Troubles multiply for the crew…

We’re into the home straight and the kids are facing their toughest challenges – a former mentor who’s turned on them, a gang of pirates threatening to conquer their planet and parents who are so going to ground them.

The series has been at its best when it’s focused on the children and while this penultimate episode occasionally felt a little too contrived and the involvement of the parents ultimately unnecessary, it still managed to keep sight of what’s made it fun to be a part of.

Fern, Neel, KB and Wim have remained the central focus for the show with the story revolving around how they will face the challenges before them. The adults are secondary and as long as you remember that, then this all makes sense. I don’t mean that as a criticism, but because I can imagine some people watching this and waiting for an adult to ride in and save the kids or for the parents to have a meaningful impact on what their children are experiencing. That doesn’t happen and for obvious reasons – this is a show cast from the mould of The Goonies, Peter Pan and Treasure Island where adults are only ever secondary characters or nasty villains.

Which does bring me to my main complaint – that the parents are somehow involved in this story at all. Their involvement has been fractional and passing and I don’t really know why they’re here at all. There’s enough jeopardy without them and they’ve added nothing (rightly) to solving the challenges before the kids. We could have done without them and the touchstone references all exclude parents from their stories entirely. It’s a bit of a mystery here why they’re involved at all and they are a net negative to the overall story (for me at least).

Verdict: That is a minor problem to be honest. We get to where we need to be in this episode and it’s a kid’s adventure all the way. How the four of them overcome Jod in the final episode remains to be seen but it’s been a fun ride getting here.

8/10 hidden vaults

Stewart Hotston