BHWW - 2010-01-11
I liked this series, and was mildly put out when SciFi (or SyFy, whatever) cancelled it. From what I heard, the word on the street so to speak, was that Farscape was financed both by Australia's Channel 9 and by the Jim Henson Company, which was then owned by EA, a German utility company-turned-entertainment empire.
SciFi paid nothing for Farscape, they were just the distributor, so to speak. EA went out a very messy way in 2002, and Brian Henson himself went to then SF President Bonnie Hammer to ask for the Channel to chip in on production costs until the ownership of the Henson Company was stabilized. Ms. Hammer's response was to announce that Farscape was cancelled.
After all, the folks in charge at SF would rather blow themselves up than pay real money for development on a series. For over a decade any "new" programming SF got was stuff they didn't have to pay much for: rejects from pay cable, rejected syndicated series that nobody else would take like that 'Adventures of Jules Verne' crap or projects completely subsidized by big entertainment corps, like BSG; or by the German or Canadian governments, like the Stargates, Flash Gordon and Lexx.
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