Spanner S01E02 "The Children of Avos"

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SPANNER S01E02 "THE CHILDREN OF AVOS"

In this episode, instead of returning the group to Earth, the Vessel opens a doorway to the ruins of an alien city. Emerging from the Vessel, Owen and Carol asks why they haven’t returned to Earth. Spanner checks the Vessel’s readouts and determines that its ‘empathic sensors’ detected a surge of negative emotional energy from this location, compelling the Vessel to reroute the doorway to this world. Owen asks if the city is safe and Spanner, after studying his readouts, states that there appears to be no lifeforms in the vicinity.

Carol wonders. If there are no lifeforms, how could the Vessel’s empathic sensors have detected any emotional energy at all? Spanner admits he is not certain, but that they cannot leave until he discovers why the Vessel brought them here. Despite Carol and Owen’s misgivings, the four leave the Vessel to explore the alien city. They encounter a group of friendly humanoids who identify themselves as the Followers of Avos. Inviting the four friends back to their settlement, Tuesday lags behind and is captured by a menacing robed figure. Her disappearance does not go unnoticed for long and the Followers lament that Tuesday must have been captured by the Veils.

Spanner and Owen immediately set off to rescue Tuesday, leaving Carol with the Followers.

The Veils capture Owen and Spanner, accusing them of being spies and allies of the Followers. Spanner denies this, but the Veils do not believe him. The Veil Leader orders the three friends locked in a cell, where they will be properly interrogated after the final assault on the Followers’ camp. Alone in the cell, Spanner uses his psychic key to summon the Vessel. The door appears in the cell and the three friends escape into the Vessel which relocates to the Followers’ encampment.

They emerge just as the Veils begin their final attack. Carol, in the meantime, has discovered that the Followers and the Veils are both artificially engineered creatures, created by a dead scientist called Avos. Originally one group, Avos’s creations separated into the Veils and the Followers over ideological differences.

Spanner evacuates the Followers into the Vessel, just as their camp is raised to the ground in a devastating attack. Safe aboard the Vessel, Spanner surmises that it was the Veils’ malevolence that the ship detected, commenting that the Veils, "Must be very bad indeed." He evacuates the Followers of Avos to a distant, uninhabited world where he’s sure they’ll be happy and safe.

Afterwards, Carol admits her surprise that the Followers were so ‘human.’

Tuesday suggests that perhaps Carol needs to expand her definition as to what ‘human’ means.

Principal Cast:
Spanner (Richard Attenborough)
Tuesday (Sophie Turner)
Carol Bright (Michelle Pfeiffer)
Owen Dhabi (Bhasker Patel)
Veil Leader (Tim Curry)
Follower Spokesman (Alan Rickman)

Notes:
"The Children of Avos" is the first episode where we learn about the Vessel’s empathic nature.

This episode is also the first time Spanner unveils his psychic key, which allows him to summon the Vessel to his current location.