Back to the Future: The Animated Series, s01ep09 "Solar Sailors" Review and Commentary
Previous episodes linked HERE
In this episode: Doc and Clara take a relaxing anniversary cruise to Mars but instead end up facing the terrifying reality of being lost adrift in the outer reaches of space until their eventual deaths. But like. In a fun kids' cartoon way.
I know that the point of this entire cartoon is to focus on the cartoon (duh), but the live-action segments with Real Doc are entirely too short. I want more time with him. He is my favorite wild-eyed scientist, and we should have been able to see his absolutely crazed face more often.
I will also use this opportunity to express how much I would have liked if Michael J. Fox had been able to appear in at least one of these segments. Like. Even if it had just been thirty seconds of screentime. It would've been really fun to have seen him as college-aged Marty, barging in on Doc's weird little science show for a few moments.
Moving on.
Real Doc talks about the time he went to space and leads us into the cartoon, where we see Jules and Verne surprising their parents with anniversary gifts. Verne gives them a drawing, and it's adorable.
Jules presents them with the "J.E.B. Cross-Time Headliner," which is equipped with a flux capacitor and allows someone to type in any date and get the newspaper headlines from that time.
Little interesting side-note: The cartoon establishes Doc and Clara's wedding anniversary as December 15th. From reading the wiki for this episode, though, I learned that the BTTF card game (released in 2010) places Doc and Clara's wedding on September 15th instead. Given the absolute whirlwind that Doc and Clara's relationship is in Part III, I think the September date is more fitting. They definitely flew off to safety on the hoverboard, took a second to collect themselves, and then went, "Wow, that was wild; hope Marty made it back home. Let's get married!!"
Jules demonstrates that the machine can pull headlines from the future and types in December 15, 2091, which shows this:
And this is how we learn that the McFly family will own a space cruise company in the future. Also, this newspaper costs $85.
After Clara mentions how nice it would be to take a "second honeymoon" to Mars, Jules hands them two tickets. (he then reveals he used time travel + Doc's credit card to buy the tickets, lol) Doc and Clara leave that same night in the time machine, announcing to the boys that they'll be back in two minutes. As soon as they leave, though, Jules's machine prints out a new headline. This one is from the following day, December 16th, and reads, "McFly Solar Sailship Lost in Space!" Uh oh.
Happy anniversary, Doc and Clara! You are lost forever in the vastness of outer space.
It's up to Jules and Verne to travel to the future and prevent their parents from boarding the ship (named the "MSC Marty", btw). 2091 Hill Valley is super futuristic and shiny, and pretty much everything is run by robots. Unfortunately, Jules and Verne get diverted upon their arrival, so they're unable to keep Doc and Clara from boarding the ship. We then hear an announcement from the captain, Marta McFly, who is Marty and Jennfer's great-granddaughter.
This may be a good place to mention how much I dislike the trend of Marty's relatives having names that are so similar to his. I will give Marty Jr. a pass since that's a common thing for a father and son to do the senior/junior thing, but I honestly don't even like Marlene's name. Marty and Jen could have been more creative than that. (I even like to headcanon that they end up giving her a different name in the "better" version of 2015 that ends up happening for the McFly family—that's how much I dislike the "every relative after Marty is named after him" thing) But I digress...
We learn that the person in charge of ship maintenance is Ziff Tannen, and he is not happy about the fact that, "McFlys have been kicking Tannens around for centuries," and wants his revenge. I think it's funny that these two families just cannot escape each other no matter how hard they try. Of all the people in the world, the Tannens and McFlys are just entwined together no matter the time period or location. The only thing is that the dynamic switches based on if it's pre or post-George punching Biff in 1955. But there's nothing they can do to fully break whatever bizarre ties bind them to each other. Good stuff.
Anyway, Ziff is so bent on making the McFlys pay that he sabotages the ship—dooming ALL OF THESE innocent people to certain death in outer space.
Jules and Verne are unable to get anyone to believe their warnings, and the ship launches. Farewell, Doc and Clara. We will miss you dearly. Considering that Clara is living 100+ years out of her proper time period and that Doc's parents are deceased and he doesn't have any siblings, I can only assume they have it in their wills that, in the event of their untimely demise, Marty gets custody of Jules and Verne. Or perhaps Einstein does. Honestly, with the way Marty's character is in this series, Jules and Verne might be better off being raised by a dog.
In order to gain access to the building where the sailships are being launched, Jules and Verne sneak in with a group of kids who are on a school field trip to tour the McFly Museum of Aeronautics. The McFly family has really built a successful empire for themselves, haven't they?
Meanwhile, in outer space, the passengers of the MSC Marty sailship are enjoying their trip, blissfully unaware of the impending catastrophe. Doc and Clara are riding around on hover scooters and come across an area of the ship where a concert is being held, and they're shocked to see the main act: Marty!
Except it isn't actually Marty, which Doc and Clara discover when they follow him backstage and he rips off his face.
Doc and Clara, understandably, react with utter terror.
But, yes, the guy is merely a Marty McFly impersonator. Marty evidently became a successful enough musician that he has people who are hired to pretend to be him in concerts. (side note: this 10 second scene of "Marty" is the only appearance he makes in this episode)
Things start going haywire then as the sabotaged sails malfunction, sending the ship floating toward the "outer edge of the solar system." Doc and Clara immediately decide to do what they can to help the situation, all the while Jules and Verne are still on Earth trying to get anybody to take their warnings seriously. After breaking their way into the control room and finding out that a Tannen works there, Jules delivers what is perhaps my favorite line.
It's just such a fun and clever "Jules" twist on the idiom: "bet dollars to donuts." He is very much Doc's son.
Ziff is so outraged at the accusation that he accidentally drops a piece of evidence in front of several other crew members—his copy of a magazine titled "Sabotage Weekly." And honestly, this moment alone makes me reconsider this show's reputation for being terrible. I mean, come on. He's reading a magazine called SABOTAGE WEEKLY! This is top-tier comedy! And to add even more delight to the scene, Ziff attempts to flee the scene via jetpack, but he puts it on the wrong way and catapults himself out of the building and straight into prison. Who's cell does he end up crashing into? His grandfather Griff's!!
"You blew it, didn't you, butthead?" Griff disappointedly asks his grandson.
A worker at the control center takes a look at the damaged ship via video feed and forlornly informs the boys that there's nothing she can do. Jules is undeterred by this, though, and formulates a plan to rescue his parents and all the people aboard the ship.
We return to Doc and Clara, who have donned spacesuits and are outside the ship trying to repair it themselves, to no avail. At the realization that it isn't working, Clara notes that she can't believe they will never see their boys again, and Doc cries so much that he fills up his entire suit with tears.
This is. Such a fun children's cartoon.
Thankfully, the agony doesn't last long because Jules and Verne soon come to the rescue, having borrowed the space center's first ship, the MSC Jennifer. They use it to tow the MSC Marty safely back to Earth, and all is well. End of cartoon portion. Back to Real Doc! He greets us with a very silly joke and cracks himself up.
I'm thinking that Doc is probably very proficient at Dad-jokes around his children and that he stands there laughing uncontrollably while his family just stares at him. Anyway, he explains that this is because space is a vacuum, which leads us into an experiment that creates a vacuum in a jar—using fire to suck a small balloon inside of it. And that's about it!
This was a fun one to write about, even though I feel like this post is super lengthy. I'm glad that a lot of you are still enjoying these!
Join me next time to see Marty pose as a ghost in 1845 London in order to break Clara out of prison.
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