Mike Hazy

Gwen Wetzler

Queen Marlena's long-delayed reunion with fellow Earthlings, in the form of a pair of accidental tourists, is ruined by a stolen, potentially Grayskull-killing bomb. But our Earth astronauts need that bomb to save their home planet - our home planet! That's where we keep all our stuff! Can He-Man save the day for both Eternia and Earth? And will the queen take advantage of this opportunity to return to her birthplace?

Orko, King Randor, Queen Marlena, Man-at-Arms, Teela, Prince Adam (He-Man), Cringer (Battle Cat)

Skeletor, Spikor, Two Bad, Evil-Lyn, Beast Man, Screeech

Colonel Mark Blaze, Major Andrea Steele

Earth ship, sky sled, Wind Raider

Trouble in space! A pair of Earth astronauts struggle to pilot their damaged spaceship, which has been driven off-course and flung through a very colorful hole in space. Good news, though: there's a planet nearby, and it supports life. Sure hope the inhabitants are friendly! The craft is in for a rough landing, but it has very important cargo which the colonel piloting the vessel can't be separated from; so he goes down with the ship while ejecting his female co-pilot and major.

The major's seat is duly released and she parachutes safely down into the palace courtyard of Eternos, where she encounters a group of strangers with which we're very familiar: Orko, King Randor, Queen Marlena, Man-at-Arms, Teela, and Prince Adam. When the newcomer, whose name is Major Andrea Steele, introduces herself as an astronaut, the queen asks if she's from Earth, and Andrea realizes she has found the long-lost Lieutenant Marlena Glenn. No time for a catch-up session, though: The major explains that she has to get in touch with her partner and reunite with the downed ship, because they're on a desperate mission to save their home planet!

Back story time: It turns out all the space junk NASA has been sending out into orbit and beyond has been magnetically drawn into a huge, garbage-based asteroid, and the trash-teroid is headed for Earth. If it hits, humans will go the way of the dinosaurs. Andrea and her partner (whose full name, we will learn, is - improbably - Colonel Mark Blaze) were sent with a special missile to destroy the asteroid. They really have to get back and do their job, because there are only a few hours left until impact!

Unbeknownst to our heroes, however, the plan for saving Earth has hit another serpentine snag, because Mark ended up crash landing just outside Snake Mountain. As he pauses to marvel at the fantasy-based architecture, he is apprehended by Skeletor and his silent but threatening lackey, Spikor. The villains stuff their curious captive into a truth scanner, where he is forced to admit to his mission - and his explosive payload. Skeletor decides this bomb is the key to unlocking his dreams - and blasting open the Jawbridge to Castle Grayskull. Thrilled at this evil plot which has landed in his lap, our villain wanders off, ultimately leaving the prisoner in charge of two (or is it three?) of his brightest lights: Beast Man and Two Bad.

As per usual, the villains fail to search their prisoner, giving Mark the opportunity to activate a tracking signal on his wrist. Receiving her colonel's location, Andrea hops right onto a sky sled and flies away. Prince Adam, who was standing nearby with Cringer, decides now is the time to cue the transformation sequence. As He-Man, he hops on Battle Cat and heads off in pursuit. The hero catches up with Andrea outside Snake Mountain, assuring her he's there to assist, and the pair sneak into the fortress together. They quickly locate Mark in the first-class area of the dungeon, where the cells have ventilated barred walls and the hall is open to the air; but he's being guarded by the bored minions, who are passing the time by napping or trying to flick pebbles into skull-stamped pails.

He-Man, being all out of chewing gum, is ready to wade in and kick some butt; but Andrea wants to try out an idea she learned from her Earth action movies. She hits a napping Beast Man in the face with a couple of well-thrown rocks. Assuming his fellow jailer is to blame, an infuriated Beast Man is fully distracted administering punishment to the hapless Two Bad, which he does by cramming a pail over each of the villain's two heads. While Fur Face is so engrossed in this process, He-Man stealthily breaks open the cell door and he and Andrea sneak away with their compatriot. Beast Man is preparing to strike the object of his vengeance with a boulder, but clumsily drops the thing on his foot when he spots the open cell door. Not content with observing from a distance, both lackeys (Two Bad having by this time de-pailed himself) decide to go inside the empty chamber to thoroughly investigate. As soon as they do, He-Man reappears to lock them in. Well done, Evil Warriors!

Having made their escape, the heroic trio return to the downed spaceship; but Mark discovers that Skeletor has sabotaged the vehicle's launching mechanism and removed the bomb! Man-at-Arms arrives by Wind Raider and can get to work right away helping Mark repair the ship. He-Man heads off with Andrea to retrieve the missile, since he knows exactly to what purpose his nemesis will be sure to put such a weapon. To Grayskull! Outside the castle, Skeletor shows off to Evil-Lyn by having his robot bird, Screeech, carry the missile across the abyssal moat and deposit it on the Sorceress's threshold. When the heroes show up, the quartet pair off by gender, with Andrea working a Judo move on Evil-Lyn. He-Man dodges his skeletal opponent and leaps across the moat to grab the bomb. A desperate but poorly aiming Skeletor, firing beams at the hero from his staff, instead hits the missile, sending it into Grayskull's bottomless pit!

The villains, seeing that their scheme is a dud and fearing they'll be caught in the inevitable resulting blast, decide to high-tail it. He-Man leaps into his Wind Raider and dives precipitously into the abyss, catching up with the missile, nabbing it out of the air, and flying it back out again. Grayskull - and Eternia - is saved! Now it's time to save Earth. They have the bomb, and Duncan has repaired the ship; the only problem is, they don't know how to get back to Earth, the missile-launching part of the ship is still broken, and Skeletor has set a timer on the missile leaving them very few minutes for problem-solving. Returning to the royal palace for a consultation, Man-at-Arms compares the flight recorder from Andrea and Mark's vessel with that of Marlena's, and finds their data match. Marlena gives them the final piece of the puzzle by advising them to reverse the readings, and the heroes have their flight plan. He-Man rides shotgun with a missile in his lap, while Mark pilots the spaceship back through the wormhole. With only seconds to spare, the hunky title hero catches a glimpse of his mother's home world before spying the meteor they've come to mutilate. The blonde oaf pops out of the ship's top hatch and hurls the missile on a true course; it explodes right on time, disintegrating the trash-teroid and delivering the planet from apocalypse. Whew!

After that, it's simply a matter of flying all the way back to Eternia (they couldn't take two ships and save the extra journey?), where the good guys all gather in the hangar bay to make their fond farewells. Marlena sends her best wishes back to Earth. When Andrea asks the queen why she doesn't just come back with the astronauts, Marlena explains that her home - and her family - are here on Eternia. Suggesting the Eternians come visit them some time, Mark and Andrea depart. Randor idly wonders whether some day they will actually take up the Earthlings on their invitation...

End with a Joke: N/A (unless you find Randor's parting remark funny - maybe because it reminds you of the zany live-action movie from 1987, where they did actually visit Earth)

• Andrea: My name is Major Andrea Steele. I'm an astronaut. / Queen Marlena: You are from - Earth? / Andrea: How could you know that? / Marlena: I was once an astronaut. / Andrea: You - You're not - Marlena Glenn? / Marlena: Well, yes I am - or was. / Andrea: But - you, you disappeared. We never knew what happened. / Marlena: It's a long story.
• Prince Adam (asking after the ship's commander): Why didn't he eject? / Andrea: He just couldn't. You see, we are Earth's only hope!
• Colonel Blaze (observing Snake Mountain): Would you look at that! It looks like something out of a horror movie! It looks like some sort of monument to evil! / Skeletor (cackling): A slight correction, intruder: It is a monument to greatness!
• Cringer (of his owner): Now he's got me chasing women on sky sleds!
• Mark: Hurry, He-Man - we've got to save Earth! / He-Man: I know; and not just Earth. If Skeletor uses that missile, no one can stop him from ruling Eternia.
• Skeletor: Soon the knowledge of the universe itself will be in my brain. / He-Man (laying down a sick burn): A nice, safe, empty place, eh Skeletor?
• Andrea: My father taught me how to cook; my mother taught me Judo! (winks)
• He-Man (muttering as he looks out the spaceship window): Earth - so that's where my mother came from. / Mark: What did you say? / He-Man: Nothing - I'm just talking to myself.
• Marlena (to Major Steele): If anyone on Earth still remembers me, tell them that I am well and happy - very happy. / Andrea: I promise I will. Queen Marlena, why don't you come back home with us? / Marlena: This is my home; and this (standing between Randor and Adam) is my family.

• Skeletor laughs, head back: In the belief that this time, he will finally rule Eternia
• He-Man jumps on the back of Battle Cat: As usual, just after transforming
• He-Man rolls along the ground: Dodging a blast from Skeletor
• He-Man runs at the viewer, bug-height: About to leap across Grayskull's abyss

One full

Brought to you by Queen Marlena
The queen assures us that the Earth isn't actually in danger from a giant asteroid (although this is a very realistic threat to life on our planet and we should really hope that NASA has a plan for redirecting asteroids or we are seriously effed). The real-life lesson we should take from today's story is that it's good to help each other, the way the Eternians and Terrans did.

Landmark Episode: For its exploration of Marlena's home planet, her choice to remain on Eternia, and for just being a well-written and fun story

• The view that our pair of Earthlings get out of their spaceship cockpit as they ride through the portal is highly reminiscent of the view Dave Bowman got when he flew through the wacky monolith doorway at the end of Stanley Kubrick's irritatingly opaque 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).
• Our astronauts' journey to Eternia is somewhat different than the one we've seen depicted - in two slightly different flashbacks, from MU006 and MU085 - of Queen Marlena's arrival. Marlena's ship seemed merely to have been damaged and sent off-course by some asteroids and a cosmic storm. In this case, the new ship is plunged through a kind of wormhole and one of the pilots clearly states her belief that they have been sent to "some sort of other galaxy."
• Andrea advises Mark to "head due north," and he ends up at Snake Mountain; by which we can infer that Snake Mountain is north of Eternos.
• It's a very cool moment when the Eternians meet the ejected Earth major, and Andrea realizes she is speaking with the missing astronaut Marlena Glenn. It would have been very helpful if she'd provided a very specific comment, like, "You've been missing for twenty years!" (It would have to be something like that long, given approximations of Adam's age.) But no such luck. See more considerations of chronology in the commentary section.
• The Evil Warrior Spikor appears for the second time in the series, with a much more threatening and impressive role than he had in MU107's "The Gambler." We also see him sporting his trident hand in this episode, something that was missing in his debut.
• Also making his second appearance in the series is the villain Two Bad, who we only glimpsed via video screen at the end of MU116. This time both of his halves get some dialogue! As with Spikor's second appearance, which sees him better matching his toy, Two Bad's return puts his halves on the same sides as the action figure (blue on the left, purple on the right) - something that was reversed last time.
• Skeletor sticks the colonel in the same chamber he used to create the electric monster Byte in the memorable MU068's "Day of the Machines" (though in that episode it was connected to a second tube). This is also the tube where he captured Aremesh and Orko in MU048's "Return of Evil." I hope he wipes it down between uses! This time, the tube is used as a sort of truth-extracting device.
• The villains clap their Earth captive into a dungeon cell which is much airier and better ventilated than the ones we're used to seeing. Rather than just being a solid door with a tiny barred window set in a rock wall, Mark's prison is fronted with floor-to-ceiling bars; and instead of being in an underground corridor, the dungeon is open to the sky! Oddly enough, when He-Man arrives in Snake Mountain on his rescue mission, the first set of cells he sees are the more usual ones - a hallway branching off this familiar corridor leads to the cushier, Earthling holding cells.
• We see again the failure of our villains to properly search and disarm their prisoners. Recall Skeletor's criminal failure to remove Kol Darr's wrist blaster in MU111's "Double Trouble," or his omitting to search Prince Adam and relieve him of his power sword before chaining him up in MU085, as just two examples. Here, the Evil Warriors don't think to take off Colonel Blaze's wrist communicator, which allows him to send a distress signal to his partner.
• Beast Man gets no respect from anyone: And, as today's episode suggests, he doesn't deserve any either. He and Two Bad do a hilariously and shamefully awful job, and demonstrate extreme incompetence and stupidity, while "guarding" the Earth colonel. Goaded by a few well-directed pebble tosses from the hidden major, Beast Man becomes so engrossed in exacting vengeance on the entirely innocent Two Bad that he fails to notice He-Man (who must be only a couple of feet behind him) ripping open the cell door and vanishing with the prisoner. Finding the cell suddenly empty (and after Beast Man has smashed his own foot with a dropped boulder), the villains compound their failure to an astounding degree by deciding they should "take a look," getting inside to thoroughly examine the clearly vacated prison. This of course gives He-Man all the excuse he needs to shut them up in it. Surely this one should go in the record books! I'm imagining now that Skeletor has a "Worst Employee of the Month" wall that is just a long string of plaques with Beast Man's photo on them.
• As you can see from the character list and the transformation description, Cringer and Battle Cat are present in today's story. Cringer gets in one funny line about chasing women on sky sleds, and Battle Cat is used to carry He-Man to Snake Mountain. But that's about it.
• Note that, as he has sometimes opted for in the past (see for instance MU008's "The Time Corridor," in which a much more complicated bomb was being utilized), Skeletor plans to destroy Grayskull rather than steal its secrets. Well...maybe? Both Skeletor and the heroes definitely talk about him destroying the castle, yet when old Bonehead is standing at the Jawbridge, he seems to think he can use his stolen weapon to break inside.
• Wow, it seems it's a day for villainous second appearances! Also making its return to the series, along with Two Bad and Spikor, is Skeletor's robotic bird, Screeech, last seen in MU084's "Fraidy Cat." Honestly, though it's nice to see the bird again, it hardly seems to have been needed for the task Skeletor sets it: toting the bomb over the short gap of Grayskull's moat and placing the weapon at the Sorceress's doorstep. Surely Skeletor or Evil-Lyn, even if they didn't want to risk tossing the explosive object across, could have floated it over with their magic. (By the way, about that gap... see the commentary.)
• We're all surprised - including He-Man - when Andrea uses a Judo move on Evil-Lyn. It's the same move He-Man has used himself several times, notably against a still-evil Man-E-Faces in MU043. Andrea explains to her blonde comrade that her mother taught her this, which is fine; the real question is, why did Evil-Lyn try to attack her opponent at close quarters? Where's the magic zap-zap, Lyn?
• As remarkably clumsy shooter Skeletor reminds us, "that pit" (the one surrounding Grayskull) "is bottomless!" It sure is, buddy; so why were you firing blasts near the missile that was right on the edge of it?
• We see He-Man make a flying journey into Grayskull's dangerous abyss. Prince Adam just made a very similar flight (using a sky sled instead of a Wind Raider) in MU110's landmark "The Problem with Power." Today's flight is much more successful. We've been told before (particularly in MU083's "Into the Abyss") of the dangerous air currents within the castle's moat; these same air currents quickly knocked Adam off his sky sled. But He-Man has no trouble at all piloting his Wind Raider down there, fetching a falling missile, and then flying back out again - hmmm.
• The heroes have their crucial final discussion about how to save Earth while standing in the royal palace's game room, seen first (appropriately enough) in MU069's "The Gamesman," and most recently in MU111's "Double Trouble."
• As He-Man demonstrated once before during the hilariously absurd ending of MU091's "Jacob and the Widgets," we see again that he is capable of surviving in the cold vacuum of space! Without even bothering to throw on a sweater, He-Man pops right out the top canopy of the spaceship to toss a missile.
• This is the only series script brought to us by Mike Hazy; which is a shame, because it's a humdinger. Logical issues aside, there's plenty of memorable dialogue, a great action story with a thrilling climax, humor, character development - the works!
• PSA trivia: This is one of only two episodes in the series where the public service duties are handled by the queen. The other one is MU085.
• Yep, it's another episode with the variant ending credits.

• I almost hate to bring this up, since it's an inaccuracy that's been utilized countless times, particularly by older science fiction movies and TV shows, and as the theme song to one of my favorite TV shows, Mystery Science Theater 3000, so wisely states: "Just repeat to yourself, 'It's just a show; I should really just relax.'" BUT: why do all the Eternians speak English? It's something we haven't had to think about until now, since Earth and Eternia have never met so abruptly as they do here. We could have just assumed in all previous episodes that the Eternians were speaking Eternian, that Marlena had learned the language during the time she'd been on the planet, and we were just hearing a translation. But it's much harder to keep believing that when Andrea and everyone else instantly understand one another as soon as she lands.
• Do you think Marlena is curious at all about what's been going on with her planet while she's been gone? If you try to consider her chronology based on its currently being the (Earth) year 1984 in the show, it doesn't seem to work. I was trying to imagine her being amazed that Ronald Reagan had managed to become president, like Doc Brown in Back to the Future; which would have been fun, but it's an impossible dream. For one thing, the Earthlings have space travel technology which seems to far exceed what was bleeding edge in the 80s. For another, it would mean that Marlena had gotten lost at some point in the mid 60s, which definitely doesn't track - we could barely escape Earth's orbit at that point in the history of the space program. We have to assume that MOTU takes place at some period in Earth's future - say, 2024 (just to pick a number, and not at all because it's currently 2024 as I write this - certainly not). This would put Marlena's disappearance in the early 2000s (the "naughties," if you will, though I hate that term so I don't know why I'm bringing it up), which seems a reasonable guess that people in the 80s would make about where the progression of space travel would put us in 20 years.
• This implied chronology, by the way, will put us at odds with the clashing of Earth and Eternia which will occur in the magical He-Man and She-Ra: A Christmas Special (1985). In that movie, it looks very much as if Earth is meant to be situated in the present (i.e., 1985), not forty years in the future. (Admittedly we are only afforded the briefest glimpse of Earth in the movie, so basically all I have to go on are the fashion choices of the characters.) I suppose we can explain this away by saying that the astronauts really did go through a wormhole which also sent them back in time, as well as into a different galaxy - though this invalidates today's plot, since it would mean they have all the time in the world to retrieve their bomb and save their home. That's assuming that the wormhole offers a fixed point of travel through space-time, and going back through it will put them back at the same time they entered it, or thereabouts. Am I overthinking this? Yes. Yes I am.
• The Earth ship seems to have its glass cockpit placed directly in the tip of its nose - which seems like absolutely terrible design. Isn't that the part of the ship that's going to get the hottest during re-entry into planetary atmosphere?
• Animation error - of a kind: As the spaceship makes a lengthy and damaging landing, it slides along a continuous stretch of background painting which is really just a couple of repeated smaller paintings rather obviously stitched together. The smeary line demarking the join is not well hidden. We saw this same background used in the beginning of MU081's "The Arena" - and I called it out then, too.
• I just want to say that I absolutely love the fact that the last names of the two astronauts are "Blaze" and "Steele." Is this how they recruit people for the space program - based on their tough-sounding substance-based surnames? While I'm talking about last names, consider that Marlena's is "Glenn" - the last name of the real astronaut, John Glenn. (John Glenn was the first American to orbit Earth - but not the first human. That honor goes to Yuri Gagarin. Credit where it's due!)
• As soon as Major Steele receives the signal from her partner, she hops onto a sky sled and takes off. This assumes one of two possibilities: 1) that some time in the few minutes that she was hanging about the palace, she got really bored waiting for Earth to get nailed with an asteroid and someone helped her pass the time by showing her how to pilot a sky sled; or, 2) that sky sleds are insanely intuitive to pilot - so recklessly easy to fly that a child could jump onto one and immediately penetrate the upper atmosphere. Actually, this is the classic science fiction or action trope, seen in a thousand movies, of characters just being able to figure out how to pilot whatever vehicle they hop into, no matter how unusual it is or how unfamiliar they are with its controls.
• I feel like I'm sucking the life out of this joke by explaining it to any degree, but the idea of Two Bad not managing to pay off his bets against himself is pretty funny. Do his two halves have separate bank accounts?
• Oh, so a captive needs to be rescued from Snake Mountain? It must be time for another home invasion! It surely is, readers. This time He-Man and Major Steele join forces to sneak directly into the dungeon of the fortress, without setting off any alarms and without any difficulties in finding an entrance. Easy as pie! Clearly no one has learned anything from the dozens of other forced entries...
• It's nice that He-Man feels it appropriate to introduce Andrea to the "two creatures" guarding Mark: "The shaggy one is Beast Man; the one with two heads is Two Bad." Make sure you mention your own name and give them a nice curtsy before they get knocked unconscious!
• So the Earthlings have a bomb/missile that's meant to destroy a gigantic, Earth-killing asteroid - and, as Skeletor assumes, is also powerful enough to detonate Castle Grayskull. Wouldn't you think it would be... bigger? Like, not of a size that makes it easy to carry in your hands? My first reaction on finally seeing the thing was to shout "That's it!?" I guess, as Teela has advised us (to the relief of men everywhere), "Size isn't everything." (See MU105.)
• He-Man claims that if Skeletor succeeds in setting off the bomb, "No one can stop him from ruling Eternia." It's hard to say whether his conclusion is founded on the assumption that his enemy means to destroy Grayskull or just break inside. We've had frustrating evidence of how little Skeletor can actually manage to accomplish when he breaks into Grayskull (see MU104); but just what would happen if he destroyed it? We saw evidence of some of the weird things that happened when Grayskull was missing, in MU030. In MU083's "Into the Abyss" we saw that the power that He-Man calls on when he transforms (as his magic mantra suggests) literally comes from around and beneath the castle; is it possible that without the castle, there would be no He-Man? If so, then our hero's prediction might very well be accurate!
• Continuity error: There's a huge one in this episode, which for me was somehow hiding in plain sight. I was willing to happily go along with the characters needing to leap the gap between Castle Grayskull and the surrounding landscape; but in actual fact, you may recall that in every other episode of the show, this gap has not existed! There are plenty of other examples of the villains and heroes being able to walk right up to the closed door of the castle without worrying about any holes out front. Of the many instances I could cite, in particular I'm reminded of the dramatic moment when Teela approaches the closed Jawbridge of Grayskull on her way to replace the Sorceress, in MU108's "Teela's Triumph." She didn't need to hop any gaps to get there! This is just another in a long line of rather irritating failures of continuity when it comes to the castle, how it is entered, and how it is defended.
• I'm confused by the choice, on both the animators' and the characters' parts, to keep the space helmets on the astronauts for the entire episode. It's kind of funny to see them doing all their scenes in this get-up, so I appreciate that. I suppose they have their little glass faceplates open to the air, which shows they've both come to the same conclusion about Eternia's breathable atmosphere (a conclusion much more easily reached by Andrea, who sees an unhelmeted Marlena as soon as she lands); but doesn't it get uncomfortable with that thing on all the time?
• It's odd that, with all the commotion just outside her door, the Sorceress never shows up to see what's happening. Maybe she was really engrossed in a deep metaphysical discussion with the Spirit of Castle Grayskull. Or catching up on her shows. Or maybe, like every other time her mystical castle was in danger, she just assumed He-Man would handle it, and went back to bed. (Actually, if you've read my note in the previous episode MU118, you'll know that we have already seen the last of the Sorceress and she won't be appearing again in the regular series!)
• There's some sci-fi type nonsense near the end of the episode about the "recorders" from Marlena's ship and Andrea and Mark's ship. They look literally like black boxes, and we can assume they contain data on the path or trajectory of both vessels' flights. Since the data match, it seems logical that using this information would get the astronauts back home. "No that wouldn't work," the queen objects. "Your only chance is to reverse readings." An awed Andrea remarks that Marlena is clearly the genius that everyone on Earth has always lauded her as; but the idea, once considered, is laughably obvious. Naturally to get back the way you came you would have to reverse your path!
• The ending race to the asteroid is strange; it seems like such a gamble, but you'd think that both Mark and Andrea would get in the ship together to face the risks as a team. I didn't expect them to be traveling all the way back to Eternia again after saving their planet, so I was very confused to see He-Man riding shotgun as well - I was formulating pictures in my mind of the hero trying to swim back to Eternia through space after Mark landed on his own home. But no, it seems everyone was confident enough about their reversed readings (and the fuel left in their ship!) that they could risk multiple journeys back and forth.
• In the panning shot bringing us back in to Eternos, the camera eventually stops on the large circular structure at the center of the palace complex. We pretty much always end up centering on this building before cutting to whatever royal room in which the action is taking place: often it's the throne room, but sometimes (illogically) it's the open-air courtyard, and in this case, it turns out to be the hangar bay. That's one versatile building!
• Animation error: In the wide shot of the astronauts and Eternians bidding good-bye to one another, we clearly see He-Man standing among the assembled crowd; but in later shots we see that it was meant to be Prince Adam. Oopsie! (Ironically this error is called out even more thoroughly when the He-Man shot is reused in the PSA!)
• "If anyone on Earth still remembers me," is how Marlena begins her farewell speech to Andrea. But obviously they do - that's what Andrea's been telling her all along!
• When Andrea asks why the queen doesn't come back to Earth, we get a shot of Randor slightly lowering his head - the only indication we're going to get that the king is concerned his wife is going to ditch him for her home planet. It's an interesting moment, as we hear Marlena firmly decide to remain on Eternia - the place where she has found a home and family. If I were the Earth astronauts I'd feel just a little miffed at her turning her back on her birth planet with so little hesitation!
• I love how Colonel Mark suggests the Eternians all come and visit Earth some time, and Adam just replies, "Well, I'll miss you, Colonel." Yeesh, message received, prince. Maybe you'll call them some time...