This is the hope of the fans of "Farscape." Citing declining ratings for season four and high production costs, Sci Fi Channel decided not to exercise its option for a fifth season of the science-fiction drama, despite having trumpeted a two-year pickup for the series earlier this year.

This is in contrast to rising ratings for the show's Friday-night lead-in, "Stargate SG-1," which moved to Sci Fi this past summer after several seasons on Showtime. At present, the possibility of another season of that show remains in question.

Series executive producers David Kemper and Richard Manning, along with Browder, broke the news to fans on Friday, Sept. 6, in an open chatroom devoted to "Farscape" at Scifi.com. Since then, fan Web sites devoted to saving the series -- such as "Save Farscape," at farscape.wdsection.com/index.html -- have cropped up and petitions are being circulated.

Taking a cue from "Roswell" fans, which pelted The WB with bottles of Tabasco sauce (the favorite condiment of the show's alien characters) when they feared for the series' future, "Farscape" fans have taken to sending boxes of crackers. Their slogan, "Crackers DO Matter," is a play on the title of an episode of the show called "Crackers Don't Matter."

In addition, roughly a dozen fans rallied in front of Sci Fi Channel headquarters in midtown Manhattan on Thursday, Sept. 12.

The goal of all this is to either encourage Sci Fi to reverse its decision or encourage another network to pick up the series, which is produced by Hallmark Entertainment and the Jim Henson Company (Brian Henson is an executive producer) and premiered in 1999.

A statement from Henson read, in part: "Although Sci Fi Channel has chosen not to pick up a fifth season, The Jim Henson Company is in active development on a new 'Farscape' film, an anime project and is currently discussing syndication of this highly acclaimed series. We are eager to move forward with the 'Farscape' creative team in developing new projects that will resonate with our overwhelmingly loyal fan base."

Series creator Rockne O'Bannon (who has not directly been creatively involved in season four), says, "It's been a big part of my life for the past four or five years. There has been smoke on the horizon for quite some time."

While he declines to speculate on who might have been ultimately responsible for the decision to cancel "Farscape," O'Bannon doesn't place blame on Sci Fi Channel president Bonnie Hammer and her team. "Bonnie's always been a real strong supporter of the series and seen the value in it."

"I don't know what this bodes for Sci Fi Channel. I'm not bitter. I understand the economics and all that, but if it were me, I'd see the value of the series in terms of, 'I'm the Sci Fi Channel, and many say this is among the best, most well-regarded, science-fiction series. I would think it's cool to be the one to have that on my network.' But they don't see that."

Regarding how the show ends, O'Bannon says, "The thing that has me the most disconcerted is, we've wrapped episode 22, season four, and as we have in all the previous seasons, we go off on a cliffhanger. So here we sit, hanging from a cliff."

Asked about the "Farscape" movie, O'Bannon says, "That's something that could be an interesting notion. David (Kemper) and I have been commissioned to write a 'Farscape' feature, but if we were to do a feature, it wouldn't be the next episode. It wouldn't be a continuation. It would be something that was very much a stand-alone story."