The Zeta Project – 20lostfound

While on the run from Krick, Zeta malfunctions and drops into unconsciousness. Ro hides the immobile Zeta and calls Bucky for help, while Zeta flashes back in his mind to the mission when he decided to be peaceful.

Media by Borg4of3
Review by Matt Zimmer

Voices:
Diedrich Bader as Zeta / Zee
Julie Nathanson as Ro
Blayn Barbosa as Bucky
Landry Allbright as Kale
Ian James Corlett as Lowe
Robert Costanzo as Titus Sweete
Diane Delano as Miss Berkely
Erica Hubbard as Lead Bully
Lili Ishida as Becca
Richard McGonagle as Agent
Richard Moll as Krick
Debbie Taylor as Secretary
Steven Weber as Eugene Dolan
Marc Worden as Slam
Andrea Romano as Adrian Dolan
 

Zeta and Ro’s back stories are revealed in this terrific episode.

Zeta and Ro are on the run from Krick who after being injured in their last encounter says he will kill Zeta instead of capturing him. While escaping Zeta malfunctions and goes unconscious. Ro calls Bucky for help in fixing him as she hides him in an abandoned amusement park. While
Zeta is unconscious he is having flashbacks to the time he infiltrated
Eugene Dolan: the innocent man who was the reason he decided he would not kill anymore. He remembers spending time with his family and teaching his daughter how to ride a bike and how he overheard two of
Dolan’s business partners (who were secretly terrorists) talking about how Dolan was an innocent accountant who knew nothing of their dealings.
Zeta accidentally walked into Dolan and seemed forced to kill him but when Dolan pleads for his life by telling him he has a family Zeta changes his mind and walks away beginning his vow to never destroy again.

While Bucky is trying to fix Zeta he suggests the problem may be more than he can handle and is made aware that Krick is tracking them. He suggests that Zeta would have wanted them to save themselves but Ro flatly tells him that before she met Zeta she had nothing to live for.
It is revealed through flashbacks how Ro spent her youth in an orphanage and how when she ran away she fell in with a bad crowd. Krick corners them as Zeta miraculously reboots himself. Zee saves Bucky and Ro and defeats Krick who they later learn has been taken back to prison. At the end of the episode Ro forgives Bucky for abandoning them in "Wired" and says he’s back in the club.

I’m going to say something controversial. Out of ALL of the DCAU series (Batman, Superman, Batman Beyond, Justice League, Static Shock)
The Zeta Project is the one with the best character development.
Characters actually grow and change and relationships are forged and broken and rebuilt over the course of the two seasons. That’s the best thing about the show and the biggest reason it is criminally underrated.

But I digress. How was this episode? In a word: phenomenal. All of the flashbacks were great and insightful and Krick has turned into quite an interesting sociopath (deliciously voiced by Batman’s Richard Moll). In fact I noticed a couple of other BTAS regulars too as Robert Constanza (Detective Bullock) provided a voice and Randy Rogel (Robin’s Reckoning,
Subzero) actually wrote the episode. The episode also raised an interesting question as the thuggish youth that takes a young Ro under his wing looks suspiciously like a young Krick. If it IS him how is it that Ro doesn’t recognize him? Honestly, the cool questions this show often raised made it even more of a shame when it was cancelled.

I also love Ro and Bucky’s interplay as it is very much like siblings.
The animation in the episode was solid and looked very colorful and smooth. Only complaint about the episode is that Zeta rebooted himself way too easily. Maybe Bruce Timm lent him some Deux Ex Machism.

Story: *****
Animation: ****
Average: ****1/2