I thought this was one of Season 2's most effective hours, except for the endless scenes of Koenig wandering around the same orange halls. No markings, no "You Are Here" signs -- how did the Dorcons ever find their way around?

...that and the ending. Koenig and Maya get back to the Moonbase and then everyone sits around sharing a joke. I mean, the Moonbase is in tatters, people have died or were injured, and the top command staff is sitting around sharing a laugh? Give me a break.

BarbF, I have the same problem with the ending of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

What bothers me most about this episode is that you never know what's happening back on Moonbase. No scenes of Tony and Helena wringing their hands, etc. Just Koenig dodging alien stun guns (didn't anybody teach these lamers how to shoot?)

didn't anybody teach these lamers how to shoot?

Yeah, the Imperial Stormtroopers from SWIV:ANH, or maybe Worf.

Re.; 'Didn't anybody teach these lamers how to shoot', my guess isn't Worf, but the rather the Cylons of 'Battlestar Galactica' or even better, the Visitors from 'V:The Series'. Their weapons were totally useless, rarely hitting a target, even at close range.

Even better than the lousy shots, what about that great communications system the Dorkons (spelling intended) seem to have: plastic covered holes in the wall behind which the person with which you wish to speak can STAND! It's amazing! Revolutionary! In-freaking-credible! Just think of the saving on your intergalactic phone bill! (And how did Koenig get behind the wall of the Dorks control room while still on Alpha?) I'd better quit before I run out of sarcasm...One nice thing about this one, it was good to see Patrick Troughton again, even though he had little to do but lounge around and be world-weary. Guess that's what being an Imperial Archon will do to you.

Dorcons are perfectly suited - when one of their weapons shoots someone, they put on a "Dorky" expression!

Well, I made a little mileage out of that in a story I wrote on the old GEnie network - Genre Unlocked. Count Baltar of Galactica shoots a Dorcon with one of their weapons, and points out how they have a "dorky" expression on their faces.

Anyhow, could someone tell me how Troughton is pronounced? Trotton, or trow-ton? Or what?

It's pronounced "Trow-ton."

Here's something a lot of you may have noticed: Why didn't the Dorcons use their ship's internal sensors to find Koenig? Some might say, "Well, the recharge on the Meson Converter used up every bit of the ship's energy expect for life support and gravity." While others would say, "The person who wrote that episode didn't want to make it easy for the Dorcons to find Koenig." I'd say the later was the case (duh!).

Zantor, there's a priceless scene of these exact same groovy communicator holes in The Taybor. Koenig is on Taybor's ship and contacts Tony. Not only is the communicator screen a hole, there's a black sheet behind it and Tony's shadow is on it. And then the actor actually leans forward into the screen, putting his hands on either side of the hole. I half expected his head to come popping through. Lame-O!

Maya states in this episode that she is the last living Psychon, didn't they leave Dorzak off in stasis a few weeks ago? perhaps they should have pointed the Dorcons in his direction.
Also wouldn't you thought that Archon, the most important member of the race would be first in line for a brain transplant instead of waiting until there was only one (or two) Psychons left?

We have no idea how long he's been Archon. Perhaps he came to the post rather late in the game. For that matter we have no idea how long they live, so perhaps by the time the thought of extending his life came up Psychon had been effectively dead for decades or more.

Maya's brain ain't the only thing the Dorcons have scavenged...just look at their ship! It's made up of components from all over;domes on the walls from Sahala's ship (Dorzak), a repainted converter from Sunim (A Matter of Balance), corridors from Ellna (Devil's Planet),and on and on....Maybe, the Dorcons are just a bunch of thieves!

Archon's throne was also in "Collision Course" (as Arra's throne) and "Infernal Machine" (as companion's bed).

How come the Dorcon guards seemed invincible when they were on Alpha but Koenig was able to knock them out on their ship?

Sad that Gerry Sunquist who played Malik killed himself in 1993....

How come they have air conditioning vents conveniently big enough for people to crawl through?
If their technology is so advanced to allow them to reorganize the molecules of their ship, why are they not advanced enough for life-extension technology? That surely would not require as complex scientific knowledge.

Perhaps there is something about the biology of the Dorcons that has prevented the discovery of non-Psychon means of immortality, since it is apparently the deterioration of their brain stems that kills them.

When Maya is first on the Dorcon ship she tries to change into a bird. Wouldn't something larger and much more capable of violence have been a better idea? Since she doesn't finish the transformation its not like they couldn't have shown her trying to change into something besides a dove.

Its interesting that when the Archon is musing about the ethics of killing an intelligent being to gain immortality Varda says that "we" must live to help preserve the Dorcon empire. This can be taken to imply that Varda has had brain stem transplant surgery as well. Perhaps she has been council to more than one Archon, having lived for decades or centuries.

Alan scans the Dorcon ship and the scan indicates it has a meson converter. How does the system detect such a device? Did Maya program it to? More importantly Alan knows what it is and what it can do. How? Did Maya tell him about it, or was someone on Earth before breakaway working on one and Carter knew about it?

The Dorcon's meson converter was a prop reused from "A Matter of Balance" (as a anti-matter converter), so it could be argued that Alpha had come across this technology earlier!

But seriously, if Dorcons were the mortal enemies of the Psychons, it makes sense that Maya would be aware of that technology.

This is a common nit that's never alluded to throughout the series (for story telling-purposes, I suppose), but the Moon is supposed to be travelling very, very fast (it would have to, in order to visit various planets), so why does it seem like the disguised and the revealed Dorcon ship is sitting still in space? The ship should be matching the Moon's speed to stay with it, or else the Moon would approach it, come close, and pull away just as rapidly, leaving it far behind. However, for story-telling purposes, it seems like every ship or asteroid or artifact matches the Moon's course and speed throughout an episode.

One of the Alphans shows up at Command Center, having lived through an attack in a corridor and begs Koenig to let the aliens have Maya. But how could he know this? He knew, thanks to Koenig's base-wide message, of an invasion, but Koenig said nothing about them simply wanting Maya.

There should have been tense, dramatic music as Helena considers shooting Maya, while Koenig shouts for her to stop, but there wasn't. A lost opportunity (even though we knew she probably wouldn't shoot).

A Command Center technician is shot by a Dorkon soldier and falls off camera, then there's a commercial break. Once back, we see that he's draped over a console, but he clearly fell to the left of that console onto the floor.

Malik told Koenig that the medical section was "at the end of this corridor", but Koenig seems to venture way off the mark, taking the long way around and into the air ducts before he finds Maya.

I gotta agree with the posts from Barbf about how repairs to the base are commented on, leading into the humorous comments at the end. Tony's report is as calm and la-dee-da attitude is shocking, despite the destruction/and or damage of many outside buildings (not to mention the 11 people that were missing at one point, and the loss of an Eagle and a pilot). They're stuck on a rock with no Federation Starbase to offer help, and he's acting like they'd had a simple power outage! Sheesh!

I gotta agree with the posts from Barbf about how repairs to the base are commented on, leading into the humorous comments at the end. Tony's report is as calm and la-dee-da attitude is shocking, despite the destruction/and or damage of many outside buildings (not to mention the 11 people that were missing at one point, and the loss of an Eagle and a pilot). They're stuck on a rock with no Federation Starbase to offer help, and he's acting like they'd had a simple power outage! Sheesh!

Once again Fred Freiberger is to blame here. Someone should have said to him: "Fred, this ISN'T Star Trek, there is no Starbase Blah-de-blah where they can go for repairs."

Where was Gerry Anderson? Why didn't he advise Freiberger on stuff like this!?

Tim, FAWK Freiberger may not have been willing to pay any attention anyway!

Could be, I guess.

Gerry may have been distracted by his personal issues at the time.

Could be, I guess.