Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures: Season 1: Story 42: Happy Trails, Nubs
What is it ? : Jedi Master Zanna leaves the students from the academy with Gab, who is delivering a Well Maker Drill to settlements on Tenoo who need it to create wells to water their crops. There are vehicles to carry the students, but Nubs arrives late, and all the seats are gone, so he is put in the cargo vehicle with the Well Maker Drill.
As they travel towards the settlement, the Ganguls spot the convoy, and decide that stealing the drill will fund them getting a ship and getting off Tenoo. The take their speeders down and sever the connection to the cargo container, connecting their own vehicles and racing away.
When they reach their encampment they realise Nubs is in the container. But the leader of the gang, Sellaccc Orryak, realises that Nubs wasn't with his friends, and they left him in there alone. They keep him covered, but as they unload the drill is begins to topple onto them, and Nubs catches it and saves them, so Sellaccc tells him how great it would be to have someone so helpful on his team.
Gab lends Lys and Kai speeder bikes, and they follow Nubs commlink signal and locate the Ganguls camp, but the gang detects them approaching. They convince Nubs that dangerous animals are approaching, and talk him into helping out and protecting them by putting a boulder over the entrance to their camp to keep the Jedi out.
As he does he spots his friends, and despite Sellaccc trying to convince him that the Ganguls would be more reliable friends than the Young Jedi, Nubs does what is right and they Ganguls are defeated, vowing revenge.
The Young Jedi take the Drill back to Gab and they deliver it to the settlement where it works and brings up a fresh spring of water, and Kai and Lys tell Nubs to let them know if he feels left out again. . .
High Points : It's a Nubs story, and one that works pretty well without us having to understand what he says, we get all context for him from how we'd feel and from other characters reactions to him. The story itself is simple enough, but I really do like that it left me with the impression the Ganguls actually would make pretty good friends for Nubs.
Low Points : The set up for the episode seems a little silly, even if Nubs is running late, why is a school trip arranged without enough seats for all of the students? The Jedi seem haphazard in the way they train younglings at the best of times, but really they didn't even ensure that everyone could go. Although given the way they endanger the students in previous episodes, it's entirely possible they just thought that they'd be a student down to death or injury.
So what do you really think ? : I liked this one, not massively, but it was a fun little story, and one that brought out the best in the Ganguls. Where in the past they've been verging on violent (remembering it's toned down as it's a kids show), this time they seemed to actually be considering whether they could recruit Nubs. And I have to wonder with how badly the Jedi treat younglings, perhaps it would be a happier and safer place for him.
Final Words : The message of this episode seems to be, remember who you're true friends are, just because someone is acting nice doesn't mean they're your friend. Which would make sense, if not for the fact that the Ganguls weren't out to harm Nubs, and actually did value him for his talents and how he'd be a great part of their gang.
Score : 8.25/10
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