[ljacone]

Ultraseven Episode 5 -- The Missing Hours. A brilliant scientist has his mind controlled by the Villa aliens, using him to disable the Ultra Guard's long distance radar to mask their invasion. Enjoyable episode in the "this man is a spy!" trope. The final battle features Ultraseven battling a Villa (which look like facehuggers, bizarrely enough) while the Ultra Hawk One and Ultra Hawk Three battle the invasion fleet. Very straight forward and action-oriented.

Ultraseven Episode 6 -- The Dark Zone. The great space city Pegassa is on a collision course with Earth, and one of their agents -- who seem to hide in an unpenetrable bubble of shadow -- infiltrates Ultra Guard HQ, assigned with saving his home no matter the cost. Something of morality tale about hubris and spirit. The Pegassans demand that Earth adjust it's orbit to avoid collision, but when the Ultra Guard try to communicate, they do not respond to the "primitive" planet. And their arrogance proves their undoing. The "space metropolis" Pegassa is an eerie model, very effective. We also get to see a glimpse of Anne's quarters, which is novel. (She has a small tin of chocolate on her table which she immediately takes a piece from upon arrival, because all Japanese girls love chocolate, obviously.)

Some more impressions: We're still focusing on Dan (natch) and Anne, but the other characters are starting to get fleshed out a bit too. Captain Kiriyama is not as interesting as Captain Muramatsu was, but he has some nice moments here. And Furuhashi gets a mini spotlight in episode 5 as the bodyguard of the possessed scientist.

The DVD image quality, though not "top notch," is perfectly good for a TV show of this era. The subtitles have been solid with only a few instances of disappearing too quickly.