Farscape: Complete Season 2 (Box Set) [DVD] [1999]

About the boxed set

The set contains all 22 season two episodes divided in 5 sets of DVD's containing 4 or 5 episodes each. Some DVD's contain bonus features but these are merely comments and brief promotional videos and are a bit disappointing.
The DVD's have a nice layout but a bit annoying is a wormhole sequence which is played at absurdly loud sound level everytime you select an episode.
The set is nicely packaged but the quality of the package remains questionable since it is made out of paper. I own the season 1 and 2 and for now the package is not damaged but we will see about that when the show gets in the hands of some of my friends.

About the show

The story is about a pilot named John Chricton which during an experimental flight gets sucked in the wormhole and ends up on the other end of the galaxy. There he stumbles in the middle of a prison break and ends up with the escaped criminals on a living ship called Moya.
In the second season we see further development in character relations between the crew. Some fight and tensions as no one gets along all that well. We see some romances develop and some deals get broken. Nobody is completely without flaws but somehow they all pull together in tough spots and get through them.
My favorite episodes in second season are "The way we weren't" where we learn a little bit about Aeryn's and pilot's past and "Won't get fooled again" where Crichton wakes up on earth again. There is an excellent three part episode called "Liars, Guns and Money" when the crew of Moya decides to rob a bank to get enough money to buy D'argo's sun from slave traders.
The best episode must be "Die Me, Dichotomy" which is the last in the season but I won't spoil it for you.

Quality an conclusion

The picture quality is very good as the show is presented in 16:9 wide screen. The sound and special effect remain to be top notch. The creature and prosthetics keep getting better and more elaborate. If you loved the first season you'll love the second even more. The boxed set is much better than buying all the volumes separately.

Season 2 was an incredible season which charted John Crichton slowly having a nervous breakdown whilst his companions become increasingly concerned and frustrated with his increasingly bizarre behaviour and all with the imminent threat of being tracked down by their enemy, the downright creepy Scorpious. It might sound depressing, but in amongst the incredible drama there is a great deal of humour (some of it quite surreal - well, Crichton is having a nervous breakdown after all)). Some of the episodes are stand-alone but most evolve from what has gone before and you really need to watch the season in order to understand fully what is happening to the characters.

The trouble with something this good is that it has a rabid fan base (and I include myself here) who have already bought the original DVDs (of all four seasons) as soon as they came out, two discs at a time, and who are faced with the choice of 'upgrading' to this boxed set (I could spend quite some time ranting about this sort of marketing). For us it comes down to the extras; there are quite a few featurettes but they are available on the existing DVDs. The real difference is the commentaries from the cast and crew. Whilst interesting enough they are probably not worth shelling out such a hefty price for - not every episode has a commentary and I didn't find them particularly informative or amusing and I'm a Farscape obsessive!

If you are brand new to the world of Farscape but are committed to finding out what all the fuss is about then these full season boxed sets are a good idea - but buy it with the Season 1 box set or you'll be missing out on where it all began and the events in that season have tremendous impact on Season 2. And please, please, please don't be put off by the fact that Jim Henson's Creature Workshop is involved - this is not Muppets in Space, the puppets are very good and about half and hour into the first episode you watch, you'll forget they are anything other than living beings.

If you only have Season 2 on video then buy this instead of the other DVDs for the 'extra' extras. It probably works out cheaper too (although you should check that as I haven't done my sums).

But if you already have the episodes on DVD then think very carefully before succumbing to such a cynical marketing ploy.