A conversation with Ben Browder

They’re baaaack! On Oct. 17 and 18, the Sci Fi Network will air the “Farscape” miniseries “The Peacekeeper Wars,” reuniting all the “Farscape” characters who were alive (or even crystallized) when the series was suddenly canceled in March 2003. Among the stars who will return are Antony Simcoe as the Lucan warrior, Ka D’Argo; Gigi Edgley as the beguiling Chiana; Wayne Pygram as Scorpius; Claudia Black as the Peacekeeper Aeryn Sun; and, of course, Ben Browder, who stars as John Crichton, the Earth-born astronaut who is Aeryn Sun’s fiance. (Note: Browder’s real-life wife, Francesca Buller, appears in the miniseries as War Minister Akhna.)

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The first time I talked to Ben Browder, who plays John Crichton, about “Farscape” was in 1999 when the series debuted. And he said …

“That we have something really good here, and that people who like this genre won’t like ‘Farscape.’ They’ll love ‘Farscape.’ And I didn’t say that just because I want to have a job. I really believed it was very special.

“Also,” the classically trained actor adds, “I said that the cast is one of the finest you’ll find on any show at any time. So, with all that, how could it not be successful?”

Yet, just months after the show was renewed for two more years, it was pulled out of production in March 2003, leaving John Crichton and Aeryn Sun transformed into two heaps of glowing crystals, and angry fans around the world calling the cancellation a betrayal of galactic proportions.

“Believe me, we were all just as surprised as everyone else about this decision,” Browder said. “I felt bad personally. But I felt worse for the others: the carpenters, the people behind the cameras, the writers — everyone who made it the great show that it was.”

Now “Farscape” is back, at least in miniseries format, and what can we look forward to when we pick up where it left off?

“For one thing,” Browder says, “Aeryn Sun and I do get reconstituted, I’m happy to say. I had a strange feeling for a while that they might leave us as piles of glass shards and have us just do the voices for John and Aeryn.”

Moments before the two were reduced to their raw silicon states, Aeryn told John that the baby she’s carrying is his; he proposed and she accepted. What happens to them and their plans when the miniseries returns?

“A lot happens, as you might guess,” Browder says. “And Crichton’s not happy about it. All he wants is a good life with the woman he loves and their baby. But everyone else is concerned about which side he’ll be on in the war between the Peacekeepers and the Scarrans, and as much as he might want to say a ‘plague on both your houses’ and go away somewhere with Aeryn, that’s not going to happen. This is an intergalactic war, and there’s nowhere that anyone will be able to hide from it.”

There was a piece in the Hollywood trade papers that the people who put up the money for the miniseries wouldn’t have done so without the persistent demands from the fans.

“I don’t doubt it,” Browder says. “They’ve been very active in pushing for the show to come back.”

There’s also talk that the miniseries is only the beginning of the “Farscape” resurgence and there could be more films down the line.

“So I’ve heard,” Ben Browder says. “And if it happens, we’ll speak again.”

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In Focus

On Oct. 17, Showtime will air “Cavedweller,” starring Aidan Quinn (“Legends of the Fall”), Kevin Bacon (“Lover Boy”) and Bacon’s “Lover Boy” co-star (and real-life wife) Kyra Sedgwick, who is also “Cavedweller’s” executive producer.

Sedgwick says she wanted to do the film because she was intrigued by the story of a woman who flees her abusive husband (Quinn) and must leave her daughters behind. Years later, she returns to try to gain custody of them.

“But,” as Sedgwick says, “they want nothing to do with her. They don’t like her. And they don’t accept her reasons for abandoning them.”

Sedgwick says it’s understandable that the girls feel as they do.

“Children who believe they’ve been abandoned by a parent are deeply hurt and find it hard to forgive the parent who left them. Delia, the woman I play, has to win their love all over again. She doesn’t know if she can. But she’s determined to try.”

Sedgwick says she cast husband Kevin Bacon in the film “because I believed, and others agreed with me, that he was the best choice for the part.”

Dial Tone

Susan Ruttan’s (“L.A. Law”) performance in an upcoming episode of “CSI: New York” reminds us once again what a fine actor she is. As for talk of a second “L.A. Law” reunion movie, Ruttan says she’s not aware of any such plans, “But I’d love it if it happened and I could work with all those wonderful people again.”