Cross The Streams: Farscape Is Back On Netflix And Hulu Keeps Delivering British Goodness
Time to rewatch Farscape!
This article is more than 2 years old
Hope your week is going by swimmingly, streamers, and that you have time to spend on TV shows, rather than the quick fix of a movie, as the only one here is Resident Evil: Apocalypse, and I’m not sure that’s going to draw a bunch of people who have never seen it before, nor will it make anyone want to rewatch it. But maybe I’m wrong. Moving on.
Farscape: Seasons 1-4 (Netflix Instant)
Farscape has returned to Netflix, giving the Rockne S. O’Bannon series’ legions of fans a reason to get up in the morning, even if it’s only to turn the TV on. From 1999-2003, John Crichton and the multi-cultural crew aboard the Moya fled from dangerous enemies, traveled to distant worlds, and tried to open wormholes, all in the name of going against the Peacekeeper establishment. Strong stories and characters — some created by the Jim Henson Company — make this a unique standout in the sci-fi spacescape. Try not to be bothered by the brain-crippling cliffhanger the series ended on, as it was canceled before its time, and just hope that Netflix adds The Peacekeeper Wars concluding miniseries before Scorpius figures it all out and assumes victory.
Torchwood: Declassified (Hulu Plus)
Chris Hardwick is making a sub-career out of hosting chat shows about popular series, such as his Talking Dead on AMC, but you’ll remember that Doctor Who and its spinoff Torchwood had been utilizing companion shows for years, and Hulu has now added the two initial seasons of Declassified for fans to delve into behind-the-scenes looks at each episode. I could get into more shows jumping on this supplemental footage idea, or creating more Who spinoffs, while we’re at it.
Resident Evil: Apocalypse (Crackle and Netflix Instant)
This second installment in the Resident Evil series, directed by Alexander Witt and written by Paul W.S. Anderson, was pretty dumb by sequel standards, focusing on the Umbrella Corporation sending people back into the dangerous grounds of Raccoon City, but it gave audiences some pretty great action sequences, bringing the Nemesis Program out for antagonistic purposes. Considering these movies have little in common tonally with the video game series, one generally watches these films to see Milla Jovovich kicking some infected zombie asses, and her talents are fully on display here.
Paradox (Hulu Plus)
This 2009 BBC drama added a sci-fi twist to the police procedural, with investigations focusing on visions of the future that an astrophysicist is receiving inside his laboratory. As you can imagine, the future isn’t full of eternal health for all or a freedom from global conflict; it’s all catastrophes that the cops have to figure out how to stop from happening. It could have been something great, only with different writers and actors, and possibly on a different network. If only someone had sent them a premonition.
Wonders of the Solar System (Hulu Plus)
Any series hosted by esteemed physicist Brian Cox, one of the more popular scientists out there, is going to be super interesting, and this award-winning 2010 BBC series is no exception. Each of the five episodes delves into the multitude of wonders our solar system has to offer, from eclipses to moon geysers and volcanoes. The search for extraterrestrial life is brought up, of course, although Cox doesn’t actually discover any aliens on the show. He travels all over our own world to offer possible explanations for the conditions on other celestial bodies, and the only downside is the small amount of episodes.
Voltron Lion Force (Hulu Plus)
Get your old 1984 Voltron, and get your newer 2011 Nicktoons Voltron all in one place. You know how these shows go. Five people combine their robotic powers to become one gigantic machine that has to save the world from loads of villains. I never followed the series after childhood, but there are tons of fans out there who get rabid for this stuff. I mean, really, who actually likes giant freakin’ robots, anyway?
Kaput and Zösky (Hulu Plus)
Kaput and Zösky is a French comic book series and animated Nicktoons series that follows the silly adventures of the titular conquerors of the galaxy as they travel from planet to planet, taking on whatever forces each planet has to offer in a most brutal style, only to completely screw everything up for themselves in the end. This is less a show about changing plotlines and more about how to utilize a single plotline for consistently winning results, with a slew of interesting aliens for the bumbling duo to face.
Well, there you have it, guys. Nothing too pertinent this week, but still not too shabby. You can also catch the deadpan mockumentary comedy Computer Chess on Hulu now. Give all this a watch and I’ll catch you on the other side of the wormhole.
