Legacy

The crew ends up in the middle of a tachyon storm while still in hyperspace; if they exit in the maelstrom the ship'll get torn apart. Lise finds a clear spot for the ship to exit and they're about to when Bren's console goes down. Reb suggests Bren do a bypass through the weapons subsystems, and Bren leaves the command deck to do that. There he discovers a small box, hidden in an emergency panel, labelled BREN: FOR YOUR EYES ONLY. He opens it and there is a message module with a DNA analyzer. Bren sticks his thumb in to it, where he is pricked. He attaches the module to his communicator and plays the message: "Message recorded 14th July, 2156, Araxes Base. General Gordon Ferrar speaking. This message is for your eyes only. Trust no one. The success of the mission depends on it." He only gets that far when Reb calls him and he finishes the repair.

The ship finally makes it to the clear spot. Gen reports rim fractures on R1 and R2 thrusters, and at first, Reb wants to go with Yuna to do the repair, but Bren doesn't want both pilots out in so much turbulence, so Zak volunteers. Reb doesn't totally agree to it, but Bren sends them off to gear up anyway. Gen also says that the shield will give in an hour and a half.

While they're starting repairs, Bren puts his station on stand-by mode and goes to his chamber to see the rest of the message.

[Bren is lying down, holding up in his hands the communicator and the module attached to it. He starts it up again.]

General: Message recorded 14th July, 2156, Araxes Base. General Gordon Ferrar speaking. Bren, this message is for your eyes only. Trust no one. The success of the mission depends on it.

[Bren listens to the rest of the message]

General: Bren, since you are receiving this message, you will know by now the council has placed command solely in the hands of the civilian crew. The fact that you have found this device, hidden in an emergency panel, indicates your ship may now be in jeopardy. Even though as Sentinal Corp. officers we may be reluctant to do it, now may be the time to take command of the ship. Be on guard--you may encounter people that do not possess the proper commitment to the mission. Listen to the following instructions very carefully...

Bren wakes up in a cold sweat. The General's words in his prex is running through Bren's head when he's re-giving himself his tattoo, changing into his Sentinal Corps uniform, and assembling his gun.

Yuna and Zak continue with repairs; Reb directs them. They get one of the thrusters repaired. Suddenly, Gret says that a pocket of turbulence is heading straight for them; Reb tells Yuna and Zak to get back. But Yuna doesn't listen. The turbulence comes, and the shuttle is knocked out of the shields of the Deepwater. Reb tries to contact them to no avail.

When Bren comes back to the bridge, he objects to going after Zak and Yuna, claiming, "It's too much of a risk. I can't let you jeopardize the mission." [or words to that affect] Reb doesn't listen to Bren and turns around to continue but Bren pulls out his gun and fires at Reb. Ignoring Lise's concerns about the possibility of a stun shot doing damage, Bren drags Reb to the Habitat where Bren says Reb'll "sleep it off". While he's doing that, Lise voices her disagreement to Gret. Gret defends Bren position, saying that, "Even if he is wrong, now is not the time to argue. Bren is in command now."

Bren returns and takes the helm; Gret does engineering and copilot. Bren is impatient and almost cruel, firing scathing remarks about Gret and Lise's work while sniping orders at them. Bren seems angry that they aren't telling him what he wants to hear. Lise isn't convinced that Bren is in his right mind and uses her medical scanner on him. Something there concerns her...so she pretends that she cracked a bone. Rushing to the med bay, she gets Gen to identify the drug presence in Bren's blood: Gen says it is Trixatrene B (sp?), "an extremely powerful mind-control drug." An antidote is formulated and Lise is literally inches from giving it to Bren. He snatches it out of her hand and throws it against the wall, but Lise manages to catch him off-guard with a quick kick. She scrambles around the console trying to get the antidote, but Bren has the gun on her in seconds. Lise tries get him to calm down and explains the situation, Bren completely in denial ("You're lying. YOU'RE LYING!!!"). He's falling apart while Lise tells him about the drug ("Your heart's going a million miles a minute. You're not in any shape to be in charge!"), and asks him how it could have gotten in his blood ("Did you take a pill? A drink? Were you scratched? Cut?"). Bren realizes in the daze: it was the DNA analyzer in the message. His "commitment to fellow crew members" wins out and he finally allows Lise to give him the antidote.

Lise manages to revive Reb, and they resume the search for Yuna and Zak. Still a bit shaken, Bren offers to go take the second shuttle and find them. At that moment, Zak responds to their desperate calls and they pick Zak and Yuna back up.

Bren apologizes for the outburst, for shooting Reb, et cetera et cetera =D. They forgive him. Lise confirms Bren's suspicion of the DNA analyzer: "This little beast is loaded with trixatrene." Feeling betrayed, Bren squishes the thing to oblivion with the bottom of his shoe.

"The General said he trusted me. [smack, squish, squash] He didn't trust me at all."

Review

The first time I saw this, I didn't like it very much. Bren seemed way too open minded for someone drugged, and I generally didn't really get the gist of the whole thing. It was only after I rewatched it a couple times that realized that the script was great. So was the idea and everything. In fact, it was wonderfully structured and everything. Everything took place at the right time, especially the prex, and I could really relate with the way Bren was feeling at the end, and with the way Lise was feeling (since I live with people who go off the deep end every single day =D). Loved the insight on Bren too. But I still didn't really, particularly like it though.

I think I just had a real problem with the execution. Maybe it was just in that last scene, but I didn't quite connect with what was happening. It wasn't bad acting--that was excellent the whole way through--I just didn't quite string together all the scenes to get a good episode. It might have been sequencing, or some other technical nitpick-y thing, but all I know is that this is not one of those episodes that I enjoy every time I watch. Even though I think this is a very intricate episode to both the characters and the mission.

Oh yeah, and if anyone's wondering if this is the reason why I didn't do a complete synopsis for it, you're wrong--I didn't have a good enough version of it on tape, and when I got it I didn't have time to do the transcript.

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