Farscape: Gone and Back
Last week I finally got a copy of Farscape: Gone and Back from the library. It was most definitely worth the wait.
I really liked how this story both moved forward the season arc and felt like a proper standalone Farscape episode. The four issue format forces a slightly different storytelling pace. You can’t have a classic three-act structure in the same way and I think that Keith R.A. DeCandido is really coming into his own using the “four-act” structure. In this instance, it allowed for a much longer sequence on Hyneria, in the present time and current reality, than you’d get book-ending the show, pre-credits and closing tag scene.
I’m glad there’s an excuse to visit Hyneria regularly - Deke’s medical check-ups with Rygel’s court physician - because it would be strange not to have Sparky as a regular presence anymore. At the same time, I was as thrilled as John was to see D’Argo and Zhaan again when he was zapped into the Unrealized Reality. And what a fantastic AU it was. One of the unresolved threads from the show that’s always niggled was Katralla from the Look at the Princess trilogy. She was pregnant! And he’ll never see his daughter! So it was so cool to have a way to get some closure on that. I didn’t love the pony-tail though, heh.
Not having Aeryn aboard Moya at all was a great twist to really show how different the reality was. So much had changed because of that one simple thing, most importantly having Scorpius as a true ally. Ouch. Tough one, that. I didn’t particularly care for “twice the woman” Chiana, but on the other hand, I would have loved learning more about the new guy that we don’t know at all in our regular reality.
And then there’s ol’ Red Eyes and the baby. Neat trick tying the bounty hunter in to the ongoing arc with Deke’s temporal oddities. I loved that he was in fact the cause of the jump and that it’s a mutation on Aeryn’s side of the genetic tree. Really looking forward to seeing where this “season” is going to take me.
But what’s up with the publishing schedule? My library just told me that D’Argo’s Quest is no longer being acquired. Hmm. I guess that’s not part of “season 5” but it’s still alarming.
I really liked how this story both moved forward the season arc and felt like a proper standalone Farscape episode. The four issue format forces a slightly different storytelling pace. You can’t have a classic three-act structure in the same way and I think that Keith R.A. DeCandido is really coming into his own using the “four-act” structure. In this instance, it allowed for a much longer sequence on Hyneria, in the present time and current reality, than you’d get book-ending the show, pre-credits and closing tag scene.
I’m glad there’s an excuse to visit Hyneria regularly - Deke’s medical check-ups with Rygel’s court physician - because it would be strange not to have Sparky as a regular presence anymore. At the same time, I was as thrilled as John was to see D’Argo and Zhaan again when he was zapped into the Unrealized Reality. And what a fantastic AU it was. One of the unresolved threads from the show that’s always niggled was Katralla from the Look at the Princess trilogy. She was pregnant! And he’ll never see his daughter! So it was so cool to have a way to get some closure on that. I didn’t love the pony-tail though, heh.
Not having Aeryn aboard Moya at all was a great twist to really show how different the reality was. So much had changed because of that one simple thing, most importantly having Scorpius as a true ally. Ouch. Tough one, that. I didn’t particularly care for “twice the woman” Chiana, but on the other hand, I would have loved learning more about the new guy that we don’t know at all in our regular reality.
And then there’s ol’ Red Eyes and the baby. Neat trick tying the bounty hunter in to the ongoing arc with Deke’s temporal oddities. I loved that he was in fact the cause of the jump and that it’s a mutation on Aeryn’s side of the genetic tree. Really looking forward to seeing where this “season” is going to take me.
But what’s up with the publishing schedule? My library just told me that D’Argo’s Quest is no longer being acquired. Hmm. I guess that’s not part of “season 5” but it’s still alarming.