Two things catch my attention in this episode. The more obvious is that it marks the departure of Rob Lowe. I am not surprised. Have you ever attended a class in drawing? One of the skills you are (almost always) made to develop is the ability to draw negative space. That is, to identify the universe that does not include your flower, castle or other item of interest. So it is for me with Sam Seaborn. Whenever he appeared, I could sense the world around him, but as for the character, no - just an empty space. Often when Sam appeared I didn't actually recognise him. (Who's this guy?) Any character seen by the public in a dramatic role is actually a team, in this case critically the writers, the directors and the actor. So this cannot be attributed to Rob Lowe, rather to a mismatch between the actor and the rest of the team. And this is where I think we have to delve further into the team, to the producers and the casting department. Lowe had principal billing for the best part of four years, with an essentially vacant character and then got axed? WTF? Something was wrong somewhere, and I don't think we (the audience) have a clue about it. The second aspect of this episode to catch my attention is the question of privateers. Why should anyone attract execration because of their relationship to a privateer? Back in the 16th-18th-ish centuries, governments would issue Letters of Marque to appropriate bold sea-captains, authorising them to attack and seize any vessel belonging to a nation at war with the issuing government. (So Elizabeth I gave Francis Drake a Letter of Marque authorising him to attack and seize any Spanish vessel.) Privateers were essentially the naval equivalent of "a well-regulated militia", operating under the licence and conditions of their Letters of Marque, and relieving governments of the need to maintain an independent navy. In the late eighteenth century the British government realised that there was a significant threat from France, and decided that there was a need for a consolidated national navy. This led to the cutting down of all the trees in most of the forests of the UK. But it gave us the Royal Navy. Since then, the UK has not needed privateers, but they were a welcome addition to any country's naval force in their time. No one need be ashamed because one of their ancestors was a privateer - they were (generally) honourable men, fighting in defence of their country.
