"We all know how you are in the moonlight."
REVIEW: We've had vampires and mummies, so how about werewolves... or crossing werewolf lore with the Satyrs of Greek myth? Viewed in the context of the Searcher's mission, this one DOES deal with a colony Earth has lost sight of, but only 6 years ago (and recently colonized at that), so we're very far from the "Tribes of Man" stuff the show keeps repeating as if it will EVER be relevant. While everyone else is charting asteroids (NO TRIBES OF MAN THERE EITHER, FOLKS!), Buck visits a planet alone, looking for signs of life (oh where are Theo's incredible sensors from Season 1?!) and just happens to stumble on the only two people living there - a woman and her young son, terrorized by satyr-like animal men. In due course, though he's also bitten by a Z Wolf, a satyr will chomp on his shoulder and he'll start turning into a satyr himself.
I don't think it's too hard to figure out from the woman, Cyra, that the satyr who keeps eating their food, drinking their wine, and roughing her up is her husband, transformed by a virus into a goat-man of myth. She won't leave him behind, nor tell the secret until she thinks he's dead, though she's perhaps more willing to let her son Delph leave with Buck when he's fixed his damaged shuttle. Delph, by the way, is the stupidest kid on television. Several times he does something his mother has been explicitly telling him not to do, probably all his life, and claims he "forgot". He's just there to put himself in danger and make goo-goo eyes at surrogate father figure Buck Rogers. Absolutely irritating. He would NOT survive A Quiet Place. When the satyr, Pandor, is thought dead, other satyrs come lurking, which a fast-transforming Buck means to explode with gelignite (because explosive technology hasn't changed since the 1970s - it's not on the farm, he BROUGHT IT WITH HIM), but Pandor recovers, remembers who he is, and rather than lead everyone to a cure, he sacrifices himself to save his family and we can watch Buck recover over only a few days in sickbay.
That's not the best story, but not necessarily the worst. What drops it down several notches is the satyr itself. Cool and memorable visuals - the satyr with the electric whip is neat, and the alien horse snorting steam is particularly impressive - but how does any of what we see make sense? We're told some native bug turns people into goat-men that not only look like creatures of myth, but also makes them tend to play the pan flute. They sound and act like the Incredible Hulk, capable of little expect grunting, speaking like sketch comedy cave men, and smashing plates around, but they have access to fancy electric whips. Did the original colonists have these? If so, why does Cyra's farm have nothing more advanced than 19th-Century tech? And if satyrs are so territorial, why do two of them obviously hang out together and call for Pangor or Buck to "join them"? Or how about the bit where Pangor electrocutes himself by slapping his whip in a pond, but Buck is unaffected despite standing IN that pond?
The only real frisson is when Twiki, along on this missing, is zapped dead. Buck spends part of the episode working on his faceless corpse, which surely would have upset the little kids still watching. That, and Buck drowning Pangor quite violently and leaving him for dead. It's a bit like the choke-out moment from the Saurian episode, but worse. Of course, The Satyr presents the most overt sexual innuendo since Season 1. Wilma is back in a cat suit. Buck drops a line on her about how lovely she looks in the moonlight, so she can't possibly come with him to a world with three moons. It's all a giant set-up for her later telling him what effect the moon has on him, i.e. that it makes him HORNY. Get it? Satyrs have horns? Yeah, and it's of course suggested Pandor was getting more than food on his visits to the farm house. The other satyrs want "the woman" and wine. Cyra's first order of business once she's aboard the Searcher, is apparently to get a make-over, so I guess she's already back on the market. So this one's made for adults, it's just not made for smart adults.
STAR GAZING: This week, the star power is all behind the camera. The episode is directed by Victor French, who was a regular on both Little House on the Prairie and Highway to Heaven and had directed episodes of both. Writer Paul Schneider penned two well-remembered Star Trek episodes, Balance of Terror and The Squire of Gothos.
REWATCHABILITY: Medium-Low - Despite its striking visuals, the story just doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
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