Following the dramatic and climactic Season 3 is a tough task, and while Farscape's final season fumbles a bit out the gate, it does prove to bring the series to a fantastic, if sadly immature, end.
After the third season's weird finale, Season 4 starts with the Moya crew separated and John stuck on a dying leviathan, and it continues that same odd vibe. The entire first half of the season doesn't quite feel right, even once the team reunites within the first episode. John and Aeryn are particularly angsty, new member Noranti was very irritating, and there didn't quite seem to be any overarching storylines. There were still some great episodes and aspects of Season 4's first half, like Scorpius joining the crew as an untrustworthy ally, the crew entering Tormented Space, and John working out how to use wormholes, but for the most part, it felt kind of aimless. But that's the interesting thing about Farscape, because that's also how I felt with the first halves of Seasons 1 & 2 as well, and I came out praising the hell out of those seasons. If there's one thing Farscape can do well, it's sticking the landing to the point that it makes the entire season seem better in hindsight, and damn, does Season 4 do that brilliantly.
The second half of Farscape's fourth season is fantastic. Above being just a great streak of episodes, they also payoff a lot of the plot threads planted in the first half. John and Aeryn are angsty and awkward because John fears Scorpius is spying on them, Noranti integrates with the crew putting her quirkiness in a much more endearing context, and biggest of all, John's wormhole experiments pay off with him finally returning to Earth. I never actually thought John would return home, and the episodes that ensue explore how humanity would deal with first contact as well as if John would even have a place back home. I'm not over-exaggerating when I say the Earth storyline is some of the best stuff this show has ever done, and it was probably the point where I realized Farscape might just be my favorite sci-fi series out of the ones I've seen so far. Not to say the non-Earth stuff isn't also great. The underwhelming antagonist from the first half of the season Grayza is replaced by the far more intimidating Scarrans, leading to a fantastic final few episodes where the Moya crew has to save Aeryn from a Scarran base. However, despite this being the last season, Farscape got cancelled, resulting in the finale ending on a pretty massive cliffhanger. And if this was any other show, I'd feel kind of burned...
Thankfully, the story doesn't end there. Rather than getting a Season 5, Farscape got a three hour long miniseries called The Peacekeeper Wars, which aired a year after Season 4's finale. As the title suggests, it's about the Scarrans and Peacekeepers finally declaring war, with the Moya crew being stuck in the middle since both sides want John help them make a wormhole weapon that could decimate the other. This really does feel like a natural end for the series, with all of the major conflicts coming to a big head. On one hand, yeah, you can definitely tell that this was a compressed Season 5. You can even mark points where the story would be split up into episodes, like that bounty hunter sequence. However, while that might make this miniseries a bit rushed, it also makes for one of the most epic series ending events I've ever seen. It's a cavalcade of returning characters and big dramatic moments that still manages to give everyone a satisfying conclusion. Outside of a few differences from the series, it still feels like Farscape in every sense of the word.
Once the Moya crew arrives to Earth, there are a lot of fantastic episodes this season:
Kansas: Kansas is essentially a cross between Back To The Future and The Voyage Home, and is thus easily the funniest episode of Farscape. It's a joy to watch the Moya crew fumble around Earth causing more and more damage to the timeline, especially considering that unlike Different Destinations, they don't end up killing hundreds of people this time. There's also a pretty great subplot that reveals Braca has been a spy for Scorpius the whole time.
Terra Firma: Continuing from the already fantastic previous episode, Terra Firma has the Moya crew return to Earth, but this time, it's actually current day. It just feels so big for John to finally be able to reunite with his family, and we actually get to learn a bit about them. But even more interesting is watching Earth deal with the arrival of aliens, and the conflict between John and his dad over whether or not to disclose their information to the rest of the world. I also like that John realizes he's spent so much time in space that Earth doesn't quite feel like home anymore.
A Constellation Of Doubt: I loved the documentary episodes of Babylon 5, and I loved this one too. Despite being released in 2003, A Constellation Of Doubt is impressively ahead of its time, and is probably even more striking and accurate nowadays. The Earth documentary that serves as the framing device for most of this episode is a cynical depiction of the outrage-fueled news cycle, along with just how unprepared humanity truly is for something as life-changing as first contact. But it also offers a bit of optimism in how wholly accepting the 13-year-old Bobby of the aliens, and isn't just empty filler as it sets John on the path to saving Aeryn.
Hot To Katratzi: I love the main premise of this episode. The Moya crew inciting a civil war within the Scarrans is like if DS9 won the Dominion war by having the Jem'Hadar and Vorta kill each other, and it actually works! Ben Browder gets to ham it up harder than ever before as he manipulates the Scarrans, revealing a bit more of how they work on a political level, and Scorpius's betrayal is a nice hook for the final entry in the We're So Screwed three-parter.
La Bomba: So most Farscape seasons tend to end with the cast blowing something up, but it's usually supposed to be a triumphant event. La Bomba, on the other hand, takes a different approach. With John having brought a nuke on board, there's a lot of tension built around whether or not it does. And not unlike Arcane, when the bomb does inevitably explode, it's absolutely devastating, putting the entire cast in danger and leaving John pretty much traumatized. It also had Braca take over command from Grayza is a pretty cool sequence.
Bad Timing: Abrupt cliffhanger aside, this still is a pretty great finale, and even could have been a great place to end the series. Just like the best Farscape endings, John is forced to make an incredibly difficult decision, that being to destroy the Earth wormhole to stop the Scarrans from destroying it. Bad Timing definitely has that series finale vibe to it, from John's emotional goodbye to his father, to John and Aeryn getting engaged, to Pilot actually disconnecting himself from Moya and going on a mission.
The Peacekeeper Wars: As mentioned above, I loved this miniseries. I'll always wish we had a full-on Season 5, but there's also something fitting about Farscape ending with what is essentially a 3-hour-long movie. The Peacekeeper Wars is grand, episode, maybe a bit rushed, but undeniably huge in scale and scope. To list everything I loved about this episode, I'd have to bring up the wormhole weapon, Rygel's admittedly hilarious pregnancy, D'Argo's noble death, the tense confrontation on the Dominator, Harvey's goodbye, and I still wouldn't even be scratching the surface.
Overall, even despite getting screwed over by SyFy, Farscape ended on a pretty great note. Season 4 got off to a weird and confusing start, but the second half had some of the best material in the entire series. And while The Peacekeeper Wars was a tad rushed, it was also incredibly epic and satisfying. Farscape isn't perfect, not in the slightest, but its willingness to always swing for the fences made for probably one of my favorite shows I've seen in a while.
Season 4 gets a 4/5 Stars
And the Peacekeeper Wars gets a 5/5 Stars
My ranking of the Farscape seasons (+ Peacekeeper Wars) is:
- Season 3: Pretty much the climax of Farscape, the perfectly-titled "Season Of Death" is a perfect blend of compelling drama, bizarre experiments that almost all work, and bonkers twists.
- Peacekeeper Wars: An epic, bombastic, and grand three-hour series finale to Farscape that gives the show's big final conflict the scale it deserves. It may be a bit rushed, but it hits all the right notes.
- Season 2: While its first half is incredibly uneven, the moment Harvey is revealed, this season goes all out and ends on an absolutely phenomenal streak of episodes.
- Season 4: The first half was once again not that great, but Season 4 does still have the phenomenal Earth storyline in the middle and stays great for pretty much the rest of the season.
- Season 1: While it takes a while to really find its groove, this is still a really solid first season with a great central story arc that adds up to a fantastic final stretch of episodes.
And my ranking of the Farscape finales is:
- Die Me, Dichotomy: Rarely has a show been this willing to completely demolish itself, and the audacity and guts of Die Me, Dichotomy's series of cliffhangers continues to astonish me.
- Family Ties: Though a bit subded at first, this is a satisfying and personal finale that ends on one of the craziest and most visually-stunning series of cliffhangers I've ever seen outside of Die Me, Dichotomy.
- Bad Timing: The cliffhanger is a bit cheap but the rest of this episode would've worked really well as a series finale, it has a really great sense of finality to it.
- Dog With Two Bones: A truly surreal season finale with bizarre pacing, a strange cliffhanger, and an incredibly unnerving tone. I'm not all that sure if I like it.
Favorite Episode: Liars, Guns And Money, Part 3: Plan B
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