Find F-01! Part Two
Reviewing Episode Three of Star Fleet
Welcome back to X Blogger!
There’s 10 minutes left on the clock before Makara reaches the end of her arbitrary deadline. Data Center says the computers of the world have no data on F-01. Of any kind. Which means they don’t have anything to offer to the powerful enemy threatening to destroy the whole planet. Thanks a lot, Google.
General Kyle, not one to take such news lying down, decides to scramble a “laser missile battalion.” Good thinking, General.
We are introduced to Commander Vargas, the missile command guy. Not sure what ethnicity he is meant to be, but with a name like Vargas and ginger hair he could be a Florida resident of Cuban descent. Which would make him a Cuban in a missile crisis.
I’ll see myself out.
Number Two, wavering, tells the General they have to abandon their defensive course and rely on negotiation. This provides Kyle with the opportunity to say his signature line.
A tense ten second countdown plays over the loudspeakers and Makara appears. Punctuality is a virtue.
Kyle tells her there is no F-01 on Earth. Makara says Imperial research proves otherwise. I wonder if there is a squad of Imperial graduate students out there in the cosmos, trying to track down missing enemies of the Empire.
As Makara’s fury expands, Number Two fearfully interjects to request more time. Casually, Makara grants ten extra minutes. Without bothering to hang up, Kyle orders Number One to call X Bomber.
After Benn has scrambled the signal, Kyle explains they only have ten more minutes. After which time, they are probably toast. With his customary optimism, Dr. Benn says there is no way to take off in that time.
The only hope is a weapon called X Impulse, which can be fired from the moon but will do terrible damage to the Earth.
General Kyle is prepared to sacrifice the entire Earth Defense force in exchange for ridding themselves of this pesky alien invader. Definitely not an easy choice and Dr. Benn is understandably very reluctant.
“Surely,” he reasons, “there must be a way to lure the battlecruiser out into space.” Kyle reckons it’s impossible. He orders X Bomber to prepare to fire.
Back on Earth, the General prepares for a full evacuatation and orders missiles to be made ready. If they’re not ready yet, they never will be. His aide phones up General Vargas to relay the order and helpfully adds that the target is the large alien battlecruiser “in our quadrant.” Funny, I’m not sure I would’ve known what to shoot at. Thanks for the helpful information.
As Vargas gets the missiles ready, a termoid informs Makara of this movement. Orion, feeling bloodthirsty, decides to show off his power by ordering them destroyed and for once, Makara does not contradict him.
As the terror from the skies begins to unfold, General Kyle and his staff watch from the ready room. It doesn’t look good. It seems Vargas and his men have gone the way of all the Earth. Kyle reckons they were “too late” implying that if they had fired faster they may have had a chance? Hard to say. I don’t give much for their chances.
He orders a call for Makara. Number One dials by saying Makara’s name without moving his lips. Creepy ESP you’ve got there, Number One.
A word about Denise Bryer here. A voice acting veteran, Denise was just hitting the peak of her career here playing Makara. She would also voice characters in Return to Oz and Labyrinth a few years later, not to mention the unforgettable Zelda in Terrahawks. She does a great job of matching the mouth movements of the puppet while giving her character an alien cadence. This is pretty difficult to do. If you don’t believe me, find a foreign language movie, turn off the sound, and try to recreate a character’s voice in sync with the picture all while delivering a compelling performance and creating a memorable vocal style. Hats off to Denise.
Makara wants unconditional surrender and the F-01. She tells them they have five minutes before hanging up on them. It seems like she must have added a few minutes back on the clock, but who’s counting? In a few minutes all of Star Fleet Command is going to be black as a burnt pop tart.
Looking and sounding defeated, Kyle orders the evacuation. As the order is given, Numbers One and Two protest in unison. Kyle simply orders them to the shelter.
X Bomber, our hero craft, is still stuck on the moon. What’s keeping them occupied? Has Dr. Benn thought up some new diversion to draw the aliens away?
Lee reports the evacuation order. All three of the cadets are anxious to jump into the fight.
Dr. Benn says nothing, turns in his chair, and gives them all a barely perceptible nod. Mysterious man, Dr. Benn. He’s definitely read the script though.
We are treated to a lovely dolly tracking shot along the corridors of X Bomber. This feels like what the Millennium Falcon would have been like brand new, before it got all scuffed up, modified, and dirty.
At the end of the dolly track stands Lamia, gazing pensively out the window. She is thinking (and praying?) to Professor Hagen.
In a dreamlike sequence, she begs him to tell her if she is F-01 or not. If she is, she feels she cannot further endanger the Earth by her proximity. How she would rectify her location given that they are all stuck on the lunar surface isn’t clear. Hagen appears to her as if in a vision, a dream, or a memory.
This is a bizarre occurrence out of context. It seems like a religious encounter, or possibly communing with a ghost or spirit. But the only presence clearly felt is her own.
Lee announces on a shipwide channel that X Bomber is launching in two minutes. “Take your positions, fellas!” he warbles. I like to imagine that this announcement wasn’t meant to go beyond the bridge, but Lee is still learning where the buttons on the control panel are and he accidentally announced it to the world. Since Lamia isn’t yet an official member of the crew, she wouldn’t technically need to be notified of the takeoff. But why did he need to use the PA system at all if everyone else was on the bridge? Mom, Dad, I’m overthinking a puppet show again.
Even PPA is ready to get things moving again, but the wise Doctor has a few more words of instruction to impart.
He theorizes that as soon as X Bomber launches, Makara will open fire on Star Fleet Command. They will be destroyed and then, in all likelihood, Makara will turn and destroy X Bomber too.
Shiro thinks there must be a way for them to win the day and destroy the bad guys. He doesn’t know how, but there must BE A WAY! Benn patiently explains that X Impulse should do it, but (in case you were getting more cereal when that was explained before) to use this weapon would be detrimental to Earth. In the extreme.
He adds this time that X Impulse will use “90% of quantum power in the main shield” leaving them basically useless in space if they don’t destroy the enemy with one shot.
Rousing the troops, he warns them all to rely on their training as well as their “reflexes and instincts.” He commences another countdown as Makara prepares to deal the final death blow to Earth.
Kyle stands alone, everyone else being evacuated to the shelters. He says nothing. The once proud General hangs his head in defeat with the emblem of EDF behind him.
All may have been lost at the end of episode one, but all REALLY seems lost now. But wait! Someone is phoning in!
Benn, better late than never, announces X Bomber is ready to launch. Hooray!
Kyle is uninterested and seems a bit annoyed to be disturbed in the middle of his self pity party. And why not? Benn’s solution, X Impulse, is likely to destroy the base and a lot of Earth too. The silver lining is everybody else has been evacuated to safety.
There is a somber, heroic atmosphere to these moments. It feels like a group of firefighters preparing to rush in on a suicide mission to save some trapped children. These puppets are giving each other the final salute.
When Kyle says Earth has very little chance of surviving this event, something snaps.
Lamia has heard enough of these dudes feeling sorry for themselves. She’s decided to take action.
She unplugs the RCA connector (yellow is video, right?) and cuts off the call. What? This is an unexpected maneuver.
Static ensues. The call with Kyle drops into static and a picture of Makara’s battlecruiser appears.
Lamia calls Makara. And everyone is like HUH…?
She asks Makara NOT to attack the Earth. With a blink of her eyes, she declares that SHE, Lamia, is the F-01! And she says it with so much confidence!
Lamia begins to spill out the whole story, despite Shiro and Benn’s protestations. At last, Shiro physically restrains her. The circuit closes with a click.
Shiro is flabbergasted by Lamia’s actions. Lamia just says she had to.
Makara cackles with laughter. Apparently, she believes Lamia without any hesitation. Never mind that Lamia is a teen from a troubled home who has a tendency to act impulsively based on her emotions. She must be the F-01 we’ve been hunting for!
She orders Orion to head for the moon at hyperspeed. Orion, smarter than he looks, reckons that this is a trick of the wily General Kyle and recommends destroying Star Fleet Command first and then heading out to check on this possibly F-01. Well done, Orion. Good thing he’s not in charge or the series might’ve ended right here.
Ignoring this good advice, Makara snaps at him to obey orders. She argues that once the girl is captured, her F-01 status will soon be proved or disproved. What? This is insanely illogical but Orion has no choice but to go along with it and Makara’s battlecruiser leaves Earth behind unmolested.
As everyone watches the feed from Earth, they see Makara’s battlecruiser turning away and heading towards them. Presumably they are filled with dread and excitement, but for Lee it’s just excitement.
Breaking in on Lamia’s channel, and with no official credentials or introductions, Shiro begins to talk directly to Commander Makara. Despite the fact that he’s telling her off, he remembers to use her title.
“Lamia,” he yells, “is NOT F-01!” The question is, does Shiro really believe this knowing what he knows? Or is this an effort, whether conscious or subconscious, to fulfill his wish to be back in the center of the audience’s (and his father’s) attention and to recast Lamia as his girlfriend instead of as a sort-of half sister demigod. I should’ve written a paper about this stuff for Pysch 101.
Anyway, Makara replies to Shiro after a moment’s pause. She plans to use torture to get to the truth and she doesn’t mind saying so. Not what everybody was hoping to hear at that moment.
Meanwhile, Kyle has snapped out of his funk in time to notice that the bad guys are flying away. Evidently, he did not hear Lamia’s transmission which means at this point no one on Earth knows of Lamia’s alien origins.
X Bomber is (and I cannot emphasize this stongly enough) STILL stuck on the surface of the moon. As everyone looks on, Dr. Benn is calmly meditating. Shiro gives voice to what every eight year old in the audience must have been wondering– why aren’t our heroes taking off? What’s taken them so long?
But the old adage Keep Calm and Trust Dr. Benn holds true.
The crafty Doctor has realized that if the Alliance think X Bomber is crippled then they have the advantage of surprise and he wants to hang onto that advantage for as long as possible.
Lee announces that they are already only “30,000 militons” away. Everybody is getting antsy, but Dr. Benn clearly subscribes to the ‘wait till you see the whites of their eyes’ philosophy.
The tension is building. Hercules, in particular, seems like he’s about to blow. “Steady,” Benn orders.
Just as things are about to boil over, Lamia jumps up.
“Where are you going? Come back!” Shiro calls out as Lamia hastens away. Dr. Benn orders Shiro to stop her and he gives chase.
Are you ready for a puppet chase scene? I hope so, because here it comes!
The Star Fleet puppets are, like a lot of puppets, ill-suited for running but the combination of the puppeteer’s very best efforts, the music from Paul Bliss, and the back projection technique make for an enjoyable, if not entirely successful, sequence.
They come to an airlock area. There’s a cool Star Trek-looking thing on the wall, possibly made out of biscuit trays, drawer handles, and the ubiquitous model parts.
Shiro catches up to Lamia at the very moment she reaches this door. What was she going to do? Fling herself out the airlock?
Lamia bursts into tears. Shiro tell her to stop blubbering, but in a very gentle, nice way.
Lamia asks Shiro to let her go. She says that he knows she is the F-01 and if she sacrifices herself, the Imperial Alliance will leave the Solar System in peace. It’s a heartfelt sentiment.
Shiro counters that this is “crazy talk” because she isn’t the F-01. This seems like an unstable foundation for an argument because it’s obviously POSSIBLE that Lamia is the F-01.
Lamia brushes this off pretty easily, so Shiro moves on to a better point. The crew of X Bomber will never sacrifice anyone to the enemy. Lamia, he reasons, is a part of Star Fleet Command. His tone implies that she is on their team and must stand and fight rather than give herself over willingly.
Lamia is touched by this, and the scene ends with her bowing her head in a pose of humility she will return to constantly.
The bad guys have not slowed their approach while this personnel issue was addressed and they are now 10 militons away.
Dr. Benn, at last, orders the engines switched on. Hopefully those repairs conducted in haste by under qualified personnel will hold out.
As X Bomber lifts off, Paul Bliss’ heroic theme comes crashing back in. After a heavy episode full of dialogue, emotional revelations, and tension building, this return to action is a huge relief.
Hercules is back in his element, and Lee is feeling timid despite his earlier enthusiasm.
The termoids inform Makara of the news that the “battlecruiser” has taken off from the moon. Orion is distraught. After all, he shot it down and probably could have destroyed them completely if he hadn’t been in a rush to attack Earth.
Makara is livid and accuses the Earth people of trickery. A funny accusation since in the very last episode she used a hologram to create a devious trick of her own.
The Imperial theme drones on with a heavy beat, but the plucky Star Fleet heroes are moving into position.
As the heroic theme rises up over the bad guy theme, Dr. Benn orders Shiro to “activate.” Presumably, some instruction was given off screen.
Or maybe he decided to just throw the lever marked X Impulse? If it was this obvious, how come none of them knew what it was when Benn was describing it earlier? More study is clearly required.
The X Impulse is a spectauclar effect, achieved via cell animation over top of the film footage or some other kind of rotoscoping. The results are beautiful and only slightly undermined by the lip burbling sound effect.
Of course, there is absolutely no attempt to explain how this tech works. Out of all X Bomber’s weapons, X Impulse is the least explained. It comes from the ship and it seems to be a blast of pure energy, but how could that possibly work? It’s a mystery to me, and presumably to Commander Makara too.
Makara has never seem the like and is blinded by the light. Her crew doesn’t have a chance to react and they are hit full force.
As the Impulse hits the battlecruiser, the whole thing glows blue and then explosions breakout all over the ship, leaving Makara and Orion in shock. The giant ship careens wildly.
PPA, unseen for awhile, reappears to celebrate what appears to be an immediate victory.
Shiro, a bit discombobulated clearly, asks for directions on what new course to set. Dr. Benn helpfully points out that they are on a collision course with Makara’s battlecruiser and that “up” might be a good move.
Despite Benn’s concern, victory music is already playing on the soundtrack. The ships have a narrow miss and Makara orders a full retreat. Retaliation is apparently off the table.
In a final defiant monologue (it’s not clear if this is transmitted or just Makara ranting on the bridge) Makara promises to return and defeat the weak, pathetic defense bases. She seems to dismiss her abrupt defeat as the result of a trick. However, it seems that X Bomber won fair and square when it came down to a showdown.
Presumably, X Bomber is now on 10% power and wouldn’t be able to pursue, but time is up and we go into the final outro narration without any further dialogue.
So here’s where the plot stands according to the narrator. Star Fleet has survived the initial attack, but Makara is going to return. The mystery of F-01 is not solved. What will happen next week?
As usual, I’m going to skip the spoiler loaded preview of next week’s episode.
I hate to disagree, but the mystery of F-01 certainly seems plausibly solved. As I mentioned in my last post, we have only been presented with one possibility for what F-01 might be. BUT this is only episode three and this could all be a red herring. We will have to wait and see.
Find F-01! concludes a loose story arc that began in the first episode. This pattern of threes will continue throughout the show and presumably led to the series being edited into three-episode mini movies for the American VHS market.
Overall, this is the strongest episode of Star Fleet yet. It is short on action, but long on suspense and story. The mystery of F-01 and other dramatic happenings are somewhat undercut by some of the rough edges, but the intrigue is all here. Star Fleet is set up for more adventure next week and the horizons are about to get much, much bigger!
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I just discovered your blog. Super good idea. The episode is well described with analysis and a touch of humor. Very pleasant to read. I'm going to read and watch the first two episodes and can't wait to see what's next. Thank you very much for this excellent work. Ps: I like your remarks which also correspond to the French version except for the names and the music. With us, the makara commander (Gorgonna) is doubled by Madame Annie Balestra. She, too, perfectly managed to match her voice to that of the puppet.