In which BraveStarr doesn’t do that well at equal opportunities.
Remember the Kreng, that excitingly nuts race of cat people from Memories and The Wrong Hands? Well, don’t worry if you don’t. All you need to know is that they’re here again, arriving in a spaceship with their leader, a cat called Clawtoo, and they immediately set about capturing the Shaman. They achieve this with stunning ease, and tie the Shaman to a mystic pillar which prevents him from using his magical powers.
It doesn’t take long for BraveStarr and Thirty/Thirty to come barrelling into this setup, but when they appear, Clawtoo simply explains that the Shaman will remain a prisoner for ever unless they hand over three tons of kerium within four hours. BraveStarr responds that he doesn’t have that much kerium, so Clawtoo suggests he go and rob a bank.
BraveStarr returns to town, where he has a drink with Thirty/Thirty, Judge JB and McBride. He explains that he’s not going to rob the bank – which is disappointing if predictable – and instead he’s going to take on the Kreng. He tells Judge JB that she can’t come too because she’s needed in Fort Kerium, then tells Thirty/Thirty he can’t come because he’s a loony, and finally tells McBride that he can’t come because he’s disabled. That’s BraveStarr, Equal Ops Champion of the Galaxy right there.
By now we’re all on tenterhooks to know who BraveStarr is willing to take with him, and we’re praying he hasn’t taken leave of his senses and chosen Fuzz. Luckily, he hasn’t. Instead, it’s Commander Kane. Remember her? She’s the woman that McBride married 20 episodes ago in Memories and hasn’t been seen since. I’d kind of assumed she wasn’t on New Texas anymore, but it seems she’s been there keeping a low profile.
So, BraveStarr and Kane go hurtling back to Star Peak, where they engage in numerous set-tos with the various Kreng warriors, until eventually they come face to face with Clawtoo. BraveStarr makes a pathetic attempt to arrest Clawtoo, who responds by simply running back into his spaceship and flying away. This, however, doesn’t work out very well for him – the Shaman decides to adopt a surprisingly violent approach and uses his staff to shoot Clawtoo’s ship out of the sky. It crashes in Fort Kerium, and Thirty/Thirty is on hand immediately to enthusiastically take him into custody.
In today’s adventure…
Frankly, given the pretty risky behaviour exhibited by the Shaman at the end of this episode, I think today’s moral ought to be “don’t shoot planes out of the sky so they crash-land in the middle of towns, even if the planes do have criminals on them.” It would also have been a good moment to reprimand BraveStarr for his excluding McBride from all the fun on the basis of him being disabled. Neither of these pearls of wisdom occurred to the episode’s writer, however, and instead we’re left with a completely left-field discussion from BraveStarr and Judge JB who talk to us about how to deal with it if we’re being inappropriately touched. Essentially, what we should do is talk to our parents, teacher, doctor, minister or rabbi. I’m not sure if we’re supposed to choose one of these people, or just indiscriminately tell all of them.
Character checklist
It’s New Texas’ best and brightest today, with appearances from BraveStarr, Thirty/Thirty, the Shaman, Judge JB, Commander Kane, McBride, Clawtoo, and what seems like billions of other Kreng.
Unnecessarily Violent Horse
“Trouble’s what I live for,” Thirty/Thirty announces at an early stage in the episode, and he does his best to live up to this grand proclamation. Unfortunately, thanks to BraveStarr refusing to let him come to Star Peak, he doesn’t get much opportunity to get into any trouble, and the best he can manage is to pointlessly throw cups of coffee around and destroy a table while he’s supposed to be having a quiet drink with BraveStarr, Judge JB and McBride. He punctuates this behaviour by describing a violent fantasy about shooting people and vaporising things. Not surprisingly, BraveStarr tells him to shut the hell up.
Insults
Within the first five minutes, Thirty/Thirty addresses the Kreng in general as “varmints” and “yowling fuzzballs”, and Clawtoo in particular as “nuts”. BraveStarr gets in on the act by calling Clawtoo “crazy”. Clawtoo doesn’t respond directly, but he does take it out on one of his minions by addressing him as a “fool”.
Strength of the Bear
Despite a promising first 16 minutes of the episode without any silly animal powers, the bear strength makes an inevitable appearance during the final battle with the Kreng when BraveStarr needs to dig his way out from under some rocks. He also uses it a few minutes later to prevent a stone pillar from falling on the Shaman’s head.
Speed of the Puma
BraveStarr definitely uses this to run along a corridor in Star Peak, but he doesn’t announce it. It’s really confusing when he doesn’t announce these things. How am I supposed to know what’s going on? When he needs the puma speed a second time, though, he does say so, which makes me feel that all is right with the world again.
Starr Rating
This one’s not at all bad, giving us a nice little adventure story that zips past entertainingly. It’s not especially original, but the choice of primary characters makes it a little different; while BraveStarr takes centre stage as usual, the co-star is definitely Commander Kane, and it’s good to see her again, even if her presence this week does simply draw attention to the fact that she’s been MIA for the last 20 episodes or so. The Kreng make for decent if not brilliant baddies, and best of all, no one spends the week moping around feeling sorry for themselves, like they have done all the bloody time lately. The moral may be totally out of the blue, but it is an important message, and I find it hard to imagine a story being written that would actually fit that message without being massively disturbing, so we’ll let that pass.
BraveStarr Episode Review Site 