Saturday, October 07, 2006

SATURDAY MORNING CULT TV BLOGGING: Flash Gordon: "The Frozen World"

This week on Filmation's Flash Gordon, we have Chapter 8: "The Frozen World." Flash, Baron and Zarkov are hatching plans to unseat Ming (while Dale dutifully brings them tea...). The group realizes that the rebellion will need huge quantities of fuel to power their fighters, in particular, Orium. Prince Barin notes that Orium can be found in large quantities in the kingdom run by his cousin, Fria. It's called "Fridgia," and it is at Mongo's North Pole.

Flash, Dale, Zarkov and Thun head off in a leaf fighter (evading Ming's forces...) to meet Fria and request her help. Once again, Fria is a beautiful woman and Dale gets jealous (Hey, didn't that also happen with Queen Undina?) Anyway, Flash tells Fria that "the time is coming when the people of Mongo will rise up." Fascinated by the Earthling, Fria escorts Flash on a tour of her snow castle and informs the delegation that "ice itself" is the building block of her culture. She also tells Flash that he will find the "pleasures" in the city to his liking. Translation: she may live in Fridgia, but the Queen's not frigid.

Anyway, one of Fria's suitors, Count Mallow (That's Marsh Mallow, to you...) grows angry over Fria's attentive attitude towards Flash and attempts to kill Dale and Flash while they're swimming in a pool. Later, Flash rescues Mallow from a giant ice worm, and Mallow recants his evil ways. Unfortunately, before everyone can kiss and make up, Mallow, Dale, Zarkov and Thun are captured by a race of giants, and Flash and Fria are buried in an avalanche.

To be continued...

"The Frozen World" re-uses some footage we've seen before in Flash Gordon. The lair of the giants is actually the headquarters of the Beast Men from an earlier chapter. It wouldn't be so noticeable except that Fridgia is all icy blue, and the Beast Man mountain is desert red and orange. Oopsy.

Some other fun facts from this episode: Thun lets us know that "worry" is the natural state of the lion men. And also, Zarkov points out Sol, Earth's sun, to Dale, during the voyage to Fridgia. It looks very, very far away...

If you're keeping tabs, so far Flash has united The Hawkmen, Barin's Arboria, the Lion Men, the underwater kingdom of Undina, and now he's added Fridgia to the list. It's his own coalition of the willing to stop that despotic dictator, Ming.

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