Entertainment
The Tragic Reason Farscape Lost The Soul Of Its Story
By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
Farscape still sticks out today among sci-fi shows thanks to its colorful cast of characters who, over the course of four seasons and a miniseries, mostly bonded together as a cohesive team. The most colorful, rational, and understanding of the Moya’s crew was Pa’u Zotoh Zhaan, the blue-skinned, bald alien who used her spiritual training to provide comfort and support to the rest of the crew.
For the first two seasons, Zhaan was the heart and soul of the crew, the one who helped hold them together, but it tragically came to an end when it became clear that the actress under the makeup, Virginia Hey, was putting her life on the line every episode.
A Healer And A Killer
A far more complex character than one would expect from a series featuring puppets, Zhaan is a reformed killer, responsible for murdering the man who sold out her people to the Peacekeepers at the cost of her sanity. When Crichton (Ben Browder) first meets Zhaan onboard Moya, she’s less terrifying than D’argo (Anthony Simcoe) and less likely to betray Crichton than Rygel (Jonathan Hardy), but she’s the most dangerous one on board. Both sides of her personality were given plenty of time to shine, from the counselor and guide to those on board to using violence for the greater good; she’s the only one of Moya’s crew of prisoners who was actually a criminal.
Despite her complex personality and depth, Zhaan’s most striking feature is her blue skin, a trait that the character wasn’t originally supposed to have. As a Delvian, a species evolved from plants, her skin would change color based on her mood. That proved to be impractical under the realities of filming, so the choice was made to go with the exotic shade of blue from head to toe.
Virginia Hey even shaved her head for the role to complete the transformation. If that was the only sacrifice she had to make, Zhaan would have been part of the series for longer, but the blue paint was slowly killing her.
Virginia Hey Gave It All For The Role
While filming Farscape Season 2, Virginia started to get ill, and discovered that the blue paint covering her body was being absorbed by her skin and damaging her kidneys. The issue wasn’t the paint itself, but the length of time it was applied, as Hey would wear it multiple days a week for months, and slowly, over two years, it was too much for her system. Hey was in the first four episodes of Season 3, letting the cast and audience say goodbye to Zhaan with a moment of selfless sacrifice, again, after having revived Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black), which epitomized everything great about the character.
Away from the cameras and TV sets, Virginia Hey has a lot in common with her most famous role, like Zhaan, she became a spiritual guide. Teaching others how to meditate and utilize natural ingredients in perfumes, candles, and their diet, Hey has kept helping others even while her own health has declined in recent years.
Virginia Hey’s Terminal Cancer Diagnosis
In 2022, Hey announced that she had an aggressive, stage-4 cancer that was in her bones, and at the time, doctors thought she had 12 months to live. It’s 2025, and Virginia Hey is still fighting, sharing her progress and life with interviews for UK and Australian papers, remaining as upbeat and optimistic as possible.
On screen and off, Virginia Hey was an integral part of Farscape’s success, and she was missed during the second half of the series. Zhaan’s role on the crew proved to be impossible to fill, with the red-tinged Jool (Tammy MacIntosh) sometimes considered to be the Scrappy-Doo of the series. Sci-fi may be looked down on as a genre, but when the right role meets the perfect star, the result is a timeless character beloved by fans for generations, and while Hey may have given more of herself than anyone ever should for a role, there are hundreds of thousands of fans worldwide who will never forget her time out in space as our favorite blue alien.
