Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures: Season 2: Story 8: The Terror of Tenoo
What is it ? : The Young Jedi are returning from a mission with Nash, having retrieved an artifact belonging to Marlaa Jinara from the Pirates. Marla thanks them, but Nash feels left out, since she helped but is kind of ignored, but as they fly through an asteroid field they discover an abandoned ship, The Terror of Tenoo.
Nash explains to the Jedi that this used to be a Pirate ship which would steal from Tenoo before is disappeared, among the things it stole was the Staff of Kaliah Kublop, the founder of Tenoo, and Nash decides to board the ship as retrieving the staff will make people recognise that she is a hero like the Young Jedi.
They dock leaving Nash's droid, RJ-83, behind to guard the Crimson Firehawk, But as they board the Terror of Tenoo they find it is dark, so Nash activates it's power. Unseen on the Bridge, a droid is also activated. They search the ship and find the treasure room, locating the staff of Kaliah Kublop among other treasures, but are then confronted by the droid who is revealed to be Pirate Captain Blackbolt.
The Jedi ignite their lightsabers, but Blackbolt easily disarms them taking the Staff, and telling them that now he has been reactivated he's going to resume his reign of terror on Tenoo, and he locks them in the treasure chamber.
Nash feels bad about the trouble her want to be a hero has caused, but remembers that RJ-83 is still aboard the Crimson Firehawk, so she contacts him and asks him to come and free them. He comes, but the controls are out of reach, so he has to climb a pile of junk and leap at the controls to open the door.
The Young Jedi head to the bridge to stop Captain Blackbolt, but Nash gathers up some of the treasure to ensure she is considered a hero. She passes the bridge with a cart full of treasure, but sees the Young Jedi struggling to beat Blackbolt. So she and RJ-83 reprogram the navicomputer to take the Terror of Tenoo into deep space, and then she wrecks the controls so he cannot abort the hyperspace jump.
They race to get back to the Crimson Firehawk to escape before they are lost in Hyperspace with Blackbolt, but Nash delays to get the cart of treasure, but ends up struggling with Blackbolt for it, so is forced to abandon it in the nick of time.
She gets to the Crimson Firehawk, followed by RJ-83, and they undock as the Terror of Tenoo leaps into Hyperspace.
As they head back to Tenoo, Nash regrets not being able to recover any of the treasure, but RJ-83 reveals he managed to get the Staff of Kaliah Kublop, which they return to Tenoo. Marlaa Jinara thanks them for recovering her artefact, and is amazed they also have the staff, and the Young Jedi reveal that Nash and RJ-83 helped, and the people of Tenoo gather to thank Nash and hear her story of how she managed it. . . .
High Points : An excellent episode, and although Blackbolt is a little cliched, he makes an effective opponent and the story moves along well.
I was totally surprised by how effective a villain Blackbolt makes in a kids series, he's armed and dangerous, more so than many of the enemies the Young Jedi fight.
Low Points : This seems very close to the story of Skeleton Crew to me, a bunch of kids finding an ancient pirate ship with only a droid left aboard?
But my main problem is that the story sets up Nash to be hungry for attention and praise from the people of Tenoo so she will set events in motion as she wants to recover the treasure from the pirate ship. So Marlaa totally blanks thanking her, even when reminded of her help by the Young Jedi, which is a bad reflection on the people of Tenoo when the kids are so starved of praise that they put themselves in danger.
The kids rush to stop Blackbolt as he threatens to raid Tenoo once again, as he did in the past. But they seem to feel like Tenoo will be totally defenceless before him, totally forgetting that Master Zanna, and potentially other Jedi are there (assuming that she doesn't do all the teaching for the quantity of younglings on Tenoo), so Blackbolt won't be much of a threat at all.
So what do you really think ? : A solid episode, lots of action, a sensible ending which doesn't seem contrived or overly child friendly, leaving an opening for a return of Pirate Captain Blackbolt in the future.
Final Words : I really am finding it difficult to get over the similarity of this episode to the Skeleton Crew series, and find myself wondering if it's intentional. To make a version of that for a younger audience, or potentially hook them in to watching the other series too? Or whether it's a sad case of the different teams not talking (I've seen this happen in Star Trek, where season 1 of Prodigy, and Season 3 of Picard both had the same threat, where the Federation ships were controlled and used against the Federation), so they end up using the same ideas.
Score : 8.5/10
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