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Into the Labyrinth - Episode #209 (some spoilers below) (Click here for synopsis)

Written By: Ashley Edward Miller and Zack Stentz Directed By: Brad Turner

 

Well, this one was a mixed bag. It had some truly great characters including Charlemagne Bolivar (James Marsters) and some great ideas. However, the execution was rushed and rather poorly done, especially in the chaotic last part of the hour. I am hoping this is an exception and not a move toward a formula like in "Voyager" which featured a last ten minutes always having an action packed (at times senseless) resolution.

One story line this week had to do with Harper being tempted by an attractive women, Satrina Leander (Jud Tylor) to give the All Systems Library archive (from "Harper 2.0") to the Spirit of the Abyss (SotA hereafter).

The plot in this first story was interesting with mostly small points that I wondered about like Dylan never asking Harper about Satrina and Maru being so casually available for Harper to take out. The big continuity problem here was that the archive had been recorded when it was extracted from Harper and he never had anything to do with hiding it (certainly not in a way and time he would have "forgotten"). Also, if he really recalled what it contained, as he tells Trance, you would have expected it to come up before this.

However, the overall story of Harper dealing with the temptation to "make a deal with the devil" was interesting. His rushed "battle" with the temptation was not impressive, but the idea is certainly a good one and the story showed how important the archive is to the SotA (hope to see more on this in the future).

The other story concerned the offer of the Sabra-Jaguar pride to take part in the Commonwealth and the mutual defense pact. Just a little hard to swallow, since the other charter worlds seem weak enough that the Andromeda still seems the main fighting force the Commonwealth has to offer the S-J. However, it is an interesting development and Marsters as Bolivar carries the role well, including a nice scene with Tyr.

As mentioned the action in the last ten minutes was not particularly well done (and the four SotA agents involved seemed almost comical in appearance). Some other points to 'nitpick' were the all too ready reference to 20^th century earth (WWII - Stalin) and the abundant technobabble related to the "phase shifting".

The Nietzscheans always make for an interesting episode if well done, as is true here. Also, the setting on a deep space "drift" actually makes sense given that this would be easier for ships to dock with than having to land on a planet for a conference (gravity "wells" take a lot of energy to handle).

Overall, both of the story lines this week were interesting and well worth telling. However, perhaps they would have been better done as two separate episodes where the action could have been less rushed and plot points given more substance and believability.

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

Review 12/05/01 by Larry Kramer

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