'Bred Crumbs
01.09.03
Farscape's back, for probably its last run, beginning tomorrow night. Watch it.
Now, the long version:
On the eve of the beginning of Farscape's last stand – the second half of Season 4, after which the SciFi Channel has prematurely canceled the show – the damned network is showing promising signs of squirming. On TVGuide.com, the president of the channel defends its decision last September to renege on its 44-episode renewal halfway through, trying desperately to make the show's audience look smaller than it actually is.
One of the few points the executive makes that isn't fairly easily picked apart is the contention that the channel offered to renew the show for a fifth season for 13 episodes (as opposed to the original 22-ep renewal), which would have given the show a shot at wrapping up its story arcs; if true, and if the money of the offer was reasonable and sufficient to make the show, then bad on the producers. But given that the channel's already gone back on its stated intentions once, it doesn't really have credibility on its side. After all, this is the channel that considers Braveheart and psychic talk shows to be "sci-fi." The damn thing might as well go ahead and just call itself USA2.
Particularly bothersome is the executive's faulting Farscape for telling a story over the course of time – the very thing TV is uniquely suited to do. So don't let not being caught up keep you from watching the last 11 new eps of Farscape, beginning tomorrow at 8 p.m. Eastern/Pacific weekly; Save Farscape has an up-to-now primer which is good and remarkably concise, though you'll have to overlook some unfinished Web formatting cues.
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