Mind Altering Aliens

Story: Appearances and Other Deceits
Written By: J. Michael Straczynski
Season: Crusade

Decent episode premise, though this still suffers from the early growing pains.  The Excalibur comes across a derelict ship and decide to investigate for possible cures.  They find most of the crew dead, except for a lone survivor.  They bring the survivor aboard to save him, but he is actually carrying an alien entity that transfers through bodies via touch, and overtakes the bodies as a way of conquest.  Gideon and co. have to figure out a way to stop the alien beings without killing the crew they have overtaken.

Episode has a decent premise and for the most part it is executed decently.  The problems come in the form of the characters, Dr. Chambers is lame and the actress playing her lacks charisma.  I don’t know if the actress wasn’t comfortable in the show or if she is genuinely a bad actress, but she just never emotes or seems interesting at all. Her worst line actually comes from writer Straczynski, who has her describe Max as having a big ego, but at times seeming unsure of himself…and then pointing out that he is a contradiction.  Thanks for spelling out his character traits!  By the way, Max is constantly irritating.  Egomaniacal smug jerks aren’t much fun when they are proven right a good chunk of the time. 

The episode is pretty solid, the only flaws are just flaws of the series in general. 

NEXT TIME: Nanotech War