New story time! The Clone Wars gets consequential with The Lost One. A lost Jedi ship is found. There are new suits for the Clones. Dooku shows up. This episode feels like an entire season's worth of goodies packed into about 23 minutes. Read on!

Kids looking for a subject to write that term paper on irony need look no further than "The Lost One," a look at the machinations of the actual wars involving the clones. We get to spend time on a harsh planet, perusing a crashed spaceship while in a terrible storm only to find numerous leads to the whereabouts of Sifo-Dyas. The character's origins are largely unexplored, minus a couple of appearances in books like Star Wars: Visionaries back in 2005. There's more out there, but unless you're an ardent follower of all things print odds are you don't know much about this guy other than a vague connection with Count Dooku and the origins of the Clone Army. This episode gives the audience just enough to go on to confirm what we already kind of, sort of knew while also connecting the dots between "a man named Tyranus" and Count Dooku. Apparently the Jedi didn't know until the Pyke opened their big mouths.

From a purely visual perspective, this was a great chunk of TV. It wasn't quite as cool as the temples from the previous episodes, but you did get a bunch of aliens, some vehicles, and most of the major characters still remaining on the series. It's a bit of a shame this story didn't come up before the spiritual conclusion of the series with the departure of Ahsoka Tano, but at least we're getting some more insight into the "how" and the "why" of the clones. It really was amazing that the entire notion of a servant race army, fully equipped for an intergalactic war, didn't seem to bother people too much. I would go so far as to say that this episode should be required viewing for anyone watching all the films, and it would have been nice to have had it incorporated in Revenge of the Sith even if only in the opening crawl. The white-armored Trojan Horse that did in the Jedi barely appears in this episode after the search party in the opening scenes, but Yoda does praise them even after they say something that's quite preposterous. Yoda acknowledges that it's a little strange that their enemies had a hand in the creation of this battle force, but oh hey - they're good guys, so let's let them keep doing what they're doing. This is why civilizations collapse.

While we saw some interesting shortcuts last time - masks preventing mouth animation, for example - this episode feels like a little more work and money went into showing us cool stuff. The producers manage to hide Anakin and Obi-Wan's trip to Felucia (remember those guys?), with holographic transmissions allowing them to save a few bucks be telling, not showing, the action. Just to keep the story down, I have to give my best to Christian Taylor for writing so much stuff in a speedy, not-remotely-confusing tale. Assuming, of course, you're up to speed on the story thus far - otherwise it's probably all gobbledeygook anyway. There are still stories to be told here - I assume that the origin of the Clone army is jam-packed with stories for those looking to cash in on that plot point. Raising up an entire race of people is no small feat, but the production of all their gear, spacecraft, and everything else feels just as hard to swallow.

Unlike the rest of the season up to this point, this episode does wonders to expand the lore while not forcing you to sit through several episodes of the same stuff. It's a tight story that trots over the galaxy, rewarding us all with tantalizing visions of characters Hasbro deemed it worth skipping in the world of action figures. Truly, the new Wolf Pack armor and the Pyke will hopefully inspire the next generation of fans to take to the streets and write about this hobby and franchise. Not getting Vlix sure as heck drove me to some interesting places.

Takeaway from this week:
The Pyke are back! And so are many of the Jedi, for a change of pace.
Hi Jocasta Nu! Nice to see you again.
I'm always happy to see weird alien races and long references to other, possibly even more interesting stories. We got a lot of that.
Yoda meets Palpatine in his office. Foreshadowing!

Next time: Tune in next time for "Voices," and the buzz is good from here on out. See you next mission!