"The Devil Take the Hindmost" - Episode #118 (slight spoilers below) (Click here for synopsis)

This was a fast paced episode and absorbing story. However, as you will see below this is not the whole story.

The 'A' story plot involving the Hajira was compelling and, with a few glaring exceptions, handled well. I found the concept of 'genetic memory' fascinating and also thought the slavers were fairly well done.

Unfortunately the 'B' story was a bit chaotic and hard to follow, though Beka and Tyr were well done. One nice touch was seeing Beka as 'captain', handling Tyr in her usual way. I wondered how Rommie was so easily circumvented, since this could limit her usefulness, however this could have been a con on Tyr done by Beka.

Rev Bem has been missing from or marginal in many episodes, so it was great to have this fascinating character explored in this one. Brent Stait has not had much opportunity to explore his character, but did a fairly good job of portraying someone torn between faith and guilt (over several issues). His faith is explained more, and is much more syncretistic (Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, ....) than I had thought. The early Christian believers were called followers of "the way", so I falsely thought this might have been the case here.

As far as guest stars, I thought that David Pallfy as the slaver leader did a great job, mixing a brutal practicality with concern for his men and a sprinkling of pragmatic humor. On the other hand, Thaddeus and Tiama were a little hard for me to swallow, saying their lines, but not seeming to 'believe them'.

Speaking of believability my biggest problem here was the Hajira/Magog issue. Suffice it to say that the "results" shown here would likely take sophisticated genetic engineering, and would never happen by a chance 'mixing' of unrelated DNA. This could have another explanation, but see below for more on this.

With the eternal 'innocence' of Hajira in jeopardy, the question of the reality and power of faith, and the guilt that Rev obviously carries within him, this was a "good" story that could have been "great".

This episode had enough ideas to be two related episodes, so at least eliminating the 'B' story might have been a better route to go. With more time introducing killing to a race that "can" not forget would have made for a fascinating story and explored the conflict in Dylan and Rev between violence and desiring peace/innocence. Unfortunately, this is glossed over by Thaddeus taking things into his own hands, which really changed nothing.

Also, this story started to hint at exploring how real/reliable faith is, but this is dropped quickly as Thaddeus dies, "apparently" with his faith having failed him. Rev stays a fervent believer however, and seems to think the Hajira/Magog "mixture" is more than "chance", but in the rush to conclude the episode this is never explored.

When I was first interested in Jesus/Christianity I struggled with the issue of a good God allowing evil, and in a similar way Rev seems to struggle with good/life coming from evil/death. His faith is not "Christian", so expanding on how he dealt with this could have helped define his character better.

Still this was a good episode, as reflected below. For information on how my ratings works, click on this link.

Review 04/24/01 by Larry Kramer Minor updates on 05/01/01

(c) 2001 Larry Kramer (See Copyright Disclaimer)