Bucky O'Hare - 08

"The Search For Bruce"
Toad experimentation with teleportation technology leads to the heroes' discovery that this animated adaptation has indeed spared their former crew mate and ship's mechanic Bruce from death. (In the original comics, the feedback from the photon accelerator thoroughly incinerated him.) While (spoiler alert!) they don't manage to bring him back aboard, the episode leaves us with the possibility of his return in a future episode—in a second season for the show that, tragically, was never produced.

Points of interest:
1:20 Curiously, as large and conspicuous as this tracking device is, neither Bucky O'Hare nor any of his crew ever happen to notice it. By the next time we get a view of the outside of the ship (5:00), the device is gone, suggesting they must have shaken it off at some point.
2:10 This is probably why they typically had Bruce and then Bruiser working in this room: when you have to deal with a toad boarding party and you can't use guns, who could be better for a close-quarters beat-down than a berserker baboon?
2:59 That the toads have to get some of their own people to crank the machine rather than getting some captive slaves to do the job suggests their war's not been going very well for them lately.
3:46 I think you mean *you* missed him, Jenny.
4:25 While it's not too difficult to speculate, one does have to wonder how Komplex immediately knew exactly where the Air Marshal was hiding when it hadn't been paying close enough attention to know why he was hiding.
5:59 You couldn't hold back and let everyone listen to him for one whole minute, Bruiser? Nice going, lunkhead!
6:12 So, like Star Trek, they've got subspace, eh? Also, Dead-Eye's instincts are sound; it's worth remembering the Air Marshal did a convincing imitation of Dogstar's voice two episodes ago, and Komplex (like Skynet from the Terminator movies) can probably look and sound like anyone whose face and voice it can get on file.
7:53 Even though Bruce is evidently intangible, muscle memory has him stepping over the Air Marshal rather than through him. (Of course, if he can stand and walk on the floor, he can't be completely intangible; what the "rules" of this partial intangibility are is never entirely clear here, as they were likewise left unexplained in the episode "The Next Phase" from Star Trek: The Next Generation.)
8:27 Evidently, the same "rules" that allow Bruce to walk a planet's surface likewise allow him to climb into a spacecraft without phasing through the seat.
8:50 "Baboon Heaven" looks a lot like one of those miniature planets from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince.
9:43 See, since the same technobabble ("temporal alignment") applies to the teleportation device and the photon accelerator, it can teleport toads across space just as the photon accelerators teleport Willy DuWitt across dimensions.
9:56 Frix and Frax being forced to crank the machine has me thinking this "experimental" installation is also a kind of correction and rehabilitation facility where Komplex assigns incompetent toads (e.g. the Air Marshal as well) when it gets overly displeased with their bumbling.
10:54 While it's understandable that Bruiser's space suit (partially purloined from the toads) has a communicator that can pick up transmissions from the toads' communicators, how can Bruce (who's not wearing a space suit) hear them talking here? Once again, chalk it up to the nigh-magical abilities of the universal translators just about all characters and machinery present (other than Willy DuWitt) has implanted in them; just because Bruce can't directly hear the transmissions from the toads' communicators doesn't mean his universal translator can't pick up the telepathic transmissions from the universal translators implanted in the toads and/or their suits' communicators.
11:04 Bruiser's squeezing that helmet bubble hard enough to make some cracks in it; that toad had better hope he gets teleported back to base before all his air leaks out (and also before he and his companion are permanently lost in space).
13:15 This is the first and last time we'll see the toads' fully automatic rapid-fire maser mounts.
13:37 Uh, that's what Bucky O'Hare just said, Air Marshal.
14:09 The toads' blasters vanish when they drop them; possibly something the teleportation device does, or a feature built into the blasters themselves? (Something to prevent discarded weapons from falling into the hands of one's enemies would actually be a rather handy feature.)
15:07 Well, of course the toads would have that vulnerability patched by now after it led to such an embarrassing defeat last time. Actually, what's surprising is that Willy still has his water pistol with him these days.
15:18 It's still fully missile-shielded and ray-shielded too like it was last time, guys.
15:28 How very convenient of that grate to turn up where it did!
16:12 Either Bucky's playing along and pretending he didn't see her slip away from the group through that grate, or one of Jenny's powers is keeping him from noticing when she pulls stunts like this.
18:20 So much for somebody's dentures!
18:21 There goes somebody's helmet and goggles with a pair of fully functioning eyes still in them. (Robotic prosthetics, perhaps?) Yikes! No wonder the toads have an instinctive fear of baboons.
19:00 Blinky (who'd been in the corridor manning the blockade with a blaster) was either holo-recording at 17:54-18:10, or else remembers the conversation and is simply projecting a simulated reenactment of Bruce (something he showed himself to be capable of doing three episodes ago).