Saturday, July 09, 2016

Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: Blackstar: "The Crown of the Sorceress" (November 28, 1981)


Blackstar and Warlock come to the aid of a damsel in distress: the beautiful Princess Talena.  A monstrous man Thorg attacks her relentlessly.  

Thorg is driven off, and Talena promises to become an ally to the rebellion if Blackstar delivers her safely home to her kingdom in the west.  Blackstar happily agrees.

Unfortunately, Blackstar has been bamboozled. Talena is an evil witch, and controls the all-powerful crown of Karn.  Thorg’s people have been enslaved by it, and now she wishes to enslave Blackstar as well.

Mara, the Trobbits and Thorg join up to save Blackstar, but he becomes brainwashed by Talena, and she summons “demon fire” to stop her foes…



“The Crown of the Sorceress” is another good episode of Filmation’s Blackstar (1981), in part because it reveals that our hero isn’t exactly infallible. 

He interferes in the affairs of Thorg and Talena, and makes an assumption about who is good, and who is evil.  The beautiful Talena, he assumes, is good, because she is under attack and attractive.  

The rock-man, Thorg, by contrast, seems aggressive and “ugly” by conventional standards of beauty.

This lesson is not relentlessly hammered home (as it might be on a series like Secrets of Isis, for example…) but it is still there for children to recognize. Blackstar acts without having all the facts, responding to superficial physical traits. 



Fortunately, Mara comes to the rescue and returns Blackstar to his heroic self, and the climax of the episode is pretty strong because it sees Talena summoning all kinds of monsters to stop the heroes, including giant, purple, horned ape creatures, and the aforementioned demon wind.


Next week, the final episode of Blackstar: “The Zombie Master”

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