Farscape: The Beginning of the End of the Beginning

When the Sci Fi Channel canceled Farscape, I almost swore off science fiction television. The unique show full of puppets, bodily functions, and sex offered intelligent scripts combined with good acting and quality special effects. O'Bannon returns to the universe he created with Farscape: The Beginning of the End of the Beginning, a well-crafted direct sequel to the original series. Picking up soon after the conclusion of Peacekeeper Wars, the surviving crew helps Rigel regain his throne. As expected, things don't go as planned when old enemies show up. O'Bannon expertly explores John's and Aeryn's struggles with parenthood and Chyna's grief over the death of D'Argo. At times sensational, artist Tommy Patterson does an adequate job show more capturing the visual look of the series. The book falters by creating too many dangling plotlines. I assume these will be covered in future volumes, but here they are just distracting. While not as good as the source material, Farscape: The Beginning of the End of the Beginning offers fans the next best thing to new episodes of the original show. show less

Solid fun for fans of the TV series. This picks up right during the final scene from the Peacekeeper Wars, and shows us the start of Crichton and Aeryn's lives as parents, and how they cope with that while being dragged, unsurprisingly, into more dangerous messes. Story-wise, this doesn't quite measure up to the series at its best (although it's very good), but the characters ring true, and the writing is spot on. It's great that we can get more of this story than the SciFi channel let us have.

I re-read all of these in the summer while blitzkrieging for a game. I still find myself feeling about the same for the Farscape franchize comics/graphic novels as I ever did. They are sometimes well written, but the art is really sad (because I just love the show and actors so much). Some of the stories meander too much, and Aeryn's ending still gets to me in a way where I don't absolutely agree that's where she should have ended up. But it was a fun summer reread.

This is a compelling story of inter-galactic adventure, empire building, and the never-ending struggle between good and evil. The fact that I was unfamiliar with the original television series on which this book was based (Farscape ran on SciFi channel from 1999 to 2003) didn't affect my tremendous enjoyment of this great story. I'm looking forward to reading more stories of Farscape.

I love Farscape, but this one didn't leave me ZOMG.

Review from interlibrary loan copy

I'm going to cry and cry and cry and cry - are there any more? That first image just got me, and then... okay, as River Song would say, spoilers.