Farscape

Now a long way away from Doctor Who and Forever Knight reruns, the Sci-Fi Channel has really come into its own, presenting some of the edgiest, best-looking escapism on the box. They’re spending money like a real network, and it shows in ambitious original series like Farscape.

If you’re new to the show, the second season premiere on March 17 might take some explaining. Ben Browder stars as American astronaut John Crichton, whose spacecraft is thrown across the galaxy in one of those astronomical anomalies you’ll just have to take as read. On the lam from a hostile crowd of interstellar brownshirts, he boards a living spacecraft with a crew of escaped convicts, each desperate to find a way home or at least avoid recapture by the ruthless “Peacekeepers.”

In last season’s cliffhanger ending, the spacecraft Moya had given birth to a heavily armed and somewhat unstable battleship. A Peacekeeper commander has since taken control of the living weapon, and Crichton is determined to get it back as the season opens. Meanwhile Scorpius, the creepiest sci-fi villain since Hellraiser’s Pinhead, hunts Crichton down to extract the military secrets he thinks are hidden in the human’s brain.

It’s a great ride—exciting and well-paced, with the best special effects of any such show on the air. Finally, cable is actually worth stealing.