Once again, we have two storylines this week, plus some extraneous material setting us up for the season finale next week.
The first storyline reminds me of an old joke I heard as a kid.
“Once there was a man who took a ride in an airplane.
Unfortunately, he fell out of the plane.
Fortunately, he was wearing a parachute.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t properly packed and didn’t open.
Fortunately, it had a reserve chute.
Unfortunately, that didn’t work either.
Fortunately, he saw a large haystack below him.
Unfortunately, there was a large pitchfork sticking straight up out of the haystack.
Fortunately, he missed the pitchfork.
Unfortunately, he also missed the haystack!"
Similar is the fate of Ensor and space surgeon Maryatt. (I thought his name was Marriott, but the cast list said otherwise.) They are on their way to a distant planet to treat Ensor’s father. Fortunately, they pass a familiar planet as a landmark. Unfortunately, its gravity field takes hold of the ship. Fortunately, they are able to pull free. Unfortunately, the ship then blows up. Fortunately, they have two life pods. Unfortunately, by the time Ensor gets Maryatt in his life pod, he’s already dead. Fortunately, they are spotted by Blake and his crew. Unfortunately, Ensor is desperate to get to the distant planet and takes Cally hostage, forcing Blake to abandon his crew. Fortunately, Blake tells him he’ll wait until the pain from his crash knocks him out. Unfortunately, he sets his gun on a dead man’s switch so that if he lets go, he’ll kill Cally – so Blake will have to keep him awake. Fortunately, when he passes out, Cally gets away in time to save herself. Unfortunately, Ensor didn’t just pass out – he died.
And so it goes. The attempt to rescue the pair was all for nothing. Well, not quite. It seems the surgeon Maryatt had an all-access security pass on him. You know what that means. “We’re going to Disney World,” shouts Blake. Well actually, they’re going to the mystery planet to find out about a secret project Ensor mentioned called Orac. And since next week’s episode is entitled “Orac,” I guess that would be very soon.
For the other storyline, the fortune is almost all good – for the former residents of the planet Cephlon, that is. Ensor had said that the planet had a great war, and now they’d gone primitive. Sure enough, they’ve been reduced to acting like cavemen – throwing rocks and wearing animal skins. When the crew are teleported up from rescuing Ensor, Jenna is apparently nabbed just before that and her bracelet is knocked off. Avon, Gan and Vila go back to locate her but are stranded when Blake is forced by Ensor to take the ship away. Luckily, just when our guys are backed into a steel door which Vila can’t open, it opens by itself. Or rather, a lovely former resident named Megatt opens it for them. She is like a guardian for the old guard of residents, waiting patiently for a god to come by and deliver them and Avon fits the bill for her. They have to go out and rescue Jenna, but their advanced weapons and tactics make that a rather easy task. Fortunately, they know enough about the equipment there to get it going again and to launch the frozen cells of the former residents into space to land on a habitable planet in another solar system about 500 years away. Would be interesting to check in a thousand years to see who advanced more – the ship that flew far far away or the caveman on Cephlon. But there’s no way to know. The storyline is okay. The most interesting thing is that Avon never takes advantage of his situation – asking to be treated like a god or anything. In fact, he wants to help as much as he can so that he doesn’t let these people down. It’s a good showcase to show he’s not as bad as he seems to be sometimes.
Meanwhile, there’s some activity between Travis and Servelan regarding the mission of Ensor and Maryatt. It seems Ensor’s father had access to some great weapon or something called Orac. He agreed to trade it to the Federation in exchange for having his father saved by surgery to implant energy cells. He had told them that if they try to charge the planet and take it by force, he’ll destroy Orac rather than let them have it. But she cleverly plants a bomb in the transport ship, which was what blew up earlier. Now, I say “cleverly” but I don’t see what her plan is. She said they didn’t know where on the planet the Orac lab was, it was going to be revealed to them when they got close. As both men are dead now, how is she going to find out where Orac is? And further, he already told them he’d blow it up it they tried to take it by force so even if she knows where it is, how does this move help? Why not just let the surgeon operate and save him and then they get what they want? Oh of course; he also wanted 100 million credits. Now, she thinks she’ll get it for free.
She also mentioned that she would claim that Maryatt was a traitor and stole the ship. She knows his family will go to prison and/or slavery for his “crime” but she’s fine with that.
Travis: You’re almost as ruthless as I am.
Servelan: You underestimate me.
We have a word for that behavior. No, not bee-yotch. She’s a Mueller. That refers to a scuzbag lawyer we have in our country who let men that he knew were innocent rot in prison for forty years to cover up for his confidential informant. Two of them were eventually released; the other two died in prison.
After this behavior, I’m definitely cancelling her subscription to HIGHLIGHTS magazine. Clearly, she hasn’t learned a thing from reading about Goofus and Gallant. (Goofus sexually assaults women. Gallant gives them flowers and asks them nicely for a date.) Or maybe she just has a mad crush on Goofus.
This episode was okay and gets a 7. I’m looking forward to finding out what Orac is next week.
