"The Honey Offering" - Episode #119 (slight spoilers below) (Click here for synopsis)

Well, the plot of transporting a "royal" bride to seal an alliance, but who is unhappy about the marriage, is not exactly original. Two examples familiar to those who have watched Star Trek a lot would be TOS's "Elaan of Troyius" and TNG's "The Perfect Mate", but of course there are similar stories dating back centuries.

However, it is how a idea is handled that matters more than if it is unique or not. Here I was pleasantly surprised, the more so as I thought the story through after watching it.

For one thing, most characters acted in ways uniquely suited to themselves, with both consistency and at times "flair". Rev surprises Dylan by his counsel not to deal with the Nietzscheans, Cuchulain (Adrian Hughes) seems taken in by a ruse but is not, and Dylan turns out to be less gullible than I would have thought. All of this made for a story that in the end was believable and kept my attention.

In particular, Dylan's acknowledgement that the major Prides would not join the Commonwealth (for now at least), and his discovery of Elssbett's agenda seems to show a man learning to deal with the realities of his day. We also find his mother was genetically engineered for a heavy gravity planet, likely giving him strength and abilities that make some of his past successful fights against all odds more believable.

The Nietzscheans are further developed and it is interesting to see Tyr getting the brush off, consistent with his original motivations of needing to prove his genetic "worthiness". I strongly disagree with most of Nietzschean philosophy, but handling this consistently has made for some interesting characters and stories.

However, there were two major inconsistencies along the above lines. The first was the possible liaison that Elssbett (Kimberly Huie) had with Dylan, though it might not have gone past the kiss we saw. However, in general her performance in this scene is hard to swallow and her willingness to become physically involved in any way with a human seems inconsistent with Nietzschean values. The other item is the attack by the Sabra fleet to protect her. Given what we know of their plans it would seem more likely they would let the other two Prides fight it out and then just attack the victors.

On a less significant note I wondered what in the world was going on with Beka kissing Dylan goodbye, not really explained at all that I saw. Finally, another somewhat hard to swallow scene was Dylan repairing the hull breach, when in all likelihood he should have been severely injured or killed in the process.

Still, while the inconsistencies detracted slightly, the story was solid and the performances generally well done.

The ratings for the episode are given below. For information on how my rating system works, click on this link.

Review 05/01/01 by Larry Kramer Updated slightly: 05/08/01

(c) 2001 Larry Kramer (See Copyright Disclaimer)