In
“The Freedom Balloon,” Flash and Dale are captured by mutants, led by the evil
Racar. Fortunately, Flash has been watching history tapes about cowboys and westerns at the library in Arboria
and knows just the ticket to escape enslavement: a hot air balloon.
In
“Sacrifice of the Volcano Men,” Thun is captured by vicious ape men and taken
to Volcano City. There, he is to be fed to the active volcano as a living sacrifice
to the ape man God.
Only
two more episodes of Flash Gordon (1979-1982) to go, but
the second season has more than worn out its welcome by this time.
These fifteen minute stories are hobbled by
hoary narratives, and rendered dopey by the ubiquitous presence of
trouble-prone sidekick, Gremlin. Worse,
Flash acts more like first season Buck Rogers (Gil Gerard) than like his dependable,
stolid self in this batch of episodes. He has a wise crack for every scenario, every danger.
I
don’t know what it is about Saturday morning shows and hot air balloons, but
every 1970s series -- from Land of the Lost (1974-1977) to Valley
of the Dinosaurs (1974) -- seems to feature an episode about one. “The Freedom Balloon” is Flash Gordon’s
version.
The big question to ask here is
why Flash is watching library tapes about Westerns on Arboria, a kingdom on
distant Mongo…
The
second story in this half-hour is just as clichéd as the first. Thun is captured so as to be
a sacrifice to a volcano God. That is
also the plot of “An Act of Love,” a 1977 episode of The Fantastic Journey.
I
suppose one could make the argument that Flash Gordon season two is attempting
to function as a pastiche of 1930s serials, reviving old tropes like The Most
Dangerous Game, or the volcano god. But
the stories are told without flair and without regard to context.. They are without any sort of fresh
touch at all, and feel long, even for their brief length.
.
Next
week: “Beware of Gifts” / “The Memory Bank of Ming”
John interesting review of these simplistic Flash Gordon episodes. The westerns made me think Mongo received signals from Earth television broadcasts and recorded them.
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