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Exit Strategies - Episode #202 (some spoilers below) (Click here for synopsis)

This week's outing had some good character development and plenty of action and neat ideas, but was a bit lacking overall. As usual the strongest part of the show was the characters, with most being at least adequate and some being exceptional.

I thought Lisa Ryder did a great job as Beka this week (as also last week) and her character seems to be deepening and becoming more interesting in my opinion. Her relationship with Rev is highlighted and the scenes where she seeks to encourage him in his faith (what a turnaround!) were believable and touching.

On the other hand Rev spent a lot of the time moaning and excusing himself, which did not seem an effective way to highlight the conflict (to eat or not to eat...) that supposedly raged within. Woolvett as Harper was good at the end (in being sincerely appreciative of Bem), though some of his other scenes seemed poorly done.

Perhaps my biggest problem once again was in several story points that were impossible to believe due to poor science or lack of motivation. In the first category I include the sinkhole damage free "elevator" (73 meters all out for Squorms, accelerators and neat tunnels!). The Squorms are a neat idea, but did not do much beyond provide a somewhat implausible way to eliminate the enemy (why them and not the Maru?). Also, I had to just laugh when they said they were hoping to swing by the sun to refuel (with only launch velocity and no fuel to maneuver/accelerate).

Tyr is typically an interesting character and he was much of the focus this week also. However, it was hard to see how his betrayal this week squares with his apparently sincere conversation with Dylan later. Also, even if he has a further hidden agenda his actions with the Nietzscheans seemed pretty foolish.

Not much of a deep plot (run away, scout, run away, scout, ....), but it did develop several characters a bit more and had some interesting ideas to think about. In the end, it was the ideas and the characters that "rescued" the episode somewhat and which has also been this shows biggest strength to date.

The ratings for the episode are given below. For information on how my rating system works, click on this link.

Review 10/15/01 by Larry Kramer 

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