Spiders, spiders everywhere, and not a drop to drink. (That said, a Grendler does almost drink a spider in this one.)
The Eden Project people are still camped out awaiting winter to end, which is getting to annoy them because they aren’t making any progress in getting to their destination, the coastal region they’ve named New Pacifica. So when a couple of human blood-addicted Grendlers bring fresh fruit to them that must have come some long distance very quickly, the group looks into it. It turns out that there is a tunnel nearby that is part of some sort of space-folding process that can allow the Grendlers to travel all the way to the coast nearly instantly! There are complications and what ever, what with the Grendlers being addicted to human blood, but none of it really matters so let’s just jump to the end: it turns out that the magic cave actually goes the wrong way. It brings them all the way to the opposite side of the continent than they are trying to get to. With that potential travel system no use to them, it’s back to camping out the winter.
ALIEN STUFF:
- We get new animals on G889 finally! Though because they look EXACTLY like Earth spiders, I couldn’t tell for much of the episode if they were supposed to be Earth spiders that accidentally stowed away with the colonists or not. Turns out not. These are some weird darn spiders, even if they look just like Earth ones and spin webs. It turns out they are magic! (Inasmuch as the weird metaphysical properties of G889 are “magical” but being filtered through a sci-fi lens here.) There are two species, considered “opposites” and each with some mystic connection to a concept of attraction. One species is about things coming together and one is about them coming apart. They build webs that create forcefields and that is what causes the weird space-folding effect, naturally. But also, if one of the attraction spiders bite a human (or a Grendler) then that person will fall in love with the next person it sees. Presumably a repulsion spider can cause hatred or at least aloofness. These are, indeed, some weird spiders.
- The Grendlers, as I say, play a big part in this one. We’ve not seen Grendlers who are addicted to blood since the ones that Gaal was keeping as henchmen and I don’ t know if these ones are supposed to be those same ones or not. Either way, they don’t know where blood comes from, so they spend much of the episode trying to get Dr. Julia to create it for them. That said, one of them does see her bleed, so it is possible the knowledge could spread, which would not be good for our heroes. For the record, the Grendlers are still speaking in Doom sound effects. I assume that’s just gonna be like that forever and it makes me very happy.
- As I said, these new spiders are disappointing because they look just like Earth spiders and the show had, until now, done a decent job making the aliens look alien. I’ll have to allow them this one though, because for the most part they’ve not created new aliens since the Grendlers first appeared. So far we have two seemingly sapient species (the Terrians and Grendlers) and those little lizard puppets from the pilot that the Internet tells me are called Kobas. We’ve never seen what is making the ever-present Eagle Sounds, but I’m hoping it is some freaky looking bat thing. Devon also mentions that she hasn’t gotten used to the insects on this planet, which indicates tiny life forms we’ve not seen and I sure hope they are some weird little guys.
- That’s right, I’ll bother doing real bullet points for an Alien Stuff section.
Other Stuff: 1) The “will they/won’t they” for Devon and Danziger continues in this one. She’s over her dream man from a while back, time to start having feelings for the one the audience is gonna root for. The “they will” for Alonso and Julia also continues. Good for them. 2) I do like that the crew seem to take care not to harm the spiders. Considering they’re basically always intent on taking this planet from the Terrians and Grendlers, seeing them do minor nice things to the local life helps.