"THE CLONE WARS" SEASON TWO. SWA's TOP FIVE EPISODES. NO 4: "GRIEVOUS INTRIGUE"

Dark versus Light: the clash of lightsabers in GRIEVOUS INTRIGUE.

The DVD and Blu-ray release celebration countdown to my favourite Season Two episodes continues with GRIEVOUS INTRIGUE.

Here's my top five reasons as to why its on the list:

1. General Grievous. After a months Xmas break, the second season resumed with the kind of explosive start it needed and deserved, with the re-emergence of the vile and cowardly Cyborg bully, who has nothing on his mind but conquest and the destruction of the Jedi. And in this episode he has a veritable stable of its top members to fight against, starting off with an epic duel, alongside his nasty servant Magna Droids with Eeth Koth, who he captures and viciously tortures, followed by one of several early pre-EPISODE III face-offs against Obi-Wan, and then Adi Gallia. After his absence for over a year, Grievous's re-introduction, always carefully planed for by the series producers so that he doesn't get over-used, added more well deserved menace and action to the series. And, like the JAMES BOND villains of old, he just doesn't play to the rules of combat at all, giving him an unpredictable edge, ready to sacrifice his droids and anyone else, against his Jedi enemies that's fun to watch.

2. The lightsaber battles. The lightning fast opener between Grievous and Koth was terrific, as was the great Obi-Wan battle (I loved the sparring conversations they have: pure STAR WARS), and then that battle with Kenobi, Gallia and the Clone Troopers (I always like to see a force of our bucket head troops get stuck in for some brute force, hand to hand combat against the general. I think Nick Gillard, Stunt Co-ordinator on the Prequel films, would have been proud of some of the choreographed action on display here.

3. More Jedi. Great to see Koth (no longer dead from the Expanded Universe) and Gallia finally become realised in animation form and in action. Overall, it was one of the strengths of this season that we got to see a lot more of the other Temple Jedi, too (like the fun Tera Sinube, who gets a nice showcase in the enjoyable LIGHTSABER LOST). Too bad about the unused Sistine Chapel overhead shot, though (recently mentioned on the Blu-ray release by Dave Filoni-he's promised it will apprear one day!).

4. Anakin in action! Another chance to see our baddie to be in some fine heroics and daredevil piloting, it was a great scene where he uses his ship to board Grievous's upside down, followed by a cool duel against the Tactical Droid and its Battle Droid acolytes (as well as those rather deadly and very cool Commando Droids) in order to rescue the bridge held Koth.

5. Great staging. Taking a beat from the previous CARGO OF DOOM, the pace of the adventure story never flags in its plotting (nicely written by Ben Edlund) and execution, with some cool retro references to Classic STAR WARS thrown in (like the homage to EPISODE IV's opening boarding battle, but with Clone Troopers as the goodies!). GRIEVOUS INTRIGUE is extremely well edited and directed (the latter by series regular Giancarlo Volpe).

STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS Season Two - out in the UK on DVD and Blu-ray from November 15th.