Star Driver - Episode 24

Even a show as largely dull and tepid as Star Driver can't screw up its penultimate episode on account of being too dull... although episode twenty-four certainly tries its best at doing just that before the sheer weight of interesting stuff available to the series finally forces its way through.

Ignoring the largely uninteresting slice of life angle to the episode, things start to warm up as Head's "experiment" (for want of a better word) Shingo awakes, transferring his powers to Takuto's daddy and thus bringing us a step closer to the prospect of some excitement.  It's up to Keito to do the rest of the work however, as she pledges herself to Sugata in the aftermath of his defection to the Glittering Crux (the guy just couldn't resist the opportunity to swan around in a daft costume, I suspect) and thus kicks off the beginning of the end... of this series, if not the whole island and beyond.

With Kanako showing a surprising amount of concern for the island's residents and Keito providing a flashback that neatly sums up the origins of her connection to Sugata and how it relates to Wako and Sugata's own relationship, it's finally Zero Time... err, time.  This gives the show the chance of two big reveals as Keito shows her face as a Glittering Crux member before Sugata makes his fabulous entrance for the Glittering Crux.  Head breaks Keito's maidenly seal (ooh-err missus) using his own newly procured Cybody, bringing them into the next phase and, with Sugata seemingly ready to make use of his own power to help things along, Takuto seems to be in an almighty pinch.

Okay, I have to confess, the end of this week's episode of Star Driver was pretty damn cool - once I'd suppressed my laughter at the sheer stupidity of nobody recognising any Glittering Crux member until they remove their mask and go "hey, guess who?!", there were some awesome visuals on show and everything seems set up right to deliver a finale free from all the fluff and nonsense that the series has drowned in up to this point.  The fact that it took half the episode to get to this "good bit" remains a blatant reminder of everything that's wrong with Star Driver, but at least for once it seems set to actually deliver on its potential - if only it hadn't left it so late to do so.