Stargate vs. Farscape animosity

[KatG]

I used to be a fan of both. Loved S1 and S2 of Farscape. Thought it started going downhill in S3 and by S4 it just totally lost me. I think that at that point is when they started losing all but the die-hard fans, and I wasn't really surprised that it got cancelled.

[Brianamarie]

Actually, if I remember correctly, the ratings for Farscape weren't all that bad, compared to what other shows on SciFi get. In fact, it was regularly behind Stargate in the ratings game. Which was why everyone was baffled when SciFi and Bonnie (forgot her last name) claimed that ratings was one of the reasons they were cancelling Farscape.

I dunno. I personally like both shows. I liked everything about it... even kinda liked the last season. But then, I'm easy to please, entertainment-wise.

If certain Scapers come down hard on Stargate its because it sticks to formula like glue, the same way certain Gaters find Farscape cartoony and silly.

Heh, Revenging Angel popped into my head when I read that. Cartoon Crichton riding on an acme rocket towards a swirling wormhole, followed by a cartoon D'Argo... gee, I wonder why Gaters find it to be cartoony.

[Matt G]

If there is amnimosity between Stargate and Farscape then quite frankly I couldn't care less. I've only ever caught bits of Farscape and to be honest it always rubbed me up the wrong way.

[Slainte]

I started watching Farscape before watching SG-1, so I was a Farscape fan first. (We didn't get Showtime.) When SciFi started carrying SG-1, I had a brief moment when I was undecided which one was the best, but not for long. Stargate SG-1 rose to first place on my viewing list.

The animosity that gets me so irritated is not the regular fans. It's the critics who write the reviews and bash (or damn with faint, faint praise) SG-1 because it's not Farscape (so creative, so original, so cutting edge). Same genre, but very different shows, apples and oranges really.

It's all the frellin' critics fault.

[ShadowMaat]

It's all the frellin' critics fault.

It's ALWAYS the frellin' critics' fault! Half the time they're the ones stirring up the animosity, anyway, and then they have to make a big deal out of the animosity, which just draws more attention to it and causes even MORE bad feelings... Gimme a break...

[Madeleine]

I love Farscape as much as I love Stargate. I think the problem here in Britain was that Farscape was never promoted very much, therefore didn't get the large audience needed.

ITA. The week that the fourth series started, Radio Times devoted a half-page column to Danny Kelly saying what geeks SF fans are, how strange we are attending our conventions and buying DVDs and wearing anoraks. And it devoted not a single line to informing us that Farscape had a new series. It didn't even print 'New Series' in the listing, let alone give it a picture or a spot in the 'choice' section.

ITA about needing to get in on it from the start too. Mr W and I gave it a miss at first, then SFX started raving about it, and went on raving for two years, so we caved and bought the box set of s1, sight unseen. No way would it 'work' well for newbies joining part-way through.

That's the problem with the fourth series. They were told to 'reintroduce' the characters, and to make the plots more standaloney. I did think it got dramatically better with the wormhole-to-Earth storyline in the middle.

There are so many fantastic things to say about Farscape, where to start? Perhaps the biggest spectacle was the end of s3, where Talyn and Crais... you know (sob!), and the breaking up of the command carrier. I have to complement the acting, and not just of the human actors. Pilot was amazing, particularly in Scratch 'n' Sniff and that flashback guilt-trip episode. Rygel had *such* potential to be as annoying as metal scraped on concrete, but turned out to be a fantastic character, probably because unlike what people would expect of a small puppet he was amoral and totally uncute.

[Chevron 1]

I couldn't care either way.

I just got Basic Cable for the first time in three years, and am trying to get caught up with BOTH SG-1 and Farscape.

Neither is better in my eyes. They are both good sci-fi programs.

[DownFallAngel]

We should make a poll about this.

[ShadowMaat]

We should make a poll about this.

No, all that would do is feed more controversy. Better to let sleeping dogs lie.

[Slainte]

Posted by Darren in Stargate News -
According to SciFi.com's Stargate site:

Tune in to the Season Eight premiere of SG-1 tonight to catch a special preview of the upcoming Farscape mini-series!

Farscape previews during SG-1's season premiere, Claudia Black to appear in an episode, does anyone else sense a courtship going on here? I just find it curious. It works for me.

[ShadowMaat]

All I sense are greased palms and mutual back-slapping. It's trendy to re-use actors from cult shows. Just look at all the Firefly people who've been popping up in various places.

[keshou]

Posted by Darren in Stargate News -
According to SciFi.com's Stargate site:

Tune in to the Season Eight premiere of SG-1 tonight to catch a special preview of the upcoming Farscape mini-series!

Farscape previews during SG-1's season premiere, Claudia Black to appear in an episode, does anyone else sense a courtship going on here? I just find it curious. It works for me.

Scifi does some dumb things sometimes but this seems like a logical cross-promotion. Wouldn't be surprised to see Claudia Black's guest appearance on Stargate (airing in Jan, 2005) advertised during the Farscape mini-series this fall.

Whatever it is -- works for me too. Looking forward to seeing the preview.

[VixyOwl (~~Ani)]

QUOTE:
----------------
This is what I would love to see:

8:00 PM - Stargate SG-1
9:00 PM - Farscape
10:00 PM - Stargate Atlantis
--------

YES! I'm so there!

[VirtualCLD]

I never watched Farscape too much and I agree it is hard to follow if you try and jump part-way in. However, from what I've heard, it was a good show, right up there with Stargate. The problem i have with Sci-Fi is: What the ***** "heck" else do they have to show? They have no other "original" series (not that Stargate is an original Sci-Fi channel series). All they have coming up is 16 episodes of Battlestar Gallactica and from the poor reviews I don't think they'll be ordering any more (I could be wrong, since when to network execs make sense?) It's like their trying to pull another StarTrek: TNG from StarTrek: TOS. As far as I know, that's all Sci-Fi has. Stargate and Farscape would have worked well together, epecially since their losing SG-1 soon and will only be left with Atlantis. If Gallactica dies, they've only got one show to carry them. We also saw how they screwed up the last B5 made for TV movie, they better not do the same for Farscape, at least for the sake of the Farscape fans.

OK, I think I'm done ranting. I don't mean to be offensive to anyone, I'm just upset at some of Sci-Fi's decisions. It looked like they'd have a really good line-up there for a while. Now it's going to heck in a handbasket. All we have are old Sci-Fi reruns (which are good, don't get me wrong) and really interesting (i.e. bad, horrible, yuck, etc...) "original" movies (let's watch to giant CG snakes battle eachother for a couple hours). Yup, done now.

[FieryHands]

Offensive? Nah, I agree with you ViritualCLD. Scifi's has had a lot of "original" shows, they just never bother to keep them. Farscape just got lucky running as long as it did and would not have survived anywhere else, unlike Stargate which is at least syndicated. One can only hope that Atlantis rises (no pun intended) above the pile of dead shows and gives Scifi incentive not to crank out shows and then kill them.