Today's episode begins with Vegeta and Trunks flying off to do battle with the evil Cell, now in his new and improved second self. At the same time, Goku and his son, Gohan enter the Hyberbolic Time Chamber to get a years worth of training in a single day.

Meanwhile as Vegeta and Trunks speed along, Cell continues his efforts to find 18 by blowing up the multitudes of small islands that they could possibly be hiding in. Yippie.

So 18 and 16 sit really

really

really

still.

16 tells 18 that if they remain in their current location, Cell will be unable to find them. Cell is just about to blow the last island when Vegeta shows up.

So after a brief dialogue and cracks from both sides about how this isn't going to be challenge for either of them.

Vegeta powers up.

For 7 minutes. I actually counted.

The Review:

This of course is the prelude episode to some serious action will grace your TV's on Monday, but I figured they could have done a little more in terms of the plot in those 7 minutes. Why didn't they show Goku and Gohan already underway in their training, since time should be accelerated in the hyperbolic time chamber.

If you think about it, 1 year = 365 days, and the HTC gives a years time in 1 day = 24 hours. So you figure that:

365 x 24 = 7665 Hours <--- Here's the number of hours that Goku and Gohan will experience in the HTC

times that by 60 = 459900 Minutes Spent in 1 day at the HTC

24 x 60 = 1440 <--number of minutes in the real world during the 24 hour period.

So.....

To see how much time has elapsed in the HTC in 1 minute outside, we use simple division:

459900/1440 = 319.3 minutes has elapsed in the Hyperbolic time chamber while 1 minute has occurred outside:

SO HERE'S THE POINT:

While Vegeta was powering up for 7 minutes, 37 HOURS had already passed in the hyperbolic time chamber, and that doesn't count the rest of the time Vegeta spent getting to Cell.

So doesn't it seem odd that Goku and Gohan spent at least 37 hours talking about how weird the HTC was?

***This is why you should learn higher mathematics, physics and all that good stuff. Why, because then you can do what's REALLY important; over-analyzing a DBZ episode and pondering the space-time dynamics within that animated universe.***

SIDE NOTE: Did you know there are actually people who get paid to do just that? They're the technical advisors to movies and TV Shows, Star Trek has a whole team of them, and there IS such a thing as anti-matter!

Alright, there was my educational piece for the day.

The animation was retty good, better than the Frieza Saga, but still not as crisp as some of the later Cell episodes. The bantering between Cell and Vegeta was pretty good, and 16 seemed very true to his android self when saying "if we remain in our current location." Nice. Well, other than that little inconsistency with the "Time Problem", it was a good plot day in terms of fore-shadowing. Expect to see the start of a good rumble come Monday.

Celestrian gives this episode:

5 Dragon Balls out of 7.

-Celestrian