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Season 1, Episode 13

Episode Details

Plot Summary | Ongoing Story and Character Developments
Unanswered Questions | Memorable Lines | Glitches
Trivia, Inside Jokes and References | NotePAD

Plot Summary

The Christa suddenly lurches out of control, rushing to the rescue of a sister ship that has been attacked by Warlord Shank and the Spung killcruiser K'zata. The sister ship, identical to the Christa, has destroyed the K'zata, but only at the cost of nearly being destroyed herself. Cmdr. Goddard realizes that this other ship may provide them with vital information about the Christa, so he takes Harlan, Catalina and Radu to check out the other ship while Bova, Rosie and Davenport stay behind to mind the Christa.

The sister ship is completely trashed. None of the systems are online. Weapons are lying about, completely energy depleted. Our heroes go in search of the ship's crew. But in the shadows, a Spung warrior is watching them.

Radu finds Elmira in the command post. She is barely conscious, raving that she can't "see" any more. Radu takes her back to the Christa to treat her while the others continue to explore. Goddard finds a ship's log and Thelma transfers it back to the Christa to be read.

Radu never makes it back to the Christa with Elmira. He is shot with a tranquilizer dart and knocked out. Thelma is also disabled by a tranquilizer dart to her memory crystal.

Harlan and Catalina find a cargo hold, which is also trashed. But in the cargo hold, they find a map of the jump tube network. Harlan realizes that the map reveals things they have not seen on the Christa, additional levels that they may not have found yet.

Catalina and Harlan are also tranquilized, and we finally see that the Spung attacking our heroes is none other than Warlord Shank. As Harlan regains consciousness, Radu tells him that it is impossible to escape. Shank questions Harlan, threatening to torture Catalina with his electric scepter if Harlan does not tell Shank about the ship's weapons systems.

Back on the Christa, Rosie has cracked into the sister ship's log. She plays back a message from a bird-like Lumanian, who reveals that Spung are loose on the ship and it is set to explode. Ms. Davenport, Bova and Rosie go to the sister ship to warn their crewmates.

Harlan spouts a lot of nonsense technobabble to divert Warlord Shank. Shank doesn't get a word of it, but pretends he understands it all, and leaves them. Harlan and Radu realize that Shank thinks this ship is the Christa. They have to escape quickly to prevent Shank from getting the Christa. Harlan promptly frees himself from the inescapable bindings.

Shank finds Goddard, but is out of tranquilizers. They battle, electric scepter to scrap metal, but Goddard steps on Shank's foot and gets away, Shank limping after.

Shank finds Davenport, Rosie and Bova. He uses his electric scepter on them, but Bova just zaps it right back at him and they escape.

The crew gradually reunite. Davenport tells Goddard that the ship is about to explode, and they head back to the Christa.

Shank finds Elmira. Furious with her for defying him, he reveals that she is his daughter. Elmira escapes. Cat and Harlan find her and take her back to the airlock, but Shank grabs Cat just as the sister ship closes the airlock door. The Christa breaks away, as the sister ship explodes with Catalina on board, while Harlan pounds on the airlock door, screaming.

The crew mourns the loss of Catalina, when they hear a stranger apparently talking to Catalina. The stranger says that Cat is alive, and doesn't understand why they can't see Cat. Then it all becomes clear: the stranger is Suzee, and Catalina is in her dimension!

Ongoing Story and Character Developments

  • The Christa was apparently built by a bird-like race known as the Lumanians.
  • Elmira is the daughter of Warlord Shank.
  • Harlan apparently has deeper feelings for Catalina than he had previously revealed.
  • Suzee thinks Harlan is cute.
  • Catalina is able to speak to Suzee in a parallel dimension because her brain waves are in tune on the exact same sonic vibrational frequency as Catalina's.
  • Suzee is real.

Memorable Lines

Shank: Oh, good. More friends to chat with.

Shank: Spung do not question Andromedans. Spung enslave Andromedans. Besides, Earthers are easier to interrogate.

Rosie: We're not afraid of you. We laugh at threats of torture. Don't we, Ms. Davenport?
Davenport: (laughs weakly): That's not really the point, dear.

Bova: 20,000 volts? Baby food!

Shank: I'm warning you…
Davenport: No! I am warning you! Now you have two choices: either zap me with that cattle prod, or get out of my way.
Shank: Very well. If those are my only two choices… (powers up weapon)
Davenport: Did I say two? I meant a few. Hundred, perhaps.

Goddard: We have to be brave. She would have wanted that.
Harlan: What she would have wanted is to live. What she would have wanted is for me to stop picking on her, to be nice to her, to know how much … how much I liked her.

GlitchesRadu's Short Hair

  • One little nit to pick: Radu's hair is conveniently short when he's carrying Elmira. I suppose they're using the wig that was cut short for the jester's costume in The Impossible Dram, because it would be difficult to carry a person and manipulate all that hair at the same time [I speak from experience - Tracey]. They do a nice job of hiding its absence with camera angles until he falls, but when he's on the ground, you can see he has short hair. (See picture at right.)

Trivia, Inside Jokes and References

  • The episode title is the title of a Cat Stevens song.
  • The body of Suzee at the end of the episode was provided by Jewel Staite, who played Catalina. The voice was originally provided by another actress. After Rebecca Herbst was cast, the scene was looped (redubbed) with Becky's voice. (information provided by Peter David).
  • As has been mentioned here several times, the Lumanians, the race that built the Christa, is a gag on Bill Mumy's band, Barnes & Barnes, best known for the song Fish Heads. The characters that they play as members of this band are Art (Mumy) and Artie (Robert Haimer) Barnes, the Lumanians. The Lumanian is played by Marcel Jeannin, who appeared as Spung hunter Amirge in The Sporting Kind, Warlord Geoff in Homeward Bound, and the Ruzzlian Official in Trouble with Doubles, and in the original, unaired pilot.
  • Radu says that they have been tied up with castroginium cables. I am informed that this made-up substance was used in the classic Trek episode Balance of Terror.
  • the spung wore tennis shoesThe Spung Wore Tennis Shoes - "Here's a picture of George Takei in full Spung makeup except for footwear. It was taken on the last day of shooting of the first season of Space Cases. George actually had finished all his shooting for that episode, but was on the set to do the scenes that were stuck into an earlier episode. Since his feet didn't show, there was no need to wear anything else." - Rich Kolker [Special thanks to Rich Kolker for this Behind the Scenes photo of George Takei as Warlord Shank. Rich Kolker is also responsible for the original story behind the second season episode Runaway.]
  • The bit where Harlan uses technobabble on Warlord Shank was also used on a Next Generation episode. I think it was Rascals, where Picard and others are turned into children and Ferengi take over the Enterprise. I haven't seen that episode in quite a while, so I'm not sure how much of that scene was reproduced here. But I remember the Ferengi had much the same reaction that Warlord Shank did.
  • When the cast was filming the sequence in the cargo bay, where Catalina is struck by the knock-out dart from Shank, there was an outtake. As Catalina's sinking to the floor, Harlan turns, sees her, and shouts in alarm, "Jewel!" Walter didn't even realize he'd done it until the director yelled "Cut" and everyone started laughing. (Information provided by Peter David)
  • Rumor has it that the tears shed by the crew at the end of this episode were real; that the actors were crying over the departure of Jewel Staite, who played Catalina.
  • Included here is John Milton's "On His Blindness", the poem that Davenport was quoting from. [1/13/1998 - RLR ]

Unanswered Questions

  1. What was Shank up to, that he burned out Elmira's precognitive abilities?
  2. Does the Christa have the weapons that the other ship does, and the additional levels?
  3. How will Cat get back again?
  4. Did Warlord Shank survive? (Yes, he did, as we heard in New Places, New Faces; but he is worse for wear, as we saw in A Friend In Need)

NotePAD
(Notes from co-creator Peter A. David)

  • None available at this time.

Episode Details provided by Tracey Rich.
This page was last updated on January 13, 1998.