Farscape The Illustrated Companion

Brian Henson, chairman of The Jim Henson Company "For our first foray into science fiction, we were determined to do something that was truly exciting. The characters and the stories are, and continue to be, of the utmost importance - and we're delighted that they turned out to be every bit as wonderful and compelling as the astonishing special effects." * * * In the mid 1960s, Captain Kirk, Mr Spock and the brave crew of the USSEnterpriseboldly went where no man had gone before, and changed the face of television science fiction. In 1993, nearly thirty years after Gene Roddenberry had overseen the production ofStar Trek'sfirst episode at the Desilu Studios in Hollywood, Brian Henson and Rockne S. O'Bannon met to discuss what eventually would become Farscape. Ironically, this meeting also took place at Desilu Studios since renamed Raleigh Studios the former home of the Jim Henson Company. From the very start,Farscapewas going to be different from any other show. Elsewhere in Hollywood,Star Trek: Deep Space Nineand Babylon 5 had just been launched. Chris Carter was creatingThe X-Files, and Teri Hatcher and Dean Cain were flying high inLois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. Henson elaborates on Farscape'sgenesis: "We wanted it to be more alien than any other television series bolder, more emotional and to have stronger, richer characters than on other SF shows. We knew we needed a concept that allowed the characters to be a little more dialled up." After several months of discussion, Henson realised that he needed someone who knew how to bring humanity to science fiction. That someone was Rockne S. O'Bannon, whose work on the revival ofThe Twilight Zoneand the 1988 movieAlien Nationhad established him as a screenwriter able to produce science fiction that was more than just spaceships and lasers. "I had a call from my agent, Bill Haber, who also used to represent the Henson Company," O'Bannon remembers. "Brian was looking for a television series that would really show all the facets of what the Henson Company could do in terms of developing animatronic characters, and also the then very young industry of computer generated imagery. He had a darker, more adult point of view than was traditional for the Henson Company. They wanted to do something on board a ship that had an animal team a moreStar Wars-like series. They had no idea who the characters were or anything like that, but basically said that they could bring some animatronic characters into this equation on television in a way that, obviously,Star Trekcould not. So I went away and came up with the basic notion of the show. We all want to be Gene Roddenberry, so the idea of doing a ship show had always intrigued me, but I had never really given it a great deal of thought. "I came back and told them my notions. At that point, definitely in place, was the idea that it would be very dissimilar fromStar Trek. Rather than have theStar Trekmilitary hierarchy and all that, it would be a situation of anarchy. The crowning glory of the idea, which is sustained to this moment, is the concept of a man from our time dropped into the middle of this world at the other end of the universe. There's nothing else that does that.Star Trektakes place 500 years in the future, andStar Warswas 'a long time ago'. Buck Rogers falls asleep and wakes up in a future time. The idea ofFarscapeis taking essentially any one of us, and dropping us into Star Wars. John Crichton hasseen Star Wars; he's seen all theStar Trekfilms. He's seen all the same television shows, movies, books and all those things tHughes, David is the author of 'Farscape The Illustrated Companion' with ISBN 9780765301642 and ISBN 0765301644.