[6.3/10] Let’s get the worst part of this one out of the way first. Outside of Bondo, the Jindas are shockingly racist. The slant-eyed, buck-toothed jugglers are appalling. The “famous Jinda dancers” aren’t much better. The whole thing smacks of painful Orientalism that casts a pall over everything else the episode tries to accomplish.
But if you could somehow erase that, this would be a standard, if not particularly overwhelming episode, The bones of it are solid. Latara wants to pursue her artistic interests but finds herself stifled by chores and other responsibilities at home. So she decides to run off and join the circus, only to find that showbiz isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and, in fact, may be much more work than even her typical home life.
It’s a solid character motivation. There’s some cleverness (or more probably, cheapness) to having Latara’s flute song be the same melody from the show’s incidental music. The episode nive quite rounds things off with her, since it’s not clear why musical expression is less than it’s cracked up to be and not just that the Jinda are not as fun are carefree as they seem. But whatever, it’s a decent enough arc.
Despite the racist elements of the Jinda themselves, Bondo is a lot of fun. The actor is effectively doing his best impression of Ed Wynn as The Mad Hatter, but there are worse blueprints to pull from. The character gets a little annoying at points, but the madcap master of ceremonies in a time honored archetype for a reason.
The weakest part is the two Duloks who go after Latara because their king needs a babysitter. It’s not quite as bad as the racist Jindas, but characterizing the Queen withholding supper unless her husband hires a babysitter, and demanding to hear love songs at the Jinda performance is pretty retrograde as well. And his XO henchmen are a mere excuse for some low-quality slapstick in the interim.
There is, at least, a little setup and payoff at play for the Ewoks. Logray gives Kneesa a magical acorn that turns into a tentacled tree monster when wet. There’s not much to it, but they come up with a good sense of anticipation for it, so when the teddy bears unleash it, you have some extra excitement.
Overall, on its merits alone, this would be a perfectly fine, replacement level episode of Ewoks with a decent multiplot story. But the combination of the unfortunate depiction of the Jindas and the backwards depiction of the Dulok queen knock this down quite a bit.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2022-04-29T18:08:47Z
[6.3/10] Let’s get the worst part of this one out of the way first. Outside of Bondo, the Jindas are shockingly racist. The slant-eyed, buck-toothed jugglers are appalling. The “famous Jinda dancers” aren’t much better. The whole thing smacks of painful Orientalism that casts a pall over everything else the episode tries to accomplish.
But if you could somehow erase that, this would be a standard, if not particularly overwhelming episode, The bones of it are solid. Latara wants to pursue her artistic interests but finds herself stifled by chores and other responsibilities at home. So she decides to run off and join the circus, only to find that showbiz isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and, in fact, may be much more work than even her typical home life.
It’s a solid character motivation. There’s some cleverness (or more probably, cheapness) to having Latara’s flute song be the same melody from the show’s incidental music. The episode nive quite rounds things off with her, since it’s not clear why musical expression is less than it’s cracked up to be and not just that the Jinda are not as fun are carefree as they seem. But whatever, it’s a decent enough arc.
Despite the racist elements of the Jinda themselves, Bondo is a lot of fun. The actor is effectively doing his best impression of Ed Wynn as The Mad Hatter, but there are worse blueprints to pull from. The character gets a little annoying at points, but the madcap master of ceremonies in a time honored archetype for a reason.
The weakest part is the two Duloks who go after Latara because their king needs a babysitter. It’s not quite as bad as the racist Jindas, but characterizing the Queen withholding supper unless her husband hires a babysitter, and demanding to hear love songs at the Jinda performance is pretty retrograde as well. And his XO henchmen are a mere excuse for some low-quality slapstick in the interim.
There is, at least, a little setup and payoff at play for the Ewoks. Logray gives Kneesa a magical acorn that turns into a tentacled tree monster when wet. There’s not much to it, but they come up with a good sense of anticipation for it, so when the teddy bears unleash it, you have some extra excitement.
Overall, on its merits alone, this would be a perfectly fine, replacement level episode of Ewoks with a decent multiplot story. But the combination of the unfortunate depiction of the Jindas and the backwards depiction of the Dulok queen knock this down quite a bit.