In the first episode, "Best Friends Forever," a storm has the crew scrambling to hold The Condor together, but Piper has been left outside. Thankfully, when all is clear, she shows up again, this time with a new friend named Lark. It seems that Lark's knowledge in how various crystals react to each other is rivaled only by Piper's abilities and it was with the use of one of her crystals that Lark was able to save Piper in the storm. But all isn't quite right on The Condor as Lark seems to rub Radarr the wrong way and when a recon mission goes wrong, we find out that Lark isn't exactly who she claims to be.
In the next episode, "The Black Gorge," The Condor goes down into a deep abyss that is legend for housing some of the meanest and most dangerous monsters in all of Atmos. To make matters worse, a strange energy field that permeates the Gorge seems to drain energy out of all crystals, so The Condor won't be able to lift off again, not without more power. Thankfully, Stork's paranoia and constant preparedness for disasters comes in handy when he pulls out his Black Gorge Survival Kit. It contains a map of where all the nasties in the Gorge are, as well as the location of the one place that gets sunlight for two minutes each year. The squad decide to take their only Sol Stone to that location, recharge it and get The Condor out of the abyss. Thankfully, those two minutes of sunlight are just around the corner and all they have to do is face off against living tar, giant man eating plants and evil sloths in order to get there.
"Absolute Power" has Aerrow leaving the team to go on a separate mission, one that requires minimal personnel, and Finn asks to take charge (instead of Piper who usually is in command when Aerrow isn't around). Unfortunately for the crew, Finn's abilities to lead aren't all that great and he ends up irritating everyone, forcing them to stay in their room and trying to run the whole air-ship by himself. He, of course, quickly realizes that he needs everyone else's help (especially when the crew starts sabotaging the ship in order to keep him busy) and they get their act together just in time to help Aerrow in his escape.
The last two episodes, "Velocity" and "Fire and Ice," show the Sky Hawks interacting with other Sky Knight squadrons. In "Velocity," the Sky Hawks take part in a race among Knights that will prove which team is the best. Unfortunately, some underhand dealings start going on and while each of the skimmers that take place in the race are being supped up beyond belief, each of the squadrons are sacrificing valuable parts from the other skimmers and air-ships to make those upgrades. So when a Cyclonian attack occurs, no one is ready and the Sky Knights can't defend themselves. It's up to the Sky Hawks to gather up all of the pieces and work with the other Knights in order to stop the assault.
In "Fire and Ice," the squad visits a group of Blizzarians who have colonized a formerly desert terrain and made it a winter wonderland. They had to find a new place to live because the Cyclonians have run them out of their former home; unfortunately, the Blizzarians and their Sky Knights didn't realize this was a popular vacation spot for the Cyclonian Raptors, who don't really appreciate the colder temperatures. Needless to say, this episode also has some environmental messages in it since the Blizzarians changed the environment without regard to the native species that prefer the much hotter temperatures.
While there isn't a whole lot of story-arch progress made in these episodes, ones like "Absolute Power" and "Best Friends Forever" have potential to be referenced later since some of the interaction between the characters (like Lark and Piper or Aerrow's side mission) could be brought up again. Even if it doesn't further the overall story, it is still good fun and character development and fans of the show shouldn't shy away from this DVD.
