Peter Andrikidis

In Farscape (1999), the strange creatures attract attention, but the difficult company earns our patience. We grew fond of the series because its increasingly involved relationships made the early melodrama worth sitting through. Andrikidis served as a set-up director and directed multiple episodes; that gives him a place in its achievement, not ownership of everything we like about it. The effects have aged, and the programme takes time to settle, but the people keep it worth following.

The important turn in his television work is Wildside (1997). He has described it as the drama where he finally achieved the understated, improvised performances he had long pursued. He then directed the whole comedy-drama Grass Roots (2000), all three seasons of East West 101 (2007), and several episodes of the first season of Underbelly (2008). The spread matters: his interest in actors has had to serve comedy as well as crime. We welcome a director whose stated ambition gives performers room to behave without spelling out every feeling.

Visual flair is also part of his reputation, though his work with actors is the stronger reason for our interest. Understatement has a use in genre television: it can give us someone believable to follow when the premise is already asking us to accept a great deal. Producer Tony Buckley has worked with him on three films, while his television work includes both set-up duties and responsibility for whole series. The caution is Farscape itself, where a director's preference for restraint cannot be taken as a guarantee against melodrama.

His features, including Wog Boy 2: Kings of Mykonos (2010) and Alex & Eve (2015), have drawn more mixed reviews than his television work. That is reason enough not to assume his features are the place to see his strengths most clearly. He continued directing television into the 2020s. Give Farscape time, or choose something less demanding of your patience.