I am tired of political advertisements.

My eyes usually glaze over and I tend to start humming, “la, dee, da,” to myself when I see or hear an advertisement.  I skip past them in podcasts, too.  I am a person.  I am a human being.  I am not on this planet to consume any given product someone is advertising.  I do not exist solely to keep corporations profitable by purchasing their wares and services.  Advertising is frequently dehumanizing.

I have managed to avoid many political advertisements by not watching television.  I cut the cord more than a decade ago, so avoiding cable and satellite television has become part of my lifestyle.  And I dropped out of Facebook about four years ago.  I have also promptly added political mail to my recycling bin.

That leaves YouTube.  I skip advertisements on YouTube whenever I can.  Unfortunately, that is not always possible.

I have an appointment to record a podcast on episodes 21 and 22 of Starhunter Redux tonight.  Yes, I have also watched these episodes many times and written blog posts about them.  I also like to discuss an episode or episodes when it is/they are fresh in my mind.  At lunch time today, I started watching episode 21, Travis (Redux) on YouTube.  (These episodes are available for free at the Sci-Fi Central channel.)  I had to watch a political advertisement before the episode started.  I had to watch a second political advertisement before the opening credits sequence ended.  Then I had to watch a third political advertisement before the first scene after the opening credits concluded.  I closed my browser, switched to the computer to which I had downloaded the episode, and started watching the episode minus advertisements.

Victory!

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

NOVEMBER 1, 2020 COMMON ERA

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1. One must have a warped sense of humor to crack a joke about a starship’s nacelles.
2. Is a man who brawls while wearing a cravat a tie fighter?  Did I force this pun?
3. Was Percy Montana predestined to be on the Tulip?
4. It would behoove you to watch more Doctor Who and therefore be more enterprising.  You might even decide to embark on a great trek.  That would certainly be the logical decision.
5. A Jedi knight who conducts music is Obi-Wand Kenobi.
6. Every seven years a Vulcan must travel a great distance to tell double entendres.  This is the pun farr.
7. Watching old episodes of Doctor Who makes me crave cereals.
8. Is a picture of Mira Furlan a Mira image?
9. Is a drink favored by a Ferengi junior officer in Starfleet egg nog?
10. If H. G. Wells had written a novel about herbs, might he have called it The Thyme Machine?

Above:  The Title Card for Starhunter Redux

A Screen Capture

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About fifteen years ago, when I lived near Dublin, Georgia, I purchased two DVDs containing the first fifteen episodes of Starhunter (2000-2001) from the video section of a discount store in Dublin.  I watched those episodes again and again for years.  I purchased the full season set in the summer of 2007.  Then I learned what happened after Dark and Stormy Night.  I thrilled to watch the remaining seven episodes and see Dante meet his son at the end of the season.

I purchased and watched the DVD set of Starhunter 2300, the second season, a few years later.

Then, in 2010 and 2011, I watched all the episodes again and blogged about every episode.

The first two seasons hang together better as Starhunter Redux, which is generally the best way to watch the series.  The main exception to that generalization pertains to the first season.  I still recommend purchasing the first season DVD set, if only to see all of Rudolpho’s opening transmissions, most of which are absent from the first season of Starhunter Redux.  Some character information that pays off in the second season is in those opening transmissions.

Starhunter Redux is a rewarding viewing experience for a detail-oriented geek, such as yours truly.  Despite a few flubs, such as calling a nearly thirteen-year gap (January 3, 2300, minus late 2286) between seasons in-universe a fifteen-year gap, the attention to details is evident.  Events in earlier episodes frequently come up in later episodes, whether in passing or as important and relevant to the plot.  Lesser episodes of Starhunter Redux are superior to better episodes of some other series I have watched and choose not to name in this post.  Needless to say, better episodes of Starhunter Redux are vastly superior to most episodes of certain series I watched and do not name in this post.

I, having seen all the episodes again, perceive that most of the very early episodes in the first season did world building well as they laid the foundations for character development.  For that reason, I enjoy them more than someone new to the series may.  I watch the earliest episodes in the context of the rest of the series.  Yes, they are slow, compared to middle and late first season episodes, but we could not have the middle and late first season episodes without the early first season episodes.

I have another critical (in the highest sense of that word) statement about the first season.  Dante’s monologue, present in the opening credits sequence of Starhunter (2000-2001), should have remained in the opening credits sequence of the first season of Starhunter Redux (2018).  That monologue explains much succinctly.  The monologue fills in viewers, especially new ones, efficiently.

I anticipate season three, or SolSys.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

DECEMBER 21, 2019 COMMON ERA

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Opening and Closing Credits

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On both seasons, for totally different reasons, there was a struggle for creative control, reflected in unintended mysteries, in addition to intended mysteries.

Above:  Callie Larkadia in Hyperspace II

A Screen Capture

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The second season of Starhunter Redux (2017) is superior to Starhunter 2300 (2003-2004).  Reediting, remastering, and adding a little new material does much to improve the season by making the first and second seasons look as is they form a set.  There is still the matter of retconning the bridge and galley sets, but c’est la vie.

Now that I am rejected my former theory of the first and second seasons occurring in parallel universes, I enjoy the second season more.  Now that I focus less on the exterior of the Tulip and on the question of whether that really is Travis (It really is not.), I enjoy the character development more.  I also enjoy the internal continuity of the second season more as I notice links between the seasons.

I do have one critique (in the highest sense of that word, not in the sense of “everyone is a critic”) of the second season, though.  It should have been more unified, with the Orchard providing the glue.  That menace underlay most of the first season, from the first episode to the final one, to great effect.  In the second season, in contrast, the Orchard is present, explicitly or implicitly, in a few episodes, all of them in the last half.  The second season seems somewhat disjointed, compared to the first season.

I hope you understand my intention, O reader.  I have no interest in participating in toxic fandom.  I do not want to offer half-baked and poorly-informed ideas and insist that you must respect them.  No, I seek, as much as possible, to operate based on objective reality and to offer well-reasoned opinions.  I do not preface obviously subjective statements with redundant statements such as, “in my opinion.”  Of course, it is my opinion.  I do not pretend that it is anything else.  If someone feels the need to become offended and rebut, “That’s YOUR opinion,” I do not want to relate to that person.  Life is too short to deal with easily offended people unnecessarily.  Grow a thick skin, people.

I understand just enough to realize that there is much I do not understand.  Consider this statement from G. Philip Jackson, one of the creators of the Starhunter series:

–November 9, 2019

Actually, Jackson may have been generous in his description of the “struggle for creative control.”  Based on my reading of such struggles behind the scenes of series, from Galactica 1980 to Firefly, assuming that people who interfere are creative may have no basis in reality.  There is just a struggle for control, not creative control, much of the time.  Perhaps that is an accurate description of what occurred behind the scenes of Starhunter (2000-2001) and Starhunter 2300 (2003-2004).

Having watched Starhunter 2300 a few times and the second season of Starhunter Redux once, I recommend the latter.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

DECEMBER 21, 2019 COMMON ERA

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Opening and Closing Credits

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1. Rebirth
2. Star Crossed
3. Biocrime
4. Chasing Janus
5. Spaceman
6. Becoming Shiva
7. The Third Thing
8. Torment
9. Painless
10. Skin Deep
11. Supermax Redux
12. Pandora’s Box
13. A Stitch in Time
14. The Prisoner
15. Kate
16. Rivals
17. The Heir and the Spare
18. Just Politics
19. Negative Energy
20. License to Fill
21. Hyperspace I
22. Hyperspace II

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SEASON 2, EPISODE 22

Above:  Percy Montana, from the Starhunter Redux Version of This Episode

A Screen Capture

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MAIN CAST

Michael Paré as Dante Montana (Starhunter Redux)

Tanya Allen as Percy Montana

Clive Robertson as Travis Montana

Dawn Stern as Callista “Callie” Larkadia

Stephen Marcus as Rudolpho DeLuna

Paul Fox as Marcus Fagen

Graham Harley as Caravaggio (the ship’s AI)–in Starhunter 2300

Murray Melvin as Caravaggio (the ship’s AI)–in Starhunter Redux, Season 2

SUPPORTING CAST

Rachel Sanders as Dr. Vienna Xeylon

Greg Ellwand as Dr. Edward Murchison

Lynne Cormack as Roone

Geordie Johnson as Tristan Catchpole

Neil Davison as Thug

Michelle Duquet as Penny Montana (Starhunter 2300)

Heather Belle-Matmor/Heidi von Palleske as Penny Montana (Starhunter Redux)

Sima Sepehri as Red Hair Lady (Starhunter Redux)

Chadwick Allen as Man in Suit (Starhunter Redux)

Cavanagh Matmor as Waitress (Starhunter Redux)

BEHIND THE CAMERAS

Director = Roger Gartland

Director (for Starhunter Redux new material) = G. Philip Jackson

Writer = Hudson King

Writers (for Starhunter Redux additional material) = Chris Jones-Hansen and G. Philip Jackson

Composer (Theme–Starhunter 2300) = Peter Gabriel (Darker Star, arranged and mixed by Richard Evans and David Rhodes)

Composers (Episode–Starhunter 2300) = The Insects (Bob Locke and Tim Norfolk)

Composer (Theme–Starhunter Redux, Season 2) = Donald Quan

Composer (Episode–Starhunter Redux) = Donald Quan

Length of original episode = 0:47:53

Length of Redux episode = 0:46:14

PRELIMINARY COMMENTS

Above:  Percy Montana, from the Starhunter Redux Version of the Episode

A Screen Capture

All but one screen capture in this post comes from the Starhunter Redux version of the episode.  For more screen captures, I refer you, O reader, to my May 2011 post about Hyperspace II (Starhunter 2300).

This post is much more involved and considerably longer than any other post in my series about Starhunter Redux.  This is the case because the alterations to the reedited version of Hyperspace II are greater.  There is also additional material.  Hyperspace II (Redux) sets up season 3, SolSys, not released yet.

Some of the content of this post comes from an email from G. Philip Jackson, one of the creators of Starhunter (2000-2001) and Starhunter 2300 (2003-2004), as well as one the people deeply involved in shaping Starhunter Redux.  I want you, O reader, to know that I am consulting reliable sources, not making up material for this post.

In 2010 and 2011, when I wrote my first series of episode guides, there was no Starhunter Redux.  I was operating from DVDs of Starhunter (2000-2001) and Starhunter 2300 (2003-2004).  At the time, I posited that each season existed in a parallel universe.  It made sense to me at the time. How else could I account for the Transutopian looking radically different on the outside in each season?  And how else could I explain the differences between Travis Montana in each season?   I have disavowed this theory for two reasons.  First, Starhunter Redux has made the two seasons more superficially similar, bringing the second season ship design into the first season.  Second, I have learned information not available to me in 2010-2011.  G. Philip Jackson has written me, “On both seasons, for totally different reasons, there was a struggle for creative control, reflected in unintended mysteries, in addition to intended mysteries.”  Jackson has also confirmed that that man claiming to be Travis Montana in the second season is not the son of Dante and Penny Montana.

From G. Philip Jackson:  “We don’t know if the Season Two Travis is an imposter with intentions of deceit, or a victim of  a Raider always falsely encouraged to believe he was Travis by his early “Raider family” because something wrong happened with the real Travis (maybe when he disappeared with Dante at the end of 122 Redux, as briefly referred to by Dante in 222 Redux).

One should be willing to change one’s mind based on evidence.

Future Percy seems to accept fake Travis as her cousin.  When did she change her mind?

As far as the developments after Hyperspace II (Redux) are concerned, watch SolSys when it is available.  That is my plan.

BACKGROUND AND OTHER GENERAL COMMENTS

Above:  Percy and Dante

A Screen Capture

In the hyperspace diner scene at the end of the Redux episode, Dante asks the alien/waitress, “Were you there when I met Penny?  Is that why you look like her?”  In real life, the alien/waitress looks like Penny because Cavanagh Matmor is the daughter of Heidi von Palleske/Heather Belle-Matmor, who portrayed Penny in the first season and in the Redux version of this episode.

Cavanagh Matmor, as a baby, portrayed the very young Travis Montana in the first season.

Neil Davison was a stunt performer and stunt double on Starhunter 2300.  He also played a thug in Negative Energy.  Most of his credits in the second season were in the categories of stuntman and stunt double.

Those of us who have lived long enough to have historical perspective remember life before microwave ovens were ubiquitious, when VCRs were expensive, when most people had access to only a handful of television channels, when telephones sat on tables and hung on walls, and when one could place a small Christmas tree atop many a television set recall having to wait a week between episodes of our favorite series.  The Starhunter 2300 version of the episode, does not really get underway until 0:05:23, due to the opening sequence (0:01:15 long), followed by the recap of Hyperspace I.  By 2017, however, the age of streaming services and binge-watching had begun, hence the absence of a recap at the beginning of Hyperspace II (Redux).

This episode marks the return of Michael Paré as Dante Montana, absent from the role since Resurrection, at the end of the first season.  According to what I read here, Dante will be prominent in SolSys, the third season.

In Travis, the penultimate episode of the first season, the real Travis forgave his mother (Penny) and sent her to the fourth dimension, where she would find peace.

The fake Travis hates Penny until he speaks with her in this episode.

As future Percy reveals in this episode, hyperspace is just a bunch of nows.

GENERAL COMMENTS ABOUT THE EPISODE

Above:  Dante, Appearing in Percy’s Quarters, from the Starhunter Redux Version of This Episode

One may recognize the scene (minus Dante) as being from The Heir and the Spare.

A Screen Capture

1. At the end of Hyperspace I, the Transutopian entered hyperspace when an Orchard vessel was on top of the Tulip. The proximity of the Orchard ship creates the triphasic event on the Tulip.
2. Fake Travis and Dr. Xeylon go off into a region of hyperspace resembling clouds while reality on the Transutopian split up into a triphasic event.  Percy, Marcus, and Rudolpho are each alone (yet not alone) in his or her separate phased reality.  Percy is in a blue-shifted reality, Marcus is in a red-shifted one, and Rudolpho is in a green-shifted one.
3. In the Starhunter 2300 version of this episode, the implication is that the only other person in each color-shifted reality is Tristan Catchpole.  He is indeed, present, as one who watches the episode should know.  Yet, in the Starhunter Redux version of this episode, Percy from eighteen years later (and perhaps from an alternate universe) creates portals, looks through them, and closes them.  She appears to her younger self and to Marcus in early scenes.
4. Percy eventually returns to “home, sweet home,” wherever that is, in the Starhunter Redux version of this episode.  She proceeds to move her arms about and move tachyons until Caravaggio arrives.  They speak.  She asks the AI to help her find Dante, for there is a window to locate her uncle.
5. Fake Travis, whom most characters seem to accept as being the son of Dante and Penny, is a good guy.  His major problem in this episode is his suppression of his emotions.  Dr. Xeylon tells him that, to activate his second Divinity Cluster gene, the one that will enable him to travel in hyperspace at will, he must experience his emotions fully, in order to control them.  Only then will he be ready go back in time and change the past, to save Callie.  He succeeds on the second attempt, after encountering the deceased Callie and Penny in hyperspace.
6. The conversations between fake Travis and Penny Montana are different in each version of this episode.  Read farther down the screen, O reader, for both versions.
7. Future Dante and Percy (in the Starhunter Redux version of the episode) do not operate under the constraints of linear time.  In a scene set prior to other events of Hyperspace II (Redux) and altered from a previous episode of Starhunter 2300, fake Travis walks through a corridor.  In so doing, he walks through Dante, trying to break through from hyperspace. Shortly thereafter, both Dante and Percy appear in her quarters and speak to each other.  Percy has returned to hyperspace, and Dante has never left it.  Yet they can see and hear each other.  Dante asks, “Who was that that walked through me?”  Percy answers “That was your son, Travis.”  Dante replies, “No.  If there is one thing I’m sure of, Percy, he–that was not my son.”
8. According to G. Philip Jackson, Dante was looking for Percy, just as she was seeking him.  Furthermore, future Percy returned to the events of Hyperspace II to “effect changes that, among other things, help save all of them at the end of 2300.”  She also enabled Dante to “enter her older timeframe.”
9. Tristan Catchpole, aboard the Tulip, cannot retrieve the horizon generator until Percy, Marcus, and Rudolpho each fire a gravitonic burst, thereby bringing them into the same reality.  Then Catchpole steals the horizon generator and returns to Mars, the headquarters of the new Orchard.
10. The new Orchard is at least as bad and perhaps worse than the original one.  The second Orchard, like the first one, also has factions.  Dr. Edward Murchison just wants the new Orchard to monopolize access to hyperspace.  He is not above ordering people abducted, reprogrammed, or murdered, if he thinks that is necessary.  He is Machiavellian; the ends justify the means, according to him.  Catchpole and Roose, however, conspire to assassinate him during a meeting.  With Murchison’s corpse slumped at the table, Catchpole encourages the other Orchard members present to embrace the agenda of hybridizing the human species and resurrecting the aliens who implanted the Divinity Cluster about three million years ago.
11. This was the same agenda a faction of the first Orchard favored and that Eccleston opposed in Resurrection.
12. Fake Travis finally activates his second Divinity Cluster gene, goes back in time, changes the past, and shoots the Orchard thug to shot Callie in Hyperspace I.  Fake Travis returns to hyperspace.
13. Darius Scott was correct in Dark and Stormy Night; the ability to travel in time is tantamount to immortality.
14. On the bridge of Tulip, Percy, Marcus, and Rudolpho discuss how screwed and doomed they are without the horizon generator.  The ship is losing its structural integrity, and will explode soon, unless they can get out of hyperspace.   Then Callie appears on the bridge.  Nobody is surprised to see her.
15. Fake Travis and Dr. Xeylon return to the Transutopian.  Dr. Xeylon says there is a theoretical, untested way to take the ship out of hyperspace.  Yet time is running out; the warp bubble is collapsing.  Presumably, if the warp bubble collapses, boom!  Dr. Xeylon is finally ready to try her proposed method of exit when the warp bubble collapses.
16. The second season of Starhunter 2300 ended on that cliffhanger.
17. In Hyperspace II (Redux), a new scene placed shortly before that final scene of Hyperspace II (Starhunter 2300) has future Dante and Percy moving tachyons around (I guess that is what they are doing.) and observing the past. Dante remembers that, at the end of Resurrection, when he and the real Travis were in a shuttle falling toward Earth, he (Dante) teleported them into hyperspace.   Shortly after hearing this, Percy, in mid-sentence, disappears.  Or rather, the projection of her disappears.  I interpret her partial sentence to be a reference to Dr. Xeylon’s untested method of taking the Tulip out of hyperspace.
18. The final scene of Hyperspace II (Redux) plays out in a hyperspace diner.  Read farther down in this post for the transcript of that scene, O reader.  The waitress in the scene is a projection of one of the aliens who implanted the Divinity Cluster at the beginning of the first season.
19. The last shot of the episode is of a distortion in outer space.  This shot is recycled from the opening of Rebirth.  In that context, the shot precedes the emergence of the Tulip from hyperspace.  Is this a clue to what will happen in the opening scene of SolSys?  Time will tell, will it not?

THE (FAKE) TRAVIS-PENNY MONTANA CONVERSATION FROM HYPERSPACE II (2004)

Above:  Penny Montana in Hyperspace II (2004)

A Screen Capture

TRAVIS (TO DR. XEYLON):  Because I hate her.

PENNY:  I understand why you hate me.

TRAVIS:  Why are you here?

PENNY:  I’ve always been here.

TRAVIS:  No, you haven’t.

PENNY:  My consciousness is within you, within the Divinity Cluster.  I’ll be with you as long as you live.

TRAVIS:  Well, thanks to you, I’m a Divinity Cluster freak and a Raider, the very people who killed you.

PENNY:  Then you’ve gained your revenge on me.

TRAVIS:  I think you’ve missed the point.

PENNY:  You think I meant for this to happen to you?

TRAVIS:  I’d like to think not.  The truth is, I actually don’t know.

PENNY:  Your heart is looking for someone to blame.  I had no idea my experiments would affect you.  And I’m sorry they did.  But you must accept that accident and allow the possibilities of this life, not the the one you might have had.

Penny touches Travis’s face.

PENNY:  I’m always with you.

Penny vanishes.

TRAVIS:  Wait.  There’s so much more I have to say.

THE (FAKE) TRAVIS-PENNY MONTANA CONVERSATION FROM HYPERSPACE II (REDUX) (2017)

Above:  Penny Montana in Hyperspace II (Redux) (2017)

A Screen Capture

TRAVIS (TO DR. XEYLON):  Because I hate her.

PENNY:  I understand that.

TRAVIS:  Why are you here?

PENNY:  The flow of space, the geometry of time.

TRAVIS:  No, you haven’t.

PENNY:  My consciousness is within you, within the Divinity Cluster.  I’ll be with you as long as you live.

TRAVIS:  Well, thanks to you, I’m a Divinity Cluster freak and a Raider.

PENNY:  Do you think I meant for this to happen to you?

TRAVIS:  I’d like to think not.

PENNY:  It was an accident, Travis.  I had no insight into how my work would affect you.  And I am sorry it did.  But you may find that your powers and your training as a Raider could be of purpose to you.  It may serve you well in the events to come.

Penny vanishes.

TRAVIS:  Wait.  There’s so much more I have to say.

THE HYPERSPACE DINER SCENE

Above:  The Hyperspace Diner

A Screen Capture

The alien/waitress speaks with a distorted voice.

The pictures on the diner wall behind the alien/waitress are scenes from the first season.

WAITRESS:  Been a while.  Where you been?

DANTE:  Staying with my niece.

WAITRESS:  Coffee’s on the house.

Dante drinks coffee.

DANTE:  It’s so good.

WAITRESS:  Have as much of it as you want.

DANTE:  No.  I got too much to do.

WAITRESS:  On a day like this?

Rain begins to fall.

DANTE:  I never saw it rain.  Where are you gettin’ this? Seriously.  From some bit I saw?  Were you there when I met Penny?  Is that why you look like her?

WAITRESS:  You want a top off?

Dante throws the mug.  It shatters then vaporizes.  The waitress has one eye missing.  There is solid black where it was. There there is solid white where the eye was.  The waitresses’s face is obviously a construct.

WAITRESS:  Something different about you, Dante.  You all right?

DANTE:  You could say that.  You see, my niece, she’s been helping me get a good look at myself.  I’ve been trapped here with you for so long the memories are starting to fade.  Let me ask you something.  You have any memories?

The waitress’s face is returning to normal.

WAITRESS:  No need to get sassy.

DANTE:  No, you don’t, do you?  Because it’s all a bunch of now to you people.

WAITRESS: People?  People?  You think we’re some sort of monkeys like you?

DANTE:  Maybe, a long time ago.  But you live in hyperspace now, don’t you?

WAITRESS:  Don’t do this, Dante.

DANTE:  I ought to pity you what you’ve become.  But after what you’ve done to me, to my family, to the whole human race, all I got is race, lady.  I got it all the way down–

WAITRESS:  Wait.

Most of the waitress’s face is missing.  We see outer space where her mouth, nose, and eyes used to be.  Then we see a distortion in outer space.

End credits roll.

Above:  The Distortion in Outer Space

A Screen Capture

MORE SCREEN CAPTURES, IN ORDER

FINAL COMMENTS

Before I complete my Starhunter Redux blogging project, I have at least two more posts to compose and publish.  One will be a second season general post.  The other will be about Starhunter Redux as a whole.

I long for the days I can begin to watch and blog about SolSys.

KENNNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

DECEMBER 21, 2019 COMMON ERA

Above:  My Setup for Watching Both Versions of the Episode, December 20, 2019

The Starhunter 2300 episode from 2004 is on the left.  The Starhunter Redux episode from 2017 is on the right and on the monitor in the middle.

Photographer = Kenneth Randolph Taylor

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My project of blogging through Starhunter Redux is nearly complete; I have one episode left.

The greatest amount of alteration (for the better, by the way) in an episode is evident in Hyperspace II (Redux), on which I have ten pages of notes (including transcripts of the original and altered versions of one scene) in a college ruled notebook. My obsessive nature, which makes me detail-oriented, has paid off nicely in my notes, from which I will write the post of Hyperspace II/Hyperspace II (Redux).

That post will be longer than any of the previous posts in the Starhunter Redux series of posts, which I started publishing in October.  I look forward to creating that post and incorporating new screen captures.  The hour is getting late, however, so I choose to wait until after I have slept then consumed breakfast.

I offer this brief statement for now:  After seeing the modified episode, I am more excited than ever about seeing the third season, SolSys, whenever it will be available.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

DECEMBER 20, 2019 COMMON ERA

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SEASON 2, EPISODE 21

Above:  Roone, or Big Trouble

A Screen Capture

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MAIN CAST

Tanya Allen as Percy Montana

Clive Robertson as Travis Montana

Dawn Stern as Callista “Callie” Larkadia

Stephen Marcus as Rudolpho DeLuna

Paul Fox as Marcus Fagen

Graham Harley as Caravaggio (the ship’s AI)–in Starhunter 2300

Murray Melvin as Caravaggio (the ship’s AI)–in Starhunter Redux, Season 2

SUPPORTING CAST

Rachel Sanders as Dr. Vienna Xeylon

Greg Ellwand as Dr. Edward Murchison

Lynne Cormack as Roone

Geordie Johnson as Tristan Catchpole

BEHIND THE CAMERAS

Director = Roger Gartland

Writer = Hudson King

Composer (Theme–Starhunter 2300) = Peter Gabriel (Darker Star, arranged and mixed by Richard Evans and David Rhodes)

Composers (Episode–Starhunter 2300) = The Insects (Bob Locke and Tim Norfolk)

Composer (Theme–Starhunter Redux, Season 2) = Donald Quan

Composer (Episode–Starhunter Redux) = Donald Quan

Length of original episode = 0:47:54

Length of Redux episode = 0:42:18

BACKGROUND AND OTHER GENERAL COMMENTS

Above:  Travis, Emerging from Hyperspace

A Screen Capture

This episode is the first part of the two-part finale of the second season.

We previously encountered Dr. Edward Murchison and Tristan Catchpole in The Prisoner.

In Dark and Stormy Night, Darius Scott told Dante Montana that access to hyperspace via the Divinity Cluster is tantamount to immortality, due to time travel.  That point is germane to Hyperspace I and Hyperspace II.

In The Most Wanted Man and Resurrection, we learned that the Divinity Cluster is something to fear.  In Resurrection, we learned that the aliens who implanted the Divinity Cluster seek to resurrect themselves in us, thereby ending our species as we know it.  These points are germane in Hyperspace I and Hyperspace II.

Murchison’s goal is for the Orchard to monopolize access to hyperspace.  He is ruthless in pursuing this purpose.  He was certainly operating off-screen in Negative Energy.

Does Percy think that fake Travis is her cousin and the son of Dante and Penny Montana?  Tristan Catchpole does.  So does Rudolpho.  As far as Callie and Marcus know, he is.  Furthermore, fake Travis seems to think that he is.

A trope in this series is women hiding behind male pseudonyms.  One may recall Father Abode (Biocrime), Bliss (Painless), and Jay Beckers (Negative Energy).

GENERAL COMMENTS ABOUT THE EPISODE

Above:  Dr. Xeylon, Preparing to Take the Transutopian into Hyperspace

A Screen Capture

1. Marcus is up alone, late at night (ship time), reading obscure science journals while his shipmates sleep.  He reads an article that prompts him to wake everybody up early.  This is an unwelcome development for everyone else, especially Travis, who is having an erotic dream about Callie.
2. Marcus tells the drowsy shipmates (except Rudolpho, who is sleeping), that a negative energy pulse, when fired through plasma conduits in an antimatter engine, should result in the formation of a warp bubble, thereby allowing the vessel to enter hyperspace, according to a reclusive scientist, Dr. Gregor Laszig.  The other bounty hunters return to bed.
3. Travis goes back to bed and enters hyperspace as he thinks about Dante (who is not his father), lost in hyperspace.  There Travis meets a woman (Dr. Vienna Xeylon, as we learn soon), who tells him that he will be the one to find her.
4. A few hours later, most of the other bounty hunters are sleep-deprived and grumpy, but Marcus is in a good mood.  Travis is missing, however.  Callie insists upon a search of the ship.
5. On Mars, Tristan Catchpole and Roone, members of the new Orchard, are conspiring behind Murchison’s back.  Roone tells Catchpole that she estimates the length of time required to hybridize the human species will be three years.  (Remember, O reader, that Eccleston opposed this hybridization and the old Orchard supported it in Resurrection.)  Orchard agents are abducting people with naturally-activated Divinity Cluster genes and bringing them to Mars. Catchpole perceives that two people have entered hyperspace.  He suspects that Travis is one of them.  Who could the other one be?
6. Aboard the Tulip, Callie sees Travis return from hyperspace.  Travis tells his crew mates where he has been and what he has seen.
7. The Orchard decides to let Travis lead them to the second person who entered hyperspace.
8. Marcus tells Travis that a horizon generator is necessary for a ship to enter hyperspace.  Furthermore, Dr. Gregor Laszig, who wrote of it, had disappeared.
9. Percy hates hyperspace because being stuck there is like “getting stuck for centuries in a cell with no window.”  She also opposes going into hyperspace because she thinks that Dante is looking for her, and she does not want to miss him.
10. We learn that Rudolpho’s father, being absent, never taught him how to be a man.
11. Travis tracks down Dr. Laszig’s assistant, Dr. Vienna Xeylon, in Syn City, Io.  Rudolpho calls in a favor from a “friend of questionable character” to find an address.  Laszig is a fiction; Xeylon is Laszig.  Orchard agents are not far behind.  They shoot Callie, and Catchpole abducts Xeylon.
12. Aboard the Tulip, Callie dies because her heart dissolves.  Travis comes to realize that, via the Divinity Cluster, he can go back in time and save her.  This is not entirely news, for he traveled in time in Rebirth.  But how can he travel not at random, but on purpose?
13. On Mars, Murchison tries to persuade Xeylon to join the Orchard team.  Catchpole takes her to a planet in a “galaxy a thousand light-years from our solar system.”  (That description, verbatim, makes no sense.  How does Catchpole define a galaxy?)  After Xeylon refuses to join the Orchard team, Catchpole suggests changing her mind via neural treatment.  Murchison consents.  Travis and Marcus rescue her before the Orchard can change her mind.
14. An Orchard vessel in orbit of Mars bears down on the Tulip.  Xeylon takes the Transutopian into hyperspace just in time.

Next:  Hyperspace II, which exists in its original form and its greatly altered Redux form.  That post will be considerably longer and have more screen captures than this one.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

DECEMBER 19, 2019 COMMON ERA

SEASON 2, EPISODE 20

Above:  Percy Montana

A Screen Capture

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MAIN CAST

Tanya Allen as Percy Montana

Clive Robertson as Travis Montana

Dawn Stern as Callista “Callie” Larkadia

Stephen Marcus as Rudolpho DeLuna

Paul Fox as Marcus Fagen

Graham Harley as Caravaggio (the ship’s AI)–in Starhunter 2300

Murray Melvin as Caravaggio (the ship’s AI)–in Starhunter Redux, Season 2

SUPPORTING CAST

Nancy Palk as Senator/Judge Skaylon

Jeff Seymour as Senator Morgan Rendell

John Vine as Senator Vidal Calder

BEHIND THE CAMERAS

Director = Roger Gartland

Writer = Roger Gartland

Composer (Theme–Starhunter 2300) = Peter Gabriel (Darker Star, arranged and mixed by Richard Evans and David Rhodes)

Composers (Episode–Starhunter 2300) = The Insects (Bob Locke and Tim Norfolk)

Composer (Theme–Starhunter Redux, Season 2) = Donald Quan

Composer (Episode–Starhunter Redux) = Donald Quan

Length of original episode = 0:47:54

Length of Redux episode = 0:44:13

BACKGROUND AND OTHER GENERAL COMMENTS

Above:  Morgan Rendell

A Screen Capture

This is a clip show.  Clip shows are rarely good.

Dark and Stormy Night, the clip show from the first season, tied up many loose ends well early in the second half of that season.

Licence to Fill is mostly tedious, however.

The title of the original episode of Starhunter 2300 is Licence to Fill, according to good Canadian English.  The title of the episode of Starhunter Redux is License to Fill (Redux), according to good American English.

What is the structure of the government of the Mars Federation?  We know that the government has ministries, a president, senators, and a military.  Why do senators double as middle-level bureaucrats and moonlight as judges and attorneys?  The government seems not to have much separation of branches.

GENERAL COMMENTS ABOUT THE EPISODE

Above:  Senator Vidal Calder

A Screen Capture

Goof:  The screen identifies Calder as being from the Jupiter Federation.  This error also occurs in the Redux version of the episode.

1. The episode title is probably a play on Licence to Kill (1989), the second of two movies in which Timothy Dalton portrayed James Bond.
2. In this episode the crew’s bounty-hunting license/licence (Whatever; I am an American.) of the Tulip has lapsed.  The ship is docked at Mars Orbital One, and the application to renew the license is in process.  Also, the crew is almost out of money.
3. The crew of the good ship Transutopian has fallen out of favor (or favour) with the government of the Mars Federation since Just Politics.  I can’t imagine why. :)
4. Senator Calder, from the Internal Affairs division of the Security Division, has authority over the licensing of bounty-hunting vessels.  He impounds the ship and convenes a tribunal intended to have a rigged result.  Calder (the prosecutor) and Senator Skaylon (a judge) conspire to make the proceedings seem fair.
5. Senator Morgan Rendell, a family friend of the Larkadias, volunteers to defend the crew pro bono.  He replaces the intended, substandard public defender and frustrates the plans of Calder and Skaylon.
6. A standard courtroom story unfolds.  Caravaggio serves as a witness, providing plot cover for playing clips from previous episodes, usually out of context and cherry-picked.  The in-universe problem with this is that many of the clips show scenes that played out off the ship, therefore beyond Caravaggio’s recording devices.  Calder commits character assassination of most of the crew members, one-by-one, while Callie Marcus, and Rudolpho watch from the bridge and Travis sits in the courtroom.
7. Percy returns.  Mars Federation officials are holding her in a mental hospital.
8. Calder argues that the crew of the Tulip constitutes a menace.  He is insincere, of course.  Calder has an axe to grind.
9. Rendell discovers that axe.  An old photograph shows Calder with his arm over one shoulder of Devak, a disgraced former member of Citadel Squad, from Chasing Janus.
10. This case was always about Calder taking revenge on Callie for being honest and for insisting on honesty in the military.
11. Judge Skaylon has no choice but to dismiss the charges and have Calder arrested.  Rendell tells Skaylon that he will pursue this matter against her.  He wants to know why she was eager to bring the case to tribunal.
12. Percy reunites with her shipmates.

Next:  Hyperspace I, the first part of the two-part season finale.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

DECEMBER 19, 2019 COMMON ERA

SEASON 2, EPISODE 19

Above:  Executive Chief Inspector Tibbitt

A Screen Capture

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

MAIN CAST

Clive Robertson as Travis Montana

Dawn Stern as Callista “Callie” Larkadia

Stephen Marcus as Rudolpho DeLuna

Paul Fox as Marcus Fagen

Graham Harley as Caravaggio (the ship’s AI)–in Starhunter 2300

Murray Melvin as Caravaggio (the ship’s AI)–in Starhunter Redux, Season 2

SUPPORTING CAST

Michaela May as Jay Beckers

Carin Moffat as Karina

Jake Simmons as Orchard Buyer

Simon Williams as Executive Chief Inspector Tibbitt

Dan Willmott as Maintenance Guy

Carol Schulte as Bartender

Neil Davison as Thug

BEHIND THE CAMERAS

Director = Colin Bucksey

Writer = Eitan Arnusi

Composer (Theme–Starhunter 2300) = Peter Gabriel (Darker Star, arranged and mixed by Richard Evans and David Rhodes)

Composers (Episode–Starhunter 2300) = The Insects (Bob Locke and Tim Norfolk)

Composer (Theme–Starhunter Redux, Season 2) = Donald Quan

Composer (Episode–Starhunter Redux) = Donald Quan

Length of original episode = 0:47:54

Length of Redux episode = 0:44:03

BACKGROUND AND OTHER GENERAL COMMENTS

Above:  Karina (“Goldilocks”) and Rudolpho (“Papa Bear”)

A Screen Capture

Does fake Travis Montana think he is the son of Danta and Percy Montana, and the cousin of Percy Montana?

Percy Montana is still on vacation.

The Transutopian is one of the few ships in the solar system to have an antimatter drive.

GENERAL COMMENTS ABOUT THE EPISODE

Above:  A Functional Antimatter Drive

A Screen Capture

1. This episode contains references to Pandora’s Box and Just Politics, among other episodes.
2. Carol Schulte returns to play the bartender again, as she did in Pandora’s Box.
3. Callie and Travis getting closer to each other romantically.  She wants him to share secrets, to talk to her–really talk to her.  He tells Callie, however, that she may not want to know his secrets.
4. The episode opens with the crew of the Tulip pursuing shipjackers and much-needed bounty.  The shipjackers activate the stolen ship’s antimatter drive and get away, however.  They admit that maybe they could have caught up with the vessel and earned that bounty had Percy been around, for only she knows how she has modified the ship’s propulsion system over the years.
5. The crew asks Caravaggio to apply for the required Change of Energy Source Permit, despite the cost of 20,000 credits.  When the Tulip arrives at Io, Executive Chief Inspector Tibbitt, an extremely officious official with no sense of humor boards the ship and conducts an inspection.  He can cite regulations the way a classically-trained actor can quote Shakespeare.  Callie and Travis remain on the ship.  Callie keeps Travis away from Tibbitt as much as possible.
6. Unfortunately, Percy’s unorthodox rewiring may lead to stiff fines.
7. Rudolpho and Marcus go in search of Jay Beckers, a scientist (whom they presume to be male) with connections to the late Keres Group.  Beckers deals in both legal and illegal energy sources.  Surely Dr. Beckers will have Duranium 237, the energy source from Just Politics.  Rudolpho visits an old flame (Karina), who seems to know everything and will certainly be able to tell him where to find Dr. Beckers.
8. Rudolpho on Karina, whom he met in jail:  “She lied, cheated, and stole from me.  It was the best relationship I ever had.”
9. Executive Chief Inspector Tibbitt, who insists that people address him by his full title, is corrupt.  He plans to condemn the Tulip, presumably to have it destroyed, but really so he can sell it to the Orchard for a large profit.  Marcus learns, however, that Tibbitt’s inspection is not official; the Jupiter Federation has yet to process the application for the permit.  When Tibbitt calls in troops to try to expel Travis and Callie from the ship, combat ensues and Tibbitt flees deeper into the vessel.
10. Jay Beckers is a woman.  She does have Duranium 237, but she also wants to enslave and modify Marcus.  Rudolpho pretends to play to along with Beckers, but he returns shoots her, rescues Marcus, and takes the Duranium 237.
11. Marcus and Rudolpho return to the Transutopian during the firefight.  Meanwhile, an Orchard ship approaches the Tulip.  Tibbitt tries to prevent Marcus from placing the Duranium 237 into the antimatter drive, but other bounty hunters subdue Tibbitt.
12. The Tulip travels from Io to beyond Neptune almost instantaneously.
13. The Transutopian travels at normal speed back to the Jupiter Federation, which posts a 100,000 credit bond for the return of Tibbitt.
14. Does the crew of the Tulip ever get that permit?

Next:  Licence to Fill, a clip show in which Percy returns.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

DECEMBER 19, 2019 COMMON ERA

SEASON 2, EPISODE 18

Above:  Mars Federation Minister of Trade Andras Kolzig

A Screen Capture

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

MAIN CAST

Clive Robertson as Travis Montana

Dawn Stern as Callista “Callie” Larkadia

Stephen Marcus as Rudolpho DeLuna

Paul Fox as Marcus Fagen

Graham Harley as Caravaggio (the ship’s AI)–in Starhunter 2300

Murray Melvin as Caravaggio (the ship’s AI)–in Starhunter Redux, Season 2

SUPPORTING CAST

Kai Wiesinger as Andras Kolzig

Sara Stockbridge as Gaynor Schon

John Boylan as Reasoner

Kerry Segal as Jophie Henrik

Colm Magner as President Bennet Morland

David Ingram as Hakin Dircott

BEHIND THE CAMERAS

Director = Roger Gartland

Writer = David T. Reilly

Composer (Theme–Starhunter 2300) = Peter Gabriel (Darker Star, arranged and mixed by Richard Evans and David Rhodes)

Composers (Episode–Starhunter 2300) = The Insects (Bob Locke and Tim Norfolk)

Composer (Theme–Starhunter Redux, Season 2) = Donald Quan

Composer (Episode–Starhunter Redux) = Donald Quan

Length of original episode = 0:47:54

Length of Redux episode = 0:43:54

BACKGROUND AND OTHER GENERAL COMMENTS

Above:  President Bennet Morland of the Mars Federation

A Screen Capture

The absence of Tanya Allen as Percy Montana hangs over this episode.  Percy’s absence is crucial to the plot, and she appears only in recycled footage.

My best guess is that Tanya Allen was filming Anyone’s Game/Chicks with Sticks.

Duplicitous government officials, some of them willing to let innocent people suffer and perhaps die to save their political skins, are staples of fiction.  Mars Federation President Bennett Morland is one of these.  He is not quite as bad as Brian Green, the evil and opportunistic British Prime Minister from Torchwood:  Children of Earth, but Morland is bad enough.  One may also think of the murderous Prime Minister Francis Urquhart from the superior, original, British version of House of Cards and its sequels.  Another member of this elite club of fictional villains is William Morgan Clark, the Earth Alliance Vice President who conspired to assassinate President Luis Santiago then created a police state that stokes irrational fears of aliens and pursues an “Earth First” agenda in Babylon 5.  (1993-1998).  One may remember that Clark committed suicide and tried to wipe out the planet as guards arrived to arrest him and the rescue fleet was in orbit, saving the planet.

Such duplicitous government officials are not only characters in fictional works, unfortunately.

GENERAL COMMENTS ABOUT THE EPISODE

Above:  Marcus Fagen and Jophie Henrik

A Screen Capture

1. The episode opens with the Transutopian at Mars.  The crew’s mission is to transport Trade Minister Andras Kolzig and his party to secret negotiations in the Mannheim Asteroid Belt, near Neptune.  Travis thinks this mission is odd.  Besides, the Mars Federation government has official spacecraft.  Rudolpho likes the prospect of the payment of 300,000 credits for the mission.
2. Kolzig arrives with aide Jophie Henrik and security officers Gaynor Schon and Hagin Dircott.
3. Schon almost immediately reprograms Caravaggio to identify her as Percy Montana.  This action causes computer malfunctions relevant to the plot of the episode.
4. Jophie is far more than the cute girl next door.  She, daughter of a ship’s engineer, is a technology geek.  She and Marcus become suspicious because of malfunctions in Caravaggio.
5. Schon uses Caravaggio to murder Dircott then to diagnose the cause of death as a heart attack.  Travis and Callie find evidence of the murder, though.
6. Caravaggio’s self-defense program attacks Marcus and Jophie, killing her.
7. Rudolpho, suspicious of Kolzig, finally realizes who the man.  Kolzig is actually Carter Berkhan, a murderer and a fugitive responsible the deaths of 57 people, including some of Rudolpho’s relatives.
8. The Tulip arrives at its destination.  A miner, Reasoner, arrives on the ship and meets privately with Kolzig.  The Trade Minister, who “made” Morland, pays Reasoner 20 million credits to delay the delivery of Duranium 237 and somehow cause Morland to fall to from power.  Kolzig wants to be the next President.
9. A hellstone is an asteroid that has entered our universe through a black hole.  The hellstone in this episode is a rich source of Duranium 237, which one can use to produce negative energy, which allows one to enter hyperspace.
10. Is the Orchard working behind the scenes in this episode?  Dr. Edward Murchison wants to get into hyperspace.
11. Schon has been spying on everyone, via Caravaggio.
12. Schon reports to President Morland.  She confirms that Kolzig is a traitor and hints at a darker secret with the potential to destroy Morland.  The President authorizes Schon to do “whatever it takes” to keep the secret and preserve his government.
13. Schon uses Caravaggio to destroy the hellstone and kill Reasoner.
14. Rudolpho confronts Kolzig in a corridor.
15. Then Schon tells the truth to everybody.  The mission was really to prove whether or not Kolzig was a traitor.  A trial, however, would destroy the Morland Administration.  Schon sets the Tulip to self-destruct and plans to escape via a shuttle.  Everybody else may die.
16. Callie prevents Schon from departing while other crew members try to terminate the self-destruct process.  Callie kills Schon in self-defense.  Travis reasons with Caravaggio, who terminates the countdown.
17. One may reasonably assume that Kolzig spends the journey back to Mars in the brig.
18. The crew decides to blackmail President Morland into paying them the promised 300,000 credits.
19. A corrupt miner and two innocent people died during this episode.
20. President Morland had a reputation as a softy by Mars Federation standards, and Kolzig kept a relatively low profile.
21. We may understand why the Trade Minister kept a relatively low profile.
22. If President Morland, who was willing to let innocent people die to save his career, is a softy, I do not want to meet a hardliner.
23. I wonder what President Morland did to Kolzig after the Tulip returned to Mars.

Next:  Negative Energy, an episode with plot ties to this one.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

DECEMBER 19, 2019 COMMON ERA