When I was a little girl (the ‘80s and early ‘90s), I hated princesses. Bold stance, I know, but I’ll explain why: Princess is a noun, never a verb. If one were to make it a verb, princessing would draw to mind images of fainting damsels and vaguely plucky helplessness. They exist in stasis (sometimes literally) while waiting for someone else to come along and solve their problems. Even the romance that is a key part of their story is often something that happens to them rather than something they actively participate in. And yet, my favorite television show of the late 90s/early 2000s, Farscape, was obsessed with the idea of a princess in a tower, of a damsel in distress. More specifically, it was obsessed with showing the fallacy of simplicity that lies behind the trope of the princess.
For those who are unfamiliar, Farscape is a television show set in a universe of science fiction, adventure, and romance. Of muppets and monsters. Of a ship. A living ship, and of her crew. We enter the worlds of Farscape through the eyes of John Crichton, an astronaut who tumbles through a wormhole only to immediately commit accidental homicide. The man he killed is the brother of a militant Peacekeeper commander who holds a grudge. Crichton takes refuge on said living ship, which is crewed by escaped prisoners and spends the next few seasons fleeing from an ever-more dangerous series of military commanders. He desperately wants to find a way home.
But let’s put a pin in that for a minute.
Farscape’s first damsel appears in season one. Gilina is a Sebacean, a humanoid alien species, and we meet her stranded on an abandoned vessel. Not unlike a tower, this ship. Gilina is a softer, familiar presence to Crichton, who’s been nearly murdered by just about everyone he’s met thus far in the series run. They immediately bond over their love of science and engineering, sharing knowledge with joy as they attempt to reboot the ship’s shields to defend against an attacking cohort of frogmen who belch fire.
Farscape is like that, sometimes. Most times.
Gilina is lovely, blonde, and not remotely intimidating. A stark contrast to Crichton’s crew member Aeryn Sun (another Sebacean woman), who spends the entire episode stomping around like Robocop and blowing up frogmen with the largest firearm ever made. Gilina is gentle. She is capable. Aeryn is abrupt. She is strong. She is scornful of the other woman and her (perceived) uselessness because, to Aeryn, there was never a problem that couldn’t be solved by shooting something.
Gilina and John problem-solve via engineering rather than violence and eventually the crew manages to defeat their opponent. After they win their battle, Gilina has the option to leave the repressed and violent Peacekeepers and join the crew (a choice that Aeryn has already been forced into making) or to call for a rescue from her people. She chooses the Peacekeepers.
Gilina pays the price for that choice eventually. Through her decisions, Gilina shows the tragic consequences for a princess who may rescue others but who doesn’t quite have the nerve to rescue herself when she has the opportunity. With that decision, the show had its hooks in me. It never disrespected this woman, but it also didn’t idolize her softness.
A season later, we meet our next princess who gets a whole trilogy of episodes. Katralla is a literal princess. A victim of her grasping younger brother and his draconic alien friend. Katralla has been poisoned by her brother to be unable to reproduce with any Sebacean man. If she can’t reproduce, she can’t inherit the throne, which is her highest priority. Then she kisses Crichton and everything changes.
Standard princess stuff.
Except it isn’t. This kiss isn’t about romance, it’s partnered with a vial of a chemical cocktail that indicates biological compatibility. Once it is determined that Katralla can have children with the human Crichton, the tension ratchets up and the crew ends up confined to her planet while an immediate wedding is planned. This is not instigated by the princess in question, as Katralla already has a life (and love) of her own that Crichton is severely messing up. Crichton, on the other hand, refuses to play hero until he’s faced with a dragon—his series-long nemesis Scorpius—who intimidates him into hiding in a marriage and alliance with Katralla’s powerful family.
We know how this story is supposed to go, but neither character wants to fit into their stereotypical mold. In the end, after numerous hijinks, firefights, and one ill-advised spacewalk, Katralla decides to break with tradition and begins her journey toward being an empress. The partner by her side is exactly who she always wanted—not Crichton. This princess has retold her story with a happy ending.
Aeryn Sun, a consistent point of comparison with the princesses until she becomes one herself, spends Katralla’s trilogy in a sort of militant denial because she can’t admit she like-likes Crichton. But, after a disastrous rock-climbing excursion with an emotionally intelligent himbo, our Peacekeeper warrior grows. Aeryn decides to make her move on Crichton, clutching a vial of that same chemical cocktail as though it’s a shield. A knife. It is, perhaps, the most lovely moment to ever occur on television; a portrayal of strong will, terrified silence, and desperate hope. The cocktail that was a prison in the first episode becomes freedom.
In this trilogy, everyone makes a decision that comes at a hard cost for their character. They buck stereotypes and, in nearly every case, are rewarded for choosing complexity and difficulty over simplicity. One character even spells it out literally, saying, “We don’t play by the rules they do.” The traditional roles and tropes they dabble in may be well worn, but this show unceasingly subverts our expectations.
In season four, we meet our third princess: an NPC version of Aeryn Sun , up in a literal tower with a pink dress and an incomprehensibly amazing southern accent. The episode is set within a video game, and the goal of the game is to save the princess. A little on the nose, perhaps, but Farscape loves exploring nuance while being absurdly unsubtle. As Crichton plays this game, he repeatedly encounters his true love at the top of a tower and fails to rescue her. Unlike a traditional princess, this depiction of Aeryn is enthusiastic, horny, and just a touch sinister.
She’s also not the princess of the game, no matter what clothes she wears. At the end of the episode, John realizes that he’s fixated on what he thinks a princess looks like rather than what the game does—or what the show does. He’s focused on rescuing someone who has no interest in liberation because his own longing for the real Aeryn and fear about what she may have become have blinded him to the real point of the game, which was created by a grief-stricken former crew member working through trauma. The game ends with Crichton receiving the advice to look within himself.
Which is where we come to the crux of the princess fallacy and the subversion of expectations that derive from tropes. Despite all the pretty princesses the show uses to misdirect us, the real damsel of Farscape is “not Kirk, Spock, Luke, Buck, Flash, or Arthur frelling Dent.” Our princess is the hero astronaut at the heart of the story. John Crichton is Dorothy Gale, and he is lost. He is in so much distress it seeps out his pores. He’s kidnapped and mind-controlled by the closest being this universe has to a dragon. He is raped and drugged by another powerful commander who only sees him as an object. He’s physically saved by Aeryn repeatedly. He’s beautiful and kind. He spends a ridiculous percentage of his time in dungeons and towers.
Crichton is a dreamer—an inherent trait to all princesses, whether they dream of freedom or independence or a world with legged people. Crichton’s dreams and his perceived helplessness to achieve them are a part of the opening credits of season one and two. “Help me. Listen, please. Is there anybody out there who can hear me? … I’m just looking for a way home.” Those dreams start to twist and to change as he gains agency. By season four, they have evolved. “…Now all I want is to find a way home, to warn Earth. Look upward and share the wonders I’ve seen.” He is still dreaming but his dreams have taken on a different tone. A stronger one. He may be very aware of the dangers, but he is never blind to the wonders.
One of those wonders and critical to the princess story is that Crichton is falling in love. He fights and dies and loves and loses and finally realizes that he doesn’t need to find his way home because he has a new one in the woman at his side. Aeryn is the star at the center of his chart and his knight in shining body armor. Crichton becomes something other than what he used to be, morphing from a damsel to a leader but never losing sight of the inherent goodness at his core. That goodness is also the hallmark of a princess, but it doesn’t have to mean weakness.
In turning princess tropes of helplessness, victimhood, and passivity on their ears, Farscape shows the fallacy that lies in our princess tropes. Unlike the princesses I grew up with, Farscape’s princesses are not merely sweet and imperiled women. They are complex and they come in all shapes and sizes. Some are scientists. Some are politicians. Some are astronauts with the power to destroy planets. They are not ashamed to strive. They are not afraid to grow. Those are the kinds of stories worth telling and the kinds of princesses worth admiring.
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What a lovely writeup! I haven’t watched any Farscape in a long time, but it was my #1 show for years. All of this rings so true in a way I never really thought of. Every enemy is obsessed with John, trying to keep him contained. And I honestly don’t remember how it all ends. I guess I’ll have to spool up another Starburst.
If you have a Samsung TV or smart phone, Farscape has been playing non-stop on Samsung TV Plus for many months. on channel 3033.
It ended in the peace keeper war miniseries that you can find on Tubi
Oh I know, I was there on release night, but it’s all a haze now… One day, I’ll return.
Yes! Finally someone else gets it about “Farscape”! I fell in love with this show the moment it premiered and was constantly disappointed by how overlooked it was. I guess it was too subverted for its time. Thank you for the wonderfully written and intelligent article.
What a gorgeous perspective on one of my all-time favorite shows – thank you for sharing it!
This article is lovely! I recently discovered that my Samsung tv has a channel that is Farscape 24/7, and I left it on all week. One of my favorite shows ever.
You can watch it on Tubi this way you can watch it the right order
Some of the reasons I absolutely adored this series! Exactly on point.
This is a really insightful perspective that I hadn’t thought about before but makes absolute sense! And it does fit with the fluidity in Farscape!
I really love this article! It’s very timely for me. I’m revisiting the series and just recently watched these episodes. It may be also helpful to include Jool as they often call her prices due to her delicate and pretentious behavior. However, she proves herself throughout her tenure; she’s intelligent, warm, intuitive, and caring. Not to mention, her annoying high pitch scream that came in handy to melt metal when power tools weren’t available.
Jool gets a lot of hate generally – but if you were suddenly thrown from your normal existence to… well, everything Farscape, you too would want to scream often. Jool’s journey is somewhat similar to Chrichton’s, she is an ordinary scientist, and the way she ends up on Moya is an accident not of her choosing.
Wonderful article. U actually managed to capture how great and thoughtful and straight up incredible that show was. It’s a sci-fi benchmark.
Reminds me of a comment about romantasy stories, that they are not so much power fantasies as desire fantasies. They are about giving you an excuse to fantasise about being wanted. Except that John almost certainly does not want to be so wanted…
Katralla didn’t break with tradition there’s that thing that happens to her and Crichton after that she has almost nothing to do with the story then the thing that happened to Crichton can’t be done again so Crichton decides to replace himself with the man she’s actually in love with
What a brilliant read! Farscape is one of my all time faves but I have never thought about it from the perspective that Crichton is the metaphorical damsel and Aeryn the knight. Makes me want to rewatch this gem for the 14th time.
Great article. Farscape is definitely my favorite sci fi series of all time. I know it has some flaws, especially in the first season, but honestly I just love it. The arc between Crichton and Aeryn is one of the best and most heartbreaking “will they won’t they” tropes that I just love. Man the end of the second season where
Excellent piece and a great insight into the brilliance of Farscape. Brava!
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Great article! Thanks. Loved the show from day one.
So happy to read an article about it in 2025!
Am I mistaken or is there an episode or more where Crichton (what a good protagonist name as well, in that it’s kind of normal but also a little unique) is strait up called princess? Or is that something he calls Scorpius?
Lovely write up, I always liked how it handled its characters. They were all insane, but they weren’t simplistic. The roles weren’t always as clear as they seemed on first blush either. Aeryn Sun and Jon Crichton are one of my favorite romances in fiction (even if it did get a little convoluted at times). And Claudia Black’s performance really influenced how I conceived of the TM Strong Female Character. She was just so much better than so many other versions.
A delightful read. Thank you!
Great article! Really loved this show.
Spectacular article, thank you for shining a light on my favorite show!
BZ!!
I always liked Gilina. I think she does more to make the Peacekeepers/Sebaceans likable than Aeryn did in awhile.
A reminder, “Hey, is it possible not ALL of them are fascists?”
Love farscspe and this is a great article. I must admit my favorite trope in farscspe is Tam Lin (also a woman rescuing a man) in that no matter what happens to Aeyrn , whether she’s hundreds of years old or has been turned into a pilot/Aeyrn hybrid “his eyes do not forsake her” no matter what she looks like she is always Aeyrn.