VHS Movie Reviews for Farscape Season 2, Vol. 2 [VHS]

Farscape Season 2, Vol. 2 [VHS]

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VHS Movie Reviews of Farscape Season 2, Vol. 2 [VHS]

Movie Review: Great DVD for Farscape fans
Summary: 5 Stars

Movie Review: Farscape Rules... save it from cancellation!
Summary: 4 Stars

Movie Review: ADV Continues with Disappointing FARSCAPE DVDs
Summary: 3 Stars

As with the first double DVD set for the second season, this one has four episodes of the series on two DVDs, with a variety of "special features". The first DVD begins with the wonderful episode "The Way We Weren't", in which the crew of Moya learn of Aeryn Sun's having been on the Leviathan before, and how she was involved in the replacement of the former Pilot for the current one. It is an episode that deals with the matter of Peacekeeper love and sex, trust, and betrayal by someone close. It's also an episode that alters some of the relationships between the various characters on Moya, and resolves the matter of how Moya became pregnant (back in the first season's "They've Got a Secret"). It's a wonderful episode with all kinds of story elements to it that other writers could learn from. The second episode here is the disappointing "Picture If You Will", in which an enemy from the first season (Maldis from "That Old Black Magic") returns to wreak havoc and revenge on the crew of Moya through the intermediary of a painting that shows events that come to pass. While there is some interesting character interaction and Zhaan gets a good bit of the action here, the characters we've come to know and love have a very weak set of material to work with here, and the episode falls somewhat flat. There appears to be a couple of scenes in each episode that I didn't remember from the televised versions of them, but there's nothing extra to them that I could find. The Special Features on this first DVD are very weak indeed. The Claudia Black Actor Bio, the Officer Aeryn Sun Charcter Backstory, the Alien Encounters, the Weapons and Ships are all text files, and a lot of the material here (which isn't all that much to be honest) can be found on the internet and FARSCAPE sites. The conceptual drawings are very nice on their own merit, offering a bit of insight to the series background, but this DVD has nothing else on it of note. There aren't even any deleted scenes for the two episodes, something that seriously annoyed me, since reading several other sources have indicated that both these episodes had several scenes which were deleted.

The second DVD begins with one of those episodes that you either love or hate, "Home on the Remains". Chiana has led the starving crew of Moya to the corpse of a budong, a giant space creature that could swallow Moya as a bite-sized snack, where she and her brother, Nerri, stayed a long time ago. Meanwhile, Zhaan's hunger is causing her to bud and create spores that are the Delvians' means of capturing animal prey and devouring them in times of famine, so it is doubly important to get some meat for Zhaan. Naturally Chiana's past comes back to haunt her, and things are not as simple for the crew as one would expect. In addition, this episode has one of the silliest beasties seen in the second season to this point, the keedva - a dog-like creature with big fangs that is obviously a man in a suit. One tends to expect a bit more from a series that is using the famed Creature Shop for stuff like this normally. The episode is an entertaining one, since it shows the relationship between Chiana and D'Argo that is developing into something else, and gives Crichton the chance to flex his muscles. There's also some
terrific humour here, notably several scenes between Crichton and Rygel, but the episode is not all that memorable - or perhaps it is, depending on your taste in these things. The second episode is "Dream A Little Dream", which was meant to be the second-season opener for FARSCAPE, but which was deemed too non-action oriented after the first season finale (see my review of the first double set of DVDs for the second season for more on this). While the episode is told by Zhaan to Crichton in flashback, this episode is a good story set on the planet Litigara (inhabited primarily by lawyers) that has a few plot problems and inconsistencies, but shows why Zhaan, Rygel, Pilot, and Chiana were as they were at the beginning of "Mind the Baby". Chiana and Rygel both sparkle in this episode, having to defend Zhaan for the crime for which she has been falsely accused without lying or using falsehoods to get her acquitted. The story has some wonderful moments and is worth the viewing simply to see Gigi Edgley's performance. This DVD has the Deleted Scenes on it, but there are only three of them - and all of these come from "Dream A Little Dream". There's nothing really exciting here, although there are a couple of good scenes here that are worth viewing, but there's nothing extra from the other three episodes in this DVD set. There is a Farscape Dictionary of Technical Terms and an Alien Encounters section once more, but these are again *text* versions of material that can be found elsewhere. The Conceptual Drawings are very nice once more, but that's all there is on this DVD as well.

One of the most annoying things about the FARSCAPE DVDs from ADV continues to plague this one. Upon loading the first DVD into one's player, the first thing that comes up is an advert for the ANDROMEDA line of DVDs from the company. For frell's sake - aren't they charging enough for this stuff that we don't need to *pay* for advertising of their other products? The second irritiating thing here is the fact that once again, the DVDs do not have menus at the beginning for actually picking the episode that one wants to view. If one actually wishes to see the second episode on a given DVD, one has to go into Scene Selection, and pick the first scene of the second episode on the DVD. Waste of time, and the folks at ADV must be the only ones who do this sort of thing. Highly annoying. Unlike the first second season set of DVDs, this one doesn't even have a Commentary version of any of the episodes, and one has to wonder what the new deal with Henson that was worked out actually gives us. There are no commentaries on the episodes, no interviews, no chats with the stars or guest actors, nothing about the making of these episodes, nothing that really makes the DVDs any better than having the tapes one could record off the televised episodes. Sure, the quality is better, but when push comes to shove, these DVDs are lacking in any bonus materials that make their purchase price worthwhile.

When all is said and done, the FARSCAPE Season 2, Volume 2 DVD set is a dud. While it's nice to have good quality recordings of the episodes (the sound is terrific on these), I have to look at some of the other series that are being DVD-ed these days, and wonder what the folks at ADV Films are giving us here. There's no real special features on these DVDs at all, and to be honest, this is something of a cheat to the fans of the series. That said, the ADV version of these DVDs is the only game in town, unless one wants to buy the English versions of them and get some of the nifties that come with those. I can only hope that the folks at ADV get their act together and give us something on these DVDs that's worth the cost.

Movie Review: A review of the DVD FEATURES, not the EPISODES
Summary: 4 Stars

As always, the video and audio are superb. The features are lacking. The deleted scene are only present for the latter 2 episodes (so what about the first 2?). ADV informed me these scenes ARE the material aired in other countries (and in previous volumes in the series they were integrated into the shows-but now they have been seperated for season 2-my question is WHY?). Strangely, I for one believe I HAVE seen at least two of these scenes previously...

Like the last DVD, no more interviews and no more documentaries. Big disappointment. The second best feature (in my opinion) next to the deleted scenes, are the conceptual drawings. LOTS of those. Unfortunately the rest of the features are either text files or recycled video from the episodes on this DVD. The text features don't give any information you couldn't get from watching a couple episodes or spending 5 minutes on a Farscape fan site.

All in all, ADV is giving me the impression they are running out of resources for these DVD's. I for one hope will see some more interviews, commentaries and documentaries in the next installments.

Movie Review: Farscape's second season continues...
Summary: 5 Stars

The next episode? Not so brilliant. That is not to say that it is not worth watching, however. "Picture If You Will," featuring the return of an old villain is disappointing not because it is boring (like "Vitas Mortis" and "Taking the Stone" from the first second season set), but because there just isn't that much to the story. On repeated viewings, a great deal of plotholes appear, and what, the first time, seemed like an okay episode, soon lessens greatly ("The Way We Weren't," in contrast, gets better each time, as one notices more and more details.). This episode is definitely not one to avoid, but isn't that great either, besides some cool special effects and M.C. Escher-esque set designs. It is very nice to see Zhaan kicking [rear], however, so it gets bonus points for that alone.

"Home on the Remains" would have been the grossest episode ever, except its title was taken in the third season's "Eat Me." With that said, it is a good episode. Better than "Picture If You Will," but galaxies behind "Way We Weren't" in quality. Still, a good episode with some excellent character development, very dark overtones, and even a "Return of the Jedi" reference. Great fun!

And with "Dream a Little Dream," we finally get to see what happened to Zhaan, Rygel, Chiana, Pilot, and Moya in the gap between "Family Ties" and "Mind the Baby." Originally slated to be the season premiere, it was bumped, because the production team was worried that the fans would be upset if the answer to John and D'Argo's fate weren't answered right away. Which was unfortunate, since this is an excellent episode. There is some amazing acting work by Gigi Edgley, as Chiana, and also a very interesting courtroom plot. Zhaan's mad delusions of John and D'Argo appearing to her and telling her they are dead, yes, would have driven me crazy, not knowing what would happen, but are, to be honest, a little less meaningful seen in retrospect like this. But, what can ya do? At least now we know why Zhaan thought John and D'Argo weren't really there in "Family Ties."

So, to round-up, we have one masterpiece of an episode, one lightweight, easily disposable, but diverting episode, one good episode that doesn't quite reach greatness but shouldn't be missed, and one above average episode. All in all, not bad...and much better than the last set, which had two very mediocre ones. Just wait until the next set, which is populated completely by episodes of excellent to masterpiece status!