It was barely a year ago Claudia Black was sitting in a New York City restaurant chatting amiably about a new show she was making, "Farscape", and wondering if audiences would get it if they would appreciate it and ultimately take to it. After only a handful of episodes had been shown "Farscape" was so new then that no one could predict that the freshman sci-fi series would ride out of this world reviews to solid ratings and, soon enough, a green light for a second and now a third season. Across the globe fans are on the edge of their seats as they wait to discover whether Black's character Aeryn Sun, drowned in a freezing lake after being forced to eject from her Prowler, is genuinely, permanently, dead. But with details of the third season still firmly under wraps, Black can only reflect on how glad she is that Aeryn lasted this long.

"I think we were all holding our breath and crossing our fingers as a community of "Farscape" makers, hoping that the show would go from season one to season two and that it would grow from season one to season two," said the actress during an autumn trip to the Big Apple "And it has grown in all the right ways. We've had enormous support from the fans, and enormous support from the Sci-Fi Channel. A network always makes a big difference because every show needs a stable home. Every baby needs a stable environment in which it can grow up. Sci-Fi Channel has promoted the show very well and they've done Farscape marathons during the sweeps periods, as I think you call them in America, when a network tries to get more viewers and higher ratings, I think that has helped us because it enabled people to catch up if they came late to the show."

"It's been very exciting. Everything else is falling into place. We even went to an official "Farscape" convention and met the fans in person. It may be the first time that there's been a convention for a show so new, this early on. I also think there's a lot to be said for the Internet, for the power of the Internet. We've been able to develop quite a rare relationship with our fans. We've been able to get online and get into chat rooms if we wanted. We could browse over the bulletin board to see what people's opinions are and how they are responding to episodes right after the episodes air. So, in a sense, we are a community now, and that's been as much of a pleasant surprise as everything else associated with "Farscape." As performers, we have latched onto the opportunity to expand our characters, and the audience has latched onto that as well. There's a big community of scapers out there who want Crichton (Ben Browder) and Aeryn to get together. And we have, on and off."

Indeed, by halfway through the second season Aeryn and Crichton's mutual interest had become clear to everyone, with only circumstance holding them back from some sort of commitment, which is exactly how Black likes it. "We can't go steady, though, because that would be boring for everyone. But I think people like all the relationships, as well as the stories and the effects and the creatures and everything else."

Aeryn started off as a very austere, on-edge and hard-edged individual, but change has become one of "Farscape's" trademarks, and by the second season she'd reached the point, notes the actress in her Aussie accent, where she displayed recognizable human traits every now and then. "I love it this way," Black explains, downplaying any concern -one voiced rather vocally by some worried fans- that Aeryn is turning too soft too fast. "It means that I can play all of it, all of her. It means whatever they hand me now I can take on board and deliver because I've seen her scope and I've seen her potential. And I'm more aware now of my potential, too. We're at a place where there's an opportunity to play. I think that has been an important element of season two for me. I've played a lot more with my character. I've pushed her into far more comedic areas than she was in season one. I had to let the writers guide Aeryn at the beginning because there were specific things about her character that needed to be broken down by them when they chose to break her. That was the case for all of the actors, all the characters. Zhaan (Virginia Hey), for example, started as this very peaceful being and then we started to see the dark side of her history and of her nature. She's very strong and powerful and capable of murder, as well as spiritually at peace and on the way to spiritual enlightenment."

Over the course of season two, "The Way We Weren't", the "Look At The Princess" three-parter and "Beware Of Dog" featured Aeryn particularly prominently. Asked if any single scene from any episode to date most exemplifies what Aeryn can be when everything on the show -the writing, direction, puppeteering, special effects and Black herself- is working like clockwork, Black ponders the question for a moment or two, then makes a initially surprising choice, pointing to the heartfelt and wordless tag sequence of "Look At The Princess: Part 3." "I think it's really important for performers to be able to perform without dialogue," she comments. "You can get into a terrible trap doing science fiction, which is spouting out reams and reams and reams of exposition or technical sci-fi babble. "Farscape", I've always felt, seems to be more fiction than science, and the character-based scenes are the ones I really cherish. At the end of that episode, Aeryn was so incredibly vulnerable and I think you really do see that in the tag. I used to find it very hard to watch my work, but when I watched "Look At The Princess: Part 3" I enjoyed the choice I made in that scene, just the way Aeryn offers the vial to Crichton. It was weighted with so many emotions. We see Aeryn, in a way, at her most courageous, but we also see her at her most vulnerable. And I loved that. I think that's her true nature."

Then, there's one of the final moments in "Beware Of Dog" to consider. Oddly enough, it happens to be another tender moment as the alien vermin-hunter the Vorc quietly expires in Aeryn's arms, with Crichton looking on, Aeryn sheds genuine tears and the despair on her face can't help but hit home for even the most jaded TV viewer. It's a moment like almost no other depicted on Farscape, particularly as it applies to Aeryn. Black recalls that it was always the writers' intention to dramatically express Aeryn's relationship with the Vorc, but given the vagaries of editing and the fact that key scenes were shot out of sequence, no one knew for certain how the scene might play. "I made a big choice to play that death scene with the creature as you saw it, but I didn't know if it would feel as if it were in context," Black says. "We weren't sure how it would work. But it happened despite me, actually I sat there with the creature as if it were dying after having worked with the puppeteers and the creature for however many days I had up until that point. Emotionally, I could not stop myself from having that response to the creature when it died."

"I was very concerned, though. I said, 'Is this too much for Aeryn?' I asked that to our director, Tony Tilse, and he likes to play around in the edits so that he can affect the speed and energy of scenes. He said, 'Look it's a really interesting scene. I wasn't expecting it at all.' It was my response as a performer to what was happening in front of me. It was the most un-Aeryn like scene I'd ever shot. And I very much enjoyed the fact that Crichton was there for the moment in terms of Aeryn's arc, and maybe also for the John-Aeryn arc, it was important that he witness that vulnerability and that compassion, that he see that she's capable of it."

What neither Aeryn nor Black knew at the time was that her vulnerability was also being seen by the 'neural clone' of Scorpius lodged in Crichton's brain, who made devastating use of it in the shocking season finale, "Die Me Dichotomy" with Aeryn Sun on ice, it remains to be seen whether a revived ex-Peacekeeper and the now-brain damaged Crichton will get the chance to face up to the admissions they made to each other in her last moments, but "Farscape" seems likely to be around for a long time to come. Whether she'll be there to see it happen, Black isn't letting on, though her comments on her role in the surprise hit "Pitch Black" almost seem like a hint of things to come. "I wouldn't be the least bit surprised not to be included in the cast of "Pitch Black": The Sequel," she says. "However, science fiction is the perfect genre for exhumation and resurrection by whatever means." Make of that what you will...

Throughout our conversation, Black's enthusiasm for "Farscape" shines through, particularly as she outlines how much room there still is for the hit show to grow. "I am excited about the prospect of "Farscape" growing," she says as the conversation draws to a close "I want it to expand. I want to see it go to other countries I would like to see it air in Japan. I think the anime fans there would enjoy "Farscape" I would like to see the late night talk shows in America screaming for us, for the actors to be on their shows. That would mean that Farscape is a huge success. And we are getting there. We're certainly growing."

"So I think the next couple of years, if "Farscape" goes that long, will give it the opportunity to really expand." It soon becomes clear that Claudia Black's ambitions for "Farscape" go beyond mere popular success. "I want "Farscape" to be a really influential show. I want "Farscape" to be something that's talked about like "Star Wars" or "Barbarella" or "Blade Runner." I know that "Farscape" is not a movie, but I think that we deliver something that has an interesting quality and a high production value for television, I think its great that we film in Australia," she says with a pride appropriate to a citizen of the down-under nation in its centenary year. ""Farscape" is the biggest budget show that's ever been done on Australian soil. It's got a very large Australian contribution behind the scenes and in front of the camera, and I don't think the show would have the same flavour were it filmed in America. By being on cable television, on the Sci-Fi Channel, we have not been forced to take the safe route in terms of our storytelling and the look of our show. We've been quite risqué, which I love. And I'll continue to be quite proud to be associated with "Farscape" if we're constantly pushing all of those envelopes."

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