I'm rather busy once again, so I only have a little time tonight for
discussion. I won't be able to mention this show on our forums until tomorrow.
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This episode took me back to Star Trek, the original series. I wouldn't
say it was a knockoff of "Elaan of Troyes", where Kirk had to transport a
princess to her wedding and he ended up falling in love with her, but there
were some definite parallels.
What I liked about the episode was the fact that we got to look at
Nietzschean mentality without all the backstory. That is, the episode
assumes the viewing audience knows something about Nietzscheans. This is
one of the first transitional episodes between the setup phase of a
television series and the experimental phase where they start playing with
established ideas to see how far they can push them.
There was some hard-nosed humor but also some subtlety. Matt Kiene and
John Reinkmeyer also wrote "Forced Perspective", the episode where Dylan
was captured and taken to Mobius to stand trial for a secret mission he had
performed on behalf of the Commonwealth 300 years earlier. There wasn't
much humor in that episode, so this team is a bit weak in the humor
department, in my opinion.
The real high point of this episode came when the audience learned that
Nietzscheans aren't so easy to outwit. We've seen Tyr chew up Nietzscheans
for breakfast. And Dylan seems to win consistently against them. Well,
not this time. Dylan did not lose, of course. But he only achieved what
he originally set out to achieve, and gained no significant ground. The
balance in the episode was extremely fine-turned, and even if the principal
writers weren't wholly responsible for that, they handled the intricate
maneuverings well. They not only had the characters fooled, they had me
fooled, too.
As a Trance fan I was thrilled to see the Purple One in the episode
(actually, the entire cast was used) but it appears that Laura has changed
her hair. It's not easy for me to tell because of the makeup job. But
they definitely paid some attention to Trance and let her reveal yet
another mysterious side of herself. She had me going, "Hmmmm...." Was
this an attempt to explore an idle comment in a previous episode about
Trance's past, or just an excuse to move the story along? I couldn't tell.
The endgame proved to be a bit rushed, but they were running out of time,
and I suppose the resolution had to be fixed up because of the way they
were going with the story. Let's just say that "the enemy of my enemy is
still my enemy" is a very Nietzschean proverb (it is attributed to Drago
Muzeveni).
Not a bad episode, but I doubt it will be one of the favorites among fans
for the first season. It may be more appreciated in later seasons.
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