The one downside to a television show inciting a mood of intense anticipation in viewers is that, ultimately, it has to live up to its promises. I was on the edge of my seat, so to speak, waiting for the final volume of Farscape: Season 4 to arrive so I could see how things turned out. After all, this was... it!

While the four episodes in Farscape's final volume were reasonably entertaining, they nonetheless didn't live up to my expectations, based on how top-notch Collection 3 and Collection 4 in Season 4 had been. A lot of elements are coming together, as the Moya crew struggles to figure out how to rescue Aeryn from the Scarrans, Crichton faces up to making a deal with Scorpius for the wormhole knowledge, and of course the Peacekeepers (in the form of Commandant Grayza) are breathing down everyone's necks.

"We're So Screwed" Parts 1, 2, and 3, as well as "Bad Timing" (the season, and series, finale) are all part of a single storyline that follows Crichton and his friends as they attempt to rescue Aeryn from the clutches of the Scarrans, while preventing the wormhole knowledge from falling into the wrong hands. While the episodes aren't badly done, they lack the dramatic punch of the episodes that lead up to them. Rather than high drama, these episodes feel more like action-adventure stories, with many sequences that seem intended to be exciting in an adrenaline-fueled way rather than a suspenseful way, such as the various scenes with Sikozu and the others attempting to get away from the Scarrans in a drilling elevator. At the end of each episode, my reaction was more "OK, that wasn't bad" rather than "I can't wait for the next episode!"

Part of the problem with these episodes is that in place of development, we have revelation, and often in a form that smacks of deus ex machina (or at least "plot twist ex machina"). At the end of "We're So Screwed, Part 1," it seems like things are under control, until an unexpected revelation about Scorpius leads Crichton to head back into the lion's den. In itself, this is a perfectly fine plot twist, even if it seems to come out of nowhere. The later twists that keep pushing the characters from the frying pan into the fire, though, seem much more arbitrary. In Part 2, When the characters are backed into a corner, an unexpected and unforeshadowed revelation from Sikozu about her purpose in life gets them out of trouble; this twist is based on information about Sikozu's people and their relationship with the Scarrans, information that as far as I can tell has only just been shown in the past two episodes. And in Part 3, we learn a totally new fact about the Scarran's dietary habits that forms the basis for a complete change (from our perspective) in Scorpius' motivation... as well as a plot device to push the characters back into the soup again.

And of course, the final episode takes the prize for "out of nowhere" plot twists. The imminent Scarran invasion of Earth lacks dramatic punch, simply because the motivation lies in a bit of information that was only revealed in the previous episode, with no time to build up the story at all. The sequence in which Crichton takes action to deal with the Scarran threat to Earth once and for all is reasonably well done, but the final scene is simply bizarre. If Farscape tries to avoid the cliche that "everything will work out in the end," here it goes too far in the other direction by suggesting that no matter what the characters do, they're pretty much doomed to never find peace. The ending, if it's taken as the genuine end of the series, is not really tragic, but farcical, and certainly not very satisfying for fans of the show.

Notice that I've said "if" the final episode is considered as the finale: in reality, the final episode of Farscape is neither fish nor fowl when it comes to wrapping up the series, because it was never conceived of as a series finale, just as a season finale. Pretty much everybody involved in the show thought that there would be a fifth season, and that the writers even had a story arc planned out. In fact, the cancellation (based on the series not pulling in sufficient advertising money to justify its price) was announced when the Farscape crew were actually filming the final episode.

Likewise, the abrupt cancellation of the series explains the "to be continued" caption at the end of the final episode, which is otherwise a non sequitur. Apparently it was a bit of a "Hah! Screw you!" gesture to the SciFi channel for presuming to cancel the series; it also apparently anticipated the creation of a Farscape mini-series. (At the time, this was merely a hope, but it turned into reality, as the mini-series, called "The Peacekeeper Wars," made it into production and is scheduled to be aired later this year.) From a perspective slightly further down the line, though, it doesn't really do much for the series as it stands: the "To be continued" tag is a reference to current events surrounding the series, and it will become less relevant and more peculiar as time passes and Farscape is viewed by more people who aren't familiar with the behind-the-scenes information about the series (like me).

With a complete fifth season story arc planned out, it's hard to explain why the final four episodes seem to be hastily wrapping up all the Season 4 story threads, one way or another. Most likely Season 5 (in its new mini-series incarnation) will introduce some new story arcs, but in any case the final handling of the Season 4 story is passable but it doesn't really live up to the promise of midway through the season.

The DVD

Farscape: Season 4 Collection 5 is a two-disc set, packaged in a double-wide plastic keepcase. The final four episodes of the series are included: "We're So Screwed, Part 1: Fetal Attraction," "We're So Screwed, Part 2: Hot to Katratzi," "We're So Screwed, Part 3: La Bomba," and "Bad Timing."

Video

The anamorphic widescreen transfer for Farscape: Season 4 Collection 5 looks good, but not quite as good as earlier installments. Colors and contrast are handled well, but there's noticeable grain in some of the darker scenes, and heavy edge enhancement appears at times as well.

Audio

The Dolby 5.1 soundtrack offers a satisfying listening experience. Dialogue is clear and easy to understand, and the music and sound effects are balanced well with the rest of the track. I didn't find the overall sound to be as immersive as it could have been, though. A Dolby 2.0 track is also included.

Extras

The special features are divided between the two discs. Disc 1 starts out with a nicely done 29-minute interview with Anthony Simcoe (D'Argo). While this featurette is more generous with clips from the episodes than I would have liked, there's still plenty of interesting material from Simcoe. Of minor interest on this disc is a section called "Lost and Found," which provides eight minutes' worth of deleted scenes from episodes 401, 402, and 405.

Disc 2 starts out with a short (3-minute) clip "From the Archives: On the Last Day," with executive producer David Kemper's speech to the Farscape crew about their cancellation. On the same theme, we get a 30-minute piece called "Inside Farscape: Save Farscape," which, as the title suggests, discusses the efforts to keep Farscape on the air. While the many short interviews with fans are not particularly compelling, the interviews with several cast members make for interesting viewing.

Spread across the two discs are the standard elements as well: the text "Cool Farscape Facts" and "Alien Encounters," about four minutes of deleted scenes, another four minutes of set, prop, and costume gallery images, and ADV previews.

Final thoughts

The final volume of Farscape doesn't pack the punch that seemed to be promised by the outstanding episodes leading up to it, but it's still entertaining and worth watching. It's useful to keep in mind, as well, that the creators of Farscape didn't know that the show would end with Season 4, and so these episodes were not intended to wrap up the whole series. I'll recommend this as a purchase, because even if the episodes aren't at the highest level we've seen from Farscape, they're still Farscape, which means they're fun. Recommended.