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Farscape is becoming a reality

By Brian Knatchbull
Courtesy of The Jim Henson Company
May 14, 1998

The Sci-Fi Channel introduced its most ambitious slate of original series on Tuesday to advertisers during an up front presentation in New York. Included was a 13-episode order with The Jim Henson Company for "Farscape" in association with Hallmark Entertainment. Sci-Fi believes "Farscape," previously tentatively titled "Space Chase," could become a signature series for Sci-Fi.

"Farscape," featuring creatures from Jim Henson's Creature Shop, tells the story of astronaut John Crichton, who is hurled across a thousand galaxies to an alien world where he must try to find his way back to Earth from the starting point of a starship populated by escaping political prisoners.

This series has been rumored since 1994. Co-producer for the show, Rockne O'Bannon said that the show "is another ship show, but with a lot of quirky Henson characters.  They're not Muppets; they're big and small and all sorts of things... We're attempting to do something along the lines of Star Wars, which no one has ever really tried to do." So with "Farscape" and the upcoming movie, "Muppets in Space" it looks like the coming year will be the time when the Muppets truly go "sci-fi." We've always known the Muppets were "out of this world!"