Yup, Farscape's opener concept was totally based on Blakes 7 - and some of Firefly too (there's one episode in particular I'm thinking of.)
I don't care about these people as much as I care about the Farscape characters.
Yeah, they're not nearly as appealling, and there isn't heavyweight acting of the Aeryn & Zahn sort or chemistry of the John/Aeryn sort.
But I think the main problem is that at that time, the writers/producers/BBC/whatever seem to have thought it was sort of... unseemly? To get personal with characters and focus on their interrelationships? Whereas that's most of what we want and expect, now. I mean Farscape is almost entirely about that, with the sci-fi and adventure coming in second, whereas Terry Nation was actually trying to do something political with B7. So the stuff that happens between the characters tends to be pretty understated, and the intense gay subtext was, so far as I've been able to find out, an accident.
On the good side of things, the relationships do grow and develop over time, just as we're now used to from Whedon shows, as opposed to staying static and resetting every episode like some, naming no names. Actions do have consequences, etc.
Oh, and there does get to be more humour later. Season Two is funnier than Season One. Vila's often pretty funny, and there's some good banter between Blake and Avon. Seasons Three and Four - actually I should probably stop before I get too spoilery. I was going to try and explain why Tarrant makes me laugh just looking at him.
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I don't care about these people as much as I care about the Farscape characters.
Yeah, they're not nearly as appealling, and there isn't heavyweight acting of the Aeryn & Zahn sort or chemistry of the John/Aeryn sort.
But I think the main problem is that at that time, the writers/producers/BBC/whatever seem to have thought it was sort of... unseemly? To get personal with characters and focus on their interrelationships? Whereas that's most of what we want and expect, now. I mean Farscape is almost entirely about that, with the sci-fi and adventure coming in second, whereas Terry Nation was actually trying to do something political with B7. So the stuff that happens between the characters tends to be pretty understated, and the intense gay subtext was, so far as I've been able to find out, an accident.
On the good side of things, the relationships do grow and develop over time, just as we're now used to from Whedon shows, as opposed to staying static and resetting every episode like some, naming no names. Actions do have consequences, etc.
Oh, and there does get to be more humour later. Season Two is funnier than Season One. Vila's often pretty funny, and there's some good banter between Blake and Avon. Seasons Three and Four - actually I should probably stop before I get too spoilery. I was going to try and explain why Tarrant makes me laugh just looking at him.