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Episode 4 - "Goodbye, Planet Earth"

In which not every ball of light from space is your friend, it's Shinjoh's turn for the spotlight, and an interesting story has to take backseat to kaiju battles.

* We get our second and final appearance of Take Me Higher on the Mill Creek DVD sets. Like last time, this seems to be a side effect of the song showing up later in the episode.

* The GUTS Wings are out on patrol when an object from space rapidly descends through the atmosphere. It's a kaiju that never gets properly named on the show itself, but is apparently officially known as Ligatron.

* Ligatron very gracelessly crashes into the ocean outside of a facility that's been studying a new form of experimental energy for use as rocket fuel. What follows is a lot of really nice model work as the kaiju attempts to harvest steal the energy from the plant while the GUTS Wings and the base's own defense systems try to repel it.

* As a side note, I really do love old school model work. It's one of the things that really appeals to me about the Ultra franchise in particular, and I'm glad to see that the use of models still continues into the current era.

* Ligatron is able to fully absorb the energy when the facility's defense system abruptly shuts down, something that could only be done by the system's creator: an astronaut who disappeared as part of an ill-fated mission to Jupiter.

* At the same time, family members of the other Jupiter 3 astronauts are visited by apparitions of their lost relative.

* GUTS's computer guy, whose name I have absolutely not learned yet, theorizes that the scientist was smart enough to transmit a message if he was somehow connected to Ligatron. He's able to find a short video that looks like it was filmed with the scientist standing in the opening credits of the average Showa Ultraman series.

* The scientist reveals that Ligatron is, in fact, the Jupiter 3 spacecraft transformed by contact with a mysterious being of light from outer space. The creature was attracted by the Jupiter 3's fuel source and absorbed the ship and its crew before heading to Earth for more energy.

* GUTS is ordered to destroy Ligatron, which doesn't sit well with Officer Shinjoh, aka "Guy who isn't Daigo #2." He laments that humanity seems in danger of losing its empathy in the 21st Century, to which I can only reply "Oh honey, you have no idea."

* Ligatron reappears and GUTS heads off to fight it. Inevitably, the ship Daigo is in crashes and his copilot is knocked out long enough for Daigo to transform into Tiga.

* We get our first proper rise for Tiga in this episode. It's done in CGI and looks very much like CGI done in the mid-90s.

* A pretty long fight sequence follows which includes Tiga shifting into Power Type and still not really managing to make a dent in Ligatron.

* Shinjoh ultimately saves the day by having GUTS transmit images from the Jupiter 3 crew's personal files, causing the crew to awaken and separate themselves from Ligatron, leaving it stunned and vulnerable to Tiga's Zeperion Beam.

* Now free, the spirits of the Jupiter 3 crew head off into space to continue exploring.

* I want to like this one more than I do. The premise is really cool and is absolutely the kind of hard sci-fi story that separates Ultraman from the other big toku franchises. I just don't think the execution really worked; so much time was spent on the two big action set pieces that the real plot never got enough room to fully develop. There was a cool moral dilemma in here about trying to save the astronauts vs. destroy the monster, but it kinda just got skimmed over for time.

* I really like the music that plays during the trailer for the next episode. The horns sound like they're right out of one of the 1960s-era James Bond themes.