Date of airing: November 12, 1995 (FOX)
Nielsen ratings information: 12.5 million viewers, 8.3/13 in Households
written by: Marilyn Osborn
directed by: Michael Katleman
So, this could have been the Halloween episode, eh? A story that
focused on individual fears, set on a creepy planet with even creepier
mines and a weird and scary light show that made everyone crazy, guest starring drops and pools of blood, cockroaches, and ghost voices. In 2069, Halloween might
have been abandoned as a festive day to celebrate ghosts and demons,
but this episode could have been a resurgence of Halloween in this series universe, and the episode itself could have aired two weeks earlier to get the audience in a mood. And if that was never supposed to happen in the first place,
then this episode deserves to be on the list of
Halloween-themed episodes (if you happen to create such a list and were
still looking for episodes to fill it with), because it had that creepy horror
effect that made for a good Halloween showing, even if nothing about the episode had the classic Halloween spook that you would come to expect on television during scary season.
This episode might have focused on the fears of the characters, but it was not really the focus of the story. The premise was mostly about whether the Wildcards would blow or beat each other up, and when their fears might take over and they end up dead like the previous group of Marines whose dead bodies (or ghosts) they encountered. It was nice that the story managed to develop the fears of the characters, though Damphousse, Wang, and Shane’s fears were created with this episode and are most likely forgotten after this hour. But let's remember: Damphousse does not like blood, Wang hates cockroaches (we all do, Wang), and Shane, for the first time, spelled out her fear of artificial intelligence, which might have been a given, considering the Silicates killed her parents during her childhood. Only the series never managed to spell out before that this is what Shane truly feared.
 |
| This is a real blink-and-you-will-miss-it moment that happened on this show. |
With that in mind, Nathan and Cooper had
fears that might have not been properly introduced in the show before,
but in a way, they have been part of their respective character arcs
before. I especially found it intriguing that the only fear Cooper had
was being trapped into a corner, because being locked in happened to be
the way he was born into this world in the first place. At first, I
did not even realize that this was his fear, since Cooper was acting the most
aggressive of the bunch, and there was never really anything he feared because of the depiction of his aggressiveness. Not to mention that Cooper was always the aggressive type you did not want to piss off, so his behavior throughout the episode seemed rather normal – or at least the lights did not exaggerate his aggressive behavior, as he was aggressive before being attacked by the lights. But when I realized, the
fear that his world would be as small as the tube he was in before he
was born was great, because it further dramatically defined his character. One could hope that he truly has claustrophobia and it might hinder him from performing "above and beyond," becoming a nuisance and problem in the future.
Meanwhile, no one was scared of spiders or snakes or something like that. Just roaches. I guess big fake roaches were easier to handle for the show's production team, but maybe spiders would have been an easier scare tactic for the episode, even if it would have made this hour more of a horror show than it already was. But it would have helped to tell the audience what fear truly was, as it is almost a guarantee that the majority of the viewers were scared of spiders.
Anyway, I was a little confused as to how the fears
were portrayed. Damphousse could not stand all the blood that was around
her, but I was confused as to whether Nathan was touching the blood to
show Damphousse that it would not hurt her, or if it was just part of
Damphousse’s fears and visions or hallucinations, meaning the blood was not even real and just in her mind. Same with Wang's fear of cockroaches – maybe the insect in his helmet was not actually there and the light show was causing hallucinations? Because why the heck
would there be a container full of blood in the transporter? Granted, it was a supply run, but did the episode ever establish that part of the supplies were of a medical nature? Nathan clearly hallucinated hearing the crying girl (and the ghost who was nice enough to explain the light show to him), so why would the other Marines not hallucinate their own versions of fear?
The backstory of the creepy planet was a bit confusing as well,
because I never knew how the light show was working on the characters.
They were obviously somewhat affected by it when out in the open, but
the episode never made clear if the light show was changing the
characters when they were inside the transporter or in the bunker
midway through the episode. If they were safe inside, they could
have sat out the light show and made for a run when it happened to be
daylight, or at least between the light shows. But if the light show was affecting them when
inside, then why were they not going crazy all the way through? They were repeatedly suffering through the attacks, so they must have been getting worse with each hour, and yet they did not seem to be too bad in the end. Every
once in a while either Nathan or Wang seemed to have control over their
own selves, which means the impact was not lasting. Also, McQueen was not
affected by the few seconds of light show he witnessed when inside the
transporter. Either there was some continuity error here, or the writers did not bother much explaining what the light show was all about.
 |
| Damphousse has had enough of people bleeding around her. |
And finally, I think that the framing story device of the two-men military tribunal
was not needed at all. Everything the episode needed was delivered during the story on the planet, and the story of the 58th Squadron facing a military tribunal over not following orders seemed like a quickly added story because the script came in short. The framing device
was telling the viewers that everyone came out of it alive, and that
what happened on the planet was difficult to explain (although the characters did not even bother explaining during the interrogation scenes). And I actually
liked how the episode started: With Damphousse in trouble, making me
hope that this episode would focus on her. But then the episode went in a different direction entirely.
