Season 2, Episode 7 - Legacy of Terror

Note: Sorry I'm a bit behind on the episode reviews! Will get caught up posthaste!

Legacy of Terror seems timely given the release of Star Wars: Death Troopers. This episode features lots of creepy-crawlies. It feels very much like a tribute to Aliens, and a nod to the current craze of zombie-movies. It's also got some of the strongest dialogue the series has thus far featured.

Following Poggle the Lesser to a remote and seemingly abandoned temple, Luminara Unduli goes missing. Obi-Wan and Anakin retrace her steps to locate and possibly rescue her. As they brave the catacombs beneath the temple, they find...undead Geonosians. And far more.

The episode felt fresh to me. Well, fresh enough. The clear allusions to Aliens (note how Queen Karina) lays her eggs aren't so much original as well-chosen. But perhaps that can be said of a whole lot of the influence laden Star Wars universe. Either way, I loved the old fashioned feeling of certain moments, like when two clones get sent back to the surface and are, very clearly, about to go to clone heaven. We haven't seen this in Star Wars very often, though, and I enjoyed seeing the characters in a new setting and under different types of duress. There are only so many ways to show big battles, anyhow.

The Queen, as a new character, was wonderfully established and suitably chilly. More than that, though, I'm enjoying the confidence that the writers now have with Obi-Wan and Anakin. Their banter here was super fun ("I was going to study that!" "Study the bottom of my boot!"), and Obi-Wans almost unnerving calm, pointed humor, and distanced curiosity in this episode is something I'd love to see played even further.

Weapons Factory (the previous episode) and Legacy of Terror go a long way to re-defining Geonosis as a world of underground catacombs, hive-minded insects, and mysterious forces. It's exactly what the Clone Wars can do that films can't: take time to indulge in exploration that can be only hinted at in even a 2 1/2 hour movie.

So, while this episode wasn't groundbreaking or heartbreaking, it had great character moments, and took Star Wars in places we haven't seen. All in a days work.

Rating: (out of five): *** 3/4