Episode 028 – The Defection

In which no one does anything for ages, and even when they do something, it’s boring.

In the Palace courtyard, we find Orko demonstrating some magic tricks which actually go correctly, thus depriving me of the opportunity to include anything in the Egg in your face category. Adam and Man-at-Arms patronisingly tell Orko how he’s got much better, which leads Orko to go off on a completely irrelevant rant about how good people always remain good and evil ones remain evil. In Orko’s mind, no one ever changes. He has perhaps forgotten how – to take two recent examples – Dragoon and Jeremy both, you know, changed.

Meanwhile, in a new and exciting location called the Isle of Tears, a sorceress called Sibylline is yammering away about how she used to be a good sorceress, but now a little troll called Gorgon has made her into a bad one, and she wishes she was good again. Gorgon doesn’t take kindly to this and throws Sibylline in the dungeon, where she joins King Danton, who she had previously helped Gorgon to imprison. Sibylline has enough magic to teleport herself to freedom, and tells Danton she will seek help from King Randor and He-Man.

Once Sibylline arrives at the Palace, King Randor agrees to help free Danton, but then apparently doesn’t order anyone to do anything about it, leading to a series of disjointed scenes where Sibylline hangs round the Palace sniffing flowers and rescuing Randor and Marlena from an escaped dragon, while Orko huffs around claiming not to trust her.

Adam and Man-at-Arms decide that this situation warrants a visit to Castle Grayskull, though I have no idea why. The Sorceress suggests that Sibylline must be given a chance to demonstrate that she genuinely has changed her ways from evil to good, which Adam and Man-at-Arms muse on thoughtfully. Well, here’s a suggestion, you clowns – why don’t you just go and rescue King Danton like you normally would, assuming that Sibylline’s true intentions will become clear en route? Why have they started treading so carefully? It’s as if He-Man is normally Captain Kirk, but this week has been replaced with Picard.

King Randor finally gets to the point and orders our heroes to go to the Isle of Tears and rescue Danton, which quickly results in their being landed in the dungeon with him. Evil-Lyn, who has been recruited by Gorgon as a replacement evil sorceress, is pleased to point out that even He-Man can’t break through two feet of solid steel. He-Man quickly proves them wrong on this point, knocking down the door and then bowing with a slight frisson of sarcasm.

And so to the inevitable confrontation. He-Man knocks down about a million walls and then traps Gorgon in a submarine, while Sibylline defeats Evil-Lyn in a magical duel. Evil-Lyn makes the not unexpected move of saving herself and leaving Gorgon to He-Man’s tender mercies, after which King Danton is restored to his throne. All join me in a whoop-whoop.

 

In today’s adventure…

Well, here come He-Man and Teela to tell us that people can change – and that includes you. If you have a bad habit you want to change, you no longer have the luxury of claiming you can’t. I, for example, have the bad habit of watching He-Man. Thanks to this episode, I now know that I can stop if I want to. The thing is, like so many bad habits, watching He-Man feels so good.

 

Characters appearing

As far as regular characters go, we have Prince Adam, He-Man, Cringer, Battle-Cat, Teela, Man-at-Arms, Orko, King Randor, Queen Marlena, the Sorceress and Evil-Lyn. Less common among today’s stars are Sibylline, Gorgon and King Danton.

 

Excuse given for Prince Adam’s disappearance:

Adam turns into He-Man when he sees Orko drowning, which is just plain bizarre since Orko could have simply levitated out of the water. Moreover, I’d have left Orko to it. Anyway, my point is that it’s another of those occasions where there’s only those in the know around, so no one bothers with an excuse.

 

Insults

I thought we were going to go the whole episode without an unkind word, but Evil-Lyn spoils it in the last two minutes by calling Gorgon a “fool!” Which, admittedly, he is.

 

Does it have the Power?

I don’t think it does really, no. The overall plot is okay, I suppose, but it’s so ridiculously slow. The episode doesn’t seem to think it can sustain a long assault on the Isle of Tears, so sees fit to have Sibylline hanging round the Palace for ages in the middle of the story, for no reason. We also have an utterly pointless visit to Castle Grayskull where the Sorceress reveals no useful information whatsoever. It only gets going once Randor finally makes the mental link that hey, perhaps they’d better stop this evil Gorgon dude, and sends his crowd to the Isle of Tears. And even when they get there, it’s not enormously diverting. Probably best to avoid this one.