Today I had something of an epiphany. NBC’s Community is basically Farscape set in a community college. The character dynamics are the same and they all fit together in the same sort of family trapped in confined spaces way that worked so well in Farscape. Lately Chevy Chase even spends a lot of time rolling around in a wheel chair, clearly he’s Dominar Rygel XVI, given human form.
Most of what I just said means absolutely nothing to any of you, since almost no one in the world has even heard of Farscape let alone seen it. It aired on Sci-Fi in the early part of the new millennium and, if you were one of the lucky few to tune in, you know that it was probably one of the best shows in the history of television. Well you may not have heard of it, but the folks at Community have.
In a conference call today Danny Pudi, who plays Abed, revealed that the next Community episode will contain of all things, Farscape references. This marks the first time the show has ever been discussed anywhere by anyone outside of fan message boards and my occasional ramblings on this website. Here’s how Pudi explains fitting Farscape in to Abed’s community college world:
There’s a little bit of Farscape stuff going on in there. I do have a conversation with someone regarding Farscape and the differences between Season 1 and Season 3. I think Abed is just very excited to discuss Farscape with someone because there’s not many people in Abed’s life that can actually speak about it and so it’s Abed yearning to communicate with someone.
I feel you Abed. I’ve been there. I’m there right now. Apparently Pudi himself isn’t really a fan of the show, he’s only seen a couple of episodes. Here’s how reacted to the ones he’s seen:
It freaked me out a little bit, right away with some of the aliens and how they’re not slightly alien. They’re very alien-looking with very human qualities. There is sort of a fantasy element that I really liked because as a kid, I was like, ‘If it were possible for me to make out with or…’ you know, I was a teenage boy, ‘to get with an alien woman, that would be an exciting thing, and so watching Farscape definitely rekindled some of those memories. I am human though. I just want everybody to be clear on that. And married, so don’t tell my wife.
You can tell he hasn’t seen many episodes, because what he said is pretty untrue. Part of what’s great about the show is how alien a lot of the aliens were. Except for Aeryn. She’s just hot. So ok, Pudi’s not a fan but showrunner Dan Harmon must be if he’s willing to put random Farscape references which, sadly, no one but me and a couple of you will get, on TV. Maybe we’ve bumped into each other somewhere in the internet’s dark underbelly of hidden Farscape fan message boards. Hi Dan!
The episode in question airs this week and next week they follow it up with the claymation episode which you’ve probably already heard a lot about. Claymation and Farscape in subsequent weeks? It’s like someone scooped out my brain and put it on TV. Thanks Community. I’ll get it, even if no one else does.
