Episode
Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Shape Stealer
Overview
Zurg's latest creation, Project X, a Lurker-like blanket thing that wraps over one and takes control of one, is sent to destroy Buzz Lightyear, etc... The shape stealer first takes over Buzz's next door neighbor, Mr. Hayman, and tries to kill Buzz with hedge clippers, then when Buzz has to fly off to TradeWorld to deal with Lardak Lurdak (a petty criminal), it takes over Ed the Courier and flies off to catch up with him. Once on TradeWorld, the shape stealer takes over a Vulturan, then some piggy-looking bystander, and then a bus driver, all of whom attempt to stab, shoot, or run over Buzz. When the bus crashes, the shape stealer is nowhere to be seen. When Team Lightyear return to Star Command, the shape stealer proves to've been just biding its time. It takes over a LGM (who tries to shoot Buzz), then Booster (who tries to beat up Buzz), and then it just takes over Buzz himself...but without showing any signs of having done so. When Nebula locks Buzz into Star Command's Combat
Details
- Series
- Buzz Lightyear of Star Command
- Season
- Season 1
- Episode
- Episode 37
- Air date
- 2000-11-08
- Runtime
- 30 min
Episode context
The Shape Stealer is Episode 37 in Season 1 of Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. It aired on 2000-11-08. The runtime is 30 min.
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Episode 36: The Yukari Imprint
Crumford Lorak hides in Senator Banda's fishtank (ambassador from Bathyos) in order to gain and sell Galactic Alliance secrets to the Raenoks at the Luma 9 Station. Booster is talked into purchasing a Yukari-pod; Yukaris, it turns out, are small creatures which take on the form of their ""mother"" (whomever is around the egg in the latter stages of development), but are quite ravenous and reproduce at an astounding rate (...imagine a cross between ""Gremlins"" and tribbles...). Booster's ""fuzzy buddies"" (...the name that the salesman was marketing them under, since his ""demo model"" was one that had taken on a fairly cute form...) ravage 42 and eventually all of Luma 9 Station, when Team Lightyear arrives there in order to help serve as protection for the ambassadorial delegates that are meeting there. Booster's (and thus the Yukari's that were imprinted from him) love for chocolate saves the day, by helping to round up the Yukaris and by using them to then subdue the Raenoks
Episode 38: Star Crossed
When Brain Pod #57 defects to Star Command, Zurg hires Romac, a Tangean Grounder bounty hunter -- and Mira's ex-boyfriend -- to bring him in.
More episodes from this season
Episode 35: Head Case
Answering a distress call, Team Lightyear discovers a ship under attack by Vulturans (a vaguely bird-like race, that XR recognizes as a race that tends to have a thing against robots). Team Lightyear fights them off...but in the battle, XR flies into a mad rage (gets a little ""blowie-uppy"") and ends up being seriously disassembled. When the LGMs fix him up, they discover signs of metal fatigue. Their report is sent to Commander Nebula, who accidentally spills coffee on the report, smudging the lettering and making it look like ""mental fatigue"". XR is sent off to the resort world of Mahamba 6 for a weekend pass, before having to take a psychiatric evaluation from Star Command's resident psychiatrist, Dr. Animus (...who resembles a native of Binpinardia...). While on Mahamba 6, XR is picked up by a taxi driver who turns out to be XL (...he sent XR a fake ""you have just won a free vacation!!""-flier to XR to lure him in...). XL kidnaps XR and steals his body.
Episode 39: Haunted Moon
Crew on asteroid attempting to deflect comet. Ghost on asteroid seems to be interfering with mission, uttering ""Enola Eno-No!!"" (...with silent ""e""s...). Asteroid crew runs off with 42, leaving Team Lightyear to solve the problem. 50 years ago, Wild Bill Cooley had attempted same mission, but ended up frozen in comet's tail. He was trying to tell them that it was a two-man mission to shunt the comet, but it was coming out in reverse (...IE: ""No-one Alone!!""...). Buzz thaws out Cooley and the two of them shunt the comet.
Episode 34: Devolutionaries
Warp Darkmatter goes to the distant planet of Binipinardia to nab a naturally occurring de-evolving gas, guarded for eons by the local Binipinardians (...who happened to take a coffee-break at exactly the wrong time...). When Team Lightyear arrive on Binipinardia, they find the locals to be missing, and the only critters that seem to be around are some semi-sentient lemur-like things. XR is marketing his comic book, breakfast cereal, and adventure series at the time, so when the rest of Team Lightyear go off to look for the missing Binipinardians, he stays behind to look after the ship and to test out some product marketing research on the lemur-like things. Shortly after discovering that Warp Darkmatter has set up a pumping station, to ship the gas to Zurg, the rest of Team Lightyear gets hit by the de-evolving gas; Mira becomes ameboid, Buzz becomes neandertalic, and Booster becomes ankylosaurus-ish. When he finds out what has happened to his comrades (...and that the native Bin
Episode 40: Star Smasher
Zurg steals a remote trash compactor, compacts 42, and then compresses Capital Planet's sun in order to form a black hole.
Episode 33: Rescue Mission
Star Command receives an urgent call for help. Unfortunately the signal was too weak to locate.
Episode 41: Stranger Invasion
Zurg tries to take over the planet Roswell, in order to set up a partner planet to Planet Z. Becky contacts Booster, and Team Lightyear shows up to defeat Zurg and save the day. The climactic battle between Zurg and Buzz takes place in the reactor chamber that is powering his self-constructing re-formation of Roswell; when they begin fencing with glowing reactor rods, and when Zurg attempts to throw Buzz off guard by claiming to be his father, the Star Wars references fly fast and furious. The self-constructing machine is thrown into reverse, Roswell is saved, and Zurg is defeated.
Episode 32: Bunzel Fever
Team Lightyear receives a call from Jo-Ad while in the early phase of an investigative mission (involving a series of thefts); Booster's family is letting Booster know that the bunzel harvest (the primary crop on Jo-Ad, which resembles eggplant) is due. When Booster claims that his duty to the Space Rangers supersedes his farming history, his Grandfather reminds him of the legendary ""Bunzel Fever"", that strikes down any native of Jo-Ad that isn't involved in the bunzel harvest. Booster dismisses the legend and eschews the harvest. When it turns out that the legend isn't a myth, Booster goes through a ""pon-far""-type thing, that is marked by him ""hulking out"" into a large, bellicose form that is determined to harvest bunzels, or anything bunzel-esque (...and since this transformation is also marked by him having spells of mistaking anything roughly ovoid for a bunzel, this gets fairly hazardous for anyone who is rotund and/or in a space ranger suit, XR, and Team Lightyear's ship
Episode 42: Eye of the Tempest
Answering a distress call from a planetoid within ion storm, Buzz encounters Spyro Von Madman, and his daughter, Bonnie. Professor Spyro Von Madman, previously known as Spyro Lepton when he worked with Star Command, was a scientist who had come up with the notion of equipping Space Rangers with a semi-organic energy-absorbing crystalline form, thus resulting in what he called a ""cryborg"" (...very much like the concept behind Star Trek's Borg, but with a crystalline basis), eliminating the need for the Pulsar 400 Envirosuit & Battle Armor that is standard issue for the Space Rangers. Spurned by Star Command, Spyro had gone off into seclusion to further his research. When Spyro had worked for Star Command, he and his daughter were acquaintances with Buzz, and it would seem that Bonnie has been carrying a torch for Buzz all these years. She helps him to escape her father's Cold Slab of Revenge, and to bring her father in. While in jail, Spyro sees Bonnie & Buzz walking together
Episode 31: Clone Rangers
After pilfering samples of Team Lightyear's DNA with mosquito-esque micro-hornets, Zurg clones Team Lightyear; in his rush, he removes them from the maturation tanks before they have a chance to grow up into adults (...as an example of his hurried-ness, he initially planed to instill them with an ""Evil Level"" up in the thousands, but upon realizing that he himself has an ""Evil Level"" of a little over a dozen, he only gives them a level a little under his own...), so Team Lightyear has to deal with evil little kid versions of themselves named Zzub, Feara, and Blister (...after a lot of whining about not having a robot of their own, they get an evil version of XR called ""X-Treme""...). When the eventually realize that due to being clones, the Evil Li'l Team Lightyear has the same character flaws as themselves, Team Lightyear manages to use their ""flaws"" as advantages and win the fight. As a joke tag-line, Zurg attempts the cloning process again at the end of the episode
Episode 43: Revenge of the Monsters
After being bitten by NOS-4-A2 on the mysterious planet of Canis Lupus, Ranger Ty Parsec is transformed into a Wirewolf (...imagine a form of lycanthropy blended with either Star Trek's Borg techno-virus, or with Transformers' Key to Vector Sigma...) [this whole bit is shown in summary, as if it were reminding us of an earlier episode...except there IS no earlier episode about this as far as I can tell]. Even though the transformation only takes place when on or near Canis Lupus, Commander Nebula decides to boot Parsec from the Space Rangers for his own, and everyone else's, good. While this meeting is wrapping up, NOS-4-A2 and XL show up. They have a chunk of Canis Lupus, that causes Parsec to re-transform into a Wirewolf, and they kidnap the en-cursed Parsec. [...the ""Monster""-bit in the title refers to how Parsec is pretty much a robotic werewolf, XL is pretty much a robotic Frankenstein's monster, and NOS-4-A2 is a robotic vampire...] With Parsec