Long, long ago (has it really been only three years?) on a soundstage far, far away (hey, Australia is on the other side of the planet) Ben Browder and Claudia Black convinced fans of "Farscape" that the characters they played - John Crichton and Aeryn Sun - had fire enough between them to fuel the ship on which they roamed the galaxy.
That flirtation was "very specifically scripted," Black reveals (no big surprise there), and she and Browder are happily married - to other people.
But Browder straightens out the person who describes Crichton and Aeryn's love/lust as unrequited. It was requited, he declares. Oh, boy, was it requited.
The pair are calling from the near-Vancouver set of "Stargate: SG-1," an enormously popular Sci Fi Network show that has cast them together again but in a quite different relationship. They are shooting Episode 14 of the new season of "SG-1," which begins at 8 p.m. Friday.
Proximity to that shooting is such that the stars and their publicist occasionally must drop their voices to whispers.
"I have to run - they're calling me," Black hisses into the phone at one point and hangs up.
Moments later, the phone rings again, and it's Browder who picks up the thread with "we've sort of swapped dynamics this time. Crichton was the loose cannon on "Farscape," but now it's great for me to watch her chew the scenery."
Browder, for the uninitiated, plays the all-business Lt. Col. Cameron Mitchell. Black's character, Vala Mal Doran, is a thoroughly charming intergalactic thief famed for using her allure to get what she wants. The network describes her as "morally ambiguous," a role 180 degrees from the soldier she played on "Farscape." Vala popped in and out of "SG-1" last season, but she's back as a regular, and in the season opener, she gives birth to a girl-child who exhibits many surprising traits, not the least of which is accelerated growth. There's also the question of her leading the Ori armies to battle all unbelievers, but things hardly get that far on Friday night.
Even as a new mom, Vala cracks wise with improbable ease, and Black likes it.
"It's a nice change to be able to do that, though I definitely did a lot of comedy when I started out in the business", she said. "Ben tried to tell me I could do it on 'Farscape,' but Aeryn was so serious, even the slightest smile was carefully scripted.
"We have a fantastic friendship, and he was my go-to guy... (back then). Now it's a different group and a different dynamic," though she says she's found a very special rapport with Michael Shanks (Dr. Daniel Jackson), whose character has had more than one close, sometimes steamy encounter with Vala.
Browder, for his part, believes he may be the last happily married man in Hollywood.
His "Farscape" relationship with Black, he says, was all business: "We were old enough and smart enough not to let anything get in the way of our work. The tabloids are full of stories about people going off the rails... some people forget their boundaries," it's almost expected, but not of these two.
When these two are not making TV, they actually enjoy watching it.
Black watches "West Wing" and "Gray's Anatomy" for their "great writing."
"And 'American Idol,'" she says over a muted groan. "No, no, I like it because it celebrates talent."
Browder, in true Southern boy style, says, "NASCAR." Then, by way of explanation, "I grew up going out to the track in Charlotte (N.C.), but I do have to fight to get to watch it at home."
How the new dynamic between these two will play out is anybody's guess, but Browder/Black fans could make a game of trying to figure it out.