Storytime with Rachel F Hundred

There may be trouble ahead

Spoiler Warning for We’re Gonna Be In So Much Trouble

It is always difficult balancing the episode which precedes the finale. It needs to build the tension and leave the action with a terrifying cliffhanger for people to return eager to see how things will be resolved, yet it also needs to be a satisfying chapter in and of itself. This episode sets up for the finale fantastically well and, while improvements could be made, it does its best to deliver a satisfying slice of Skeleton Crew for this outing.

Comparatively, last week’s episode was completely satisfying, whereas this one fell slightly short for me. Mostly satisfying rather than fully satisfying. The story beats here feel a little rushed.

I loved the beginning of this episode with the parents gathered in the woods to secretly send out a communication buoy to try to help their children. The discovery and stunning of the parents in the darkened forest, the tense relay of each one running with the device until Fara is able to send it into the sky was very well done. The last shot with the buoy heading into the green swirling mass of the barrier was perfect. It is nice to see that the story does not have the parents adulting and trying to save their children.

I enjoyed the peek of the children on their way home in their newly recovered ship; the joy of Neel and KB, Fern’s relieved satisfaction, and Wim’s despondency at the end of the adventure and facing the reality of what awaits him. All very nicely acted. The kids continue to knock it out of the park.

That the pirates win the race to At Attin is not surprising. The ongoing back and forth of Brutus trying to rid himself of Jod, and Jod neatly talking himself out of it each time, gives energy to these scenes. SM-33’s return is done well here and the failure of the pilot to make it through the barrier signposts how dangerous it truly is.

It is the next section of the pirates taking the kids’ ship until they wrest it back which just does not quite work for me, and I have been trying to work out why.

Perhaps it is the ease with which the kids’ ship is immediately grabbed by the pirate frigate and swiftly taken over. Is this realistic? Yes. Does it feel like it was super easy? Yes.

I think it would have been good to have had this moment of the kids’ arrival and the pirates’ attempt to take their ship have more action, maybe a bit of a chase scene, maybe for the kids to have put up something of an attempt to break free of the tractor. This would have given the moment additional tension and energy.

The next part where the kids attempt to keep the pirates off the ship is where the plot is very questionable to me. Why do they even lower the ramp?? There is no reason for them to do that. Is it an automatic function of the ship?? It feels completely nonsensical for the kids to lower the ramp when it is not on autopilot. There feels like a short scene missing where Jod orders SM-33 to get into the ship and the droid manages to find an external mechanism to get it lowered.

The scene where they try to keep the ship with the crane trick and KB’s voice distorter is a decent and suitably age-appropriate kids’ attempt to avoid being boarded. Jod using their capture of Brutus to execute him and take back the pirate captaincy introduces a real element of danger and threat from him again.

My next plot niggle is the way the kids retake the ship with the whole claimsies-unclaimsies nonsense and SM-33 suddenly deciding that the nonsense makes enough sense to him for him to choose them instead of Jod as the Captain.

It is entirely nonsense.

There had to be a better way to construct the kids’ escape.

Beyond that, the escape and chase through the barrier is great, and Jod appearing and using the lightsabre to behead SM-33 and once again retake the ship works well. His anger and nastiness towards the kids feels truly disturbing and there is a real sense of a threat from him, especially given his earlier execution of Brutus and his swift neutralisation of SM-33.

As the ship is automatically landed and they all end up in the vault, the quiet terror of the kids knowing that they’ve brought a threat to their planet is well done.

The reunion with the parents is just marvellously wonderful. I managed not to cry, but it was a close thing, especially when Wim’s father picks him up and hugs him. The reunion has emotional weight because we’ve listened to the messages that the parents sent to their children on the buoy while the pirates had the Mint ship. There is a realism in the underlying ‘you’re not in trouble, just come home, you are loved and missed’ tenor of the parents’ words in those messages. It makes absolute sense that in hearing those messages the kids do something panicked to retake the ship.

In the final scene, that moment when Jod walks back into shot and the lightsabre ignites again…it’s a fitting ending which sets up for next week, very, very well.

Last week I was satisfied because it felt like the chapter arc had been fully told and fully explored; that there wasn’t a gap in the storytelling. Here I’m left wanting the part which had issues to have been written better; I’m left scratching my head at the plot holes and nonsense. This also feels like had this section been better constructed, the episode could easily have been fully 40 minutes. And, yes, I am complaining again about the short episode length.  Last week was clearly the exception to the rule.

Still, the episode does excel at the cliffhanger and setting up for the finale. If last week felt like the original Star Wars with the kids triumphantly winning, this week feels more like The Empire Strikes Back – they’re reunited with their parents and home, but they’ve lost SM-33 and are facing a looming threat.

In conclusion

The series has built up a lot of goodwill to date so while there are niggles which make this mostly rather than fully satisfying, I’m satisfied enough to still consider it good entertainment.

I’m definitely left eager to see how the finale resolves the predicament of the kids and At Attin with the threat of Jod and the pirates. Perhaps we’ll also see the revelation of The Supervisor.

If the last episode was reminiscent of Star Wars, and this one The Empire Strikes Back, here’s hoping the final part will delivers as well as The Return of the Jedi.

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