(Ben Browder and Claudia Black in Farscape, (c) the Jim Henson Company)

I’ve still got huge affection for the show, it was a breath of fresh air in the genre, deftly mixing comedy with tragedy and drama, some fabulous alien creatures and a brilliant chemistry between all of the lead actors; even when it delved into SF cliche territory (such as body swapping between characters) it always added its own spin to it. In other good news for ‘Scapers, Boom! Studios has announced a second hardback volume collecting the new Farscape stories in comics form, written by O’Bannon himself, due to hit the shelves this autumn.

(Farscape Volume 2: Strange Detractors, written by Rockne S O’Bannon, cover artwork by Joe Corroney, published Boom! Studios)

Alien Nation originally appeared as a movie with James Caan and and Mandy Patinkin, before spawning a short-lived TV series, books and comics. It still has cult appeal to many SF fans and with the inclusion of the police procedural element to the science fiction of alien refugees living among us SciFi are hoping that it will have that ‘broader appeal’ that the channel is looking to as part of their rebranding. According to Variety its thought the new show will be set around twenty years after the original alien refugees landed, so there is now a much larger population of them and, as with the original film and series, this will lead into exploring (sadly) topical problems like racism:

“You can take (the original ‘Alien Nation’) a step forward and really do a show that encompasses the clash of civilizations, and the idea of a ghettoized minority. You can touch on racism, terrorism, assimilation, immigration. And there’s room for satire,” Tim Minnear. (from Variety, via ICV2)

(Cover to Alien Nation: the Skin Trade, by Cunningham, Kirk and Pallot, published Adventure Comics)