Farscape (Seasons 1–4)

Farscape (1999–2003) is a space opera you can watch online on iFILM. Astronaut John Crichton tests his homemade shuttle near Earth, slips through a wormhole and lands a thousand galaxies from home.

A living ship called Moya picks him up, crewed by fugitives who just broke out of a prison transport. There's Aeryn Sun, a soldier raised to kill his kind; D'Argo, a hot-tempered Luxan warrior; the blue-skinned priestess Zhaan; and Rygel, a deposed despot the size of a house cat with the ego of an empire. Crichton is the odd one out, the only human in a galaxy run by aliens and chased by the Peacekeepers.

The creature work came from Jim Henson's Creature Shop, so the aliens are built, not rendered, and they hold up under a close look. This Australian–American production ran four seasons before wrapping with the miniseries The Peacekeeper Wars. Beneath the ray guns it digs into captivity, trauma and a slow loss of sanity. Stream Farscape online on iFILM if you like your sci-fi strange and lived-in.