Farscape 2.4 DVD – Melissa Jaffer, Lani John Tupu

The second season of Farscape expands upon and develops the characters introduced in the ambitious first season. John Crichton’s new nemesis is the deadly Scorpius, replacing Crais who has taken the living ship Moya’s offspring on a voyage into the unknown. Moya’s regular crew–Aeryn, Zhaan, Chiana, D’Argo and Rygel–remain as divided and suspicious of each other as ever, yet somehow manage to pull together at times of crisis. The writers continue to exploit the show’s gift for surprising as well as emotionally convincing character development, while the CGI effects, prosthetics and state-of-the-art puppetry, courtesy of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, continue to make Farscape the most original looking sci-fi show on TV. The witty scripts, peppered with post-modern pop culture references and movie in-jokes, are also a breath of fresh air. The result is episodic TV sci-fi that continually pushes at the accepted boundaries of the genre. –Mark Walker