Star Wars: My Rebound Girl

I know what you're thinking: "Your first posting is about a Star Wars cartoon?" Yes. While you deal with that reality I'm going to move on.

Dave turned me on the the series several months ago but I've only now gotten around to watching what my TiVo has graciously committed to its hard drive. The verdict? I love this show. In some ways it has what I wish Battlestar Galactica had more of, namely stuff blowing up in spectacular ways...in space. But SW:tCW can't honestly be compared to BSG. They're more different than they are similar. No, what this show really is to me is the spiritual successor to Robotech.

To be fair, SW:tCW will never hold that near and dear place in my heart that Robotech will forever occupy. It was my first anime (I know, it wasn't really anime), it featured my first TV romance (I was absolutely in love with Miriya), it had my first TV role model (Max Sterling... in 2nd grade I seriously wanted to dye my hair blue), and it was my first exposure to death (Roy and Ben, rest in piece my brothers). So no, tCW will never be all that to me.

It does have a shadow of some of these elements however. First and foremost, like BSG, stuff blows up in space. A lot. There is apparently a tender spot in my throbbing heart for epic space battles and tCW does this as well or better than anything else on TV or even theatre. I never grow weary of watching star destroyers crack in half before exploding or crash landing onto unsuspecting planets. And the clashes between the Republic and Separatist armies always remind me of my boyhood days parked in front of my television set wrapped in wonder was a lone, nearly fossilized relic of a forgotten alien race... the Super Defense Fortress 1 (aka SDF-1) heroically battled the Zentrati hoards.

But what really drove the Robotech series was the interpersonal relationships between the crew and civilians on board the SDF-1. Claudia and Roy, the Rick-Minmae-Lisa Hayes love triangle, the stalwart and wise Captain Gloval, and who could forget the forbidden yet glorious love between Micronian and Zentrati top pilots, Max Sterling and Miriya Pyrina? And all of their lives hung upon the hidden and mysterious nature of something called Protoculture. The same hold true of tCW. There is a real and tenuous relationship between Anakin and Obiwan. A forbidden love between a young senator from Nabu and an even younger jedi, the wisdom and power of jedi high counsel members Yoda and Mace Windu. And binding them all together we have The Force in place of Protoculture.

So while it will never rival my first and most exquisite love, it at least wears the same perfume. And whenever I smell it, it reminds me of a time when I was a blue haired boy in love.