After a reconnaisance Eagle exploring the planet Retha cannot be reached by Main Mission, Commander Koenig has Paul fly the Eagle back by remote control. When the ship lands at the base it is searched for clues as to what happened to the crew.
	The only evidence found on board is the body of a caveman. Koenig orders an autopsy to see what killed him. Meanwhile, they still have no idea what happened to the original crew. Koenig gathers two teams to investigate the planet and search for the missing crewman.
Upon landing on Retha, the teams split up, and Alan and Sandra take off to search from the air. John and Helena find the markers left by the original team, and follow them into an area of mist. The second team tries to catch up to them before night approaches.
	Paul tries to raise the landing parties but cannot. He contacts Alan and Sandra in their Eagle to see if they are still in touch with them. Alan tells him that they had not heard anything from them since their last report. He says he is going to land for the night and will try to find them in the morning.
When Sandra awakes to find Allen gone, she fears the worst, but once she gets ahold of him on his commlock she relaxes. Victor and Dave Kano decide to come to the planet and aid Alan in his search for the others. They alert Sandra of their plans, only to find out that Alan is now missing.
	While Sandra is preparing the meal for their arrival she is attacked and carried away by one of the cavemen. Kano and Victor arrive to find she is gone. Alan who fell into a trap and was attacked by one of the cave men, manages to escape, and joins Victor and Kano back at the Eagles.
Due to Rethas quick rotation, it is dark again and the search must be held off til dawn. Sandra escapes from the cavemen by hitting the leader in the head with a rock. The enraged band hears the ruckus and tries to find her, but she hides in the woods and eludes her captors.
	When morning comes Alan, Victor, and Kano follow the markers to the area of mist, where Alan tells them to stop. He realizes that they lost contact with everyone after they entered the mist. They decide to go around and find a cave populated with more cavemen.
Victor sees the injured leader of the cavepeople and can't help but notice his striking resemblance to John Koenig. Alan finds Sandras tunic and goes off to find her. The leader of the cavemen runs off and Victor and Kano follow. At the same time Sandra is recaptured and
	taken back to the cave. The leader of the caveman goes into the mist, when Victor and Kano arrive at the other side they find Koenig's body with a massive contusion on his head. They rush him back to Alpha to take care of his wounds. In Medical Centre Bob Mathias tells
Victor that the caveman that died had caps on his teeth! The caveman was in fact, Santos the Eagle pilot of the first mission! And if he was turned into a caveman, then the rest of the Alphans could have been. They rush back to stop Alan and to save the others.
	They arrive in time to stop them from killing Sandra in retribution for her attack on their leader. They lure the cavemen back to the mist, and force them into it with their stun guns. Once the cavemen enter it, they rush around to the other side to see if their theory was correct.
The Alphans emerge from the mist returned to normal. Everyone is fine physically, but they are unable to recall any of their experiences as cavemen, much to Victor's chagrin. After some reflection, they realize that the motivations of men have changed very little over time.

This Episode

Guest Stars

Random Thoughts

While, not exactly one of my favorite episodes, Full Circle does have a lot of good elements. This is the first episode that is not filmed entirely on sound stages. We get to see the Alphans outside in a real forest. This lends a sense of reality that has not been seen before on the show. To help maintain this level of reality, the costumes for the "stone age" characters were not all created by the costume department. The actors were asked to create their own costumes from animal skins, so they would not look like the leather bikinis seen in movies like One Million Years BC.

There is also a terrific effects shot of the moonbuggy driving away from the Eagle.

If this is all done with miniatures, they did a great job of matching the positions of the characters in the moonbuggy to the real footage. I would have liked to have seen how they got the Moonbuggy out of the Eagle though.

This is one episode (along with Black Sun) where Paul shines. He is really likable for a change. We get to see his tremendous affection for Sandra again. Little touches, like his "Love to Sandra." line, really help me to like him better.

It is great to see Kano on a reconnaisance mission. Until this point, I had no idea he could fly an Eagle! I bet he was glad to get out of Alpha. The only other time I can think of him getting off-base is in Guardian of Piri, and he was probably too "zoned out" to enjoy it.

On a similar vein, Sandra gets to ride in the cockpit of an Eagle for the first time. She is usually relegated to the passenger module. it is great to see her "toughen up" a little in this episode. After a wimpy start of being frightened when she wakes up in the Eagle alone, and doing the housework (picking up the sleeping bags and cooking for the other crewmembers), she puts up a decent fight when she is kidnapped, and then clobbers the cave-Koenig with a rock!

One of the scenes that bothered me in this episode, is where Alan fights the caveman in the pit. Why is he slugging it out when he has a stun gun on his hip?

It would only have taken a few seconds to show him losing it when he fell into the pit to have this scene make more sense. Another scene that bothers me is when the caveman picks up Alan's commlock and Sandra is talking to him. Since the commlocks have a video screen, why doesn't she know it is not Alan? We won't even discuss what happens to the Alphans' clothes when they pass in and out of the mist... I guess some level of "willing suspension of disbelief" is required. As always, any comments, or replies to statements made here are welcome. Just use the commlock in the Communication Centre to send me an e-mail.

Wallpaper

Sound Files