Well damn it all.  I was really hoping that the last episode was a fluke and season 3 would surprise me, but we’re tackling another senseless episode that doesn’t fit with established ideas thus making season 3 feel more like a drudgery than I thought.  And to think, the first episode actually had me excited.

I sort of figured it was the result of putting a new writer into the mix who perhaps didn’t know all of what came before.  This was long before the idea of a series showrunner like on Doctor Who, so I’m assuming no one told Jon Kubichan what happened last season. Without the foundation, what can you expect.  If you don’t know what happened before, you end up writing an idea that sounds good on paper but in practice, falls flat.  In The Orb, the Skulls of Infinite Wisdom tell the Sleestak their “new” idea: get the Orb that’s been down in the pit with their god all this time and they can make night fall eternally.  You know, the way they tried to do in the season 2 finale and found out that eternal night would kill them also…  Yeah, you’re thinking “that is not logical”, aren’t you?

First off, I’ve got to ask, if the orb in the basement could do that, why did they bother looking for the pylon last season?  Wouldn’t it have been easier to mount a trip into the pit and never leave their home?  Second, what is this Orb of Christmas Tree Decorations Lost?  How does that do anything for the day/night rotation?  Up until this point, there’s been a sense of intelligence to the world; like it was manufactured and there was a guiding force behind it.  Since Malak’s arrival last episode, I think something went horribly wrong.  Yes, someone gave new writers a chance without telling them anything.  “Hey, there are like, 3 people who are tormented by green hissing lizards and some dinosaurs are around… you get it… just write something…  And add something educational.  Anything.  Maybe a word or two about morality… just get on with it.”  

Then we have the Sleestak who had Enik over like a friend visiting from out of town, but just one episode later, they hold him hostage over a pit insisting that the Marshall’s are his friends and will come rescue him.  Why do they think that?  Mostly so that Enik can say over and over again that “it is not logical!”  Right dude, we get it.  I couldn’t agree more.

Sure, you have to wonder because early in the episode, Enik and Will are taking a walk together because, like a bad relationship, they are on again, off again.  Whatever.  Clearly no one cared enough to write things with some degree of consistency.  While discussing morality to give the young Saturday morning crowd something good to learn about, they encounter a pylon that they’ve never seen before.  I think it’s a TARDIS in disguise, but Will says maybe it was invisible.  (Guess what Enik has to say about that: “that is not logical”.)  Will walks into it to explore since they are bigger on the inside (just saying) while Enik gets abducted by the Sleestak.  When Will walks out… he’s invisible!  My turn: that is not logical!  So Will realizes he can save Enik because he’s invisible, not because they are reluctant friends.  His invisibility fades just as he’s saving his Altrusian “friend”.  Oh, my word, that is just not logical!  

It’s really the perfect summation of the episode though because the cave of super-wise skulls told the Sleestak to bring about endless night but didn’t they learn their lesson before?  Oh yeah… not logical… I get it.  It’s like the skulls aren’t really wise at all, they’re just ticked off at being dead and want to create havoc.  Oh Land of the Lost Logic!  Will understands that “the entire ecological system will be destroyed,” but sadly none of the wisdom of the aged skulls get that.  Ah!  Maybe they’re senile!  Enik, ironically, does understand but he’s not to be trusted by his fellow Altrusians… (not now but that’ll change when another new writer comes in.)  

In the end, even with Will making it into the pit with the god, we still have no idea what it is or what it looks like and that’s getting tiresome.  I want to know.  I think it’s Cthulhu.  Sigh.  The worst part is that some of these episodes fly by. Many of those 25 minutes held me enthralled and excited waiting for the next mystery to be unveiled, while others are clearly designed to keep a kid entertained long enough for his or her parents to make them breakfast before they went out to do something fun.  But I’m still hopeful.  I looked on Wikipedia to see who writes the remaining 10 episodes and do see a few repeat names from before so things can still improve.  I bailed on the show ages back and never got to see all of season 3; I’m guessing I bailed around episode 3 or 4, so maybe I have to deal with one more newbie before we see an improvement?  My fingers are definitely crossed.  I’d ask Enik to help with that, but I suspect his fingers can’t cross, so I’ll rely on my own abilities.  I know what you’re thinking, “That is not logical!”  I see what you mean…ML