Plot Summary - Mike and Ham, attempting to find Mike's son Sean, are captured and placed in a Visitor detention camp.  There they meet up with Robin and attempt an escape.  Diana plans to use Nathan's son Kyle to secure the Starchild.

Detailed Review -

• The episode begins behind enemy lines, in Ojai California. The setting seems pleasant enough - people  are strolling through the park, children are playing in the grass.  Pleasant enough - until one notices the omnipresent Visitor patrols.  Mike and Ham, inconspicuously 'hiding in plain sight' in the park, are preparing a rescue attempt of Mike's son, Sean.  When a child is caught spraying a "V" on a Visitor vehicle, the Visitor patrol pulls their weapons to fire.  Mike cannot let the child be hurt, and attacks the Visitor.  Ham belatedly follows - but when more Visitor troops arrive, Mike and Ham take off through the park.  They take refuge behind some bushes, where they are spotted by Annie, a teenager.  She offers them the safety of her house, despite the protests of her mother.  Annie tells Mike that all the children from Sean's school were 'taken' by the Visitors, though no one knows where.

• In LA, Juliet, Willie, and Elias remain concerned about Robin's disappearance.  As Elizabeth begins to expertly play the piano at the closed Club Creole, Elias tentatively lets Julie know that he wants Elizabeth and the Resistance away from the club.  When Julie vehemently protests, Elias backs down.

• Back in Ojai, Ham and Mike leave Annie's house, only to be surrounded by Visitor troops who have also captured the child from the park.  Annie confronts her mother, who admits to calling the Visitors.

• At Science Frontiers, Diana confronts Nathan about Elizabeth, saying that her Visitor family wants only to see her.  Seeing the picture of Kyle on Nathan's desk, Diana subtly threatens Nathan: Kyle for Elizabeth.  When Diana leaves, Nathan summons a subordinate and demands that Elizabeth be found.

• Outside of Ojai, Ham and Mike are taken to a Visitor Internment Centre, where Kyle is also enslaved.  They are shocked to discover that the camp has few guards and no fence, only a sand moat.   While Mike takes their bed assignments, Ham decides to check out the camp.

• Robin, also captured by the Visitors, is working with Isaac at the other end of the camp.  Mike, meanwhile, notices a wire running across the sand moat, but unfortunately when he throws a metal bucket at the wire, he discovers that it is a live wire.  Ham, for his part, feels Kyle and another worker out about escaping.  Ham is not impressed by Kyle, who he feels does not take escape, or Ham himself, seriously.  Mike spots Robin, who has been trying to talk Isaac into not giving up hope of escape.  While Robin reunites with Mike, Isaac walks into the sand moat; a horrified Robin tries to go after him, but is held back by Mike.  Isaac is sucked into the sand by a green spiked creature - and the lack of need for a fence is thus explained!

• On the LA Mothership, Lydia brings Diana the information she has requested on Kyle Bates.  Using this background information, Diana is able to track down Kyle's location.

• At the Internment Camp, Ham is assigned to cement duty, where Kyle explains about the sand creature, called a crivit.  Mike tells Robin about her father's death, and Robin tearfully begs Mike to come up with an escape plan so that she can be reunited with Elizabeth.

• Nathan, meanwhile, has come up with a plan to gain the Starchild - he offers Julie a chance to come up with a new toxin to use against the Visitors, and tells her that to do so she needs to use Elizabeth's DNA.  Nathan believes that Julie may deliver Elizabeth to him.

• Back at Club Creole, Elias has let Elizabeth play the piano for the patrons.  When a Visitor patrolman sees the mark of Zon on Elizabeth's hand, she becomes frightened and runs out to the alley behind the club.  The Visitors follow her, and Elizabeth uses her powers to influence two dogs in the alley, who attack and kill the Visitors.  She is found by Elias and Julie, lying amongst the garbage, in shock.

• At the Internment Camp, Mike asks Ham to come up with a diversion, which Ham is only too happy to provide.  Ham throws a bag of cement at a worker, which prompts Kyle to jump him - and Mike uses the opportunity to steal a watering hose.  As punishment, Ham and Kyle are imprisoned in a sweat box.  When they are released, Ham is sent off to work detail, while Kyle is taken away by a sub commander.  As Ham washes up, he sees an envoy led by Diana pull up to the camp.  Going to warn Mike, he finds him ripping the hose into smaller pieces, assisted by the child from the park.  They plan their escape for that night.

• Diana introduces herself to Kyle as "a friend of your father".  She has Kyle place a call to Nathan, and puts forth her deal: Nathan must deliver the Starchild by noon the next day, or she will kill Kyle.  Nathan, who has been having Julie followed, orders a raid on Club Creole, hoping to find Elizabeth there.  While Elias handles the raid, Julie and Elizabeth escape to Julie's apartment.

• That night at the Internment Camp, Mike's escape plan goes forth.  While he shorts out the wire, Ham begins sending prisoners up a nearby tree.  Using the cut pieces of garden hose as a grip, they slide on the wire across the sand moat to  safety.   Kyle, still at the base, sees the escape through the window, and tries to divert Diana's attention by "seducing" her.  However, while Kyle is kissing Diana's neck, she witnesses the escape attempt over his shoulder and calls for the guards.  The escaped prisoners disperse, and one is shot.  An irate Diana pushes the base commander into the sand moat.  Kyle, meanwhile, fakes an illness and manages to overpower a guard and escape.

• The next morning, Juliet is busy preparing breakfast for herself and Elizabeth when Nathan arrives.  Nathan begs Julie's help in finding the Starchild, admitting that Diana has kidnapped Kyle and will kill him if Nathan doesn't deliver Elizabeth.  While he is speaking, Elizabeth enters the room.  Thinking fast, Julie introduces Elizabeth as her cousin Betty from Tucson.  Nathan leaves without knowing how close he has come to the Starchild.

• Mike, Ham, and the child from the park manage to stay together following their escape from the camp.  As they are wondering what to do with the child, Annie appears and offers to take him to a mountain camp she has found.  Before they leave, Billy (the child) speaks for the first time since the Visitor invasion, calling out "Gooder" to Mike, and flashing the Victory sign.   Mike and Ham are forced to steal a skyfighter to get back to LA.  A fierce battle in the skies above Ojai results only in the destruction of the pursuing Visitor vessel.

• Nathan arrives at Science Frontiers to discover Kyle in his office.  While Nathan believes that Diana has released him, Kyle explains that he managed to escape.  Wanting nothing more to do with his father, Kyle refuses to speak further, and stalks out of the office.

• At Club Creole, Juliet and Mike have a loving reunion ...

Freedom Network Medal of Valour - The Freedom Network Medal of Valour is awarded this week to Kipper Cordesco of Cleveland, Ohio.  Kipper led his senior class to Bear Point, Kentucky where they routed a Visitor patrol amid heavy fighting in the Appalachian Mountains. See notation about this Freedom Network broadcast on the page for Episode 4.
 

Bloopers and Nitpicks

• This episode was not aired in sequence due to network concerns over its violence.  Therefore, Kyle and Ham never really meet until Episode 4.

• Kyle's escape from the Internment Centre is never explained.  Though he fakes illness in order  to overpower the guard, he would still have to make it past the crivit.  Perhaps he snuck across a remote section of sand while the crivit was busy munching down on the base commander?

• The exterior footage of the skyfighter battle is simply old footage from the mini-series.

• From Deb:  Instead of stock footage, Deb noticed some stock dialogue!  She says:  When Tyler and Donovan are escaping in the stolen shuttle, Tyler has a voice over:  "You're improving, Gooder".  I think that line was taken directly from "Liberation Day", when Donovan dropped Tyler in the tracking station.

• From Sharon: After their arrest, Ham gets put to work straight away but Mike seems free to wander around the camp.  And even though it's really hot, Mike never takes his jacket off.

• From Sharon:  The Mark of Zon on Elizabeth's hand is different than shown previously.

• From Sharon:  Bates arranges a police raid on the Club Creole and Julie and Elizabeth slip out the back way. The police are, presumably, too stupid to watch the back door when raiding a property!

• From Sharon:  After their escape from the camp, Mike tells Robin to make a run for it and afterwards she has disappeared. She only has about a 30 second headstart; she knows Mike knows where Elizabeth is and she doesn't look behind for him!

• From Sharon:  Just a comment, but the camp commander does the most unconvincing and theatrical fall possible when pushed into the crivit patch by Diana.

• (Ham and Mike are given bed assignments at the Interment Centre):                                                        Ham: Get me a bed with a view.                                                                                                                    Mike: Don't you want to check out the accommodations?                                                                                      Ham: No, I'm gonna mingle a bit and see if I can find some friends.                                                                Mike: With your charm that should be no problem at all.

• (After Ham returns from his imprisonment in the sweat box):                                                                         Mike: What did they do to you?                                                                                                                         Ham:  Turned me into a burrito.

Pamela Ludwig, Xander Berkeley, Christian Jacobs
Patricia Allison, Charles Macaulay, Burt Marshall, Herman Poppe
Michael Abelar, Mary Baldwin, Fiona Guinness, J.D. Hall, Greg Zadikov
 

Production 

Executive Producer:	Daniel H. Blatt
Executive Producer:	Robert Singer
Supervising Producer:	Garner Simmons
Producer:	Dean O'Brien
Creator:	Kenneth Johnson
Writer:	David Braff
Director:	Ray Austin

 

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