6. John Crichton Is A Brilliant Audience Surrogate
Every science fiction show needs an audience surrogate - a character who is as out of his/her depth as the audience themselves, allowing the show to break them in slowly, and introduce the world they live in. The protagonist of Farscape is John Crichton, an astronaut who, while very smart, is in way over his head from minute one, when a wormhole opens up and throws him into this strange corner of the universe. At first, Crichton comes off as a little too "everyman-y", as he stumbles from one side of the universe to another throwing an impressive array of pop-culture references at aliens that have no reason to understand them. Throughout the course of the show, he grows to become more and more at home in this alien environment, but he always remains emotionally tied to earth, ensuring that the audience never loses the human element. Ben Browder is exceptional in this role (you may know him from a recent appearance in Dr. Who, "A Town Called Mercy"), making a guy who is one of humanity's smartest and most capable pilots seem like an idiot compared to all the advanced alien races he encounters. His performance is so down to earth and measured, that when the show pushes him to the brink (something that happens more and more frequently over the course of four seasons), it is painful to the audience as well.
Self-evidently a man who writes for the Internet, Robert also writes films, plays, teleplays, and short stories when he's not working on a movie set somewhere. He lives somewhere behind the Hollywood sign.
