X Bomber Goes Forth - Part Two
Let the Adventure Continue
After a short hiatus due to illness, we’re back for part two of this episode! The Martian Fleet has just assembled to face the threat of Commander Makara and, between you and I, I don’t give much for their chances.
This guy is the leader of the human resistance and his courage is only matched by the odds against him. Let the battle commence!
As the EDF fighters swoop into battle, X Bomber is scrambling to launch. Shiro, Hercules, and Lee are running thanks to our old friend back projection. The heroic tunes are courtesy of composer Paul Bliss, whose work continues to be a highlight.
Shiro arrives at the bridge to remind Dr. Benn that there was still five hours to go before the launch of X Bomber’s cosmic mission to track down the sailing ship that hailed Lamia in episode five. Don’t they even get time to pack?
No, they don’t. 1 Benn’s new orders are to defend the quadrant from Commander Makara and the original mission is now on hold. Shiro is worried that this means the Skull is gone forever, but PPA is initiating pre-launch checks. The time to worry is later, the time to launch is now.
Lamia enters the bridge to report that the astrofighters of Mars are “being annihilated.”
Despite being a relatively brief sequence, this battle is utterly brutal. Orion reports there are no surviving EDF fighters. Meanwhile, the Alliance does not appear to have suffered a single casualty. Talk about devastation.
This time, Makara is turning Orion loose on Earth. No more beating around the bush. It’s time to bring the humans to their knees!
The only hope of our blue planet is five seconds away from launching.
And launch she does! The beautiful X Bomber is GO thanks to some stock footage from previous episodes.
General Kyle is on the line with the sad news of the Martian defeat. But the calvary is on the way now.
Orion arrives back on Makara’s bridge in a shaky handheld shot to report in an equally shaky delivery that X Bomber has launched. This is partially actor Sean Barrett conveying Orion’s nervousness, but mainly a side effect of trying to fit the dialogue into the puppets mouth movements.
For this encounter, Dr. Benn orders Hercules to be ready with the “laser blast” weapon, which involves arcing the spaceship’s “neck” to reveal a twin barreled canon underneath. The enemy is a near… “900 millitons” away.
But the devious Makara has no plans to engage. Just as the two ships are closing, she orders Orion to retreat. This is much to his confusion.
Shiro is equally baffled. Hercules offers to loose a torpedo as a parting gift, but Benn suspects something is up and calls a halt to that. “We should avoid any conflict,” he argues before giving the order to retreat as well.2 Hercules reckons it was a “lucky break– for those guys!”
So, the crew prepare to return to their original mission. Both battleships leave the scene without having fired a shot. What’s going on?
A puzzled General Kyle is glad the danger is over for now. Meanwhile, Dr. Benn is anxious to go Skull chasing.
Apparently, there is a faint sensor trail left behind by the spacefaring sailing ship that is rapidly fading. The X Bomber crew will lose their only clue to the whereabouts of the Skull. “We cannot lose any more time,” Benn tells his boss.
This is odd for a couple reasons. For one, if spaceships in the X Bomber universe leave behind a sensor trail, this would have made tracking Makara to her Jupiter base easy. While it was simple, it was presented as an intuition of Dr. Benn, not as a technical achievement.
Second, if this trace is vanishing forever, why were the crew allowed an additional five hours before the arrival of Makara’s ship forced them to launch? Surely if there was some urgency they would have launched right away?
With minimal coordination, Benn and Kyle are on the same page. They conclude that if X Bomber moves off, Makara will follow, leaving Earth safe and X Bomber in the hot seat. Previous arguments that the Earth would be left defenseless are cast aside, despite the fact that they are now short an entire space fleet.
Kyle is more concerned about the danger faced by X Bomber, but Dr. Benn admits they are all getting used to the risk.
With that, Kyle offers his thanks and rings off.
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As the Imperial Alliance theme plays them out, X Bomber ventures into the unknown.
Although X Bomber is no democracy, I’d have expected the crew to have made some comments at this point. We’ll have to wait for more of that.
Orion the Ever-Confused can’t help but notice that X Bomber is heading out into deep space instead of back to Moon Base.
This is just what Makara was counting on.
According to her, this was all a tactic to get X Bomber away from Earth. But to what end? “We will follow X Bomber to its grave,” she tells her subordinate as the Imperial Fleet launches.
Dr. Benn orders a course correction. They are now headed towards Jupiter.
”Be nice to see Jupiter again,” Lee says, perhaps hoping that this time he won’t be used for target practice.
As the ship is set for hyper speed “steady as she goes,” Dr. Benn tells Lamia to go rest. Why she would need to rest isn’t clear. Perhaps events take place at a much faster rate than it would seem on screen.
Nevertheless, she gets up to go to bed. Lee creepily wishes her “sweet dreams–” a comment which doesn’t elicit a response.
Ignoring any potential HR issues, Dr. Benn pulls up a chart of the Skull’s course on the main viewer. At the end of the trail, they lose track and will be forced “to rely on our own instincts.”
Benn thinks their chances of success are very slim so all their skills will be much needed. As they’re being tracked by the enemy (does Makara know that they know?) they will be on a continuous red alert.
Shiro wonders about the safety of the Earth. What will happen to the homeworld now that X Bomber isn’t there to defend it? Benn has no answers, only his opinion that the Alliance is more interested in the Skull. Hardly comforting words, but he hasn’t been wrong yet.
Hercules calls the Skull a “pirate ship” and wonders what they are after. Lee thinks it’s a “date” with Lamia, prompting Hercules to wonder if Lamia could be F-01.
Dr. Benn urges Hercules not to speculate as this could be feeding a delusion. Lee, who was the one connecting the dots, is left off the hook.
In his own defense, Hercules notes that the situation is very strange. John Lee wants to know why Lamia went out to meet the Skull. Benn, true to form, has no idea but suggests that their new mission will likely bring them to the truth.
Shiro silently speculates that the Skull was the ship that brought Lamia to Mars as a baby. He slips into a daydream.
An alarm snaps him out of it. He yells out in the hope of deflecting attention from the fact that he was clearly not at red alert.
Over the radio, Makara orders Orion to attack. Her guess is that this will draw out the Skull and force them to aid X Bomber. This is a dangerous game if Lamia is the F-01. According to earlier episodes, the destruction of F-01 would be bad news for the Alliance. Regardless, loose canon Orion is on the case.
As pulsing arpeggios emerge from Paul Bliss’ synth, we get a pile of stock footage from episode one.
Since single pilot fighters are used, the X Bomber crew resort to turret lasers.
Reasoning that they are out numbered, Benn orders Lee to try some evasive maneuvers.3 He's learned from his mistakes!
PPA’s battlefield panic is returning. He begins reiterating the Doctor’s orders. Lee, usually the nervous one, is uncharacteristically calm.
Shiro reports that the enemy is giving chase and Benn decides to use the laser blast.
Makara cackles that X Bomber is on course for destruction. But what could she mean?
We don’t have long to wait now. Lee’s controls have gone haywire!
PPA appears to go insane. His voice has changed and he is babbling cheerful greetings that have no bearing on the present situation. What’s gone wrong?
“The tin can has flipped his lid,” Hercules observes with traditional frankness.
Dr. Benn has lost all control at his command station. In the confusion, he orders Shiro to switch to manual. A horrifying danger is engulfing the ship and the ‘X Bomber in distress’ cue is blaring on the soundtrack.
The ship pitches right to left and appears to be plummeting downwards.
Benn orders Shiro to get the ship back on course, but an ominous blackness ahead of them reveals that this may be impossible.
“A BLACK HOLE! STRAIGHT AHEAD!” Dr. Benn cries. They try to fire astro burners, but our heroes are sucked in even further.
Scientific accuracy always takes a back seat to stylistic flourish in X Bomber and this event horizon is no exception. The blackness in space emerges as a lightning-spewing, greenish-bluish whirlpool of terror rather than something more boring and factual. It’s some of the series most haunting and terrifying imagery for viewers young and old.
X Bomber hurtles into the darkness in an epic shot that would be utilized in the title sequence on French TV.4
“Once in the void, we’ll never get out!” Dr. Benn declares. Shiro has lost all control, even on manual.
The world of the black hole is a gothic horror story waiting to happen. Lightning crackles and flashes all over the place. A thick cloud of smoke hangs over everything. Never mind that in a real black hole X Bomber would simply be crushed.
Dr. Benn urges Shiro to fire burners before it is too late but before you can say “it was too late five minutes ago,” it’s too late.
X Bomber collides with a meteorite!
Benn and Shiro are knocked unconscious (good thing for that helmet!) and X Bomber is left helpless in an outer space graveyard. For this weekly cliffhanger, we do not get to see any of the other crew being rendered senseless. Presumably they are all fine.
“Get out of there, if you can X Bomber!” Makara gloats. Now that they are out of action, nothing can stop Makara from finding F-01. Of course, if Lamia IS F-01 then she is trapped along with X Bomber. It was still a good plan. Makara didn’t even let Orion know that her true purpose was to drive X Bomber into this abyss.
The concluding words from Peter Marinker’s narrator warn us that this is a black hole– better known as a “graveyard of space.” This is a totally different approach to other sci-fi black holes and one that holds a lot of appeal.
For one thing, lots of cool space junk! For another, the foggy atmosphere may be scientifically inaccurate5 but it is a wild and exciting setting for a story. I can't wait to see what Dr. Benn’s plan is to escape next week!
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This might explain why everybody in this damn TV show always wears the same clothes every single day.
He ignores the fact that the Alliance just wiped out the entire Martian fleet. Avoiding conflict is obviously not a real option.
Historically, this would be Shiro’s job but as he is occupied with weapons, Lee takes over from his own station.
The French version of the show: personally I prefer to have the fall into the black hole as a surprise.
It should also be noted that X Bomber was headed to deep space when it was attacked by Commander Makara. According to the dialogue, they had not yet reached Jupiter, yet they fell into this space phenomenon that is FILLED with non-human space junk. If this were a black hole as defined by science, it would technically be a collapsed star and thus unlikely to be inside of a solar system ruled by another star. If it isn’t, how come it is so full of alien technology? Wouldn’t Star Fleet High Command know something about this unusual area of space in their own sector? We’ll get more information next week.