It was widely regarded as one of the most innovative SF series in recent years, but critical acclaim couldn't save Farscape from an untimely end. At the end of  Season Four, the Sci-Fi Channel suddenly pulled the plug, citing a decline in viewing figures as the reason. Not surprisingly, their decision stunned the show's cast and crew, most of whom had been planning to return for Season Five. 

Among those affected by the cancellation was series creator Rockne O'Bannon, who first began developing the series in the early Nineties under its original title 'Space Chase'. After shopping the property around for several years, the producers finally found a home at the Sci-Fi Channel, where it quickly became the cable network's top-rated show. Several months after Farscape's cancellation, O'Bannon is surprisingly pragmatic in discussing the various economic issues that came into play.

"I think we’ve always walked a very fine tightrope in terms of the cost of the show," he reflects, "and the structure of the financial deal that had to be put in place initially. That involved the Australians and Channel 9 down there, and continued in this fluid arrangement that has changed and shifted to huge degrees, and in terms of the Sci-Fi Channel's financial commitment, which increased well over 50% over the years in terms of license fees that they paid. The initial license fee was already hefty for any cable outlet, let alone Sci-Fi. I don't quite know what they hope to do with that, but we obviously hope to go into syndication after the run on Sci-Fi, but I really don't know. It's not unlike the shows that HBO produces, like The Sopranos or Sex and the City at least in that their content in incredibly adult, so where do you syndicate Sex and the City? The same thing with Farscape: it will be interesting to see how the show fares in syndication."

 Casting his critical eye over the past four seasons, O'Bannon says Farscape has evolved in a number of ways since its original conception. "The character of John Crichton obviously changed significantly over the years," he points out. "Looking back in my view of the show, I was totally on board with the notion that John Crichton wouldn't continue to be this kind of fumbling, unfamiliar, always awe-struck, always uneasy in this part of the universe that he was at the very beginning of the series. There came a time by the end of Season Two and absolutely into Season Three, where Crichton became a little too alien, a little too familiar with that other world. By the time you got to the beginning of Season Four, new viewers tuning in might have been a little confused about John Crichton, not really getting any sense of a man who had ever been on Earth. He looked just like Aeryn, and there were other characters such as the Sebaceans, who looked like John Crichton. He would make the Earth references in dialogue, but in terms of his character and view of this other place in Space, most if not all of that was gone. I felt a certain loss about that, because to me, one of the tones in the first season that appealed to me so strongly was the Sense of being so far from home and adrift in a place with no idea how to get back to there.

"There was also the fact that he was a scientist and a man who would look up at the stars at night when he was a kid and wonder as we all do, what's out there. I think that might have dissipated a tad too much in Season Three and certainly in Season Four. The core of the series was always a man from Earth who's dropped into a Star Trek/Star Wars kind of environment and how he would react as you or I would react. That was at the core of the series, and again, as you got into the later seasons, I think his character might have gotten a bit too far from that. He needed to evolve, but he may have evolved a little bit too far."

Were there any storylines that O'Bannon had some doubts about, that actually worked in the end? "The thing that I was most gleeful about was the fact that the show could take a concept that you might have seen a version of elsewhere and really do it to such a extreme degree in terms of twisting and turning it that it suddenly seemed incredibly fresh. I'm thinking of the episode that Mike Cassutt wrote in the second season [Out of Their Minds]. Back in '93, I was trying to come up with back-up scripts for the show, just thinking of the series in general and coming up with some one-liner ideas for  episodes. One of them was that Crichton and Aeryn have their consciousness changed into each other's bodies, so Crichton suddenly has breasts and Aeryn has things to deal with.

"So as we were developing stories for the second season, Michael came in and we were throwing ideas around, and I tossed that one out as one I remembered, with that very minimal curl. I don't know if other shows have done that specifically, but certainly the idea of body changing isn't wholly original. The episode that came from it, where everyone is changing bodies back and forth and then the actors absolutely relish the fun of getting to play each other, and seeing their different acting styles. All of that became this phenomenal episode. And then there was Won't be Fooled Again, the one that Ricky Manning wrote, which was the first 'Farscape acid trip'. That was a term that didn't apply after a while, because it eventually applied to most episodes, but that was our first real super acid trip episode, but again, it was a lot of fun."

More recently, O'Bannon decided to hand over a big chunk of Farscape's creative decision- making to executive producer David Kemper, who oversaw the production in Sydney. "In Season Four, I think David was ready to take wing on his own, and obviously had some ideas for some new characters that he had in mind and wanted to introduce. So he pretty much took that ball and ran with it, and he'd done such admirable service during the first three seasons of the show that I didn't begrudge him that at all. If I may, there are aspects of Season Four that make me scratch my head, but again, I wasn't part of it, so I can't really complain."

Well, maybe a little. But that's not a topic the writer will discuss other than offering a few oblique and noncommittal hints. "Believe me, I" don't want to s**t on the folks who worked really hard on Season Four. As I understand it, the intent or hope for Season Four was to really broaden out the appeal of the show and make it more accessible for a wider audience. I think that was the intent of bringing in this other female character, figuring that was an opportunity because she was new, to re-explain things about the show because there was a new character that they could tell things about. But in the maelstrom of writing a season of the series (which I know well, believe me!), I think that may have got lost a little."

So with the long-term future of Farscape still very much in doubt, what does Rockne O'Bannon believe the legacy of his series will be? "There's no way to know," is his response. "I'm a little uncertain of that, because of the adult nature of the series and the serpentine storytelling style and all of that. I can't really say what I think it will be, but I know what I hope it will be, which is a collector's item. I hope it's something that the right people, who have never seen it before, will ultimately come across it and put in the DVD or tape and get into it. Because they're not required to show up on a weekly basis at a specific time on a specific network to watch it and endure all the commercials, they can pick it up or put it down as they would a book. I hope it will develop a passionate audience."