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The Sporting
Kind

Season 2, Episode 2

Episode Details

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

Plot Summary

Our story begins with Rosie and Harlan exploring the planet in search of materials that they can use to repair the Christa. In the course of their explorations, Rosie finds a mysterious little creature that looks sort of like a tiny ostrich with a dog face and donkey ears. Naturally, she decides to make a pet out of it. Immediately afterwards, Harlan and Rosie are attacked by Spung.

Harlan tells Rosie to leave the creature behind, but Rosie brings her new pet back to the Christa secretly. Suzee discovers it, and the two of them learn that the pet is a Rhomby, a creature hunted by the Spung for the psi-inducing properties of its saliva. Shortly after they discover this, two Spung break into the Christa and onto the bridge.

The lead Spung is Amirge, a hunter and nobleman, very different from the Spung we have seen before. He explains that he is in search of Rosie's Rhomby. Rosie tells them that the Rhomby is lost inside the ship. Amirge sets Suzee to the task of finding the Rhomby while he takes the others to play "games" for his amusement until she succeeds. To persuade the crew to play along, he threatens Davenport, who has been shrunk to Lilliputian size.

Amirge binds the crew in inescapable bracelets. If they try to use their powers to escape, their power is transmitted to the others. Radu's escape attempt nearly crushes the others' wrists. Bova's attempt to use his powers shocks the others.

Amirge shrinks Harlan, as he did Davenport, and puts him in a maze to fight against Amirge's "best warrior," his son Kirge, a Spung boy who appears to be about nine years old. But Harlan's martial arts skill proves ineffective against the boy, who has telekinetic powers.

While Harlan runs from Kirge, Rosie escapes from the "inescapable" bracelets by using her brains instead of her powers: she simply slips her tiny hand out of the cuff. Rosie goes back to the Christa to help Suzee find the Rhomby. They realize that Kirge's mental powers come from the Rhomby's saliva, so they catch the Rhomby and Rosie drinks its saliva, just before the Spung capture them. Rosie uses her new psychic powers to overcome the Spung. Harlan and Davenport are returned to normal, but the Spung escape.

Rosie tries to free the Rhomby, but it has grown attached to her and won't go away.

Ongoing Story and Character Developments

  • Rosie likes animals and wants to have a pet.
  • Thelma confirms that the Lumanians (from Episode #13, On the Road to Find Out) did indeed build the Christa. They also built the miniaturizing device that Amirge uses on Davenport and Harlan, so apparently they have a very high technological level.
  • Harlan has significant martial arts skills.

Memorable Lines

Radu: Harlan's right.
Harlan: My two favorite words.

Davenport: (nobly): No, Commander! Don't give in to their threats! I am not important! Don't worry about me!
Goddard: (to Amirge): Your threats don't carry any weight with us. Do your worst.
Davenport: WHAT?!?!? Are you INSANE?!?!?
Goddard: But you said—
Davenport: I was being noble, for pity's sake! I didn't expect you to agree with me!

Rosie: Why are you being so mean to us?
Amirge: <shrug> New planet. New friends. I've got a little time to kill.

Rosie: Well then what are we waiting for? We can use the Rhomby spit to… to…
Rosie & Suzee: "Ew!"

Amirge: The annoying one is gone!
Tongo (Amirge's servant): No sir, I'm still here.
Amirge: Not you, Tongo, the red-faced annoying one.

Kirge: I have no choice.
Harlan: You always have a choice.
Kirge: No, I don't!
Harlan: Yes, you do!
Kirge: No, I don't!
Harlan: No, you don't!
Kirge: Yes, I do!

Glitches

  • The language issue: When Goddard asks Radu to listen for people nearby, Radu hears the hunters. The Spung should be speaking their own language, since they are speaking to each other and have no reason to believe anyone is listening to them. If so, then Radu should either know that they are Spung, or should not understand what they are saying. Radu understands the conversation, but doesn't mention that the hunters are Spung.
  • The ambush formation: When they initially line up, they are in this order (back to front): 1) Thelma, 2) Radu, 3) Goddard and Harlan, 4) Bova. When Amirge and Tongo walk in, they are in this order: 1) Thelma, 2) Goddard, 3) Bova, Radu and Harlan. There is only a second between the two shots, and Radu and Harlan do not appear to be moving forward.
  • Radu's strength and the bracelets: Radu was using his full strength to pull away from the central post. I would expect that once he stopped pulling, there would have been some degree of backlash, his arm should have snapped back. Instead, when Radu decides to stop fighting it, he just kind of shrugs and puts his arm back down. It made the bracelets look fake.
  • At the end of the show, when the Spung ship leaves, Bova looks to his right while everyone else follows the ship from left to right. (See picture at right) (Peter David explains: "There's just something about Bova that makes him a bit of a rugged individualist. Remember, this is the guy who walked out on the big dance finale in 'Who Goes Where'. When the ship took off, he probably just found something to look at that was more interesting.")

Trivia, Inside Jokes and References

  • Marcel Jeannin appears as Spung hunter Amirge. He also played the Lumanian in On the Road to Find Out, Warlord Geoff in Homeward Bound, and the Ruzzlian Official in Trouble with Doubles, and appeared in the original, unaired pilot. Peter David has referred to him as the show's "unofficial 10th cast member."
  • These Spung looked very different from the Spung we saw last season. Their tails are smaller, almost undetectable, and their feet are small enough to fit into normal boots (both Elmira and Shank had enormous feet similar to their hands).
  • When Amirge challenges Harlan, Harlan says that the Spung can't keep up with a "Band on the run" -- the title of a song by Paul McCartney and the Wings.
  • 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. One of their songs is The Lumanian Love Song. (information provided by Oyahisu)
  • Harlan's interchange with Kirge, quoted in the Memorable Lines section, is typical of Warner Brothers cartoons, particularly Bugs Bunny.

Unanswered Questions

  • None discovered.

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 July 5, 1997.