When you survey the sort of high-budget sci-fi shows coming from the likes of Apple TV+, Netflix and Prime Video at the moment, it's easy to forget that for many years the genre was way more niche and therefore less lavishly funded. After all, while CGI can now make far-flung worlds look credible, the genre used to rely on puppetry and clever costuming.
For the perfect example of how shows from that long era could still be fantastic fun, though, you only need to look at Farscape, which just got added to Prime Video in the US for a new sci-fi option. The show started its run in 1999, and its four seasons offer a really nice journey with some super memorable characters.
In particular, I think the show stands as a really nice alternative to the likes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which had finished its run a few years earlier and offered a different view of the future. Where Star Trek's world generally involves a federation of goodies that don't have much to criticise, Farscape was just a little darker, painting a picture of how such a militaristic organisation could go wrong and become fascistic, even in space.
Rather than the point of the federation's spear, Farscape therefore casts its main characters and their ship as outcasts and fugitives who have to be scrappy to survive, without much of an apparatus behind them. That changes over time, but it's a nice tonal difference. Of course, what might be more memorable are the aliens and sets that were built for a really tactile-feeling world.
There are some really great designs in there, from the classic "pretty much human but a different colour" all the way to completely out-there aliens with unrecognisable physiognomy. Some of these are even major characters, which is a fun one to get used to when compared to many mainstream series nowadays, which play it safer alien-wise.
With a human hero transported from our Earth, though, you get the fish-out-of-water perspective to focus through, which is helpful as the story unfolds, and there are lovely dashes of swashbuckling romance, too. It's a great addition for Prime Video, at a time when standing out as the best streaming service is harder than ever. Here's hoping it can attract some new fans.
