farscape 2 you'll get a much fuller picture of the craft and consideration the cast and crew put into making this weekly spectacle. It's not like those cheesy infomercial 'making of ...' documentaries, or the director-after-his-third-scotch mumbling over all the dialogue like the tired intellectual that he is. No, on these DVDs you will be entertained by friendly performers and writers laughing about what they tried to do with a scene and candidly exposing the little magician's tricks about how they came about it. If you don't like the initial show this may not interest you so much, but any regular viewer should have these early Farscape DVDs that let everyone in behind the curtain.