Emmy Snubs Farscape

In space, nobody can hear you scream... even when the only Emmy nomination your critically praised series snags is for costume design. Not that Ben Browder, who plays rebel-without-a-clue-where-he-is astronaut John Crichton on the hit space saga Farscape really expected anything different.

"Award shows are not about merit," he tells TV Guide Online, putting his co-star and on-screen love interest upon a pedestal for all to see. "Look at what Claudia Black does [as Aeryn Sun], and the scope of her performance. She does comedy, tears, action... Heck, she could read the phone book and make it interesting. How can someone like that not get a nomination?

"That," he adds with a sigh, "is all you need to know about the validity of something like the Emmy."

A shining star in the sci-fi universe, Browder and company have received recognition from their fellow space cases, at least. "God bless us for winning the Saturn," he says of the award presented by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films, which named Farscape the best syndicated/cable TV series and him best TV actor.

Rather than waste time dreaming of Emmy, which for genre actors is akin to tilting at windmills, Browder has channeled his energy into writing the Farscape episode titled "John Quixote" (airing Friday at 10 p.m./ET on the Sci Fi Channel), his second effort at putting words into his own mouth. "I figure it's always good to have something to fall back on, just in case you get tired of talking to puppets and having people try to kill you on a weekly basis."