Marcus Stray

The first time I encountered Farscape, it was at the recommendation of a classmate that I met while attending college in 2016. Though I had and still have a tendency towards animation, getting a sci-fi recommendation from what some might describe as a “normie” (I use this term endearingly) piqued my interest.

Farscape is the story of an astronaut, John Crichton, who accidentally gets sucked into a wormhole he creates during an orbital experiment and ends up in a galaxy far, far, away from home. By dumb luck the wormhole spits him out in the middle of an active space battle, and he is then captured by ragtag group of fugitives aboard who have commandeered a ship from their captors.

Recently I rewatched the series in completion with my father who was looking for a new show to watch, and I am glad that I finally got to see how John’s story ends. It holds up quite well in 2025, if one tempers their expectations going in.

Let me get a few things out of the way. Some of the special effects and CGI appear quite dated, as are many of the pop culture references. Farscape is just over a quarter-century old, after all. At this stage of my life I found these things strangely comforting since the overall atmosphere took me back to a time when my mom would shoo me to bed at around 9pm so she could watch Star Trek, which at the time I found rather boring anyway.


Farscape consists of 4 full seasons that take a “alien of the day” type of format, with the main cast staying mostly fixed throughout the series. It explores how John, a wisecracking American astronaut, struggles to adapt to life aboard a living ship while fleeing from a militant force known as the Peacekeepers that are hell-bent on recapturing the fugitives. John also happens to have drawn a bloodthirsty ire from a Peacekeeper captain after a fighter craft collides with his orbiter module mere moments after he is ejected from the wormhole, resulting in the death of the captain’s brother.

Throughout the series, the main objective of John and his allies is to escape the Peacekeepers and find their way home. This resonated deeply with me in a way that has only occurred to me while typing this out: having lived in various places and traveled a little more than the average person, I understand the longing to return to a familiar place where one feels safe and secure. While traveling can be exciting, it is often stressful. Nothing beats the feeling of arriving home after a long journey, so I can only imagine how it must feel to be lost in space not knowing how to get home, or even where home is!

Also, as the living ship’s crew figures out along the way, it becomes apparent that for most of them it isn’t possible to go back to the lives they once knew. This has a massive grain of truth to it, as I have learned time and time again throughout my life. It’s humbling to look back and think about my circumstances when I first encountered Farscape. I’ve come a long way since then, encountered many thousands of people along the way, risen, fallen, gotten lost, and learned so much, in some ways I feel like I’ve travelled through space. Indeed, the world today is so different than it was just 9 years ago that it could be likened to something almost alien.

I think this is what makes Farscape compelling to me all these years after it first began airing. In a changing world it is comforting to hold on to something familiar, but in the end it’s often necessary to let things go so that we can move forward and grow.

I won’t spoil the adventure, but I will say this: Farscape is a fun interplanetary romp, filled with interesting characters and adventure. It might not scratch the itch for those looking for a harder sci-fi experience, since it does lean into science-fantasy territory at times.

Unfortunately, the 5th and final season if Farscape was canceled but a feature-length movie closes the series out as a last hurrah. Replete with some crisper CGI than usual and an action-packed story, I think The Peacekeeper Wars is a fitting sendoff because it invokes a sense of urgency focusing on the main cast as they try to prevent a cosmic disaster from unfolding. Not without some of the series’ usual shenanigans, of course.

Scuttlebutt on the internet about a cinematic Farscape revival has yet to materialize, and it’s unknown if it ever will. For now, the original series can be enjoyed in its completion on Peacock in the US, and presumably other streaming services worldwide.