Storytime with Rachel F Hundred

An adventure of the week as our favourite elephant alien gets to shine

Spoiler Warning for Can’t Say I Remember No At Attin

A solid outing for the crew in the fourth episode takes them on an old-style adventure of the week, while furthering the ‘getting home’ arc and shining a spotlight on everybody’s new favourite elephant alien. There is also a lot left out of the story and a lot left unsaid in the storytelling to the point where it feels like half the story is missing.

Having the coordinates Kh’ymm gave them take them to the wrong jewel of the Old Republic instead of At Attin is an interesting wrinkle. It provides a wealth of opportunity for storytelling. What happened to these jewel planets which were reportedly destroyed? Did anyone survive? Is there any information there to help the crew get back to At Attin? It is clear that this episode seeks to explore those questions.

We get a desolate post-apocalyptic landscape. Everything is ashy from the destruction. Playgrounds are abandoned and rusted over. Buildings are unstable and half-destroyed. The infrastructure of the planet is ruined with the technology barely working. In comparison to the clean and shining example of At Attin, At Achrann is dirty, rough, and barely functioning.

The comparison is carried through to how they treat their citizens. Everyone in At Attin lives a comfortable and protected existence. On this planet, the Troiks and the Hattans battle it out for resources in rival tribes. The Troiks live in a shanty town on the roof of the school, food is rationed, and children go hungry. Not only that but children are not coddled and protected, they are expected to prove their strength and worth just as much as anyone else.

The differences for the children are played out in the nascent friendship of At Achrann citizen Hayna, a young feisty leader, and Neel. Hayna is a competent child soldier; she handles her weapons with ease, and believes in strength. Neel is not a fighter; he believes in peace and knows he is not good at fighting.

The storyline of their friendship spotlights Neel in a similar way to how KB was given the spotlight in the previous episode. We get to know more about Neel and his philosophy on life. We see his kindness in giving his food to the hungry children. We see his love for his family in the story he tells Hayna about losing a fight to his younger sibling. But we also see his strength as his kindness makes Hayna question her own world and how things are done, and we see it when he helps rescue the others at the end from a murderous SM-33. This part of the story was charming and sweet, and helped anchor the rest.

Not that there is a lot of ‘the rest’ which is where the story begins to feel incomplete. Jod and SM-33 are left behind on the ship but turn up to rescue the children from the raid where they are meant to prove their strength. The choice to provide the set-up in Jod’s predicament and to provide the denouement, but not to provide the in-between except in an exposition dump by Jod means that there feels like a part of the story missing. The choice does provide a nice ‘surprise’ moment of Jod appearing out of the mist and rescuing the children, but I can’t help but feel that it was an opportunity missed not to have explored the Hattans with Jod and SM-33 more, to have deepened that storyline rather than leaving it as an outline.

Indeed, that is my main issue with the episode – everything is surface, a sketch rather than a painting. There is little depth to the story, and everything plays out over the course of a few hours rather than spending significant time on the planet and learning more. It might have been more interesting to have had the story play out over days or weeks with the kids getting some actual real training to help provide a basis for future skills and competence. This would have allowed for more explanation about what actually happened, how the Troiks and the Hattans came to be rivals, to have given more dimension to Hayna’s father rather than the rather thin character we got before Jod rescued them.

The final act is given over to exploring the Fallen Sanctum which on At Attin is where the Supervisor rules over everything. Here the question of ‘does the planet offer any information’ is answered and there is also more revealed on the mystery of how SM-33 and the ship got to At Attin in the first place revealed.

The memory issue with SM-33 and his turn on the children when his memory is restored is well done and provides a little bit of action in an otherwise actionless episode since the children ‘train’ but there is no major fight with the Hattans in the end. It also gives Neel that moment of heroism.

It also provides for more character development for Wim and Fern as they talk about leadership. Wim acknowledges he wouldn’t have gotten them as far as Fern, but Fern reveals her vulnerability in not knowing what she is doing really. The conversation also provides Fern with her idea about what happened with SM-33’s memory.

While the episode ended with Neel’s faint, there is clearly a path forward in the reveal that the pillars in the Sanctum hold the coordinates to the other jewel planets. It will be interesting to see if they use that as the jumping off point for the next episode.    

This episode is a competent outing. The post-apocalyptic set design of At Achrann is well done, the child actors do a solid job selling their characters and circumstances once more (if I get a little irritated at Hayna’s unneeded acrobatics I blame the direction rather than Hala Finley’s performance which is otherwise good), and there is enough unravelling of mysteries to carry the story forward while still laying out hooks for what next.  

In conclusion

Half-way through the series and the episode is very like the show overall. I’m still hoping to see more depth and content in the storytelling, but that does not mean that what we’ve gotten so far isn’t a good show.  

The show is well-acted by its cast and well-produced with great mysteries and concepts in the storytelling providing great hooks to keep us wanting more. The combination means that there is a lot of charm and a lot to love. Fingers crossed that the final half of the series continues to build on the good foundation from the beginning.

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