Popular Culture Review Vol. 12, No. 2, August 2001 | Page 107

F arscape and Buck Rogers

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Peacekeeper’s own hand blasters, and in the confusion flee the enemy armada by
performing a dangerous, slingshot maneuver involving bouncing the Leviathan
ship off the atmosphere of a nearby planet, thereby propelling Moya and her alien
crew into the farthest sector of space.
Some other commonalities in the pilots are worth mentioning. The image
of Colonel Aeryn Sun is directly patterned after her counterpart Wilma Deering,
with her hair pulled back, her weapon in her holster, and her abrasive and intimi
dating initial attitude toward the Hero. In fact, Rhonda Krafchin’s description of
Claudia Black/Aeryn Sun as the “Chick with a Gun” (a moniker the actress uses
when chatting on Farscape"s Internet sites) is applicable to Erin Gray’s Wilma
who might very well be the prototypic (if not slinkiest) military woman of a sci-fi
series to handle a blaster with ease (40-41). With respect to the male leads, Buck
and John not only are on the receiving end of these Amazons’ wrath for a good
portion of each story, but they also remain in their space uniforms—almost afraid
to get too comfortable in their new surroundings. While looking “out of place,” it
would appear that the only way the astronauts can function on some minimal level
is to remind themselves of who they were and what their jobs entailed (i.e., deep
space exploration). Curiously, John does not change his attire for a majority of the
first se