The Edge of Space

FarScape. TV series. "The Edge of Space: Farscape," cover story in the Special Double Issue of Cinefantastique 33.1-2 (April 2001): 27 f.

Episode "I, ET": 7/V/99; Pino Amenta, dir.; Sally Lapiduss, script: The "paranoid military" of a xenophobic world threatens the protagonists with soldiers wearing filter masks that give them a porcine appearance (Cinefantastique 29). Tavleks species: "hyper-aggressive, power-boosted extortionists" that are costumed and prostheticized to look like a combination of human and metal fly (Cinefantastique 39). Scorpius, a black-armored, somewhat insectoid male-gendered humanoid, has a love affair with Claudia Karvin's blue-metallic armored (?) female-gendered Alien-oid (Cinefantastique 50). "Peacekeeper Control Collar": a device to go over bow of Leviathan, son of Moya—a black, spiked, very PoMo, rather S&M-looking device (Cinefantastique 64); cf. and contrast collars on "Risks" in Pohl and Williamson's The Reefs of Space and DEADLOCK. Episode "Die Me Dichotomy": 26/I/01; Rowan Woods, dir.; David Kemper, script: Features removal of "Scorpius" implant ("chip") from brain of the hero, John Crichton (Cinefantastique 70, 75), plus an extraordinarily striking image of a human in an information-gathering device that superimposes the mechanical and electronic while making the person look like the combination of a crowned athletic victor or Caesar or Christ, and a Harlequin (Cinefantastique 71). (RDE, 14/02/01)