The Gauntlet

Episode Number: 33
Official Number: 211
Production Number: 212

First Aired Week of: January 18, 1999
Written By: Alan Levy
Directed By: Bill Gereghty

Lili, Liam, and a Jaridian are trapped on a ship from hell. Da'an calls for the impeachment of Zo'or.

Guest Stars: Andrew Jackson as Jaridian

In a Nutshell

Tidbits

Memorable Lines

Plot Points

Questions & Analysis

In a Nutshell...

A captive Jaridian escapes the Taelon labs on the mothership and steals a shuttle with Captain Marquette as a hostage. Kincaid pursues and the all stumble upon a booby trapped Chimera ship. The three must work together to pass dangerous tests to get to the ship's core to deactivate the tractor beam systems (sound familiar?). Liam allows the Jaridian to escape to his home using one of the Taelon shuttles. Meanwhile, Da'an calls for the removal of Zo'or for his violations of Synod rules concerning the contact of Jaridians with humans. Only Da'an stands against Zo'or and Zo'or easily dismisses the trial.

Tidbits

• Mystical Powers of the Week: energy blast, zooming and frequency selective vision, cardiostimulation (notice that the Jaridian didn't need to put a hand on Liam's head unlike Liam saving Augur in A Stitch in Time, memory recall.)
• This marks the first time in a long while that we've seen a CGI Taelon. Most of the Synod members in the background of recent episodes seemed to be people in blue suits.
• Unlike the Taelons, the Jaridians have two sexes.

Memorable Lines

• David Xanatos: It's so hard to program good help these days. (Gargoyles)

• Da'an: Your arrogance is unprecedented....Do you not understand? The damage is already done. (works on so many levels)
  Zo'or: What damage?
  Da'an: When a human being looks into the eyes of a Jaridian, who will he see? The enemy we have portrayed as evil incarnate, or someone more like himself?

Plot Points

• A new lab technician on the mothership is being trained. He is told that the stasis units have been having power fluctuations.
• A stasis unit explodes in the Taelon lab, releasing the Jaridian.
• Augur shows Liam his system for listening into the traffic control system on the Taelon mothership.
• The Jaridian effortlessly makes his way to the shuttlebay without being noticed. (It seems that it would be hard to miss someone dressed in Alien Bubble Wrap.)
• Da'an demands an accounting of all Taelon programs from Zo'or and offers to wait on the bridge while Sandoval compiles the report.
• The Jaridian captures Lili in her shuttle and demands she fly him out of there.
• Liam takes a shuttle to pursue Lili. Sandoval orders the Jaridian's shuttle destroyed as soon as Liam has a targeting lock. Kincaid hesitates firing long enough for Lili's shuttle to go to interdimensional flight.
• The shuttles are pulled off course by a "focused gravitational beam" and pulled into a large alien ship.
• The Jaridian leads Lili off the shuttle. He plans to shut down the beam and take the shuttle to his homeworld, where his people will reverse engineer the interdimensional drive.
• The Jaridian and Lili are forced to wade through waist deep water (Bridge Question #1: If a serpent in a pool of water has already been done in a very successful science fiction movie, do you do it again? The correct answer is obviously "no"). When they are attacked by a strange serpent, the Jaridian hits it with his Shaqarava.
• The Jaridian considers killing Lili because she works for the Taelons. She reacts positively to the idea, thus impressing him by not fearing death. She tells him she fought in a war and lost too many friends to fear death anymore. He assumes she fought the Taelons, and is surprised to hear that a sentient race would kill its own kind. He says that all Jaridians are warriors because the Taelons forced them to be so (Oh, joy... yet another warrior race. How original... yawn).
• Upon hearing of the program involving the Jaridian, Da'an challenges Zo'or's right to violate rules of Jaridian-Human contact set by the Synod. The Synod decreed that humans and Jaridians were not to have any kind of contact with each other in fear that humans may relate more closely to Jaridians than Taelons. Zo'or allowed human scientists to run experiements on the Jaridian captive calling it a necessary measure for their survival.
• Liam crosses the water and also fights the serpant but with his bare hards rather than his all-purpose Shaqarava. He then finds the Jaridian waiting for him. The two most powerful creatures in the universe, both of whom possess the mystical and all-powerful Shaqarava... get into a fistfight! (And a rather pathetic one at that. Max, the chimpanzee demonstrated better fighting skills.) During the fight the Jaridian notices that Liam has Shaqarava. Liam says that he is part Chimera, like the ship.
• Liam explains that the ship is a repository for all the Chimera knowledge, and designed to put its occupants through a series of tests to see if they're worthy of the knowledge. He theorizes that the reason it brought them here against their will is that the programming for the ship is malfunctioning. He suggests going through to the control center to release the shuttles.
• Thus begins: EFC and the Quest for the Holy Repository. Journeying on this noble quest are:
  • Sir Galalili, the Brave and Honorable
  • The Black German Knight Who Says "Die" (pronounced "Dee"), the Brave but Stupid Warrior Cliché
  • and Sir Smirkalot, the not nearly so Brave or Noble or Good or Likable as Sir William Boone (not appearing in this film).
• King Zorthur worries that the escape of the Black Knight will lead to gory bloodshed and a really nasty litigation. He orders Sandavere to hunt the Jaridian himself. Sandavere protests, saying that if he leaves, King Zorthur can no longer travel by coconut... er, horse.
• Newt Da'angrich interrogates King Zorthur regarding his violations of Round Table (Synod) edict, and the effects of those violations.
• Galalili, Smirkalot, and the Black Knight who also says "Gnarr" find a room boobytrapped with lasers. The Black Knight is able to see the sensor beams and manages to cross the room, which turns out to be a dead end. He takes a laser shot on the wrist, but says that it is merely a flesh wound. That's when the door at the other end of the room closes also. Smirkalot uses a new mystical power of the week to duplicate the Jaridians moves and cross the room with Galalili just as the walls of the trash compactor start closing in (Bridge Question #2: Do audiences think it's an homage when you put a second element from the same science fiction scene in a really bad episode? The correct answer is obviously "no"). They climb over the walls onto the floor of the next room escaping just before the walls close in completely.
• Galalili fashions a makeshift bandage from clothing off an alien corpse as the Black Knight explains why they are hunting the Taelons. The Taelons, in their quest for spiritual perfection, split from the Jaridians over the matter of the Shaqarava. The Taelons were unable to control "The Dark Side of the Shaqarava" ("Luke, there is a great disturbance in... my stomach"). In giving up the Shaqarava for the commonality, they gave up the ability to reproduce (didn't they bother to think these things through?). The Taelons, desperate for racial survival, have taken to hunting Jaridians to experiment with for their eventual rejoining. Humanity, the Jaridian says, is to be a tool for Taelons to use to rejoin the Jaridians. (Well, DUH!)
• King Zorthur tells Sandavere to find the Black Knight within the hour or he will be impeached by Newt Da'angrich and the Knights of the Round Table.
• Galalili, Smirkalot, and the Black Knight find a rope leading down a deep chasm. Smirkalot volunteers to go down with only a small green light stick for illumination. When he gets to the end of the rope he still cannot see the bottom. Due to his Lightsaber Envy™ he refuses to give up what little lightsaber he has and drop the light stick, so he lets go of the rope. He falls a short distance and finds a closed door.(Bridge Question #3: Do you open the door when there's 20 minutes left in the episode? The correct answer is obviously "no") Smirkalot opens the door, and a beam of energy shoots out and kills him (loud cheers from the audience).
• Galalili and the Black Knight follow Smirkalot down and revive him using the Black Knight's Shaqarava (loud boos from the audience).
• Beyond the door, a hologram (the bridge keeper) appears and says that they survived the tests, but they failed the questions three and therefore are not ready to share in the Chimera knowledge. The Jaridian is enraged at being deemed unworthy, and suspects he knows the real cause of the problem. Enraged, he shouts "Damn Micros--!", but the hologram shoots him down before he can finish the sentence.
• Sandavere's search party detects the ship and proceeds to investigate.
• Smirkalot convinces the hologram that by hurting people it has violated the "Chimera Directive" of not interfering with the development of other species, and that the only explanation is that the software has become defective. He discovers that this is because it was running Holy Repository 98 software (formerly known as DoorsNT) which was not year 2000 compliant, and so it needs to install the Holy Repository 2000 operating system. Galalili recalls, however, that Holy Repository 2000 had a bug when it came out in late 2001 and that it was really Holy Repository 1900. They realize that they should have installed the server version of the operating system instead of the workstation version. The Black Knight mutters something about Unix, but Galalili (who has been subliminally reprogrammed by Doors to react negatively to that word) kicks him in the head and he passes out again. The hologram proposes installing service pack 6, but all they have available is service pack 6 beta, which lacks support for InDirectX 9. Because InDirectX is so essential to proper operation, the computer decides it must destroy the repository. The Black Knight regains partial consciousness and deliriously shouts, "Power to the penguin!", which causes Galalili to kick him in the head again. The computer reviews its options, and decides the most efficient way to self destruct is to run ScanDisk and reboot. The hologram tells Smirkalot, Galalili, and the Black Knight that they have until ScanDisk finishes running to get off the station, approximately 36 months. However, it expects that ScanDisk will find a bad sector and crash due to bad DLLs in only 4 minutes, so they'd better hurry.
• The Black Knight wants to stay on the ship to die an honorable death, but Smirkalot drags him out to the shuttles.
• The Knights of the Round Table are convened and hears the charges against King Zorthur. Newt Da'angrich accuses Zorthur of betraying the spirit of the Commonality and demands that he step down. The other Knights of the Round Table remain silent on the matter, however, and so Zorthur (who has obviously been taking lessons from Bill Clinton) adjourns the meeting, leaving Da'angrich the embarrassed party, even though Zorthur was the one who violated the law. (This is why Roddenberry never wanted his works to become political)
• Smirkalot puts the Black Knight in one of the shuttles, saying that he set the interdimensional drive to engage once and then incinerate. He joins Galalili in the other shuttle and they depart just as the Chimera ship explodes.
• Sandavere arrives and inquires about the Black Knight. Smirkalot says he died in the explosion.
• Back at the former Liberation Headquarters, Augur and Smirkalot trace the path of the Black Knight's shuttle to his home.

Questions & Analysis

Regarding consistency...

• Season one went to some lengths to show that the Taelons had virtually no interest whatsoever in weapons, but in this episode the shuttles suddenly have weapon systems.
• These systems are designed to add excitement and tension to an otherwise boring and tedious flight sequence. Notice that it didn't work.
• We know Lili is a top notch Marine fighter pilot who designed the shuttle controls and flight training program. Given this, how likely is it for Liam to actually catch up with her in a shuttle chase?
• The trap rooms were supposed to be deactivated on their way out, so why were the lasers in the trash compactor firing? For that matter, how did they reach the rope to climb back out again?
• When exactly did Liam get the time and ability to set up the interdimensional drives on the shuttle to incinerate after the next use?
• The Chimera probe just happening to be out in the exact location that the escaping shuttle was traveling was too convenient. Space is a very, very big place.
• Sandoval seemed less than interested in the fact that an alien probe had been discovered.
• On the plus side, the producers continue to impress us with another consistently horrible episode for season 2.

Why didn't we learn anything new in this episode?

• We learned that the Taelons split from the Jaridians in Between Heaven and Hell.
• The common heritage of Taelons and Jaridians was also implied in Dimensions.
• In The Scarecrow Returns We learn that the probe's creators and the Taelons were related somehow.
• In Infection we learn that the probe's creators were antagonistic to the Taelons.
• We've known that the Taelons were dying since The Secret of Strandhill.
• Their problems with reproducing were well implied in Through the Looking Glass and in Between Heaven and Hell.
• We learned that the Chimera were eradicated by the Taelons in The Joining.
• In Pandora's Box we learn about the lack of warriors among the Taelons and their efforts to reawaken the Shaqarava.
• James Pike's telling of the Taelon legends in Avatar might relate to the Taelon/Jaridian separation. Like Umrathama cast Shaqarava into the void, who ends up returning to kill Umrathama, the Taelons cast the Jaridians off, and now the Jaridians are returning to kill the Taelons.

Was the star system that Augur tracked the shuttle to the same system that Augur tracked the Scarecrow signals to? (The Scarecrow Returns)

Are the Jaridians going to be able to utilize the interdimensional drive from the shuttle (despite Kincaid's supposed attempt to disable the drive)?

• Given the current writing, the answer is probably yes. The writers are quick to grasp anything that might resemble an arc, and the stolen shuttle is an easy plot device to allow the Jaridians to gain interdimensional travel.
• The opportunity for an episode where Liam torments himself over his guilt for giving the Jaridians the technology is probably hard for the current writers to pass up as well.

What are the real reasons the hologram appeared in that form?

• The producers spent all their money on special effects like glowing alien insects (Fissures).
• The makeup department ran out of scales.
• Paramount has a monopoly on bumpy forehead makeup.
• The special effects animator suffered a fatal heart attack.

Things that the Jaridian shouldn't have been able to do:

• He easily makes his way through the Taelon mothership to the shuttle bay without being noticed.
• He speaks English because he overheard his captors using it during his imprisonment while he was drugged, restrained, and in stasis! (This seems to be the same technique that Scooby Doo used to learn English.)
• He can understand and use the controls on a Taelon shuttle (which have been designed by humans) well enough to set his destination. So he can evidently read English too.
• He breaks out of his cell, which was probably made of Taelon virtual glass. Since they depend on this material for the hull of their ship, it must be reliable enough to survive minor power fluctuations, and strong enough to contain an alien who can't even knock Liam out.

How to speak Jaridian:

• Just add a good deal of hissing to all your words. It's similar to how Scooby Doo talks by adding "R"s everywhere. You also need to sound like you're swearing, but using sounds that are not used in any language so you won't be censored.

• "Hello":	Hessthllo
  "Human":	Human...ssssthhh
  "Taelon":	tthh...Taelon...ssssthhh
  "Nice to meet you":	Die...ssssthhh (pronounced "Dee" in German dialects)
  "Where is the toilet?":	Ssshhh###tt
  "#$%%$#!":	Gnarrtthsss
  "Don't go in there":	Afffther Me...ssssthhh
  "Warning, extreme danger":	Enter...ssssthhh
  "Yes":	Yesssthh
  "No":	Sss...spinelessthh tthh...Taelon...ssssthhh
  "Retreat":	(see "No")
  "We need a plan":	Rush Them...ssssthhh
  "Jaridian":	Klingon

Alien Fashion Police Alert!

• First there was the Taelon shower curtain worn by human assistants on the mothership.
• Then there was the Taelon fishnet worn by Taelon prisoners.
• Now there's the latest trend in Jaridian military wear: The Alien Bubble Wrap!
  To which the Jaridian responds, "I'm not a witch, the Taelons dressed me like this!"
  Is this true?
  To which the Taelons respond, "We didn't do it. Well we did do the nose... and the ears, but he's a witch! (Burn him! Burn him!)"

How many science fiction ripoffs and clichés are there in this episode?

• Star Trek's fistfight
• Captain Kirk talks a computer into self destructing
• Star Wars "the Dark Side of the Shaqarava"
• Liam's Lightsaber envy of Luke Skywalker (he only has the little green light stick).
• The Millennium Falcon escapes the exploding Death Star.
• The "Praxis ring" effect from Star Trek VI makes an appearance.
• The "Ship from hell" premise of "Event Horizon"
• The "warrior race" concept that has been overused in Star Trek
• The interpretation of ancient hieroglyphics from "Stargate"
• The deadly serpent hiding in waist deep water from "Star Wars"
• The trash compactor from the same scene in "Star Wars"
• The much overused "We're enemies but we need each other to survive so let's be friends" concept
• The also overused "room boobytrapped with lasers" gimmick
• The "warrior who must die with honor" concept from "Star Trek"
• "My Stepfather is an Alien"
• The "wounded villain wants to stay aboard exploding ship but hero pulls him out" gimmick from "Star Wars"
• The "lab experiment gone horribly wrong" gag
• We have yet another "one job for the entire race" example with the Chimera (an entire race of anthropologists?)
• The search for a "holy grail" which is permanently lost at the end of the episode.
• The walkway to the shuttles resembled the "narrow walkways over empty space" look from a "Marvin the Martian" episode of Loony Tunes

Wheel of morality, turn turn turn. Tell us the lesson that we should learn.
And today's lesson is:

• If we want to see Star Trek, we'll watch Star Trek.
• If we want to see Star Wars, we'll watch Star Wars.
• If we want to see prominent political leaders bicker to the exclusion of anything productive, we'll watch CSPAN.
• Combining endless clichés from a variety of science fiction shows and movies does not make an original episode. (perhaps too deep for some producers to understand)

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