Mine the DVD.

Special thanks to my mother-in-law, who despite the normal tensions that exist in a mother-in-law/son-in-law relationship, has a pretty solid knack for getting me a Christmas present I really enjoy every year.

This DVD set is pretty top-notch for the price range. The transfer is good but not perfect -- in particular, the title sequence is a little fuzzy, and there is a bit of choppiness in the high-action sequences. The visual quality isn't quite as good as, say, the remastered Doctor Who classic series DVDs, but those run about as much for one six-part serial as this entire season box set. It's still quite good in the less action-heavy sequences, and Soaron cleaned up so nice that I'm half-convinced they just went back in and re-rendered all his models using someone's laptop in their spare time. There are no subtitles or captions, which is unfortunate. Again, easy to forgive under the circumstances, but it's a shame that the hearing-impaired are going to miss out. And, of course, for my own selfish reasons, it would have been helpful to have a transcript I could look at to verify some of the dialog.

The commentary and interviews are great. It's a shame they couldn't get in a few more commentaries, but I can't imagine it's easy to come up with 22 minutes worth of things to say about a show you were involved in a quarter century ago for each of twenty episodes.

Conspicuous by their absence are the direct-to-video animated "Training Videos". I can only guess that the distribution rights for those were different, having been made by Armtic, a now-defunct anime studio. They don't add much to the experience, but it means I'll be toting those three ancient VHS tapes along with me until the day I die. A real collector's edition might have also benefited from something like a commercials gallery, though the quality of the clips they show in the documentary suggests that those may no longer exist in decent quality recordings.

The documentary is a real treat, providing some framing and exposition that goes a long way to help us modern viewers understand the reasons for some of the really bizarre design and storytelling choices, and they talk at length about the direction they would have taken the show in the second season -- a lot of which surprised me, and I'll go over it in length as my review series progresses (Sorry about the hiatus. Sadly, my son doesn't really have the attention span for a half-hour action-adventure yet.). They also debunk and confirm various bits of theoryJMS goes so far as to mention that "people on the internet" had identified rape symbolism in the depiction of digitization. Given what a quick googling of "captain power" and "rape symbolism", I gotta ask: did I just get a shout-out? I've thrown out here.

One of the really weird coincidences I noticed though, was the episode ordering on the DVD: they're in the same order as the order I'd previously announced for my reviews. So that's convenient. The upshot for you folks at home is that I imagine my screen shots will be a lot less grainy and color-corrected.

I will point out this: I wasn't able to get my Power Jet XT-7 to interact with the DVD. They mention the difficulties they had during development getting the toys to work, so my suspicion is that the process of deinterlacing and upconverting that 25-year-old NTSC signal to play on my 1080p screen probably destroyed the carrier signal. I'll see if I can dig out a dumber DVD player and a CRT screen and try again when I get the chance. I also can't rule out that my 25-year-old Power Jet XT-7 just isn't up to it. If you can make it out in the picture, the thing is suffering from a few decades of grime and a couple of missing parts. It does make all the expected shooty-sounds, though it power cycles if you shake it too hard.

In all, this is a great DVD set, well worth the price. I'd probably have paid double for a set with more special features and more work done on the remastering, but at this price, and given the obscurity of the series, it's clearly a labor of love. It's priced like a budget shovelware release, but it makes a really serious effort that you don't usually see with comparable season boxsets for shows of this vintage. Captain Power aficionados have undoubtedly already bought a copy, but if you're just curious: this is worth it. For that matter, if you're a fan of Babylon 5, this is probably worth it just to see an example of JMS developing some of the stylistic elements he would later use.

Next time, I'm going to go into a bit more detail on one of the coolest extras on the DVD. Until then, Power On!

Oh, and one last thing: I'd like to give a small shout-out to CPL of Captain Power Lives!, who has a fantastic collection of images of hard-to-find or unreleased Captain Power toys and links to various other reviews of the DVD set.

Hello and welcome once again to A Mind Occasionally Voyaging. My cohost is Sherlock Holmes, our topic is Post Apocalyptic Children's Television, and tonight's victim is "Final Stand", episode three (or four) of...

Before we get started tonight, a couple of kudos to the post-apocalyptic world. I spent a good chunk of last week rummaging through blip.tv for web original series that might make for good watching. In the post-apocalypse department, here's what I found:

• After Judgment: Sort of a spin on Christian End-Times fiction, this is a show set after a "Judgment" based loosely on the 19th century idea of a premillennial "rapture" in which God removes the virtuous before destroying the Earth. In this world, though, God has elected not to visit plague and disaster on the unsaved, but rather has just sort of let the universe wind down. The Earth has stopped spinning, no one is born, no one dies, everything is just sort of more of the same forever and ever. Well, except for some creepy guys in motorcycle leathers who occasionally show up, grab someone, and take them away, never to be seen again. The story is about your average ragtag group who band together to try to find a prophecied back-door into heaven.
• Day Zero: This one only has one episode so far, but it's basically a Zombie Apocalypse (These are Honorary Zombies -- radiation-afflicted mutants altered by the fallout of a nuclear war, rather than the walking dead). The eight survivors are a ragtag mismatched group who, y'know, have to do that whole surviving thing. Did make me scream "SCIENCE DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY!" a few times at such ideas as radiation having "killed off their natural immunity to crystal meth," allowing street drugs to be used as one-hit-kill weapons against the mutants, but fun enough so far.
• Exile: Another zombie apocalypse, this time a legit one. The first (and so far only) episode introduced some interesting characters, and then killed them all. So.
• Necroland: Another zombie apocalypse. This one was too disjointed to for me to really have much of an opinion yet, but does feature a foul-mouthed ten year old girl killing zombies, so there's that.
• The Black Dawn: This one is a plague apocalypse of some sort. Though there's a whole season of episodes, I've only seen one so far, so no opinion yet.
• Zomblogalypse: This one's a lot of fun. The Zombie Eschaton as told by bloggers.

I've got a few more of these in my queue, so look forward to more words about them in the future.

One thread that runs through a lot of these web serials is that the influence of Lost really informs the storytelling. Now, I'm sure Lost is a good show, but I really don't look forward to a generation in which every "castawayAs I mentioned back in my review of Captain Power Episode 1, I view post-apocalyptic drama as being a one of several particularly science-fictiony flavors of the literary tradition of Robinson Crusoe: stories which are largely about the challenge of survival in a hostile world, cut off from the protagonist's home culture."-type science fiction drama has to ape it any more than I particularly like the way that The Road Warrior prompted every post-apocalyptic earth for the next 20 years to look like the Australian Outback.

I don't see what you're complaining about. I didn't find the plot of Lost to be impenetrable in the slightest. Now, could you pass the cocaine? I am dangerously close to coming down.

So let's rewind for a bit to the days before you were contractually obligated to frame your castaway story as a series-long mind-fuck ontological mystery, and see how things were in the world of the future-as-viewed-from-the-Eighties.

Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future
Episode 4 (or 3): Final Stand
By J. Michael Straczynski

This one is going to be Tank's character focus episode, which is nice because we're four reviews in yet, and I can count the number of lines from regulars who aren't Cap or Hawk on my fingers. We open with some Bio-Mechs emerging through the inexplicable fog into... What looks like basically the same abandoned factory as every other indoor fight scene so far.

The Putties Mechs wander around, looking for the Future Force, who have cleverly hidden behind and under things, until one of them scans what looks like the air cleaner off a Chevy Vega with his DYMO label maker Deluxe, revealing inside the source of the "Vwoop vwoop" noise that has been driving me crazy for this scene so far. Inside the air cleaner is what looks to be... GLaDOS?

I guess GLaDOS is supposed to be some kind of fake bait transmitter thing, because the commander Bio-Mech immediately announces (say it with me everyone), "It's a trap!"

Excellent piece of deduction on the part of the robotic gentleman.

Hawk (For we can not have a scene without Hawk) and Scout decide to press their advantage by... Immediately revealing their position. Scout jumps out in front of the mechs and, in what seems to be a radically misguided Jayne Mansfield impression, says "Looking for me, boys?"

After few exchanges of laser-fire, Tank decides that he needs to get on the Bizarrely Inappropriate Impressions bandwagon by performing what is going to be his major character shtick for the rest of the series: channelling the Kool-Aid Man.

Tank is such a badass that he manages to decapitate a mech with a single backhand, and his weapon is so powerful that its video toaster laser effects make a sort of "Skoom!" sound effect instead of the usual "Pwoosh!". He even wears an ammo belt even though none of the weapons we will ever see take any kind of ammunition (Except Hawk's nerf launcher). It's Hawk's time to shine, and he does, sending dozens of mechs to meet their maker, including one who he only clips across the hip, which staggers to the ground, then struggles back to its feet, and sort of stands there quaking with terror until Tank fires off the coup de grace. Our hero, everyone!

Now, I know that the Bio-Mechs are meant to be soulless automata, without even the capacity for independent thought and self-awareness of a Warlord Bio-Dread like Soaron, and that is why it is okay that they get slaughtered by the dozens without our heroes ever showing them even a hint of compassion.

But here's the thing. Soaron is a (poorly-rendered) CGI robot. He looks funny. he moves funny. He speaks in clipped sentences and his delivery is over-the-top. Overmind does the detached-psychotic-bedroom-voice thing that HAL 9000 taught us to fear in computers. Lord Dread has a human face, but he's barely mobile -- so far, we haven't seen him so much as rise from his chair -- and he looks like what you'd get if the Borg assimilated Darth Vader. And he's a genocidal lunatic.

The bio-mechs, on the other hand, are actors in suits. Stunt men, no doubt, who are doing a lot of very physical acting. And they don't move like robots. They move like people. They bump into things. They interact with their environment in a physical sort of way. They duck behind things. They stagger. They get clipped across the hip by a bazooka-laser, fall down, and try to get back up. When they die, their bodies twitch and they let out little rasping, rattling death sounds. When the last two mechs try to escape, they don't look like robots attempting an orderly strategic withdraw: they look like routed soldiers who are running for their lives.

That mech Tank shoots is staggering, shaking. I don't imagine that was intentional; just something the stuntman did naturally because he is a human being acting out a very physical scene, and his own humanity shines through. And this is kind of awkward in your Ultra Disposable mecha-mook. Because when Tank head-shots an injured mech that is literally quaking with terror, my sympathies ends up on the wrong side. And when Scout guns down two retreating mechs, then calls out "You're out!" in what seems to be a weak Rex Barney impression, it just seems callous.

Undoubtedly, this would be a lot easier today -- in a big-budget exercise, the Mechs would likely be CG themselves. Ironically, it's possible that if they did a modern re-imagining, Soaron, being a major character who has to interact with other characters, might be the only one of Dread's forces not to be computer generated.

Scout dispatches the last two mechs as they desperately try to escape, and claims their prize from the mech corpses: a Bio-Dread transmitter (Or receiver, as it will be called in the next scene). We switch to the jumpship, where Cap makes his log entry: Stardate 47-7.1. They are on their way to "Sector 7, grid co-ordinates 9 by 5," a place which "Had a name once, but doesn't any more." You know, if Cap has been waxing poetic about how much has been lost in every journal entry for the past 15 years, Ken Burns will be rather spoiled for choice when he goes to pick out good voice overs for his documentary on the Metal Wars.

As I mentioned before, I have no idea how their sector numbering works, but according to the map Hawk pulls up, this nameless sector is Sherman Oaks, in Los Angeles. Which seems strange given that back in episode 1, San Francisco was in sector 19, and the military installation that we tentatively placed on the east coast in "The Abyss" was either Sector 14 or Sector 42, depending on who you ask, and in "Wardogs", we supposed that Sector 7 was in Canada. But perhaps I'm reading too much into the map, because I think it's the same map every time someone pulls up a map screen in this show.

It will take them about an hour to evacuate the civilians from Sector 7, which may not be enough time, as their captured receiver has revealed that a Bio-Dread has already been dispatched to digitize the locals. Now, based on all the clues, can you figure out which Bio-Dread has been sent to Sector 7?

Based on a careful analysis of the facts of the case, I notice that there is a scuff on the left side of your shoe, indicative of some sort of back injury that causes you to favor one side. If I factor this in with the presumed geography of sectors 14, 7, 19 and 7, taking into account the theory we previously established that a date of 47-7.1 corresponds to the first of July, and interpolating from the weather patterns of Los Angeles, assuming current projections of global warming, but also accounting for a drastic reduction in pollution because of the wholesale destruction of humanity and infrastructure, I think I can conclude that the Bio-Dread best suited for this mission would be... Soaron.

You just said that because he's the only Bio-Dread we've ever seen.

Elementary deduction.

Well, this turns out to be a fortunate move for our heroes, since the immutable laws of the universe say that Soaron can not appear in an episode without a dogfight ensuing. This time, as Pilot keeps the Jumpship out of sight, Hawk launches a pair of guided missiles at Soaron. Soaron dogfights one of the missiles, finally destroying it, but is caught off guard when the Jumpship takes a shot at him -- the shot misses, but Soaron, having turned to return fire, receives a Actually, and this one just blows my mind, he isn't hit by the missile. The missile sort of... Shoots him. And then he explodes. The future is WEIRD.guided missile suppository and crashes, hurt bad enough that we may assume it will take him almost exactly one hour to self-repair, plus or minus the amount of complications that will arise before they can start evacuating people.

We cut back to Volcania, where Dread orders Soaron to -- you guessed it -- do exactly what they had already established he was going to do. Repair himself, then go to sector 7 and digitize all the humans. Then Overmind tells Dread that he's got some more artifacts from "Tauron". Oh Holy Crap! I just figured it out! This is actually a prequel to Battlestar Galactica and the Bio-Dreads are really Cylons! This explains EVERYTHING well actually nothing. Oh well. It was a nice thought. We only get a passing glimpse of the artifacts, but they look for all the world like RoboCop and Nimon-from-Doctor-Who action figures. They will not come up again after the next scene, where Dread looks at one for a moment, then sets it on fire. Symbolism!

Cap powers on (We won't see them use the pedestal back at base in this episode or the next one. For a show that so often reuses little set-pieces to show off particular things over and over, they seem bizarrely averse to showing the big flashy version of the transformation sequence) and they exit the Jumpship to survey the devastated-village set. Cap quickly identifies the devastation as, "Marauders. Hit and run. Take what they can and burn the rest. It's bad enough we have Bio-Dreads to worry about. But looters... Humans, preying on other humans."

Someone should thank him for that exposition. It might have been difficult for the audience to sort it out otherwise. Unless, I suppose, they were to actually look around, or pay attention in the preceding scene when we saw one of these marauder fellows peeking out at the heroes from hiding.

Yeah. And for all I respect Tim Dunnigan, frankly, Patrick Stewart would have a hard time keeping this exposition-heavy purple prose from going over like a lead nerf missile, and Tim Dunnigan is no Patrick Stewart. Tank adds, "Marauders hit ze place hahd, Keptin. Throw everybody out."

Hawk is more optimistic: "At least it keeps them out of Dread's hands." Well, given the extended rape metaphor in episode 1, I suppose he might have a point. Better to be assaulted, robbed, possibly murdered or sold into slavery than to be digitized, right? Ick.

The local Marauder, a burly, sort of vaguely Or maybe Irish. Or maybe he just smokes way too much. His voice is all over the place.Australian-sounding guy named Kasko, shouts a taunting warning before stepping out of a ruined building. He's played by Charles Seixas, an actor about whom I have been able to discover absolutely nothing at all other than his filmography. He's hamming it up as a middle-aged-punk type, with the mohawk and the leather, sort of like an evil version of Blank Reg from Max Headroom. But much more like a character lifted directly from The Road Warrior. The major point here is that he's a Punk Rock Type, which is basically '80s shorthand for "This man is a dangerous and unsavory element from a dystopian future". Tank recognizes Kasko by his voice, and identifies him as having "Came out of the same place I did. Genetically engineered. A freak." "Like you!" Kasko accuses. "Like me," Tank repeats, impassively.

Kasko has some survivors imprisoned nearby with a time bomb, and offers to trade them for a chance at unarmed single combat. Cap is unwilling, but Tank insists that it's the only way, what with their limited time and Kasko being a psychopath. So he strips down, takes off his Tron underwear, comes out of the Jumpship to fight according to "Street Rules", which is a lot like Navy Rules: First one to die, loses.

Kasko takes an early lead by pushing a brick wall over onto Tank. Since they don't especially trust Kasko to keep up his end of the bargain, Scout is busy trying to rebuild the walkie-talkie Kasko had used earlier to talk to his hostages then smashed and discarded. He explains the procedure of tracking the signal by interfacing with the crystal in a ridiculous fake spy-movie German accent, which Cap finds about as endearing as I do. Is stupid voices going to be Scout's thing now? I do not like this thing.

We cut around a few times, showing Soaron repair himself, Cap and Company track the hostages, and Tank playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse with Kasko before getting caught in an incredibly obvious trap when Kasko offers to just give him the detonator for the bomb, and walks out onto an unstable bit of floor, which he promptly falls through.

Or, if you are observing carefully, gets lifted out over and lowered through, presumably by invisible guide wires.

Indubitably. Kasko runs downstairs to kick and taunt Tank some more, preparing to detonate the bomb early just to be an asshole. At the same time, Cap and Company find the prisoners. Tank begs Kasko to let the hostages go, as he's got what he wants. Kasko accuses Tank of having gone soft and holding back, to which Tank responds by kicking Kasko through a wall.

They fight some more while Cap tries desperately to diffuse the bomb. Then, just as things look tense, with about a minute and a half left...

Cap opens the door and lets the hostages out. Wait. A minute and a half? Who diffuses the bomb with a minute and a half left on the clock?

Kasko hits Tank in the face with a cinderblock, retrieves the detonator, and declares, "You lose!", but Cap barges in and declares the hostages rescued, entreating Tank to come with them before Soaron gets there. Tank, in a move that will surprise you if you haven't watched this show at all yet, turns to not be at all hurt from a cinderblock to the face, gets up, decks Kasko, and leaves, shouting "Quick! Let's hide!" I just want to point out that this sounds absolutely adorable the way he says it. This six-foot-seven bear of a man with a Scandinavian accent, all covered in sweat and brick dust, saying "Quick! Let's hide!"

Without his armor, Tank wouldn't stand a chance against Soaron, and Kasko is just enough of a dick to not take his defeat like a man. He breaks cover and shouts "Captain Power is over there!" to Soaron. Soaron, of course, doesn't care what an organic like Kasko has to say, and instead shouts "Obliterate!" then digitizes him, which I assume is to spare us the moral diciness of having Tank kill a human, even if the human is a dangerous psychopath. That said, let's not forget that episode 1 has established that digitization is a metaphor for rape. So don't get too much schadenfreude out of this. Which puts us in the uncomfortable position of cheering for Kasko's defeat as it comes in the form of what is essentially a metaphor for corrective rape. Yeah. I feel a bit soiled now.

It gets worse. After digitizing Kasko, Soaron throws his head back and lets out a sort of vaguely orgasmic howl. Gross. The heroes take advantage of Soaron's post-digital distraction to break cover, shoot the Bio-Dread, and make a break for it. Cap has to fight his way back to the jumpship, which should be a really tense scene, but it doesn't really compare well to the mech fight from the beginning of the episode. Soaron fights rarely do -- in this case, we cut back and forth between Cap running around a ruined city set and shots of Soaron, framed by nothing but sky, shooting. It makes the fight seem disconnected, and that takes a lot away from the drama. As the jumpship flies off, apparently having decided that the audience has forgotten that whole "It'll take three trips and an hour of travel-time to evacuate these people" thing, Soaron caps off an episode full of weird impressions by adding his own: he channels Dr. Claw, and shouts, "Next time!"

In the jumpship, Tank talks about his escape from A street gang? A genetic engineering lab? Undersea colony? Our last, best hope for punk rock? Who can say? This is all we'll ever hear about it.Babylon 5, and laments that he'd thought he'd put his violent past behind him. In a scene that I think woulda benefitted from the Full House Music, Cap comforts Tank with a speech about how, sure, he used brute force to solve his problems, and sure, maybe he enjoyed beating up Kasko, but it's all okay because he used his violence to help people rather than to harm people. Which is an unusual moral lesson, but I think it's kind of cool for that: a sort of dystopian moral for a dystopian world.

That's "Final Stand". Next time is "Pariah", which has a bit of focus on Pilot, but is basically another character focus episode for Hawk. I told you the writers really liked Hawk.

The following paragraphs talk about gender issues in the media. If that sort of thing is not your bag, hop down until you see the image of Boston Red Sox Manager Eddie Kasko.

Continue reading "Our Last, Best Hope for Kool-Aid (Captain Power: "Final Stand")" »

Before we get started, those of you who are into that whole Facebook thing (It's a fad. It will pass) and have found this at all interesting, you should, I think the term the kids use these days is "stalk", Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future on Facebook. If you are into "The Twitter", you should, I think the term is "twat" @Capt_Power_2011. I honestly can't tell if these are the official feeds of the group responsible for the upcoming DVD release, but if they're not, no one is. They've got some neat stuff there, including an interview with Gary Goddard and Tim Dunnigan, who have both aged rather gracefully, about the never-before-seen behind-the-scenes documentary footage that will be on the upcoming DVD.

Also, buy the damned DVD. It's available for pre-order at Walmart, Amazon, and many other fine retailers. It's already on my wishlist, though it remains to be seen if I'll preorder and thus ensure that it arrives on my doorstep the day it's released, or if my wife will make me wait until Christmas, because it's kind of a dick move to buy yourself a present at the beginning of December. (Seriously though, I'm getting one before New Year's. My son is not going to grow up watching off-air VHS copies of this show which are a quarter-century older than he is).

And now, on with the show...

Power on

It has come to my attention, through a careful survey of the facts, that your previous presentation may have been, shall we say, misplaced.

Ah. Yes. That.

You claimed that "Wardogs" was the second episode of the series. However, my research clearly shows that it first aired on the Twenty-Second of November, some two months after "Shattered".

Right. As I mentioned before, these episodes, particularly in the first half of the season, were only very loosely ordered. I mentioned that "Shattered" doesn't really feel like a solid choice for a first episode. In fact, the pilot for the series was "Pariah", which is still two episodes off. "Wardogs" was indeed aired tenth, but we do have a clue to the fact that this was not its original intended position, which you no doubt have already observed.

Of course.

The opening line of "Wardogs" is "Database Journal 47-5 mark 13." Now, we don't have any kind of confirmation for how or even if these numbers directly map to dates, but I'm inclined to guess that "47-5 mark 13" is future-speak for "May 13, 2147". In aired order, episode 3, "Final Stand", is dated 47-7 mark 1 -- July 1, 2147. That would place "Wardogs" two months before "Final Stand". The episode I'll be reviewing this week, "The Abyss", has only one date mentioned, and it's "99-7 mark 3" So... This one is set fifty years after the rest of the season? Either Cap is using a different dating system for his personal journal, or he misspoke. In either case, best guess, this episode takes place on July 3.

Because I couldn't find dates in most of the episodes, I'll defer to captainpower.com to provide the dates which appear in this table:

My ordering is basically the same as the aired ordering, except that I've moved "Wardogs" up to episode 2, because Wardogs is the episode most blatantly aired outside of its intended position. This is also basically what Wikipedia does, except that they reverse "The Abyss" and "Wardogs". I make no attempt to defend this beyond "That's what order my ancient copies are in."

So, with that settled, this week we have "The Abyss". Stardate 99-7.3. Let's check the capsule summary from TheTVDB.com...

A brief transmission reveals the location of secret military base, still manned and functioning. But when Power and Hawk go to investigate, they're attacked and captured, ending up scheduled to be executed as spies and traitors as Dread's forces close in on the location...

So... Cap and Hawk meet up with a surviving regiment from the pre-apocalypse armed forces, and are mistaken for enemies, and-- Really? Really?

It would seem so.

Okay, seriously? I have distinct memories of this show being clever and mature and having a rich storyline. And they pull this? It's the same damned setup as last time!

You did just explain that these three episodes would not have originally aired in this order.

So that makes it better? We're up to three episodes and one and a half plots! Okay. Fine. Let's get on with the slow desecration of my childhood memories that is...

Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future
Episode 3 (or 2. Or 10. Whatever): The Abyss
By J. Michael Straczynski

The first thing you'll notice about this episode is that it is the only episode of the series whose title card is not enclosed by unwarranted scare quotes. Or more likely not, since most people don't notice that sort of thing. But I noticed. Oh how I noticed.

We open on a soldier emerging from under a giant metal waffle. He narrowly avoids a leftover Blake's 7 Prop and is just able to switch on a transmitter before he's caught by a gang of soldiers led by General Briggs, played by Michael J Reynolds, a man who has made his career playing... Pretty much different variations on the Briggs character, with the occasional foray into "Stuff we wanted Ray Walston for but couldn't get him." He summarily decides that the soldier, Price, has turned traitor and He points a gun at him in a "I'm going to shoot you now" sort of way, and then we cut away.implied-shoots him.

Back at the Power Base, Cap and Hawk sit around the TARDIS console, monitoring radio frequencies, when they suddenly pick up morse code from "Nope. No idea how geography works in the futureSector 42". When the signal cuts off suddenly, Cap decides that there's no time to alert the others, as surely this is a distress call from a surviving military unit who are in trouble. He and Hawk rush over to the Power Booth and, three episodes in, for the first time in the series, we get to see the full proper transformation sequence. Which seems to involve holding hands.

As Cap and Hawk hop on their hoverbikes to greenscreen their way to Sector 42, we cut to Lord Dread in Volcania. Dread is doing his daily reading from the Book of Computers, This is not me being flippant. He actually prefaces it with a cite.Chapter 4, verse 1:

And the Machine was given unto man. The Machine was perfect of mind and elegant of form. And the Machine said, "This is my gift to my people, that they may throw off the bonds of flesh."

Good to know that Dread's obsession with perfect, logical machine perfection, taken to its logical end, results in him writing quasi-religious scripture aping a stilted, archaic form of English specifically to sound like a five-hundred-year-old translation of a two-thousand-year compilation of a collection of four-thousand-year-old documentation of the cultural and superstitious practices of a nomadic bronze-age civilization.

Man, this machine logic is weird.

Overmind interrupts Dread because it's picked up the transmission as well, from sector 14. So Dread uses a different map system than Power. Great. I am never going to sort these out. Anyway, just like in the other two episodes, it appears that Lord Dread receives a personal notification of every single thing that happens anywhere on Earth, and Dread is basically doing nothing of any pressing importance at the time. And, just like before, Dread's immediate reaction is to order Soaron to go take care of it, and Soaron is just sort of flying around and having a good time when the call comes in.

Actually, I'm not clear what Dread orders Soaron to do. When Dread tells him to go "neutralize" the "disturbance" in sector 14, Soaron asks, "Shall I terminate current operation?" and Dread answers "No, my sentry: finish the task at hand, and then await further orders." So... Dread orders Soaron to go to sector 14 and neutralize the disturbance, but not to stop what he's already doing, and to finish what he's already doing, and then stop and wait for more orders. So.. Did he order Soaron not to go to sector 14? Or to go to sector 14, but finish what he was already doing first? Or... Look, for all that "The Machine was perfect of mind and elegant of form," jazz, Dread's management skills leave a lot to be desired.

And by the way... First it's night, then it's day (Cap had given the time as 0300 hours), then it's night, then dawn. Given that we know the Power Base is in Colorado and Volcania is in Detroit, this would seem to imply that Sector 42 is on the east coast, though dialogue later will suggest otherwise. Also, possibly that the earth rotates the wrong way.

Once we eliminate as impossible any scenario where the rotation of the earth has been reversed, we are left with the possibility that latitude is the key discriminator among these locations; during certain parts of the year, a location a few degrees closer or further from the equator could have a significant impact on the time of sunrise and sunset. Furthermore, it is inherently likely that Captain Power, being a military man is giving times in the Greenwich time zone. And indeed, we can not be certain of the location of the strange metal bird-man at all.

Ah, but in that case, the time would be closer to ten at night eastern time, and, if I'm remembering rightly, seven in Colorado. Which would account for the daylight the first time we see the hoverbikes, but it would hardly explain how eight to ten hours would have passed on the east coast.

In that case, I submit that you must consider one additional possibility.

What's that then?

The director just didn't care.

Touche. Shortly after Cap and Hawk land, General Briggs's soldiers descend upon them and in a few minutes, a band of infantrymen who haven't seen action in years are able to disarm and incapacitate the Future's Last Hope For Survival. Because the damned Power Suits run on three triple-A batteries.

Cap wakes up strapped to a chair in the General's underground lair. As a shortcut to let us know that General Briggs has come unglued, he does the cliche Crazy Military Guy act, where he takes everything Cap says as evidence against him: "We came here because we received a distress signal," Cap says. Briggs responds "Aha! So you admit you were exchanging unauthorized signals with a known traitor!" Briggs also asserts that he has a duty to protect his men and keep them safe until he receives orders from the president. Cap proves that he hates America by revealing that there isn't any US government any more, and Briggs takes this as further evidence of Cap's traitorous intent, especially as "You should be using your training, manpower and supplies to help people instead of hiding in this hole in the ground," is exactly the same sort of commie-socialist-nazi-kenyan propaganda the treasonous soldier had been spouting before the general offed him.

The general storms off, leaving behind a soldier whose name I do not recall, but who I will call "Colonel Will-Eventually-Order-The-Men-To-Safety-While-The-General-Has-A-Breakdown", or "Col. Weotmtswtghab". Cap points out that the General is plainly insane, sowing a seed in Col. Weotmtswtghab's brain.

In the next room, the soldiers are showing their resolve, even under these conditions, to still stand by traditional US military regulations and procedures, and are therefore torturing Hawk with an electric torture machine. Hawk, not being one to take crap from anyone, tells his interrogators to get stuffed. The general enters with a copy of Hawk's permanent record, and, finding that he's the sole survivor of his original unit, accuses him of, what else, treason. He further asserts that the fact that Hawk knew Dread before his transformation proves that he's actually a Dread spy.

There is a certain flaw in the General's reasoning

Yeah. It rhymes with "He's sad as a catter."

To show how evil he is, every time Hawk tries to answer, the torturer zaps him instead, proving that the torture isn't actually about getting information, but is 100% about the torturer getting his rocks off by making Hawk suffer. Which, for the record, is always what torture is about.

The general decides that he's satisfied himself that Hawk and Cap are "obviously" spies, and orders them executed. Hawk expresses his displeasure as only he can.

After a commercial break, we return to Briggs's office. Col. Weotmtswtghab comes in, hoping to dissuade the general from offing Cap and Hawk, but the general launches into rambly story about how the reason we lost both Vietnam and the fictional 2127 South American Vietnam Analogy War was because the anti-war movement had better songs than the pro-war movement, and if only it weren't for guys like Phil Ochs and Bob Dylan, we'd have totally won the Vietnam Analogy. When Col. Weotmtswtghab finally gets a word in, he protests the general's decision, which prompts a little outbursts of mental instability where the general gets all shouty and threateny about the idea of someone daring to question his orders. The General reiterates that he wants the prisoners executed by 1800. So this is 15 hours after the first scene now.

We cut back to Soaron, who is standing on a pile of debris, apparently having finished whatever he was doing that morning. Dread orders him to proceed to the transmission source and rendezvous with a unit of troopers. So... I guess Dread really did mean "Finish what you were doing, then call me back, and then I will order you to do the thing I just told you I was going to order you to do."

Hawk is tossed in a cell with Cap, and Hawk makes some threats he can't back up about what he'll do if Cap has been hurt. Because, y'know. I seriously don't want to ship these two, but they just make it so darned easy. Corporal Exposition rattles off "He's strong never met anyone like him he'll survive not that it'll make much difference." And if you think there should have been punctuation in that sentence, you and I feel differently from the director.

Once alone, Hawk and Cap discuss their chances for survival, and Cap hits on the crazy idea of trying to plug his discharged suit directly into the high-voltage cable running up the wall. There is some awkward technobabble while Cap speculates that the Power Suit's "modulation system" might "kick in with the charge" and protect him from otherwise certain electrocution. I remembered this scene even decades later, and it's got a nice MacGyver feel to it. As Soaron and the Bio-Mechs approach, alarms go off in the base and the soldiers are forced into combat. These soldiers who were able to effortlessly disable two members of the Future Force are easily p0wned by Soaron and the Imperial Storm Troopers.

Realizing the imminence of their danger, Cap succeeds in pulling down the power cable, He's wearing his TRON-suit underneath, so no, fangirls, no exciting shirtless Tim Dunigan for youtakes off his top, peels off the collectable Captain Power Decal from his chest, and plunges the sparking cable into his breastplate, throwing him across the room and leaving him in a crumpled heap on the floor. We cut away as Hawk futilely tries to awaken his friend. Oh no! Captain Power has killed himself! There's no chance now!

Quite impossible, given the length of episode remaining

Well yeah. Like I said before. In the next scene, Cap just gets up and is perfectly fine. No injuries from the electrocution, nor anything from having been hurled across the room into a cinderblock wall. But before that, we show the general in his office. The realization that all is lost is too much for the old man, and he just sort of frets around shouting that it's not his fault and that he doesn't know what to do. Fortunately, Col. Weotmtswtghab picks up a microphone and Orders The Men To Safety While The General Has A Breakdown.

Fully restored, Cap powers on, and then casually offers the electric cable to Hawk. I really regret that we cut to Cap blowing up bio-mechs, because I think Hawk would have had some fantastic facial expressions for being electrocuted and thrown across a room. Instead, we get to watch Cap, who earlier was easily dispatched by the infantry, clean the floor with the bio-mechs. So, infantry beats Captain Power, Mechs beat infantry. Power beats mechs. It's post-apocalyptic roshambo!

Inside, Col Weotmtswtghab announces that he's gotten most of the men to the escape tunnels, and begs the general to escape with them. The general has regained enough composure to go down with the ship, formally turning his command over to Col. Weotmtswtghab and making his last order to get the men to safety, then he sits in the corner and sings "It's a long way to Tipperary" until Soaron walks in, calls him a pathetic fool, and digitizes him.

I guess Soaron decides it's not worth pursuing the other soldiers, as we cut to a dogfight in the sky between him and Hawk, which goes the way it always does: one shoots, then the other, back and forth until Hawk catches Soaron in the chest with his nerf missile, causing the Bio-Dread to go spinning off.

On the ground, Cap gets himself surrounded with his power running low. Again. The sultry computer voice in the suit informs him that there's no escape. Cap is showered with weaponsfire, and channels Dirty Harry for a second, rasping out "You want to party? Let's party," before revealing a previously unmentioned jetpack, which he uses to jump over the Bio-Mechs, so he can shoot them while they sort of look around, confused. Another tense moment diffused by "Cap suddenly remembering that he knows how to shoot things."

He calls Hawk in to give him a lift to safety, which he does, by swooping in, grabbing Cap around the waist, and flying away. Our episode ends on the two of them fleeing to safety.

So what becomes of the surviving soldiers? Do they join up with Captain Power and his men?

Nope. Never seen nor heard from again. I like to imagine that due to improper ventilation, they all die in the escape tunnel from radon poisoning.

And General Briggs?

Gone. They never pull him out of storage or anything.

And what of the remaining members of the team?

They were off in "Sector 7" doing a recon mission. Not mentioned again in this episode.

I see. It is tempting to draw certain conclusions from the ending of this story.

Why should we draw conclusions? The writers didn't.

Ah, I think you see what I am alluding to. From the evidence here, I am inclined to conclude that the writers just didn't care.

On the face of it, yes. But don't forget: this episode was written by J. Michael Straczynski, a writer whose qualifications shouldn't be in any doubt.

Even a fastidious writer might find himself operating at times with less than full enthusiasm. For example, at the moment I personally care so little for the consequences of this analysis that I have been forced to consume quite a considerable amount of cocaine merely to remain awake.

Fair point, but I think that while it might seem that the writers didn't care, this episode in fact shows clear signs of executive meddling. Consider: this episode is significantly more action-oriented than the others we've seen. There are two major set-piece battles which take up more than a third of the episode's entire run-time. We have a scene early on with Soaron which does nothing to advance the plot, and is essentially reiterated in full later. No, I think that the logical conclusion here is that word came down from on high to increase the amount of action in this story, and that expansion crushes out a lot of the finer details. The episode ends in what's essentially the middle of a scene, and the most logical reason I can think of for that is that any attempt to tie up the plot neatly at the end was cut to add a few extra seconds to the fight scenes.

There is a certain lack of cohesion between the action sequences and the narrative segment of the story.

Right. This episode feels very much like it's meant to be a character study of General Briggs, demonstrating how the pressure of his position has made him paranoid and dangerous. But it's hamstrung by the short running time. We never really get a sense of the forces that have come to bear on the general, so he comes off as just being an obstinate asshole. When Captain Power accuses him of cowardice, we're supposed to understand that the general isn't really a coward, but a brave man overwhelmed by his situation -- but without seeing more of the general in action, there's nothing to take us there.

As in "Wardogs", one of the major flaws of this episode is the near complete failure of the scenes we actually get to see to instill any sort of emotion in the audience with regards to the guest characters. I have by now started to build an investment in Cap and Hawk -- more Hawk than Cap, really -- but this story wants us to care about the soldiers, and I just don't. Out of the entire unit, the only two whose names I can even remember are Briggs and Price -- and Price is the guy who dies in the first scene. The only other character who makes any impression at all is "Guy who tortures Hawk". And let's face it, if you want me sympathizing with someone, you probably shouldn't show them committing torture. This could have been fixed if they'd depicted the soldiers as reluctant to zap Hawk, only doing it under direct prompting from the general. That would also have served as a good way to show how desperate and unstable the general was. But, just like in "Wardogs", all of that is cut short in favor of more action sequences.

The action looks great. It's fun and paced well, though, as always, it feels perfunctory. We do the "Cap seems to be hurt but isn't" thing again. Hawk and Soaron have a dogfight again. "Cap is cornered by mechs, but escapes by the simple expedient of shooting at them" again. These feel very much like mandates handed down from the studio execs.

If this show were remade today as an adult drama, all these problems could be fixed and the elaborate stories they set up could be brought to fruition. Heck, as an hour-long show, you could tell these stories well, and still have time for fifteen minutes of action scenes.

And this would make a brilliant story in that format. Unlike our last two outings, the plot doesn't hinge on something chock full of troubling implications -- we do have the General's rant about Vietnam, but that really serves less as a political statement than as a statement about the general's state of mind.

I'd be remiss, of course, if I didn't point out the other big glaring issue in this one: Three of our five regular cast members aren't here at all. Now, in a half-hour show with a moderate-sized ensemble, you have to expect that not everyone will play a significant role in every story, but so far, we've had one episode that was a character-focus episode for John, one that was a character focus episode for Hawk, and one that's a Bromance episode for the two of them. Scout, Tank and Pilot have had at most a half-dozen lines each so far in the entire series. I guess if you want your unfortunate implications, there they are: three episodes about the white North American men, with hardly anything from the woman, the African-American, or the European.

It does get better, though. Next week is a Tank-focused episode, and after that... Well, actually, after that it's another Hawk episode. I kinda get the impression that at some point during development, the writers decided that Hawk was a more interesting character than Cap, and decided they'd make the show be about him instead, even if Captain Power had to retain top billing for legal reasons.

Indubitably.

Hm. Need to find something. Something charming. Something fun. Something post-apocalyptic. I've still got a lot of Hitler Meets ChristI keep wanting that title to be Hitler versus Christ. I would watch the hell out of that movie. to wash out of my soul. But what? Apocalypses are all so heavy, and I don't think I can dive straight back into the deep end.

I should think the answer was elementary.

Sherlock Holmes? You're still here? I thought you left with Michael Bolton and the Pope.

I was able to deduce that you would shortly be in need of a special guest star, and being that I am in the public domain...

That's a fine point. But I'm not sure I'm going to be able to come up with something to review. It's not easy.

As I said, I think it should be elementary.

That's easy for you to-- Wait. Elementary. Elementary school. Of course! You know what will blow your mind?

Are you offering me cocaine?

No. It's a metaphor.

Oh. Because I wouldn't necessarily be offended if you were.

No, really. It's a metaphor.

You're sure then?

Sigh. No, look. I keep my collection of film and television organized by genre.

I think cocaine would have been more efficacious. For blowing my mind.

Enough with the cocaine, Sherlock Holmes. I'm talking about my film and television collection. It's organized by genre. And guess what one of those genres is.

Hm. Well, based on my observation of the small clues around this room, I think I can safely deduce that one of the genres in your collection is "Movies you thought were just ordinary low-budget 1970s action movies, but which turned out to be softcore pornography."

I. Um. Well. Actually, I was thinking of "Post-apocalyptic children's television."

So you are positing that there are enough examples of Post-Apocalyptic Children's Television to constitute an entire genre?

I am.

Well, it's not cocaine, but I suppose it will do.

I've already talked here about some of the various post-apocalyptic children's television series in my collection. There's New Zealand's teen soap opera and Future Power Ranger incubator The Tribe (which Leah and I still haven't finished watching). And there's the post-apocalyptic single-topic made-for-public-TV educational series Tomes and Talismans. I think a big part of the draw is that post-apocalypsism is in many ways similar to the popular traditional genre of castaway stories -- which have always been popular with kids -- but they have a science fiction flavor to them. It's half Peter Pan and half Star Trek.

Of course, back when I was actually in the target age group for children's television, it was the 1980s, and I've spoken before about the general sense of periapocalyptic nihilism that really drove a lot of our pop culture in the '80s. This was a time when, even as a small child, the way you thought of the future included nuclear apocalypse -- not as a possibility or a hypothetical, but rather as concrete reality. The east and west had been locked in a cold war for decades at this point, and through the early part of the eighties, President Reagan realized -- correctly -- that communist economies are designed to marshal resources that aren't rapidly growing, unlike capitalist economies which require constant rapid growth to avoid a complete collapse. He bet that escalating the cold war arms race would force the Soviet Union to invest so much of their collective resources into their military that they'd eventually overbalance their economy and collapse. Looking back now, of course, it seems obvious how things would work out, but at the time, it seemed like "Both sides sink so much money into their respective doomsday programs that it becomes financially infeasible to not have an apocalyptic war," was far and away the most likely outcomeThis is, after all, why World War I happened..

But I'm meandering off topic. By 1987, the height of 80s doomsdayism had passed, but it still held a good bit of sway. Now, we all still thought that the world was going to end shortly, but it was becoming clear that some time before it did, we were going to see massive upheavals in the television industry.If this paragraph sounds like it was liberally cribbed from the TV-tropes article, that's because I wrote that article My parents had gotten cable TV... Um... Probably right around this time, and it opened a whole new world: instead of the four channels we'd gotten in my youth, we now got as many as sixAnd one of them was the Christian Broadcast Network, known today as ABC Family. Really. The first cable package you could get in our area was the Baltimore and DC broadcast channels plus CBN. But CBN was surprisingly awesome because at like 1 AM, they showed Laurel & Hardy movies.. Remember, this was so long ago that there was, at the time, only one Law & Order, and zero Reality-Based Game Shows. And MTV had to somehow fill its broadcast day using nothing but music videos! I realize that it's basically impossible to comprehend this now, but try to imagine what it was like to be a TV executive back then: for as long as you could remember, "Television" was ABC, NBC, and CBS. And in most places, that was only if the winds were favorableI am writing this from a house where we never bothered to sign up for cable, finding Netflix and the Internet adequate to our needs. In favorable winds, we get one channel. Fuck you, digital switch-over.. Now, you were faced with the reality that within a few years, your average viewer was going to receive fifty, a hundred, perhaps as many as four hundred channels. How could they possibly produce that much content? I like to imagine that it went a bit like this:

INT. TV EXECUTIVE'S OFFICE. DAY. AN EXECUTIVE SITS AT A DESK, SMARTLY DRESSED. HIS NOSE IS BLEEDING

ENTER LACKEY

LACKEY

Hey, boss! You know how you were saying at the last meeting that we were all in big trouble if we didn't find a way to produce four hundred times as much content for the same cost?

EXECUTIVE

(manic)Who are you? And why am I covered in spiders?

LACKEY

Well I had this great idea. (Does that thing where you wave your arm in the air like you're fondling a flying dachshund that is supposed to indicate that you're reading the headline off of an imaginary newspaper. A flying newspaper.) Interactive Television. We do five takes of one show, change things around a little, and we air them all at the same time on a whole bunch of different channels. Every time we break for commercial, you throw up a title card saying, like, "If you want the hero to bang the cute blonde, switch to channel 62, and if you want him to screw the redhead instead, go to channel 50." We only got to shoot a couple of minutes extra, and we can mix the pieces up and take up as many channels as we want. It'll be the next big thing! It's as sound a bet as Apple Computers, Defense Contracting and white rappers!

EXECUTIVE

Lackey, I like it! Of course, I just snorted about five hundred dollars worth of coke, and that's in 80s money. Call my secretary and have her bring my DeLorean around.

LACKEY

Only five hundred? It's already lunchtime. You usually blow through twice that much by eleven!

EXECUTIVE

Good point. Cancel the DeLorean, have them send up a chafing dish full of Charlie. But wait. Maybe it's just because I'm not quite fully stoned, but don't you think that the viewing public is going to have a hard time accepting interactive television?

LACKEY

I got it all figured out, boss. We'll get way out in front of it and get them all adjusted to the idea. You know how the kids these days love their video games on their Nintendo Atari Systems?

EXECUTIVE

Oh yeah. I got me that sweet R.O.B. game. Man, those are going to last forever. They're gonna put out a third game for it any day now... Hey, if I had my robot butler play against R.O.B., which one do you think would win?

LACKEY

I don't know boss. If you had your robot butler play the video game, who'd go fetch you your cocaine while you watched?

EXECUTIVE

Good point. But what's this got to do with interactive TV?

LACKEY

Well, you know how the kids these days love their video games? Well, what if we introduced interactive TV by pitching it as a video game you played with your television. We do it like a kid's show, right? And we get the kids to buy toys.

EXECUTIVE

Kids shows were made for selling toys! We slap on a thirty second PSA at the end and we can call our half-hour-long toy commercial an "educational program".

LACKEY

I know, right? But here's the clever part: the boys down in R&D say that you can flash a light in a TV show, and pick it up with cheap receiver, like a remote control in reverse. So we put one of these receivers in the toys, and then, get this: we flash the light in the show, and if the kid has the toy, the toy lights up, plays music, whatever. Bam! It's like a magic trick. So we get the kids thinking that they're actually interacting with the TV show.

EXECUTIVE

So how does that get us to showing the same show on twelve channels at once?

LACKEY

That's the clever part: the show's for kids, right? But we put it on in Prime Time. Not one of the big-money slots. Like, Saturday at seven or something. And we throw in some stuff to make mom and dad happy too. Nothing to edgy, no smut or anything. But something a little heavy. Goes right over the kids' heads, because they're just there for the fighting robots and shooting things with their toy guns and stuff. But the parents, they get into it because it's got some heavy stuff. In between the fighting robots. Like, we set it in the future, and there's been a big war and most of humanity has been wiped out. Yeah, that's it. A post-apocalyptic kids' show.

EXECUTIVE

(jaw drops) So the kids are watching it for the robots and the toys, but mom and dad are watching it for the drama... (beat) And mom and dad see the kid playing with the toys, and they see the toys all lighting up and going crazy...

LACKEY

And after a couple of seasons, it starts to seem kind of normal that you'd be interacting with a TV show. So when we roll out the twelve-channels-at-once thing, it's not something weird and scary, it's just--

EXECUTIVE

The same thing we did before turned up to eleven. It's brilliant. It can't possibly fail. I mean, unless this idea is totally ridiculous and the only reason I think otherwise is that I've snorted enough coke today to kill two and a half men! What do you call it?

LACKEY

I got this title, it's brilliant. It really conveys that it's a lighthearted and fun kid's show, and also a dark and edgy drama for adults. I call it...

So that's the set-up. I think it sounds reasonable.

I liked the bit with the cocaine.

Quiet, you. So, that happened, and in September of 1987, this show came to the air-waves. A few weeks later, another show would premiere. In my area, the two ran back-to-back in order to provide a little synergy. That second show's first episode, coincidentally enough, included a scene set in a post-apocalyptic near-future that bore a bit of similarity to the dystopia of our amazing interactive wonder. The second show was Star Trek: The Next Generation. As you might imagine, it is rather better remembered than the subject of tonight's recap.

But what is this mysterious show, this bold experiment in interactive post-apocalyptic children's television? The show was written by a man whose name you are far more likely to recognize than the show's: J Michael Stracyzinski. Like his later and infinitely more famous Babylon 5, this show was a pioneer in computer-generated graphics. And like Babylon 5, if you look at the graphics now, they scream less "Cutting-edge supercomputer technology!" and more "Why do the bad guys look like they were rendered on a PlayStation 1?"

Next year will be the show's 25th anniversary, and its corporate masters have finally deigned to release a DVD set in honor of it. I highly urge everyone to buy it when it comes out, even if you don't have fond nostalgic memories of the show, because you should encourage studios to do things like this, instead of pretending that their embarrassing failed past series didn't exist. In the mean time, though, I hope that some screen-caps from my ancient and grainy but lovingly-restored off-air copies will give you the nudge you need to partake. So, what would be a fitting name for a show set in a dystopian future, following the small band of heroes who use super-science to transform themselves into super-powered armored forms to defend the few remaining survivors from an evil tyrant whose grand plan is to annihilate the human race and replace them with a machine race?

Frakking. Yeah.

Bah. Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future? Why, that's so ludicrous they may as well have titled it Captain Power in the 22nd Century

Earth, 2147. The legacy of the Metal Wars, where man fought machines--and machines won. Bio-Dreads--monstrous creations that hunt down human survivors...and digitize them. Volcania, center of the Bio-Dread Empire; stronghold and fortress of Lord Dread, feared ruler of this new order. But from the fires of the Metal Wars arose a new breed of warrior, born and trained to bring down Lord Dread and his Bio-Dread Empire. They were "Soldiers Of The Future"--mankind's last hope.

Together they form the most powerful fighting force in Earth's history. Their creed: to protect all life. Their promise: to end Lord Dread's rule. Their name: Captain Power And The Soldiers Of The Future!

Now, with 22 episodes at about 22 minutes each, and packed with action, we never get a really explicit drop of the complete backstory, and there's a lot of it. Fortunately, this show was so heavily merchandise-driven that you can basically string together a minor Russian novel from the copy on the back of the toy boxes.

We'd best get it out of the way now. Comparisons between Captain Power and Power Rangers are pretty much impossible to avoid. They're both series about five-man teams, they're both targeted at children, and, of course, they both have the word "Power" in their titles. Also, something about people magically summoning spandex-based armor.
Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers would premiere about five years later, a production of Haim Saban. It was the first and far and away the most successful of a group of series he launched which were American adaptations of Japanese Tokusatsu"Special effects". Specifically practical effects done in real-time. Especially "Man in a rubber suit"-style effects, as distinguished to CGI or Stop-Motion effects series, which coupled special effects footage of costumed heroes from Japanese television with original US-produced linking footage.
The similarities are there, but they're mostly superficial: five transforming heroes; evil force with designs on world conquest. It would surprise me if the original makers of Power Rangers didn't have at least a passing familiarity with Captain Power, (If nothing else, it would have come up when they tried to sell what sounded a lot like a reboot of a failed series to network executives) but there's no sign that it had any overt influence. At first.
As alluded to by the title gag up there, season 17 of Power Rangers, Power Rangers RPM went into production with the Sword of Damocles hanging over it's head (Sha-na-na-na ain't no lie!): the show was all but cancelled. So, deciding that they literally had nothing left to lose, the showmakers threw the saving throw of all saving throws, and decided to set the "final" season after the apocalypse. Taking monster and robot footage from a fairly silly and lighthearted season of the corresponding Japanese series, RPM wove a story in which a genocidal computer virus, Venjix, had wiped out most of humanity, and had plotted out an endgame involving turning the remaining humans into robots. The Power Rangers were empowered by technology developed by one of the scientists involved in Venjix's creation, and we have some of the darkest storylines and imagery in the history of the franchise. Enough interest was sparked that Saban bought the franchise back from its owners (a subsidiary of Disney) and continued the franchise. Again, I haven't been able to find any evidence of this, but I find it hard to imagine that twenty-year-old memories of Captain Power didn't have at least a little influence on the development of Power Rangers RPM.
Now, on the other hand, the Japanese franchise that Power Rangers was based on, Super Sentai, dates back to the late '70s. Again, I'd be very surprised if Super Sentai didn't influence the conception of Captain Power. Like I mentioned, Power Rangers was only the first of several adaptations Saban did in the 1990s. Another, called VR Troopers used footage from a different Tokusatsu franchise, known collectively as Metal Heroes. That franchise bore a familial resemblance to Super Sentai, but focused on in one case, a married couplelone heroes rather than a team, had more traditional vehicles (and used them more sparingly) rather than giant robots, and had a generally more cybernetic and chrome-armor look to its heroes. Visually, there's a much more marked resemblance in style between Captain Power and, say, Dimensional Warrior Spielban, than to anything in Power Rangers.
Come to think of it, one of the strangest things about Captain Power is that it's not an adaptation of an earlier work. In places, it feels very much like an ill-conceived live-action adaptation of a Sentai anime series not unlike the piles of violent, adult-targeted anime imported into the US in the '80s and marketed to children by clueless importers who couldn't get their minds around the idea that "animated" doesn't mean "for kids" (See also: Macross; Golion). The visual effects often overreach, as if they were contractually required to have a robot bird monster and a flying suit, even though it was the 1980s and would have taxed a feature film budget to do well. And then there's the artwork. There's a very consistent visual style to the artwork used on the toys and related media -- which looks nothing at all like the show. Look at this picture of the Captain's action figure. We're still a decade before "adult collector" toys became a thing, so I don't expect great parity to the show, but what we actually have here is a toy that is very reflective of the art on the box, but not at all of the show (Look at Cap's goggles). The "Power On" charging station, rather than being a rather simple six-sided structure, is an extremely elaborate single-user affair. The Power Jet and Phantom Striker barely appear in the series. These all look like toys based on an animated or comic series -- pretty good toys in fact -- but there's just no parity with the show. When you watch Captain Power, one of the feelings you get is the strange and incongruous feeling you get watching something like the Bill Bixby The Incredible Hulk, or the 1990 The Flash TV series. Like what you're seeing is a very affectionate and well-meaning remake of something that was never meant for the medium of television.

Despite what the announcer says, the Metal Wars actually refer to a period when machine fought Machine, and nobody won. We're still in "this is the backstory to the backstory at this point: Captain Power begins in medias res, fifteen years into a war that itself starts after the apocalypse. The particular apocalypse in question here came about because mankind had perfected robotic soldiers called Battle Droids Neo-Vipers Cogs Cylons Quantrons Robot Santas Foot Clan T-750s "Bio-Mechs". With a ready supply of soldiers who you can throw into combat without body armor and still avoid a constant parade of body bags showing up on the six o'clock news, with the deleterious effect that tends to have on a nation's willingness to squander half of its GDP in two pointless never-ending wars that we only got into because our leadership lied to us about them having Weapons of Mass Destruction-Related-Program-Activities -- Okay. That sentence kind of got away from me there. Anyway, the point is that once the nation-states of the world had Bio-Mechs, there was no serious incentive to not just be at war all the time. No one ever ended up actually dying, so you never had any trouble finding an ample supply of people willing to die for their country. The wars brought about devastation to infrastructure and bankrupted the nations of the world, and, this show being informed by 80s sensibilities, we could take for granted that international politics got quickly stuck in a cycle of "Build up massive robot armies because otherwise your enemies will attack you," followed by "Attack with your massive robot army in order to recoup some of your investment in robot armies."

So by 2132, things were looking pretty dire, which is why scientist and likely porn star Dr. Stuart Gordon Power and his weasely creep sidekick Dr. Lyman TaggartFormer owner of Garfield's pal Odie came up with the idea of building a supercomputer that could remotely seize control of all the world's Bio-Mechs and order them to stop fighting. Which could not possibly go horrifically wrong. I mean, sure, every nation on Earth might kinda resent having some independent cabal of freedom-hating terrorists scientists remotely switch all their armies off, but they'd get over it, right? And if they didn't, well, the scientists would have control over every robot soldier in the world, so tough cookies.

This does seem like a plan with certain logical shortcomings.

No shit, S-- You know what, I'm not going to go there. To top it all off, they decided to give their supercomputer a name that could in no way serve as tragic irony by being far more apropos in the unlikely event that the computer turned evil and took over the world: OverMind.

I say. That seems roughly equivalent to naming your child Wolfgang Lupin von Turnsintoawolfduringfullmoons in a fictional universe including lycanthropy.

Yes. But don't forget, it was made by a guy named "Power" in a superhero universe.

Touche.

The weasely Doctor Taggart becomes impatient with the difficulties inherent in creating an AI supercomputer capable of seizing control of all the world's robot soldiers, and decides to take a dangerous shortcut by including protomatter in the genesis matrix having sex with OverMind.

I say! I thought you intimated that this was a programme appropriate for children!

Okay, he does not literally have sex with OverMind. But he physically "enters" it, if you know what I meanWhat I means is that Overmind has a door in the back and he opens it up and walks inside., and intermingles his own delicious, meaty human brain with OverMind's glowing orby computer brain, causing OverMind to become fully operational, if you know what I meanWhat I mean is that it starts working properly and performing the task for which it's designed.

The only problem, and I admit this is kind of a nitpick, is that OverMind and Taggart both go stark-raving mad, and decide that the best thing for humanity would be for OverMind and Taggart to take over the Bio-Mechs and use them as an army to round up all the humans, convert them into easy-to-swallow digital form, and commit global genocide in order to start a new world order based around cold and calculating machine logic and peopled by a new race of sentient machines called by the entirely logical and not-at-all cartoonishly evil name "Bio-Dreads". This is clearly a shocking twist that you could only have seen coming if you had been awake during the opening credits.

So, Taggart and OverMind make short work of the world and quickly rip and mp3-encode most of humanity. The remaining world governments decide that, rather than lynching Dr. Power for his role in bringing about the downfall of humanity, they should let him set up shop in one of the middle levels of NORAD, somewhere below the Temporal Sciences Commission and above Stargate Command, to work on a strategy for defeating Taggart. Having sort of blown his creative wad on OverMind, Dr. Power's solution, faced with literally millions of Bio-Mech soldiers, commanded by some indeterminate number of sentient Bio-Dread troops, supplemented by Taggart's army of loyal humansWhy are humans following him when his plan involves "kill every last human being" as step 3? Well, some of them are True Believers, looking for a place of honor among the new robotic order. Others are self-serving pragmatists who consider a Dread victory inevitable and prefer to live out their last years in comparative comfort as Quislings. And the rest are just sadists who consider it more important to take joy in watching the world burn than to lift a finger saving it. Yes. Dread recruited the Tea Party., along with his terrible CGI warlord Soaron is this:

He's going to get a five year head-start on Zordon and make a whopping FIVETechnically seven. They refer to two additional suits which they have not yet given to anyone. These were to be used in the second season had the show not been cancelled. Mighty Morphing PowerNamed for Dr. Power, not because they were full of power or anything. That'd be dumb. Suits. Putting on a sort of TRON-inspired body stocking and allowing yourself to be energized by the Power Platform would summon super-powered armor, and confer protection from digitization. This part we actually get to see in a flashback episode of the series. Sure, it's a bit unlikely that any amount of Power you encrust five people with would make up for the comical difference in numbers, but that's just because you're allowing logic and reason to cloud your judgment. Instead, watch these frames from the transformation sequence.

There. Can you honestly tell me that wasn't worth the fall of humanity?

Unfortunately, Dr. Power's son, John, is a brash dumbass who gets himself captured trying to singlehandedly assassinate Taggart, and Stuart has to nobly sacrifice himself to save the dumbass. Someone, no idea who, promotes young John to the rank of Captain. In... Some... Armed... Service... for... Some... Country... I don't know. John becomes the leader of a team which is called the "Future Force", I guess because "Present Force" didn't have the right sort of ring to it. I have no idea what kind of Captain John is supposed to be. He apparently out-ranks a Major, a Lieutenant, a Sergeant and a Corporal, but which would probably imply he's a naval captain. But that would make him the only one with a naval rank, except maybe Tank, but Tank who ever heard of the navy having a tank? In fact, I'm pretty sure that he doesn't actually hold any sort of rank at all, and just insists on people calling him "Captain" because it makes him feel all virile when people call him "Captain Power".

The show's set about fifteen years after these events. Stuart's dead, John's grown into a well-groomed adult with a healthy complexion and none of the sort of physical flaws you'd expect from living a rough and often-undernourished post-apocalyptic lifestyle. He's played by the excellently-haired actor Tim Dunigan, who you do not remember as the original The one who was played by Tim Dunigan, not the one who was played by Dirk BenedictFace in the pilot for The A-Team. By 2002, Dunigan had decided that the volatile world of acting was no longer for him, and decided to go into a profession where you would always make money no matter what: mortgage brokering. Taggart fell into a volcano or something and had to be rebuilt as a cyborg, and now calls himself "Lord Dread", and I suspect that his character design drew a lot from Darth Vader and the character of Travis from Blake's Seven. He lives in a high-tech base inside a volcano. In Detroit. Which sounds unrealistic unless you've actually been to Detroit.

John is still living in NORAD, has claimed one of the Amazing Power Suits (In fact, close as I can tell, his suit is actually called "The Power Suit". It seems that each of the suits has a name, which, by an amazing coincidence is also the callsign/nickname of its operator.), and asserted his dominance over his dad's old enforcer, Major Matthew Masterson, played by Peter MacNeill, who goes by "Hawk" because no one could say "Major Matthew Masterson" in a combat situation without getting tongue tied. Hawk is the master of the amazing "Hawk" suit, which lets him fly, thereby being responsible for most of the show's chroma-key visual effects stuff. The other three suits have been handed out to some other folks John met along the way:

There's Lieutenant Michael "Tank" Ellis, played by professional Guy-You-Get-When-You-Need-a-Viking-Type-Guy-in-a-Schwarzenegger-Movie Sven-Ole Thorsen, who grew up in a placeDon't know what sort of place. He just throws it out there without context because JMS really wanted to get the name out there. A voice in my head tells me that it was an undersea colony, but in context, it could be a city, a refugee camp, a space station, a building, a boat, a school. For that matter all he actually says is "While I was growing up in...", so technically it might not be a place, but, say, a street gang. called "Babylon 5". I've heard that name before somewhere, but I can't place it. He operates the "Tank" suit, which is all decked out with a camouflage print instead of the chrome everyone else gets, because Tank is like 7 feet tall, so naturally you'd want him to be the stealthy one. His suit also has a ginormous gun.

Corporal Robert "Scout" Baker is the team's token minority, whose suit has special chameleon abilities allowing him to impersonate Bio-Mechs. As I recall, though, he's got far and away the fewest scenes, because even after the eschaton, a brother can't catch a break. He's a smallish unassuming kind of guy, played by Maurice Dean Wint, who would apparently hit puberty some time in the 90s, because he would grow up to become The Guy Who They Should Hire For Any Movie They Want To Remake Where Richard Roundtree Was In The Original, best known for playing Quentin the psycho cop in Cube, RoboCable in Robocop: Prime Directives and Luther in Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

The last member of the team is former-Hitler-Youth member Girly McObviousLoveInterest Corporal Jennifer "Pilot" Chase, who, being a girl, gets the lightest armor, and, unlike everyone else, doesn't even get a helmet, just a pair of sunglasses. I don't even remember her using her power suit all that much; she's supposed to be their tactician, but the biggest part of her job is flying their shuttle around. In terms of their practical day-to-day roles, Hawk is the one doing most of the work, but for story arc, Pilot is pretty much second only to the Captain in terms of importance. And she's the character I remember best after all of these years, because of how the series ends. Which I will get t when I get to it. If I were a few years older back in 1987, I'm sure I'd have had a massive crush on her. But those of you follow this blog will recall that those hormones were not to kick in until the 1990 film Moontrap. Jessica Steen, who played Pilot, would go on to be the original Doctor WeirThe one who was played by Jessica Steen, not the one who was played by Torri Higgson in Stargate SG-1, and, because I do enjoy my irony, also played The Other Becky on the Canadian series Flashpoint, subbing for the original Pink Power Ranger Amy Jo Johnson during her maternity leave. She is also the only Power Ranger Soldier of the Future other than Dunigan whose Wikipedia page mentioned Captain Power in the main body of the article.

Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future
Episode 1: Shattered
By Larry Oitillio

We open on Cap, overlooking the quarry where every episode of Blake's Seven was filmed. He immediately decides to give me the finger for my causal dismissal of Scout's importance on the team, by immediately announcing that it's "Up to you now, Scout," and buggering off. Our hero!

Right away, we're treated to some Bio-Mechs, Cyberman-stomping out of what I think is the Necropolis at the Valley of the Kings or something. That garish strobing on their chests is part of the show's interactive element: when something flashes red like that, you can point your Power Jet XT-7 at it, and shoot to accumulate points.

We cut to Scout, who immediately backstabs a Bio-Mech, and then uses his suit's array of compression artifacts to transform into the mech's doppleganger so that he can slip undetected into the... Um... Generic Steam-and-Clanking Factory. We cut back to Cap, Hawk, and Tank, who boldly... Watch from a safe distance. Our heroes!

Tank and Scout are the only Soldiers of the Future who wear full helmets. Tank's is a bit like a knight's helmet, solid with eyeslits, while Scout wears something between a full-face racecar driver's helmet and a 50s-Sci-Fi-Style astronaut helmet. Hawk's helmet is basically a fighter jet pilot's helmet, which at least makes sense. Cap, on the other hand, wears something between a helicopter pilot's helmet and Erik Estrada's helmet from CHiPS.

Scout promptly attaches one of those generic stick-to-anything timed explosive dealies to a wall, and then decides that now that the bomb is planted, he will probably not require stealth or anything to escape, and reverts back to his suit's default Cyborg F1-Driver appearance (see sidebar). Unfortunately, Lord Dread had the foresight to lock the factory doors overnight, so Scout won't be able to get out until the shift change in the morning.

The shift change? For the robot workers?

They have a fantastic union. Cap promises to extract Scout once he's planted the last bomb, so he sneaks off through what looks for all the world like a spare set from Red Dwarf. Unfortunately, he sets off one of Lord Dread's Spy Gear Motion Detectors and the jig is up. If only he had some kind of ability to somehow disguise his appearance so that he'd be mistaken for a Bio-Mech...

An army of mechs descend on him, firing purple strobe effects, which would cause your Power Jet XT-7 to lose a hit point if it saw them. Outside, Cap and his buddies, without much enthusiasm, announce that they've got to blow up the doors to the factory so that Scout can escape before the bomb went off. Given just how easy it is for Scout to escape, and for them to blow the doors, it's not really clear to me why they chose this "Use stealth and cunning for the first minute, and then just do whatever" strategy instead of the simpler strategy of "Just shoot it with guns." The plan comes off, however, and Cap calls Pilot in to pick them up with their shuttle.

The shuttle, by the way, should not be confused with the Power Jet XT-7: the shuttle appears in just about every episode, and does not have a corresponding toy. The Power Jet, on the other hand, only appears once, briefly, and is the centerpiece of the toy line.

Meanwhile, in Volcania, we meet our antagonist, Lord Dread, who, just to show off, spins around 270 degrees in his Big Scary Chair in his dimly lit command room. Because he's insane with love for the cold efficiency of machine minds. The velvety dulcet tones of OverMind tell him that "Energy Substation Zeta has been violated." Eew. Cap's latest act of terrorism has set back Dread's master plan, dubbed "The Final Solution Project New OrderSeriously. They lay on the Nazi analogues pretty thick in this show" by about three months. Dread vows to look to Cap's past for a way to defeat him.

The Power Base is a weird set, combining elements of Stargate Command, Power Rangers HQ, The Blackwood Project Base from season 2 of War of the Worlds, and the TARDIS. Cap receives a message from his old friend Athena Samuels which could not possibly be a trap. He summons a hologram of Kenny Loggins, who appears Zordon-style in the glass tube at the center of their TARDIS console. This is Mentor, a hologram from his own time, that only Sam can see and hear of Cap's dead father, because that would in no way be a creepy way to interface with their computer database, nor would it stunt Cap's emotional development. Mentor triangulates the origin of the signal, and so Cap and Pilot fly off into their time tunnel. Oh, yeah. They have this network of wormholes they can use to travel around the planet instantaneously.

One might deduce that such a technology would be an unlikely development in a post-apocalyptic scenario, as the resources required in its invention would be of more direct use in, say, fighting the genocidal madman currently eliminating the world's population. However, I think we can deduce that were such technology available before these aforementioned wars, the impact to human life would be so great that the resulting civilization would be entirely unrecognizable to us, and highly unlikely to stumble into the trap of the Metal Wars.

Yeah. And besides, a secret organization based out of Cheyenne Mountain who travel around using wormholes? What kind of stupid premise is that for a show? Cap banters on at length about how Athena had been his father's assistant before the war, and hints at how badly his younger self had wanted to bone her, while Pilot looks on in that "I find your story tedious, but mostly because I really want you to aim your Power Jet XT-7 at my Red Strobe Effect, but will not work up the nerve to tell you this until the finale." He does not point out that this would imply a massive age disparity between the two of them. So here's to you, Mrs. Robinson.

When they land, Cap goes off to find Athena, and orders Pilot to stay behind and guard the shuttle. Which she does a bang-up job at, because the instant he's out of sight, she gets intrigued by a still-working traffic light, and wanders off to be promptly gassed by what appears to be a Sontaran.

Cap goes to a bookstore, and for no clear reason decides this would be a good time to They can Power On either by standing on the empowerment pedestal (which presumably also recharges the suit), or in the field by touching either the insignia on their uniform, or the crest on the Tron-Suits they wear under their clothes. We won't actually see them do the Full Transformation Sequence from the empowerment pedestal until the third episode. Personally, I suspect that these episodes weren't aired in anything more than a very general sort of order. Remember, this is the '80s, and season-long plot arcs were still in their infancy at this point, so the exact order in which episodes aired was pretty much subject to the whims of the broadcaster.Power On, having said before that they should save their Power. Approximately three seconds later, his suit helpfully chimes in that it's at 33% power. So there are only five power suits in existence, and they can only hold a charge for about a minute at a time. And this is the best Cap's dad could come up with to prevent the wholesale annihilation of humanity?

A chessboard gives Cap a flashback, revealing that Athena was apparently Jean Louisa Kelly circa 1986. As it fades, present-day Athena Not like that, pervsreveals herself. She's aged gracefully if this is really at least 15 years later. Aside from evolving into Pat Benetar, she seems not to have changed at all. Because it's a trap.

Athena shoots Cap in the gut. Fortunately, with the power of his armored power suit, he... is thrown across the room and knocked out cold. The suit dutifully reports that it's down to 15% power. Athena apologizes, says "It's the best way," and runs away.

Back at Volcania, OverMind and Dread exposition for us that Athena has been implanted with a subcutaneous transponder, and was ordered to capture Captain Power alive, so shooting him is viewed as an act of defiance.

Those of you who have remained fully conscious so far can probably work out what's going on here. Dread had captured Athena at some point in the past, sent her out to lure the good Captain into a trap.

And I'd assume she complied because "captured" in this show usually means "Zapped by a video toaster effect that turns you into an MP3 for OverMind to stuff in his RAID array," and it's allegedly unpleasant, so she was probably not keen to go through it again.

Quite. So unkeen, in fact, that she thought he'd be better off dead than captured. I shouldn't wish to spoil the big reveal, but the rest is, of course, elementary.

Especially as the scene of Athena getting digitized is in the opening credits.

Dread dispatches his Bio-Dread Warlord Soaron to finish the job. Soaron is one of the show's Big Visual Effects Extravaganzas, bleeding-edge computer generated graphics so sophisticated that each frame in which he appears took literally centuries to render on the most powerful room-sized computers of the seven richest princes of Europe.

So try not to laugh too hard.

Soaron is self-aware, nigh-invulnerable (he can regenerate from even very severe damage), highly individualized (he is the only Bio-Dread of his kind. Except in the training videos where there are dozens of him), and by the end of the series, he'll be looking like he's on his way to being Starscream to Dread's Megatron.

I do not think there is enough cocaine in the world to convince me that stack of polygons is a real physical entity inhabiting the same world as the characters.

Captain Power awakens from his fatal shooting. One of the major storytelling weaknesses of this show is that the main mode they have for resolving a tense situation is "It turns out he wasn't hurt nearly so badly as it seemed in the last shot." It'll happen a lot in this series. He confronts Athena, who has another go at shooting him, but Cap makes his saving throw this time, and disarms her with a blue strobing ninja throwing star. Athena has another trick up her sleeve, though, and lobs a grenade at him, which knocks Cap out again, and this time manages to power down his suit.

Remember how I said back in the very last paragraph that they like to resolve tension by just having it turn out the characters weren't hurt as badly as it seemed? Well, we cut back to Pilot, who just... Wakes up. Yeah. The Sontaran just left her unconscious where she fell. She takes off in the shuttle, reports the double-cross. Cap, now at Athena's mercy, has to sit through her monologging as she prepares to kill him. She did, indeed, not care for being digitized. "And then you're inside. Inside the machine. You can feel it touching you, Johnny. It's wires and metal, but it touches you." Eew. So that's why she wants to kill Cap: to spare him from being digitized. Soaron chooses this moment to show up, though, and shoots Athena. She continues to assert that it's better to die than to go through the thinly veiled rape analogy of digitization. So Cap snogs her, insists that it's Words which could not possibly come back to haunt him laterbetter to be alive than dead no matter what Dread makes you think, and they cuddle, waiting for digitization. Just as Soaron prepares to fire, though, Pilot and Hawk show up and chase him off. They get in a few good hits on Soaron, but once he's in the air, a lot of their shots fall short and explode harmlessly when they hit the matte painting of the sky behind him. The remaining teammates show up on hover bikes and join in the assault, driving Soaron off.

They take Athena back to base, and then remove her tracking implant. Because they have a jamming device, but you'd think they'd mention that up front. Pilot storms off because she can smell a tender moment brewing, and Cap tells Athena that he'll send her to "The Passages", which we never get much explanation of, but it seems to be an underground refugee camp.

And that's the first episode of Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future. The end credits play over a rather shameless rip-off of the trench run scene from Star Wars, which makes up a good 2/3 of the interactivity segments in this episode. For an introduction to the show, it's kind of short on exposition -- I'm not complaining. I've said before that an overabundance of exposition is what often makes science fiction weak from a storytelling perspective. But as an introduction to the show, there's really not a lot going on. It's a very personal story, mostly about the Captain himself. The other characters get little screen time and no character development of note. Even the opening scene, where we get to see Scout do a lot of the work, we don't really learn anything about him. We're given a name drop on "Project New Order" without explanation, and a few tantalizing details: there had been a west coast resistance but now there isn't, but there's no real sense of what this world is like on the whole. There is a bit of really great subtle stuff going on with Pilot. She only has a handful of lines, but her reactions to the thought of Cap kindling a romance with Athena speak volumes. Decades later, I'd have a very similar experience watching the interplay between Kat and Doggie in Power Rangers SPD There's two reaction shots at in "Shadow Part 2", one where Kat looks up at Shadow Ranger as he carries her in his arms from the alien ship where she'd been imprisoned, and another at the end where Doggie refers to Kat as his "friend", and you can see her smile collapse, which together seem to shout unequivocally that she wants the doggie to slip her a bone., but there, nothing ever came of it, not even a verbal acknowledgement.

Warning: The following paragraphs of this review contain a discussion of rape symbolism in Captain Power. Those who do not wish to read these paragraphs can continue reading from the paragraph accompanying the poster for The Graduate

Continue reading "The Future! The Shiny Neon Future! (Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future, Episode 1)" »

Tonight's foray into the land of life after the end of the world is the Ralph Bakshi animated classic "Wizards". I was drawn to this movie largely because I'd heard how it ends (Which is awesome, by the way).

I knew of Bakshi, from his work on the animated version of "The Lord of the Rings" (Hence the title of this article, as Sarumon's name was inexplicably changed in the Bakshi version), but that was sort of creepy, what with the weird rotoscoped fight scenes and just generally not very good, so it never occurred to me that Bakshi might be recognized as a great talent in the field of animation.

Wizards is the tale of two brothers, Avatar and Darth Vader, one good, one evil, set a million years in the aftermath of a nuclear war.

Yes. A million years in the future. Remember, this is literally decades before "Our world without us" was written, so, apparently anyone could guess anything they liked about how long it would take for all traces of human civilization to vanish.

Wizards
1977
Ralph Bakshi

Wizards starts off with a firm grip on this being the future-as-viewed-from-the-seventies. The opening credits use the MICR computer font. If you don't know what the MICR computer font is, here's a helpful hint: if you're over 25, close your eyes and imagine what "computer text" looks like. Yes, that's it.

See, back in the sixties, when computers were still new and fascinating and called "Electronic Brains", General Electric invented this font which, when printed in magnetic ink, could be read by a device similar to a tape recorder. Because they were about the only ones with commercial use for computers back then this was snapped up by the banks, which is why it's entirely possible that if you are still enough of a luddite to use paper checks, it may even today have your account number printed on it in MICR font. The big, blocky, funny-shaped letters became ingrained in the public consciousness as being all futuristic and stuff, so it pretty much appeared any time you wanted to indicate a high-technology future from about 1967 until about 1988.

The opening of the movie is, bizarrely, a "live action" scene. The reason for the scare quotes here are because, although this was filmed with a camera in what appears to be a real location out in the real world, there isn't really any "action" or and "live"-ness. Rather. we see a desert, and the camera moves around to show us the first page of a book, which is helpfully also printed in the MICR font, which declares itself to be, "an illuminating history, bearing on the everlasting struggle for world supremacy fought between the powers of Magic and Technology." Because, y'know, that's the story of human history. The battle between magic and technology.

We then cut to a crude sketch of the globe, and then to a screen of solid, flickery red, as if they filmed a fire, but that wasn't firey enough so they put a red filter over it too. Our narrator, a bored-sounding woman who I am going to pretend for the moment is Judy Collins, explains that some terrorists set off some atomic bombs, which led to a nuclear holocaust, which took two million years to clear up a bit, which led to most of humanity turning into horrible mutants, and also faeries and dwarves and hobbits and the like making a comeback.

This is illustrated with some uncolored sketches of what this might look like. We're now about three minutes into our animated story, and nothing has actually been animated yet.

In the smurf village, the faeries are celebrating three-thousand years of uninterrupted good times, leading me to believe that this may be where Russell T Davies got his idea for how to cnvey a sense of scale by his choice of numbers. The elf queen senses something amis, and looks to the sky, where an evil looking cloud is played by a color effect on a real cloud -- this movie is diligent about avoiding doing any actual animation. This storm causes the elf queen Delia to suddenly give birth to twins, who everyone immediately concludes are powerful wizards, because that is the name of this movie so they'd better get on with showing up.

As almost always happens in cases like this, one twin is born with a severe case of PURE EVIL. the good son is named "Avatar", and the evil son is named "Blackwolf", just to make sure that he doesn't grow up confused over whether he's the evil son or the good son. Avatar is a bit on the short side, whereas Darkseid is tall and sort of skeletal, what with his forearm being in two separate pieces with a visible hole between the bones.

When Delia dies, Darth Vader is excited, we're told, just to remind us that he's evil. He thinks this means he'll be allowed to rule the kingdom. Because he's been such a dutiful son and all. Him and Avatar fight, and their battle takes the form of... yet more still frames of uncolored sketches with a creepy live-action VFX shot in the background. We're now going on five minutes and no actual animation yet. Thanks to the fact that Avatar actually loved his mother, his pain at losing her enables him to become a Super-Saiyan and kick his brother's ass.



Darth Vader is banished, but promises one day to return and TAKE OVER THE WORLD, and finally we get to see some actual animation. Some years later, an older Darth Vader dispatches three wacky looking monsterous folks to march off through what looks like the Paris Barricade from Les Miserables, with orders to kill. We follow Necron 99, who's dressed in a sort of cross between those red full-body underwear suits you see associated with yokelness, with the flap in the back and all, and a World War I German uniform, and he rides a sort of giant anteater through the mutant Red Light District, scaring the bajeezus out of green, winged prostitutes and diminutive spade-tailed johns, as Joni Mitchel explains that he's been sent out to kill everyone who believes in magic. Also, a semi-transparent dinosaur mills around in the background for no clear reason. Hey, it's the future, that sort of thing happens.

Seriously, there's just a semi-transparent dinosaur turning around in a circle as Necron 99 rides through the wasteland. No one ever comments on it. I don't know that it counts as a Big Lipped Alligator Moment, but it's certainly a contender.


A montage ensures, wherein Necron murders a family of snorks as their leader, Gandalf, reads them a story about how all technology is evil, and the other two assassins go to a pastiche fantasy medieval kingdom and gun down everyone there because Darth Vader does not approve of renaissance festivals. Their guns borrow the sound effect from the original Star Ship Enterprise firing torpedoes.

Necron 99 is hunting a couple of elves, who are on their way to warn Avatar of the coming assassins. One of them buys it from Necron's photon torpedo gun, but the other elf manages to headshot Necron's bipedal anteater-horse-thing. Necron slouches off, looking really disturbingly sad for a soulless killing machine.


Back in the Smurf Villiage, the years have turned Avatar into a creepy dwarf with a red ball nose whose face is entirely concealed by a red beard and moustache, with a Groucho cigar. He's hanging out with the cast of an LSD-induced nightmare, including a slutty fairy and what looks like Goofy in a Guy Fawlkes mask.

Slutty McFairy teases Avatar about how the elves haven't returned yet, and acts as if this is somehow tremendously funny. Avatar implies that if they never return, this will indicate great danger out on the Big Wide World, because, y'know, people are dead. They all enjoy a hearty laugh at the prospect of the horrible deaths of their friends.

Avatar and Guy Fawlkes debate the necessity of arming themselves against the IMPENDING DOOM, in order that Avatar can explain, in direct contradiction to the backstory, that the world has been peaceful for millions of years, since technology was outlawed. Guy Fawlkes threatens to banish Avatar, which makes Slutty giggle, but she points out that "Only Avatar can make me a full-fledged fairy."


Avatar concedes (Concedes what, I don't know) and offers up some exposition, which he promptly hands over to Judy Collins, so that they don't have to animate this bit. Before he does, though, we get a glimpse of Necron 99 climbing up to the top of Avatar's penis-shaped tower. Blackwolf, Avatar and Judy explain, had spent five thousand years studying the dark arts, because this movie thinks that big numbers will impress us more than a timescale as realistic as The Legend of Ra and the Muggles


Darth Vader raises an army and tries to invade neighboring countries, but his troops, as exemplified by a strange "Oh my god, they killed Kenny!"-like scene, are retarded, and would tend to get distracted and confused, and just wander off home instead of actually conquering anything. Darth Vader was understandably upset, having gone to all the trouble of creating hideous mutant armies via magic and summoning all the forces of hell to serve as his generals, but, for reasons Avatar has not yet discovered, he finally made some kind of breakthrough, and discovered some piece of pre-holocaust technology that has turned the tide.

Guy Fawlkes, who I gather is also Slutty's dad, starts bitching Avatar out for sending the elves from the previous scene out into danger based on his weird and vague theories, when Necron 99 shows up and pumps him full of lead photon torpedoes. Necron 99, the deadliest killing machine ever devised, however, falls down dead as a result of Avatar pointing a finger at him. Slutty starts uselessly clawing at the downed assassin when the elf guy shows up, and apologizes to Guy Fawlkes's corpse for failing him. Turns out that Guy Fawlkes was the president of Smurf Village.

Back at Darth Vader's base, an alarm goes off indicating that Necron 99 is broken. Vader interprets this to mean that Necron 99 has committed suicide after successfully killing the president. It seems that without the strong leadership of Guy Fawlkes, the other nations of the earth will basically crumble before his war machine. And then, in what would be subtle foreshadowing, if you were somehow mentally handicapped, he throws in an entirely random "Sieg Heil!" to punctuate just how evil he is. Really. Just like in Captain America.



About two minutes later, while a classic creepy Bakshi rotoscoped scene plays (Seriously, this is like nightmare fuel unleaded), Darth Vader rolls out his new magic weapon: a grainy 30s Nazi Propaganda film. Yes. His secret weapon is HITLER.

Elf-land and Fairly-Land unite and prepare for World War I style trench warfare, while a veteran of the last war recalls that the last time Darth Vader attacked, the elves easily slaughtered one million of the evil mutants. In this time of peace. Anyway, the point is to backstory and remind us that the mutants don't really have anything to fight for, and therefore always end up retreating.

But this time, things are different, because this time, Blackwolf is armed with HITLER. He projects his Nazi propaganda film, and the elves are basically so entirely flummoxed by it that they just stand around in shellshocked horror and let the mutants slaughter them.

A quick perusal of Necron 99's corpse (He's a robot of some sort, but this is never actually spelled out, which is strange given their penchant for exposition) reveals Darth Vader's plan to Avatar, and he promptly declares that the evil image-projecting maching MUST BE DESTROYED, and then goes to bed. Slutty insists that her father must be avenged, and threatens Avatar with her sword, but at no point does her tone ever sound anything other than airheaded and playful. Avatar suggests that she sit, stradling him on his bed with her breasts trying their darnedest to fall out of what passes for a top in Fairyland, but would probably class more as a sort of scarf in our pre-holocaust world, for a few hours and let him think up a plan. Slutty, taking a page out of Debbie Does Dallas, responds with a befuddled "Well... All right."

The elf guy (whose name I still haven't worked out) finds this scene as weird as I do and interrupts. Avatar renames Necron 99 "Peace", or perhaps he meant to rename Slutty as "Piece", but anyway, he sends the town whore and the mighty elf warrior off to pack while he "reasons" with Peace. This results in another non-animated segment, wherein I finally learn that Slutty's real name is "Eleanor" and Elf Dude is "Weehauk." Seriously? Isn't that a town in New Jersey? "Weehauk", "Avatar", "Necron 99", "Darkwolf" and "Eleanor"? Hm. If memory serves, this movie was made slightly before Lord of the Rings, so it's really a coincidence that Ralph Bakshi will go on to make a movie whose major characters are named "Frodo", "Aragorn", "Gandalf", "Smeagol" and "Sam".

Avatar explains to the bound Peace that "This has been the biggest bummer of a trip I've ever been on," which is really saying something since they haven't left yet. Or maybe Avatar is talking about all the LSD used in the production of this movie. He makes some pretty devastatingly creepy threats about what he will do to Peace if he screws them over, explaining that it "will take twenty years to kill you, and you'll be screaming within five seconds." Our hero, ladies and gentlemen. Peace responds that "Peace wants love, wants free, will help." Great. He's going to be one of those "cute" talks-like-the-mentally-handicapped monsters. Avatar reassures his friends by doing some magic. Like all the other magic he's done so far (summoning cigars and decanting wine), it's stupid and frivolous (He levitates himself into his saddle on the back of the anteater-horse-thing), but he ends up facing the wrong way, prompting Slutty to point out, "He's getting olda but not much bolda," in what seems to be some kind of Blackspoitation heroine impersonation. Ah, the seventies.

Avatar demands a song from Slutty, because "That's why we brought you." Because, y'know, she's a girl. So that whole "Avenge my father's death" thing, yeah, we didn't really give a damn about that. She hands off to Judy Collins to do the singing, which leads to a montage of the good and kindhearted freakish demihumans cowering and lamenting how their land is now in the grips of Darth Vader and his army, and that they have no hope of resisting them, because "They have weapons and technology; we only have love." This leads to a scene with the gas-mask-wearing mentally handicapped soldiers in Vader's army. They're searching a church to find some priests, since Darth Vader believes you really need to have organized religion in order to be an evil empire.

Because Hitler Plus Jesus Equals World Domination

They find a couple of Obviously Jewish Stereotypes priests, who appear to worship the CBS Eye (Because it's THE FUTURE, get it?), and explain that they've only got time for war, not for taking care of prisoners, and would the priests please find something to do with all the civilians they've captured. The priests procede todo a weird little song and dance prayer number which I think was intendedto be sort of pythonesque, but instead manage to just be sort of offensive to your relgious sensibilities, regardless of whether you're christian, jewish, muslim, hindu, buddhist, or a worshiper of Whoops, the God of Serendipitous Calamity. Basically, if you could form a good analogue between religion and race, this would be the equivalent of a blackface minstrel show. The retarded soldiers get tired of waiting, or maybe have an attack of good taste, and blow up the church instead. For some reason. they don't decide to exit it first.

Back at Mount Doom, it is revealed that Blackwolf's about to be a daddy: he's got a ridiculously hot wife who is very pregnant. A strange mutant with a ridiculously hot wife and plans to rule the world's greatest power? How am I supposed to believe that sort of crap?

Here, Darth Vader explains that he wants to conquer the world so that Mutants will finally be free from having to live in the shadows as an oppressed sub-class just because they're hideous, hideous freaks. This really humanizes Vader and makes him seem like one of those modern well-intentioned extremists, like Magneto or Poison Ivy or Michael Moore. Of course, it would be a lot more convincing if the whole rest of the movie didn't establish the evil brother as having simply been born pure evil with a lust for evil and conquest. Also, he then finds out from his magi (Because he's the brother who hates magic and believes in technology) that his son is destined to be a mutant, so he shrugs, says "Eh, the next one will be human," and implies that he's going to have the baby killed. Way to humanize the villain, movie.

We finally return to our heroes, who are approaching a faerie forest that Peace doesn't like. It seems that Elves and Fairies don't get along, and these particular faeries might be mischievous. Except that I thought that Slutty was a fairy. In fact, I'm quite sure she mentioned it explicitly at one point. But these faeries are tiny little naked things. I'd almost suspect that this was a translation issue, like the way that old Japanese imports often use the word "star" when they mean "planet", except that English is this movie's first language. Anyway, the faeries play with our heroes for a bit while Peace looks sad. Everyone's laughing and having a good time, and then, out of nowhere, Avatar becomes finds this playfulness annoying and summons all the forces of hell to smite the faeries. Our hero, ladies and gentlemen.


It's weird, like that tunnel scene in Willy Wonka, or that scary Yoda moment. Basically, it's like when you're playing with a cat, and the cat decides that it is done playing, and when you fail to intuit this, she explains it to you by defleshing your arm. Only he does it with ALL THE FORCES OF HELL. Fortunately, just as he draws back to smite, an especially fey faery summons a great feast, which instantly calms Avatar down. He explains that his name is Shawn, leader of the Knights of Stardust, a FABULOUS order of tiny little warriors. Avatar is still annoyed, but Slutty shoves his head between her boobs and this makes him happy. But then someone assumed to be Peace starts shooting the place up, and Slutty suddenly disappears into bondage high in the mountains.

Weehauken falls into a pit which he has to fight and climg his way out of, which is entirely black and featureless, either because it makes it more dramatic, or because Bakshi got tired of drawing backgrounds, there he fights an invisible enemy because Bakshi also got tired of drawing enemies. The monster finally shows itself as a giant spider or possibly the hair monster from Looney Tunes. But Peace shows up and shoots it before he collapses for some reason. Weehauken then mounts him and falls asleep on top of him.


Slutty is put on trial for bringing the evils of technology into Fairyland, and the resulting death of Shaun the Fey. She sort of giggles at the idea of being held responsible for her actions, and then heaves her breasts around a bit, which causes her to glow red and shoot an energy beam out of her crotch.

Taking this to mean that she's come fully into her powers, Slutty then animates a gargoyle, which immediately turns on her. Avatar shows up and fails to do anything about the gargoyle, but does protest his important cause. Then, for no clear reason, Darth Vader materializes, shouts, "He lies!" then vanishes. Which causes someone to shoot Avatar in the shoulder with a tiny little arrow. The fact that this did not prompt Avatar to go on a killing rampage is taken by the King of the Faeries to mean that he can be trusted, and lets them go.

After getting lost in the mountains, Avatar and Slutty meet back up with Weehauken and his new boyfriend Peace, and then they meet up with some viking elves who are planning to attack Darth Vader, but Avatar objects to them just adding to the fighting, prompting some more backstory about how Avatar, in his younger days, roamed the earth, spreading the gospel of love and peace, and then they get attacked, in turn, by a giant evil cabbage, a bird, and a rotoscoped tank. In an utterly bizarre turn, Peace attacks the tank, and Slutty murders him, then jumps in the tank and rides off.

Avatar gets all mopey over Slutty's betrayal, and Weehauken basically has to drag him through the next part of their mission, into the stronghold of Darth Vader and his band of Nazis, which means we get treated to a scene of a bunch of mutant Nazis intimidating a young foot-tall winged faery into removing her top to sate their perverse sexual desires:

Because Ralph Bakshi knows how to creep me the fuck out with animation.

Avatar gets increasingly melancholic as the violence increases, because he's into love and peace and all that jazz, and then the viking elves attack. But because Bakshi doesn't particularly care for animation, the animated elves fight mutants played by rotoscoped humans who hover above the backdrop and are seen only in this weird sort of lithographic style. For some reason, the mutants are attacking on horseback, despite the fact that (a) they have tanks, and (b) We've established that horses have been replaced by weird bipedal anteater things.

In the close shots, the mutants turn back into animated mutants with guns, and manage ot kill a lot of the viking elves, but it's not at all clear to me who's winning in any given scene, especially with the continual changes in the art style. As before, they roll out the World War II stock footage, and the elves just stand around flabbergasted as they're blown to pieces. I'm not really sure what's going on here, whether the projected images are meant to be magically able to actually kill the elves, or if it's just a distraction.

Avatar sends Weehauken off the destroy the projector, and then plans his suicide, on account of Slutty's betrayal. He finds Slutty and prepares to kill her, but Darth Vader's Ridiculously Hot Wife stops him, and makes an incoherent, rambling speech about blood and death and fathers against sons and being fast with your blade, and this confuses Weehauken long enough for Slutty to explain that when she'd fondled Peace earlier, it had allowed Darth Vader to hypnotize her, because of Peace's mental link to the forces of Evil.

Now, the climax of this movie is one of the more awesome twists I've ever seen, so I'm actually going to put it below the jump...

Continue reading "Aruman? Really? (Ralph Bakshi's Wizards)" »

In reference to my final analysis of Tomes and Talismans:

I have just now remembered the Economics-based educational series from about the same period. The one I mentioned not remembering aside from the fact that I didn't like it. It was called -- I swear I am not making this up -- "Econ and Me". It involved some kids and their magical imaginary friend Econ, who taught them about economics. And the theme song buggers the imagination (I realize that the expression is "beggars the imagination". You haven't heard this theme song. It is running through my head right now, sodomizing my corpus callosum). The refrain went something like "Econ! Let me tell ya 'bout Econ! Econ! And Me!"

This show was apparently so worthless that even YouTube has the good taste not to contain copies of it.

Which is a good thing, because I'd probably be strangely compelled to watch and recap it.

Episode four of "The Starlost" introduces us to the crew of The Pices, one of the Ark's little survey vessels. The crew has been away for ten years and has been out of contact, and is very surprised to learn that the crew are dead. Given that the crew have been dead for hundreds of years, I suspect that this episode is going to try to convince us that the crew of the Ark did not understand the concept of special relativity.

Everyone piles aboard the Pices and takes a spin around the ship to survey the damage. Then, for some reason, the captain and one of the hot chyk crewmen fall asleep. The other one babbles something incoherent about "space senility" and does the same.

The captain dismisses their claims that the accident happened hundreds of years earlier, since it's coming from a bunch of Space Amish, but they also seem a little weird. "Time does funny things in space," the captain explains, and implies that they're tired because they're old.

Eager to find their families, they rush back to the crew area, where they meet a small family who don't know them, but after pushing the old folks a bit, they manage to drag out of them that they'd heard of a ship called the Pices, from a very long time ago.

On the trashed bridge, Anton La Vey explains the mission of the Pices (and for some reason gives its size in "Jewbic Meters"). Despite the captain's admonishment, the cuter of the two bridge bunnies has the computer verify that they've been gone 400 years, and we finally get it explained: the captain had ignored some warnings about their trajectory, and they set off using some bad navigational data, which resulted in them experiencing more time dilation than they'd expected: once the Ark lost contact, they'd been unable to sync their clock to the Ark, and as a result, they'd accidentally accelerated to near the speed of light without noticing (Which is not nearly as ridiculous as it sounds. If you just lean on the gas in a space ship, and keep the pedal down for a few years, you'll just keep accelerating, and once they lost sight of the Ark, they couldn't calculate their speed relative to it).

The Pices crew gets increasingly morose about their predicament, though the more-hot chyk takes a shine to Garth, and the less-hot chyk does The Creepy Sci Fi thing where she speaks from a position of the gender views of the period that produced the show. So, 800 years in the future, a space pilot thinks that being a happy homemaker with no skills other than cooking, cleaning, and sewing is really a better life for a woman than hers. (Also, the captain's wife is recognized by the computer as Mrs. (Captain's full name).)

The captain has another episode, and Anton La Vey diagnoses him as space-senile: doomed to have his mental age rapidly increase due to the time dilation. They'll promptly have the minds of 400-year-olds unless they return to their previous time dilation.

As they all have a cracking good party to enjoy their remaining time, they watch the Pices's logs, and see "an unidentified class G solar star" -- which turns out to be the star which the Ark is going to strike. I guess a "solar star" is different from the other kind. The bridge bunnies decide to steal the Pices and shoot Devon with a phaser set to "Gurn".

They reckon that their best bet is to go back to Earth and hope that there's some of it left. While the captain objects in principle, he also objects in the pragmatic sense that he doesn't think they have enough power to go back to Earth. Devon distracts them for a minute and pulls out one of the Orange clipboards on the wall reactor cores in order to send the ship off balance. For some reason, the bridge bunnies become compliant after this, and happily pilot the ship back to the Ark.

They drop our heroes off and then decide to bugger off themselves, since a slow death in space beats space senility and the chance to help save the rest of humanity.

Good riddance, frankly.

Episode Three finally grants us the John Collicos we've been waiting for. He plays a smarmy evil guy, which I know is a stretch for this actor.

Arriving in Omicron (a dome to which they got directed by the frozen guy), our heroes get captured by guards, who totally freak when they discover Rachel's boobs: this is a society that did away with women centuries ago during a great catastrophe, and have had to subsist on artificial gestation ever since.

John Collicos, the local despot, explains that everyone thinks Rachel is the reincarnation of their goddess, and while he's far too canny to buy into that, he does realize that it would be excellent political capital if he married her, especially since he's a tyrant in the old-school sense of the word: he's only allowed to rule so long as he kills anyone who challenges him to single combat (hint hint).

Unfortunately for Devon, what few books weren't burned are now strictly limited to the local priestly caste, who won't let them read, even though they do let him and Garth hide in their temple.

John Collicos makes his plans to marry Rachel. He quite likes this talk of "love" that she keeps going on about, but he wishes she wouldn't say it around other people, what with it being a scary alien concept to their all male society.

The Original Baltar also has a weird homoerotic moment with the head priest when he says "A man who spends part of each day on his knees can't be all bad."

Though the priest has forbidden them to see the holy texts, one of the lesser priests can't help showing off some of the work he's done interpreting the writings, which makes Devon and Garth realize that a bunch of dense technical writing is sufficiently mystifying to a couple of Space Amish that even if they did get to study them.

The head priest manages to negotiate with Quinn The Renegade Alien to have Devon and Garth exiled instead of executed, but in return, he agrees not to prevent the marriage.

Collicos makes some smarmy stabs at convincing Rachel that he's in love and can become a good person with the love of a good woman. She points out that she would totally challenge him for the throne if she were a man, and Collicos weirdly replies that she would be the man he feared most.

Fortunately, Devon and Garth storm in, having convinced the palace guard that their beloved governor is forcing the goddess into marriage. Unfortunately, John Collicos's creepy homoerotic posing and shouting makes the captain of the guard wet 'em, and when they back down, Devon does the thing they've been telegraphing all episode in addition to showing in the pre-title teaser: he challenges John Collicos to single combat for rulership of Omicron. John Collicos is compelled by local law to accept, and they fight using the traditional Vulcan Omicron stick-with-weighted-ends weapons while the Kirk vs Spock Fight Music Starlost Fight Music plays.

Devon gets totally owned, because he is a simple farmer, while John Collicos is the tyrrant who rules by force, but then he for no clear reason just turns around and sort of grunts a bit, and Devon takes this opportunity to hit him in the head.

Under the code, Devon may now kill John Collicos by cutting his head off... With... The... Weighted... Stick. But, of course, Devon is a TV hero, and refuses to kill him, instead letting Collicos live, shamed by his defeat.

Instead of the governorship, Devon asks to see the writings and be allowed to leave in peace. John Collicos points out that he is entirely untrustworthy and will not keep to this agreement. But as he's just been publicly shamed and shown to be entirely vincible, he's probably going to be busy fighting off every Johnny-Come-Lately who wants to kill him.

The ancient writings turn out to be entirely indecipherable, but when Garth mentions the Ark, the priests remember some ancient legends they have about avoiding a firey demise by going to the nether-regions of the Ark. Devon, who has read the script, concludes that this indicates the existence of an auxilliary bridge, presumably in the ship's ladyparts.

John Collicos, having reasserted his dominance, shows up to capture the heroes just as they make good their escape, but then for some reason lets them go: much to his surprise, he's found that this whole "Love" thing is not entirely unpleasant, and, knowing that Rachel loves Devon and not him, doesn't want to force her into marriage any more. Moreover, despite the fact that, logically, he must have just murdered half his palace guard, having been publicly shamed by Devon twice in one day has given him the idea that it might actually be fun to try a new style of governance which isn't based on killing anyone who disagrees with you. Public shamings might work even better.

Much like the public shaming I feel now for having spent another hour of my life on this show.

In episode 2, The Head of Anton La Vey directs our heroes to the medical section, where the lose Garth when attacked by some Wipers. Rachel and Devon find out from another La Vey head that the medical section houses cryonically suspended engineering teams. Rachel thinks that the chair-activated La Vey head is the funniest thing she's ever seen. Now, the La Vey head is very funny. Not the funniest thing I've ever seen, but then, I'm not Space-Amish.

They wake up the first engineer they can find, and then discover that he's dying of "a radiation virus". Garth tells the Wipers all about Cypress Corners, which impresses them so much that their leader, Burgess Meredeth, wanders off to think on the viability of taking it over.

The engineer comes to terms with his impending death and the semi-doomed situation the Ark is in, and then reveals that he's entirely the wrong sort of engineer, being in communications.

The Wipers attack sickbay, and under the engineer's instruction Devon and Rachel incapacitate them using sedative vials from the first aid kit. This works because in the future, sedative vials all have a self-destruct feature.

Meanwhile, the engineer asks La Vey if his wife is in suspended animation. He doesn't know, but has a "videotape" recording for him. La Vey demands an access code, and the engineer doesn't know it, but then discovers that it's written on his shirt. When he does, La Vey reads him some numbers to type into the keyboard. Yes. He has to take dictation from the computer. And the La Vey computer head even gets impatient with him when he fumbles the numbers.

The code makes La Vey's Interrociter show a video tape of his sad wife explaining that she wanted to join him in suspended animation, but couldn't get tickets, but she's sure that they'll find a cure eventually and thaw him out.

She's wrong, of course, but hey. He finds this sufficiently disappointing that he just sits down and prepares to die. Before they refreeze him, he explains that "There are books and stuff all over the ark. Find some." Thanks. This may be useless advice, but hey, they woke him up, brought him to death's door, and told him that his wife was dead. He owes these jokers nothing.

He does propose that the Wipers might be the degenerate descendants of the guards who used to patrol the corridors and suggests that they persuade the Wipers to move into a disused dome nearby, as they might find it to be a real nice place, and therefore not be total douchebags.

The big dumb Wiper shoots their leader with Garth's crossbow. Possibly on purpose, I can't tell. But Devon re-enacts the story of Androcles and the Lion, and patches Burgess Meredeth up, which in turn makes him receptive to their suggestion of moving to somewhere nice and agricultural. They show them a nice matte painting of a prairie, and the Wipers all wave a happy good-bye as Devon locks them in.

NB: This episode had less than the promised quantity of John Collicos. He's in next week's preview too.

Fresh from my experiences with Tomes and Talismans, I decided to Netflix a series I had never heard of until it cropped up in a cross-reference to a wikipedia article I was reading.

The series is, I believe, a post-apocalyptic Canadian space opera from the seventies. The internet tells me such talent as Harlan Ellison, A.E. Van Vogt, Frank Herbert, Joanna Russ, Thomas M. Disch, Alexei Panshin, Phillip K. Dick, and Ursula K. Le Guin were contracted to write storylines for the series. No one knows why they did this, because the series is a complete piece of shit. Sixteen episodes were produced, in which many of the expansive and amazing space sets were inserted via greenscreen rather than actually building any sets, a technique later to be adopted by shitty Star Trek Fan Films. (Fun fact: Several first season episodes of Star Trek: Hidden Frontier pulled the episode's entire dialogue from episodes of The West Wing with the phrase "Mr. President" replaced by "Captain" and "The Senate" replaced by "The Romulans".)

The creepiest thing about the show is how clean all the footage is. The soft focus of degraded VHS and NTSC color bleeding really do a lot to play down the terribleness of (a) cheap visual effects, (b) old video tape cameras that had no depth of field whatever, and (c) that is it is the 1970s. This is clear, crisp, and makes me remember why I can't always tell the difference between Escatology and Scatology.

The first episode's narration sets up the premise: Earth got destroyed eight hundred years ago. Humanity had buggered off on the Battlestar Galactica Ark, but th bridge got blown up, and now the Ark is gonna drift into a star unless our heroes can re-establish flight control.

That said, the bulk of the episode is a flashback triggered by our three heroes looking out a window at the vastness of space.

Seems these three are Space Amish, from the town of Cypress Creek. Only these Space Amish have zippers and a computer. So Space Mennonites I guess. Devon wants to marry Rachel, but Rachel is promised to his best friend Garth. Garth isn't interested in Rachel, but he's a respectful sort who will do as the elders order, unlike Devon, who has previously been censured for daring to ask questions like "Why does the sun come up in the morning and set at night?" and "Where does the water come from?" and "What's Vietnam?"

The elder asks the magic 8-ball, some kind of computer terminal, just to make sure, and the computer announces that no, Devon and Rachel are not a genetically optimal match, and that the previously proposed marriage should take place.

Devon isn't happy about this, and spies on the elders later, whereupon he discovers that the Magic Eight Ball, which the Elders introduce as the voice of the creator, isn't actually making these pronouncements on its own volition: the elder inserts a microcassette recorder tape, tells the Magic Eight Ball what to say, and then orders it to translate from fakey archaic English ("Thou hast spake against the will of ye creator, and thou must pay with thy life") into technobabble ("Genetic profile is incompatible with optimal conditions. Nonconforming element must be eliminated to return system to equilibrium"). Devon reacts by shouting to everyone that the ELders are faking it, without any evidence. So then he has to run away from the angry mob, through the DOOR TO THE FORBIDDEN ZONE. This leads to a crappy chromakey effect of him falling down a long tunnel, whereupon he finds an Interrociter from which the face of Anton La Vey appears as a computer program to answer all his questions, only in vague terms that don't really explain much.

The Ark, it turns out, was designed to keep all these habitats isolated in order to preserve various aspects of Earth culture. Also, the whole "About to fly into the sun" thing. Anton La Vey can't communicate with the bridge for a data update, so he orders Devon to.

Devon, instead, goes back to Cypress Corners, where he is decried as a witch, especially when he tries to explain what he's seen to everyone else. The Eight Ball orders Devon's execution, and the Elder thinks it would be a good idea to order Rachel to throw the first stone.

But Garth decides to bust Devon out of jail, on condition that he leave and never come back. Devon does, but Rachel goes with him. We're told. She has like three lines on-screen. The crazy old guy who sits by the door out of the pod explains that, now that someone has been outside and come back safely, the evil elder's total control over the village can't last.

Garth decides he's going to go out of the pod, kill Devon, and bring Rachel back. Because Devon is his best friend, and he doesn't actually want to marry Rachel, and she clearly wanted to go. And also because most of the writers quit before production started.

While Garth tumbles down the bad special effect tunnel, Devon and Rachel pass through the giant oscilloscope toward the bridge. Garth catches up with them and demands that Rachel come back with him, on the assumption that she doesn't want to be there. She says she does, but Garth doesn't agree.

Since the other option is shooting them with his crossbow, Garth decides to tag along to keep Rachel safe until he can take her back to Cypress Corners and marry her against either of their will. The oscilloscope, which is a security checkpoint, lets him pass in spite of the crossbow, leading to me concluding that the whole security checkpoint thing was just a waste of our time inserted to show off the shitty oscillosope effect.

They reach the bridge, saving the ship, and ending the series. Well, not quite, but they do reach the bridge, which isn't so much "destroyed" as "roughed up a little bit". As they stand in front of a chromakey matte painting of the bridge and look out at a chromakey matte painting of the vastness of the Ark and space beyond it, the scene from which this flashback began, they are awestruck and get to see a star approach so rapidly that there is no reasonable way that the ship will not be immolated in the very next episode. Though it then stops and hovers off the starboard beam to give them at least a season to sort it all out.

The continuity announcer makes some dishonest promises of excitement and adventure to come, which appears to include a guest appearance by John Colicos.

I. Can't. Wait.

(Disclaimer: I can totally wait.)

The really remarkable thing about Tomes and Talismans is that, aside from the stilted dialogue, this show isn't really all that different from my memories of pretty much all science fiction of the period. Cheaply made, exposition heavy, absolutely certain that the future was going to consist of people in brightly colored polyester fighting people in filthy rags.

Abacus escapes the sewers just in time to hold up the amulet, which reflects the Wiper stun gun rays back at them. They collect a dropped gun and head for the library.

Now, I want to point out that the previous episode was about maps. They showed us a map, and indicated on it where Dad was, where the library was, and where the base was. Dad was not between the two. He was in the opposite direction.

Back at base, Athos and Variant sort out what Mythology is all about. This has got to be a tough concept for them, since fiction is a new concept for Users, and Mythology is, according to this show, a sort of mixture of fact and fiction, being true stories which had been passed down over the years having pieces forgotten or invented. They decide to try skimming.

Colonel Hogan (Hogaaaan!) and Abacus make it back to the library, where he and Bookheart share a "I would like to reindex your card catalog," look with each other, but then quickly regroup over the MacGuffin. Here, Bookheart teaches Athos to scan, rather than skim, to find a specific topic. They talk quite a lot about the importance of scanning, looking quickly for specific keywords. This turns out to be a wasted effort, since they're scanning for the keyword "battle" which is the first chapter of the book.

Bookheart next gets to explain notetaking, another topic the Users have no knowledge of. The basic gist here is that while the Users are intelligent, even obsessive over fact-collection, they come from a culture that uses computers and databases, and therefore have no cultural understanding of the need to organize information for sequential access.

Of course, the best thing about this is that Tomes and Talismans neatly destroys its own point. In just twenty short years, real life has taught us that the Users have it right: their system won. Computers, random access of data, they've basically obsoleted most of these library skills. As it turned out, library skills aren't valuable in and of themselves, they're useful as a way to overcome the fact that pressed dead tree is a terrible way to store information for easy access. This is basically what I said about the demise of newspapers. There's nothing inherently good about traditional print media (It still edges out computer screens in terms of suitability for reading large amounts of text, but that's a limitation of display technology, not some kind of universal inherent good about ink-in-tree-carcass), and it basically takes The destruction of human civilization to render those library skills really relevant. While the Users back at base are starving to death, these kids are running around pulling out encyclopedias and almanacs and dictionaries and thesauruses (thesauri?). If they'd had a local mirror of Wikipedia in the library's computer instead of a musical montage about how to use the encyclopedia, this series would be about nine episodes shorter.

I'm pretty sure that this show was made to early for it to be a reactionary fantasy, but I could totally see it as one: Think your precious computers will save you? Well you'll regret forgetting about the Dewey Decimal System when the apocalypse comes! Frankly, if it takes the Eschaton to make traditional library science relevant again, I think my time would be better spent taking a class in how to grow my own food.

(And I say all this despite being quite fond of libraries.)

Anyway, the Wipers are getting worried, because first they saw a horse, and now the ones who got stunned are reporting that the Users are armed with a blood-red stone, and their leader, Homer Simpson Humbuckler (Humbucker?), orders the destruction of the User base.

Meanwhile, thanks to their new skill of Skimming, Scanning, and Notetaking, the library gang has discovered that Wiper legend tells of a great battle in Alpha Centauri, where a giant half-man-half-Clomatt waving a blood-red stone emerged from a cloud and scared off all the Wipers. Alpha Centauri is the Users' home star system, so they suspect this is the ancient battle where their people somehow defeated the Wipers, via a method which modern Users don't know, because a generation or two ago, they removed the article from their database for lack of Notability. They find a Wiper-English dictionary to look up what a "Clomatt" is, but the audience doesn't need one, since the Wipers have been using the term to refer to horses for eight episodes now. Athos realizes that a half-man-half-horse is a centaur, and as they're from the Alpha Centauri system, this must be the redacted chapter from their history.

Since there's a book on holograms in the Wizard's Reading List, Colonel Hogan (Hogaaaan!) realizes that their goal should be to create a hologram of a centaur holding a ruby, and project it on a cloud. Unfortunately, their book is a few years out of date, so the kids rush off to learn how to find information in the Periodical section, which fortunately points out an article on holographic animation from a late issue science journal.

Athos studies the Vertical File, the weird bit of the library where you stick random stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else (Seriously, does anyone know what the hell a vertical file is for?), and also finds a card catalog entry for a newspaper, so we get to learn the most useless of the library skills taught in this series: how microfilm works. This really impresses Athos.

Colonel Hogan (Hogaaan!) shaves, and awkwardly indicates to Bookheart that he would very much like her to inspect his audiovisual section, but he is cardstock-blocked by his daughter, who has found a magazine article indicating that they may be able to lure a horse to them by tossing the Colonel's dirty laundry nearby. He takes Athos out to do this, and they happen upon the Wipers, who are preparing their final assault on the base. Which is still in the opposite direction.

Athos and the Colonel return to find Bookheart tracing a slide image of a horse (Tee hee. Slides in the future.), and Hogan (Hogaaan!) utters the best line ever: "Athos and I spitted Wipers outside while planting my underwear." Since episode 12 is about audiovisual media, Bookheart explains that some libraries catalog those separately, but not this library. As this is the last existing library on earth, her statement is not strictly accurate. She also teaches the kids the difference between film and videotape, a useful skill in the twenty-third century.

Hogan (Hogaaan!) needs her to show him how to handle a film camera, and for once this is not a euphemism. Except that they do have a moment during which he totally wants her to handle his film camera, but the fat kid places a hold on the book he wanted to check out. The Colonel gets very annoyed at him. Abacus wanders off to look at clouds, carrying on the tradition of really stupid, reckless children in television. She finds the horse, and the Wizard appears to her, giving her another clue -- a sort of terrible one that they resolve to "the secret word is Athenium (It's Greek for "Library")". Bookheart has gotten snippy and irritable, because she has become aware that she hasn't gotten any in over a century. As they prepare to make their hologram, the kids also find a camcorder, and decide to film a documentary about their adventures, in case they fail and die, in the hopes that future visitiors to the library might learn from it, and do better than they did. You know what that means: recap clip show.

On the way up a nearby mountain to project their hologram, God The Universal Being appears to them again, this time giving them a copy of the script properly cited research report on their work. They get set up, and there is nothing left to do but wait. Which they do. No one will be seated during the thrilling "waiting" sequence.

At last, they fire up the projector, and a 2-D video toaster matte shot of Hogan (Hogaaan!) moaning "Athenium" appears in the clouds. The Wipers watching the magnetic shield controls freak out and run away. letting the controls overheat and crash, and the advancing Wiper army (six drunk fat dudes) run like hell.

With the shield down, they re-establish communications with the rest of the galaxy, and announce that the Wipers are defeated, because apparently, this dozen or so drunk angry rednecks are the entirety of the force that invaded earth.

They take Grandmother Nikola Tesla back to the library, where they recap the entire series again to he over a slice of watermelon. Then, after that, they watch hilights from their documentary again. This is why you really need to have approximately the same amount of airtime as story. The plot of this episode was about four minutes long.

They sheepishly discover that "The implosion of the magnetic shield must have caused a dematerialization vortex at their headquarters," which wither beamed the Wipers randomly to other planets, or just killed them. It's not really clear.

At the last minute, a conference call from the Human descendants, who thank the users for getting rid of the wipers, and are therefore coming home. They are so greatful that they promise not to obliterate the Users from orbit. Bookheart says that Humans and Users have already started in on a beautiful friendship, and gives a longing look to Colonel Hogan (Hogaaan!) indicating that she'd like him to help her shelve something in the stacks...

You know, despite the fact that this series was, frankly, shit, it holds a special place in my heart for a couple of reasons. Firstly, so far as I know, it was the only Science Fiction Single-Topic Educational Series that aired in my youth -- there were a lot of series in this general format, shows about reading (the seminal Canadian series "Read All About It"), and about math, and about anatomy (I think it was called "The Body Electric" and the main character worse a body stocking printed with a cutaway view of where all the organs go), and about economics (I can't remember the show about economics very well, but I know that there was one. I didn't like it) and about art, but unless you count Read All About It (Which was really closer to Fantasy), none of them would qualify as science fiction. And on rewatching as an adult, I'm really struck by some of the thought that went into it. There's some things that seem strange for a kids' show. In a thirteen part series about library science, there's some very real and candid threat of death, the implied genocide of the Wiper race at the end, heck, the freaking Eschaton, even a hint of romance. Were the writers really cleverer than I thought? Maybe, or maybe, as someone on ifMud once pointed out, the writers are just human beings, and as such will occasionally hit on something authentically human just by virtue of the fact that we humans think like humans.

Still, "Post Apocalyptic Library Adventure." There's a tagline for you.

And don't call me Shirley.

Episode six opens with dad on the run from the Wipers. They're just about to shoot him with their futuristic hair driers and caulk guns, but freak the hell out and run away. Back at the library, Athos looks up the encyclopedia in the computer, which is very meta. He is treated to a musical montage about all the things you can look up in the encyclopedia. Now, encyclopedia is an awkward word to fit into the meter of a song. As far as I know, Jiminy Cricket is the only person to ever successfully do it. Also, she radically mispronounces "Zaire" (She says "Zar") and Emile Zola. Athos looks horrified.

Back at base, one of the Users has prepared a powerpoint slide showing how their food supply (measured in "Quark pods") decreases linearly over time (in "lunens") He is praised for conveying the information clearly, and is given the honor of being the first one they eat after their inevitable turn to cannibalism.

Abacus has been reading The Story of the Amulet, since it's an engaging story even though her base is under seige. Athos finds this a waste of time as much as I do, and draws a chart to show her how many pages of book they need to get through in order to read all the books on the wizard's reading list. It seems that Users have a knack for charts, even though they then explain what a chart is, indicating that this too is a novel concept for them.

Dad, whose name is Colonel Hogan (Hogaaaaan!) calls in. By which I mean, he transmits, "Abacus, this is your father, Colonel Hogan." Now, I thought that this was a silly thing to say, but then, we've only met their father and grandmother, and I haven't seen any other adult female Users, so maybe they've got two daddies. He's hungry, so Miss Bookheart directs him to smassh a small nearby hard-shelled object, which she thinks is a nut. It turns out to be a watermellon, because Colonel Hogan (Hogaaaaaan!) is terrible at describing things. He finds it delicious, at which point my beloved Leah, who has never seen an episode of Power Rangers SPD proves that she's spent too much time around me, by adding, "And buttery!"

As dad hides from the Wipers, Athos forgets that he's got a magical headband that lets him define any word, and has to be taught about the dictionary. From this, he deciphers the wizard's message ('To elide the buckler, these tomes offer succor') as "To destroy the shield, these books offer help," and from this, he draws the conclusion "This means that these books offer help to destroy the shield!" Really, Bookheart ought to have shown him the thesaurus.

I spoke too soon -- Bookheart has the same idea, and whips out a thesaurus to translate the rest of the clues into something less florid.

Back at base, there is great concern over the food supply, because they haven't eaten in minutes. Grandma Nikola Tesla wanders through the hall of street signs that they for some reason have, then sits down and reads The Macguffin, which contains the legend of how the Users defeated the Wipers in their prehistory. She eventually remembers that she's got a ruby talisman necklace which I'm guessing is an old family heirloom. This is awesome, because the kids have just discovered, from the wizard's summer reading list, that they need a ruby to use as an amulet to (this part they have not figured out yet), to something to do with horses and defeating the Wipers, and breaking the magnetic shield.

The next clue they try to address involves lasers, and since lasers are a sciency thing, it's time to learn about other kinds of reference books, such as the science encyclopedia and science dictionary.

Meanwhile, Athos turns gaygayer and decides to put on a one-man-Shakespeare review. He's looking to make sense of "the king's familiar price." I'm a bit ashamed to discover that I didn't work this out until I was repeating it to Leah, several episodes after the clue was introduced. It's pretty obvious. What are Wipers deathly afraid of?

While Athos learns about Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, Variant and Fat Kid learn about Mythology, and Abacus has a heartfelt conversation with her father in comically stilted language. They've now solved this much of the puzzle: 1. A horse (my kingdom for a); 2. A laser; 3. A ruby; 4. A cloud. (They sort of glossed over that one)

I remember being very proud of myself when I sorted out what they had to do.

Episode 9 beings with Abacus and Bookheart reading a book on sewers, but when she's left alone, she secretly pulls out a notepad and starts doodling. Athos needs to have a short lesson in maps, and Bookheart obliges. They direct Colonel Hogan (Hogaaaan!) to follow the railroad tracks. Because railroads are not library-related, the users do not need an explanation of what one is. For comic relief, the Wipers use a map too, only by "map", they mean "monopoly board".

Abacus needs an almanac, urgently. What is it? It's a book of up-to-date facts giving the latest information for each year, but that's not important now. She needs it because she's theorized that the wizard's clue is leading them to the possibility of using the sewer system to get back to their base and retrieve the Macguffin of Wipers On Earth Volume Three. Surely, you say, that's not in an almanac. True, but if the population increased by more than ten percent in the years after the publication of the definitive book on local sewers, they'd have installed a new line which connects the sections of town between the library and the base. And don't call me Shirley.

Because VHS tapes age poorly, we're then treated to five minutes of dark blurs while either Abacus travels via the sewer to the User base, or Colonel Hogan (Hogaaan!)and the Wipers wander around in the dark.

Turns out that it was the former; Abacus pops up in the base, half-dead from her sewer crawl. After a lengthy recap, she asks to take back the copy of the Macguffin. Grandma Nikola Tesla immediately hands over the book, and throws in her ruby amulet, and sends her granddaughter to crawl back through miles of decaying sewers, because of a wizard. The Users are basically dumbasses.

Dad gets caught by the Wipers just as the century-old sewer system, which Bookheart mentions was built to be "cheaper to replace than to maintain" colapses on Abacus...

Have you noticed that there's a bit of a trend in the media I like to favor stories about the end of civilization? The Tribe; Cloverfield; Zombie movies; Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future; pPower Rangers RPM... Forget I said that last one.

It's enough of a pattern, in fact, that I've created the new category "Eschatology" to group together all my postings on the subject. It's a term I like because it's comparatively less common, outside ecumenical contexts, than "apocalypse" or "armageddon" (Or, as zombie fans would call them, the "Zompocalypse" or "Zombiegeddon". I believe I have never heard anyone use the term "Zombeschaton".). Also, I like to pretend that I get the words "Eschatological" and "Scatological" confused, but that shit ain't the end of the world.

After a few years trying to find this show, most of which were spent trying to remember what it was called, I discovered a bit of an oddball in the Eschatological family. It's a 13-episode 1985 educational series produced by Mississippi Public Broadcasting for the purpose of teaching basic library skills to young people. I am not making this up.

The series, which I eventually discovered is called Tomes and Talismans, is set in the twenty-third century, though the only evidence of this you will see in the show is that the costume department seems to have been propertied as a result of a traveling Doctor Who exhibit losing its wardrobe.

In the twenty-second century, we are told, pollution and overpopulation are serious problems. Not problems which will in any way impact this series, but we wanted to remind you that it is the future. Also, Earth has been colonized (They do not say "invaded" for some reason) by a "primitive" species called "The Wipers". Despite being a primitive species, the Wipers -- Basically a combination of "generic 80s punk character from every show you've ever seen" and Space Rednecks (They kind of remind me of the Locos in the first episode of The Tribe, demonstrating that New Zealand is at least 20 years behind the US in Post-Eschaton Street Punk Technology) -- have overrun the earth, which is lame because their "favorite pasttime" is disrupting information technology (Bachelor number two is from the Dark Star solar system, his hobbies include golf and disrupting all channels of communication and information storage). What with the pollution and overpopulation and alien invasions and all, the people of Earth collectively decide to say "Fuck it" and just move to a nicer neighborhood, organizing a mass evacuation to another planet, using their jealously guarded Video Toaster technology to beam the entire human race to another planet. It is the year 2132 and humanity has the technology to teleport itself to another star system, but not to fend off invasion by a race of drunken rednecks. Remember this, because it will become a theme.

Among the last to be evacuated are the staff of the Last Library, a vast underground repository of all of human knowledge preserved in dead tree format, approximately the size of the fourth floor of the Loyola-Notre Dame library. The staff consists of Miss Bookheart (A graduate of the Stephen Ulysses Perhero School of Thematically Appropriate Character Names) and a team of mentally handicapped associate librarians. One of them shows her the front page of today's "World Daily News" (Sidebar: When I first saw this show, about a quarter century ago, there were lots of things which I thought were silly. An alumni of Star Trek, I thought it was silly that in the future, they'd keep all these books as hard copies instead of on a computer. What did not occur to me then is what turned out to be the silliest "future" prediction of them all: That newspapers would still exist in the twenty-second century.), helpfully reporting that Earth has been evacuated. One of her flunkies brings her a copy of "The History of Wipers On Earth Volume 1" and asks whether history books should get shelved under Fiction.

The easiest way to enjoy Tomes and Talismans is to pretend that it ws made by Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker. In that light, almost every line of dialogue becomes a form of the "We need to get this man to a hospital!" "A hospital? What is it?" joke.

This requires rather a lot of imagination.

Bookheart calmly explains that history is nonfiction -- that is, fact-based, as opposed to fiction, which is invented or made up stories -- and that under the Dewey Decimal System, which was invented by Melville Dewey to help find information in a library, history books are categorized in the 900s, which spans from 900 through 999.

If you found that paragraph stilted, you aren't using your imagination hard enough, but I've successfully captured the feel of this show.

The sidekick asks how future generations will be able to find anything, since they won't have been trained in the Dewey Decimal system. Miss Bookheart waves off his concern: the Dewey Decimal system was created *to* help people find things (If you did not think this actually addresses the question, we are on the same page.), and surely future generations will be able to figure it out. Miss Bookheart seems to have forgotten that she is talking to a man who is apparently trained in library sciences, and who nonetheless forgot that "history" isn't a subdivision of "fiction".

They namecheck "How to Eat Fried Worms" and "The Great Brain", two of my childhood favorites, while lamenting that they will have to leave all of bookkind behind, as humanity has apparently decided that they are going to leave all their books here to be rediscovered later, rather than, y'know, taking them along to be not-un-discovered.

Most of all, Miss Bookheart will miss her dictionary, as they will not have them in the White Crystal Star System or wherever it is that they're going, and she explains what a dictionary is. Even her assistant looks a little tired of her incessant exposition, but, hey, don't be so snooty, dude, you're the guy who thought history went under fiction.

Shock and horror, though, volume three of "The History of Wipers on Earth" is missing. And because it is a nonfiction book, containing many true facts, its absence from the library is a major oversight, so, stopping only to explain how the card catalog works, Miss Bookheart sets out in her bookmobile to check the crazy old hermit who was the last person to check the book out. His grandmother had apparently written some fiction novels about the Wipers. Novels about Wipers, you ask? They're books containing made up or invented stories, products of the author's own imagination, but that's not important right now. What is important is that the wipers have been around at least three generations.

While she's out for a drive, a wizard appears. Surely, you say, I am making a snarky analogy? No, I mean a literal wizard, in the form of a tall, skinny, hooded black dude with a cheap video toaster effect around him. He's called "The Universal Being", and he casts a slow-time whammy on her in order to preserve her for posterity.

In episode two, we discover that a hundred years have passed and Earth has been visited by a race of aliens called the "Users". The Users are an advanced civilization, evidenced by their cleanliness, their polyester primary-color clothing, and the fact that they all speak very slowly and precisely and have trouble with concepts a normal person would find intuitive, in the way TV uses to indicate that someone is smart, but which is based on austistic spectrum disorder. Only they speak a bit slower and over-enunciate their words, the way Jim Brady does post-Hinkley.

They've got headbands which allow them to speak any language, only not very well, because they insist on using the term "story inventor" for "author" and such. This is the kind of society where the adults sort of mill around looking stern, while the children do all the work. The kids in question are Athos, Porthos, Aramis, Abacus, Variant, and Fat Kid (I only made up about half of their names), and they're having a hard time with the concept of "books", what with their not having "instant information access", which I think is retro-future for "hyperlinks". He demonstrates by asking their computer to define a book. It says "A stack of paper bound between two covers. Use of: A form of information storage used on earth". But Abacus objects to the "use of" definition, since one of the two books they've found (the other is The MacGuffin Of Wipers On Earth Volume Three) is Cinderella, and she's got a theory that maybe, just maybe, this story might not be an accurate treatise on the dressmaking skills of talking rodents. They look up "invented story", and the computer explains that an invented story is a story that is made up. In a moment of insight, the writers will later have Athos note that knowing the definition of a word (the ability of their magical translators) does not per se lead to understanding its use.

The director's nephew Pixel shows up and gives them a "Bookmobile Stops Here" sign he found, then leaves. After discussing the possibility of mobile books, they decide to look it up, and it occurs to them that if they go and find a bookmobile, they might find some books, and that would flesh out their database. They do stop to make fun of the Fat Kid first, though, proving that the writers' desire to be cruel to fat people overrides even their need to make the kids all act like aspies.

They promptly find the bookmobile, but not before Athos drops his gameboy. Finding the sleeping Miss Bookheart inside, they make a big production out of how they use the word "ceased" to mean "dead", and meet the Universal Being. Which DOES NOT PHASE THEM AT ALL. Fiction befuddles them, but wizards? Old hat. He tells them that the librarian will awaken when read a passage from a certain book. Variant, the token black User, asks if he could clarify, and he does. By which I mean that he tells them that it's going to be a *specific* book, and they will have to *find* it and *read* it. Thanks. He does go so far as to explain that it's a book by E Nesbit, which the User kids need to keep recapping via headband technology. Working from first principals, they determine that fiction books are shelved alphabetically by the three letters on their spine, and that those letters correspond to the name of the story inventor. This is kind of cool, in that they are deducing library organization from first principle and all, but it's also tedious, since it consists of many iterations of "User notices X", "User theorizes X", "User confirms X". Note that i used X all three times here. There's not really a deductive trail: "Look: the last name always begins with the same letters as the three letters on the spine" "Could it be that the three letters on the spine indicate the inventor of the book?" "Yes. The three letters on the spine match the beginning of the name of the inventor of the book." This is an old rhetorical trick called "Tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them," also known as "The Really Boring Method".

The writing prompt for the Maryland Functional Writing Test, some fifteen or sixteen years ago when I took it, was typically some variant on "Tell us about your most X moment" where X was an adjective such as "scary" or "embarassing" or "proud". The trick to passing the Maryland Functional Writing Test was that you were basically guaranteed to fail if you did not adequately address the prompt. The way you did this was that, whatever the prompt was, you made your first sentence be: "I am going to tell you about my most X moment.". Then you basically could write whatever you wanted for three paragraphs (Though technically, the rest of the first paragraph should be paraphrases of the topic sentences of the remaining paragraphs. Then three paragraphs consisting each of a topic sentence followed by two supporting sentences), then you ended with the sentence "Now I have told you about my X moment."

If you failed this test, you could not graduate high school.

So they track down a copy of E Nesbit's "The Story of the Amulet", read a bit, and Miss Bookheart awakens. At first, she's skeptical that she's been asleep for a hundred years, and questions everything, such as the Users' ridiculous clothes, their ridiculous headbands, and basically, the hokeyness of the entire setup, but she believes them when Athos tells her that it's the year 2223 -- this proves that she's been asleep for a hundred years!

She takes them back to the library, which, despite being sealed in an underground vault, is not spotless and well-maintained like the bookmobile, but filthy, and looks to have been looted. There, she explains the various parts of books, such as the copyright page, which shows that The Story of the Amulet was first published in 1979 (Except that The Story of the Amulet is a real book, and was published in 1906. Their copy is a 1984 edition, which really ought to make it a valuable antique), the table of contents, foreward, preface, glossary, and index.

Meanwhile, the Wipers, enthralled by Athos's dropped cell phone, decide to erect a magnetic dome over the User base, trapping them. Because these crazy, violent, drunken rednecks who hate all forms of education and learning have magnetic force field technology. Episode 4 points out that this is the only thing the Wipers have ever invented. They don't have the wheel. They don't even have irrigation mining and roads. But they do have magnetic force fields.

Via radio, Athos tries to guide his dad to the vault -- he narrowly escaped the User transmission post before its destruction. Bookheart pulls out an atlas and sends the kids off to get the card catalog. They stop to reflect on how the humans really love alphabetical ordering, and sort out what a card catalog is. But when they come back, she praises them for being as fast as her assistants back in the old days. Personally, I believe this, because her assistants were plainly mentally handicapped. After they locate a suitable book -- a travel guide to the area where dad is lost -- she sends them back to find the author and title cards, because the call number has been smudged on the subject card. Since there isn't time to ask her what title and author cards are, they reason them out from first principles, taking about ten times as long as just asking.

Dad, trained only in being a Doctor Who companion, immediately twists his ankle, so they have to guide him to a horse farm for refuge, since he doesn't have any food or supplies. As the kids don't know what a horse is, she has them look it up, because time is of the essence. Now, I haven't seen this show in twenty years at least, and I could not even consistently recall the title until a few months ago, but I do remember that Anton Chekov has just hung his gun on the wall.

Bookheart recalls that the Wipers didn't like horses for some reason, and suggests that Abacus look up Wiper Superstition in the card catalog to find out why. Unfortunately, the only book in the entire library-of-all-human-knowledge with information on the subject is (Duh-Dun-DUNNNNNN) The MacGuffin Of Wipers On Earth Volume 3

In episode 5, The Magical Negro The Universal Being appears to Dad and gives him a scroll. The scroll explains that the salvation of the world rests in the system which divides all things into ten. Bookheart immediately decides this means the Dewey Decimal System. Because everything must be about her and her stupid library. The scroll also gives a list of call numbers with cryptic crossword clues.

Dad gets the idea behind the Dewey Decimal system and thinks it's a great idea. He does not think much about the fact that he's lost in the woods with a hurt foot and no food.

Users have a thought-frequency-thingy which lets them memorize numbers autonomically (I'm increasingly surprised by how well the writers thought some of this stuff through. Not the dialogue or anything, but they do manage to be fairly consistent in thinking through the impilciations of how things work: this dead-tree library is the repository of all human knowledge because the Wipers have destroyed everything more advanced; Users consider both alphabetical and numerical organization strange because they don't need to organize things, having, essentially, a neurological O(1) search capability), which means that they don't actually need to learn the logic behind the Dewey system, but Bookheart has a pathological need to teach people the Dewey Decimal system, so she teaches them anyway.

They turn up a book on lasers, a book on holography, the complete works of Shakespeare, the MacGuffin, a book on mythology, a book about gemstones, and the encyclopedia. What does it all mean? Find out next time on...

Well, anyway. The entire series is on YouTube. For example:

Leah and I resume watching after a few days off to see Ned climbing into bed with Alice and being all sweet. Leah concludes that Ned was only an ass because he'd never gotten laid. Leah has forgotten that Ned kidnapped Trudy and Amber.

The next day, Alice finds the note, and Bray reads it aloud: "Forget about ever seeing them again". Ned freaks out and doesn't believe him, then suspiciously runs off.

Seline, who has no right to be snooty, gives Ellie grief about hooking up with Luke. Jack has run away.

Bray and Pride get in a fight, then Bray has a breakdown. Ned would feel guilty if he were capable of guilt.

Bray runs away and gets roughed up by street punks. Ebony extorts Ned. The Guardian scares Ron Weasley a little more, still no one believes him.

KC interrupts Bray's bender looking for a buyer for the Guardian's ring. He trades it for a horse, though even he isn't sure why. Bray wanders around in a stupor until he happens upon the Mozzies, which is surprising since for people bearing a dangerous grudge, they sure took their own sweet time.

Alice starts to become suspicious of Ned when he starts treating her decently. KC gives May a horse, because he's still sweet on her and not very bright.

A party of wandering Klingons find Bray. May tries to draft Pride into a leadership role, which finally makes Seline grow a pair and bitch out everyone.

Pride and Lex go to look for Bray in a rough part of town, but are saved by bad foley. Lex questions Edward Scissorhands's motives, but as Pride speaks only in fortune cookie, not much progress is made.

Ebony confronts Moz, and draws a metaphor about mosquitoes: "Always like a mosquito to think it's found something only to find out it's bitten off more than it can chew." So, Ebony's skills: ass-kicking; lying; cheating; psychological manipulation: check. Metaphor: well, no one's perfect. She goes on to propose a complex alliance.

As part of her ridiculously circuitous plan, Ebony goes back to the Mallrats and proposes Lex declare himself Sheriff. Lex asks Pride to be his deputy.

Bray wakes up and reflexively macks on Moon, Hot Chyk of the Horse-Training Tribe. They sold KC the defective horse (Who. by the way, Seline is going to ride to prove Pride wrong), but they seem to be mostly okay. I'm guessing they'd gotten the horse in a trade themselves.

Ellie tries to get Luke a job with Ebony's new order. Ebony points out that Luke isn't liked or trusted.

• Ellie: That never stopped you
• Leah: That's true.
• Ebony: That's true.

Lex shows up in his new Sheriff Duds, which make him look like a cross between Marshall Dillon, Mad Max, and Boy George (Seriously, does everyone really need facial makings?).

The Guy Who Looks Like Pride But Isn't, Leader of the Horse Trainers, finally recognizes Bray as a Mallrat, and mention that they've met a mallrat before, a sort of big dumb guy whose name they didn't catch -- Bray, despite his concussion, rexognizes this as a pretty accurate description of Ryan.

Ebony catches The Guardian terrorizing Ron Weasley, but doesn't do anything about it, because her plan is just that complicated

Bray returns to the Mall, having left a Dear John note for Moon that The Guy Who Looks Like Pride But Isn't destroyed. Once he tells Seline that he's got news about Ryan, she rides off on the freshly tamed horse.

Sidebar: The end theme from The Tribe, Abe Messiah, was written by John Williams and Matt Prime. John Williams, as you probably know, wrote "Every Song In Every Movie You Have Ever Seen". Matt Prime, of course, is the lesser-known younger brother of Optimus Prime.

Luke, showing his industrious can-do spirit, has minted money. Lex tries to use this new money to hire a posse (Dagnabit, Deputy, I told you to round me up a little posse!), but they won't buy it. Also, behind Lex are posters of others who are vying for the job of Sheriff, including Moz, and, so far as I can tell, The Predator.

Of course, the whole "Money" thing doesn't work because money is only worth anything so long as everyone agrees that it's worth something. And, being children, they lack the sophistication and education to fall for that sort of shit.

After Moz's next little outburst, Ebony proposes a free election and nominates Bray for president of the city, on the premise that while the tribes may not like the idea of the Mallrats leading them, they probably like it better than any of the other candidates.

Ned has had enough of Ebony's failure to give him unbounded wealth and riches and threatens to tell the tribe what he's up to. Edward Scissorhands beds May.

Ebony bitches out Ellie for not wanting to use her newspaper as a pro-Bray propaganda machine, but she's dedicated to being impartial and giving both sides and not pointing out that Moz is a petty little tinpot dictator and bully. She interprets "give both sides" as "treat the truth told by one side as being on an equal footing with the lies told by the other side," so basically, she's the US media from 2001-2008.

Also, for some reason, the Mozbians all decide to be Lex's deputies. Lex does not support a trap. I'm not saying it's a trap, but my god that's an obvious trap.

It's hard for Ellie to convince Moz to give an interview, because Ellie's willingness to betray her friends is hard to believe. Then Moz decides to rough up Ellie for no clear reason. Ellie is sure to still write a Fair and Balanced article which wins Moz the election. Fortunately, Lex shows up looking for his posse. (Always say these lines aloud. It's funnier that way).

Ebony tells the Guardian that Ned plans to bust him out to trade him to the kidnappers for Amber and Trudy. As usual, because Ebony is lying, the Guardian believes her.

She orders Ned to take the Guardian to Moz. I think her plan is for the Guardian to kill Moz for her. Or possibly Ned, though I have a hard time seeing what advantage Ebony sees in killing Ned. Well, other than being rid of Ned. Oh. Actually, that is perfectly adequate reason to launch a scheme this complex.

With the Guardian missing, Bray can't possibly win the election, so Luke suggests Ebony instead, but Ebony doesn't want it and has to be convinced. Then she has an epileptic fit the third time they offer her the crown. Well, seriously, how does ANYONE not get it at this point?

The Guardian hits Ned with a crowbar, prompting the question: Why did Ned leave a crowbar in the coffin with the Guardian? And, really, this was Ebony's plan? Really? Wile E. Coyote came up with simpler plans than this.

Stopping only to change his clothes and redo his makeup, the Guardian goes to spring Trudy and Amber.

The Mozbians find Ned's body and are polite enough to return it to the Mallrats. Lex launches the most ineffectual investigation ever. The thing is, he doesn't have a pair of sunglasses to dramatically put on.

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

The Guardian unlocks Amber and Trudy's cell, and is all threatening to them, because though he's not really catatonic, he's really nuts, and believes that he needs to kill Trudy to get back in Zoot's good graces.

Ebony busts in just in time to save them, because Amber and Trudy's death isn't really part of the plan. The Guardian body-slams her and runs away.

The democratic election goes for Ebony, despite heavy cheating on both sides and a surprising number of votes for Pat Buchannan.

Out in the wilderness, Jack tries to learn how to fish, and stops some people from roughing up a young girl who turns out to be Chloe. Amber has a nightmare about the Guardian.

Lex catches KC giving paid Guardian tours, and shakes down both KC and his customers for their comically large currency.

For Ebony's second act as leader, she raids the treasury. (Her first act was to move back into the hotel). She's working some sort of double-deal with Moz, and keeping Bray distracted.

Tyson gets attacked by the Guardian, but she manages to talk her way out of it by coming back with a posse Brady. Ebony agrees to send a posse to capture him, but independently contracts the Mozzies to assassinate the Guardian ahead of time.

When Chloe comes back, KC falls for her, and May gets all creepy and jealous toward Amber, Chloe, Trudy, maybe even Brady.

Amber shames Pride into going after May. Ebony fucks with Luke's carefully controlled economy, ordering that Luke increase his cash production, and Luke notices that he's basically just repeating the same old pattern as with The Chosen.

The Ambush of the Guardian nearly fails, with Ebony's hired assassin being no more useful than the others.

Luke leaves, Jack stays, The Guardian reveals Ebony's evil scheme to seize control, but no one believes him quite enough. Ebony sends a distraught Ellie off to visit her sister and tell her that The Guardian confessed to offing her boyfriend. Ellie delivers the message, because for a journalist, she is pretty thick, and it doesn't occur to her that Ebony just wants Alice to go off in a homicidal rage.

Alice goes to kill the Guardian. Luke talks her down. Then The Guardian uses his super human strength to rough up Luke.

When they find Alice, she claims to have killed the Guardian. Ebony pardons Alice, banishes Bray and Amber, and celebrates her new-found absolute power. The Guardian, however, is sneaking off with Luke, telling him about his vision. When they reach the docks, The Guardian sets Luke free, because there's a Chosen waiting to take him away. He offers to take Luke with him, restored to his rightful place as a Chosen.

Amber goes into labor outside the city, despite the fact that she's only been pregnant for about a week.

Ebony toasts her power. There's only really one thing that could stop her now.

A C4 cargo plane flying over the city.

Piloted by the Cybermen.

Paratroopers descend on the city and announce into their metal facemask microphones that "The invasion taskforce has landed."

• Leah: I call shennanigans

Episode 31 opens with the Guardian reveling to the noise of chaos outside as his movement collapses into in-fighting and violence. Across town, Amber angsts over the thought of bringing a child into this crapsack world.

Luke agonizes over his past evil, Bray agonizes over the fact that Amber's seriously considering an abortion, and The Guardian goes full-on-crazy and has a conversation with his paperweight (Probably he's actually talking to Zoot's picture on the opposite wall, but the paperweight is in the frame and Zoot's picture isn't.), which Leah thinks is a marriage to Tyson, but The Guardian is so crazy by now that it's hard to make much sense of it.

Ned The Leprechaun and Alice try to tunnel their way out of the mall, and Ned nearly confesses to wanting to jump Alice's bones.

So Yeah...
Ebony tries to seduce Edward Scissorhands, pointing out how alike they are. He sagely notices that they are in fact not even a little alike.

The next time the Guardian sees Zoot, we're allowed to see him too. Zoot thanks The Guardian for his hard work, but he will not be requiring his services in this world, and would he please off himself and the rest of the Chosen. The Guardian goes all mua-ha-ha evil and decides to leave this world in a giant world-destroying shindig.

Selene, the poster-child for codependence, laments that Zoot has so often punished her, and refuses Luke's offer to help her escape. When she finds that Luke isn't willing to die for Zoot, she immediately loses faith in Zoot, and throws herself at Luke. When Luke shuns her, she either recovers or goes off to do something suicidal. Not sure which yet.

Alice and Ned break through a wall in the sewers, uncovering an open space with a chain link fence beyond it, where it is night time. Strange, mall architecture in New Zealand. Ned tries to escape through the hole, which works as well as it did for Winnie-the-Pooh when he ate all of Rabbit's honeyhunny.

The Guardian unveils his plan: he's gonna blow up the mall with himself and the Mallrats inside. He'd let them go free, he says, except that Zoot told him not to.

Which goes to show just how crazy The Guardian is: He actually did have a crazy vision of Zoot. And now. on Zoot's orders, he's going to off himself. But in his vision, Zoot didn't tell him to kill the others. He's lying about his crazy vision.

The countdown is set at 30 minutes, so we probably only have two or three hours before it goes off.

Alice and Ned decide to be all heroic and hold off the guards so the kids can escape through the tunnel. This fails utterly, and only KC escapes. Luke emerges from hiding and challenges the Guardian for being crazy. He gives an impassioned speech about spreading the word of Zoot and how it's madness to follow the Guarian, and how everyone should follow the path of Zoot on their own.

The Guardian makes the fairly accurate retort that the reasonable religion that Luke proposes is a pre-virus religion. His argument boils down to "Sure I'm crazy, but our religion is kinda predicated on crazy, which makes me a good fit."

However, Amber and Trudy show up and try to convince him that he'll be forgotten in a week if he blows himself up. Tyson is still convinced she can talk sense into him, but, well, she is wrong.

With mere minutes to diffuse the bomb, it seems all hope is lost, because no one is willing to run away. And then, the one person who might be able to talk the Guardian down shows up: Zoot.

(Well, actually it's Bray wearing his brother's clothesZoot Suit, but I think they somehow expected that we wouldn't work this out, as it's a big cliffhanger)

Incidentally, that was KC's idea. Now, this is a clever bit of actually setting something up ahead of time, because earlier in the season, KC was running a scam selling Zoot memorabilia.

Tyson asks the crying Guardian for the code to disarm the bomb.

• Ross: Six.
• The Guardian: Six

The full code is 666, obviously, but The Guardian says "660". Fortunately, no one falls for that. In the aftermath, Ellie tries to smuggle Luke out of town, but he wants to stay and stand trial instead. Bray gives a rousing speech, Lex and his wife make ammends, and Ron Weasley picks up Bray's discarded Zoot Hat and stares at it creepily transfixed.

Later, Bray has flashbacks to Zoot's funeral, and has some crazy time over the loss of his brother. He and Amber canoodle until Ebony of all people interrupts because she wants someone assigned to guard the Guardian so that he doesn't get assassinated before his trial. She doesn't want him dying in a suboptimally painful and humiliating way.

Tyson goes to the Guardian, because even though she's made up with Lex, she's still obsessed with the idea of "fixing" him. Lex shows up, and Ebony has to cold cock him to stop him killing the Guardian.

Alice and Ned sneak off to bonk. Seline sneaks off to jump off the roof. Trudy and Bray fail to talk her down, but Tally brings Brady up to the roof, and Seline decides, I dunno, that she won't commit suicide in front of a baby.

The next morning, Alice wakes with a deep sense of regret, and some girls wearing fetish gear and bug-eye masks besiege the mall shouting "BRING HIM OUT!"

Amber has to give a speech about the importance of Justice and Not Just Lynching The Guardian, butI think the wind or her makeup is hurting her eyes, because she's squinting like French Stewart the whole time.

Lex tars and feathers May, and Luke turns himself in, then privately intimates that it's important he be convicted and executed, as it's the only way to keep the city from turning on them.

At his trial, Luke confesses, which is good enough for everyone involved except Ellie. Amber finds him guilty and sentences him to freedom (consumed by his own guilt, of course), which pisses off everyone, including Luke, who was sort of hoping to commit suicide-by-angry-mob.

Ellie hugs Luke in relief, which is, of course, when Jack finally makes it back to the mall.

Edward Scissorhands packs up to return to his tribe, who have been called the "Ecos" for some time now, because the writers forgot that they were originally introduced as the "Gaians"

Luke tries giving himself up again, this time to the fetishistsMosquitoes, but Ebony saves him, because she's convinced he's just acting repentant, and, um... Well, okay, she does it just to be contrary.

The Mallrats hold a rededication ceremony, but Amber is busy whoring herself up when she's attacked by someone in a trenchcoat.

Bray waits until the kidnapper has made off with Amber and Trudy -- until this single attacker who is obviously also a child manages to slip out unnoticed with two women -- when he decides he's waited exactly long enough and goes to not find them. Everyone goes off searching, but most of them end up making out instead.

Lex catches KC leading the Weasleys in hiding some food, and he yells at him for being an incorrigible scam artist, and today Lex has decided not to be antisocial. "When will you learn to think about others?" Lex demands. Leah answers, "When he grows up and becomes a power ranger."

Eventually Ned finds a ransom note, saying that Trudy and Amber will be released only if they hand over the guardian. Unfortunately, it's unsigned, so they have no idea to whom they ought to hand him, but the fetishistsMosquitoes are the only other tribe they've bothered naming, so they'll probably assume it's them.

Which they do, but it's not them. They find a second note giving a meeting place, and requesting "No Trix", which either means that the kidnappers are illiterate or it's a clue that they're adults (Trix are for kids).

Bray totally decides to sell the Guardian up the river, but he's conflicted because he knows Amber is going to dump him for abandoning their principles.

Ellie has an awkward date with Jack, then rushes off to profess her love for Luke.

Alice beds Ned again, and discovers that Ned has been chewing the same piece of gum since before the fall of civilization. Sigh. Gum does not work that way. (Seriously. Alice points out that it must have lost its flavor. Screw its flavor, the latex should have broken down by now).

Bray's conscience wins, and he decides to try to pull a fast one on the kidnappers. Jack laments his breakup.

Ron Weasley steals The Guardian's ring, but as he does, The Guardian seizes him and threatens him. Fortunately, no one believes him that the guardian isn't quite as crazy as he seems. The kidnapper fails to show, which is because it turns out that it's Ned.

Yes, Ned. Alice's Boyfriend Ned. Ned the Only Person Who Was Alone When it Happened. Ned The Guy Who Wears a trenchcoat. Ned who freaked out when Bray announced his plan to not hand the Guardian over. Ned the guy who's illiterate. Ned who hates that rabbit with the breakfast cereal. Ned who -- well huh. I guess it's actually entirely obvious when you put it that way...

The Gaians and Lex capture May as she hands out leaflets on the resistance, which she cooked up with the Guardian to lure him out of hiding, and they concoct a clever plan to snatch Trudy. which is really a clever plan to snatch Bray. but Bray doesn't know that.

Dal shows up at the last minute before the ambush, having decided to do one last act of active violence before settling down and being the farmer he's always wanted to be. He goes off alone to play his important role in the fight.

This. Can't. End. Well.

About ten seconds later, Dal runs into the army of the Chosen. May doesn't know this, so she gives the signal for Bray and the others to come ambush them. Dal shows up just in time to warn Bray and Amber off before they get ambushed, but then falls to his death when he tries to escape by climbing over a railing and then... Um, well, falling I guess.

Amber doubles back to find him, taking advantage of the Chosen's lack of peripheral vision (It's the hoods, Leah reminds me). When she finds him, she shouts his name, which Leah thinks is a dumb idea with the Chosen around. I remind her that the Chosen have amply demonstrated that they can't hear you unless you address them directly.

After a few dramatic mutterings, Dal shuffles off this mortal coil, whcih would be a lot more touching if he hadn't buggered off mid-season last year to run the farm instead of being part of the powerful Jack-Dal dynamic.

Amber breaks up after they bury Dal. She talks about their past, when they were neighbors, "He was younger of course, but you wouldn't know that," aside from the fact that he's two feet shorter than the rest of the cast. She also decides to sidestep the whole question of whether she's going to stay with Edward Scissorhands (who Ebony is close to convincing to murder Bray) or go back to Bray by deciding to bugger off to raise an army.

Fortunately, Edward Scissorhands is noble and stuff, so he definitively steps aside, leaving Bray and Amber to do the whole sex thing, after which Bray swears to someday find Katy Perry so he can tell her it's over, which he thinks she'll be okay with, because deep down she always knew he liked Amber better. Which kinda makes Bray look like a lech given just how much sex he was having with her.

Bray falls immediately into a funk when Amber decides to leave anyway, as raising an army is still a good idea. He is roused only long enough to change his face makeup.

Cloey's career in espionage ends off-screen with her capture and deportation to the spice mines on Rurapenthe, as related to us by Trudy while she's being passive-aggressive to May. Later, Trudy marries Patsy to Zoot in a creepy ceremony. May enthuisiastically rats Trudy out for being all creepy and weird while relating the story of her conversion. This is important, because if they ever try to convince us that May was never really into the Chosen and this was all an act, it is going to be a gigantic load of bullshit.

When he brings The Guardian some anti-Chosen leaflets and the Guardian gets all weird and babbles about the glory of being hated, Sideshow Luke Perry starts to cotton on to the fact that the Guardian just might be making this shit up as he goes along, and is just a little nutty.

Trudy goes to throw herself at the Guardian, failing to notice that they've both got new Sci-Fi clothes and hairstyles, but he freaks out and shoves her.

Ellie makes another flier, this one says "Say no to Shavery" because she can't spell or maybe because Brazillian Waxes aren't available in the post-apocalypse. (None of the men on this show have ever had even a hint of stubble, though. Just saying.)

Rejection sends Trudy spiraling further into madness, and I think they missed a good opportunity to work cutting into the laundry list of dysfunctions the gang exhibits.

Alice and Ellie confront Tyson about her little meetings with the Guardian, and they insist that it's to her to prove that she's not a traitor. Leah and Tyson point out that the Mallrats are seriously lacking in the Trust department, which will be exemplified later when Ryan freaks out and thinks Selene is trying to recruit him over to the Chosen and storms off. Selene is sad, because she's one recruit away from earning the toaster oven.

Tired of Trudy's shennanigans, The Guardian thinks long and hard about what to do with her, by which I mean, he thinks long and hard about how to justify offing her. He eventually decides that Zoot wants her to join him. Fortunately for no one in particular, Lex was in the midst of a booty call when the announcement was made, so he will be able to report this. Good thing Lex is such a stand-up guy.

The Guardian plans to hold a big public execution to show everyone what happens to those who defy him the highest honor Zoot can bestow on one of his loyal followers. And he wants all the representatives of the former tribes and all the Mallrats, and everyone who wishes them any ill-wil and everyone the resistance might want to rescue all together in one big open indefensible public place. Sideshow Luke Perry continues to be bugged by the transparency of the Guardian's evilness.

Ryan finally grows a pair and tells his wife that she's got to choose between him and The Chosen. Everyone spends a sleepless night having Trudy flashbacks, except for Lex, who always sleeps through flashbacks. Even Luke plots mutiny, having decided that The Guardian is being too rash, and he's got to keep Trudy alive until he calms down.

By the way, there are two burning cars outside the Gaian hideout, while outside the mall, the Chosen have Mad Max's car. Just sayin.

Once Trudy is locked up, KC creates a distraction by claiming to have seen Zoot, bodily ressurected, and the Chosen all run off to see. It would be awesome if every time someone claimed to see Zoot, the Chosen totally bought it. Trudy escapes, but Luke makes her leave Brady behind.

Three seconds later, Ellie throws off her Trudy costume and leaves the cage, making it unclear why she'd have gotten in in the first place. May totally sells out KC in order to be appointed Brady's permanent nurse, despite the fact that she hates caretaking.

KC fesses up to having seen The Mighty Zoot, but claims that it was a for-real vision. The Guardian challenges him to describe Zoot, and KC does to a tee. Of course, since there's posters of Zoot on every wall, this is not a tremendous surprise. After the Guardian has had him hauled off, he notices that the teacup was made by the Zoot China Company of Portland.

Bray sends Trudy off with Edward Scissorhands to see Amber, and Sideshow Luke Perry gently nudges the Guardian into deciding that KC had a vision of Zoot because he happened to be in the right place at the right time, and not because KC was in any way special, and the Guardian reaches the conclusion that Zoot appeared to warn the Chosen that Trudy was about to escape. This is because the Guardian isn't quite unhinged, but he's certainly sub-optimally hinged. As evidenced by the fact that The Guardian declares KC an Oracle, and then gives him a creepy backrub.

Commercialsign in 5... 4... 3... 2...
The wacky adventures of Mentos the Freshmaker, and a foray into the world of Power Rangers RPM, the eighteenth season of the show you were just surprised to discover is still on...

I like shows with giant robots, okay. So I do watch Power Rangers from time to time. This season is set in a post apocalyptic wasteland where most of the human race has been wiped out by an insane AI and its squadrons of killer robots, including some which look exactly like humans.

No, really.

I swear I'm not making this up.

Anyway, the reason that I bring this up is that John Connor -- irm, Flynn, the current blue ranger, is none other than Ari Boyland, little KC, all grown up and with a ridiculous overblown Scottish accent.

1... 2.... 3... 4... 5....

May misplaces Brady because she's useless. Lex bitches Trudy out for sending Trudy off with Edward Scissorhands. Ellie throws herself at Sideshow Luke Perry in order to get some insider information. The Guardian, being crazy, decides that Ranger Blue's latest vision means that the Chosen should take all the babies and care for them personally. Ryan shouts over the crowd for Selene not to fess up to being With Child, which you'd think would be a dead giveaway, but remember the immutable laws of this world:

• Any car, once ignited, will continue to burn indefinitely
• Ebony is always believed unless she's telling the truth
• Lex Luthor is no good in a fight
• Viruses mutate, just like computer viruses.
• The Chosen can not hear any dialogue, no matter how loud, unless they are being addressed directly.

So, Selene gives herself up anyway, because she's basically half-brainwashed.

Edward Scissorhands isn't back yet, because he stopped along three way to help some kids, who I will call Hansel and Grettle, and their older brother, a leprechaun, captures him and makes him their pack animal. The Weasley family (they're all redheads) are a bunch of grifters who take Edward Scissorhands about ten minutes to set at each other's throats.

Meanwhile, Ryan starts a fight and Luke has to bail him out, and Lex Luthor, who is all torn up about the absence of his wife, tries to seduce Ebony.

As the Guardian becomes more and more crazy, he calls for Tyson, to whom he talks about how depraved and evil Trudy was for throwing herself at him -- of course, Tyson responds by showing him how to rationalize sex into his notion of "purity", which causes him to nearly grope her, then to freak out and call for his guards.

Selene has second thoughts upon finding out that Zoot's her new baby-daddy. She relates how hard it is to be without a dad, because her dad left when she was -- WHAT THE FRAK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? EVERYONE IN THE WORLD KNOWS WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE WITHOUT A FATHER!

May decides to leave the Chosen because the writers have changed their mind about her being an unlovable character. Patsy, by the way, has been carted off to the spice mines or something. I don't remember this happening, it's possible that it happened some time ago, and her appearance when May was looking for Brady was an anomaly. It's also possible that Leah and I missed an episode or something.

Ellie and Sideshow Luke Perry have a heart to heart about their respective political philosophies, and Ellie totally falls in love with him.

Ryan blows his top when he finds out that part of the Guardian's master plan is that the fathers will never get to see their children, getting so angry that he sounds Scottish for a moment, which prompted Leah to point out that the future-KC, in his life as a Power Ranger, will look (and, for that matter, move) like Ryan. Seriously. Present-Ryan and Future-KC could be brothers.

Poor Ryan. He stages an incredible action sequence in which he tries to assassinate the Guardian. He fails, though it's a close thing.

As he's being drug off, he bizarrely shouts, "I'll be seeing you!" I suppose that quoting The Prisoner is as good a way as any to end one's tenure on the series, because Wikipedia informs me that this is the last we'll ever see of Ryan.

You will be missed. Dumbass.

After declaring Bray and Lex dead, the Chosen march back to the mall, stopping only to let everyone redo their facial markings and hair color. Trudy freaks out at the news of Bray's death and Tyson goes cross-eyed at mention of Lex's. Fortunately, the Chosen aren't any good at deducing the difference between life and death, and Ebony shows up seconds later to rescue them.

This rouse fools the Chosen for about thirty seconds. The Chosen get rid of all the tribe leaders, which is why Katy Perry will not be appearing in this season.

When Bray wakes up, Lex has slipped off, and Ebony wants the two of them to run away together. But with Bray's ankle hurt, he's not going to do much running, which makes it a good thing that the new character who I am going to call Edward Scissorhands, (even though he looks more like The Crow, but that's awkward to keep saying), doesn't seem interested in attacking them.

The hungry Mallrats start a protest because they want food, so the Guardian orders all of them executed on the spot. Just kidding. The Chosen seem totally confused by the idea of anyone rebelling. The Guardian shows up and declares them all slaves, and promises to feed them and let them join the Chosen once they've proved worthy, once YOU WILL BOW DOWN BEFORE ME SON OF JOR-EL. Which everyone does, because they're hungry. Except Tyson, who is more morally flakey. But Jaffa (The Guardian), who Leah has decided probably was totally gay for Zoot in life, decides to be a dick, and won't feed any of the Mallrats until they all KNEEL BEFORE ZOD ZOOT. This starts the rats down the path of in-fighting, since it's been something like two hours since their last meal.

The Chosen manage to track Lex because he's molting, and Bray either gets captured or lets himself get captured. At any rate, he points out immediately that they've pretty much instantly redecorated the mall with the Zoot posters that were conveniently mass-produced during the fall of civilization.

While Trudy tries to persuade Bray to join the Chosen with the same success Bray has in trying to persuade Trudy to reject the Chosen, Lex and Ebony meet up with Edward Scissorhands, who promptly traps them with a net.

Jack is captured trying to escape, and the Guardian executes him. Nah, just kidding; Ellie pleads for his safety by explaining how Jack is a brilliant scientist. This is because Ellie missed the memo about the Chosen being anti-science luddites. So I guess instead of executing him, they take him off for something worse than being executed. Or something.

Selene claims that she didn't tell Ryan about the baby because she wanted him to marry her for her, not out of duty. Ryan finds this convincing, because, as I have mentioned, Ryan is incredibly stupid.

Edward Scissorhands reveals that he's a member of an eco-tribe lead by a chyk named "Eagle", who he is cryptic about, except that he goes on at great length about how awesome she is. Though when Lex mentions that "Eagle" sounds a lot like Amber, Ebony inexplicably freaks out.

The next morning, Bray's ankle is entirely healed, because the writers do not comprehend the passage of time. When Bray refuses to submit, they lock him in a room and show him a three-screen multimedia presentation made by their AV department.

Thirty seconds later, Bray is all but brainwashed, until he boldly looks up and shouts "THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!" We also get to see that Trudy can still have her baby yoinked away for disobedience, so when she creepily tells the Mallrats that Zoot is real and his spirit dwells within his followers, we can maybe just about get that the point here is that she's gone completely 'round the garden path.

Lex wants to rope Edward Scissorhands and his tribe into helping out in the fight against the Chosen, but Ebony is still freaking out at the idea of Lex meeting Eagle. Fortunately for her, Edward Scissorhands isn't a big one for confrontation.

Ellie and Alice grill Patsy to work out what the weakness of The Chosen is (Turns out, it's bullets. Unfortunately, a working gun is harder to find than kryptonite in New Zealand).

Bray agrees to join The Chosen in order to save the Mallrats, and apparently is savvy enough to know not to lie to the Guardian, so he outright tells him that he's going to go along with them in order to save the Mallrats. Jaffa, however, finds this close enough, and lets Bray talk to the Mallrats

Bray does exactly what we expected, and gets two-thirds of the way through telling the tribe to submit, then has a crisis of conscience and tells them to fight back, so he's next for the chop.

Later, when Lex meets up with Ryan on a chain gang, Ryan reports that all the Mallrats are okay, except for Bray,. who faces execution, and Jack, who has been taken off to Dick Cheney's Undisclosed Location. Ryan has gotten the memo that Katy Perry is no longer part of the cast, so she doesn't count.

They take Bray out to the beach, which close as I can tell is the only actually scenic place reachable by bus from the studio, since all the climactic outdoor scenes are set here, and prepare to burn him at the stake. With thousands of Chosen surrounding him, armed to the teeth, they have absolutely no trouble executing Bray. Just kidding, it's totally going to come crashing down.

Ryan returns to the mall and tells everyone about Lex and Ebony, because, so close as Leah and I can tell, the Chosen can only hear you if you address them by name, like NPCs in an Infocom game. May continues to make herself unlikable.

Trudy is ordered to kill Bray, as proof of her loyalty to Zoot, and Bray begs for his life like a little girl. Trudy just about turns, but it turns out that she's just crazy enough to do it anyway. With the surprise help of Edward Scissorhands and a cassette of "Listen to the Scary Sounds of Jungle Animals", enough of a distraction happens that Bray and Dal escape. Though The Guardian just tells everyone that they're both dead anyway.

Bray freaks out when he finds Edward Scissorhands wearing the ring he'd left on Amber's grave. Which leads to the entirely unsurprising and frankly not well done revelation that -- yes -- "Eagle", the leader of Edward Scissorhands's tribe -- is really -- (wait for it) -- Zandra!

Nah, just kidding. The show's gotten kind of tedious at this point, frankly, though I'll say this: I totally expected them to string us along until they actually showed Amber, instead of just having Edward Scissorhands blurt it out.

May and Selene are edging toward joining the Chosen, May because she's a little bitch, and Selene because she's with child, and thinks that starvation might be bad for that.

Dal reveals that he's had prophetic dreams about Amber still being alive. Lex reveals that he's had that dream too, as has Bray. So, despite Ebony's protests, they set out for Eagle Mountain, in order to check that she's still in her grave. Well, until Ebony actually does talk Bray out of it. So Dal has to set off on his own.

Leah points out that when Bray was given the ring, he was doing Amber, and we may draw what conclusions we like from the fact that Edward Scissorhands has it now. They notice that Dal's gone like eight hours later, but fortunately, Dal for some reason climbed not Eagle Mountain, but the next mountain over, so I imagine they have time to overtake him.

We also get a name for The Blue Haired Number Two Chosen Guy, which is Luke, so I shall call him "Sideshow Luke Perry". He seems like a True Believer, but he's not devoid of compassion and love and goodness and so forth. Which I suspect means that he's going to make a last-second noble sacrifice.

Dal finds the grave empty, causing them to notice that no one actually remembers who buried her. So they follow Edward Scissorhands back to the Ewok Villiage, where they finally meet Amber, who looks angry, possibly because of her ridiculous Eagle costume.

Intermission: The wacky adventures of Mentos the Freshmaker

Leah has discovered that the Dance Remix CD of the Tribe Soundtrack CD contains music videos for Abe Messiah and two of the songs that aren't as good. You can find them on YouTube, but I kinda suggest that you don't. They're a weird mix of Kids Incorporated, Riverdance, and that David Hasslehoff music video where he's dancing around the world, with the selfsame Video Toaster effects. The Abe Messiah video includes most of the scenes from the end credits that we were never able to make sense of, including the Mystery Blonde Guy with whom Trudy is dancing in the rave bit from the credits. We only get a clear look at him in the Bye Bye Bye This Is The Place, and if the YouTube comments are to be believed, this is "Good Zoot", some sort of hypothetical Zoot who had decided to reform and stay with the Mall Rats, to which there has never been any indication in the show.

I like to think that somewhere out there is an entire alternative second season, complete with a radically different continuity. Maybe this hypothetical one makes more sense.

There exists a second version of the Abe Messiah video, which just features Bray, Ebony, Tyson, and Lex Luthor dancing in weird symbolic poses as if they're about to shout their names and totem animals, then turn into Power Rangers. Which is utterly ludicrous, since we all know that only one of them is going to turn into a Power Ranger.

5... 4... 3... 2... 1...

Amber wants the others gone, because she's pissed for reasons she isn't yet willing to go into in detail. Bray has a feverish night of flashbacks, brough on by the stress of finding Amber still alive, or possibly the fact that he's been wearing the same knitted wifebeater since last season.

Dal is the first to notice that Ebony was conspicuously unsurprised when Amber turned up not dead. Lex discovers that Edward Scissorhands's tribe is called the "Gaians", and they all take their names from animals, except for Pride (Edward), who didn't understand the rules.

Amber gives Dal a flashback, in which she wakes up after having been buried, gets found by Edward Scissorhands, and gets adopted by the Gaians. He teaches her how to hunt and fish, and she teaches him about this earth thing they call "Kissing", and she is shocked, shocked, when Dal tells her that Bray and Ebony haven't gotten together.

Ebony tries to talk Bray into doing a runner, but this is unconvincing since he's actually in a location shot, while she's in front of a greenscreen. Well, actually, I wanted to say that, but Ebony totally convinces him... Until Bray goes ballistic and fights his way to her, demanding an explanation.

Amber does her usual "You know what you did so I will not tell you!" bit, and manages to tell him her entire life story about six times without hitting on it.

After repeating the flashback from Dal, she adds that Ebony saved her, then told her that she'd had Bray's baby. And, because this is Ebony, when she's lying, everyone believes her, and when she's telling the truth, no one does. So Amber faked her own death, believing the lie.

Bray should just kill Ebony. He should just break her neck. Like Tirol did to Tory. But instead, he just yells at her a little and believes her when she swears that that Amber hallucinated the whole thing.

Alice and Ellie plot mutiny, loudly enough that even the Chosen who's guarding them has a hard time not hearing them.

Lex, who knows of only one way to resolve conflict, calls Edward Scissorhands a pussy, so they have a big steel cage match.

• Leah: Pride cometh before the fall
• Ross: Pride also cometh before Amber two times out of three, which is why she's going to kick his ass to the curb in favor of Bray.

But seriously, Lex gets his ass handed to him, because, as we have previously established, Lex gets always gets his ass kicked. But that means that he and Edward Scissorhands get to be friends now. Of course, Lex was practically gay for nature-boy before.

Episode 7 ends on the startling revelation that Bray and Ebony didn't have a baby! Wait. We knew that. And Bray's "proof" is that he found the picture Ebony showed Amber, and he's got... A good explanation! Wait. Does Bray have some kind of plan here? Seriously? If his word was going to work, oughtn't it have worked by now?

Actually, his "proof" is that he rips up the photo, which Amber accepts as proof, since Bray would never tear up a photo of his own son. Ebony has another ace up her sleeve, of course, with the metnion of Katy Perry, which basically moves amber from "Jealous and Self-Righteous Anger" to "Ambivalent"

Meanwhile, Selene and May are going to join the Chosen, which makes them look like total bitches, because Selene is determined that no one find out that she's pregnant and in pretty serious danger of miscarrying if she doesn't start getting regular meals. May, on the other hand, is just a bitch, at least until the writers decide they like her.

The Guardian and Tyson have the sexiest discussion on theology since the confessions of St. Augustine of Hippo, and Edward Scissorhands shames Amber over the fact that she's clearly letting her personal feelings get in the way of the fact that helping the city tribes is totally the right thing to do.

Selene, May, and Patsy all agree to join the Chosen, Patsy under duress, May happily, and Selene with reluctance. But Ryan backs out and tells them to get stuffed when they get to the whole "Renounce your former tribe" bit.

The Gaians hole up in a church to plot the retaking of the mall, where Bray and Edward Scissorhands whip them out and compare sizes:

Amber: (To Bray) Pride's got skills you don't.

Brainwashing 101 starts out with the Guardian asking the novices to remember how their parents died, share their pain with him, and draw strength from it. Selene ends up brainwashed almost instantly.

Ebony and Lex, who have returned to the city on their own ahead of the Gaians, buy some poison from a young Peter Lorre, as part of their complex plan to kill the Guardian and seize control of the Chosen.

Immediately before invading the mall, Bray asks Edward Scissorhands just how close he is with Amber, and finds out, though he would almost certainly prefer otherwise once Edward Scissorhands explains that they're New Agey Gaian-Married.

Lex and Ebony corner the Guardian, and are just about to execute him -- well, Ebony is, then the Guardian overpowers her, then Lex overpowers him, but he just sort of hmms and haws over the actual murder -- when Bray shows up, and Selene decides it would be a good time to scream, thus ruining the whole "surprise" thing.

The battle doesn't really go anywhere; the Guardian stabs Ebony, the Gaians fight, they see Tyson, then they leave. It's not clear what they were trying to accomplish, nor whether they actually did it. The Guardian decids to enjoy his favorite pasttimes: reveling in being hated, and threatening Trudy. Afterward, Lex sneaks up for a bit of a cuddle with his wife. Tyson, by the way, has a smallpox innoculation scar. Just thought I'd mention.

Back at the church, Edward Scissorhands explains that both Bray's plan and Ebony's were good, but they ought not to have executed them simultaneously. He also is cutely uncomprending of why Ebony is such a bitch.

May is a little too enthusiastic about wanting to catch the traitor the Guardian has imagined is among them, which causes him to suspect her, and accuse her baselessly. I suspect that we're being shown that Jaffa's just as crazy as the rest of them, and not just an evil manipulative bastard. Later, May tries to come up with a way to throw suspicion off herself. I suspect that she's planning to sell out Selene for a pack of smokes, which makes me notice that no one in New Zealand smokes. Funny that. I thought unruly teenagers loved to smoke.

While Trudy makes pronouncements to Patsy about the coming new age, Seline turns down Ryan's proposal of marriage, and the Chosen's careful plan to lull everyone into a false sense of security falls apart because they just can't stop kidnapping people, whose kidnappings get noticed.

Or, it would ruin their plan, except that everyone is too caught up in themselves to notice. Lex and Tyson have become a couple, but have to keep it on the DL because Alice thinks Lex likes her, and no one wants to risk upsetting Alice. Dal's lusting after Ellie, so it's a good thing that Jack isn't nearby. Chloe's going crazy with abandonment issues. And Trudy convinces Ryan that Bray talked Seline out of marrying him.

When Trudy reveals that Ebony sold her out to the Chosen, it occurs to Bray and Katy Perry that maybe the Chosen haven't really broken up, and this has all been a smokescreen to lull them into a false sense of security... And Ebony's behind it all! Because Trudy is entirely trustworthy!

Also, Patsy creepily imitates Trudy's speech and movement patterns, which I think suggests that she's a much better actress than the rest of the cast.

While the Chosen kidnap people using the van from The A-Team, Trudy goes to meet with Jaffa, whereupon they reveal to us that the baby Trudy's been carrying around isn't really Brady, who the Chosen still have.

The Chosen know that there's one thing that always works: planting evidence on someone. So thye stick some evidence in Ebony's pool in order to make it look like she's behind the kidnappings. That something is Spike's corpse

As usual, this works like a charm, resulting in civil war.

Seline runs away from home, deciding that Ryan's too good for her, and happens upon May, the girl who stole Lex's shoes, while running from a gang of Sharells who appear to be a crossbreed of High School Musical characters and leftover mooks from Power Rangers. Seline throws up, for once without actually meaning to, and May deduces that she's pregnant. Because basically, there are only three reasons in the world that anyone would throw up. And the virus has died down, so that only leaves pregnancy and bulimia, and Seline's on a diet.

The Sharells show up at the Mall and accuse Lex of killing their leader, that guy who lived in a tanning booth and wore tinfoil, which prompts Katy Perry to decide that they're being set up to create civil disorder, but, again, she won't even consider the possibility that it was anyone but Ebony behind it. Ryan proves he's still in love with Seline by kicking their asses when he finds out that they were the ones who chased her.

Also, May recognizes Trudy as the Supreme Mother of the Chosen. Of course, if anyone believed her, that might foil their plans. But they don't, not after Trudy claims that she was just playing along to keep them from taking her baby away.

KC, who hasn't been paying attention, hires the Sharelles to play at Ryan and Seline's wedding while he's stealing a ring for Ryan. All the love and whatnot makes Lex decide to propose to Tyson. She doesn't believe in marriage, and Leah agrees that in the post-apocalypse, marriage is kind of pointless, especially the sort of fakey and frivolous marriages they have around here. But Tyson comes around when Lex explains it purely in terms of love.

Trudy, by the way, is going to perform the ceremony for Ryan and Seline. Though the Chosen plan to crash the wedding and take over the city.

During the wedding. Patsy leads Ebony to her own murder, wherein the Chosen drive their truck at her, forcing her off a pier into the water, on the theory that, since Ebony basically spent the whole first season in the pool, she probably can't swim. Trudy performs a ceremony that weirdly oozes with evil that no one notices.

And then they decide they have to kill Patsy too. So if she didn't get that the Chosen might not be as benevolent as Trudy had been claiming by now, she might have a suspicion now.

Patsy predictably runs back to Trudy, who tips her hand that she'd been playing her the whole time, but Patsy still doesn't quite get it.

Alice gets herself captured when she bursts in on the Chosen who are in the process of converting or murdering the Locos. She challenges Jaffa to single combat or something, he responds by trying to brainwash her.

Seline forces herself to sleep with Ryan, despite the fact that she now finds him repellant, so that she can sell the idea that the baby's just a couple of weeks early, instead of the only reason she married him.

The unsurprisingly still-alive Ebony confronts Patsy, and helps her down the road to recovery from evil. Chloe changes Brady since Patsy is too zoned out to notice, causing her to notice Brady's shiny new penis.

The newly reformed Patsy and Chloe warn Bray that the tribal meeting is a trap, showing up about 5 seconds before the Chosen do so that they're absolutely no help, except that they manage to stop Bray going in.

The Chosen capture the tribal leaders, then they take the mall because no one believes Alice when she shows up, predictably, ten seconds before the chosen.

Patsy denounces Trudy, at which point, everyone just stands around debating what to do until the Chosen show up and capture them.

The Chosen threaten to execute Katy Perry unless Bray surrenders himself, which he does, but not without bringing a small army with him to kick some ass. The captured mallrats are rescued, but they misplace Ryan in the process (Leah and I think Lex beat him up by accident, as he was wearing a Chosen costume). Finding him unconscious, Selene gives every indication of actually loving him for once.

Bray corners the Guardian and the Chosen, but can't bring himself to kill the Guardian. Which is unfortunate, because he reveals that he's actually got an army of what looks like about a thousand men he's been hiding. Having forced everyone into submission, The GUardian just sits there and looks confused when Lex shows up up in a go-kart and rescues... Bray. Bray?

Anyway, by the time you've got your head around this one, Lex has already crashed the go-kart, apparently killing the both of them.

And thus does our season end, not with a bang, but with frakking Ebony looking on from the distance.

Episode 31 is a rave, and my hatred of raves is prevents further comment. In episode 32, however, everyone falls off the wagon: Lex, having cleaned up his act, has a drink with Ryan who is getting drunk to deal with Selene's refusal to have a baby with him, and this causes him to regress into full-on alcoholic asshole mode. Meanwhile, Ebony confesses her love for Bray, and he rejects her, causing her to fall off the "goodness" wagon and go back to full-on evil mode. And the rest of the tribes decide that they've had about enough of the Mallrats trying to restore order and everything, and return to lawlessness.

Which is, of course, the perfect time for Trudy to come back, quite obviously brainwashed and crazy. Also, we get to see Katy Perry in bed with Bray.

No one is at all suspicious of Trudy's return, despite the fact that thus far, they have always been suspicious of everyone for everything.

By the way, for some reason, Ebony has "Aba Messiah" tattooed on her arm. That's the name of the closing theme music. They really like their own soundtrack.

Alice returns to the farm out of anger at Lex's claims to have gotten back on the wagon, where she is crushed by the only thing larger than herself, a barn.

Between sex and sloppy makeouts, Katy Perry decides to organize a tribal forum to prepare a defense against the Chosen, while Selene yells at Ryan for not coming up with a better way to reconcile with her despite the fact that she never gives him a chance to speak.

Bray and Katy Perry have some pillow talk about Bray's reluctance to bed her on the morning of the Tribal Forum, now that Trudy is back.

• Katy Perry: It means that you were obviously glad to see her, and it means I know that you and her have some kind of history
• Leah: True and true.
• Katy Perry: ... And it means I'm being a jealous cow.
• Leah and Ross: True!

Later, Katy Perry catches Bray calming Selene down when she freaks out about Ryan going out into the big scary city where the Chosen might nab him. Katy Perry decides that "Jealous Cow" works for her, so she becomes jealous and mean.

Speaking of Ryan, he's out in the big scary city with Ellie, tracking down a rumor about a Chosen in "sector 13". Do cities anywhere have numbered sectors like that? (Fun Fact: Paris does.) He decides not to come home with her, and instead, to go climb a mountain and off himself.

Katy Perry and Bray fight, then make up, which makes Selene sad, as she's realized that she's secretly still in love with Bray. Meanwhile, Chloe has noticed that Trudy isn't herself any more, but no one else really believes her despite her creepy weirdness.

Bray goes to visit a tribe who wear silly costumes and live in a place lit entirely by blacklight, causing me to wonder why I haven't noticed so far that everyone is evolving into extras from The Warriors.

Alice goes on a date with Lex, to Lex's chagrin, because he can't muster the balls to forthrightly reject her. Personally, I think Lex should just try showing her some affection -- she'll run a mile. Or kill him, since as we know, Lex can only show affection in the form of rape attempts.

Patsy makes cryptic comments that imply she's being brainwashed by Trudy. then gives Chloe a scary jack-in-the-box. Ellie meets a cute boy who convinces her that the Chosen have broken up. She prints it in the newsletter, and everyone believes it since if you see it in the Sun, it's so.

Episode 30 ends with the guy who convinced Ellie that the Chosen had broken up meeting with someone who is obviously a Chosen in the sewers to be told that it is Time To Put Their Evil Plans In Action. Shadowy figure? Well, if you haven't worked out who it is by now, I'm not going to tell you.

Selene tries to talk Lex out of being a drunk, and Lex opens up to her, then tries to sleep with her. Which finally makes Ryan grow a pair and confront Lex. Lex's Jack Sparrow imitation doesn't help matters and it's only Bray's intervention that stops Ryan from out and out murdering him.

This ends with Lex getting thrown out of the Mall, leavign Ebony one step closer to her evil plan of total domination. By the way. she more or less explicltly told Katy Perry that she set her up in order to get rid of her as a threat to her power over Bray.

Ryan, who, in spite of being a moron, is probably the nicest guy on the show and may even be the most emotionally stable, declares that he doesn't blame Selene, and that he does want to sleep with her, but he's concerned that if he submits to his lust, it makes him no better than Lex. Ryan, if you think about Lex every time you get an erection, you've probably got some other issues to work out. But Selene will have none of Ryan's homoerotic fixations, and beds him.

Ebony gives the prosecutorial speech at Katy Perry's trial. Everyone finds her very convincing, because no one has noticed that everything Ebony has EVER said has been a lie. Bray, for the defense, gives a terrible speech, causing the episode to devolve into a clip show.

When Alice accuses Ebony outright, everyone is so pleased that someone has finally said the most obvious thing ever that it triggers a flashback to Ebony buying the poison. Now, we all knew that Ebony did the poisoning, so it's not like we didn't see this coming. Leah works it out for me: They're trying to do a CSI thing. Thus, when Ebony accuses Katy Perry of being a spy for the Chosen, we have a flashback of the Chosen. And everyone finds this unsubstantiated accusation very compelling, because, as close as I can tell, they can see the same flashbacks as we do.

In fact, Katy Perry's tissue of lies of a backstory turns out to be motivated by the fact that her dad created the Virus. Bray, to his credit, does not get confused and think that Katy Perry has just claimed that her father was a comet. Good thing it wasn't Ryan taking her confession.

Leah thinks Katy Perry is overreacting, because it's not like she created the virus, and I point out that we're basically the only civilization in the history of mankind who hasn't held children responsible for the sins of their fathers.

Bray tries to save Katy Perry by confessing to having told Ebony the formula, which for some reason makes her look even more guilty and gives Ebony even more power. (Some reason == "Because Bray is terrible, terrible at explaining things")

Chloe and Patsy decided Katy Perry did it right away and haven't been listening to the trial, really, because that might cause them to learn something that makes them reconsider their knee-jerk reaction. So the republican party will survive the apocalypse. So when the "not guilty" verdict comes in, they decide they'll never trust Bray again, and run away or something.

Spike either takes the fall for the frame-up job, or Ebony frames him instead, they don't specify which. He definitely leaves on some evil mission at Ebony's order, but it's not specified whether his mission is to take the fall, or sending him away was just an excuse to get him out of the way so he'd be a good fall guy.

Katy Perry puts her hair down, which makes her look less like Katy Perry. Also, she's actually looked much more like Zooey Deschanel this whole time, but I can't see myself spelling that name more than once.

Oh, I had a revelation in the shower last night. Pre-Zoot Martin looks exactly like Nick Stahl, circa Disturbing Behavior (I just discovered he was also John Connor in Terminator 3, but I did not recognize him at that).

Lex gives his last watch to Vanilla Ice in order to get into a bar, and promptly gets thrown out because Lex is unable to show affection in any form other than attempted rape.

Ryan and Selene are just about to do it when Dal reveals that he's traded for some diesel and wants them to help him learn to drive a tractor, a distraction which gives Ryan a chance to -- well, he's about to have sex, so let's guess what he thinks about. Seriously, every time this guy gets wood. Ryan's consumed with guilt over Lex, and Seline sends him off to go find him.

Once everyone finds out Katy Perry's deep dark secret, they decide that while they don't actually hate her because her father ended civilization, they find her lying about it to be the same class of bad as the adults used to wipe themselves out. And since they can't trust Bray, and they can't trust Katy Perry, and they can't trust Lex Luthor, Ebony suggests that she'd be a great leader, as she can be trusted.

Katy Perry decides to do a runner, and Bray tries to talk her down,. She doesn't believe the others will ever forgive and forget, because she's new to the cast -- as Bray well knows, the Mallrats have the collective memory of a goldfish with head trauma.

Captain Jack Sparrow -- sorry, Lex -- pours his heart out to some strays in order to allow his healing process to begin. They steal the nothing he has, including his shoes.

Dal's found a pentacle on the farm, causing Tyson for the first time to notice that the symbol of their tribe is a pentacl. She takes it as a sign that the symbol on the amulet Dal found just happens to be the same as the symbol of the Mall Rats which just happens to be one of the most ancient and common symbols in the history of western civilization.

Lex's return beings with it the alarming news that it now appears the virus has run its course and the antidote is no longer a pressing need, which is a problem, since the need to get the antidote is basically the only thing holding civilization together at this point.

They decide to resolve this issue by not telling anyone, with leads to the series changing into a kind of absurdist political drama, with the gang organizing urban renewal, and Katy Perry granting divorces to ten-year-olds. Poor Lex finds himself confused by the sudden calling everyone finds to do real work, while Dal and Ryan moon over their first pumpkin, which is introduced along with a romantic remix of the theme music, which, as I have mentioned, is the only piece of incidental music they have.

Spike has decided he's unhappy with having been framed, and begins to plot revenge. As people to have plotting your downfall go, I would totally want it to be Spike.

Spike has his legion of Michael Meyers impersonators grab Ebony when she shows up to intimidate him into submission. Like Trudy before him, once he's got Ebony completely in his power, the first thing he wants is to make her shut up. I hope this becomes a pattern.

Leah points out that in the post-apocalypse, people have given up surnames. This makes me think about the tendency of people not to have last names in kids' shows.

KC skips school in order to buy rotten tomatoes with which to feed the crazy kleptomaniac they keep locked up in the basement. Lex and Alice both take note of this, and at this point, I discover that Lex is the guy they're talking about when they claim that there are people who say "to-mah-toe".

In bondage, Ebony flashes back to Zoot, who apparently abused her in weird ways, giving Tyson a vision, which leads her to gather the Mallrats to go rescue her, which is complicated by the fact that (a) they don't believe in her psychic visions, and (2) they don't especially want Ebony back.

When Ellie and Jack catch Patsy, Chloe, and KC making book on which of the resident couples will have the longest snog of the day, she yells at them, causing Patsy to realize that she really needs to find herself a man. Yes. Really.

Since it appears that the virus has died out and no one needs the antidote any more, civilization is sort of hanging on by a thread, what with the threat of the virus being the only thing keeping everyone in line. Fortunately, the Mallrats carefully avoid letting anyone cotton on to this and thwart the rumors. Except for Lex. who gets in a fight with someone and shouts that he doesn't need the antidote.

Which leads to everyone deciding that they don't need the antidote, which basically ends civilization. Fortunately, Tyson and Alice rescue Ebony, which is fortunate, um, for some reason. But she's been reduced to a gibbering wreck from being locked in a closet. No one's interested in trade or farming or urban renewal or anything now that they don't need the antidote. So, for example, thye trash Dal's milk, because they don't trust that it's not secretly antidote, which they don't need. Instead it's food, which they also think they don't need. Because the human race does not deserve to live.

And in case you missed the memo on how being locked in a dark place and ordered to beg for her freedom was linked to a traumatic incident in her past, and that's why she cracked up like this, Tyson poorly summarizes the end of 1984 to make it explicit.

As Ebony suffers from a bad case of Zoot Flashbacks, an angry pitchfork-weilding mob descends on the mall, shouting that the Mallrats conned them out of the nothing they'd been paying for antidote. Fortunately, mention of Bray brings Ebony around, who promptly shouts down the angry mob by pointing out that the Mallrats gave them the antidote for free, climbed through a minefield, found the antidote, created trade, promoted the arts, and, the way she tells it, was experimenting on themselves to be sure that no one needed the antidote.

Bray whines that everyone listens to Ebony but not to him.

• Leah: That's because she hasn't lied to them so much.


• Ross: Everything Ebony has ever said has been a lie!


• Leah: She's better at it.


• Ross: At least she's consistent.

Tyson explains to Ebony that the key to her recovery is to admit her feelings for Bray, as if somehow Ebony had ever made any sort of secret about wanting Bray.

Meanwhile, back in reality, a thirty year old man (me) is sitting in his armchair with a pain in his back, humming "Aba Messiah", the end theme to this show. His fiancee (that's Leah) is in the kitchen, getting two glasses of plum wine. She suddenly shouts in that she really wanted me to pause the show and is annoyed that I haven't. I explain that I have, some time ago. She says that it doesn't sound like I did. This story should serve to illustrate that this show has no repitoire of incidental music.

Ellie wants to publish everything they know about the virus, but she knows that Katy Perry will be anathematized. But she really wants to publish, so she decides to ask Ebony's opinion, because either Ellie is an idiot, or because she knows Ebony will tell her to fuck over Katy Perry.

Unimaginably, Ebony tells her not to publish, which either means that she's really turned over a new leaf, or this is the most complex gambit ever.

Katy Perry and Bray have decided to invent money again. The system is this: At the beginning of the day, they loan each trader ten tokens. All day. they trade and make profit. At the end of the day. they reclaim ten tokens from each trader.

Leah actually makes me stop the video at this point so we can discuss the flaws with this system. I come to the conclusion that: 'Yes, this system is based on the idea that if you just move money around fast enough, it will reproduce. However, I feel the need to point out that this is also the basis of our economic system."

Episode 30 ends with Lex having let their entire economy be stolen while he's sleeping it off, Ellie tearing up her newsletter because Katy Perry had to go and make herself seem like a real person who could get hurt instead of an abstract concept to betray in the name of journalism, and, um, there's something up with Ebony.

Ryan sleeps not just fully clothed, but in combat gear. This is because Ryan has impure thoughts when he shares a bed with Selene, and is spooks him.

Ebony (to Bray): If I have to be under a leader, I'd rather be under you than under any guy I know.

Amber's death has turned Bray into a giant pussy and, um, well, Morrissey, I think. he's too busy moping to do anything remotely useful.

Tyson keeps getting uglier. I wonder if they're trying to incrementally replace her with another actress.

After rescuing Trudy from some ruffians who take advantage of her just wandering around randomly asking people if they've seen her baby, Selene has a heart-to-heart with Ellie, who makes her question whether her cozy relationship with Ryan is deficient.

Katy Perry has written a draft of their bill of rights, in the form of a piece of paper with the word "BILL OF RIGHTS" written on it, and she freaks out when Jack starts to worry about the possibility that "It was a deadly space comet" is actually not a very convincing explanation. He also fails to notice when Ellie walks in wearing what looks like a cheerleader uniform. Maybe that's not a big deal in New Zealand.

Tyson's obsession with making Bray get the formula right seems to be an attempt to cockblock Bray from getting it on with Kary Perry.

The Chosen reveal themselves to be called "The Chosen" and to worship Zoot, and have kidnapped Trudy's baby, who they somehow know is Zoot's son, when they rough up Dal.

Having decided that the Chosen have probably got Brady, Bray immediately wnats to go out to fight them, but everyone points out that as he now knows the secret of the antidote, he can't be let out. He insists that he wouldn't reveal the secret under torture, Ellie points out that he might talk if they threatened one of the other Mallrats, or Brady. Which I believe proves that only Lex and Ebony could be trusted with the formula. Huh.

Selene's sexy negligee totally fails to attract Ryan, raising my suspicion that he's actually an eunuch following a tragic incident as a child involving a mechanical rice-picker, and prompting Lex to tell Patsy and Chloe that Ryan's a virgin.

Jack, rewatching the tape, finds that no one told the president (of wherever) that his mic was still on when, immediately afterward, he talks to someone unseen about how the whole press release was a lie. But, of course, the tape breaks before he can show anyone else.

Ebony hits KC upside the head with a baseball bat for no clear reason, then listens in during a recitication of The Chosen's FAQ:

• Q. Who am I?
• A. You are the guardian of Zoot's legacy.
• Q.Who are you?
• A. We are The Chosen
• Q. What will you inherit?
• A. Power and Chaos
• Q. Who is number one?
• A. You are number six
• Q. Who do you serve, and who do you trust?

Also, "The Guardian"'s real name is "Jaffa". Kree!

Ryan's total inability to notice that Selene has done everything shy of stripping naked and spreading eagle has finally made Selene fall off the wagon.

Meanwhile Ebony, having found Brady, decides the best thing to do is lure Trudy to the Chosen instead of rescuing Brady.

Ryan makes the mistake of going to Lex Luthor for advise on sex. Lex tells her the same advice my roommate summer after sophomore year told me: "Be a total jackass. Women secretly love that."

Later, the Chosen have named Trudy to be their holy mother, and tell her that while they won't let her go, they otherwise kinda have to do as she says, starting with killing Ebony if she so chooses, which serves as an excuse for a whole-episode flashback to back when Zoot was Martin, Bray didn't have a rattail, and Trudy was a shy girl with a red headscarf and a crush on Bray.

They seem to attend some sort of weird fascist school where everyone wears a barcode, a headscarf, and a purple triangle or yellow circle on their shirt. Except for Ebony, the new girl, who dresses slutty and no one seems to notice. I will point out that for all I know, that is now schools work in New Zealand.

All whored up for the school dance, Trudy looks kind of like someone, but I can't recall who. Turns out that Trudy ended up with Pre-Zoot Martin (Who was a total loser) because Ebony convinced Bray that poor Martin might become suicidal if Trudy ended up with the older, cuter brother.

The flashback also gives us a chance to finally see that three second clip of news footage they show during the titles. It's still pre-fall, and the collapse of civilization seems to be happening very slowly, despite all the claims of the virus happening "too fast". We get to see Zoot found his movement, and, while we never actually saw what happened, it's at this point that Martin's eyes turned all creepy. I assume that with his mother dead, there was no one left to tell him not to look into the eyes of the sun ('Coz momma, that's where the fun is).

We get to see poor Bray angsting over his dying father. He's got the original form of the virus, which causes festering sores instead of fake-old.

And now we have a definitive timeline for the virus. Bray and Martin lost their parents nine months before the beginning of the series, and there were still adults left at that point. The collapse of civilization took no more than, let's say, six months. We may also conclude that Bray's rattail nine months older than Brady.

Ebony gets sick of Trudy's yammering at the same time as I do, so Trudy has Jaffa send her away to be placed in bondage.

Fun Fact: The flashback episode, Season 2, episode 14, is the only episode of The Tribe in which Lex does not appear.

Ryan and Selene, having decided that they do indeed love each other, but are not going to cave to the pressure of having sex until they're both ready, decide that they're both ready and should have sex. Except that this is when everyone notices that Trudy has disappeared.

Trudy decides to trust Ebony to go get the others and helps her escape. This is because Trudy, like everyone else in this show, is utterly unable to learn from the past.

Ellie confides her desire to be jumped by Jack to her sister, who suggests that Ellie just swallow her pride and jump Jack herself (By the way, in case you missed it, Jack is the kid I used to call "Kiwi Love Actually Kid", but I've gotten tired of that). Then Alice snogs Jack just to make him uncomfortable.

At the final showdown, the Mall Rats corner the Chosen, and Trudy escapes by the simple expedient of shoving them a bit. But Lex, eager to start a fight, has gotten himself captured, and when they threaten to kill him, Trudy for some reason gives herself and her baby up to the crazy death cultists.

Five mintues into episode 17, Leah asks me who the slutty-looking young girl is. It turns out to be Patsy, who has by now whored herself up so much that Leah can't recognize her any more.

Lex and Bray beat each other up. The next morning, Tyson cockblocks Katy Perry to give Bray some herbal tea for his bruises.

• Leah: (Tyson voice) Actually, you're not supposed to drink it
• Ross: (For the 100th time this series) (Professor Farnsworth voice) It's a suppository

Bray makes Ebony joint leader because she threatens to destroy civilization by releasing the antidote. The others go along with this, because they are about as good at voting in their own interests as the state of Kansas. This comes to a head in the form of Tyson and Ebony reciting platitudes at each other.

Ryan relates the story of why Lex is such a jackass, revealing that in the days before the adults died, big kids like himself were all conscripted and sent to boot camp. In this boot camp, everyone wears barcode armbands, all the drill sergeants are women, and the boys wear black headscarfs. Leah feels sympathy for Lex after his backstory, in which we see that lex was an asshole at boot camp, and was punished for it.

Jack tries to profess his love for Ellie in the form of a flash animation, but she misses it because she's had to go to the farm with Dal to help a sheep give birth. When the legs are in the wrong position, though, we are treated to the worst analogy ever: "It's like trying to pull a half-open umbrella through a drain pipe." Dal successfully delivers the lamb, a scene which would have grossed me out a lot more if I hadn't watched All Creatures Great and Small.

The stress of recent events sends Lex Luthor on a drunken bender. Meanwhile, Bray tries to set down a bill of rights for the tribes, but Ebony wants the death penalty, and Tyson doesn't want rules, because they crimp everyone following their own destiny and doing whatever they feel is best.

Ebony pours some home-made bromo-seltzer into someone's supply of Antidote as part of what is either a brilliant master plan, or, more likely, her just randomly acting evil just to be contrary.

After signing the bill of rights, everyone throws a rave, because that's how things work in the new future. Did I mention how much the rave scene from The Matrix Reloaded pissed me off?

Lex's drunken antics ruin the party, which prompts everyone to realize that, as fellow Mallrats, it's their duty to help Lex get over his addiction. At this point, it occurs to me that the symbol Selene wears on her head these days is, if I'm recalling correctly, Metatron's Circle.

• Leah: You know what this show teaches me? Being a leader is hard.
• Ross: Especially when you're terrible at it.

Unfortunately, Tyson doesn't feel that it's her destiny to clean up after herself when she spills her poisoned antidote, which is sad because I do not like Tyson and would not mind if she died. Instead, Mr. Checkov fires his gun by having the dog who has developed a taste for antidote thanks to Panty and Chloe slipping him some on the DL, be nearby and willing to help.

Episode 20, therefore, begins with the funeral of Bob, including a Really Dead Montage to drive the point home, along with the power chord version of the theme song, because this show has no incidental music other than various arrangements of the theme song.

Tyson sorts out that Bob's death was by poison meant for her, and Bray confronts Ebony about it. Her excuse is that she could not possibly have tried to kill Tyson, since she's way better at murder than that, and had she wanted to kill her, she'd have been more direct, and not fucked it up. Bray believes this, because Bray has a radically inaccurate estimate of Ebony's effectiveness as a villain.

Ebony keeps pausing to sound threatening in the middle of sentences. It makes her sound like Shatner. She finds the poison in Katy Perry's room, and everyone thinks this is a fair cop, because they have fallen for this exact set-up before.

And the message is: "There is an antidote. It's in all the major cities. Go find it." So, um, thanks. It also triggers Eagle Mountain's self destruct. When will they ever learn? Meanwhile, a bunch of creepy guys and their white-robed leader take the satellite as a sign that the time is upon them. For whatever. Also, they're Zoot-worshippers. Yeah. Zoot's got himself a cult. It took Jesus longer to get a religion.

When the smoke clears, Bray's out cold, and Amber and Zandra are both dead. Or, at least, they bury them. As this is a soap opera, it's entirely possible that they're just in comas and will wake up with amnesia. Also, where did the Zoot-worshipers find a supply of Sci Fi Robes And Togas.

Losing his wife and potential child has made Lex Luthor a lot less argumentative. The cultists, meanwhile, have a flashback to Zoot's funeral pyre, which they weren't at, and grafitti in the background reveals that the Locos spell their name "Loco's", so even after the apocalypse, people still can't use frakking apostrophes properly.

Ebony offers to let Lex Luthor be the king to her queen when they find the antidote and use it to rule the world. I want to make a "queen" joke, but in New Zealand, all the men are far too butch for this to work. Lex tips his hand to Ebony about his illiteracy when he goes out for food and comes back with escargots and capers. With the help of Tyson, they find the antidote, brewing in a glowing slurpee machine.

Bray finds a swanky room in a govenrment building full of Egyptian artifacts, marble columns, and taxidermied animals. What exactly does the New Zealand government do? He meets replacement Amber there, who has a crossbow. What does the New Zealand government do, exactly?

The hatless wonder is now wandering about the mall in a fugue. When Patsy wakes up in the middle of the night and sees him, everyone thinks she's just imagining things. Leah is by now shouting at the screen about them leaving the doors unlocked. KC beats the shit out of him with a big stick, finally. But Asshat's got the virus, saving them the trouble of killing him.

Everyone but Lex and Ebony want to give the antidote away rather than selling it. Everyone else has forgotten that they don't actually have, like, food, water, or anything worth speaking of. This makes Replacement Amber (Who appears to be played by Katy Perry as she would have appeared in the 1980s) angry.

Cloey keeps trying to sneak some antidote for the dog, even though animals don't get the virus. This won't end well. Meanwhile, Lex starts freaking out that he needs more antidote. Jack and Dal go to find the formula, but the folder is empty, because Tyson is a crazy bitch and took the formula, as she still thinks that the real cure is meditation. So she burns it.

I have never used the phrase "Meanwhile, back at the ranch" more aproposly, but meanwhile, back at the ranch, the fat girl and the blonde girl we've never seen before have a spirited exchange which indicates that she may become a regular in the near future. Also, they've cleaned her up a bit to make her more acceptable as a character than her initial filthy hick appearance.

Meanwhile, Tyson is going to try to cure the virus using ancient chinese medicine, in order to prove its superiority to western medicine. In New Zealand, the fact that the Chinese girl disapproves of western medicine and is willing to sell out mankind's last hope in order to prove the superiority of chinese culture doesn't seem quite as racially insensitive. Katy Perry is concerned that maybe they should give the last of the antidote and give it to Lex instead of trying to have Jack reverse engineer it, but she's outvoted. Instead, they go out to get lab equipment, and are chased by a mob of small children in old age makeup who insist that even though the Mall Rats freely gave it away before, the fact that now they won't means that they're hiding it.

Lex catches Jack and Bray trying to formulate more antidote, and quaffs it, sure that it's all he needs. Of course, if it turns out that he actually needs a weekly dose for six months, oh well. When the fat girl shows up, though, Lex decides that it's serious, and makes some fake antidote to appease them. It occurs to Bray, though, that there is only so long before the angry mob comes back, angrier for being conned, but Leah and I are hoping that the poster paint they used for color turns out to be the secret ingredient in the real antidote.

The Cult of Zoot is still on the way to their destiny. They've now been traveling for, I think, seven years. I think they must be coming from Melbourne. I hear Zoot's big there.

Tyson succeeds in making the antidote from roots and berries, though, so the day might be saved. Which is good news for them, except that Tyson is going to keep her ancient chinese wisdom to herself, so they all have to defend her. I think the idea is actually that she's memorized the formula, and somehow worked out how to reproduce it from plants. This is bullshit, of course, but prophetic visions also work in this world.

Bob the Dog looks sort of ill. Also, Lex decides to celebrate his recovery by deciding he's mourned his dead wife long enough and it's time to put the moves on Tyson. Also, someone breaks it to him that there's every chance he's going to need to keep taking the antidote for the rest of his life.

Tyson reveals that the writers have totally changed their mind about her characterization, by making her degenerate into a tinpot dictator with her newfound power. It takes thirty seconds for the Locos to break into the mall and they finally show some of that can-do spirit by beating the dog to death with a baseball bat and threatening to break Magenta's neck. Ebony resolves the situation by hiring them.

Fat girl realizes she's been had, and either decks herself out in war-paint or just besmirches herself with mud, depending on your point of view. More on her later.

Ebony decides that she wants Lex, either for sex (Which seems unimaginable) or to somehow advance her power base, so she gives him the Locos as a present, then tries to seduce him during his spongebath. His spongebath which does not remove his makeup goatee. Leah would like to remind you that the makeup goatee looks really, really stupid.

Episode 4 ends with a gorilla arm grabbing Lex Luthor, which Leah tells me is Alice, the Fat Chyk. She forces Lex to take her up to Tyson, who Alice kidnaps along with some antidote for the afforementioned little sister. Everyone points out that for this entire season, Lex has not succeeded at his job of "Head of Security" all season.

Somehow during the night, Magenta has changed her haircut, focing me to start calling her Selene, which has been her name all along. Ryan changes his hair too, adding patches of blue, because he's uncomfortable with the idea of sleeping with Selene, despite the fact that she's moved in with him.

Ebony has changed her hair by the morning.

• Ross: When do they have time to keep changing their hair?


• Leah: They have nothing better to do all day.


• Ross: Except survival

Incidentally, Tyson's instant brewing of the antidote undermines the theory I came up at work today about why the antidote didn't save mankind. I mean, that whole 'There is antidote in every city in the world, but the virus spread too fast for us to save the populace, not a single adult bothered taking the antidote, dying of it even as they ferried it to every city in the world. I reckon that, as Lex and Ebony found it brewing in a percolator, maybe the stuff took, say, six weeks to brew. Jossed.

When Alice's sister gets better, she pledges her undying fidelity to Tyson, in a creepy "more than friends" way. Lex Luthor and Ebony have already set out to rescue her, with Katy Perry following to make sure they don't try to just kidnap Tyson and use her to corner the antidote market. Ebony and Lex decide to discuss their plan to kidnap Tyson and use her to corner the antidote market while standing about three feet ahead of them. Fortunately, Alice and her sister who looks sort of like someone but I haven't worked out who yet follow them home, having decided to be Tyson's personal bodyguard.

Patsy and Cloey, having redone their makeup to make themselves look like a couple of whores, tend to Bob, who turns out to not quite be dead yet, but we can hope. The gang makesa lucrative living giving the antidote away for free (And by "free", I mean "We don't charge you, but we do take away any weapons you have on you. Also KC walks the line conning people out of anything fun.")

Leah agrees that Ellie (Alice's sister) looks like someone, and can't recall who either. Also, she points out that the cars are still burning. They get to be part of the Tribe, in return for which the less interesting characters (Dal, Ryan, Selene, Patsy, and Chloe) will get shipped out to the farm, to avoid the shift in the earth's gravitational field caused by Alice moving.

Meanwhile, the evil cultists, clad in what I think are a combination of a fencing mask, jawa costume, and a Snuggee, have finally reached a hill overlooking the city. This portents something. Maybe someday we'll find out what.

Leah has deduced that the person Ellie looks like is George Lass from Dead Like Me. Lex Luthor's beard has retracted to a single stripe, but he's grown a stripe vertically through one eye.

Alice: I'm your bodyguard. I'm supposed to take care iof... your body.

Alice, for what it's worth, looks like, um, a pirate queen of some sort. Jack is sweet on Ellie, who offers to teach him about this earth thing we call "girls".

Bray and Katy Perry propose a new tribe leader meeting, since the last one went so well. Leah points out that Bray's rat-tail is so long that it is totally infeasible that he only started growing it after the apocalypse.

• Ryan: I'm sorry about that dumb thing I said.
• Selene: Which one, Ryan?

Ryan reveals to Selene that he's terrified that horniness will make him a jackass like Lex. This is the most reasonable thing Ryan has ever said.

Ellie and Jack move toward this earth thing we call "kissing" after she gets him a brand new 1999 iMac, which is sweet and all, and possibly more interesting than Bray's inter-tribe meeting, where he manages to get everyone, even this "amazon" tribe whose leader fills the screen with hideousness, to agree to peace just before the crazy cultists, who the credits tell me are "The Guardians", show up to do their "Kneel Before Zod" routine.

Or rather, they come in, take off their masks, stand there silently as Katy Perry tries to give them the antidote, then leave. This creeps out the other tribes enough that they all up and abandon the meeting.

Ryan doesn't enjoy farming, and Freema Ageyman starts making strange cryptic comments about earth goddess-y type stuff.

Patsy and Cloey, now in full-on prostitot form, have found a way to rationalize away accepting bribes for the antidote even after condemning KC for doing pretty much the same thing.

The guy who refused the antidote dies, allowing us to discover that "The Chosen" are a death cult, who are in favor of everyone dying. They also have Zoot's hat, which prompts a flashback to Zoot, reminding me that in the throes of plague fever, Ellie also had a Zoot flashback. This guy gets around.

Tyson's new 'do in episode 8 makes her look like Sharon "Athena" Agathon (Not that whore Sharon "Boomer" Valerii). Alice takes one look at her and decides that her listlessness and stuffed nose are textbook symptoms of The Virus, which is strange, because previously, the only symptom they ever noted in anyone was the Incurable Cough of Death and a bad case of Old.

After eight hours of gambling, Lex cottons on to the fact that they've been letting him win, and for some reason this upsets him.

Meanwhile, Jack and Ellie have found a VHS cassette documenting the evil which led to the virus, which makes Katy Perry freak out, indicating that she was somehow behidn the release of the virus.

Because he's evil and sneaky, KC breaks into the lab and fiddles with stuff, lookign to find the missing details they need to make the antidote on their own. Because he's an idiot, he turns on a bunsen burner and leaves it on. Because the writers forgot that you need a gas supply for a bunsen burner to work, this starts filling the mall with deadly gas. Because Tyson has a cold, she doesn't smell the gas. Because she's also apparently deaf, she can't hear the 100 dB hissing sound it makes. Consequentially, she gets blown up.

Meanwhile, having hired Patsy The Tween Whore as Brady's babysitter, Trudy proceeds to mack on Bray, causing everyone to leave the baby unattended long enough for the Jawas to kidnap her.

It occurs to Lex Luthor that Tyson blowing herself up is not merely inconvenient for him, it's also kind of sad and unfortunate. The explosion seems to have made Ryan turn blonde, and the stress of the baby going missing has changed Bray's makeup.

KC proposes himself to go scout around to find out if anyone took Brady to ransom for the antidote, I think because, stupid though he is, he knows he oughtn't to be anywhere near Alice for a while. Especially as ALice has inspected the propane tank and deduced that the valve didn't fail, but was left open. Because Alice is Sherlock Holmes, and, so close as I can tell, is totally in love with Tyson.

Bray catches Ebony searching Tyson's lab and accuses her of not being very good at security in a conversation where, for no clear reason, Ebony decides to rapidly cycle between a cockney and a southern belle accent.

While trying to cheer up Cloey, Ryan tries to interest her in a jigsaw puzzle, but, because it's dramatically handy to say it, he notes upon opening the box that there's a piece missing. I don't know if you've ever opened the box that a jigsaw puzzle comes in, but the ability to see that a piece is missing like that, it now appears that Ryan is some sort of Savant.

Ebony and the ex-Locos return from their search to reveal that they have done nothing all day except lose the dog.

Tyson awakens from her coma, and reveals that the thing I have been waiting for since I determined that this is a soap opera: she has... AMNESIA! (Duh-dun-DUN!)

Trudy is pretty good at portraying a mother who is going out of her mind with pain at the disappearance of her baby. In fact, when she's playing crazy is really when this actress is at her best. Except... Well... Maybe Kiwi Culture is different. But I think if there was a time to use profanity, this would be it.

Jack manages to play the video take he recovered from evil HQ, wherein the Kiwi president, pasty Barack Obama (He may be meant to be the American president, since there's a red phone and a globe on his Ikea desk and I think he's faking an American accent, but not very well.) He reveals that the plague came from... A comet. Yes. A comet. From space. This is like the explanation they tack on to Japanese release of Night of the Living Dead. Jack and Ellie consider this huge information, despite the fact that it basically does nopt resolve to anything actionable. And what the hell does it have to do with the anti-aging experiments on Hope Island? And why was Katy Perry so worried about jack seeing the tape? Everyone thinks that this somehow "explains everything". Explains everything? Really? Well, "At least we didn't do it to ourselves." Because that would actually be some kind of moral, and this show doesn't have morals.

Unbelievably, Tyson's amnesia goes away all on its own by the end of the episode, and prompts her to give herself a new and terrible makeup job. Also, her face still looks kind of puffy. She gets to end the episode on the amazing cliffhanger that she's realized that it's not safe to keep the formula to herself, so she's going to tell it to....

Bray.

Not much of a cliffhanger, actually.

• Sir Toppum Hat leads his merry band in their attack on the Mall, facing Jack's many ineffectual Home Alone-style traps. They cause some comical pratfalls, but don't actually slow them down or hurt any of them
• A bunch of (literally) clowns have just totally owned the mall rats.
• Hey, I wonder what became of all the actual weapons. Maybe New Zealand doesn't have any.
• Zandra, being the calm, rational sort, decides that it's all Tyson's fault for trying to cure Lex, and decides that instead of trying to stop the invasion, she'll just try to kill Tyson instead.
• Their best trap, dropping the gate to imprison Evil Boy George, nearly works, except that the gate gets stuck. Ryan just stands there watching in terror instead of, say, kicking the mad clown's brains in.
• Leah notes that the music during the fight, basically the only piece of incidental music in the show, is a terrible fit. I think it's the tribal chanting bit from the background vocals to the song "Return to Innocence". When that runs out, for no clear reason, they just switch to the instumental version of the theme music. Wait. Now they've introduced a new piece of music, an ass-kicking guitar version... of the same fucking song.
• Using the last remaining plot twist from Captain Power evil Boy George turns the tables by revealing that... Contrary to expectations, none of the clowns are actually hurt. At which point everyone gives up
• Top Hat's version of tormenting his slaves seems to jsut be shaking them a bit and acting crazy. Seriously, they would not have lost if they'd proved willing to actually try to hurt someone.
• Top Hat appears to be taking a shine to Zandra. Unfortunately, Top Hat shows affection the same way Lex Luthor does.
• KC saves Zandra from a fate worse than being married to Lex by tugging on Boy George a bit until he falls off of Zandra. Again, hit him in the head until he stops moving. Instead, he just annoys Boy George, who locks up the tribe and leaves them to die when he sets the mall on fire.
• At least the pile of junk Tophat sets on fire isn't made of cars. Those burn forever
• I've just figured out what the clown tribe's fighting style reminds me of. Grover Dill from A Christmas Story. The way neither he nor his toady ever actually did anything, just sort of snarled menacingly and pushed people a little. Soon as someone tried to actually hurt them instead of inciting playground terror, they totally folded.
• Note to kids: this only works on TV. Real bullies punch back. Real bullies are not cowards who cave when you stand up to them. Real bullies don't think the way normal people do: they don't comprehend that what they are doing is wrong, and will not comprehend that their actions have negative consequences.
• Lex Luthor manages to convince Ebony to help by... Getting old at her. Seriously. The prospect that he's been hanging around there infecting all of them with the virus makes Ebony get off her ass and come to save them all.
• Ebony makes creepy suggestions to the tune of wanting to kidnap Brady while the Locos toss the joint.
• After KLA ponies up the antidote, the others make a plan to recapture it from Ebony since they can't possibly risk losing it. I am still hoping it turns out that the lab they raided was working on viagra.
• Of course, they're recaptured after three seconds, so Amber threatens to destroy it, up until Ebony threatens to toss Bray off the balcony, which is as close to killing someone as anyone can do.
• Lex still doesn't want to take the antidote, of course, even though he's got a bad case of old, so Ebony forces it on her before buggering off with Bray and Lex in tow, Lex so they can see if he gets better, and Bray entirely to piss Amber off.
• If they had an antidote, why did everyone die? I mean, it hardly seems like, when everyone in the world is about to die, you'd really have much to lose by not just trying it.
• Also, if this turns out to be the antidote to a virus that has no cure, in a mutant strain that didn't exist at the time, I am going to spank them
• Ryan rescues their menagerie of pets from the broken-down lift using physical force. So far, violence has been the answer to everything
• Ebony forces Lex to take more antidote. He drinks it
  • Leah: Unfortunately...
  • Ross: (Professor Farnsworth voice) It's a suppository
• Zandra decides to sell all her designer clothes and jewelry for food and stuff, and start being responsible and grown-up. If I didn't dislike her so much, that'd be touching. Ryan, however, liked the vapid unpleasant Zandra.
• The password protecting the virus files is "please". Jackasses
• Just want to remind you, this password goes to files found on CDs found in a lab that was set to self destruct if you didn't give it the password.
• The virus has stopped making Lex old, it's just made him scrufty and covered in sores
• Ebony has a swimming pool. I don't know how New Zealand works, but if you left my parents' pool unattended for a year, it'd be green.
• Tyson announces that mirrors in the sleeping place is bad Feng Shuay, prompting me to give Leah a look over the fact that there are like four mirrors in our bedroom.
• The toy helicopter that Dal took some batteries for earlier. It's clearly a gas-powered helicopter
  • Leah: Maybe they needed the batteries for the remote.
  • Ross: Eight D-cell batteries?
  • Leah: They needed a lot of batteries to make up for not having any gas
• Ebony insists that she's changed, grown as a person. She explains this to Bray, who she is holding hostage. I guess she means that she's changed, say, her pants.
• It was polite of ConEvilCo to use full citations in the paper on the antidote to the virus that is as they were all dying of it
• An apparently passed-out Lex is attacked by a Loco who appears to be wearing a leftover stillsuit from Dune
• To help quench KC's love of gambling, they bet on whether the dog or the pig will find a hidden cracker first. The pig's skills lead it to the hidden treat on the couch first. Which is fine, because pigs are indeed good at tracking by scent. But... How did the pig climb up on the couch?
• Lex Luthor makes it back to the mall, where his is promptly blown up by their newest boobytrap.
• After Bray discovers that Lex has gone:
  • Ebony: What would you do? Hold him in your arms and nurse him tenderly until the end?
  • Bray: (pained) Yes!
• Of course, the surveillance footage they manage to get inside Locoland shows Ebony on top of a Bray whose anger at the situation is not visible on the film. So Amber instantly decides that he's decided he likes Ebony and has forgotten all about his tribe.
• Leah's leaving to visit her family over the weekend early Saturday morning, which has prompted us to consume this show with a sick obsessiveness, trying desperately to reach the season finale before she heads out. THis is kind of creepy.
• Nice of the evil scientists to thoroughly footnote their journal article on the antidote (Viruses don't have antidotes). This mentions something called "Eagle". Which prompts them to say "Eagle". Which, in Kiwi, is pronounced "Eggle". Since I had to read the wikipedia article on characters in this show in order to remember their names, I happen to know that at some point in the future, Amber is going to be called "Eagle". The thought of people calling her "Eggle" makes me smile.
• Meanwhile, of all the people in the world to get cured, Lex Luthor is starting to look less like he's wearing really unconvincing old-age makeup. Man, I and I was hoping he'd die.
• Meanwhile, "eggle" turns out to refer to a mountain. As usual, KLA works out something important, and everyone else's reaction is to assume he's crazy and making shit up.
• Ryan goes to apologize to Magenta for macking on Zandra, and asks if she's asleep. She says yes, and Ryan believes her.
• Lex Luthor's hair turns ungray. Which would be silly, except that it went gray overnight. So its silliness is all used up
• Ebony decides to go off and kill Amber as punishment for Bray not liking her. Won't Amber be surprised.
• Lex Luthor celebrates his recovery by reverting to being a total douchebag. Also, he draws a beard on himself.
• Tyson finds Lex recovered, and declares it to be the work of her spiritual visions. She also had a vision of an eagle and a mountain. KLA they ignore. Groovy New Age Spiritual Girl, they believe.
• Zandra again does her "I'd rather we all die of the virus than we do something Tyson wants to do."
• KC Tells Lex how Sir Toppum Hat tried to have his way with Zandra, and Lex Luthor gets all angry and wants to launch a suicide attack on the crazy-eyed psycho. Lex is an asshole when he's mad... And also all the rest of the time
• And, woohoo, Ryan and Magenta smoochies.
• And so the gang sets out for Eagle Mountain, prompting a montage of the season's exciting clips so far.
• Ebony is deposed by a coup led by a Loco whose voice has been replaced in post-processing by a much larger man. She's bravely defended by Bray.
• Trudy goes missing for about 30 seconds, then shows up again.
  • Ross: She's leaving a note for Bray.
  • Lex Luthor and Ryan run off to "scout ahead"
  • Ross: He's up to something
  • Leah: He's leaving a note for Bray too.
• The tribe's cart breaks down (!) in the territory of some crazies. Fortunately, at an opportune moment, Lex returns, on a motorcycle, Wearing Tophat's Top Hat
• Bray finds the mall abandoned, his car keys abandoned by Amber, and a note saying "Gone to Eagle Mountain". He gets all depressed, but Ebony has a plan. Leah: (Ebony voice) Let's go steal Tophat's motorcycle
• Leah would like me to reiterate that Lex looks really stupid with his makeup goatee
• When the tribe is stopped by extras from The Road Warrior, Ebony (!) save the day by showing up with on a bus.
• Typically, Amber refuses to let Bray explain about that little scene by the pool. Because Bray has always turned out to be duplicitous and selfish, and has time and again proven that he can't be trusted.
• Bray asks Ebony to explain that there's nothing going on between them. Ebony, of course, agrees, but would he mind putting his arm around her as she's cold. Bray, of course, forgets that Ebony wants to kill Amber and mutilate her corpse.
• But then, for some reason, Ebony actually does try to convince Amber that Bray won't have her. I can't tell if she's incredibly unconvincing on purpose, or because her actress isn't a very good actress.
• At Eagle Mountain, they immediately start wandering around pushing buttons, because the last time they went to a place run by this evil corporation, it blew up. Jack turns on the lights to reveal -- I think it may be a TARDIS.
• When Ebony outs Lex for dumping the antidote, Bray takes the fall. Because Lex and Bray have always been such good friends.
• Eagle mountain turns out to be a satellite tracking station, which fails to find its satellite, which they all find intensely disappointing, and a sure sign that they are all going to die. I'd be disappointed too, since it failed to find the satellite while showing footage that was shot from a satellite
• Lex Luthor does Bray a sold by telling Amber what a dumbass she's being for thinking Bray likes Ebony. They kiss and make up
• And then the satellite shows up, visible to the naked eye in broad daylight. This prompts a recorded voice to make booming pronouncements about how the tribe here is the last hope for mankind, and it's vitally important that they do exactly what it says, which is to....

• Ryan does not comprehend that he has bought himself a a whore. This is because Ryan is a moron. Fortunately, Magenta's pimp is a femmy guy who a stiff breeze could kick the ass of. Violence has been the answer to everything in this show.
• Ryan has never heard of bulimia and worries that it's contagious. He explains that he's run away from the tribe because he's sick of Lex Luthor treating him like he's stupid. Ryan, if you don't want to be treated like you're stupid, you'd do best to forsake the company of man. I understand that in New Zealand, there are quite a lot of sheep. Some, but not all, of them are dumber than you are.
• That said, it looks like Ryan and Magenta are about to fall in love over his watching that she doesn't throw up.
• Amber decides to forsake responsibility and run off with Sasha Baron Cohen as he walks the earth being a free spirit. Wonder how long this will last.
• Meanwhile, Magenta and Ryan have got themselves a pet pig, which they name "Porky", because in New Zealand, trademark laws work differently.
• In a consistent show of the writers not paying attention to the passage of time, Bray's trial is now days ago, despite it only being about half an hour since the proceedings were interrupted by Glenn showing up.
• Lex decides to kill a hen for a special honeymoon dinner. As I recall, though, the whole reason they went to visit the farm girls is that they didn't want to kill the chickens.
• Amber comes back to tell everyone that she's decided to be carefree and irresponsible and run off. But she can't leave without being passive agressive about how they've let the place go to pot in the three days she'd been gone. Amber, the high horse doesn't work like that.
• Lex Luthor offers a piece of chicken to the little girls. Who are distraught about the disappearance of their favorite hen. Because Lex is a douche.
• Everyone decides to forgive Magenta when she comes out of the closet about her bulimia, but they're all little bitches to Amber for wanting to leave. Except for Sasha who is a total dick to everyone for daring to think that you should take responsibility for others
• Five minutes after they leave the mall forever, Amber decides to go back. Ten minutes after that, she has some misty watercolored flashbacks about how much she misses him.
• For Patsy's birthday, they hold a party and play Incidental Music From The Tribe on the boom box. It is the only CD they have left.
• Amber, deciding that she must stay at the mall and can't shirk her responsibility in favor of love, has wandered off to angst over Sasha and shirk her responsibilities
• Patsy has an episode over the fact that she's one year closer to the age of certain death. Which reminds me that we don't know much about this virus. We know that it spread "too fast" for any adults to have survived (Bad survival trait for a virus), it doesn't infect children. We're not told what the age of consent is for viral relations -- the oldest anyone seems to be is about 16. Since half of them are past puberty, it's not puberty (I could believe that it was indeed puberty and the virus burned itself out a year or so ago -- about the time Trudy was getting herself impregnated by Zoot. Bad Zoot. Naughty Zoot.). The virus is still around (at least, they think it is) and is probably airborn. In short, virus of plot convenience, which does not behave like real-world viruses would.
• Magenta's off the wagon the instant everyone starts fighting again.
• Kiwi Love Actually sees an adult man on the security camera footage, but everyone thinks he's crazy, and can't determine anything from the grainy, staticky, black and white video other than that it was probably a person, and had gray hair. On a black and white video.
• Zandra is of course jealous that Ryan is happy for once. Because she is, let's face it, the least sympathetic character in the series
• Lex Luthor's plan to get Bray kicked out by hiding water bottles in his room works instantly. As always. It takes 0 seconds for everyone to turn on Bray.
• Lex immediately tells his wife about his evil plot, meanwhile Ryan and Kiwi Love Actually already know that it's a setup. Kiwi Love Actually convinces Ryan to grow a pair and confront Lex, whose response is to pimp his wife out. Magnificent Bastard.
• Magenta, of course, walks in on Ryan with Zandra draped over him. Before running off to binge and purge, she asks Ryan if he needs any help. Did she just suggest a threesome?
• • Leah: (About the mystery adult) Or maybe it's a mutant
  • Ross: Because it's after the apocalypse. They have those.
• The "Adult" is a kid in old-age makeup. I am not yet sure whether this is his schtick or just the craziest casting decision ever
• Ryan predictably folds, and Lex just threatens KLA into not speaking up. See? Violence is the answer to Everything
• So, Lex Luthor's plan is to get rid og Bray, then of Amber. He also plans to kill Jack, and I think he means to get rid of Magenta too. Does Lex want to be the ruler of a tribe consisting of his wife and a bunch of ten year olds? Really?
• No Grown-ups for thirty-nine episodes and now two all at once.
• I believe Bray calls Lex Luthor a "Filthy lying piece of dart."
• And the weakest link is... Bray. He decides to run away. That'll show them.
• But when KLA decides to give Lex up, KC jumps on the grenade, which will of course, prompt Lex Luthor to try to contrive a reason why Bray should have been exiled byt KC shouldn't
• Which becomes a moot point when the Old Dude shows up, and turns out to be Lex Luthor's old buddy Glenn, who we had previously seen back in episode 1 being thrown to the dogs, then durign the tribal gathering kicking Lex's everloving ass. So, new fact about the virus: it makes you look like you're wearing unconvincing old age makeup. It also gives you facial hair.
• Speaking of which... Eveyrone's clean-shaven. I get that they're all kids, but I started drowing stubble at 12.
• Lex Luthor does the first responsible thing he's ever done, and voluntarily goes into isolation since he's been exposed to the virus. Maybe this will finally mark him not being a douchebag just for its own sake.... Nah.
• By the way, Patsy's also quarantined, for exposure to Glenn. Who she found when she went out to look for him because she alone believed Jack, out of her desperate need for there to be an adult still around, as it means there's hope for not getting the virus. So if there's one thing the writers do get, it's irony.
• They have used the word "idea" four times in two minutes. Being Kiwis, they pronounce it "idear". It is the single most grating thing about their accent.
• In a show that they have more solidarity than brains, the tribe decides to take turns grabbing Patsy, the idea being that they'd rather all be infected together
• So they're gonna have a go at curing the virus. Yes. Really
• The threat of the virus scares off the Locos, worsened by KC misquoting Dirty Harry. "Do you feel lucky?"
• KLA discovers from a medical CD that viruses can mutate. "Just like computer viruses." I think I am going to cry.
• Tyson is upset that no one's listening to her and everyone is trying to find a cure using science and stuff instead of by meditation and spirituality.
• Everyone loves the pig more than the dog. The dog will now get depressed and run away.
• Zandra promises Glenn that she'll run away with him if he gets better. Unfortunately, he starts getting better. Now Zandra is hoping he kicks, because boy would that be awkward.
• Good news, everyone...
• KC's words on returning: "Who died?" Ah, Lex's protogee.
• So, the virus has something to do with an anti-aging experiment... Holy crap, this isn't our Earth, it's the parallel earth from the Star Trek episode "Miri".
• The gang goes to "Hope Island", where Evil Inc. set up their virus creation lab. The fence is not electrified, but they have a frakking minefield in front of the gate.
• Lex Luthor checks if the fence is electrified by touching it with a dry stick. WOOD DOES NOT CONDUCT ELECTRICITY AND COMPUTER VIRUSES DO NOT MUTATE
• Tyson sneezes. twice. This means she's got the virus. Where's your buddha now, bitch?
• Upon entering the lab of evil, they start deciding that random test tubes might be the antidote for the virus (VIRUSES DO NOT HAVE ANTIDOTES AND COMPUTER VIRUSES DO NOT MUTATE). Won't they be surprised when it turns out they want the next lab on the left, and Bray has just found the cure for male pattern baldness. Had viagra been invented yet in 1999?
• So Bray and Amber, having come all the way to Hope Island to penetrate the evil lab, immediately leave Dal, Lex Luthor, and the dog to find the cure while they have a long, meaningful walk on the beach.
• Oh, and if you enter the wrong password to the lab computer, the lab kills you. Let me get this straight. The governent of New Zealand contracted out to a company apparently run by Doctor No to make them an anti-aging serum, and when it turned out to be an uber-palgue, they decided to go out of their way to ensure that if everyone got wiped out, the cure to the plague would be protected by automated defense systems to murder all intruders? Maybe Ryan will turn out to be the president's son.
• Lex Luthor, showing the most sense he's ever shown, points out that this can't possibly be an inescapable death trap, since there's a countdown, and it doesn't make any sense to have a countdown if there's no way out.
• The batteries KC swipes to use to pay for his gambling habit, the batteries which must logically have been depleted and recharged, are still in the original plastic wrap.
• While trapped in the lab, Lex is forced to reveal to Bray that he can't read. Lex has now told 2/3 of the tribe that he's illiterate, but they're not to tell anyone.
• Desperate, they decide to short out the breaker box, by touching the two conveniently pre-bared wires.
• As the timer hits zero, they manage to open the door and escape. Leah remembered that there's three more security doors. The writers didn't.
• The explosion of Hope Island uses a leftover explosion sequence from Captain Power
• They reckon that the random vial they found is the cure, so they try to make Tyson take it. She refuses on religious grounds, even though they're pretty sure it's the cure. Despite not having found any sort of notes or explanation, or any files or documentation, or a label saying "this is the cure", or a sign saying "This is a lab where we work on the cure," or even whether the cure is meant to be administered orally, intravenously or, say, as a suppository.
• Jack is still crippled from having his ankle fractured during Lex Luthor's bachelor party. I have no idea how time passes in this show, so he's either been on crutches for two days or four years by now.
• Lex, by the way, has the virus. And he's not going to risk taking the antidote, despite wanting to force Tyson to take it.
• Bray tells Amber that he's into her, and then, I believe, picks fleas off of her.
• KC gambles away the pig at the convenient underground casino, so Cloey decides that poker is a sucker's game, and insists that they win back the money playing a game which actually has some strategy -- roulette.
• The prospect of his impending death makes Lex Luthor act all noble and patch things up with Ryan, open his soul to Zandra, and generally seems like a nice guy. Either he's really dying, or this is a convoluted scheme of some sort.
• Tyson cures herself using karma, meditation, and honesty, and offers to help Lex Luthor do the same, provided he can be pure of heart and soul. So Lex is basically fucked.
• So, when Lex decides to remake himself as less of a dick, Zandra decided to put her foot down and not support him, because it was Tyson's idea. Better to die of the virus than to cure yourself using a technique endorsed by the girl who slept with before you got married.
• KLA freaks out when Lex Luthor is nice to them but doesn't want them to keep trying to decrypt the evil computer from the lab, and shouts "Is this the 21st century or the dark ages?" Actually, it looks like the 80s.
• As part of Lex Luthor's purification process, he burns his clothes, but promptly finds a new short with PVC strips across the nipples. Are these common in New Zealand?
• Lex's apologies are probably going to take the next ten or eleven episodes
• So, it's kinda touching and all, with Lex Luthor confessing all the crimes that everyone already knew he'd committed, but I think telling his wife that he married her just for the sex was probably an unsound move.
• Since KC has been gone for days now, it occurs to Ryan that this could be a problem, as the gamblers might force him to tell them where his tribe is holed up so they can rob them. Meanwhile, KC is being beaten by the gangsters to find out where the tribe is holed up so they can rob them.
• Amber and Bray have been doing nothing but each other for days, and this is the first they've heard of it. So, when Amber's happy, she neglects her leadership duty. When she's sad, she neglects her leadership duty. Why was it that Amber decided to stick around again? Oh. Right. Duty.
• The Gambling den is run by a gang called "Tribe Clowns", run by an escaped Boy George impersonator and sometime Bat-Villain called "Top Hat", who apparently makes the Locos look sane.
• He gives KC a villain speech about how much he loves burning things, and how he will set anything on fire. So that's who keeps setting the cars on fire!
• Those people who had "Episode 45" in the office pool for "How long before Trudy decides to become a jealous little bitch again, you may collect.
• Lex Luthor decides to forge an alliance with Ebony to save the Mall Rats from Boy George and his Legion of Clowns. Yes. Lex Luthor, their resident villain, wants an alliance with Ebony, the big bad, to save our heroes from the Giant Space Flea From Nowhere.

There's just 7 more episodes this season, so I assume they're building up to something. Hopefully, we'll get to see it before Leah makes me stop watching for the weekend...

• Magenta is resorting to increasingly desperate means to fuel her puking addiction.
• Amber likes Sasha, which is hard to believe, because Sasha is singularly unlikable.
• The new wind turbine charges some batteries, so they immediately decide to put on the Soundtrack from The Tribe and hold a rave.
• Remember how Amber liked Sasha? This has resulted in the first instance of Bray turning into a jealous little bitch all season
• In search of supplies for the wedding, the men all decide to trade with a group of roughneck lesbians on a farm, led by the fat coarse one, who becomes the first woman in the series Lex Luthor actively dreads sleeping with. She's accompanied by the really butch one and, close as I can tell, Freema Agyeman.
• I hope they shout "Kill the pig / Spill its blood." when they butcher the pig they bought. Which I suspect won't happen, because Ryan nearly offers his body to Lex in gratitude when he sees it.
• Meanwhile, Zandra reveals a diamond necklace which Magenta will later steal to trade for binging supplies.
  • Trudy: Are those real diamonds
  • Zandra: (words to the effect of "yes")
  • Leah:Really? They don't look real.
  • Ross:Neither did the handcuffs.
• Lex Luthor throws in his favorite CD in exchange for some hard cider, which the leader of the farm girls says will "Put hair on his chest." I assume she is speaking from experience. Also, I believe this marks the first time that it's been the characters and not the audience that has needed to drink to get through the episode.
• Sasha and Amber have at least a snog before he leaves, but she's looking kind of post-coital in the next episode.
• Tyson appears to wear her underwear on the outside of her pants.
• Zandra appears to use the term "on the grog" to refer to Lex Luthor's drunkenness (which it appears, has been a problem in the past). Is this a real Kiwi term, or some sort of Way Cool Totally Radical post-apocalypse term?
• Unfortunately for Magenta (but possibly fortunate for Zandra), Zandra's diamonds are indeed fake, and Magenta can't trade them for a fix of that sweet, sweet beefaroni.
• They've pulled the Name That Tune trick so often that I can't tell if the music at the wedding is the incidental music, or if they're using the soundtrack as her processional.
• So Lex Luthor and Zandra are now married. The vows he needs Ryan to write for him because he's illiterate turn out to be better than Zandra's "And I vow the same," bullshit. Seriously, what's her excuse?
• Much of the next episode is devoted to Lex and Zandra, two patently dislikable people, and their pillow talk.
• Increasing the creepiness of this nightlong marathon, Leah and I simultanteously made the "Spam, spam, spam, spam, eggs, and spam" joke when Zandra suggests "Beans and beans, beans and eggs, eggs and beans, or eggs and eggs," for breakfast.
• After a night of sex, and a morning of sex, Lex gets out of bed still wearing pants, and I believe Zandra is now less naked than when she got married.
• Sasha reminds Leah of her ex. I have never felt more secure in my masculinity,
• As of Episode 33, Magenta's scavenging for a binge, Kiwi Kid From Love Actually has a broken ankle, Bray is being a little bitch, Ryan has decided to run away from home and has taken up with Beavis and Butthead, KC is hung over, and Amber has gone off to frolic in the park with Sasha. Yes. Frolic.
• Apparently, there is a thriving economy supporting bulimics in the future, as Magenta appears to have an actual dealer who will trade her for food. When Magenta has nothing to trade, the dealer appears to be willing to set her up for a life of whoring out her body in exchange for binge food.
• Amber goes for a walk on the beach wearing a sports bra and sarong, which I believe makes her less clothed than Zandra right now.
• I realize that infants aren't meant to be great actors, but the foley of the baby cooing is overlaid on footage of a baby who clearly is not making any sort of noise.
• Lex and KC bond over their mutual illiteracy. Getting laid regularly has made Lex Luthor a much nicer person.
• KC has decided for some reason to murder Kiwi Love Actually Kid. I kinda think that KC had a thing for Jack, and now that he's got Dal back, he's all kinds of jealous
• Ryan happens upon Magenta's drug dealer (who is now helping her get over her bulimia), who takes him in and is very nice to him, offering him sex with this redheaded chyk they've added to their lucrative cottage brothel industry

• Dalek gets himself locked up by the evil crazy nomads, and still can't quite get that they're evil
• Meanwhile, Magenta finally starts to feel guilty about leaving Trudy to die.
• The all-consuming plot-arc for this set of episodes is an impending meeting of all the tribes, wherein a bunch of tribes which are mostly psychopaths will all hang out together and make peace. This can't possibly go wrong.
• Zandra makes Lex Luthor "dump" Tyson, which, of course, surprises her, as she didn't actually think they were going out.
• In this week's "Remembering Zoot", Bray flashes back to Himself crying out in anguish over his brother's death.
• The head of the evil nomads is outright offended by the supposition that he's a cannibal, and says, as if he's doing the explanation scene at the end of an episode of Three's Company where they explain that the crazy scheming everyone's been doing all episode has been predicated on someone having mis-over-heard a conversation, that they're not cannibals: they're slave traders.
• Big market for slaves? I guess.
• The cars. Are still. On fire.
• Bray goes to meet with Ebony, who convinces him that the impending intertribal meeting is on the level, by explaining, in better diction than most adults, that times are tough, and she'd rather rebuild civilization than be the lord of the flies. Bray instantly believes her, since he is, as previously established, a moron.
• Bray returns and is chewed out for meeting with Ebony, Zandra points out that he always runs off without telling anyone to do his own thing, ignoring all the consequences for the others. Zandra does not point out that nothing he's done has had any negative consequences.
• At the meeting, there will be a dance-off. Yes. Really.
• When Amber goes to see Tyson about the dancing and the trouble she's caused what with the sleeping with Lex Luthor, Tyson is practicing her dance moves to a cassette. Of the incidental music from The Tribe.
• Lex Luthor gives Zandra a ring he made from bits of an alternator, and she goes all gooey and agrees to move in with him but not have sex. Given that it is after the apocalypse, this seems like a raw deal.
• Part of Zandra's plan here is that she will "test" Lex. He passes if he can live with her while not getting sex. Given Lex's track record, I gather that failure on this test would take the form of raping Zandra. Zandra has not thought this plan all the way through.
• Zandra also, offhandedly, announces that she'll marry Ryan if Lex fails to not have sex with her. Now, I know I've mentioned that these people are stupid. But Ryan has told Zandra at point-blank range that he is in love with her. They are really making me feel sympathy for this girl.
• Bray tries to sell windmill technology at the intertribal meeting, because Kiwi Kid From Love Actually hasn't told him that the damned thing doesn't work. (Probably because Lex Luthor nicked a bit of the alternator to make a ring. He offers it up by saying "Unlimited. Free. Power. We have the technology."
  • Leah and Ross: We can rebuild him
• The major sticking point of the meeting seems to be that everyone is perfectly happy with their slavery-based economy, which operates on the basis of whipping kids while they pedal on stationary bikes hooked to cassette players. Dystopia, right, so everyone's got 80s boom boxes.
• In other news, Magenta appears to be Bulimic. Which seems outright rude when it's the post-apocalypse and food is scarce.
• Poor Ryan. Someone just let him know that the ten thousand dollars he's been hoarding is missing.
• Lex Luthor, who had been convinced that the meeting was a bad idea, seems to be determined to make this be true. First, he gets jumped by the guy he sold out way back in episode 1, then the bit he stole from the alternator means that the tribe is sure to get ripped into tiny little pieces by the big kids.
• Just noticed. The power walk in the end credits, which shows the characters sort of playing on the beach -- Zoot's in it. Which means that it's not, strictly speaking, in continuity, like the power walk at the end of Buckaroo Banzai
• Leah posits an alternate possibility: Maybe in the season finale, they discover Cylon ressurection. All this has happened before.
• "The Locos pride themselves on their breakdancing."
• Have I mentioned lately that I am sick and tired of the "I'm so sure I'm going to win that I will cheat." The Locos win the danceoff by threatening to murder the Emcee. Which means that Amber loses her side-bet and is now a slave. Meanwhile, Zandra tries to return the missing copper wire, drops it down a hole in the ground, and this gives the Locos time to smash the turbine as punishment for daring to try to make life a bit less terrible.
• But as it turns out, violence is the answer to this one. Lex Luthor starts a fight and everyone escapes.
• Trudy thinks Magenta's having morning sickness as she's carrying Bray's child. This is the same mistake Leah made because, come on. Bulimia?
• The handcuffs restraining Dal are quite clearly made of plastic
• KC takes about 5 minutes longer getting back from the escape, so they assume he's dead.
  • Dal: Who's KC?
  • Leah and Ross: Your replacement
• Magenta (whose name, by the way, is actually "Saline", I think) finally tells Trudy about how she'd left her to die when she'd poisoned herself. This will undoubtedly make Trudy have some kind of weird angry episode. But I just want to point out: At the time this happened, Trudy wanted to die, and Magenta is the only one who even came close to respecting her wishes.
• Sasha Baron Cohen, the newest Mallrat, is a wandering jester who followed Dal home because they were chained to each other. He's trying to compose the theme song from The Tribe
• Sasha sends the kids off to get "hair combs". Are there some other kind of combs in New Zealand?
• Speaking of Sasha playing the theme song... I wonder if the intro will encode the co-ordinates for real earth
• Lex Luthor turns out to be illiterate. This is supposed to explain some of his actions

• Trudy ended the previous episode by popping enough sleeping pills to escape this episode, showing her textbook lack of concern for her baby. So far, this show has given me a total lack of sympathy for a rape victim, and a total lack of sympathy for a suicidal teenage mother.
• Speaking of lack of sympathy, Magenta finds the baby crying with Trudy unconscious in a puddle of pills, and decides that it would be best to not tell anyone, and just wander off with the baby making wistful statements about how much better a mother she'd be. Lex Luthor, as we have previously established, falls into a coma after sex, so it takes him about halfway through the episode to show up and find out about that.
• And the moment Bray announces that he's going to go out in search of supplies, Celine decides that he's going to go off and make wild passionate love to Ebony. Because Bray exudes some sort of weird psycho-jealous-bitch pheromones.
• Amber gets mad at Bray, because he "led Trudy on." He denies it, but Amber shames him by pointing out the way he kept asserting that he would take care of her in her time of crisis and protect her and her baby, with all his "finding her a place to live" antics and his "getting food and supplies" antics, and his "keep the Locos from murdering all of us" antics. The asshole.
• I just noticed. Zandra's ass is enormous.
• Is "Zandra" a real Kiwi name, or is iit one of those post-apocalypse made up names, like "Zoot" (Zoot's real name was Martin)?
• When Bray returns with supplies, Amber makes some hurtful quip to the tune of how she's surprised he came back. Every time Bray leaves, they're surprised he comes back. After the apocalypse, the survivors will lose the ability to learn from the past.
• Speaking of which, I had realized some time ago that Amber is played by the same actress as played the Sixth Ranger's disappeared girlfriend on Power Rangers a couple of seasons ago. I just realized that the dude who plays Bray is that sixth ranger.
• Sleeping with Tyson makes Lex decide to be less of a jerk to Zandra. Now, Lex and Tyson are the only two members of the tribe to have actually done it, and yet seeing Lex talking to Tyson does not send Zandra into a jealous rage. This is because Zandra is incredibly stupid.
• Since Paul the deaf kid's disappearance seems to be permanent, he's replaced by the young theif KC who wanders in and burgles the place. He's voted in against the objections of the Kiwi version of the kid from Love Actually, who he gives a look that indicates that he wants to bed him.
• Meanwhile, Dalek and Trudy run away and join up with a happy friendly tribe who have "We are an insane suicide cult of the sort the ATF tends to light on fire," writ on them so large that it could be seen from space.
• Incidentally, Dalek tells Trudy an old family saying, "When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade," in a way that indicates that the saying is not a well-known platitude in New Zealand. I guess the 0th season of Mystery Science Theater 3000 never made it over there.
• The crazy cultists are very nice to Dalek and Trudy, aside from occasionally telling her that she'd make a good mother, but they get all creepy and evasive when asked how they stay clear of the Locos. So when Trudy decides to become maternal, and splits to go reclaim her baby, the crazy people freak out, and have to restrain themselves lest Dalek cotton on to the fact that they've got horrible horrible plans for him. Fortunately for them, he's really unimaginably stupid.
• Trudy and Dalek mention that they were living in "Sector 10" of the city. Do New Zealand cities break down into numbered sectors like in dystopian science fiction, or did the writers just forget how the setting works?
• When Amber bitches out Trudy upon her return, she says, "You went out with my mate and came back without him. We had the same plans, him and me." Now, as I mentioned, Amber's accent is way less Kiwi than the others, but this line was really meant to be said in an over-the-top Dick-van-Dyke-in-Mary-Poppins Cockney.
• Very cutely, Tyson reassures Zandra that she wasn't having a relationship with Lex Luthor, she just slept with him a few times. I think this same scene happened in an episode of Night Court with Bull and Dan.

• I'm sorry. What? "This is a new civilization and we get to make all new rules." Okay. I can deal. But for some reason they've decided that the right response to Lex Luthor trying to rape Zandra is for Zandra to propose to him. And he accepts. This makes it all better. I suppose I can't quite get around the idea of a kids' show whose raison d'etre isn't to teach kids important lessons about how to
• Even after the apocalypse, Zandra and Lex Luthor have to wait until they're fake-married by Hsu Tai (Whose real name is Tai San, so I will switch to calling her "Tyson", as I am less likely to misspell it). What is this, a Stephanie Meyer novel? (Seriously, in The Host, Melanie has to wait six months to sleep with the love of her life, because she's not 18, and therefore it would be wrong. After the entire human race has been subjugated by aliens.) But as this is The Tribe and not an edgy Young Adult novel, Zandra remains the second least sympathetic character in the series.
• Ebony, Zoot's evil second, crashes the wedding and gets captured. Then, in a re-enactment of an episode of Angel, she nearly convinces everyone to let her out by threatening their masculinity. Showing the sort of sound tactical judgment that he has become known for, Lex Luthor unlocks her cage to spar with her. Showing the fidelity for which his financee loves him, he instead beds her. Now, it's a rule of this show that if a man enters the presence of a woman other than the one who's lusting after him, she immediately assumes that he's cheating with this interloper. Witness Trudy about Bray and Magenta, Trudy about Bray and Amber, Trudy about -- well, actually, we've expended our supply of age-appropriate women. But also Zandra about Lex and Ebony. But at least she's right this time.
• Lex Luthor, apparently, rolls over and goes to sleep after sex, because Ebony escapes. Ebony has this mascara stripe around her eyes which makes her look like in New Zealand, there aren't any racist implications to comparing someone to a racoon.
• Trudy doesn't care about the defense of the Mall from the impending Loco attack, because she saw Magenta snogging Bray earlier, which is much worse.
  • Leah: I thought you said that she was the only one acting like a real teenager
  • Me: (whispered) As it turns out, I'm old, and hate real teenagers
• Upon hearing that Bray was seriously macking on Magenta, Amber instantly becomes a bitch to her too.
• The afforementioned macking happened just after Bray and Magenta had a conversation about how, with the city darkened by apocalypse, you can see the stars, and then some wistfullness about civilization rising again.
  • Me: New Zealanders were created by man. They evolved. They rebelled. And they have a plan
  • Leah: [Bray and Magenta snog] All this has happened before. It will happen again
• Lex Luthor's excuse for getting locked in the cage while Ebony escapes is that she pretended to be sick and he went in to check on her. Aside from Lex being a terrible liar, if he'd just told the truth except for the bit about doing Ebony, everyone totally woulda bought it. "Hey guys, she told me I sucked, so I went in to rough her up. Turns out I suck, and she kicked my ass." I suspect that Lex being an awful liar is going to be a recurring theme.
• No one's seen Paul the Diferently Abled One in a few episodes. It would be totally awesome if we just never see him again and never get any explanation.
• Bray, fulfilling his one character trait, does a runner. He persuades Ebony to, instead of launching a counter-attack, to start her own religion.
• It has only just occurred to me that Lex Luthor's only outfit is a pullover and rainbow suspenders. He's like a post-apocalyptic Robin Williams.
• Trudy misplaces her baby, by virtue of somehow having overlooked the fact that she was still in the last place she'd left her. Trudy truly is the mother of the year here.
• Tyson, whose idea it was for Zandra to marry Lex Luthor, has decided to throw herself at him, because her complex Granola Girl spirituality is complex and confusing.
• In Kiwi, it appears that you use the indicative in many contexts where we USAnians would use the gerund. Trudy accuses Magenta of "kidnap", Tyson finds that Lex Luthor has made a "punch bag". It's creepy and weird.

• Ryan (Lex Luthor's flunkie) sharps the little kids at poker, finally finding his intellectual equals in people under the age of eight.
• Cornered by the Demon Dogs, who apparently are a tribe similarly evil to the Locos, Lex Luther and Dalek decide to split up. The Demon Dogs are entirely befuddled by this, and their leader just stands there looking back and forth. No wonder they mistook the Sattelite of Love for a dog bone.
• Magenta seems like she's got her eye on making off with the still-unnamed baby. Trudy, after being thoroughly unpleasant at all times except when she was delerious with fever, turns out to be a crazy, manipulative bitch.
• Dalek, who after a touching moment a few episodes back, decided not to take a picture of his dead family, stopped while running from the demon dogs to get a baseball mitt.
• For the love of God. Zoot appeared in like 10 scenes, and 8 of them were just the same shot of him looking menacing from the back of his police car, but they keep flashing back to him. He's had more screentime since he died than he ever did when he was alive.
• The new leader of the Locos is some chyk who it is implied would not like it if she found out that Zoot had fathered a child by some other girl. Episode 9 ends with her looking menacingly at the camera through the flames of, I believe, Zoot's funeral pyre, which, of course, is still burning. I think maybe they've decided that in the fictional world of this show, fires, once lit, will remain burning indefinitely, as, it seems, it was only the adults who enforced the idea that fuel is depleted as it burns.
• In episode 10, Bray talks Amber into running against Lex for leadership in an election, which Amber decides to throw, in order to teach Lex an important life lesson. In the post-apocalypse
• Meanwhile, Bray laments over his dead psychopath brother. Oh, dead psychopath brother, how sad it is that we can not be a family, you and me and your girlfriend and daughter, we could give up your lifelong orgy of destruction and just settle down somewhere pastoral.
• And, of course, everyone votes for Lex Luthor, because he threatens them. They elect the guy whose whole schtick is that he's evil. They elect Doctor Insano President.
• Amber throws the race because she thinks it's important that Lex believe he won fairly. Of course, since Lex thinks he won by coercion, I don't know if that counts.
• Also, Lex doesn't find it odd that he won with 99% of the vote. Who voted for Amber? Bray, obviously, and Amber if she's got any sense, because, let's face it, if no one voted for her, it would look rigged. So who's the third?
• Trudy cycles between accusing Bray of having a thing for The Girl Who Looks Like Magenta, accusing Bray of having a thing for Amber, and insisting that she loves Bray. She's emotionally inconsistent, sort of nutty, and a moody, angst-ridden manipulative bitch. In other words, she acts more like a 14 year old girl than any one else in the cast.
• Which reminds me. Episode 10. A 14 year old girl has given birth, a gang of kids has committed murder, and Lex Luthor has kinda sorta killed a man. There is no way this show could ever be aired in the US.
• Now that Kiwi Haley Joel Osmet (You know, not really. You know who he is? He's the Kiwi version of the kid who found the Doctor's watch in "Human Nature". Y'know, the little kid in Love Actually whose dead mom was married to Liam Neesen and who had the crush on the little girl that sang that number in that play.)
• The choices of times for the heartwarming music to kick in are a little surprising, like when Lex apologizes to Ryan for knocking him down in training. I guess this is to indicate that Lex is like a father figure for the tribe. A drunken, abusive father figure prone to fits of violence
• Lex Luthor: "The trick to leadership is to never be predictable." Oh my God! George W Bush learned his leadership skills from Kiwi Television
• Magenta makes bread. They eat it from bowls with spoons. Does bread mean something different in New Zealand?
• Lex Luthor finds that despite his tough-guy act, he can't murder Cloey's pet cow. So he lets it go, then claims he was jumped by one of the crazy tribes. And insists that the last he saw, the cow was being brutally killed and sodomized. He says this to Cloey, and, as far as I can tell, he says it for no reason other than to be a dick.
• Trudy is in full-on Fatal Attraction mode. Again, still acting the most like an actual teenage girl of any of them.
• Lex Luthor leads the search party for Cloey, and he intentionally leads them in a stupid direction so that his leadership is consistent with his story: instead of taking them in the direction the cow would have gone, he takes them in the direction of the tribe he claimed took the cow. Which means he's knowingly leading them on a wild goose chase just to be evil. Lex Luthor doesn't think his evil through very far, does he?
• And yet, the Locos have indeed gone into the woods, where Cloey and the cow have gone, rather than into the city where Lex Luthor is leading the rescue party. Jean-Paul Sartre has joined the writing staff.
• At the end of episoode 15, Cloey is rescued by a new girl, a sort of weird zen hippie chyk whose name I have forgotten, but who I will call "Hsu Tai" after the Chinese girl on The Tomorrow People. She speaks entirely in platitudes, which leads me to believe that after the apocalypse, she holed up in a fortune cookie factory for six months.
• Hsu Tai eplains that she was destined to come hang out with the tribe in order to reaffirm their bonds by giving them a name, and, Lex Luthor being the one who gets to make this decision, they go with "Mallrats", implying that only the works of Kevin Smith will survive the apocalypse. I think I liked them not having a name better.
• Trudy decides at the last minute to join in their femmy little ritual of solidarity where they choose their name, thus indicating that she's decided to stop being a crazy bitch and actually contribute something to their new little civilization. Then she walks in on Bray making out with Magenta. Wonder how long this "Not crazy" phase will last.
• And to celebrate Cloey's safe return and their new name, they do what The Matrix Reloaded tells us must always happen when a post-apocalyptic civilization decides to celebrate: they hold a rave. Remember: post-apocalyptic priorities: Ridiculous makeup, check. Hair dye, check. Extasy, check. Rave music, check.

While I've been writing this, Battlestar Galactica ended its run. Four years after the apocalypse and not a single person wearing silly Beyond Thunderdome makeup. They came so close.

Lex Luthor's sidekick notices that someone's nicked their stockpile of cash, and he freaks out and lays traps to catch the culprit, which proves that this guy is a fucking moron.

Somewhere between episodes seven and eight, they reveal that Zoot Suit Clockwork Orange is the father of Trudy's still unnamed baby, which Bray reveals by bringing the craziest motherfraker in the city to their secret hiding spot, whereupon the guy who runs the craziest most ass-kicking gang in the city promptly trips over Lex Luthor's shoe and falls to his death. Amber still has yet to say anything that sounds like natural dialogue for a person under the age of twenty-seven, but I've noticed that she sounds more American than anyone in the last four seasons of Power Rangers, and I'm including Jason David Frank. (She even says "Idear" instead of "Idea" the way that an American does when he's pretending to have a British accent). Also, Amber has now said "poor little thing" about someone for about the one thousandth time. Everyone dresses up even more ridiculously than normal to hold a funeral for someone they don't actually like to begin with, and they mention that "The graveyards are all full", which means that as 99% of the population was dying of the virus, they at least had the consideration to bury themselves..

Also, I've determined that this show has something like 400 episodes, so from now on, I'm going to condense about five episodes per post.

Zoot is given a viking style burial with a funeral pyre on the beach. For this they need a boat, petrol and everything on the beach that burns. Bray also reveals that he knows Zoot's real name, and it becomes clear to me fully 20 minutes before it does to everyone else that they were, in fact, brothers back before the apocalyse. Everyone wears silver eye makeup for the funeral and looks like extras from a Styx video. Amber lets her hair down and looks like Daryl Hannah in Clan of the Cave Bear, if you couldn't afford the real Daryl Hannah and got, say, Lori Singer instead.

And in case we had any doubt that Zoot really is dead, they did the one thing that in the land of television guarantees that you can never turn out to have mysteriously survived what looked like certain death: they give him a "Yes, he's really dead" montage, showing all the touching clips from Zoot's tenure on the show. That is, they show the same clip of him shouting "POWER AND CHAOS!" that is part of the title sequence, and a scene from earlier in this very episode. Let's face it, Zoot was not really a character, which is why I didn't even mention his name until the previous post.

The Girl Who Looks like Magenta From The Rocky Horror Picture Show is much happier now that she knows Bray is unentangled, and, for that matter, now that Lex Luthor is officially a murderer, or, at least, a minor obstacle whose simple physical presence caused the death of what passes for a master villain in this show, Zandra stops fawning over Sidekick Boy and all but dry-humps Lex Luthor on the spot.

Cloey catches Bray talking to Zoot. If that nonsense made any sense to you, you've watched more of this show than I have. Zoot, as it turns out, is the Alex-From-A-Clockwork-Orange guy who runs the Locos, who I am totally sure is gonna turn out to be Trudy's Baby-Daddy.

Kiwi HJO, who has been hoarding a secret stockpile of food, gets all bitchy when redhead dye job girl asks to use some of his water ration to bathe the baby, who is now old enough to stink.

Cloey agrees to keep Bray's dirty little secret friendship with this season's big bad in exchange for guaranteeing the safety of her pet cow.

It turns out that Shortround's name is "Dal", not "Dell". Not that either of these is, so far as I know, an actual name, but we get to see it written down when he raids his late father's medical office.

Oh, and the cars are STILL FUCKING BURNING.

In which Bray runs off to find stuff suitable for infants, Trudy runs a fever, and the cars are still on fire.

Notably, though there is no visible gap between episodes 1 and 2, dialogue in episodes 3 and 4 claims that they've been living together for "a few days". Episode 5 is set just hours after Trudy delivers, but everyone has had time to redo their ridiculous makeup (Everyone except Lex and His Big Dumb Sidekick have revised their looks).

I finally work out that Amber's sidekick Shortround is named Dell. It confused me for a moment since the first time I notice it, they're looking at a laptop. This is a very 1999 vision of the future, so they're trying to use it by ooking up medical information on a shareware CD-ROM. Fortunately, this future isn't a 2008 future, where all that sort of crap would have been superceded by the internet. Back in 1999, we hadn't even worked out a consistent capitalization of "internet" (Seriously. I read a novel around then which insisted on talking about the "InterNet". Since it was a very 1996 vision of the future, it talked about how the "InterNet" had been replaced by the "Global Information Superhighway", a system under tight government control which connected, I think, all traffic control systems to hospital power supplies to toasters. So that an evil alien computer virus could go all SkyNet on us.)

Dell gets sent off on a suicide mission to find antibiotics, raising hopes that he won't survive. Meanwhile, the little kids gorge themselves on Kiwi Haley Joel Osmet's secret cache of candy and get sick, causing people to momentarily think they have the virus.

Which means that kids in general, and the survivors in specific don't have any particular kind of immunity to the virus, which means that there's absolutely no rhyme or reason to why there even are survivors, or, more likely, the kids don't understand how viruses work, or, most likely of all, the writers don't.

This episode's best line:

Zandra: Can't you just imagine me in lingerie?

In which Trudy has a baby, Cloey walks her pet cow, Lex looks menacing, and hot water is essential.

Seriously, does anyone know what you use the hot water for during a childbirth? Also, Red-Blue-haired-girl, who Wikipedia tells me is named Zandra, talks Lex into giving her some parcetemol in exchange for the promise of no sex, proving that Lex Luthor is an idiot. Immediately after delivering the baby which everyone thinks is his daughter, Bray does a runner, and instantly, everyone assumes that he's abandoned his girl and child and they begin plotting revenge. I think it's safe to assume that he'll be back in an hour or so.

The cars are still on fire, and, I swear to god, Cloey frolics with a cow until the Locos come and she runs away. She's sneaking off with food for her pet cow. At some point, this cow is going to become delicious.

As a change from my recent hell-bent pursuit of recapturing my own youth, I decided to take a stab at recapturing someone else's.

For the past few years, much of our fine American entertainment has been outsourced to New Zealand. Yes, Australia's Canada has provided its lush landscapes, moderate climate, and non-SAG actors to such US-targeted productions as Farscape, Xena:Warrior Princess, Hercules: The Legendary Journies, Power Rangers, and Lord of the Rings. But did you know that New Zealanders also make their own television programs, featuring local non-SAG actors who don't have to pretend they have American accents? Why, they even have their own culture and lifestyles which you or I might find strange and incomprehensible. Unless, of course, you are yourself a New Zealander, in which case, you probably find my Saturday Morning Cartoon-esque Mighty Whitey approach to your culture kind of insulting, unless, of course, you've got a good sense of humor. I suspect New Zealanders have a good sense of humor, because they call themselves "Kiwis", after a kind of delicious fruit with the mouthfeel of a cat's tongue and a kind of flightless waterfowl. Flightless waterfowl is the most ridiculous thing known to nature, so I have to assume that Kiwis have a pretty good sense of humor.

Anyway, one of these shows which I keep hearing about all the time (Except by "all the time", I mean "two or three times," which is a lot by the standards of New Zealand Television, as the list of all shows I have ever heard about on New Zealand television consists of: this show) is called "The Tribe". It's a show from the early part of this century with shades of Lost, Lord of the Flies, and... Um... Well, I haven't watched that much yet, and I was planning to rattle off a long list with something silly at the end, but the truth is, it's basically just every "The whole world is a post-apocalyptic hellhole" show you've ever watched.

The story is this: A plague has killed all the adults, and it has therefore gone all Lord of the Flies in New Zealand with kids forming little miscreant tribes and the more sociopathic kids preying on the less sociopathic ones and so forth.

I'm one episode in, so I haven't really made much sense of it all yet, but given that the plot is Post-Apocalypse+Parental Abandonment+Photogenic Youngsters+Angsty Science Fiction, it's basically like this show was made by taking the eigenvector of my taste in television. All it's missing is giant robots (Though I gather a reasonable percentage of the cast went on to be Power Rangers).

Now, remember, this is television aimed at kids. And it's produced by a country whose primary export, unlike the US, is not entertainment, and if British television and Japanese television and Canadian television is any indication, the rest of the world believes that spending actual money on the production of television is a shameful extravagance. And it is to some extent a soap opera (So I've been told. It's kinda hard to tell the difference between a soap opera and a character-driven story with substantial plot arcs, though. Especially since sci fi fandoms are dominated by high-functioning crazy people who call anything with any kind of character development "soap", insist it's for girls, who are gross and slimy and have cooties, and why doesn't anyone like me when I am so clearly a superior intellect in every way? And hey, give me back my lunch money!), so I'm guessing that it's going to be a little rough.

Which is why you're coming with me. Here are my observations on episode 1...

• This is the 80sest vision of the future since Max Headroom. Only when Max Headroom was on, it was the 80s. This show is ca 2001
• In the event of apocalypse, I wonder how long it would take me before my priorities shifted to include giving myself a weird Beyond Thunderdome makeup job.
• In every street scene, there has been a car on fire. Exactly how long after the apocalypse do cars stay burning?
• In this dystopian future, food and gum are valuable commodities. Weird 80s-style punk rock hair dye and makeup are apparently not in short supply.
• It has not yet been made clear how long after the apocalypse this show is set. It can't be long, since a bunch of unattended prepubescent children are still alive on their own just sort of wandering around, and none of the people who were young enough to survive the plague have grown up yet. But it's long enough that food is no longer readily available, and all the good stuff has been looted. I'm fairly sure that if production stopped dead tomorrow, it'd take a heck of a long time for the surviving population, which appears to be something in the neighborhood of 50, to loot everything.
• The bad guys, the "Locos" are a tribe that drives around in a police car, led by a kid who appears to be playing sort sort of Nazi version of Alex from A Clockwork Orange. It this is the near future, and he's, let's say, 16, it's kinda inconceivable that he'd have seen A Clockwork Orange.
• The good guys, whose names I have not managed to learn yet, consist of a couple of random groups of kids who have all happened upon each other, and then stumbled upon a kid who's fortified a mall. They've also captured this small gang consisting of two reasonable people (aside from the makeup and dye jobs. Seriously, in a desperate struggle for survival, everyone has time to keep up their dye jobs?) and their unreasonable boss who pisses off the Locos for no clear reason other than that he's a punk. I suspect they will become the loveable-but-untrustworthy-antiheroic foils to the rest of the tribe.
• There's two other folks who started out somewhere pleasant, then ventured out into the wasteland for unclear reasons. They haven't interacted with anyone else yet.
• Seriously, this show has the look and feel of something that was made by PBS, except that it's not educational. And is instead making me feel dumber. I keep expecting Video Toaster special effects (Which I am learning to identify on sight, by the way. That's kinda cool.) I'm vaguely reminded of an old show set on a post-apocalyptic earth about the Dewey Decimal system. It was called "Tomes and Talismans", which I mention here because from time to time I forget the title and have a hell of a time finding anything on the internet that reminds me of it.
• The credits list this show as having a Story by ... Based on an Original Idea by... I assume the "Original Idea By" guy is the guy who wrote "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome"
• At least this show has an excuse for the post-apocalypse looking like the outback.

Episode 2 hooks up the other two with the tribe, along with the revelation, unless I overlooked it in the previous episode, that Trudy, that's the girl of the other two, is about thirty seconds away from childbirth, which, I guess, can give us a ballpark figure for how long it's been since civilization collapsed.

• In Episode 2, Clockwork Orange Guy holds a book burning. Just to prove that the Locos are evil. Because only evil people burn books.
• As predicted, the Gang-of-Three has been allowed into the Tribe. Bad Dye Job Girl seems to be on the frindge of being a good person, whereas their evil leader Lex Luthor is a dick, and let two of their gangmembers get captured by the Locos. I can't seriously believe the idea that the Locos actually murdered the fallen gang members, being, fundamentally, a bunch of unruly children (After all, if they were that kind of crazy, they'd be doing something more evil than burning books. Like burning babies or something. So I'll assume that they instead lost half their GP and were sent back to the last save point.
• Lex Luthor really is kinda stupid. His whole argument seems to be "Let us out of this cage, or we'll hurt you when we get out of this cage which we can only ever do if you let us out!"
• New guy, the one with the pregnant girlfriend Trudy, gains their trust in about three seconds, then steals their food, then comes back with his pregnant girlfriend, and a bunch more food. Did I miss a step in his logic here?
• Trudy is bothered when the girl who Wikipedia tells me is named Amber doesn't use her name when she asks about letting them stay. Trudy is nine months pregnant and the world is kind of a shithole. I think she could be a bit more gracious.
• Also, Trudy's hair is half black and half blue. Even pregnant and on the run, she can keep up her dye job in this post apocalypse.
• The cars are still on fire. Are Kiwi cars all made of thermite? (Fun fact: Once you start thermite burning, there is no way to make it stop until all the thermite has been consumed)

Episode 3 centers around the debate as to whether or not to let Trudy and her boyfriend Bray join the tribe. Lex Luthor is against it for reasons which entirely make sense but which don't count because it's obvious that he sees Bray as a threat to his becoming the alpha male, while Amber is for it because she quite clearly wants Bray to tell her about this earth-thing he calls "Heavy Petting", until the final scene where she does a face-heel-turn and decides to kick them out. Also, Lex Luthor forces unwanted smoochies on the two-tone-hair-girl from his own gang (Her hair is half red and half blue, so that we can keep her separate from Trudy. She also looks a bit like a girl I went to college, enough that I kept glancing up at the screen and saying "Hey, what do I know her from?") in order to cement our belief that he's a total douche.

• Cloey, the weirdly shell-shocked little girl who led Amber and whoever it was she started out with, let's call him Shortround, to the rest of the children, spends this episode dangerously wandering off unattended to follow a cow into Loco territory. Someday, TV writers may realize that viewers can only stand so much of cute childlike characters who unthinkingly lead everyone into danger, like the kids who go playing in the zombie-filled wastelands in zombie movies, or the kids who sneak off to get a good look at the ghost and get captured, or Gilligan.
• Bray and Trudy get voted off the island. It's Lost, it's Survivor, it's Mad Max, it's all this and more!
• The frakking cars are still on fire. The Locos apparently all stick together and patrol the city in an orderly fashion, so who the frak is tending all these fires until they get there?
• Every time someone refers to Bray as the father of Trudy's baby, Bray and Trudy look away. It's obviously supposed to be a big surprise when we find out he's not, so don't spoil it for anyone.
• It's not possible in TV for pregnancy to lead to anything but a sudden screaming birth at the worst moment possible, so you bet your sweet ass that Lex Luthor doesn't even have time to extinguish her torch after voting her off the island that Trudy goes into labor
• Fun fact: In New Zealand, Macaroni and Cheese comes in a can.