Droids: Season 1 Episode 4: A Race to the Finish
What is it ? : C-3PO, R2-D2, Thall Joben, Kea Moll and Jord Dusat are taking the White Witch to the Boonta Speeder Race in Kea's starship The Sand Sloth. C-3PO and R2-D2 are outside on the hull with the White Witch, when the starship comes under attack by a Lambda Shuttle owned by the Fromm's, who have lost their gang and have been reduced to just Sise Fromm, Tig Fromm and Vlix Oncard.
The Sand Sloth makes the jump to Hyperspace, evading the Fromm's, but crashes on Boonta, where they encounter an ancient patched together droid called Proto One who offers to repair their ship.
The Fromm's arrive on world, where Sise Fromm calls in a favour with Boba Fett, who although Jabba the Hutt has issued a bounty on the Fromm's, will help them out and catch the crew of the Sand Sloth for them.
Threepio encounters a droid called BL-17, who helps them repair the White Witch to prepare for the race, but it turns out BL-17 is owned by Boba Fett, and he sabotages a gas tank in the repair shop, trapping Kea and R2-D2 inside, although they manage to escape.
BL-17 lures them into another trap, but R2-D2 and Proto One manage to disable him, but the distraction allows Tig Fromm to sneak in and plant a Thermal Detonator on the White Witch.
Thall enters the White Witch into the race, and Boba Fett joins in his own speeder, the Silver Speeder, attacking Thall during the race with various weapons. However the attacks dislodge the Thermal Detonator, which destroys Fett's speeder, allowing Thall to win. With his droid and speeder destroyed, Boba considers his debt to Sise Fromm paid, and captures Sise, Tig and Vlix, to take them to Jabba.
Thall, Kea and Jord are approached by Zebulon Dak, the owner of a speeder company, who hires them to work for him. However, the contract requires their droids to be memory wiped, so they consider not taking the contract as it will mean that C-3PO and R2-D2 won't be themselves any more. But the droids take an escape pod from the Sand Sloth and leave, allowing their friends to take their dream jobs.
High Points : Another episode of Droids where it is slightly better than the average, with a competent storyline with BL-17 and Proto One, where the friendliness of Proto One lures the heroes into trusting Boba's droid BL-17 when he offers to help. Even though the show is in a hurry to show us that BL-17 can't be trusted all too soon.
I also have to complement the look of Boonta, as it has a western feel to it, all while remaining firmly within the Star Wars universe, I instantly wanted to explore the town more than the series does, and really liked the look of it.
Low Points : Well, we're back to C-3PO falling over again, although fortunately this is kept to a minimum, although C-3PO is kept firmly in his incompetent sidekick role, with R2-D2 constantly in the right every episode.
I'm a little confused as to why Kea ends up joining Thall and Jord in their new job? She obviously kind of owes them for their help against the Fromm's and in destroying the Trigon One. So taking them to Boonta in her ship seems sensible, and definitely in characters for her. But taking up a job designing Speeders when she's shown no aptitude for that, and worse she seems to be abandoning her role as part of her mother's Rebel cell, seems completely wrong, and more as if the writers just couldn't be bothered dealing with what happens to her separately to the guys so just bundled her fate in with theirs.
So what do you really think ? : Not a terrible episode of Droids, with at least it showing a sensible motivation for Boba Fett not turning on the Fromm's until the end (he owes Sise a favour), and a fairly action packed race, with the heroes emerging triumphant, even only if because of the bad guys actions (the Thermal Detonator that Tig Fromm planted on the White Witch).
Final Words : Well, so C-3PO and R2-D2 leave their first set of owners in the series, completing this set of episodes, and the overall plot wasn't terrible, with Jord and Thall getting mixed up in Kea's plans to destroy the Trigon One, and the fall of the Fromm gang.
So let's see what the next "owners" bring with them!
Score : 6.5/10
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