Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Season 1 Episode 11: Dooku Captured
What is it ? : Starting in the middle of the action, Anakin has been captured tracking down Count Dooku and Obi-Wan rescues him, the two then track down Dooku aboard the vessel and force him to flee. Following him to Vanqor, Dooku leads Obi-Wan and Anakin into the caves beneath the planet, where Gundarks nest. While they are in combat with the Gundarks, the tracking beacon aboard Dooku's ship attracts Hondo Ohnaka's pirate gang.
Hondo and Dooku come to a deal that Dooku will pay for passage from Vanqor, but Hondo (being Hondo) double crosses him and takes him hostage, offering him to the Republic for a ransom. Palpatine and the Jedi Council agree as long as a couple of Jedi can confirm Dooku is captive and alive.
Anakin and Obi-Wan are sent, unarmed, to Hondo's gang, and after taunting Dooku in his captivity (exactly the same type as Obi-Wan was in on Geonosis in Attack of the Clones), they party with the pirates who attempt to drug them. This attempt is detected by the two Jedi, who swap their poisoned drinks with a couple of Pirates who collapse into unconsciousness.
To be continued. . .
High Points : The story speeds along after dropping you straight into the action, and lots and lots happens, maybe too much, but it's action packed and quite a fun episode.
Hondo Ohnaka . . . yay. Although I've never watched The Clone Wars series before, I have watched Rebels. So I'm aware of who Hondo is, and have to say right from his first appearance, Hondo doesn't disappoint, he's totally in it for the money and is a smart and well planned operator, brilliant to see him.
Low Points : While I'm going to list these as low points, they're not massive criticisms.
The episode drops straight into the action, with Dooku having been tracked down, Anakin dispatched to deal with him, and Anakin captured. Obi-Wan arrives and it's all been part of the plan all along, all being shown in the section of a show usually dedicated to the "previously" segment. So much so, I paused the episode to check I hadn't missed an episode.
Now, while it's great to just get to the action, there's story padding in the Gundark cave part of the episode, which could have been cut if we'd seen some of the early part of the story (show don't tell).
The episode doubles down on this by leaving the story on an anti-climax, with Obi-Wan and Anakin having just avoided being drugged. This isn't a cliffhanger of an ending, the very opposite. Which makes me think the timing of the storyline within the episode is just a little off. In fact, if there is a cliffhanger in this episode, it's how is Dooku going to get out of this now, rather than any drama involving the heroes.
Oh, and one nitpicky gripe. When Obi-Wan and Anakin are on Vanqor, they cause a gas to be released which they begin to choke on, when surely we've seen in the opening moments of The Phantom Menace that gas is of no danger to Jedi at all.
So what do you really think ? : It's difficult to rate this episode, as more than any other so far, it's part of a story. Where previously we've had several stories which linked into a larger story (much as A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi make a larger story while remaining independent tales of their own), this episode is more like a serial, and is incomplete on it's own. This episode only forms the middle of the story, which is odd in itself given there's no beginning episode.
That said, the episode was good, there was a lot we've not really seen before, and a new character I know who won't be killed off (something I've been moaning about for the last few episodes.
Final Words : Look forward to the next part (or is it parts, I can't really tell how much longer this story will continue at this point) to find out if the actually amounts to anything, it's difficult to tell at this point.
Score : 7/10
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