K9 “The Custodians”

I’m not going to pretend that this show had a high budget and could afford top notch special effects, but the VR headsets in this episode looked especially cheap.

That is all I will say about that.  Maybe.

OK, I should probably say a little more.  There’s a VR game called “Little Green Men,” and it’s all the rage,  Any kid who puts on the headset basically goes into a coma when the headphones clamp down a pair of plastic green hands and then some lens that are probably supposed to go over the eyes but didn’t quite fit on Jorjie.

OK, these things looked really dumb.  I mean, lots of things on this show look dumb, but this headset contraption takes the proverbial cake.  So, I guess I did have more to say about that.

Regardless, it seems that a lot of teenagers are putting those things on, and there’s a rush to get them to the hospital.  June calls the Professor to check on the kids.  Jorjie?  In the game.  The Professor tries to remove the headset and some thorns pop out and cut his fingers.  Then he goes off and finds Darius in the same position, tries to remove his headset, and again, thorns.

I thought the Professor was supposed to be smart.

So, this thing got Starkey too, right?

Nah, I ain’t that lucky.  He and K9 can go with June to the VR company, a place Starkey recognizes since he was sent there for juvie.  The whole thing is being caused by an alien telepath, a guy in a goblin mask that was apparently the last of his race.  They were wiped out by other aliens because they went around conquering everything with their awesome telepathic powers that slowly turned their victims into more things like themselves.

And then the alien gets Starkey.

Oh, and yes, because this is a dick move on someone’s part, Inspector Thorne is behind it all because the headsets make teenagers obedient, and obedient teens become obedient adults.  What a dick.

But turning teens into green alien telepaths was not something even Thorne wanted, and with Starkey protecting the alien in the basement from K9, there’s no one to just blast the thing that took over the company’s systems.  You know, until June gets all heartfelt on how her daughter is hurting from all this, and since the alien is also empathic…that works.

On the one hand, that was a nice way to let June save the day for once.  On the other…no other being that crossed these guys’ path before thought to do that?

Then again, this episode also had K9 threatening to blow a building to kingdom come as part of an elaborate bluff to gain access.  That and June’s saving the day might make this the best episode so far.

Not the highest bar to leap.