This is a revival of the 1930s series without the spaceships. The setting on Mongo is more Ruritania than pantomime and a lot grittier than than the original. Ming is somewhat less merciless, having a certain amount of concern for his image and PR. But when the chips are down, he's ready to kill anyone who seems to be threatening him. Dale Arden is a lot pushier, Dr. Zarkov is younger and nerdier.
The purpose behind the series is more Flash's search for his father, who ended up on Mongo as a result of a secret project, rather than saving the Earth from Ming's attentions. Flash was left stranded on Mongo after just 1 season.
Season 1 – 2007/08
01. Pilot
Flash finds that he's being stalked by R.V., his father's assistant from when Dad disappeared, presumed dead in a fire, while working on the Portage Initiative. An alien attacks people in a bowling alley and Flash meets journalist Dale again; she's now engaged to a cop, Joe. R.V. tells Flash that his dad was sucked into a dimensional rift, more rifts have been opening recently and they're all going to die.
The alien turns up at Flash's house, R.V. fails to shoot it with his proton gun but Dale electrocutes it to a slimy mess on the floor. It has Flash's dad's driving licence! Flash & Dale go through a rift and find themselves on the planet Mongo, which is polluted badlands everywhere but in the city where Ming lives. Ming is looking for the Imax and he wants Dale washed and sent to his tent!
Flash is grilled by Rankol, the chief scientist, and rescued by a slave-girl; really Ming's daughter. They collect Dale and return to Earth. The 'Imax' turned out to be a Timex watch containing all the knowledge in the universe! Rankol sends a female bounty hunter to collect the Princess and Flash lets her think he's zapped the watch. Then he vows to find his dad, who's somewhere on Mongo.
02. Pride
Baylin, the bounty hunter from Mongo, is living in the park and she can make herself invisible. Flash gets Dr. Zarkov to fix the rift-buster, which can open an existing rift, not create a new one. The first fix doesn't work. Rankol lets a caveman called Tyrus out of gaol to hunt the bounty hunter on Earth. She moves in with Flash, which upsets Dale.
Det. Wiley ends up with a dead body and a live park ranger, both attacked by Tyrus using a cross between a whip and a light saber. Tyrus catches Baylin. Dr. Zarkov fixes the rift-blaster again and goes back to the rift to test it. He sees Tyrus and Baylin scrapping and strolls off with Tyrus' rift-blaster.
Ming's daughter fails to talk her dad out of executing an ice-smuggler, who wanted clean water for his sick daughter. Ming reckons he has to have absolute control of water on his polluted planet. Flash bamboozles Tyrus and chucks him into the rift, which closes, preventing him from going to Mongo to look for his dad.
03. Infestation
Rankol told Ming he's cracked the problem of predicting where rifts will open, even without the Imex. Flash & Co. go to a wedding; of the brother of Nick, who's black and worried. Zarkov reported a rift on Earth and a joy-bug from Mongo bit Nick. Baylin said the bite causes extreme euphoria then death, so someone had to keep Nick miserable while they got a cure from Mongo. Dale got that job.
Baylin stole an artefact from the Amazons who have the cure, so Flash had to retrieve it from Ming's archive. Rankol and Ming were surprised to see Baylin again. Flash had to save her when Baylin told Ming he's dead then Princess Aura announced that Flash had just robbed the archive. Then Flash bamboozled the Amazons with integrity and Nick got his cure.
04. Assassin
CCTV shows Dr. Gordon emerging from a rift on Earth! Dale thinks it's too good to be true. Joe the cop shows up with an artist's impression of a car-jacker; it looks just like Flash's dad, who's supposed to have died 13 years before. Dr. Gordon visits Dr. Landry, an old colleague, and uses a brain-draining gadget on him.
Dr. Zarkov puts Flash onto Dr. Landy but Baylin is blown up when Landry's lab explodes while she's climbing up the building. A Dr. Hiller, who had Zarkov committed, is the next target. 'Dr. Gordon' is one of Ming's minions with a shape-shifting cloaking device. Dale extracts Zarkov from his lab and Baylin defuses a bomb planted there.
The brain-drainer goes after Zarkov disguised as Flash, the Flashes do battle and Dale shoots the right one. Flash & Co. fail to find the brain-drainer. Rankold sends a drone back to collect it and the body, and Ming halves the water ration of the dead patriot's family.
05. Ascension
Princess Aura decides she wants to go to Earth to see Flash but her rift-opening transit key is stolen by an undercover Dactyl - one of the Hawk Men. Flash's mom returns so Baylin has to be explained away as a European student who's bunking with Dale. Vulcan, the leader of the Dactyls, kidnaps a graffiti-spraying kid, who just happens to be his son, who was swallowed up by a rift years before.
Joe the cop gets the runaround over the kidnapping story. Flash & Co. follow Vulcan to Mongo, where Aura kidnaps the kid and offers to trade him for the transit key. Flash & Vulcan sneak into the palace but Rankol crashes the deal.
Everyone gets away, however, and the kid proves to himself that he can fly like a Dactyl. Flash takes the kid back to Earth and he ends up in trouble with his mom for forgetting to buy wine to go with the monster turkey dinner.
06. Life Source
Flash & Co. find a body when they check a new rift and Joe the detective gets terminally jealous of Flash again. The corpse was sent by Ming to retrieve Lilian, a creature which can drain the life force from young men. Luckily, Baylin can track her down by her smell. Some college athletes disappear and Flash & Co. find them turned into old men! And the same happens to Joe!
Ming sends another patriot to grab Lilian, she has a shoot-out with Baylin and she is allowed to take Lily back to Mongo after she has restored Joe who, conveniently, remembers nothing of his alarming experience. Ming gets the benefit of all the stolen life energy, and he also drains Lily, who ends up as an unsightly heap of ash on the floor.
07. Alliances (1)
Ming wanted Prince Barin to join his alliance and fly his flag, using water as a weapon. Dr. Zarkov insisted on going to Mongo with Flash and Baylin to contact her tribe in search of Dr. Gordon. Joe was still being unreasonable about Dale's secrets. Baylin's tribe was talking about a cull because of a water shortage but their leader, Prince Barin, didn't want anything to do with it.
Dr. Gordon had built a water purifier for the tribe years before and they were bad-mouthing him, and blaming Flash as well, because it had stopped working. Baylin's parents were banished in the last lottery. Ming told Rankol he didn't want to be feared, he wanted to be loved! The lottery went ahead as Zarkov struggled to fix the machine; then he was kidnapped by a vampire!
Barin went cap in hand to Ming, who wanted Barin to marry his daughter as well as fly his flag. Dale had a chat with Mrs. Gordon and learnt that Flash hadn't gone to college with her because he'd stayed with his mom, who'd had cancer. Flash dragged Baylin into a battle with the vampire and won. Zarkov fixed the machine, but when Flash & Co. tried to get back to Earth, they found the rift had closed. To be continued . . .
08. Revelations (2)
Flash decides the only way to get home is to hijack Ming's vortex generator. Meanwhile, Ming is having his fortune told by some monks, who decide his reign is drawing to a close and the great warrior who will end it is already here! Princess Aura isn't happy about having to marry Prince Barin but Ming tells her to get on with it.
Flash & Co. infiltrate Ming's city and Zarkov gets himself arrested. He ends up in Dr. Gordon's old cell next door to Kreb. Back home, Flash's mom visits Dale as she's worried about Flash, and she admits she let the government bribe her into silence after her husband's 'accident'. On Mongo, Flash gets himself caught but Baylin and Zarkov escape through a rift.
Kreb tells Flash his father was executed for treason; but only because Rankol promised him his freedom if he lied to Flash. Flash is sentenced to share his father's fate but when he tries to fight his guards, a monk does a mind-meld with him and Flash ends up back on Earth.
09. 'Til Death
Aura was so desperate to get out of her bonding with Barin that she went to the Witch of the Woods for a love potion for Flash, who was actually doing some work at the garage for once. But not for long. Dale couldn't believe it when she found Flash & Aura making out. Rankol warned Ming not to trust Barin but Ming told him he doesn't trust anyone.
Dale & Baylin went to Mongo and Dale got an antidote for the love potion but she had to pledge a blood-oath favour to the Witch of the Woods. Dale administered the antidote just before Flash & Barin began a duel to the death with poisoned weapons.
When Flash came to his senses, Barin launched his weapon at Ming. But Ming came back to life later on because Aura had swapped the poison for a sleeping drug. Ming told Aura the fact that he was still alive proved she wasn't up to being ruler of Mongo.
10. Conspiracy Theory
Rankol wouldn't destroy the rift generator even though rifts were opening spontaneously and there was a danger the universe would be destroyed. His solution was to send Genessa, a bounty hunter. to collect Dr. Zarkov to work on the problem. A kid at a skateboard park got pictures on his mobile phone of a 'space babe' appearing from a rift, he sold them to Susie, Dale's big rival on Channel 7.
Baylin went to Mongo after Genessa while Flash & Dale tried to suppress the rift story; but they were kidnapped by Montgomery, who used to work on the Portage Project, so he knew all about rifts. He used truth serum to make Flash & Dale spill beans. Both Montgomery and Rankol decide they want the Imex, the molecular computer in Zarkov's lab.
Dale was fired for not getting the rift story but she got Susie toasted on camera after Flash frightened the kid into saying he made everything up. Baylin rescued Zarkov and Montgomery ended up on Mongo when he tried to run Flash & Dale down in his van but zoomed into the rift that brought Baylin & Zarkov home. At the end, Zarkov found some date in his Mongo scientist's robe.
11. Random Access
Dr. Zarkov decided that the plague of new rifts was aftershocks from earlier rifts, the fabric of the universe was breaking down and "We're all going to die!" Rankol told Ming the same and he was told to fix the problem or else.
A motel became Rift Central and Joe found Flash there with Dale. Then he and Flash fell through a rift in the floor! Joe was introduced to Flash & Dale's secret the hard way and he ended up a prisoner and working on Ming's tunnel project in the Mine of Death.
Dale and Baylin, meanwhile, took charge of a pregnant deviate; a product of bad water on Mongo; and Dale supervised the birth. Flash staged a breakout of prisoners and Zarkov decided he could stop the rifts with a cancellation wave.
Joe shot the boss of the tunnelling operation into a rift, and he was wiped out on Earth by the deviate. Zarkov fired off his gun and opened up enough rifts to get everyone back where they should be and saved the universe (temporarily).
12. Secrets and Lies
Zarkhov reckoned he could map the interdimensional divide and gain access to Mongo without waiting for Ming to open a rift. So he and Flash ended up there in the middle of a war involving the Dactyls and a tribe led by Azura. Ming offered himself as a peacemaker and refused to admit that Mongo faces a water shortage.
Flash & Zarkhov rescued the Dactyl prisoner and Nick, Flash's partner at the service shop, taught Baylin to buff a car. Joe took what he knew about Mongo to his captain; and ended up being relieved of his badge and his gun! Flash sent Zarkhov home and managed a temporary truce on Mongo.
Nick made a move on Baylin but Dale rained on the idea of doing some mating. Azura went ahead with the war, Zarkov was scheduled for sacrifice to her god, but Flash bamboozled her tribe and saved Zarkhov. Rankol knew that Ming had tried to start a war to kill off enough people to make the water shortage go away and Azura ended up getting pally with Ming.
13. Sorrow
Dr. Zarkov was trying for a grant, he was interviewed by an old college friend but he avoided all mention of dimensional rifts and Mongo, and the lady turned him down for not being 'out of the box' enough! Meanwhile, Baylin heard the Voices of the Dead summon her to Mongo, where it was Sorrow Day, on which the ruination of the planet through greed was remembered.
Ming was plotting to wipe out the Verdan, Baylin's tribe, which explained why there weren't enough of them there to protect catacombs from grave robbers, who shot Baylin. Azura dallied with a strolling pleasure, to Ming's displeasure, and the Merciless one strangled the bloke and blamed Azura.
An earthquake sealed the catacomb after Flash had pretended to do a deal with the grave robbers, but he and Baylin were able to dig out Dale and the surviving Guardian. Baylin had to stay on Mongo because something bad was happening to her people, and Flash & Dale decided to stay with her.
14. Stand and Deliver
Ming had to put up with another prophecy from the painted monks: "The Warrior will take the place of the Father", and decided that meant Prince Barin and he had to enslave the Verdan to head off an uprising. Flash & Co. clashed with bounty hunters, who were mopping up Verdan survivors. Flash went hunting poisonous, scorpion-like velotrops in a bid to buy Verdan slaves to free them.
Dale ended up in Ming's clutches and Barin bought Princess Aura's help with a promise of information about her mother. He told her about a gadget which glows when she's near close relatives. Flash cooked up a fake prophecy ceremony to fool Ming. Rankol, who's in with the monks, wasn't fooled, but Ming commuted Barin's death sentence to life without parole.
Aura pleaded for Barin's life, which let Ming pretend he'd spared Barin out of respect for his daughter's feelings. At the end, Rankol told the monks that it had to be the predicted Day of the False Prophecy and Flash may be The One.
15. Possession
Ex-cop Joe Wylee steals Zarkov's new rift-blaster and heads for Mongo to get proof that it exists to get his job back. Meanwhile, Ming has a new female mad scientist, Lenu, trying to implant a gadget in a test subject's head. Flash & Co. follow Joe to make sure Rankol doesn't see the new rift-blaster. Dale has her body taken over by the sorceress Helya and starts behaving weirdly.
Joe is mugged and busted by Patriots while brawling with the thief.
Helya makes a deal with Flash; help her get the better of Layla, her twin sister, and Dale gets her body back. Ming decides to have Joe implanted and Zarkov gets stoned on sensations in a bar. Rankol gets to gloat when Baylin rescues Joe from Lenu's lab. There's a big battle in the forest and Flash does some mud wrestling in a swamp.
Helya's spirit ends up back in its jar and Dale gets her body back. Back in his capital, Ming isn't worried about Joe's rescue as it happened after he'd been implanted.
16. Thicker Than Water
Flash & Co. head to Mongo to recover the modified rift-blaster before Rankol realizes that Zarkov has the Imex. Ming is busy purging DNA deviants and Flash ends up taking a condemned baby to the Freaks' colony. Lenu goes to Earth, activates Joe's implant and gets him to help her find the Imex in Zarkov's lab.
Flash promises the King of the Freaks that he'll fix up a meeting with Aura. Belin takes Zarkov to burgle Rankol's lab but they're caught and Ming wants them interrogated and killed. Ming refuses to negotiate with terrorists when the Freaks take Aura prisoner and he sends Baylin to rescue her.
Aura gets pally with the KotF, who wants canton status for his realm. Shock, horror! The KotF is Aura's brother! Baylin rescues Flash & Aura, who tells Ming she now understands him better than ever. Aura frees Zarkov and tells him he owes her. Rankol gets the Imex. And Ming sends his flying saucers to zap the Freaks' city.
17. Ebb and Flow
Ming was under pressure to deliver clean water and he was nearly out of it. But Rankol had modified his rift generator and he was able to steal a lake from Earth. Flash decided either to blow up the rift generator or to tell the US government about Mongo. Ming wanted to make Aura Prefect of the Verdan but she decided to be Prefect of her brother's deviants.
Ming got a good prophecy from his monks for once. Lenu used Joe to lure Flash into a trap. The monks told Rankol to accept that the Warrior wasn't going to come and Flash isn't The One. Flash escaped. Baylin decided that blowing up the rift generator would take out all of Mongo.
Joe pulled a gun on them when the guys tried to blow up Ming's reservoir but Baylin saved the day, Joe died a hero's death and the cantons got the water for free; which made Flash the Water Bearer and the ruler reborn. Flash told Aura to give her brother the credit for the free water and Ming was mightily pissed off.
18. Blame
Flash & Co. returned to Mongo to find out what happened to Joe. But someone had poisoned the water distributed in the name of the deviates, Terek, the King of the Deviates, was taken prisoner and Flash had to go in search of the antidote, with Aura, after being forced to drink poisoned water.
Baylin set a trap for Lenu and gave her some 'evil acupuncture' to make her talk. Vestra, the Witch of the Woods, who turned out to be Terek & Aura's mother, put Flash on to the evil Esmoline, who made Flash tangle again with a man-eating vine to get some roots for her. Aura rescued him when the poison sent Flash blind.
Esmoline handed over the antidote, Dale made Lenu make a broadcast on the visboards saying Ming poisoned the water, not Terek, and at the end, Ming was spitting peevish flames and ordering the end of Lenu.
19. Cold Day In Hell
Ming is worried about a rebellion and Dale thinks it's time to warn Earth about Mongo. But Flash wants to try to take out Ming first. He consults the monks and the head monk sends him to Frigia to rescue the queen. Terek offers to help Ming in return for recognition; Ming is amazed to find that his son is still alive. Terek offers his services to Baylin next and gets out of gaol.
Flash & a new ladyfriend are busted for ice poaching but the regent lets them try to save the queen, expecting the Ice Worm to get them. Ming decides to have Terek killed but, of course, he's escaped. Baylin finds that Rankol is a secret monk. He send Baylin & Terek to Frigia. On Earth, Dale starts telling people about Mongo.
Ming's next big idea is to do a deal for water from Frigia. The Ice Worm gets it, and the regent gets it in the neck when the queen returns. Flash tells the monks that Terek is the hero they're waiting for. The Frigian queen tells Ming everyone can buy her water except him. So Ming prepares for war.
20. Revolution (1)
Mongo prepares for war! Rankol told Ming it was all his fault for poisoning the water stolen from Earth, and invading Frigia will be a disaster. Princess Aura tried to get Rankol on her side. Dale's boss, General Hammond of the SGC, thought her piece on Mongo was good Halloween material. Flash became a rabble rouser for Terek, who survived an assassin sent by Azura.
Ming's army got stuck in Frigia. He demanded a prophecy from the monks, discovered that Rankol is one of them and had Rankol gaoled. FMCC agents in shades went after Dale when she broadcast her news about Mongo, so she eventually fled to Mongo with Mrs. Gordon, driving a camper van through a rift inches ahead of the Men In Shades.
Rankol pretended to be Zarkov's pal but Baylin stunned him after extracting a blood sample to gain access to his lab. Aura accused Ming of being the source of Terek's deviate DNA after discovering that their mother is Vestra. So he ordered her locked up; but Flash rescued her and she looted Ming's armoury. Rankol joined Terek's cause. Ming gave Vestra 'grey water' to make her a deviate.
Terek moved on Ming's city and at the end, Flash found his dad hooked up to a computer in Rankol's lab. And Dr. Gordon blew a fuse when unplugged! To be continued . . .
21. Revolution (2)
Flash revived his dad with an electric shock and Ming personally executed Terek's messenger instead of surrendering. Azura offered her green, spear-wielding savages to Ming, whose army was mainly stuck in Frigia. Dr. Gordon told Flash that he had to take the core off-line before destroying the rift generator. Dale & Mrs. Gordon caught up with Flash and his dad.
Ming kept getting rotten prophecies from the Monks. Dale & Baylin opened the city's gates. Ming and Flash had a punch-up. Aura had Ming put in gaol and freed her mother, Vestra. Dr. & Mrs. Gordon returned to Earth with the Imex but Flash, Dale & Zarkov got into a scrap with green warriors and the auto-destruct went off.
Ming was zapped in his own gas chamber. Then Zarkov announced that the rift blaster wouldn't work without the rift generator, which meant that he, Flash and Dale were stuck on Mongo.
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