Detailed Review -

• Kyle and Elizabeth leave Club Creole to check out Kyle's new house.  On the way, Kyle buys Elizabeth a Christmas corsage from a old lady.  The woman deliberately pricks Elizabeth's finger with the corsage.

• Ham and Mike, meanwhile, manage to evade Visitor patrols while smuggling orphan children into L.A.  Mr. Chiang informs Nathan that Mike and Ham were positively identified.  Nathan demands that Mr. Chiang crush the Resistance.

• At the Visitor Legation, the old lady hands over the corsage to Diana.  The pin has been coated with a dioxin veneer, which will enable Diana to clone a new Starchild to her own genetic specifications.  Diana plans to use the clone to develop a red-dust antitoxin.  The old lady is taken away to be killed.

• The orphaned children are taken to a church that is being used as a halfway house.  There they meet up with Ham's old friend Chris Faber - Chris had been working with a desert unit that was recently wiped out by the Visitors.  He reveals that he is now working with Father Turney to place war orphans in foster homes in Los Angeles.

• One of the orphan children, Jennifer, confronts Ham about his morose attitude.  When the Resistance fighters see a Visitor patrol outside destroying a manger scene, they attack the Visitors.  Despite the increased Visitor presence, Father Turney refuses to leave, and Mike and Ham make plans to return the next day to pick up the orphans.

• Kyle and Elizabeth decide to relax by the water at their new house.  Robin also comes outside and witnesses the couple sharing a private moment.  Robin confronts them and storms into the house, crying.

• At Club Creole, Willie gets into the Christmas spirit by singing his own version of "Deck The Halls".  He is roughly pushed from the piano by a Visitor, who begins playing the Visitor National Anthem.  Juliet hears the commotion and attends to Willie - then begins singing "America The Beautiful".  By the second verse the entire club has stood and  joined in, and drowned out the Visitor, who gives up.  No one notices a man in the corner taking photos using a small surveillance camera.

• Diana's clone is developed at the Legation, despite warnings from Dennis, a Visitor scientist, who warns that Diana has interfered too much with the hybrid's genetic structure.  Julie, meanwhile, has discovered the pinprick on Elizabeth's finger and takes a culture of it for testing at Science Frontiers.

• When a guard hears glass breaking inside the lab at the Legation, he goes to investigate and is found dead, with his human face ripped away.  The incubator and lab are destroyed.  Diana sends the Visitor's best tracker, Laird, to find and return the clone.

• When Ham, Mike and Chris return to Father Turney's church, they find a car burning outside and the church ransacked.  Ham sees a Visitor and loses control, breaking the Visitor's neck.  Chris has to confine him from shooting the already dead Visitor.  Jennifer leads the Resistance members to the church basement, where Father Turney and the orphans have been hiding.  All decide to head back to L.A.

• Elizabeth and Robin have a long talk in a park, where they resolve their feelings about Kyle.  Robin comes to realize that Elizabeth and Kyle are in love, so Robin considers leaving L.A.  As they are leaving the park, Elizabeth senses that they are being watched.  After they leave, a police officer is attacked and killed by the clone.  The clone, who was still at an early stage of development, metamorphs in a drainage tunnel into the Elizabeth that we know.

• Laird manages to track the clone to the drainage tunnel, and realizes that she has morphed.  He follows her footprints using a sophisticated infra tracking device.  The clone heads into town and sees herself in a mirror - she shatters the mirror using only a touch.  When confronted by the store manager, she hisses and shows her lizard-like tongue.  Her destruction is captured on video cameras, and an All-Points-Bulletin is aired on the L.A. news.  Julie, meanwhile, has discovered the dioxin in Elizabeth's blood and realizes what Diana has done.  While Robin looks for Elizabeth, who is shopping for Christmas presents, Juliet heads back to Science Frontiers to confront Nathan.

• At Science Frontiers, the surveillance expert confirms what Mr. Chiang has long suspected - Julie is a member of the Resistance.  When Nathan is shown the pictures taken at Club Creole, he takes steps to set Julie up as a traitor.

• The Resistance members deliver the orphaned children to Club Creole.  When Mike expresses concern over Ham's behaviour, Chris explains:  In Vietnam, before the fall of Saigon, Ham was married to a Eurasian woman and had a daughter.  He and Chris were sent to Nicaragua, and the government promised to airlift Ham's family to safety.  Ham left his family in a church on the outskirts of Saigon.  When an airstrike was sent in to halt a Viet Cong advance, one of the pilots dropped his bomb early, and destroyed the church.  Ham returned many times to search the burned out building and surrounding area but never found his family.

• At the Legation, Laird is threatened with death if he does not deliver the clone by nightfall.  When Kyle arrives at this house, he finds it empty ... and does not sense the clone watching him from the nearby woods.

• Mike attempts to commiserate with Ham, but if rebuffed.  He and Chris notice a large preponderance of service vans in the area, and begin to suspect a trap.

• At Science Frontiers, Juliet goes to speak to Nathan.  He cuts her off, however, to say that he is glad that she is not at Club Creole, because he "would not want to find her body in the wreckage".  Julie tries to hide her fear until she can get to her office to warn Elias.  However, when she calls the club from her office, it is Nathan who answers - Mr. Chiang has put a relay on her phone.  Despite this and the fact that her office is monitored by security camera, Juliet manages to spray perfume into the face of a security guard and escape the building.

• A group of Nathan's goons head into Club Creole.  After checking that the place seems empty, the leader of the group pulls out his gun and starts shooting.  The Resistance are ready for them ,though, and jump out of their hiding places to return fire.  After a short firefight, the Resistance members head to the hidden room and set off the explosives they have wired in the building.  Juliet, having just arrived outside, sees the explosion and recoils in terror, believing that all inside have perished.  When Mike grabs her a moment later, she sobs with relief to find that everyone is OK.

• At Kyle's house, the clone watches him as he takes a shower.  Thinking it is Elizabeth, he calls out to her to wait for him.  The real Elizabeth, meanwhile, returns from her shopping and tries to calm the clone, whom she had sensed in the park.  Kyle grabs a statue to use as a weapon but Elizabeth senses that the clone will not hurt her.  When Laird arrives, the clone throws herself in front of Elizabeth and takes a laser blast meant for the Starchild.  The gun clatters to the floor as the clone falls.  Laird advances on Elizabeth, and is shot by Kyle, who has grabbed the pistol.   Elizabeth holds the clone as she dies in her arms.

• The Resistance members hold a Christmas party at Club Creole's hidden room -  Chris managed to rig the explosives so that the rooms below would remain intact.   Juliet and Willie help Elizabeth to understand the clone's death, when Ham arrives dressed as Santa Claus.

Freedom Network Medal of Valour - The Freedom Network Medal of Valour is awarded to Marilyn McGeorge of Biloxi, Mississippi, who rammed and sank a Visitor patrol boat with her husband's boat.
 

Bloopers and Nitpicks -

• During Willie's song, his lips are not in synch with the words of the song.  It is obvious that the vocals were added later.

• Prior to the clone's escape, footage is shown of a Visitor shuttle landing while an honour guard stands by.  Diana is already at the Legation.  There is no need for this scene.  Perhaps they just had some extra footage left over from another episode and decided to insert it there?

• The clone is shown wearing an oversized nightshirt and sweater.  Where did she get them?  Would the clone have had a sense of modesty?  The clothes also should have been covered in 'goop' from her metamorphosis into the grown 'Elizabeth'.

• When Kyle is in the shower, he says: "Hold on, I'll be out in a minute".  His lips are not in synch with these words.  Despite repeated viewing, I could not make out what the original line was! However, Wendy could!  The original line is "Come in, the water's fine!".   Knowing that the vocal would be re-dubbed later, Jeff Yagher obviously decided to have a little fun here!  Thanks, Wendy!  Deb recently received the original draft script for this episode.  She let me know that the line "Come on in, the water's fine!" was part of the original script!  I guess the producers decided it was a little too risque for the audience they were trying to attract.

• There is no scorch mark on Laird after Kyle shoots him.

• Brian made an interesting observation.  He says:  During the clone's metamorphosis scene, this is obviously stock footage from the beginning of "Dreadnaught".   It is obvious that this is not the interior of a tunnel walkway by noticing the cave background, the same cave as when Elizabeth underwent the process.

• Collin notes that, in the scene where Diana is berating Dennis for allowing the clone to escape, there is a picture hanging on the wall in the background of "some sort of otherworldly landscape with jagged cliffs, a body of water and a vehicle of some sort flying overhead".  Collin figures this is the home world (and no one is going to talk him out of it!)  :)

• (The human collaborator gives Diana the corsage with Elizabeth's blood sample)                                              Old Lady:  I've done my part.   Where is my husband?                                                                                   Diana:  Why, where he's always been.  Here in detention.                                                                                   Old Lady:  You promised we would be together again for Christmas dinner.                                                 Diana:  And you will... our Christmas dinner!  Take her away.

• (Robin confronts Kyle and Elizabeth after a kiss)                                                                                           Robin:  Well isn't this a pretty picture!                                                                                                             Elizabeth:  Mother!                                                                                                                                                Robin:  Don't say anything!  You're my daughter, I trusted you.                                                                      Kyle:  Look, look Robin, I tried to...                                                                                                                       Robin:  And you... How could you?                                                                                                                  Elizabeth:  Mother, please, it's not his fault.  We just ...                                                                                 Robin:  You just snuck around behind my back!                                                                                                  Kyle:  No, wrong.  We just fell in love!  It wasn't anything we planned. We didn't do it to spite you.  It just happened.

• (Willie's version of Deck The Halls - as near as I can tell, anyway!)                                                              Willie:  Deck the Halls with lousy folly                                                                                                                      Fa la la la la la la la la                                                                                                                                         Disbelieving stuffy Molly                                                                                                                                           Fa la la la la la la la la                                                                                                                                        Though we know how gay we carol                                                                                                                          Fa la la Fa la la la la la                                                                                                                                           Holy Moly Yuletide barrel                                                                                                                                           Fa la la la la la la la la

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