Can I keep her? “Unearthed”
Oct. 10th, 2010 04:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akinoameContinuing Ben 10 Day by finally finishing off the Alien Force reviews. It honestly would not have taken this long if not for me having such a hard time finding this episode.
When the DNAliens are mining crystal quartz, they happen across a strange spaceship with a rather big alien inside. The alien steals a power coupling (that apparently plays music—boy, they’ll put music boxes in anything nowadays) and proceeds to go around town (Bellwood? Or does Los Soledad have its own town closer?) stealing random crap and destroying the odd traffic light. Naturally, this catches the team’s attention, and they track the alien down. Ben and Kevin begin their usual good cop/bad cop routine in fighting, but the alien isn’t easily put down. Even weirder, it’s crying when hit and doesn’t seem to have much of an attention span. Mama Gwen shows up to yell at the boys, and the alien sees the Anodyte within her and immediately begins listening to her. They bond quickly, just in time as the DNAliens attack them and the team has to play keep-away with the power coupling. When the battle ends, Gwen explains the boys that the alien is just a baby and she thinks the stolen junk was mistaken as toys. Ben agrees with her, but unfortunately, Gwen decides they need to protect the alien, whom she dubs “Tiny.”
Tiny proves to cause a lot of havoc while they babysit in the Garage, throwing stuff around, crashing into things, and eating Kevin’s car. Ben tries to reason with Gwen that they have to take her home because it’s safest for her there, and Gwen reluctantly agrees. Under the cover of night, they sneak into the quartz mine where Tiny had come from (apparently the same cave Albedo and Vilgax use later in “The Final Battle”), and Gwen works to try and sneak Tiny back into her ship while the boys cover the exit. Gwen discovers that Tiny’s stasis pod had opened, but her parents’ hadn’t, and they need to get them free. But the DNAliens are planning to destroy the ship and brought out a big death ray to do it. Ben and Kevin jump into action, with Chromastone absorbing the death ray while Kevin absorbs some metal and beats some skulls in. Tiny comes out of the ship and starts to attack, but when the death ray is turned on her, Ben proves he’s got some Papa Bear instincts and jumps in the way as Chromastone, blasting back while yelling at them to leave the kid alone. Not to be outdone, Gwen shows off her own Mama Grizzly instincts by blasting the hell out of the cave, dropping stalactites on top of the DNAliens while Kevin has a distinct look of “Scared of you!” on his face, while Ben adds that he might want to think about this the next time they fight.
Kevin manages to get the stasis pods open, the parents are glad Tiny is okay, and Gwen begins to think that maybe all the junk Tiny had taken was her attempt to try to fix the ship. Explanations go around, revealing that the parents had been on a mission to the other side of the galaxy to colonize in 1952 (which is apparently Galactic Era and not just Common Era) when some wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff happened around Earth and their ship crash-landed. Ben immediately realizes that this was Paradox’s experiment that totally screwed them over (thanks, Professor), and the parents are momentarily culture shocked to realize that they’ve lost fifty years. They also confirm that Tiny was a baby and couldn’t speak, which is why the team’s translators didn’t work on her. Gwen says goodbye, and Tiny conveys clearly that she wants to keep her new friend around, but her dad says she’s got to let her go. The parents blast off and overhear Tiny say the name “Gwen”—her first word, and Mama wonders what it means.
This episode proves that Gwen is the team member with the most protective instincts and manages to show how much of a Mama Bear she can be by putting her in the same situation as Hermione Granger with Grawp. Somehow or another, she figures out immediately that Tiny is a girl (explaining it as health class, so I wonder what kind of health class teaches sexual dimorphism in different alien species, particularly when it seems to be a very subtle dimorphism). Figuring out that she’s a baby isn’t too hard, given the very childish way she reacts to things. While it’s interesting and sometimes even cute to see how Gwen bonds with Tiny and how determined she is to protect and care for her, this isn’t exactly Gwen’s strongest episode. Plotwise, it doesn’t contribute much (unless there’s something more coming in Ultimate Alien with these guys), and I feel like Gwen’s Mama Grizzly stuff was better shown in other episodes (like “Max Out” and the later “Time Heals”). Though, if you’re into ship-related thought experiments, it does make you think she may want children in the future, where it’s hard to tell if Kevin does, given how willing he is to break the child endangerment laws here. Then again, I’m not sure if anyone in this franchise knows what “child endangerment” means (see the entire original series).
It’s a bit of a plot point that Tiny can see Gwen in Anodyte form and even hear her Big Scary Voice, but nothing much comes of it. It’s a bit of foreshadowing to “War of the Worlds,” but it’s a bit of a stretch, to be honest.
This episode also brings up an apparent contradiction regarding the translators that isn’t resolved until “Escape from Aggregor” in Ultimate Alien. Back in “Be-Knighted,” Ben couldn’t understand the Dragon and had to use a translation device that apparently was compatible with technology from a millennium ago in order to understand him. Linguistically, I guess you can say that the Dragon’s native language may have evolved or died out over time and was never added to the Omnitrix/Plumbers’ badges and that’s why he needed that big ol’ thing. Contrast a race of aliens that only ended up underground fifty-some-odd years ago, who probably would have their language catalogued. But the specific mechanism of translation isn’t explained until the next series, where we see that the Omnitrix/Ultimatrix/badge has to hear the language spoken, be given enough time to analyze it, and then it can translate. So…yeah, would have been nice to have the explanation a little earlier.
And finally, I have one major gripe that bothered me during the rewatch: Why does nobody think about the Master Plan here? Really! You’ve got DNAliens mining tons of quartz (which we already know from “Paradox” stabilizes timey-wimey, spacey-wacey stuff) and it’s got to be important to The Plan. And yet nobody seems to think, “You know, we could kill two birds with one stone here—get Tiny home and put a dent in the Highbreed’s plan.” I know they’re just teenagers with attitude, but come on! Even Tiny’s dad outright says that that much quartz could only be meant for a teleportation device, they saw a big freakin’ Stargate at Los Soledad, and they know that the DNAliens put in an order for a hyperspace bypass generator. Do they seriously need Samantha Carter to spell it out for them? It’s that obvious!
“Unearthed” was written by Charlotte Fullerton. TV.com says that Dee Bradley Baker played Tiny’s mom, and I’m reasonably sure that he played Tiny herself too. Jeff Bennett played Tiny’s dad.
When the DNAliens are mining crystal quartz, they happen across a strange spaceship with a rather big alien inside. The alien steals a power coupling (that apparently plays music—boy, they’ll put music boxes in anything nowadays) and proceeds to go around town (Bellwood? Or does Los Soledad have its own town closer?) stealing random crap and destroying the odd traffic light. Naturally, this catches the team’s attention, and they track the alien down. Ben and Kevin begin their usual good cop/bad cop routine in fighting, but the alien isn’t easily put down. Even weirder, it’s crying when hit and doesn’t seem to have much of an attention span. Mama Gwen shows up to yell at the boys, and the alien sees the Anodyte within her and immediately begins listening to her. They bond quickly, just in time as the DNAliens attack them and the team has to play keep-away with the power coupling. When the battle ends, Gwen explains the boys that the alien is just a baby and she thinks the stolen junk was mistaken as toys. Ben agrees with her, but unfortunately, Gwen decides they need to protect the alien, whom she dubs “Tiny.”
Tiny proves to cause a lot of havoc while they babysit in the Garage, throwing stuff around, crashing into things, and eating Kevin’s car. Ben tries to reason with Gwen that they have to take her home because it’s safest for her there, and Gwen reluctantly agrees. Under the cover of night, they sneak into the quartz mine where Tiny had come from (apparently the same cave Albedo and Vilgax use later in “The Final Battle”), and Gwen works to try and sneak Tiny back into her ship while the boys cover the exit. Gwen discovers that Tiny’s stasis pod had opened, but her parents’ hadn’t, and they need to get them free. But the DNAliens are planning to destroy the ship and brought out a big death ray to do it. Ben and Kevin jump into action, with Chromastone absorbing the death ray while Kevin absorbs some metal and beats some skulls in. Tiny comes out of the ship and starts to attack, but when the death ray is turned on her, Ben proves he’s got some Papa Bear instincts and jumps in the way as Chromastone, blasting back while yelling at them to leave the kid alone. Not to be outdone, Gwen shows off her own Mama Grizzly instincts by blasting the hell out of the cave, dropping stalactites on top of the DNAliens while Kevin has a distinct look of “Scared of you!” on his face, while Ben adds that he might want to think about this the next time they fight.
Kevin manages to get the stasis pods open, the parents are glad Tiny is okay, and Gwen begins to think that maybe all the junk Tiny had taken was her attempt to try to fix the ship. Explanations go around, revealing that the parents had been on a mission to the other side of the galaxy to colonize in 1952 (which is apparently Galactic Era and not just Common Era) when some wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff happened around Earth and their ship crash-landed. Ben immediately realizes that this was Paradox’s experiment that totally screwed them over (thanks, Professor), and the parents are momentarily culture shocked to realize that they’ve lost fifty years. They also confirm that Tiny was a baby and couldn’t speak, which is why the team’s translators didn’t work on her. Gwen says goodbye, and Tiny conveys clearly that she wants to keep her new friend around, but her dad says she’s got to let her go. The parents blast off and overhear Tiny say the name “Gwen”—her first word, and Mama wonders what it means.
This episode proves that Gwen is the team member with the most protective instincts and manages to show how much of a Mama Bear she can be by putting her in the same situation as Hermione Granger with Grawp. Somehow or another, she figures out immediately that Tiny is a girl (explaining it as health class, so I wonder what kind of health class teaches sexual dimorphism in different alien species, particularly when it seems to be a very subtle dimorphism). Figuring out that she’s a baby isn’t too hard, given the very childish way she reacts to things. While it’s interesting and sometimes even cute to see how Gwen bonds with Tiny and how determined she is to protect and care for her, this isn’t exactly Gwen’s strongest episode. Plotwise, it doesn’t contribute much (unless there’s something more coming in Ultimate Alien with these guys), and I feel like Gwen’s Mama Grizzly stuff was better shown in other episodes (like “Max Out” and the later “Time Heals”). Though, if you’re into ship-related thought experiments, it does make you think she may want children in the future, where it’s hard to tell if Kevin does, given how willing he is to break the child endangerment laws here. Then again, I’m not sure if anyone in this franchise knows what “child endangerment” means (see the entire original series).
It’s a bit of a plot point that Tiny can see Gwen in Anodyte form and even hear her Big Scary Voice, but nothing much comes of it. It’s a bit of foreshadowing to “War of the Worlds,” but it’s a bit of a stretch, to be honest.
This episode also brings up an apparent contradiction regarding the translators that isn’t resolved until “Escape from Aggregor” in Ultimate Alien. Back in “Be-Knighted,” Ben couldn’t understand the Dragon and had to use a translation device that apparently was compatible with technology from a millennium ago in order to understand him. Linguistically, I guess you can say that the Dragon’s native language may have evolved or died out over time and was never added to the Omnitrix/Plumbers’ badges and that’s why he needed that big ol’ thing. Contrast a race of aliens that only ended up underground fifty-some-odd years ago, who probably would have their language catalogued. But the specific mechanism of translation isn’t explained until the next series, where we see that the Omnitrix/Ultimatrix/badge has to hear the language spoken, be given enough time to analyze it, and then it can translate. So…yeah, would have been nice to have the explanation a little earlier.
And finally, I have one major gripe that bothered me during the rewatch: Why does nobody think about the Master Plan here? Really! You’ve got DNAliens mining tons of quartz (which we already know from “Paradox” stabilizes timey-wimey, spacey-wacey stuff) and it’s got to be important to The Plan. And yet nobody seems to think, “You know, we could kill two birds with one stone here—get Tiny home and put a dent in the Highbreed’s plan.” I know they’re just teenagers with attitude, but come on! Even Tiny’s dad outright says that that much quartz could only be meant for a teleportation device, they saw a big freakin’ Stargate at Los Soledad, and they know that the DNAliens put in an order for a hyperspace bypass generator. Do they seriously need Samantha Carter to spell it out for them? It’s that obvious!
“Unearthed” was written by Charlotte Fullerton. TV.com says that Dee Bradley Baker played Tiny’s mom, and I’m reasonably sure that he played Tiny herself too. Jeff Bennett played Tiny’s dad.