The Lord of Time
An alternative title for this episode might be "Honey, I Shrunk the Sagar Tree." Admittedly, this isn't one of the Dragon's favorite episodes, because it stretches credibility a bit too far (though not as far as "Lightning City of the Clouds") and because it's also one of two episodes in which Mara does not appear; the other is "Tree of Evil."
The plot, such as it is, involves a plot by Kadray, the badly-dressed Lord of Time, to regress the Sagar Tree into an embryonic chestnut, which will then be roasted over an open fire, in this case the Fountain of Fire. Ah, Blackstar is so wonderfully literal with its place-names, like He-Man is with its characters (i.e. Stinkor, Snout Spout, etc.), but at least He-Man had the excuse of Mattel product placements. Apparently tossing the Sagar acorn into the Fountain of Fire will restore the fountain as the source of evil it was in ancient times, but we suspect that Kadray simply can't stand the sight of seven sunburned little guys with a really cool bachelor pad.
You would think the Trobbits would get the idea that maybe they should, you know, hide the Sagar acorn instead of just standing there with it, waiting for Kadray to do a flyby aerial pickup. Alas, no, none of them has the necessary brainstorm, and our fashion nightmare Kadray flies off with the goods.
Of course, getting rid of the Tree means the Trobbits will have to find a new mailing address, which they apparently do anyway, since the last act of the Time Sceptre is to regenerate it on the spot instead of taking back to its original valley. Sagarese zoning regulations are apparently very lenient in this regard.
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| Kadray and his Pimp-from-Hell wardrobe |
| Storm: Here's drooling over you, loverboy! |
Blackstar is extremely busy in this episode, doing battle against a one-eyed porker of a T-Rex with the help of Storm, an Amazon queen who resembles Captain Janeway on Acid (no kidding, the Filmation art department forgot to give this chick pupils). Where did he meet this little hottie, we wonder?
There's a cool aerial battle between Warlock and Triton, Kadray's flying bull, mirrored by some brief but interesting aerial wrangling between Blackstar and Kadray. Filmation's idea of alien creatures in this series usually involves slapping bat wings on sharks, ram's heads on bird bodies, and so forth. None of this is very convincing in the originality department, but for all that he's basically a bull with wings, Triton is actually rather cool. He doesn't put in much of an appearance, but for his big scene with Warlock (who generally has all the personality of a cardboard box) he's quite a match. Too bad he's frozen so quickly; he's far more menacing than the overweight T-Rex Kadray dedges up from the bowels of Sagarese evolution or the pack of hyenas that gang up on poor Warlock, who has to be rescued by Blackstar. You mean to tell us a Dragon that breathes fire is completely incapable of defending himself?
In the aerial battle department, there's also an interesting chase sequence between Blackstar and a giant flying insect, who began this episode in one of the series' sappy wildlife opening shots. The animators don't show you what ultimately happens to the Fly From Hell, but we're guessing one of three scenarios occurred: a. Blackstar found a giant flyswatter or b. a jumbo can of Raid or c. the unfortunate insect, who after all was just doing what giant insects do, had an encounter with a giant windshield.
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Kadray has a bad habit of regressing things. The desert sprites who control access to the Fountain of Fire are peaceful folk who don't want to cooperate with him (well, would you go along with a guy that badly dressed?), but they were once warlike. One wave of the Time Sceptre sends them back down the food chain, and they're all too willing to tussle with our heroes. On the other hand, Kadray is known to speed up evolution, eroding a mountainside onto Blackstar's head and aging poor Storm right before Our Hero's horrified eyes. Now if anything's guaranteed to kill a guy's libido, this is it. He'll never look at her quite the same way again, we think. |
At some point, Kadray goes a bit too far with his Time Sceptre and ends up in swaddling clothes. The baby Time Lord is just so adorable in his black leather diapers, though it's a shame the unwitting desert sprites get stuck raising him. They didn't ask for any of this trouble, why stick them with eighteen years of it?
Well, look at it this way: maybe they'll reeducate him on the importance of good color coordination and fashion accessorizing, though they aren't exactly sharp dressers themselves. |
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In spite of the wall-to-wall action (even the Trobbits get in on the act, with Balkar trying to wrestle the Sagar acorn from Kadray's grasp), Blackstar's endless one-liners make this an excruiating episode to listen to. There are more bad jokes about time and time-keeping than you'll ever want to hear in twenty minutes, and results in our giving this episode a marginal ** In fact, the only quip he doesn't make is "It takes a licking and keeps on ticking," unless we missed something.
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