I say “kinda” because I know there was a toy line for Farscape, but man, I want some 6-inch super-articulated figures!
Toy Vault produced a line of action figures for Farscape back in the early 2000s, but they are fairly static, 7-inch scale, the human likenesses aren’t that great, and some like Scorpius are difficult to get on the cheap. On the other hand, the more alien head sculpts are pretty good and they did fairly well getting the main characters out into toy nerd’s hands.
But with the announced but not-yet-seen Firefly Legacy figures from Funko coming (hopefully, dear Grodd, hopefully), Star Wars Black tearing up the pegs, and Funko’s Magic: The Gathering hitting shelves now, I’m itching for some 6-inch, articulated, detailed Farscape figures. But before I go too far into this, I have to admit one tiny thing: I just started watching the series a few weeks ago. Right, I know, I nearly had to turn in my geek card there. I was well aware of Farscape when it was airing, but due to life circumstances I was never able to catch it. I’m usually late to parties; I didn’t devour Firefly until both the show was cancelled and the movie was on sale. Now I’m watching Farscape, though, am well on my way to finishing, and the small field of hype surrounding me at the moment is too strong. I must make a wishlist.
So, given that the property has achieved cult status and isn’t really relevant to conventional folk, I.E. Johnny Normal Citizen who only watches what is currently airing and in their face, I’m going to have to be realistic and hope for just the main cast. And when I say main cast I mean the members of the crew who lasted the longest and made the most impact, and then a couple of baddies. Basically, this lineup over two waves of four:
The hard part comes in when trying to split them into two waves. Oh, I could just say one series of eight, but where is the fun in that? Plus, Farscape has the odd distinction of sometimes having more females than males on the cast which, as we have all been told, is toy retail suicide. But you know what? Rubbish to that. This is a wishlist; humor me for more than a few microts. Let’s do it!
Farscape Series 1:
Of course, you have to start the line with John Crichton. He’s our anchor in this strange alien land. Our everyman. He was Captain Mal and movie Star-Lord before Reynolds and Quill stole our hearts. I know, blasphemy all up in here.
I flipped-flopped between Aeryn and Zhaan and even Chiana for the first series, but ultimately Pa’u Zotoh Zhaan won out. She was on Moya in the very beginning and she’s alien looking enough to add spice to the wave, as Aeryn would have made it three human-like characters. No no no.
Bialar Crais makes the cut as he can play either in the hero or villain display.
Then there is Ka D’Argo. I didn’t warm to the character right off the bat but when I got over my Cowardly Lion meets Chewbacca initial reaction he fell right in with the others as tied for favorite.
Farscape Series 2:
Aeryn Sun leads Series 2 into reality. She’s the yin to Crichton’s yang. In fact, she’s the Gamora to Crichton’s Star-Lord. Just how much did GOTG steal from Farscape?? I kid. Kinda.
Oh Chiana. You’re my new Kaylee. Okay, not new, I think you both rank about even. Y’all can fight it out later. But this is a female action figure in need of some super articulation so it can pull off Chiana’s head tilts and semi-animalistic stances.
What is a Farscape series without Scorpius? Add in some Harvey variants and you have me at frellin’ hello.
Finally, you gotta have Dominar Rygel XVI. Here’s where we run into the R2-D2/Rocket Raccoon conundrum. He’s small. Is he worth the price of the other figures? He has his chair to fill out the package a bit, but still. He’s small. Oh, I know, let’s add the biggest part of the Build-A-Figure to his package. That’s right, BAF.
BAF Pilot:
Both Pilot and his console would be split into pieces, with the head and torso coming with Rygel. The rest of the figures in both waves come with tentacle arms or console pieces. There is already a model out there that shows what it could look like.
Sure, I know what you’re thinking. Huge, right? Believe me, I was thinking it also. Pilot may be better as a deluxe playset type thing, sold separately. But can I still add DRD pack-ins to the figures?
Sure, there are about 50 other figures I would want, but if I could get these 9 in my hands, I could die happy.
Oh yotz, let’s go for 3.
Farscape Series 3:
Jool is another female, but her look, both head and costume, would be an interesting figure.
Stark is no Zhaan but he became part of the crew and their hijinks so he’s a welcome addition to the shelf.
To add to the bad guys, let’s get a Scarran in the mix. Any Scarran. Big alien creature? Yes, please!
To round it out, Jothee can bring some drama along for the ride.
The show fell into cheese every now and then but it can’t be denied that it has it’s own place in sci-fi history. Some of the aspects were borrowed, like all good sci-fi, and yet some aspects of Farscape are being borrowed even today. That and the colorful characters along with beautiful environments and surprisingly good special effects makes it worthy of another run at action figure immortality. Or a movie. Another ongoing series? C’mon, throw me a bone here.
Frak.
But no ship replica?
Great idea, and I like the formatting you’ve used here to give a suggestion of how such a toyline might be organized (headshots for characters according to series). I think it should be standard for all such Fwoosh blog-posts in the future.
That said, I do have a couple of complaints:
1: You left out suggestions for the Series 3 BAF.
2: I would prefer to see literally any other character released before Jothee, who’s essentially a smaller, less interesting-looking D’Argo. I’d suggest a helmeted PK trooper instead (this line needs some frelling army-builders!)
The sculpts are good, but as you said the paint apps are horrible. For these Farscape characters I’d say that in general the sculpt and paint were pretty darn good, but articulation lacking. Put the X-Wing Luke next to Crichton for example. It’s not clear to me which head is better.
I have to disagree. The sculpts for the SWB series have been fantastic, when Hasbro doesn’t provide appropriately supporting paint applications is when it breaks down.
The human likenesses on these are actually a bit better than what we’re getting nowadays with the Star Wars 6” Black Series.
There was also an unarticulated Aeryn in her Peacekeeper outfit, which looked great. No articulation because it was as sort of snuck out as the line was dying, but a nice look anyhow. As for the show, it was often very good, and often felt like the writers must have been seriously high, and the two were not mutually exclusive.