Has everyone else given up on this show? After this episode, I can’t blame you.
It seems like they blew their special effects budget on food for the wedding the last time.
The absolute worst thing about this one was that when you have duplicate heroes, the real hero has to resolve the situation by saying something convincing. Here the villain screwed up. Bad writing.
If they don’t get their butts to Mongo next time, I’m out of here.
About two minutes before you posted this thread, I created a thread on the same topic, but posted it to Great Debates for some reason. So I’ve asked the Mods to lock that thread and I’ll post my OP over here, to wit:
Flash Gordon briefly interrupted its slide towards oblivion with the appearance of an actual plot in this episode. Ming actually planned to do something, and did it. Baby steps and all, but Painkiller Jane, a much better show, didn’t last out the season, so leaping and bounding is more the order of the day if the creators want to keep their franchise going.
In this ep, Ming sends a shapeshifting assassin whom I dub Darth Vader Lite for reasons that will be obvious to anyone who watches the show, to Earth – in the shape of Flash’s father! Good choice, because you just KNOW that at some critical moment Flash will get the drop on the guy and he’ll turn into dear old Dad and Flash will drop the ball big time. I mean, that’s what you’d expect from completely forumulaic scriptwriters.
Darth Vader Lite’s misson:
Gain a monopoly on the Rift technology developed by Flash’s father by killing off everyone associated with it by draining their memories into a data recorder – which amounts to two red-shirt scientists and Flash’s friend Dr. Jerkov … er, Zarkov.
This episode did contain some imaginative stuff, which was duly fumbled in its application. For example, Baylin eats a bomb – which is just a setup for an enormous burp as humor. Ooh, we’re so sophisticated in the 21st Century.
Well, if you read the spoiler you’re probably aware which of the assassin’s targets gets missed, ultimately causing the death of Darth Vader lite and leading to a messy cleanup problem involving his corpse and a data recorder which necessitated the appearance of the Interstellar Roomba, which looks and acts just like Earth Roombas except they fly and can vaccuum up corpses which is a real handy feature as anyone who has ever had to clean up a house filled with corpses left over from a busy Saturday night would know. Especially Ming the Merciless.
At the beginning of the episode Ming was being given a massage by a couple of pleasure slaves, then one left and we had just the one pleasure slave working on Ming’s calf with her elbow. Guess the erogenous zones are VERY different on Mongo. Ming starts babbling some stuff about pain and pleasure when his chief flunky Rancor rolls in for a chat, which I thought might lead somewhere interesting, but it didn’t, not in this episode, and frankly, if they do the BDSM as badly as they do everything else on Flash, I don’t wanna see it. I’m real sensitive that way.
Also, I note that the pleasure slave working over Ming’s calf with her elbow was a black woman. That’s the second black person in the show. Now BOTH black actors in Vancouver have work. And let’s see … football star … pleasure slave … I predict that the next black character we see will be a … drug dealer! I hope I win a valuable prize in the Stereotypical Lotto!
Baylin and Dale both had some nice character development in this episode. This wold make a pretty good soap opera if they’d just drop all that distracting business about aliens from Mongo invading Earth.
Parting thought: does the guy who plays Zarkov remind you of that character in a lot of teen sex comedies who drinks beer constantly and is incoherent?
To respond directly, I’m still watching and probably will for the duration just to see how things play out. I don’t think this will impose more than 18 more episodes’ worth on me.
I dunno, the interstellar roomba was a special effect, and relatively well handled. And I liked the way the field the shapeshifter used appeared briefly whenever he put anything in his pocket or took anything out of same.
Yah, that was some pretty crude hackwork.
Wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. I’m betting it’s a budget thing. Vancouver is cheap. Mongo is expensive. Somebody did the math.
The funny thing is, I’ve actually been to Vancouver, and they must be having to go to some trouble to find locations bland enough there to stand in for suburban Maryland.
After that abysmal pilot ep, no way am I watching this show again, but I have to say I’ve found the episode threads quite amusing.
Did the Space Roomba scare any cats? Because that seems to be one of the chief purposes of Earth Roombas.
In the pilot, Mongo was Vancouver filmed with a filter to make the light look funky, and some matte paintings. Not a good sign if that is “expensive.”
Second? There were all kinds of black folks at the wedding. I suppose they could’ve bussed them in from Ottowa or something though.
Didn’t notice that. But I did think of one more thing. I can buy the shapeshifter taking the appearance of someone else - but how did he manage to pick up the knowledge of the others. (Dr. Gordon I’ll give them.) It didn’t seem like he downloaded stuff from the memory drainer into his brain - I doubt Ming would let Darth Jr. get all that info.
Besides the already aid for matte painting, Mongo seems to be Vancouver (er. Maryland) with bigger trees. The inside of the palace is already built. It’s not like the serial spent big bucks on Mongo sets, after all.
Anyhow, I don’t believe it’s Maryland until I see a “Fear the Turtle” T-shirt on someone.
Oh, and please don’t call Zharkov Jerkov. Jerkov was in a good movie. 
I never like it when they pretty much tell you the plan is going to fail - in the first 5 minutes!
“The technology is good, the man - not so much”
And, how did Darth jr know where the cabin was? And shouldn’t he be a better shot? When did he get a chance to ‘scan’ Flash in order to imitate him? (He obviously scanned the other doctor at the coffee shop)… Also - shouldnt they know the difference between fast forwarding and rewinding security footage? “I’ll fast forward” - he then rewinds, and there was little/no gap between Dale/Flash at the corner and when ‘Dad’ walked thru -
This is why I tune into these threads much more often than the show.