Oh…WOW!!!
This episode was awesome! It’s when the show gets like this that it reminds us of why we like it so much and why we think it’s superior to the OS. At the same time, once again however, we really wish the people making this show would stop reaching into our heads and stealing our ideas! Many of them were on full display here.
To start, the birds and their civilization was almost exactly like what we envisioned for Avia. Vultaire and his aide Horus occupied the same places in their hierarchy as our characters King Falconer and his viceroy Peregrine. And while I envisioned much of their cities being built into the sides of cliffs and mountains, Ocelli reminded me that she envisioned their capital city as looking very much like what we saw of Avista. (Again, similar names!)
And yes, let’s talk about Avista. While many here said it gave them a Cloud City vibe, for me it looked an awful lot like the city of the Hawkmen from Flash Gordon (which in the speculation thread, I said I hoped that it would). And while the Feliner’s approach to Avista mirrored that of the Millennium Falcon’s approach to Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back - which I’m sure the writers intended as a deliberate homage (I even caught myself saying, “No. I don’t have a landing permit!”) - Avista itself looked more like the Hawkmen city more than anything else. I tried doing a Google image search for pictures, but couldn’t find any good ones. Just take my word for it, or go watch the movie (which is awesome, BTW).
In fact, I think I’ll put on the Flash Gordon soundtrack now as I type this. Queen rocks!
On the whole, a great episode. And everyone - except maybe for Cheetara - got a chance in the spotlight. I particularly liked both Tygra’s discovery of his newfound piloting skills (defintiely not the most useless member of the bunch anymore!) and his race with Vultaire was also one of the high points, along with the twins and Snarf giving the guards the slip in their spaceboards.
Other things I liked:
[ul]
[li]The Feliner: Yes! I called it! Knew they’d have it in the next ep once Lion-O talked about salvaging the wrecked airship.:D[/li][li]The lock is a Simon game![/li][li]The fighters in the race sequence. Vultaire’s was obviously supposed to be modeled after Vultureman’s ride in the OS. But this one is much sleeker, cooler and sexier.
And while he obviously gave Tygra a junker, it was pretty cool looking too.[/li][li]Panthro’s fear of heights. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I seem to recall he also suffered from this in the OS too. If so, it was a nice callback. If not, and was actually supposed to sort of model him after B.A. Baracus on The A-Team, then it was still pretty funny.[/li][li]Pumyra. While Lion-O made the ethical choice to not take the Tech Stone away from the birds, as doing so would have caused their city to fall (which many of you correctly called), and they didn’t really deserve that, no matter how douchey Vultaire was to them, Pumyra went and decided to take it from them anyway. Again, this makes her very similar to our own fic character, Xendara. Both characters are basically there to do and say the things that the established Thundercats, who are really too noble and principled, can’t. As such, they help stir the pot and keep things interesting. So I really liked that bit with her there.[/li][li]After watching the ep, I joked to Ocelli that maybe the birds should have considered doing what the Hawkmen did to keep their city afloat: forced labor. In he original comics, serial and animated series, prisoners of the Hawkmen were forced to shovel some sort of mineral into large furnaces that powered the city’s anti-gravity generators. Of course, the prisoners could rise up and revolt (which they did), and that’s just as vulnerable a system as basing it around some gem which could be easily taken.[/li][/ul]
We both thoroughly enjoyed this episode, with Ocelli giggling like a schoolgirl throughout and me grinning and nodding in approval and laughing out loud when something cool or funny happened. That’s usually when we know the show is hitting the right notes for us.
As I said in another thread, the only way they could have made this episode cooler would have been to have Brian Blessed in it somewhere. But you can’t have everything, I guess. Still, I give this episode a full five stars! ***** 
