This episode was written by Michael J. Reeves and is the Dragon's choice for the best episode of the series (a tie with "City of the Ancient Ones"). It is also the spookiest Saturday morning cartoon episode she has ever seen; there are moments when the soundtrack, which is usually blaring with the hyper-caffeinated main theme or the standard Filmation background music, utterly stops to freak you out with the silence.
It's also one of the few episodes that starts in media res, in the middle of a battle between Blackstar, the Overlord and Klone. Our heroes escape, but the Overlord, miffed at being foiled yet again, vows they can never escape his forces, wherever they go. And that's basically the premise of the episode: Blackstar and Klone get lost in a freak storm and end up at the Sagar Tree on Acid. The Starsword gets tangled up in some mutant vines, Blackstar makes time with a spunky underage wood sprite and Klone gets an evil....well, clone of himself.
Apparently Reeves must have felt Klone was an underused character, because "Tree of Evil" is really his episode. Right from the beginning, we get some nifty transformations from our resident shapeshifter, and Klone is actually quite fearless in standing up to the Overlord. Later, he confesses his exhaustion and the fact that sometimes he gets tired of being a hero. Of course, that's just the tip of the iceberg, because after he gets captured by one of the mutant pods, his double leads Blackstar into a deadly trap and shows us what a misanthropic bastard he can really be.
How our heroes managed to lose all sense of direction, even with that thick fog, is a bit of a stretch, but then this episode is chockful of horror movie conventions. As for the Tree of Evil actually fooling anybody....well, the animal skull decorations and spooky sound effects (pictured, lower left) should have been a big clue. Klone notices right away, of course, but he's only the sidekick and who listens to him? It seems the Overlord's interior decorators went all-out on this one, but after all that effort Blackstar doesn't even notice! You gotta know something's wrong when the tacky rainbow and flock of geese are nowhere in sight, and Balkar doesn't say anything to you, just beckons you to come in a very horror movie-type way.
Once inside, the doors slam shut, the floor turns into a giant pothole that swallows our heroes and mutant vines grab the Starsword. All in all, Blackstar and Klone are having a very bad day.
Blackstar's concern that his companion might actually be tired after being airborne for several hours adds a nice touch of character, but does he really need to refer to a rest break as a "pitstop?" Like Klone is really going to understand the cultural reference.
Watch closely and you'll see that the evil Trobbits as doubles aren't of the same quality as the evil Klone, who looks and behaves for the most part like the original. You may also notice that the Tree of Evil isn't an exact copy of the Sagar Tree either, which leads us back to that earlier question: how could our heroes possibly be fooled?
Delia says the forest once belonged to her and the other wood sprites, and that so far she's been able to avoid the pods. So exactly how long as the Tree of Evil been sitting there waiting for our heroes to stumble onto it? Is this something the Overlord whipped up on a lark, or is it one of his ongoing horticultural projects? You know, an evil little garden to keep him amused while he dreams up yet more convoluted plans to get the Starsword away from Blackstar.
The Tree's evil version of the Seven Dwarves is just a prelude to the ultimate horror: an evil Blackstar. Klone shows his true mettle by lifting Blackstar over his head and hurling him into one of the evil Body Snatcher pods. Something we've all wanted to do, right? And only then does Blackstar realize what deep shit he's in; you may want to bitchslap him a few times when he sputters to Klone: "You're...you're one of those pod people." Brilliant deduction, John. Too bad the rest of us figured it out ten minutes earlier.
The idea of the heartwood being the key to defeating the Tree of Evil is an interesting one, but it seems like an awfully big leap of logic for Blackstar to make without some prior knowledge of how the real Sagar Tree works; it would have made far more sense coming from Balkar. Are we to assume that Blackstar is winging it here, or does he actually have some sort of mental blueprint of the Tree?
The final showdown is cool, and although the evil Blackstar doesn't come with the tacky one-liners you may actually find yourself rooting for him and wondering how much fun the series might have been had he won. In fact, we think the Overlord's version of our heroes beats the real one; you never saw them look so good. We think our heroes ought to move into the Tree of Evil mirrorverse ASAP.
Sad to say, Blackstar's libido doesn't get much exercise in this episode. Delia has a childlike quality about her, from her delicate frame to Erika Scheimer's pixie-like voice, and she seems to have an obvious preference for Balkar (pictured, below)
