FarscapeWeekly
eZine
¤ ¤ 20-Aug-02 ¤ ¤
For easier reading, use the bookmarks below:
Site News
Farscape News
Did you know?
Quote of the Week
Free Cool Stuff
Recurring Characters
Repeat Performers
The Score
Upcoming Episodes
Ratings
FarscapeWeekly.com
is looking for
sponsors
Reasonable rates ¤ eMail and online spots
available
email jhedman@alum.mit.edu for details
No, there are no new reviews posted yet. Sorry about that. I have spent some time calling around to try and squelch some rumors and get real information out there, and I have set up an interview that should run towards the end of September, just when hiatus doldrums are starting to set in. See the first "News" item below for links to the articles on site.
"Congratulations
from FarscapeWeekly.com!"
If you get an email with that subject, it means your name was
selected from the subscriber list to receive a free copy of The
Official Farscape Magazine. The August 15
winner of Issue #7 will be contacted shortly. On August
31 I'll be drawing TWO names to receive free copies of
Issue #8. Winners get 7 days to reply with their mailing
addresses; if I don't hear from them, I draw another name.
Again, and still -- it will be a while before all the old stuff gets put back up. I will continue to post new content as frequently as possible. If there is any old content you'd like access to, just send me an email and I will set you up with direct links.
Please feel free to forward this eZine to anyone you feel it may interest. If you would like to subscribe, unsubscribe, or change your subscription address, send an email "subscribe" in the subject line.
For a glimpse at the site's history through March 2002, take a look the eMail Update Archive and see how far we've come.
For comments, questions, or submissions, eMail jhedman@alum.mit.edu.
Available now.
Buy it.
I know, it has nothing to do with Farscape, but still. You really should buy it.
Various tempests-in-teapots this week, regarding Season 4, and a rumor on Ain't It Cool News. Please see the Hiatus 2002 and Season 4 "Finale" and un-Cool Rumors articles on site for details on what is, and isn't happening.
For more insight into SCI FI's programming processes, read what Tom Vitale had to say in his TV on TV column in the August issue of SCI FI Magazine, when he attempts to answer the questions, "What is science fiction? And what is the SCI FI Channel?"
If you'd like to voice an opinion regarding SCI FI's programming of Farscape, you have a few options. Scaper Nick R. brought this online petition to my attention; I'm not sure how much significance it will be granted by SCI FI, but it can't hurt. There's also the old fashioned snail mail approach, which carries the most weight with all executives. Here's a list of some people you can write to, if you are so inspired:
Bonnie
Hammer, Executive Vice President and General Manager
Tom Vitale, Senior Vice President of
Acquisitions, Scheduling, and Program Planning
Chris Regina, Director of Programming
The SCIFI
Channel 1230 Ave of the Americas,
20th floor
New York,
NY 10020 -1513
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Convention
News...
In the "Conventions Past" file, Peter Fallon has
posted scads of photos from the Best of Both Worlds Convention #16, held July
27 and 28 in Sydney, Australia. Guests featured Gigi
Edgely, Anthony Simcoe, Wayne
Pygram, Jonathan Hardy, and Ricky
Manning. Very special guests were five of the puppeteers
from The Creature
Shop: Mario Halouvas, Fiona
Gentle, Tim Mieville, Virginia
Weule, and Mat McCoy; and Marco Nero from Animal Logic, Farscape's
special effects house. It's great to be able to see what all
these people look like, and Peter's photo "blurbs"
really capture the spirit of these for-the-fans conventions.
I heard from Alan Ravitch this week that Gigi Edgely has been added to the guest list at the United Fan Con 12, "New England's Premiere (Fan Run) Media Science Fiction Convention", scheduled for November 8-10, 2002 in Springfield, MA. Warning: the link above has an audio track that starts automatically; you may want to mute your speakers if you're at work!
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Did you know...
Men
in Drag, Ben in Drag...
Seeing Rygel and Crichton all dolled up in "Coup by
Clam", I couldn't help but be reminded of Some
Like It Hot (1959, truly a classic). Ben
Browder had a definite Tony Curtis thing
going on there. Guys in drag are such cheap laughs you have to
wonder how far back they really go, as entertainment. At least I
did, which led me to all this:
Reaching waaayyyy back into antiquity, the legends swirling around the Trojan War include the story of Achilles, who was hidden by his mother in a girls' school so he wouldn't be drafted. It wasn't Achilles idea, so we can't blame him for it, and it certainly wasn't played for laughs. I get the impression that not much of The Iliad nor The Odyssey were ever played for laughs. I had an inkling that Shakespeare, who was familiar with low humor of all sorts, had put at least one male character in drag. Searching along that path led to doctoral theses on the role of gender, transvestitism, and homosexuality in his plays, considering the all-male casts of the day -- NOT what I was looking for. Old Will was quite fond of dressing girls up as boys, though, which probably played better. Otherwise you get into a whole Victor/Victoria (1985) thing with a man playing a woman pretending to be a man... who could expect the audience to keep the character's gender straight? No wonder he passed on that idea.
Two theater greats who did not pass on the idea were Gilbert & Sullivan, of Savoy operetta fame. Princess Ida (1884) poked fun at a group of women who tried to retire from the world of men into a (literal) ivory tower, only to have their exclusive all-girls school crashed by the Princess's fiance and his two companions, dressed, of course, in drag. The expected hijinks ensue, and true love conquers all in the end.
Since those cultured days, writers have been putting men in dresses to generate laughs in everything from The Three Stooges (1942's "Matri-phony", for one) up to Tom Hanks' early television role in Bosom Buddies (1980). OK, I admit it: it has been done to death... but that's because it's funny. Or it can be, anyway. John Crichton lifting his skirt to unholster Winona on an unsuspecting brothel crowd? It worked for me.
What about Ben in drag? Mr. Browder was first bitten by the acting bug while at Furman University, studying psychology. He appeared as the tattoo'd, free-spirited Luther Billis in a college production of South Pacific. If you've ever seen the show, you'll recall the song and dance number "Honey Bun" in which Luther struts his stuff in a coconut shell bra and grass skirt. Rhett Bryson of Furman's theater arts department had this to say about Ben's performance, "I will always remember Ben dancing on the stage in that coconut bra. He had no inhibitions and was a real showman." Furman is quite justifiably proud of their graduate and where his talents have taken him.
Quote of the Week:
"This is not a
slimming color."
"I wear that color all the time!"
--
Crichton and Rygel, , "Coup by Clam"
Free Cool Stuff
So,
just how big a Farscape fan are you? The SadGeezer's Farscape
Purity Test may tell you more than you want to
know... I was classified as a Manic Academic Farscape
Fanatic, and while I laughed at the accompanying profile
description, a few of the points came perhaps a little too close
to home. The test is a fine bit of fun even though it clearly
dates back to Season One, and there are a number of typos in the
test itself. There are also a few questions with maddeningly
ambiguous answers -- more than one could be considered correct.
So take your best shot and see how you fare; somehow I'm sure
anyone reading this won't end up in the Farscape Twerp
category.
The Sad Geezer site itself is huge, and they have tons of resources on all things sci-fi. Unfortunately, their Farscape reviews, etc, only extend through Season Two, but there is more than enough elsewhere on the site to keep you busy for as long as you want. Check out this introduction and enjoy! Warning: Tons of pop-ups. Sorry.
Have you found some free cool stuff? Do you have some free cool stuff you'd like to share? Send an eMail!
No Recurring Characters this week. What are recurring characters? They're folks we've seen before, who pop up again, and sometimes, again and again... like, for example, Furlow, who we first met in "Till the Blood Runs Clear" in the first season, and ran into again in "Infinite Possibilities" in season 3.
No Repeat Performers this week, either, although if you looked at the Journey Log for "Coup by Clam", you might think there was: Bruce Spence, who appeared in "A Prefect Murder", is listed as playing Doctor Tumii in "Coup by Clam." However, several sharp-eyed viewers (including GutPageant, Ross Ruediger, and Jayembee on alt.tv.farscape) noticed that it was Barry Otto in the role, which gives me a chance to inaugurate a new feature that will appear from time to time...
Who Is This Guy?
During a webcrawl I came across this bit from Mr. Otto's curriculum
vitae. Seeing Volpone, it's not such a
stretch to imagine him as the not-so-good Doctor Tumii.
Volpone
image from TheatreChannel.com. Screencapture of Tumii by
Dallascaper, available at FarscapeFantasy.
Repeat performers are the versatile actors who've appeared in more than one episode as different characters. Thomas Holesgrove is currently the record-holder (in fact, I used to do a TH watch, because for a while there he was in every single episode, or at least it seemed that way), but there are a surprising number of "guesties" who can't resist the opportunity to return to Farscape. The fan favorite? My guess would be the petite and energetic Francesca Buller, who just happens to also be Mrs Ben Browder. She was the bone-eating calcivore M'Lee in "Bone to Be Wild", the traitorous servant in "Look at the Princess", and drug-dealing Raaxil in "Scratch'n'Sniff".
The Score
through "Coup by Clam": 53/75
Allies: 11, Enemies: 19
Victory over a comically evil doctor, or psychodelic
mollusks?
It doesn't matter, whichever way you look at it, Moya's crew
survived another attempt on their lives. I'd add the Doctor to
the Enemies list if there was any chance he'd survive this
encounter, but I doubt he will. Unfortunately, the Rebel Females
blew a choice opportunity to win themselves an influential ally,
a loss which goes both ways.
What is The Score? It's an attempt to quantify just how well, or how poorly, our crew is doing as they traverse the Uncharted Territories, and now, Tormented Space. We count up the number of conflicts and assign points for the ones we win. We also keep track of who is on our side, and who we've ticked off enough to know that they'll be gunning for us should our paths ever cross in the future. Attitude flows freely here. One great thing about the Score is that you can get a feeling for the entire run of the series just by reading it from the bottom up.
Upcoming Episodes
check
local listings for airtimes
¤
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
8/23 Unrealized Reality - new
¤ ¤ ¤ hiatus ¤ ¤ ¤
source: SCIFI Channel's schedulebot
Ratings
time series charts of first airing ratings for all 4 seasons
Updated
through "John Quixote"
First airing ratings for all 4 seasons
Crichton Kicks 1.6
What Was Lost, pt 1 1.1
What Was Lost, pt 2 1.3
Lava's a Many Splendored Thing 1.4
Promises 1.1
Natural Election 1.2
John Quixote 1.1
(ratings are share of SciFi's total households)