Destroy the Prison Planet
Star Fleet Episode 18
It’s 5 March, 1983 and Great Britain is officially 3/4 of the way through broadcasting Star Fleet. After the slow episode 17 and the unnecessary compilation episode, it’s time to get back to the narrative. Lamia has been in enemy hands for too long and it’s time for action. This episode delivers that– but also some surprises. Let’s GO!
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Um, I said LET’S GO! Why are we still lying around in bed?
Hercules bangs on his guitar indiscriminately while Lee stuffs and smears his face with cake. This isn’t the kind of action I had in mind.
It isn’t what Shiro had in mind either. He snaps at his bunkmates as Hercules bonks Lee repeatedly with the guitar. This thrilling interpersonal drama feels a bit silly and renders the missing flashback episode even more redundant.
Hercules pithily sums up the whole situation– “We’ve about reached the end of the line.” Although she may sometimes come across as a bit whiny, Star Fleet without Lamia is plotless and devoid of energy. Her absence has left the writers grasping at straws for how to fill out the run time.
If the last scene seemed like it was literally a duplicate of some stuff from Bloody Mary’s Promotion, get ready for an even stronger feeling of deja vu. Dr. Benn is standing in the exact same spot he was before, saying almost exactly the same words as before, and trying to telepathically communicate with Lamia– just like before.
The boys interrupt Benn’s chain of thought. They’re too restless to rest (been there) and they have an idea of what to do about it… but the good Doctor anticipates them.
“Why don’t we explore the nearby planets one by one? Is that what you were going to say?” he asks, as if to prove he’s considered all the possibilities. An aimless search could take them further away from Lamia’s true location. “We do nothing,” he says before heading towards bed. It’s a responsible decision, but pretty frustrating for the hot headed young pilots. But they’ll soon have a diversion.
Everyone has a go at some Star Trek-style the-spaceship-is-going-off-course-and-we’re-all-thrown-about acting. I’ll let you decide if the puppets pull it off better than Shatner. A random tea set goes tumbling.
Dr. Benn sees straight through to the heart of the problem as usual. Someone is at the controls. Lee’s reply? “That’s impossible.” But could it possibly Kirara running amuck?
The doc must be clairvoyant… or else he doesn’t have short term memory loss BECAUSE THIS JUST HAPPENED.
The solution to the problem is the same as it was last time: Hercules’ tranquilizer gun. Couldn’t they lock Kirara up somewhere safe for awhile?
Aha! The baddies. Now the plot will get moving, right?
Right?
Well, it turns out that the party is over and the Imperial Master just orders his minions to head to the Callusion star cluster where they will do some decimating. In particular, they need to wipe out the planet Callinean.
At this point, I’m extremely confused about what and where those places are. But I’m sure all will become clear as we go.
And so, without a word to each other, Makara and Orion head off on their mission. It’s quite possible that they are hungover from all that wine based on what they do next…
Lee has run something called a laser scan, which was unsuccessful. Shiro is worried about Kirara– after all he’s gone on the rampage twice and had to be knocked out twice– but Benn is content to leave him unconscious in the other room for the time being. Nice.
For his part, Hercules is worried about Halley. He’s suspicious of all the radio silence. The Doctor orders everyone to be quiet and follow orders– an authoritarian command that appeals to PPA’s sense of discipline and predictably earns him a swat from Barry.
Behind coffin-shaped doors, Lamia has not given up hope. Growing sleepy, she wonders if she’s going to die even as she reaches out to Halley for help.
Halley appears asleep at the switch, but shakes himself out of it. Did he hear her voice? He urges her to keep going. It’s not clear if they’ve truly established contact yet or not. If they have, it’s awful shaky.
Everybody on X Bomber is tapping their hands and feet– but they’re not learning to a crazy beat. They are praying that Lamia is OK and that her power won’t fail. And, like me, they’re desperate for some activity.
Well, except Lee. Lee is just napping. Or I guess he could be praying too?
Shiro and Hercules try one more time to reach Dr. Benn. Shiro suggests they could cover a lot more territory by splitting up and using the Dai-X. Fantastic idea! Why don’t they do that?
Benn shoots it down because launching Dai-X would leave X Bomber unprotected. Huh? This heavily armed battleship– defenseless without Dai-X?
The conversation is conveniently interrupted by Halley, who Hercules calls a clown. But this clown thinks he has a lead on the whereabouts of the elusive Allurian star cluster… where Lamia is.
Lamia’s powers finally pull off the impossible– she reaches Halley. Lamia knows where she is– she’s in the Allurian star cluster. WE KNOW THAT! But where is it? Halley can apparently track her using her thought transmissions because as she gives the details of the underground prison and he uses a star chart to get her coordinates. X Bomber is on the case!
It seems wildly improbable to me that ESP could be used to track someone this way, but I’ll take any leap of logic to get the plot going again!
X Bomber is directed to the starboard and away they go to the upper quadrant about 30,000 millitons away. I’m pretty sure these coordinates don’t make sense. Back in episode two, 1000 militons was about the distance from the upper quadrant of Jupiter to Earth. Writer Michael Sloan, under immense deadline pressure, correctly concluded that the audience wouldn’t give a rat’s patootie about the spatial/distance relationships between settings. The important thing is to save Lamia!
The baddies happen to be trundling along nearby when they pick up X Bomber on radar. Extrapolating from their course that they are heading to the Allurian star cluster, Makara abandons her Imperial mission in favour of trying to destroy X Bomber once and for all and prevent any chance of rescuing Lamia.
Kirara returns to the bridge and makes everyone nervous, especially PPA, but he’s only interested in looking at the view.
And what a view it is too! The Star Fleet X Bomber production team always come up with brilliant fantasy environments within which to set these adventures.
Shiro and Hercules conclude that Kirara will remain calm since Lamia is close at hand. He seems to rejoice as they enter the beautiful sector of space.
Benn calls a red alert and the boys get ready for action!
PPA observes that the glacial planet is white… and that there could be ice! I’m glad we have a perfectly programmed android around to tell us that glacial planets can sometimes appear white. Also, the model shots make it look more gray than white.
As we move in closer, Dr. Benn orders the launch of Dai-X! This is a bold move for the production because it means all the stock shots of Dai-X need to be reshot with rainbow colored lighting. It’s a real gift to the fans that doubtless raised the budget for this episode considerably.
Iconic has become a bit of a buzzword these days, but it’s hard to think of a better word to describe these three ships flying away from X Bomber and into danger on the ice planet.
Not long to wait now, Lamia! Hang on!
Shiro is picking up a strong “nuclear reaction” which must mean radiation. Lee, whose crew didn’t have time to light him with the rainbow effect, is more spooked by the quiet. I wouldn’t think a planet of ice would be noisy, but even Hercules is feeling uneasy. What surprises does this place have in store?
These bad boys! Unfortunately the missile defenses left behind by the Imperial Alliance look just a bit ropey. The models look small and it seems as if the glue is still drying. Their engines fire like toys with a little puff of smoke. A bit of slow motion might have sold the illusion better, but then we’d get a better look at just how unfinished they are.
Jay Benedict doesn’t exactly go all out with his performance as Shiro when he warns his comrades of the danger. He sounds like he’s announcing the next bus. All that momentum we built up with the first Dai-X launch sequence in ages? We’re starting to lose it.
With some evasive maneuvers, they dodge the assault and begin one of their own. The whole thing feels like a slightly lower budget version of the fantastic assault of Jupiter back in episode four.
Manning radar, PPA warns Benn that Makara’s battlecruiser is heading this way and Benn, in turn, warns Shiro. Seems PPA can basically do everyone’s job, despite what Benn said earlier about X Bomber being defenseless without Dai-X and the young pilots.
Given the need to speed things up, Shiro calls for a Dai-X junction. This should be good!
With his usual anthropomorphic growl, Dai-X begins a delightful frolic through the frozen countryside.
Dai-X takes a missile to the shoulder and it only succeeds in pissing him off.
As Makara closes in, her underlings inform her that X Bomber is closing in on the prison planet. Instead of being worried that they’re right on top of her prize, Makara has full confidence that her missile command will be more than a match for X Bomber until she arrives.
But Makara failed to count on Dai-X– the secret weapon within Earth’s secret weapon X Bomber. Of course, X impulse is also a secret weapon but that’s just too many secret weapons for the scope of this paragraph. Oh go on. One more… Secret weapon.
The Dai-X suit performer gets toasted as the whole suit appears to catch fire during this sequence.
Hercules tells Lee to step on it… Get it? I’m loving this. Can you tell I love this show?
For good measure, Shiro also uses a handy wrist cannon for some extra punch. I think the good guys are winning this fight now.
Oh, not enough firepower? We need torpedoes too? Fine by me! Although the models may have been more ropey, the special effects team have really started to get the hang of explosions. Some truly spectacular fireballs here!
HOLY HELL FIRE! It’s a health and safety nightmare! Did the man in that suit get out alive?
Having pummelled everything in sight into smithereens, Dai-X gives an especially loud and furious growl. How many Dai-X costumes were damaged in the making of this sequence?
Dr. Benn checks in and Shiro reports the area is secure. Lee just happens to spot the entrance to the prison from where the giant robot is standing and Hercules awakens from his bloodlust to suddenly remember that he came here to rescue Lamia.
Hercules somehow knows that this is the spot and Shiro gives the OK to investigate. Perhaps this suggests that Hercules shares a bit of a telepathic connection with Lamia? That’s good news if you’re on Team Hercules.
…but the good guys have magically climbed down from their gargantuan machine and arrived at just the right place. Convenient.
Inside, Lamia is slumped over and silent. Is she alright?
In a symbolic moment, Shiro fails to get the door open alone but the force of all three friends firing in unison is enough to get through.
Actually, not the most difficult jailbreak if you think about it. You’d think the Imperial Alliance would keep the key to universal power locked up a little tighter than that, but then again they were counting on the anonymous location and the missiles to do most of the work.
Guns drawn, the trio enter the dark passageway.
I love the way we keep cutting back to the bad guys. No dialogue from them, just the constant knowledge that they’re getting closer and closer to build the tension.
Did I say tension? Here’s a shot of a fat puppet being dragged down some stairs. It’s played for laughs but it’s actually kind of bizarre since we are wondering if Lamia is alive or dead.
Hercules finds Lee’s slip on the ice to be amusing but Shiro is impatient.
“Look, there she is!”
Reunited at last! Of course, there’s one problem. She’s trapped in a box, fellas.
Shiro’s strategy for overcoming this particular obstacle is to send Lee over to a thing that looks like a control panel and tell him to just start throwing levers. Could that possibly work?
Astonishingly, it does. Glad that didn’t have any nasty consequences.
Shiro steps in and touches Lamia with his gloved hand. Somehow he discovers that the chamber is filled with “sub-zero gas” and Hercules realizes that the Alliance was in the process of freezing her. How they are able to reach all these conclusions is beyond me.
To my horror, Lee just starts throwing random levers and pushing miscellaneous buttons. This seems ludicrously dangerous, but I guess the show doesn’t have time to show all the details of them solving this puzzle. Of course, having a puzzle to solve might be more fun than watching Kirara storm the bridge for a second time or listening to Dr. Benn try to project his thoughts across space…
Shiro, although he doesn’t know about the proximity of the Alliance, is in a big hurry and starts yelling at Lee to move faster. In my experience, yelling at people to go faster has the opposite effect.
Lee says he can’t operate the controls– twice in case you missed it the first time.
“That means we’ll have to shoot ‘em off,” says Hercules. Come again?
Shiro agrees instantly. Seriously? Again, some dialogue from the original has been cut because his mouth moves without audio.
Because this is kiddie TV and not a Saw movie, Lamia is freed instead of horribly mangled. She collapses limply into Hercules’ waiting arms. “It’s alright, Lamia. You’re safe.”
Lee is cold and refuses to allow this romantic moment to blossom. For some reason after deleting two short lines, the English production has added a longer line where Hercules mouth doesn’t move at all. His head does move though, so it’s possibly an error with the puppet mouth on set.
As they attempt to make good their escape, Dr. Benn calls in. “She’s in a pretty bad state,” Shiro tells him.
Before they even reach the stairs they’re interrupted again– this time by an earthquake. Lee grabs ahold of Hercules for dear life. Shiro theorizes that their torpedos have caused a nuclear reaction in this volatile place.
In case you missed it, that means that Dai-X literally smoked the baddies so badly that it started a tectonic chain reaction on a massive scale. Nice!
Shiro lets Dr. Benn know an explosion is happening… a big one. But the good Doctor refuses to withdraw until his crew are back aboard.
Orion and Makara are on the scene and immediately confused. Why is X Bomber stationary? Makara chalks it up to fear. Meanwhile, they don’t seem to notice that the radioactive planet below them is unusually unstable. Maybe they’re a bit sozzled still?
Shiro and the boys complete the stairmaster challenge only to be hit with another tremor at the top. There isn’t much time left!
Despite his noble sentiments before, Dr. Benn does order PPA to give the planet a wider berth– which is fair enough. The others on the surface have their own craft that seems to be just as fast as X Bomber although there aren’t any discussions of Dai-X’s hyperspeed capabilities.
Rockfalls have trapped our heroes in the entrance. Lee is panicked but Hercules stays cool with a quip or two. Shiro boldly makes a break for it and the other two follow.
As Dai-X reactivates, the termoids start tracking it for the first time. In the stupor of her earlier victory, Makara has badly misunderestimated1 the capabilities of X Bomber. When she hears the craft is launching from the surface she isn’t even sure what it is.
Dai-X takes off and not a moment too soon– the surface of the planet is on fire. As Makara overflies the surface, she still hasn’t realized that the place is going critical and her termoids are too busy pointing out that the missiles have all been destroyed to mention it. As Orion spots Dai-X making a break for it, he concludes that X Bomber may have rescued Lamia. Why wasn’t her prison alarmed in some way? Makara gives the order to give chase… but it’s too late.
As the set shakes and topples, the effects crew set off explosions, fire jets, and dust clouds. All the stops are pulled out as a planet-sized cataclysm unfolds.
As the planet explodes in flashes of light, we see Makara’s ship moving unsteadily away from the carnage.
And that’s it! Just like that, the destruction of the Alliance prison planet is over. No more shots of Dai-X docking and X Bomber moving out of the blast radius. We can’t even be totally sure that Makara gets away– although we do believe that. Instead we cut to an IV drip in sickbay.
Lamia is home safe!
Although I’m not crazy about this high angle from a storytelling point of view– it makes the characters seem small and distant– it is an impressive shot for a series made with under controlled rod puppets. The blocking is excellent with Kirara and Hercules flanking Lamia like guardian angels and the doctor checking a syringe as if it’s a thermometer– we get the message, he’s checking on her and making sure she’s OK. Meanwhile, Shiro and Lee are pushed out and reduced to spectators. It’s a sign of where the show is headed that Shiro, once the handsome leading man, is now playing second fiddle to Lamia, once the damsel in distress.
Dr. Benn offers his medical opinion that Lamia will recover. Shiro reassures Kirara as Hercules is relieved. Lee offers a bit of comic relief by pretending he wasn’t scared at all during the earthquake.
The episode ends with everyone laughing at Lee’s goofiness. Although this sort of thing can be a bit hackneyed, I actually feel like it’s the right choice for this ending. Star Fleet can get a bit heavy for kids in final quarter so any opportunity to break the tension and bring in some levity is welcome.
And that’s the end of episode 18! It’s a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, I love that the action is back after a few episodes of Shiro, Hercules, and Lee either moping around or being totally unconscious. This is the first time we’ve had a Dai-X junction (not counting flashbacks) since episode 11 and although some of the model work isn’t up to par, the pyrotechnics are unusually sophisticated. It’s great to see big red pounding the bad guys again! I can’t help but compare it to the battle on Jupiter and while some things reflect the dwindling of production resources, other aspects have improved with practice.
Of course, those missiles were never going to be a real threat to Dai-X just like Makara was never going to be a real threat to X Bomber. It’s all a bit too easy for our heroes, who get the message from Halley and Lamia just in the nick of time. I personally would have preferred to see Kirara somehow become the key to finding Lamia since he is telepathically linked to her also. That would feel less pat and give his character something more to do than growl or fly into rages. On top of that, some of the voice work is under directed. At some point, Louis Elman had to step away from the project and another director stepped into to finish, which may account for the changes. Also, it’s a weak episode for Dr. Benn who makes a few questionable choices– unfortunate, given what’s to come.
In any case, I enjoyed this episode. The next one is a definite turning point for the whole series and has a lot more to unpack. Before we get into that heavy duty storyline, it was nice to enjoy some good old fashioned, rock and rolling, Dai-X action!
Thanks for that word, George W!
Good summary of this episode. I'm already looking forward to the next ones.