With the third season well under way, it's clear that Farscape has developed into a grown-up show. There's a new self-confidence and a new maturity here that's entirely welcome after the often wildly erratic tone of the second season. The production design and high-quality effects work remain true to the show's original quirky style, although both the look and the more adult-themed scripts have become progressively darker.

This second box set of Season 3 features five of the nastiest, most shocking and incident-packed episodes to date. Things start badly when psychotic madman Kaarvok kills D'Argo and Chiana and sucks out their brains. Only later do we discover he's "twinned" them when the same fate befalls Crichton--though both Crichton "twins" survive. Life just gets more and more complicated thereafter. Crichton twin 1 stays on Moya with D'Argo, Chiana and Jool, while Crichton twin 2 transfers to Talyn with Aeryn, Crais, Rygel and Stark. Talyn is being pursued by a Peacekeeper retrieval squad led by Aeryn's mum, Xhalax Sun, and is then swallowed by a Budong (in the Ben Browder-penned episode "Green-Eyed Monster") before Mrs Sun catches up with her daughter and pals. Back on Moya a mysterious "Energy Rider" possesses the crew in turn. Meanwhile on Talyn, Aeryn and Crichton twin 2 have been blissfully having sex, while Crais lusts vainly for Aeryn. Just wait until Scorpius gets involved.

On the DVD: This box set contains the usual "Info Pods" and other extras, plus the first Region 2 commentary, for the episode "Relativity", with actor Lani Tupu and director Peter Andrikidis; it's a shame that they don't have a lot to say. --Mark Walker

Well over half way through its third season and Farscape has plenty more surprises in store. This box set concludes the cliffhanger of "Infinite Possibilities" with the extraordinarily brave "Icarus Abides", in which the battle between Crichton and his Scorpius clone is resolved, but with fatal consequences. Then, in a dizzying change of pace, we return to Moya and the "other" Crichton for "Revenging Angel", part of which is a madcap Farscape take on the Road Runner cartoons, with a furious D'Argo standing in for Wiley Coyote. Matters turn sombre again as Aeryn communes with the spirits of the dead in "The Choice", but the reappearance of her mum, the vengeful Xhalax Sun, creates problems for Rygel and Stark. Across these four episodes the action seesaws between the crews of Moya and Talyn until a reluctant and painful reunion takes place in "Fractures", setting the scene for the final quartet of episodes of this enthralling season. Anyone who has not followed Farscape extremely closely from the very first episode of season one should go right back and begin at the beginning.

On the DVD: four uncut episodes are accompanied by the now-familiar gallery of extras. There are "Info Pods" on D'Argo and Pilot, some deleted scenes, "Farscape Facts", Sci-Fi channel promos and a picture gallery. --Mark Walker

Episodes 6-10 of Farscape's fourth series continue the themes set at the start of the year while concentrating on one-off adventures. John Crichton is still upset that Aeryn Sun has not confided in him about her pregnancy; Aeryn is still trying to cope with the loss of his dead copy; Chiana is trying in her lascivious way to get them back together; Scorpius and Sikozu are gradually becoming integrated into the life of the crew, and John and the others are trying to learn to trust their former arch-enemy. In "'Natural Election"', the process of choosing which of the crew shall be captain becomes more urgent when the living ship Moya is attacked by a space-dwelling plant that hangs around wormholes; "John Quixote" has Crichton and Chiana trapped in a surreal gameworld full of old friends and enemies; in "I Shrink, Therefore I Am", Crichton has to rescue his friends from bounty-hunters who have shrunk them and hidden them in their heavily-armoured bodies. Aeryn finds herself compelled to homicidal violence in "'A Prefect Murder"' and time goes wonky on her; Crichton has to get into drag and Scorpius has to vomit a lot to save their crewmates from getting caught in the cross-fire of "Coup by Clam". These are enjoyable albeit routine episodes of the most imaginative space opera ever to hit the TV screen, though they only hint at the wonders that were to come later in this final series.

On the DVD: Farscape 4.2 has a wealth of special features that include two deleted scenes--one of them a touching discussion of their love lives between Aeryn and Chiana--and a text guide to swearing in the Farscape universe. There is a documentary about the special effects and a prolonged interview with Claudia Black in which she talks about how the show stretched her as an actress. It is presented in widescreen with a visual aspect ratio of 4:3 and has Dolby Digital sound. --Roz Kaveney

In the episodes contained in this third volume, Farscape's fourth series finally kicks into gear and does some of the most surprising things a television show has ever done. The first three episodes are all Farscape classics, which take our expectations and jump up and down on them. "Unrealised Realities" takes John Crichton (Ben Browder) through a wormhole to be interrogated by a creature who regards the Ancients who put the knowledge of wormhole technology in his brain as annoying bumblers and who tells him a lot about time and about alternate universes. This gives the cast a chance to play each other again--Claudia Black's performance as Chiana is particularly disorientating. In "Kansas" John finds himself finally back on Earth, during his own adolescence, with the task of ensuring that his father does not die in the Challenger explosion and alter his personal history. The visit to his long-missed home continues in "Terra Firma" where the crew of Moya have to cope with Bush's America and John discovers the hard way--politics, family, old girlfriends, alien assassins--that you cannot go home again. Lastly in the moderately weaker "Twice Shy", Chiana (Gigi Edgeley) and the others learn that no good deed goes unpunished as a slave they rescue turns out to be one of the more deadly individual menaces they have ever faced. --Roz Kaveney