Star Wars: Skeleton Crew: Season 1: Episode 4: Cant Say I Remember No At Attin
What is it ? : The kids starship, The Onyx Cinder, arrives in orbit around the world that Kh'ymm gave them co-ordinates to. The kids point out where they think they lived, and Fern doesn't trust Jod, ordering him from the bridge. They begin to land, and the ship jerks as automatic landing systems try to take control, but SM-33 over-rides the controls and lands them stealthily.
They exit the ship, and Jod comments that the place smells like ashes, so Fern orders SM-33 into baby sitting mode confining Jod to the ship. They kids explore the neighbourhood they've landed in, which looks exactly like home but abandoned and in ruins, and Wim suggests they're lost in time. They are approached by another child, but wearing armor who helps them hide while an armored column goes past, including a Trade Federation AAT.
She takes them back to the town school, but here it is a military camp, the people here are at constant war with other inhabitants of the world, which turns out to not me At-Attin, but instead At Achrann, another of the Republic treasure worlds.
The kids are recruited into the army, as the people here fight from a young age. Meanwhile back at the ship, Jod is looting from the supplies the kids left behind, and discovers from SM-33 that they're not on At-Attin, and takes him outside to try to discover where they are, but they are surrounded by the military raiders the kids saw earlier.
Neel shares some of his food with other children in the camp, and the girl who brought them here sees his kindness and befriends him. But the kids are taken on a patrol, because the people have had their herd of Horned Eopie's stolen from them. They are forced to scout ahead, but they encounter Jod who has used the money he looted from Wim's supply to trade and buy back the stolen Eopie's, which he returns to the people in exchange for the kids.
They are overjoyed to see him, and the girl they have befriended tells them there are starmaps in a tower nearby which might include the co-ordinates to At-Attin.
They head there, and find stones with the names of all the treasure worlds, but the co-ordinates for At-Attin have been destroyed, and SM-33 reveals he did it last time he was here.
When questioned, he keeps repeating "Can't Say I Remember No At Attin", and after having a moment of doubt, thinking she has led them into danger and almost gotten them killed, Fern realises that SM-33 is saying that because he has been programmed to. She orders him as his captain to remember, which he does.
However he also remembers being orders to tear anyone asking about At- Attin limb from limb, so he attacks her.
Jod tries to shoot him, but his weapon jams, so Neel throws a rock and distracts him. SM-33 is about to attack Neel, but Jod leaps on him and switches him off, just as Neel collapses in a faint.
High Points : A brilliant mystery to begin with, when we see places familiar to us, the houses the kids were living in, the school, etc, all in ruins. So we don't know if there's been some kind of time dilation effect from the Onyx Cinder having been buried for years? And we discover that the 7 treasure planets are built to a pattern. Which just introduces a fantastic new mystery, why have the other 6 worlds fallen, and only At Attin remained.
We're also left wondering what the treasure of these worlds was? Is it just that they were planned to protect the Republic itself, by keeping a little part of it hidden from everything, safe and protected.
And Jod is being wonderful, Jude Law is an amazingly charismatic actor, and the dialogue he's been given is fantastic. He really seems to have become a heroic character, it's entirely possible he's still got other motives, but for the moment he's really great to watch with some hilarious lines.
Low Points : The entire war thing on At Achrann is a bit stupid, they don't know why they're fighting, and they trade with off worlders for weapons (which is why one side has an AAT), but it feels like there should be more to it. And perhaps there will, I could see some kind of twist like Serenity, where the Treasure worlds were supposed to be perfect, but the control systems for the different worlds went wrong in different ways, leading to all of them failing except At Attin.
So what do you really think ? : Although it was a bit slow in the middle, the mysteries kept my interest, Neel was the most interesting of the kids this episode (it definitely seemed like it was his story for a chunk of it), but Jod was the most interesting character, finding out the most and being entertaining and funny throughout.
Final Words : Skeleton Crew has been fairly obvious so far, and it seems likely that the quest will now be to visit each of the Treasure worlds (as only the co-ordinates for At-Attin were destroyed, not the others), as they follow in the footsteps of SM-33 and his former captain, to see whether they've destroyed all evidence of the location of their home world. Which could be really interesting, if as I mention above, there is some reason behind all the other treasure worlds failing.
Score : 9/10
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