TV-Reviewed

“That Old Black Magic” showed us a very different side of Zhaan, a much darker, evil side. I had suspected there was more to Zhaan, the most peaceful of the Moya crew members. She had to revert to a former self in order to save John Crichton and the rest of the crew when an evil sorcerer puts them in danger.

It’s been a little while since we’ve seen Crais, the Peacekeeper captain whose brother John accidentally killed when he found himself transported into the battle in the pilot episode. Crais’ character was explored much more deeply in this episode than in previous ones. He was instructed to look after his younger brother by his father when the Peacekeepers took the boys from the family at a very young age.

Maldis (played by Chris Haywood) is an interesting fellow. He’s more or less a vampire, as Crichton aptly put it, feeding on the life force of others. Maldis pit John and Crais in a fight to the death, which sadly went on and on and on to a point where I was really looking forward to a resolution. I’m surprised this was dragged on as long as it was.

I understand why John would want to talk Crais into backing off, but Crais only has one thing on his mind: revenge. No amount of pleading would get avenging his brother’s death off Crais’ mind, even though Crais understood what John was saying.

Virginia Hey as Zhaan

I’m really intrigued about what’s going on on Crais’ ship after seeing all of what went on. I am interested in seeing more insight as to Crais’ thinking and more importantly, how he’s going to keep the counsel off his back, especially after disobeying their orders and killing his second in command.

I really like the peaceful Zhaan. Virginia Hey, who plays Zhaan, is a very attractive woman, even with all that makeup on, and plays the character exceptionally well. There’s a certain gracefulness to her which I really like.

Crichton, for the first time, was shown making a diary entry of sorts at the end of the episode. He was recording his thoughts into a voice recorder which appeared to be part of what he has left of his supplies from the space ship from Earth. I’m rather surprised to see Crichton doing this now. He should have been shown doing this since day one.

I enjoyed “That Old Black Magic,” but I didn’t think the action scenes had quite enough action. There was much more dialogue than action in many of those scenes. I didn’t think the tone was set very well. Considering the life and death stakes at hand, I didn’t come away feeling as though something like that was likely to happen.

There also wasn’t a whole lot of humor in this episode. I know that much of this tends to be reserved for Rygel, but he was largely absent from the episode, sick aboard the ship. I thought the writers could have done a better job of injecting some humor into the episode to help make the episode more entertaining.

Rating: 6.5