It’s hard to believe that Farscape first premiered on March 19th, 1999 on the Sci-Fi Channel. That’s right, it’s been 25 years since this groundbreaking science fiction series made its debut with, fittingly enough, the pilot episode Premiere.
Farscape is about an astronaut, John Crichton, who is flying an experimental craft when he finds himself flung across space to an unknown part of the galaxy. He is taken in by a group of escaped prisoners of various alien races, who ultimately become his new family while trapped far away from Earth. Crichton searches for a way back home, while on the run from a military race that seeks his knowledge of wormhole technology.
While one could superficially compare the show to Lost in Space or Star Trek Voyager, the common theme of being, well, lost in space is all that ties Farscape to those other science fiction series. The Jupiter 1 in Lost in Space has the Robinson family on the ship, and there’s an entire 141-member Starfleet crew on board the USS Voyager. Those crews have each other for physical and emotional support. Conversely, John Crichton is completely on his own when he finds himself in the Uncharted Territories. He is quite literally the only human around. Despite his outward similarity to the Sebaceans, he soon discovers that they are different in both physiology and upbringing. It’s the ultimate culture shock being on the living starship Moya, in company with individuals belonging to several very different races and cultures, all very alien to his own.
The series also featured a collaboration with the Jim Henson Company, with executive producer Brian Henson introducing realistic animatronic puppets for regular characters Pilot and the deposed Hynerian emperor, Rigel. The talented Henson puppeteers created memorable characters who were both believable and truly alien.
Shout! TV Farscape 25th Anniversary Marathon
With Farscape‘s 25th anniversary this month, Shout! TV and the 24/7 Farscape channel will be running a marathon beginning at 11 am PT March 19th. The marathon will air classic and fan-favorite episodes of the series curated by series actors Ben Browder and Gigi Edgley.
Speaking of Ben and Gigi, I recently had a chance to sit down with them, as well as series creator Rockne S. O’Bannon, to discuss both the legacy and possible future of Farscape.
Me: Rockne, how did you end up teaming with Brian Henson for the show?
Rockne: We shared the same agent. And Brian had just taken over the company—Henson Company—from his father who had passed away. And so I went in and met with Brian. All the children’s shows, the Sesame Streets, were doing very well. But Brian really wanted to take a page from what his father did at times, which was to do things that were a little bit more adult and a little bit not. He wanted to show off all the aspects of what the company was capable of doing, and do something for television that wasn’t being done, and still isn’t being done, which is to use animatronic characters and puppetry.
And so I came back to him with the idea of a show about a human from Earth who accidentally finds themselves somewhere else in the galaxy and among all aliens. Where the only bad guys are aliens, but they look just like him. But everybody else is an alien of different sizes and shapes and all that sort of thing. And then we were off.
The great thing about the animatronics is that it wasn’t just humans in a suit with a human with a prosthetic on their forehead. It really was an opportunity to do alien characters of different sizes.
Me: Ben, Gigi, what was it like working on the set with puppets?
Ben: My stock answer to that is that puppets and puppeteers are better than a lot of actors. Instead of just using their face and body, they’re using someone else’s face and body and they’re communicating through their hands, and it’s just another form of magic. It’s an art. And so working with the puppets, you stand on the mark, you look the puppet in the eye and you say the words. And then if you have to, you grab it by the throat and beat it.
Gigi: So the puppeteers are fantastic. They’re some of the most creative people I’ve ever met. They’re always open to play. They’re always open for a challenge. I don’t know Rigel for being anything other than Rigel. When you look into their eyes and you’re talking to them, you see a soul in there. You know that they’re in there. They’re made so beautifully. The Hensons have done such a phenomenal job.
I went to host the Jim Henson Creature Shop Challenge and I saw Rigel’s head because he came out for a challenge. I burst into tears and Brian’s like, “Please try and act like a host.” What a beautiful combination of everything from the prosthetics and the sets and the makeup and the creatures and you’ve never seen anything like it before.
Me: Rockne, given a 25-year hindsight, are there any changes you would have liked to have made from the start of the show?
Rockne: It’s a great question. I’ve never thought of that. Because it really was one of those instances of lightning in a bottle. I mean, there’s so many things that happened just right that, yeah, I’m loathe to go back and go, well, maybe I would have tweaked this or that. I would have had the show go for another four or five seasons. But I don’t think that’s a creative decision. There were so many things that just happened just right to make the show what it is that, yeah, I can’t really think of that.
A couple of years ago, I did a comic book series. We did some new stories in comic book form. And that gave me the freedom to obviously tell tales that we couldn’t do on television, in the series, certainly back in the day. And so that was refreshing. But at the end of the day, it still just came down to the characters and the relationships and trying to keep those as fresh and unpredictable as possible.
Me: Ben, Gigi… when did you know that Farscape was something unique and special?
Ben: When I walked through the sets that were being constructed for the very first time, that’s when I knew. My sense when I walked the corridors and walked onto the command area of Moya, I went, “Oh wow, this looks like nothing I’ve seen on TV.”
And then prior to shooting, Johnny Eccleston was the puppeteer for Rigel, and he’s working through all the mechanics of Rigel. Rigel’s up here, right? And Johnny’s down below, he’s got a camera and he’s doing Rigel. I had my kids with me, and my kids were two and four, one and four, two and five, something like that. And as we walk by, Johnny goes, “Kids, what are you doing here?”
My kids didn’t see John at all. They just saw Rigel and they commenced to have a 10-minute conversation with a three-foot-tall slug while I watched. And I went, “Oh, that’s magic.” They were all in the truck having a conversation with Rigel, you know, “How was your day,” “What’s the surf like out there,” blah, blah, blah, blah. It was amazing.
You were constantly turning a corner and seeing something weird, amazing, or beautiful. And then later on the writing and the acting and the directing and you feel like, wow, what a ride. This is the E-Ticket ride.
Gigi: I mean, the second you walk onto the sets, the second you read the scripts, the second you meet the characters, you know something magical was happening. There’s no doubt there.
The first time I realized how far it had reached was when they flew us to beautiful Los Angeles and they popped us up on stage and we looked out and there were just all these people. I think thousands. I wanna see those photos of us because I’m sure we’re all like, “Huh?” We were so focused on making a beautiful show and we were so far away in Australia, and, you know, we’re busy telling the story and creating characters, and then all of a sudden we saw the impact that it had on the outer world and that was mind-blowing and very exciting.
Me: Ben, you had it easy in the makeup chair as a human character. But how was it getting into the full Scorpius makeup for the episode Die Me, Dichotomy?
Ben: It’s a long process. It’s an interesting process. After I shot for the first day, I had been watching Wayne (Pygram, who plays Scorpius) enough to match his body movements and to do his voice and his inflections and his unusual cadence. Anyway, they took the rushes after the first day of shooting, and the writing staff was saying, “Well, why is Wayne playing Crichton as Scorpius?”
The makeup was so good that they didn’t know it was me. So they had to pull it (back), like, “Well, let’s not fully paint it, let’s make it so we can actually see Crichton in there.” That hot flesh technology, which was silicon-based, was arduous to wear, but tremendous to wear.
Me: Gigi, what was the process you went through for developing Chiana’s unique physicality and voice?
Gigi: All I knew is that she was mercurial and she was crazy and she was unkept and she was wild. And she was, was she a killer? Was she just a thief? How far does she go? Do you know? Does she know? It was just, she was completely vulnerable. And she tried to cover it up with all this gusto and all this, you know, “I’ve got this universe down,” and she didn’t, she’s just a mess.
You know, I loved creating Chiana. And I think really she found me because there’s something very whimsical with the Henson connection. And there’s something that I felt was out there in the stars that was waiting. And so when I found her in the makeup and it took, like, a good four weeks, at least through the audition processes and at least eight rounds of auditions and fittings and creature shop meetings and all that stuff as well. It’s the first time when I saw her looking back at me, I was like, “Oh.” So I just created the little movements.
But then as they wanted me more involved with the show, producers came in and they said, “Oh, can you do it like this? Can you change this?” So it really is a collaborative effort, but, obviously, she exists in here (pointing to her head) and then she gets tweaked along the way, depending on what the directors want and the producers want.
Me: What was your favorite memory of working on Farscape?
Rockne: We originally went to Australia for just a bunch of considerations. And once we were there and once we put Ben together with Claudia and Gigi and Anthony and all the Australian actors. They have different styles, but it worked, the fish out of water worked not only on screen but behind the scenes, which fueled that. And then also the Australian artisans that we got to work with. It was entirely an Australian production. And we had all those men and women who worked on all the Mad Max movies. You just have that wild Australian, “We can do anything” sensibility. And that so contributed to the show.
And then certainly when we started to produce the show, I just saw, wow, this is a show that would surprise me in terms of obviously the storytelling that we were developing with my crazy group of writers, but also just in terms of the look of the show and the feel of the show. And I really felt we had something very, very different. And what was very gratifying to me is that so many people are continuing to find the show. It’s very exciting.
Gigi: So, to be on that set, full stop. That’s magic. That’s me growing up as a little girl obsessed with The Dark Crystal, fairies, unicorns, Labyrinth. Anything Henson touched, I was on it. So I was honored to be on, you know, one episode, let alone five and a half years. And later with the Creature Shop Challenge and everything, still to be working with such a beautiful family. I just, I’m the luckiest girl in the universe.
Ben: My favorite memory of working on Farscape? I have too many. No, there is no one. That’s like picking your favorite child. And I would hate to run through the list.
It was great. It was a great time of life. On a Friday, my kids would show up at the end of the day. And I’m thinking to myself, how lucky am I here I am in Sydney, Australia. I don’t know that it could have been better to be where I was, when I was, at that time. At the end of every season, I would just stand outside the studios for 15 minutes and be thankful for where I was. I would just stand there and look outside of the soundstage or out across the Bay, and take in that moment, and go, “This is pretty special.”
Me: Rockne, are there any ideas you wished you’d been able to explore further in Farscape?
Rockne: Yeah, there was what, at the time, was meant to be the ultimate villain, which was the Core. But we couldn’t because it’s great whenever you’ve got a villain and then you think, “Okay, nobody can be worse than that villain and bigger.” And then suddenly there’s someone over the top of them, and someone over the top of them, it’s a kind of concentric circle of evil. And The Core were meant to be kind of the ultimate kind of villain force, actually coming from a different dimension. So the entire Uncharted Territories, enemies, friends, everyone have to pull together in order to fight this gigantic force from outside of our dimension. And yeah, we just never got to that.
So that was something I was able to do in the comic books. But yeah, I mean, that’s one of the reasons I would have loved to have had more seasons. And also just to follow the characters we had, there’s so many more stories to tell about them and their lives.
Me: Ben, how much of the relationship between John Crichton and Aeryn Sun was the writing, and how much was your onscreen chemistry with Claudia Black?
Ben: When they were casting Aeryn, I had been cast and they actually flew me to Australia to read with some actresses. And from the moment I did the first scene with Claudia, I think that it was evident to everyone that she was the best Aeryn by far. I can’t imagine anyone else doing that role.
And Claudia and I have a great friendship and a great working relationship. So chicken or egg, it’s in the script, the idea. You know, it’s fairly apparent from the pilot script that this is gonna be a thing. Yeah. But you know, something happens between certain actors and the camera and the story and it gets real. And it’s fun to watch.
Me: Gigi and Ben, how did working on Farscape change you as an actor and a person?
Gigi: Wow, it still changes me. It changes me because every weekend in between, I’m creating productions myself and graphic novels and films and music videos. In between other bits and bobs, I jump on a plane pretty much every weekend all around the world and visit fans that are still so very, very, very much in love with Farscape. So it’s reached so many people. It’s inspired so many people.
Like just last weekend, some kids came up and I was like, “How did you see Farscape? How is that even possible?” And they said, “Oh you know our parents have the DVDs,” or, “We’ve seen it on Amazon.” I was like wow, it’s still reaching people.
Ben: So what did five years of your life where you spent 70 hours a week in a five-day workweek teach you? It taught me that valuable things are hard. The good things are hard. They’re gonna require you to endure. It taught me a lot about filmmaking. It taught me a lot about people. Taught me a lot about all kinds of weirdness in the world.
Okay, so let’s say, I went to the end-of-season party (for) season one. And a number of people, because there were hundreds of people working on Farscape, would come up to me and say, “Hey, Ben, how you doing?” And it freaked me out because I didn’t know whether I knew this person or not. Some of them I had never met because they were working on the poster, they were working somewhere in construction. And I just thought that was the weirdest thing that I had ever encountered.
So, you know, I had this sort of preview of the world that so many people are living in on either social media or the connected world that we’re living in. Whatever it is that I did for five years of my life is completely integrated into how I think about things today. So, I look at social media and I go, “I don’t know that I would wanna invite that into my life.” It’s like Crichton said to Pilot, “It’s a weird world out there, man. You don’t know that because you’re not getting out.” And it’s just a weird world out there. What did I learn? I learned to embrace the weird, my brother.
Me: Rockne, with the 25th anniversary, have you given any thought to either a revival series or reboot of Farscape?
Rockne: You know, now it’s 25 years later and Brian Henson and I are always in conversation about what’s the best time and how to perhaps bring the series back. And what’s interesting is it being 25 years, you’d think would be potentially a hindrance or problematic. To me, it’s actually interesting. Obviously, I would love to have gotten the show, a return to the Uncharted Territories, on the air sooner, earlier, right? But 25 years is actually a really interesting span of time because so much can change and so much has, potentially for the characters and the actors themselves.
Me: Perfect age for Crichton and Aeryn’s son, right?
Rockne: You’ve been eavesdropping on our conversations! Yes, it’s perfect. It would not be a reboot. It would be a continuation of this story. I just, I can’t imagine not having these characters and in particular these actors because I mentioned a moment ago about lightning in a bottle. And that was just to get this cast. It’s one of those things where you just kind of dream of a situation wherever you have a cast that’s that good, that has that rapport. I wouldn’t want to be involved with a reboot at all. It’s the continuation. I want to know what’s going on with these characters.
Me: Ben and Gigi, if Rockne S. O’Bannon called you today and said, “We want to do a reunion show,” would you be on board?
Ben: (almost before I can finish speaking) One hundred percent.
Gigi: I will honestly tell you that it’s something that he and Brian do talk about from time to time. We were so very close. You know, in 2019 Rock called me up and he’s like, “You’re not pregnant are you?” And I went, “Who is this?” And he goes, “It’s Rock.” I said, “No, sorry, what’s going on?” He said, “‘Cause we need you.”
I went, “No way. Oh my gosh. Are you kidding me?” So he said, “Yep, it’s happening.” I said, “If it’s happening, we’ve got to go back to the circuit.” We went to Dragon Con, we went to Wintercon, we went to San Diego Comic-Con. Crichton, Aeryn, D’argo, Grayza, Brian Henson, Rockne, Crais, we were all there, all on a panel saying it’s happening. And then the world went into shutdown mode.
So I still very much believe that it’s existing. And I say never say never. And I’ll be first on set. I’ll be outside camping out.
A big thank you to Rockne S. O’Bannon, Ben Browder, and Gigi Edgley for taking the time to speak to GeekDad. As a side note, for all of our GeekDad readers: I’m sure you’ll be happy to hear that my interviews with Ben and Gigi could have easily been just the three of us talking about gaming and geekdom, topics dear to the hearts of these actors. But we only had a very limited time for the interviews, so we rightly turned our focus to Farscape. Maybe at some point down the road, we can have a more relaxed discussion about all our geeky interests outside of the series... but you only get one 25th anniversary!
Tune into Shout! TV on March 19 for a 25th Anniversary marathon of Farscape, featuring all-new segments hosted by stars Ben Browder and Gigi Edgley and an exclusive introduction from Executive Producer Brian Henson.
