Movie Review: We Were Here

Imagine finding a vague and disturbing piece of paper stuck to the window of your local pharmacy, showing pictures of mysterious dark splotches on a man’s skin, warning you that something bad is doing the rounds. Imagine more and more people around you – friends, colleagues, partners, family, the guy serving you coffee at your local diner - starting to get these markings and dying soon thereafter. It’s unclear what is causing this sickness or how you get it, just that it seems to be mostly hitting the gay community you are part of. There is no cure, no treatment. If it turns out you are infected, you will inevitably end up in a medical facility, where a brave but desperate group of nurses and volunteer caretakers will try to ease your pain as you lie dying, wasting away to nothing. Paranoia reigns about any kind of intimate physical contact and you start to dread getting calls from friends, fearing to hear that yet another one of them is headed towards an early death, leaving you even more alone and reminding you that you may be next. This isn’t the plot to a horror movie, this is suddenly your life. It’s San Francisco during the eighties and something called AIDS – initially called GRID (gay-related immune deficiency) - is turning into an epidemic.

The documentary We Were Here? tells the story of this traumatic period through interviews with people who each experienced it from their own unique perspective. There’s Daniel Goldstein, for instance, a man who lost countless friends and two lovers, got HIV himself but survived through luck and determination. There’s Ed Wolf, who by chance managed to dodge the disease and volunteered as a buddy for the dying. There’s Guy Clark, who owned a flower shop and ended up doing way too many funerals. The interviews are intercut with old film footage and pictures of men initially smiling and care-free, with no idea what is about to hit them.

Rather than getting too deeply into the medical details or the political aspects, the documentary is primarily a portrait of the San Francisco gay community as it got battered by the catastrophic epidemic, lost many of its members, pulled together stronger than ever before and ultimately managed to overcome. It puts a face on something that those who did not go through are tempted to repress, because AIDS and HIV put a damper on the still relatively new-found sexual liberation of gay men. Now that HIV is more a chronic disease rather than a quick killer, we want to forget how much this disease cost our community and get on with our lives. But it’s good that this documentary exists as a tribute to the generation of gay men who were hit the hardest, those who didn’t survive until the first retro-virals started to appear.

I saw this movie in a theater as part of a gay and lesbian movie festival and the audience and me were completely absorbed by it. There was deep silence as people listened intently, there were relieved bursts of laughter at the occasional sassy turn of phrase and there were a whole lot of barely contained sobs as the tale was told. We Were Here draws you in and puts you through the wringer, but you feel better for the experience. By the end you’ll want to hug the people who made themselves vulnerable and poured their heart out to you in the interviews. It’s a great documentary and should not be missed.

Movie Review: Skoonheid / Beauty

Skoonheid (Beauty)is a movie about South-African ‘Boer’ Francois van Heerden who forms an unhealthy obsession with his attractive, twenty-something nephew. The viewer follows Francois as he lives his frustrating life: saddled with a woman and a daughter he does not seem to particularly care for, working at the wood mill he owns, occasionally hooking up with other closeted gay men in the area for what is depicted as very mundane and depressing group sex. We see that he feels disconnected: both from his family life and from gay men who are open about their sexuality. The viewer gets a knot in his stomach watching his awkward attempts to get closer to his nephew, knowing that this is going to end badly for one or both of them.

Skoonheid is interesting and has a complex central character who holds you attention even as he ultimately repulses, but the movie is agonizingly slow. I checked my watch twice to see how close Skoonheid was getting to the end of its advertised 105 minutes runtime, which is not a good sign. When painting a mood picture, rather than putting together a heavily plotted piece, it’s not always clear when you’re ‘done’, because structure doesn’t provide much in the way of guidance. In this case, less would have been more: there are scenes that seem to hit the same notes a few too many times. Despite this, the movie manages to stay narratively vague: even though we are observing Francois up close and personal, what is going through his mind remains a mystery at some crucial points. And it’s not just what’s happening in his mind that is sometimes unclear. There are a few ambiguous scenes at the end of the movie, that leave you guessing as to what is actually going on because you are deliberately not being given complete information.

Art-house movies sometimes get a bad rep for being boring and pretentious and up to a certain point, Skoonheid is guilty of these sins. But it offers up an interesting character study and gives more food for thought than your average generic blockbuster. Its open-to-interpretation later scenes may frustrate, but it’s worth seeing once. And then likely never again.

Book review: Extra Lives: why video games matter

I just finished reading Extra Lives: why video games matter by Tom Bissell. It is a curious book: part gamer memoir, part behind-the-scenes interviews at various game studios and part ponderance on the medium of video games. Bissell’s love of video games is obvious and infectious and his reminisces about playing various games are entertaining. The fun of games is obviously primarily in the playing, but there is also satisfaction to be found in analyzing how they work and why they affect you the way they do. I am not sure that Bissell answers the question he references in the title though and the various chapters don’t form a whole that is greater than its parts. Anyone not already interested in games is unlikely to be converted by this book, but then again: these people would not be reading the book to begin with. Gamer enthusiasts who pick up Extra Lives will likely smile in recognition at well-worded observations, but are unlikely to learn anything new.

Being a writer, Bissell is mostly fascinated by the narrative possibilities and limitations of video games. You can tell a beautifully crafted, carefully paced story, but this will tend to severely limit the freedom the players have to create their own experience. The more you allow them to shape their own narrative, the more unforeseen variables come into play, meaning you have to loosen your grip on plotting and pacing. There is an ever-present tension between narrative control and player-induced chaos. The book doesn’t provide a solution to this conundrum, as there doesn’t seem to be one. Still, it is an interesting topic which resurfaces a few times and is discussed at length.

Conclusion: if you are a gamer who has a candle or flashlight at hand during a power outage, this is a very good book to keep you busy until you can fire up your pc or console again.

Television Review: American Horror Story

American Horror story is a series by the creator of Nip/Tuck (Ryan Murphy) and the co-creator of Glee (Brad Falchuk) which tries to marry the ‘haunted house’ subgenre of horror with a serialized format. It follows a couple on the verge of divorce (Connie Britton & a butt-flashing Dylan McDermott) and their daughter (Taissa Farmiga), who move into an ominous-looking mansion and stay there despite various creepy and even downright life-threatening things happening to them. Admittedly, the series comes up with some practical and pseudo-mystical reasons to explain why the Harmon family sticks around, but they just aren’t all that convincing. As a viewer you ultimately have to go with it, reasoning that if they would run off screaming, there would be no series. And that would be a shame because it is actually rather good: atmospheric, if more adept at making you squirm than making you scared. It is somewhat luridly sensationalist but very entertaining.

What makes the series work, is that it is good at finding topics and situations – sometimes subtle and mundane - that make the majority of people uncomfortable even if the fear is often based on gut feelings that are not quite politically correct. It checks off high-school shootings, down-syndrome, fetish gear, gay sex, infidelity, pregnancy scares, disfigured faces (body horror in general) and food scares. My favorite: a white, straight man’s fear that a strong, handsome black man will make a move on his wife and all the below-the-belt insecurities this anxiety ties into. The series doesn’t state the fear outright – it generally doesn’t - but that’s what is being played on. The neat trick it manages to pull off, is that it stays fairly politically correct and sympathetic despite playing on the more base instincts. A gay man getting a baseball bat up the butt – off-screen – is a cheap shot, but works to make the viewer cringe and the recurring gay couple is shown to be as (un)likable as the rest of the cast for the rest of the time. Not their sexuality but the dynamic of their relationship gets most of the attention, featuring a good acting job from Sylar, aka Spock, aka actor Zachary Quinto, who recently came out of the closet.

American Horror Story is fast-paced and employs such visual tricks as uncomfortably close close-ups, fuzzy-vision and floaty-cam on occasion. It even has a tendency to forget wrapping up scenes in its desire to move right along. Especially in the first couple of episodes, there are awkward conversations and situations that are suddenly abandoned, clearly to make sure the tension is not released and instead carried over to the rest of the episode, but they leave the viewer thinking: ‘There’s no way that was the end of it. How did that play out?’

As the series progresses, we get flashbacks to the horrible history of the haunted abode, which houses dark secrets layered to an almost comical degree. They do tie together somewhat even if the overarching explanation remains vague. Considering the concept of a haunted house, I don’t spoil much when I say that at some points ghosts make an appearance, who come with a not very clear set of existential rules attached. Especially the question of when and why some of them show up, while at other times they are conspicuously absent and don’t even seem to be listening in, is a bit of a head-scratcher.

I haven’t yet mentioned one important reason to watch this show: Jessica Lange, who plays an aging Southern Belle like no one else can and clearly relishes the opportunity. She lives next to the Harmons with her down-syndrome daughter and a closet full of skeletons (speaking figuratively, but only just). Fascinatingly creepy, she steals any scene she shows up in. Actually, I could have watched Jessica Lange watch fresh paint dry for the duration for the series without getting bored.

Though the first season of American Horror Story wraps up most of the plotlines nicely by the last episode, a second season is in the works. The idea seems to be to tell a fairly self-contained, serialized story per season, loosely linking one to the next by way of a few returning cast members. I am curious about the next chapter, but this series is off to a good start. And seeing Dylan McDermott crying-while-masturbating is a sight that will haunt me for a long time to come.

Game Review: Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Deus Ex: Human Revolution takes place in a moody tech-noir near-future in which nearly everyone seems to have settled on a yellowish color scheme. And more importantly: people are getting ‘augments’, technical enhancements grafted onto or into their body, which give them special abilities. This is the big moral issue of the era: should people be getting such augments or does it make them less than human somehow? To what degree should it be allowed and regulated? Will it create a new class of humans, leaving the regular folk behind? And as people who have been augmented need to keep taking expensive medication to keep functioning, does this put them at the mercy of big corporations, who could ultimately use them to do their evil bidding? People ponder these ethical questions and – it seems – little else. Overheard conversations, newscasts, strewn about newspapers and e-books almost completely focus on the same topic, which does give it some weight but also makes the game world seem small somehow.

Your vessel through this world: Adam (biblical reference alert) Jensen, a corporate guy with nifty hair, a gravelly, monotonous voice, cool shades and a mysterious childhood, who has been outfitted with augments up the wazoo after a near-death experience. For reasons of gameplay, these can only be activated one-by-one, using ‘Praxis kits’ that can be bought or found, but are mostly earned through acquiring experience points during the missions you carry out to find out what happened to you lost-and-presumed-dead scientist lady lover and to unravel a corporate conspiracy. In turn, the special skills you get help you ramp up for the trickier missions that are to follow. The fun is in deciding on the order in which you activate the augments, which will depend on how you want to play the game. You can choose a stealth approach and try to slip by guards undetected, finding alternate routes. You can focus on hacking computers and safes to find loot, access otherwise closed-off areas or to turn the enemies’ gun turrets and robots against them. Or you can more or less fight your way through with guns ablaze, though this does not seem to be the designers’ favorite mode of play. Even with his protective ‘dermal armor’ leveled up to the max, Adam is still fairly vulnerable to bullets, so any gunfight is likely to take place from behind cover, perhaps ending in a quick sprint to your assailant to knock him out if you are trying to be non-lethal.

Curiously, the boss-fights in the game require that you to have upped your defenses and come packing heat, which is a cold splash in the face to people focusing on stealth. The development of the bosses was apparently outsourced to a different game studio which did not get the ‘multiple approaches should be possible’ memo. Especially the first boss is a real pain, as Adam starts out weak and is barely a match for him at that point. Tip: if you don’t want to have to worry about the bosses, pick the two upgrades for the Typhoon early on, which allows you to send out a 360 degrees shockwave. Two hits of this makes any boss fight an extremely short one; just make sure to conserve the rare ammo for it for bosses and emergencies. And steering clear of spoilers: there is a decision to be made about halfway through the game which will greatly impact how difficult the third boss-fight is. If you don’t want to run the risk of making the wrong choice, look up a walkthrough.

My personal approach: I always started with stealth, knocking out as many guards as possible for the experience points. If I got caught and/or bored I would clear an area with my non-lethal tranquilizer dart gun (looking back, I’d advise the stun gun instead) or the more lethal 10mm, shotgun or revolver. Due to your limited inventory, the game constantly has you weighing exciting new weapons against sticking with the ones you have lovingly upgraded. I stuck to my guns, so to speak. I hacked any computer I could find even if I had a password at the ready, also for the experience points. Then I went looking around the areas I’d cleared for hidden paths. Regularly when I thought I was going somewhere new, I found out I had actually discovered an alternate route into the place I just left. Though you do have to upgrade some of the hacking and stealth skills a little, on the whole it’s best to focus on those that allow you to find these routes, by lifting the heavy objects blocking them, busting through walls, jumping higher or falling down from a height without killing yourself. Also an augment to put on your shopping list early-on is the ‘social enhancer’ which allows you to manipulate people in conversation into doing what you want, which really helps along the main story. Beware: some of the available augments are actually completely useless, so think about the practicality of them before potentially wasting a Praxis.

Stealth can be fairly tricky: the guards have perfect vision, spotting you through windows and from far away, but they lack logical reasoning or the ability to bend at the knees to peek into and/or follow you into near-the-ground ducts or over obstacles. Encountering a barrier, they will hang around nervously for a while and then wander off, going ‘Oh, well – I guess he’s gone.’ Even if you are just barely out of sight in the same duct they just saw you get into and there is a big pile of bodies in front, from panicked guards whom you just kept shooting in the legs until they dropped.

The humans populating the Deus Ex world aren’t the most engaging bunch in general unfortunately. The facial animation and body movements in the – oddly dark – cut scenes aren’t all that great and seem – ironically – mechanical. They are also lacking in the behavioral department: as you go about ransacking credits and supplies from all over the place, the owners of these goods more often than not just blankly stare at you while you do it, even if you just broke into their house. (Oddly, there is no moral consequence to taking other people’s stuff and it even seems expected.) IQ’s in general do not seem to have gone up in the future: passwords are scattered everywhere on little tablets called ‘pocket secretaries’ to the point of ridiculousness and people have taken to letting their credits (money) lie around out in the open for anyone to take. The game designers occasionally poke fun at their own artificialities: you may find an internal memo on a computer stating that employees can only have a maximum of four e-mails on their computer (which is indeed the max you will find per pc) or you’ll come across a pocket secretary containing a password plus an admonishment to the employee who owned it to be extra-super careful with it and delete it straight after use.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a prequel to Deus Ex, a game (which I did not play) renowned for its story. Considering the pedigree, the lack of involvement I felt with the characters was disappointing. And even though it is a large game, the world felt small seen as a whole because of the strong focus on just the augmentation theme and because of the handful of side-missions all taking place just a few blocks away from the main missions. There is a whole lot of optional text to read in the form of e-mails and e-books, deepening the world in theory, but a lot of these are a bit dry, so I ended up just glossing over most of them. There are multiple endings, but rather than these growing organically from how you played the game, you simply pick one on the spot. On the plus side: if you save right beforehand and go back to that save, you can see all the endings in a row. And the ending – no matter which one you pick - does come with a voice-over that acknowledges how you played the game: in my case it told me that I mostly took the moral high road, generally knocking people out instead of killing them. There is no closure to your relationship with the various other characters, however, and considering one of the possible endings, a sequel starring Adam seems unlikely. Also a bit odd is that apparently, no matter what decision you make, the world will end up in the same state 25 years down the road when the story of Deus Ex begins, meaning your decision is ultimately irrelevant.

To sum things up: Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a game well worth playing, no so much for the story as for the atmosphere (featuring moody, futuristic music seemingly lifted straight out of Mass Effect 2) and for the gameplay. The fun is in strategically upgrading and broadening your already ample options to tackle the various missions in the way you enjoy most. Oh, and one last thing: if playing on a console with a hard drive, install it on there, as during the loading screens when playing off the disc, I grew a fair amount of beard.

Game Review: Assassin's Creed II

I just finished Assassin’s Creed II, which was released quite a while ago (2009), with two sequels AC: Brotherhood and very recently AC: Revelations) already available. So never let it be said I’m not a year or two behind the ball. But at least this means you can pick up the 'Game of the Year' edition of it, which includes all the downloadable content, for next to nothing. Here goes.

I like games I can dive into, with a high level of immersion. This is a tricky thing when it comes to gaming. Generally it is helped by games keeping their mechanics out of sight as much as possible and just letting you go about your business as – say – an assassin in 15th century Italy. But the more complex a game wants to be, the more it will need to get a little abstract, explaining how it needs to be played and giving the necessary information at the right moments without throwing the player out of the game too much. The Assassin’s Creed franchise cleverly solves this conundrum by creating an extra level of reality within the game world: Desmond is a current-day descendant of a long line of assassins and through the help of a machine which can read *cough* ‘genetic memories,’ he relives key events from the lives of his ancestors. This enables him to learn secrets of the past and gain the skills of those who came before him, to fight an evil organization in the here and now. However, you spend relatively little time as Desmond and are mostly running stealthily along the rooftops and streets of the Florence and Venice of yore as assassin Ezio, offing people who are taking part in an evil conspiracy.

Because you are seeing things through the eyes of Desmond - who is in turn linked to a computer interface - the little map pointing out objectives, the health bar, the shimmering boundaries to the area you are confined to and the special mode of vision which points out your intended victim as well as guards in the middle of a crowd all make some sense within the story. (Even if the gimmick of ‘genetic memory’ in itself makes you giggle like a maniac and the little map-circle on the main screen looks distractingly like it was copied straight out of GTA IV.) Additionally, you can opt to turn off these little helpers if they bother you. The atmospheric music and great visuals which lovingly create various old cities, manage to draw you in and successfully make you feel like you are running around on a clear day subtly slaughtering villains as well as truckloads of anonymous guards, no doubt orphaning many unseen, blameless children.

That’s not to say the game is averse to reality-bending silliness. A few examples: as you are seen murdering people, your infamy grows and guards will attack you on sight. You can greatly reduce your bad reputation by ripping a few ‘wanted’ poster off walls. Not too farfetched so far. Except these posters tend to be a bit hidden because this ups the challenge of finding them for the player. Which – of course - means people wouldn’t actually see them and be influenced by them. And when you manage to slip your blade into a conspirator, time slows down while you have a short heart-to-heart with them as they breathe their last, any nearby guards apparently respecting your right to privacy during this intimate moment, only jumping you once the cut-scene is over. (I also encountered one such death scene after which all the nearby guards had mysteriously evaporated, though I suspect that was a glitch in the game.) The guards in general are a terribly dimwitted bunch, with bad hearing, memory and eyesight – forgetting who you are after losing track of you for a moment and not hearing or seeing you as you eliminate a shouting colleague on a nearby roof, while clearly in their sights.

Also not the best of friends with believability are the little glowing chests with money left lying around everywhere. Assassin’s Creed in particular can’t be blamed for this phenomenon however, as it’s a gaming cliché: resources which would have obvious value to a lot of people just lying around for the taking, be it currency, equipment or health packs. ACII at least limits the free giveaways to money; the other stuff you have to buy from vendors or pick-pocket from your victims. Pick-pocketing can also get you some cash, but it is far more time-consuming and the amounts you get are much smaller than those you get from looking for treasure in unlikely places, so it is hardly worth it. You can also choose to renovate a small town bit by bit, reinvesting what you start to earn by doing so, until more money is constantly pouring in than you will know what to do with.

The main event is clambering around a few beautifully rendered cities like a monkey whose arms don’t ever get tired and who will never miss a jump unless you press the wrong button. The controls for this are fairly intuitive and dependable, though the context-sensitive buttons mean that Ezio may occasionally start climbing a wall or an obstacle during a chase when you get too close to it, instead of running along as intended. And I did spend a good ten minutes at one point jumping around on a balcony, before managing to make my usually astonishingly nimble alter ego grab a wooden beam which was right in front of him, with no other route available to advance the game. There are indoor obstacle courses which apart from the different setting seem lifted straight out of Prince of Persia or Tomb Raider, in which you have to find your way to the top of a church or dungeon by jumping around. These are fun, except – like in the games mentioned – the camera may sometimes decide you are only allowed to see the parcours from one awkward angle which isn’t the best to actually see where you are jumping to. (Fun fact: the Assassin’s Creed franchise evolved out of an idea for a Prince of Persia sequel.)

ACII being a so-called ‘sandbox’ game, you have a fair amount of freedom to do what you please, when you please, apart from ultimately taking on the missions which advance the story. I have to admit I mostly ignored the optional assassination contracts, races and fights as there is plenty of that woven into the main narrative and I was aware that there are two more mostly similar AC games following this one, which would allow me to have my fill. I also mostly ignored the distractingly glowing feathers scattered about to collect: apart from it getting you an ‘achievement’ I couldn’t see how hunting them all down would serve as anything but a waste of time. I enjoyed finding the highest viewpoints, which open up the maps of the various cities and give a good vista. Thirty ‘codex pages’ add up to a giant puzzle and are fun to hunt down and some buildings contain hidden symbols which unlock a short (and ultimately silly) video called ‘the truth’ by way of thematically vague and somewhat obtuse brainteasers. By trekking through various dungeons, you can unlock the powerful threads of Altair, the anti-hero of the first AC game.

The main story missions are fun and just about varied enough, even though the basic activities of killing, platforming and collecting started to feel a bit repetitive near the end, making me wonder if I’ll get bored playing the sequels. The details of the conspiracy – the names and the ways in which they were connected – didn’t really stick with me. Though that meant I didn’t always understand why exactly I was eliminating someone and even though I generally feel bad about doing morally dubious things even in a game, I had no problem going ‘dark’ this time, since that was the entire point. I even offed a pushy minstrel or two, only partly by accident. The various ways you can approach a kill – hire a group to fight with you, hire ladies to distract guards, attack from above, blend in with a crowd as you approach your target – keep things interesting. Oh, and you get to hang around with Leonardo DaVinci, easily the most personable character in the game. Machiavelli puts in an appearance too.

I can recommend ACII as a fun, pretty easy and atmospheric game that mostly allows you to set your own pace. I enjoyed the platforming aspect more than the fighting, despite the occasional tendency to put a timer on you, which can be frustrating given the sometimes willful camera and context-sensitive controls. But no matter where your preference lies, ACII is worth your time. Quick word of warning though: the climax of the story is actually a somewhat silly cliffhanger, serving as a hook to get you playing the sequel. Not so much because of this as because of the gameplay, I’ll definitely rejoin Ezio in Rome for AC: Brotherhood sometime soon.

Ye Olde Television Review: Farscape

Farscape is a scifi-series which ran for four full seasons (1999-2003) and then got hastily wrapped up in a mini-series. I’d missed out on the original run but have now finally gotten around to watching the series from beginning to end.

American astronaut John Crichton (Ben Bowder) accidentally drops himself and his space-shuttle through an inconvenient wormhole while on a mission called ‘Farscape’, ending up somewhere quite far indeed. Before he can even get his bearings on the other end of the universe, he is implicated in the death of the brother of a certain Captain Crais, who carries a grudge and uses his authority with the awkwardly named Peacekeeper army to hunt John down over the span of quite a few episodes. John bands together with a group of aliens – this being a relative term of course – who had all been captured by the Peacekeepers and are now on the run on board of a ship called Moya: a ‘live’ ship akin to a space-whale, which has been bonded to an alien to serve as her pilot (who appropriately is simply named ‘Pilot’). There is a blue priestess called Zhaan, who likes to show off lots of her intricately textured skin, has a dark side and is technically a plant. There is D’Argo: a red-faced, passionate warrior with tentacles on his face who resembles a Klingon, but has more of a sense of humor. And there is a small slug-like puppet who floats around on a motorized sled – he’s called Rygel and is a lying, cowardly, greedy little egomaniac who used to be quite a big deal on his home planet until he was deposed. Rounding out the merry little band is John’s love interest Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black): a raven-haired Peacekeeper who despite her dedication to the cause is booted from the Peacekeepers because contact with John has supposedly ‘contaminated’ her. Note to intergalactic organizations intending to establish peace among all species: if blanket xenophobia is part of your statutes and at obvious odds with your main goal, you may need to rethink your basic approach.

Distrustful of each other at first, the group of convicts grows into a highly dysfunctional family in the end even as it loses some members and gains others. The most substantial late addition is Chiana, a white-haired, grey-skinned, playful sex-kitten. Lesser and more temporary ones are a rather hysterical fellow who can commune with the dead (Stark), a red or orange-haired – literally depending on her mood - spoilt brat whose screams melt metal (Jool), a kooky grandma who has a way with herbs as well as spit (Noranti) and a morally ambiguous special agent whose limbs can be reattached after removal (Sikozu).

Farscape presents a large and messy universe as seen through the eyes of astronaut John, full of truly alien-looking aliens with odd habits and cultures. And he doesn’t have it especially easy: after sorting out the wrongful accusation of murder, an ancient alien race decides to plonk the secret to making wormholes into his brain which makes him a target for the deliciously Evil Scorpius (Wayne Pygram), who proceeds to chase him unflaggingly for the duration of the series while wearing what looks to be a very tight leather S&M outfit. Scorpius gets inside John’s mind both figuratively and literally, planting a ‘neural clone’ of himself and making John go insane for a bit. All the while, John and Aeryn circle each other as her cold exterior starts to defrost and their mutual attraction becomes undeniable. But there is always something in their way, be it an emotional issue or a second John Crichton or quite simply death. Can these crazy kids get it together while keeping the wormhole technology – which could be used as a horrible weapon – out of the hands of all dubiously interested parties?

Farscape has a unique look because of the studio behind it: The Jim Henson Company. It was originally meant as a showcase for their creations and some of the scripts had their origin in the design of a particular puppet, rather than the other way around. This means a lot of the aliens look spectacular and there is more variety than you’ll find on Babylon 5, Stargate or Star Trek. However, because the puppets do tend to look as such, it gives the show a deceptively childish first impression. In reality Farscape is fairly adult in a fun and coarse way: bodily fluids of various kinds feature, there is a lot of exotic swearing and the aliens seem to be a kinky bunch sexually, not fazed by variations in physiology or race. Then again, in a galaxy with so much diversity, an intrigued and open-minded attitude seems to make the most sense.

Rather than come up with one potentially interesting idea at a time, Farscape tends to throw handfuls of them at the screen to see what will stick. The more far-fetched concepts make you work hard for your suspension of disbelief and it’s best not to ponder some of the sillier ideas too closely: trying to figure out how Moya the space-whale would actually operate or how she could get pregnant and give birth to an emotionally confused warship, could give one a headache. Farscape is about emotions more than logic: it is the ‘id’ to Star Trek’s ‘super-ego’. This extends to the scripts as well, where character-moments supersede clarity or story flow on occasion. But the fearlessness in trying new things is exciting as a viewer, even if it means you do occasionally sit through an episode which you have to write off as a failed experiment. It’s the price you have to pay for original high-adventure elsewhere.

As is the case with a lot of series, there are episodes which strongly push the overall story arc and some which are relatively self-contained. A not-so exciting sub-category of the second variety is the recurring ship-under-siege set-up, in which Moya and her crew must fend off a threat on the outside or inside of the ship. These stories tend to feature the main cast running around the samey corridors of Moya. A lot. Though a few are done well, mostly you can sense the need to save money powering these adventures, which does make a lot of sense considering how expensive this show must have been to make. The ambition of showing a vast galaxy full of alien creatures while on a tv budget is a lofty one, but can’t have been easy to pull off.

The show originally survived through some complex international funding, season by season, but just as the producers got cocky and took a next (fifth) season pretty much for granted for the first time, the house of cards came tumbling down as the final episode for season four was being shot. Without any closure to running storylines and ending on a massive cliffhanger, it would have been a bad note to leave the universe on. Thankfully, fervent fans managed to make enough noise to get financing off the ground for a miniseries which would wrap things up and could serve as a launch pad for more Farscape. It wasn’t enough of a ratings success to do the latter, but did serve to give a proper, if somewhat rushed, ending to Farscape’s tale of intergalactic high adventure. Even now, years later, there are the occasional rumblings of a web-series or some other form of live-action continuation, but nothing has actually been produced. If you are jonesing for more Farscape after seeing the series, check out the recent comics published by Boom! Studios, which pick up the story where the series left off.

All in all, the show has aged pretty well and the humor, larger-than-life characters and chemistry between the leads – especially John and Aeryn – still stand. The main ‘wormhole’ intrigue does start to wear thin near the end of the series, but doesn’t spoil the fun. If you can get past the puppets which look like puppets and sets which often do clearly look like a set, the series rewards you with many, many ‘arns’ (that’s ‘hours’) of joyful escapism. And with the sight of hunky Ben Bowder running around in leather pants. A frellin’ good time!

The full series, including the mini-series which ended things, is available as ‘Farscape - The Definitive Collection’ on DVD and soon on BluRay.