From: chriskern99@gmail.com   
      
   Episode 167 - When a nightmare scatters the flowers!  The evil queen's   
   revival   
      
   The first episode of the final season (apparently this was known to be   
   the final season before airing; people were already mentioning it on   
   a.f.s-m).  There are a number of surprising things about the episode.   
      
   First off, after four seasons and 166 episodes, Moonlight Densetsu has   
   been replaced as the opening theme by Sailor Star Song.  I like SSS so   
   it's fine for me, but I think this was somewhat controversial.  The   
   new opening sequence is nice, though -- I especially like the parts   
   with the civilian and transformed versions of the senshi next to each   
   other, with Ami eating the ice cream, Minako flipping the pancake,   
   etc.   
      
   Second, this episode is not a filler episode.  Every other season has   
   started by introducing the new villians and then doing a normal filler   
   episode, but it's clear that something different is going on here.   
   There was a lot of speculation as to how this season was going to work   
   -- some people were actually hopeful that there would be no filler in   
   the entire season...haha, fat chance. :)   
      
   Third, for the first time in the series a villian is reused in another   
   season.  They brought Nehelenia back -- some people consider this the   
   "true" conclusion to SuperS, but I'm not so sure about that.  This   
   episode, of course, aired only one week after 166, so there's not much   
   separation between the two, but I think that the theme and   
   presentation is different enough and that SuperS had a fine conclusion   
   on its own.  But it's great to see Nehelenia back.   
      
   Finally, the outers are back, which was a welcome sight to a number of   
   fans that had disliked SuperS compared to S.   
      
   The scene between Nehelenia and Galaxia is one of my favorite scenes   
   in the season -- you can just see the way that Galaxia is sitting   
   behind the scenes manipulating Nehelenia, and it's a good way of   
   indicating that the ultimate villian of this season is going to be   
   greater than anything they've seen before.   
      
   The opening to the episode has similarities to the fairy tale Snow   
   Queen by Andersen -- in that story some trolls break (accidentally, in   
   the tale) a mirror that twists people's hearts, and when the fragments   
   fall in people's hearts or eyes they become twisted as well.   
      
   As for the glass monsters, although they are often spelled as Mirror   
   Paradory or Mirror Parody (the latter is definitely wrong), Ian   
   Andreas Miller made a fairly good case that it should be Mirror Palais   
   Dolly.  There's no way to be sure, though.   
      
   -Chris   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)