by J.J. Estes & George Willson
While the Outlook crew recovers from their losses, two new recruits are added to their ranks.
After a neat little opener to tell us a lot about Lak and Ruben, the two newbies, and some good stuff as Stansen's acerbic manner bulldozes his way through a press conference, we're into an episode of character development, a change of pace after the action-packed opening pair of shows. The new arrivals do some bonding with the regulars, noticeably Aya and Lakshanya, while Ivan gets a visit from his mother which appears to just be a device for telling more vokda jokes. James, on the other hand, gets a solid story where he goes to break the news of Hans' death to his family, and there's some genuinely good stuff here. Getting called away from the funeral and his reaction to that tells us a lot about how he still feels about his earlier, more disasterous missions. Stansen's motivations get a good moment in a heated discussion with Harrison, and there's even some Anna moments when James finds her all gothed up in a club in Germany - something that's a surprising development about her. However, all this good work is undone by the final Act, where not only do we sandwich in a third new arrival in a rather random little scene, we also get the totally underwhelming announcement that James has made captain, something that should have had a lot more made of it.
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by George Willson
The crew of the Outlook lands on a planet where the locals are celebrating some great change, then wake up to find they have changed bodies.
In what is suprisingly the first actual mission of the show after three episodes, we're into what Outlook will be doing a lot of - Star Trek/SG-1 style Planet Of The Week investigations. The story starts off well enough, a little light on the direction again and laying on the dry humour a bit too thickly, but once the team are down on the planet and interacting with the natives, we get the Twist - the body swap! It's an old sci-fi cliche story that normally allows for some good insight into how different characters view themselves, however, but as the episode rolls on all we really get are lots of jokes at the other crew members' expense, with Ivan relishing being in a woman's body a bit too much for my liking! Anna seems remarkably au fait with the whole situation really, so it's mined more for its comic potential than any real sci-fi issues. There's even a Temple of the Ancients, another prominent SG-1ism. Some character moments finally start to come out at the end, with Aya's natural friendliness starting to bring down some of Rubens' barriers, and we get some more clues as to Lakshanya's unusual opinions on sex, but these don't happen untl Act IV, and the plot itself has moved very slowly up to that point. There's an odd, very underplayed encounter with an 'Aircraft Person' near the end that sticks out as being very underdeveloped, but there's one good Harrison/Engel moment right at the end that links into a more deeper, ongoing plot behind the series. So overall, a bit of a wasted opportunity, taking the overly comic route instead of taking the time to develop our characters a bit more - and let's not forget, three of these people only joined the crew last episode so we've had very little time to get to know them anyway!
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