In
“Return of the Creature,” Jason of Star Command (Craig
Littler) encounters the Gill-Man from Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954).
No,
I’m just kidding.
In this episode, Jason,
Nicole (Susan O’Hanlon) and Parsafoot (Charlie O’Dell) have been delivered to
Dragos (Sid Haig) on his Dragonship.
There, Jason escapes, and encounters the monster with an
electrically-charged tongue from a few episodes back. He defeats it and rescues his friends.
Meanwhile,
Dragos re-programs Peepo, the kindly little robotn from the Academy, and re-wires his circuits so
he will turn against Star Command. At
the same time, Dragos spawns a galactic typhoon, and Star Command falls into
its gravitational pull.
Well,
“Return of the Creature” is a pretty dire entry in the first season of Jason
of Star Command (1979-1980).
When this series is at its worst, it is simply a series of escapes,
rescues and more escapes.
That’s what “Return of the Creature” is. It consists of a lot of Jason running down cave-like corridors, escaping from monsters and guards, and rescuing his friends. That’s pretty much it. The whole story is filler until we get to a significant plot turn or point.
Commendably,
the returning monster (or creature, per the title), still looks pretty
good. The stop-motion animation is strong,
particularly in its coordination with the live-action elements of the
action. We learn that the monster is one
of Drago’s energy clones this time, and the special effects are good as Jason
destroys it. The production values of this series never fail to impress. Just some entries are narratively empty, from time to time. And "Return of the Creature" is one of those times.
"Return of the Creature" fast-moving filler, a place holder until the next big story
pivot point. We should be getting that
soon, with poor Peepo getting brainwashed by the evil Dragos.
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