Don Heckman

Mark Glamack

An unfortunate series of events leaves Princess Adora roaming the wilds of Beast Island - with amnesia! She'll have to earn the respect of the warlike local populace to get out of her fix, remember who she is - and remember what her magic sword can do. But in the meantime, even without her memory, Adora will be happy to tell the natives all the things that are wrong about their society and culture. Thanks, Adora!

Spirit, Princess Adora (She-Ra)

Grizzlor, Imp, Hordak, Catra, Rattlor

Horde soldiers, silverfish-like prison bug, hairy dinosaur, Pooka, Tondi, various natives (including Korg, Jamilla), Great Beast, wild snorters

Horde tanks, Horde "sneaker"

Though Hordak doesn't seem to take as much personal solace from the act of surveillance as Skeletor does, he still has his employees watching the video screens from time to time, and this morning the practice pays dividends. Grizzlor and Imp, manning the desk, spot Princess Adora on the back of Spirit, riding through a forest. Hordak and Catra happen to be standing just nearby, and Hordak declares it's finally time to do away with the former force captain who's been such a rebellious thorn in his side. He orders that she be surrounded, captured, and taken to the infamous prison on Beast Island.

Adora, unaware of the watchers who mean her harm, unwittingly plays into their hands by sending Spirit on ahead to the rebel camp, declaring that she'd like to walk the rest of the way. She's therefore all by herself when she is suddenly completely surrounded by Horde soldiers and tanks. A Horde flying machine hovering overhead informs Adora by loudspeaker that she is now a prisoner. Sure enough, the next scene transition sends us to Beast Island, where Adora is already incarcerated. Having been previously unable to transform into She-Ra in full view of her captors, Adora still feels that she has to find her way out of the prison cell without resorting to her superpowered alter ego (even though, as we'll discover, she apparently has not been stripped of her sword of protection). The princess therefore looks about her and finds a likely ventilation grate set in the wall, with a vine growing from it. She pries the grating loose and follows the shaft out.

The shaft leads to the exterior of the prison, but our high-profile prisoner has been given a high-rise cell: Adora is on a ledge many feet above the ground, gripping the outer wall of a lofty tower. Never one to let a dangerous height stop her, our heroine immediately leaps from the tower, fleeing the prison guards who've already spotted her. Her acrobatic vine-swings and somersaults down towards Beast Island's jungle end in a catastrophic mishap, however, when a broken branch sends her crashing into the ground. Our princess has been knocked unconscious!

She awakes some time later, very disoriented. In fact, Adora can no longer remember who she is! All that is left in her mind is the distinct sense that she's in danger, so she gets to her feet and moves further into the jungle. Her path puts her in earshot of a young voice shouting threats; when she follows the sound, Adora finds a young boy in primitive clothing in a one-on-one battle with a large, hairy, dinosaurish beast. Even with amnesia, our princess is addicted to saving people, so she wades right into the fray, separating the two combatants and chasing the beast off.

This leaves the boy - who, as we'll eventually learn, is named Tondi - very irritated with her. As Tondi explains, he was in the middle of a coming-of-age trial, and was meant to kill the beast to prove that he was worthy of his tribe's title of Beast Warrior. The rest of the tribe, who were apparently waiting nearby to witness the outcome of the trial, show up to further condemn the blonde stranger. They restrain Adora with a bolas and decide she will have to be taken back to their village to face judgment from their ruling council. One of the natives prudently takes away Adora's sword, extracting it from the invisible sheath on her back (it was still there because, we have to assume, the Horde prison guards like to give their prisoners a fighting chance).

Back at the village, the natives argue over what to do with the "outlander." The two main voices in the discussion are those of Jamilla (Tondi's father, who seems to hold some position of leadership in the tribe) and Korg. Jamilla feels that some lenience should be shown to the stranger, who after all is unfamiliar with their customs; but the suspicious and angry Korg demands they follow the law, which dictates that anyone interfering with ceremonies be fed to the Great Beast. Jamilla reluctantly agrees, so Adora is tied to a post and the natives blow a conch shell, summoning another dinosaur-like creature. This one, like the creature Tondi was fighting, also looks like a T-Rex, but it has spikes on the sides of its head and is less hairy.

Adora sees that she's in a bit of a pickle, and will have to use all the muscle memory she can muster to avoid ending the day in the beast's digestive tract. She wriggles her way free of her bonds and puts on a display of acrobatics that keeps her out of the beast's jaws (and its freeze ray!), at the same time greatly impressing the watching crowd of natives. Deciding that Adora should have a fighting chance like any fellow warrior, Korg tosses her her sword; but the princess doesn't believe in killing indiscriminately. She actually gets the feeling that she can communicate with the Great Beast; and sure enough, learns telepathically that the creature is called to the blown conch because it sounds like the distress call of a fellow creature. Promising on behalf of the tribe that the conch will never be blown again, Adora sends the animal on its way.

In the wake of these exciting events, our natives once again have to call up a council meeting. Korg is (understandably) angry that Adora has meddled in their sacrificial practices and long-established legal system, sees her animal communication talent as witchcraft, and feels that she still needs to be punished. Jamilla, impressed with her agility and resourcefulness, believes Adora should be granted the title of Beast Warrior. This time, Jamilla's side wins the argument, and Adora is spared. She doesn't have any interest in becoming a Beast Warrior, however: Adora would rather lecture the natives on their immoral lifestyle. It's wrong (she pronounces) to keep killing the beasts of the jungle, when what the natives should be doing is living in harmony with them. Jamilla explains that they have no choice: their only fresh water supply is a meager stream, not sufficient to sustain both the animals and the people, so the natives have been regularly thinning the herds.

While our blonde princess is busily teaching native children about insects, saving Tondi's pet Pooka from wild snorters with her absurdly superior knowledge of wildlife, and in general just breaking Star Trek's Prime Directive left and right, the bitter Korg is doing his own share of meddling. Not satisfied with the decision of the council, Korg takes another tribesman into his confidence, explaining that he has gained knowledge of the outer world. Korg has encountered the other inhabitants of the island - the Horde - and suspects they'd be happy to take the blonde stranger off the natives' hands. He and his partner therefore hike their way over to the Beast Island prison and give information of the escaped prisoner to Grizzlor, who calls up Hordak on the gigantic jumbotron video communicator. Hordak orders Grizzlor and Rattlor to follow Korg and his man back into the jungle to retrieve his stray ex-force captain.

Before they come upon their prey, the Hordesmen encounter the Great Beast, who (as Korg explains) is tame without the provocation of the conch horn. Deducing that the right sound would rile it up again, Grizzlor urges Rattlor to do some rattling. This sound, it turns out, is just as maddening as a conch, if not more so. The Great Beast sets off on a rampage, which puts it right in the path of Princess Adora. Our heroine finds that her previous methods of communication are useless against the enraged creature, and she can only do her best to leap clear of its stomping feet and swiping claws. One of her athletic evasions leaves her shaken on the ground, and finally jogs her memory back into place. Adora remembers who she is! She also remembers a great way she can get out of her predicament.

It involves - you guessed it - raising her sword aloft and speaking some choice magic words. It's taken most of the episode, but She-Ra is finally here! Grizzlor and his Horde compatriot, watching the battle from nearby, realize that She-Ra is an even greater prize than Adora. Contrary to all previous evidence, Grizzlor decides that he is up to the task of capturing the heroine, and moves in for the attack. She-Ra quickly reminds him of why she's managed a 57-episode undefeated streak, taking out both him and Rattlor. The absence of Rattlor's rattling easily convinces the Great Beast to calm down.

Hordak, monitoring the battle from afar, decides that what would really help is a forest fire; so he sends off his spy Imp to light up some trees. Imp quickly obeys his master, so now She-Ra has to put out some flames. She decides she can simultaneously fight the fire and solve the jungle's water shortage problem, by pushing a mountain lake down on the plains. She'll just need the help of the now-cooperative Great Beast; and the excited Tondi, who really likes this superpowered blonde lady he's just met, begs his father's permission to come with. The party scales the mountain and Tondi watches as the beast and the beauty shove the mountaintop and send water cascading down over the fire.

Looks like the day is saved! But wait: danger is still in the offing. She-Ra's landscaping has caused a bit of an avalanche up on the mountain, and Tondi sees that the Great Beast is in danger of falling from a crumbling ledge. In the process of shooing the monster to safety, the boy ends up trading places with the creature, and finds himself dangling by one hand from the perilous heights! Fortunately She-Ra is there to save him with her sword's lasso, then carry the boy back to his father. There then follows an epilogue in which the natives thank She-Ra for saving them and teaching them that their culture was wrong and bad, but I've already devoted far too many words to this aggravating story's plot summary, so let's just move on, shall we?

• Princess Adora: Danger! I don't know who I am, but something tells me I'm not safe here.
• Adora (to the Great Beast): Listen great creature, I don't know why, but something tells me you can understand me.
• Korg (to She-Ra): I have not treated you kindly. I did not understand that the creatures of the forest and the people of the village could live together in peace. Thank you for teaching me.
• She-Ra: Jamilla, you have a fine son. Because of Tondi, the Great Beast was saved. Your son passed a difficult test today: he learned that the hardest test of bravery can sometimes be helping, not hurting, creatures. He deserves to be something better than a Beast Warrior.

N/A

One partial (missing Spirit/Swift Wind sequence)

4:55 - Loo-Kee, showing himself to be a brave little elf, is once again hanging out on the dangerous Beast Island. We caught him doing this in 67012 as well. Here, his head can be seen peeking upside-down from the bottom edge of some tree fungus, screen right, as Adora wanders through the jungle.
Did I spot him? YES!

Taking something positive from this complete train wreck of an episode, Loo-Kee advises us that, like Tondi learned in this story, we should learn to be "Beast Protectors" and not "Beast Warriors." That is, we should be kind to animals. He said something similar to conclude 67049's "For Want of a Horse."

Wayward child learns a valuable lesson: I actually hate having to connect this dismal episode with any other episode, but its use of the "wayward child" trope is inarguable. Tondi (and, by extension, all the people of the jungle) learn from the superior, light-haired and white-skinned interloper Adora (and She-Ra) that they have been living their lives all wrong, and need to be at harmony with the other creatures of the jungle, rather than hunting them. God I hate this episode!

• Writer Don Heckman gave us three MOTU scripts before shifting over to POP; this episode makes his fourth tale of She-Ra.
• Imp (back for his fourth consecutive episode) makes the interesting choice of referring to Adora by her old Horde title of Force Captain, prompting a crabby correction from Force Captain Catra, who's naturally miffed that the traitor is identified using Catra's rank. It's interesting, particularly after the events of yesterday's 67056, that the feminine feline's eventual open threats against Imp don't trigger more aggressive reprimands from Hordak, who's standing nearby. (In 67056 some similar remarks from Shadow Weaver had Hordak delivering a verbal beatdown of memorable proportions.)
• Hordak mentions Beast Island as his preferred prison for a captured Adora. This used to be the go-to Horde incarceration facility, the main setting of episodes such as 67002's "Beast Island" or 67012's "The Prisoners of Beast Island;" but lately the Horde commander seems to have been eschewing that distant location in favor of more homegrown prisons (for instance, in 67041's "Glimmer's Story," also a Heckman script, the handsome Prince Highcliff got a cramped cell in the Fright Zone basement). Beast Island hasn't even been mentioned in the series since 67020's "Three Courageous Hearts."
• Today sees a return appearance of the Horde "sneaker" vehicle, a rotor-topped air ship which I've named based on its vague resemblance to an item of footwear. We last saw it in another Heckman story, 67028's "Bow's Farewell;" and it will make another appearance in the upcoming Christmas Special. Also in use are some of the typical Hordak-faced tanks, so the Horde is unusually reusing vehicles instead of coming up with random and confusingly named new ones.
• It's the "hero gets amnesia" episode of She-Ra! We actually got to watch He-Man forget who he was twice: once in MU019's "Quest for He-Man," where a spell from Skeletor did the trick. Adora's head-jogging, brought on by a broken branch and a hard fall, is more similar to the one He-Man gave himself in his second amnesia story, MU031's "A Tale of Two Cities." There he got hit in the head by a log. The big difference here, which you may have already spotted, is that the forgetful Adora is stuck as plain old Adora; both times He-Man lost his memory, he was already in his super-stud form, which gave him a distinct advantage.
• Speaking of similar He-Man stories, it's worth noting that writer Don Heckman has previously shown an interest in having our main characters avoid utilizing their superpowered alter egos. Recall that in Heckman's "No Job Too Small" (MU105, probably my least-disliked script of his), he had He-Man deciding that the powers of Prince Adam were better suited to solving a puzzling conundrum involving kidnapped friends. Here, we find that circumstances - and potentially her own illogical preferences - keep Adora from transforming until late in the story.
• Though disappointing, it's not surprising given its past record of inconsistencies that Beast Island again evolves in this latest depiction. Recall that in Beast Island's first iteration, 67002, our heroes wandered the terrain and encountered only one beast, seemingly imbuing the place name with an air of false advertising. As a farewell gesture, He-Man knocked over the prison tower, implying the Horde's days of holding prisoners there were over. In 67012, the prison was magically rebuilt, and our rescuing heroes wandered the environs with impunity, because all Beast Island's beasts were locked in cages. In the speedy return to the island in 67014, we found the exterior so thoroughly overrun with lethal wildlife that Shadow Weaver didn't even want to leave the fortress doors open for more than a few seconds. In today's latest stage of the island's evolution, though there are dangerous animals running free, we discover that the place is tame enough to support a huge tribe of indigenous human inhabitants who we've never come across before.
• The native boy's little bug-like pet (who we eventually learn is named Pooka) is very similar to a MOTU creature we've seen in varying contexts. There was Farin's pet omaran Ommy in MU123's "Mistaken Identity," and the little gronk creature that accidentally got "Orko's Missing Magic" (MU045). Pooka's name also recalls the name Teela gave to a similar looking creature - Pookie, from MU083's "Into the Abyss."
• Beast Island's native population seems pretty clearly to have been modeled off typical depictions of Native Americans. The people sport mohawks and face paint, dislike wearing shirts, live in tepee-like huts, and have a coming-of-age ritual for their young that involves hunting and killing an animal to earn the title of "Beast Warrior." I was also under the impression they were exclusively male, which made me wonder how the tribe is propagated; but if you look hard enough you will find a couple of females in background crowd shots.
• The natives' summoning of the Great Beast to presumably consume a sacrificial Adora gives some strong King Kong vibes. That scene in the original 1933 film was exceptionally racist and played on ignorant stereotypes, adding another layer of unpleasant bigotry to this already irresponsibly titled episode.
• The Great Beast's design, a spiky headed T-Rex look, is very similar to the King Liz so accidentally angered by Razz and Broom in the Valley of the Lost, in 67044's "The Rock People." The Great Beast seems to have an advantage over King Liz, however, in that he can shoot a freeze ray out of his mouth! Nice touch.
• For the first time, we find Adora being able to use She-Ra's talent for animal communication, when she converses with the Great Beast. ... See the commentary section.
• It was a challenge getting the character names for today's episode. In typical Filmation fashion, we're past the halfway mark before we've heard the names of many of the native characters. In addition, many of the spellings used in the DVD captions don't match those used by Wiki Grayskull. The most egregious variation is "Korg." I'm using the Wiki Grayskull spelling; my DVD captions consistently identify the suspicious native as "Quord," which clearly isn't how his name is pronounced.
• Making a late surprise appearance in the episode is Rattlor. The last time we saw this Snake Man was back in 67026's "Book Burning." Unlike in that episode, where he appeared incapable of speech, today Rattlor does eventually get a line of dialogue.
• Hordak's choice to order Imp into the fray and start a fire in the jungle is an odd one, and seemingly out of character. We've seen the Horde commander coddling his little spy before; recall that in 67032's "Friends Are Where You Find Them," Hordak was hesitant to let Imp go on a mission to steal a robot, afraid that his little buddy might get hurt. It also seems like there are plenty of other minions perfectly suited to throwing some lit matches around a forest: what about Catra or Scorpia - or even Mantenna? Well, maybe not Mantenna.
• By the way, Imp flies all the way from the Fright Zone to Beast Island, and very quickly, in the form of a little Imp-faced rocket. The two places seem to be in closer proximity to each other than previous episodes have suggested. Imp then changes himself into a dumpy little flamethrower to perform his job.
• After several previous episodes have left Spirit out of the mix in favor of only featuring the winged Swift Wind (see 67052, 67054, 67056), today we get Spirit with no Swift Wind. The regular horse appears in the beginning of the story, but because Adora sends him on ahead just before she's ambushed, we never see the four-legged friend again. In fact, Adora and her horse are the only recurring rebel characters included in this story.
• Swiss army sword: She-Ra changes her sword to a lasso so she can rescue the dangling Tondi.

• We need to address the racist elephant in the room right away here. What is with that title?? According to dictionary.com, there was actually a time when the phrase "jungle fever" had no connotations, and was exactly what it sounds like: a fever that you could contract in the jungle. But this was back in the nineteenth century. Ever since the 1960s - and even more so since 1991, with the release of Spike Lee's film of the same name - the phrase was adopted into slang vernacular as a reference to an interracial relationship (particularly the attraction of a white person toward a Black person). Though the Spike Lee movie obviously came after their time, the writers of POP would certainly have been aware of the slang term, so their use of it in this title is troubling and uncomfortable.
• Our opening seems to suggest we're in for a padded-out runtime in today's episode: we're treated to a lengthy establishing shot, panning up from the Whispering Woods and over to the Fright Zone, slowly working our way into the fortress. However, this is the only slow-paced scene in the show, which (as my lengthy plot summary indicates) is fairly packed with action.
• This episode commits a staggering continuity error that had me shouting at my screen. When the native tribe ties up Adora and decides that their council will have to rule on what to do with her, the closest native, saying "You won't need this for a while," casually pulls Adora's sword of protection from an invisible sheath on her back. WHAT?!?!?! Where in Light Hope's name did she get that? We watched Adora escape from her prison cell without transforming, commenting to herself that she would have to do so without the aid of She-Ra. I assumed this was because her captors had (sensibly enough) disarmed her. We watched as she leapt out of a high ledge of the prison, clearly not having collected her weapon from anywhere. Then she bumped her head and got amnesia. When the hell could she have obtained her sword? And if she somehow did, or already had it when she was in her cell, why the hell wouldn't she have used it to transform into She-Ra? This just doesn't make any sense, people. I've slowly become wise to a trend in Don Heckman's scripts of nonsensical and illogical plot twists, and this one just about takes the cake.
• You can accuse me of having developed an unfair aversion to our story writer, but: he seems to want to have his cake and eat it too. He engineers a situation in which Adora is stuck without the powers of She-Ra - and then gives her the powers of She-Ra. She should not be able to telepathically communicate with the Great Beast, as that is an ability conferred on She-Ra by the powers of Grayskull. At least Adora does it while holding her sword of protection, which lends some slight credence to the scene; but it (again, as with the sword mix-up) doesn't make a lot of sense, and I don't like it.
• As I noted in the lore, this episode is very light on other rebel characters, because Adora sends Spirit away in the opening minutes and gets herself captured without any of her friends knowing it's happened. However, you have to wonder just what Spirit and the other rebels were thinking while Adora was stuck in the jungles of Beast Island, learning about native societies and unable to remember her name. Surely she was a little late getting back to camp! Did no one think to go back and check on her?
• Believe it or not, I have another complaint with this episode, and it's one of the most emotionally negative responses I've had to a POP script. This story depicts Adora - who has never lived on Beast Island and doesn't even remember her own name - wading into the native people's village and telling them that they've been living their lives incorrectly and need to revamp their whole culture. And she turns out to be completely right! This is the kind of obnoxious imperialist claptrap we saw depicted in a MOTU episode, MU039's "Trouble in Arcadia." In that gender-focused story, we saw Teela and Adam happening upon a matriarchal society whose ruling female class subjugated its men. And yes, clearly that's wrong; but it still felt inappropriate for the bumbling Eternians to dictate how the Arcadians should be arranging their society, as if there are some nations of people who are just better than others and have the right to tell the others how to live. Adam, sent to slave away in the city's underground mines, additionally instructs the Arcadians that their mining practices are recklessly dangerous - which, of course, also proves prophetically accurate. In this episode, we eventually find Adora sitting with a collection of native boys, lecturing them about cooperation in the insect world. Princess Adora, who grew up in the mechanized Fright Zone, is telling a group of children who were raised in a jungle how nature works. I can't explain to you how infuriating this is. The breathtaking, patronizing, self-satisfied audacity of it! I'm... I'm just going to stop now.
• Note how the episode completely glosses over the natives' reaction to the mysterious appearance of She-Ra. Obviously we know she's just Adora, but the natives shouldn't know that, and they'd be just as suspicious of this blonde stranger as they were of the first one. Korg's final words to the heroine, "I have not treated you kindly," seem to imply that he knows she and Adora are one and the same. After all, he certainly didn't have any time to treat She-Ra unkindly: we don't see Korg say a single word to her on screen, and she just showed up a few minutes ago! We also don't hear any speculation from the natives during the final conversation with She-Ra over where that nice amnesiac lady that they almost fed to a beast wandered off to. It's another clumsy misstep in a story that has spent its time blundering through the Beast Island jungle like a bull in a china shop.
• Let's not mince any words: this episode enraged me. Its blind jingoism, racist undertones, cultural stereotypes, continuity errors, plot flaws - even the central gimmick of Adora's amnesia seems ultimately unnecessary. Its main use seems to be as a contrivance to delay the entrance of She-Ra on the scene - something that could have been just as easily handled, and without the accompanying damage to our princess's brain, by having her lose her sword. In the end, the amnesia is carelessly dispensed with by a slight fall that doesn't even seem to affect Adora's head, but nevertheless somehow restores her memory. My dislike of this writer is now thoroughly solidified, and I'll be forewarned and suspicious of his upcoming scripts - of which, unfortunately, there are five still to come. It's hard to call this one of the "worst" episodes of POP, because it actually has the bones of a solid story amid all the messiness, and lacks the silliness of my chosen "worst" MOTU scripts (MU100, MU082). What I dislike most about it is the attitude and beliefs underpinning the storytelling.