Difference between revisions of "Locations"

Latest revision as of 17:33, 22 July 2009

The Quests are famous for their globetrotting adventures, covering locales both familiar and mysterious. As Peter Lawrence wrote:

"Intense. Photorealistic. Every locale is caught in its most dramatic moments. Every geographic, climatic mood pushed to its extreme. A world whose look matches—extends—the range, the sophistication and the drama of the stories. A world where a decaying urban centre is as exotic as a Himalayan mountain peak. Where a National Park forest can be as mysterious as the Amazon Jungle. Where the White House can be the domain of an extraterrestrial spy and the Everglades the home of a hitherto undiscovered band of Viking Native Americans. Arctic and Antarctic. Unexplored submarine canyons. South American jungles and Australian wilds. African plains. Russian steppes. Every corner of the world yields its mysterious secrets to Jonny Quest. But Jonny goes beyond our known world, exploring legends of the supernatural, of lost civilizations and wrinkles in time—finally entering the Virtual Reality of Cyberspace."

This page will feature brief coverage of each location the Quests visit, with longitude and latitude presented on the show (although these measures were often wrong; be careful). Also featured are mythological or scientific backgrounds for episode plots. Paul Robison has contributed a work-in-progress Google Maps board for the Quests' destinations; check it out here.

Multiple

• Quest Compound
• Questworld

101 The Darkest Fathoms

Location: Bermuda Island 65.27W, 33.04N (1,080 miles)
Reality: Bermuda and surrounding areas
Myth: Bermuda Triangle

Mr. Avary and his crew explore for oil in the area, and are attacked by the Black Jack Lee Impostor, who safeguard the wreck of the Ivory Web in hopes of recovering its treasure. Dr. Quest comes with an investigation, exposing the impostor's plans; soon after, the wreck is lost in a trench.

Bermuda is a populated British overseas territory in the North Atlantic ocean. It's associated in popular culture with the Bermuda Triangle, a conceptual triangle with points at Bermuda, the coast of Florida, and the coast of Puerto Rico, and the subject of urban legends about ship and airplane disappearances. Though the rate of disappearances and crashes is the same for any other stretch of ocean in the world, the Bermuda Triangle remains a popular choice in disaster and paranormal fiction.

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  As seen from the Questor

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  A real-world image of Bermuda

102 Escape to Questworld

Location: Chicago, Illinois 88.03W, 43.82N (953 miles)
Reality: Chicago, Illinois

Jeremiah Surd plans to hold the city of Chicago ransom in 1978 with nerve gas; Race Bannon leads a SWAT team to stop him, resulting in Surd's paralysis. Years later, construction crews demolishing an old building accidentally release the nerve gas, causing Dr. Quest and Race to fly in to fix the problem as Jonny, Jessie, and Hadji try to track down Surd. Though Surd evades the kids, their fathers are able to stop the nerve gas.

Chicago is a huge city and the most populous in the American state of Illinois. Founded in 1833, the city became an important telecommunications, financial, and transport hub, famously idolized as such in a poem by Carl Sandburg. The city has a rich cultural diversity and is the annual host of several events and celebrations. The city has several nicknames honoring its important status in America, and is growing in population as several lower class neighborhoods become gentrified. Chicago is also the home of several famous American sports franchises, such as the Bears, Bulls, Cubs, and White Sox, and was an important center for the growth of blues music in the 20th century.

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  As seen in the episode

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  The real Chicago's river

103 In the Realm of the Condor

Location: Peruvian Rain Forest 74.64W, 1.84S (3,256 miles)
Reality: Rainforest
Myth: El Dorado, the city of gold

The Quests set out for the rain forest with Estella Scheele, hoping to find her lost grandfather and possibly the city of El Dorado, occupied by descendants of the Chavín culture. They succeed in their search, but Estella takes a native boy hostage, hoping to leave the city and return to collect the wealth of its gold. She'd foiled by Jonny's heroics, and the Quest team keep the existence of the city a secret to preserve it.

Rainforest are forests with extremely high precipitation and life density, accounting for more of earth's species than any other climatological zone. Most of the Amazon River winds through the tropical rainforest of South America, which hosts several tribes of indigenous people—some isolated from civilization at large. The legend of El Dorado also originated from South American legends, eventually evolving to that of a kingdom made from gold that a few foolhardy explorers struggled to find. Both isolated tribes and the city of El Dorado blend in the episode's story.

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  Rain forest from the episode

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  El Dorado from the episode

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  Rio Madre de Dios, Peru

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  Muisca raft, representation of the initiation of the new Zipa in the lake of Guatavita, possible source of the legend of El Dorado

104 Rage's Burning Wheel

Location: Cape Canaveral, Florida 81.24W, 29.31N (N/A miles), Moscow, Russia 36.21E, 57.11N (7,625 miles) Reality: Cape Canaveral, Moscow

Ezekiel Rage hijacks a space shuttle to manufacture a molecule in space that will destroy the ozone layer of the earth. Jonny and Jessie struggle to return order at Cape Canaveral's mission control, while Race flies to Russia in an SR-71 Blackbird to board a Russian shuttle with Natasha Rostova and stop Rage's plan. A climactic confrontation occurs on an abandoned space station, which crashes into the sea with Rage aboard.

Cape Canaveral is a headland off the coast of Florida, where Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and the nearby Kennedy Space Center launch shuttles and other spacecraft for NASA missions. The site allows missions to take advantage of the earth's rotation by launching eastward; the downrange area is ocean, reducing hazard of debris in case of accidents. Though Race goes to Moscow to solicit Natasha's support, he probably blasted off from one of Russia's launch centers—possibly Kapustin Yar or Plestetsk Cosmodrome.

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  Mission control in the episode

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  The episode's Russian launch site

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  A real-life photograph of Cape Canaveral launch pad 39A and neighboring pad

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  A real-life photograph of Red Square, Moscow

105 Ndovu's Last Journey

Location: Tanzania, Serengeti National Park 35.04E, 3.51S (N/A miles)
Reality: Serengeti National Park
Myth: Elephant's graveyard

The Quests journey to the Serengeti to take pictures of wildlife when an elephant named Ndovu attacks their vehicle. The elephant recognizes Jonny as a kindred spirit, and an old Masai tells him to accompany the elephant to the elephant's graveyard, where it can die peacefully. The Quests find it, but poachers did as well, threatening to kill them and take the ivory. Ndovu kills the poachers and passes on.

Serengeti National Park is a Tanzanian wildlife reserve and the country's most popular tourism draw. Tanzania had the native Masai dwellers controversially moved from the area. The elephant's graveyard myth is represented faithfully. The origin of the legend is unclear, but some believe it resulted from explorers finding group die-off sites with several elephant skeletons. They postulate that elephants, in lean times, may herd together to find easier food, and subsequently die in close proximity.

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  The park as shown in the episode

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  The graveyard as shown in the episode

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  A real-life photograph of the entrance sign to the park

106 Manhattan Maneater

Location: New York City, New York 74.32W, 40.05N (N/A miles), Darjune National Forest, India 72.13E, 27.29N (10,000 miles from NYC)
Reality: New York City
Myth: Mole people

The Quests come to New York City to investigate mysterious killings, and discover that the killer is a white tiger escaped from a drug lord's estate. Local personality Vince Vance and a famous hunter post a reward at a press conference in Central Park and sensationalize the tiger's hunt, but the Quests safely capture the tiger and take it to Darjune National Forest in India, allowing NYC citizen Karl set it free.

New York City is one of the most famous cities in history, and sometimes considered the capital of the world. Central Park is an urban park in the heart of New York City, visited by more than 25 million people annually. New York hosts an extensive subway network, responsible for legends about deep, abandoned underground passages and tribes of homeless "mole people" living in them. The episode features both locales, as the climax occurs in an old subway tunnel. "Darjune National Forest" is a fabrication of the writers.

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  The Quests' press conference

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  Confrontation in the tunnels

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  A real-life photograph of Central Park

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  A real-life NYC subway tunnel

107 East of Zanzibar

Location: Republic of Seychelles, Christie Island 55.02E, 2.05S (N/A miles)
Reality: Republic of Seychelles
Science: Giant squid

The Quests investigate a series of whaling vessel attacks in the Republic of Seychelles, thought to be the work of a giant squid. Instead, they find Captain Havell, a submarine captain obsessed with saving the whales. Though Havell captures Jonny and Hadji, the Quests escape as a real giant squid drags down Havell's submarine.

The Republic of Seychelles is an archipelago consisting of 115 islands east of the African coast. The British contested the island with the French for several years, eventually annexing the islands as a crown territory. They granted independence in 1976, and tourism has contributed to a large part of the modern economy. The Republic's official languages are English and French. The giant squid seen in the episode is larger than current scientific measurements of giant squid, which are very real creatures, and have been part of seafaring legend for centuries.

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  As seen in the episode

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  A real-life photograph of Victoria, capital city

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  An early sketch of a squid specimen

108 Assault on Questworld

Location: Republic of Seychelles, Christie Island 55.02E, 2.05S (N/A miles)
Reality: Mugu District, Nepal

While most of the action takes place at the Quest Compound, Dr. Quest and Race visit a remote area in the Mugu district of Nepal for a phenomenology visitation. They can only communicate with home via satellite flyover, but their colleague Prasad is able to awaken Hadji during an attack by Jeremiah Surd, saving the Quest teens.

The Mugu District of Nepal is part of the Karnali Zone, and had a population of only 43,937 across several villages in 2001. The largest lake in Nepal—Rara Lake, or Mahendra Daha, also lies in the Mugu district.

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  A remote dwelling seen in the episode

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  Mugu district real-life location

109 Ezekiel Rage

Location: Southeastern New Mexico 104.12W, 33.81N (N/A miles)
Reality: New Mexico

The Quests come to New Mexico to visit Dr. Hugo Smallwood, a colleague of Dr. Quest's who's reported a strange bat-creature in the area. They find that the creature is Ezekiel Rage, a former government agent planning to use a remote storehouse of nerve gas and nuclear waste to terrorize the country. The Quests stop Rage and return Smallwood to his single dwelling in the desert.

New Mexico is a southwestern state in America; its geography and climate include forested mountains and arid, desert zones, mostly in the state's southern region. The state has its share of government and military installations, including Los Alamos, where the atomic bomb was invented, and the White Sands Proving Grounds, where it was first tested. New Mexico also features the famous Carlsbad Caverns.

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  As seen in the episode

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  A real-life photograph of NM desert landscape

110 Alien in Washington

Location: Washington, D.C.
Reality: Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C. serves as the stage for a showdown between General Tyler, proponent of an American space-based defense program, and The Vice President of the United States, member of an alien race that doesn't want the defense system created. The alien race causes holographic scenes of destruction to appear in the main control room of the Pentagon to persuade the Americans. The Quests help the Vice President restore contact with his home species to inform them of their plan's success, but he leaves after his identity is discovered.

Washington, D.C. is the capital of the United States of America, and faithfully represented in the episode. It hosts the meeting places for all three branches of American government, as well as several national monuments and many international embassies. The Pentagon, headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, also resides in the city.

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life aerial view of important buildings

111 Return of the Anasazi

Location: Southeastern New Mexico 104.12W, 33.81N (N/A miles)
Reality: Ancient Pueblo Peoples and their dwellings
Myth: Roswell UFO Incident, Men in Black

In 1947, an alien ship from a race that cultivated technology and mingled with the ancient Anasazi returned to earth to visit a shaman, but crashed near Roswell, not far from the Anasazi shaman's site. The government used recovered technology to make hybrid vehicles and weapons for their Men in Black agency. Years later, Alice Starseer, descendant of the shaman and old friend of Dr. Quest, sent her grandfather's beacon shaman to Dr. Quest after her attempt to contact the alien race provoked interest from the Men in Black. The Quests made their way to New Mexico and helped Alice summon the aliens, who drove away the Men in Black and took Alice on a voyage.

The Ancient Pueblo Peoples had dwellings in a wide swath around the four corners region of the southwestern United States. One of their claims to fame is their architecture, especially their adobes built within cliff landings. The word "Anasazi" is Navajo (that is, non-Pueblo) in origin, and came to use in the early 20th century. Other terms are now replacing it, although Anasazi is still used with other terms to identify certain archaeological cultural units. Regarding the episode's myth, the Roswell incident was the crash of an unidentified craft near Roswell and subsequent recovery by the United States Air Force. While historical and contemporary accounts provide a likely, scientific explanation, the crash has become the subject of and inspiration for countless fictional works about aliens and conspiracy theories—such as the Men in Black, thought to be agents of aliens or shadowy governmental agencies sent to collect information on UFO sightings and quell curiosity.

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  As seen in the episode

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  As seen in the episode

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  As seen in Cover-Up At Roswell

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  Real-life photograph of Canyon de Chelly

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  Real-life photograph of Pueblo Bonito Aerial Chaco Canyon

112 The Alchemist

Location: San Francisco 37.48N, 122.24W (3,684 miles)
Reality: San Francisco
Myth: Philosopher's stone

The Quests and their colleague Montegue are hired to find the Philosopher's Stone in a remote part of Asia. They succeed, but Montegue wants to test the legend of alchemy out rather than yield it to a museum. He steals the stone from its museum in San Francisco and successfully creates gold from base metal, using it to purchase an even bigger mansion and laboratory. Corrupted by his desire for wealth, he has the Quest teen kidnapped to operate the machinery; however, the spirit of the stone appears and destroys the laboratory, probably killing Montegue and his thugs.

San Francisco serves only as a generic urban backdrop for the events of the episode. Center of the San Francisco Bay Area, the city is famous for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture, and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, and Chinatown. The legend of the Philosopher's stone is represented faithfully. It was also believed by some to be an elixir of life, rejuvenating power, and tool for achieving immortality.

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life photograph of the San Francisco skyline

113 Trouble on the Colorado

Location: Southeastern New Mexico 104.12W, 33.81N (N/A miles)
Reality: Colorado River; the Anasazi graineries

The Quests venture to an Anasazi grainery near the Colorado River to meet with Alice Starseer, who's returned from her intergalactic journey to lay her grandfather to rest. They land on Lake Powell and raft to the location. Jeremiah Surd and his lackeys pursue, capturing Dr. Quest, Race Bannon, and Alice Starseer, who they connect to Questworld to gain access to the alien homework's technology. Jonny, Jessie, and Hadji turn the tables on Surd, and Alice performs her burial ceremony.

The Colorado River is a long river in the southwestern United States that drains into the Gulf of California (though less reliably since the basin found use in irrigation). The river runs through the Grand Canyon, and the Hoover Dam is also built on it. Several southwestern cities procure water from river aqueducts, including Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Bernardino, San Diego, Phoenix, and Tucson. Anasazi graineries were used for the storage of grain foodstuffs, and some existed high on cliffsides, exactly as depicted in the episode.

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  As seen in the episode

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  As seen in the episode

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life photograph of the Colorado River

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  Real-life photograph of graineries on the river

114 In the Wake of the Mary Celeste

Location: Sargasso Sea 66.12W, 33.24N (868 miles)
Reality: Sargasso Sea
Myth: Mary Celeste and its disappearance

Dr. Quest and Hadji venture to the Atlantic ocean in the Questor to find the wreck of the Mary Celeste by channeling the past life of a man named Max Schumaker. Max is secretly Derek Ironwood, an old government agent who planned to use the Quests' diving vessels to recover gold from the wreck. Race and Jonny arrive after Dr. Quest and Hadji go missing, and they rescue their friends. Ironwood nearly gets away with the gold, but strange, green phenomena erupt from the sea and claim him, just as it did the Mary Celeste.

The Sargasso Sea is the name of a huge swath of the northern Atlantic Ocean, and is home to a gyre and its maritime perils. It is the only sea without a shore. It's home to huge patches of floating seaweed, as well as eels that breed underneath. Plastic, non-biodegradable waste accumulates at the center, similar to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The area has been used in mystery fiction, and proved suitable for the resting place of the Mary Celeste, a ship that was mysteriously abandoned en route to the Straits of Gibraltar. The closest coastal settlement to the Quests in the episode is the fictional San Esteban, where Race and Jonny try to enlist help in finding Dr. Quest.

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life photograph showing floating seaweed

115 AMOK

Location: Borneo, South Pacific 107.34E, 4.05N (12,369 miles)
Reality: Borneo
Myth: Running amok

While on an archaeological investigation of temples in Borneo, the Quests find a man claiming to be Mitchell Stramm, member of an operation to recover humanitarian antibiotics. Stramm recounts the tale of being attacked by an amok monster. The Quests discover via a government query that Stramm is a mercenary named James Compton. Compton finds his captured friends at a remote village whose chief is Major Orde Wingate, the lost British war hero. He releases the men, hoping to deal with the monsters to restore a drug trade, but the Quests and a real amok monster dispatch the mercenaries and restore order.

Borneo is the third-largest island in the world, located in southeast Asia and home to three distinct nationalities. Borneo features jungles (including huge swamp peat bogs), rivers, and extensive cave systems. The term "amok" came from incidents in which an individual elephant would leave its herd and run wild, causing aggressive damage. The term now refers to a culture-bound syndrome for some southeast Asians (usually males) in which a person with no previous inclination towards anger suddenly becomes violent, sometimes injuring and killing others or committing suicide.

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life photograph of the forest

116 Besieged in Paradise

Location: Hawaii, United States (N/A miles)
Reality: Hawaii
Science: Animal echolocation

While on an apparent vacation in Hawaii, the Quests are attacked by whales. Unknown to them, Jeremiah Surd has decoded the cetacean sonic Internet through Questworld, and is using it to spur whales to acts of controlled aggression and destruction. The Quests struggle to leave deadly waters while Race meets with Captain Havell, protector of whales from East of Zanzibar. Havell torpedoes Surd's boat, and the Quests are saved.

Hawaii is an archipelago and American state located west of the Californian coast in the Pacific Ocean. Hawaii is a popular vacation destination, and also supports American naval military bases (most famously Pearl Harbor). Animal echolocation (in the case of cetaceans, "whalesong") is the use of animal sound or biosonar to locate predators, prey, or other objects and entities in an animal's environment. Scientists Roger Payne and Douglas Web calculated that whalesong could travel several thousands of miles of deep ocean in the eras before human ship traffic and noise pollution. The episode capitalizes on this with the idea that whales can communicate globally through a sonic Internet.

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life photograph of the Hawaiian coast

117 The Spectre of the Pine Barrens

Location: New Jersey Pine Barrens 74.04W, 40.51N (N/A miles)
Reality: New Jersey Pine Barrens
Myth: Jersey Devil

Jonny, Hadji, and Dr. Quest travel in the New Jersey Pine Barrens using the Quest Airstream Motor Home to locate the Jersey Devil, a creature of myth said to kidnap children. When Hadji gets a signal, Dr. Quest diverts the Queststream to follow it, accidentally crashing it on an embankment. The Quests discover two families—one swearing loyalty to the British, the other to American revolutionaries—that have existed in isolation since the American Revolutionary War. A confrontation reconciles the families, and the Quests leave with the true original Declaration of Independence.

The New Jersey Pine Barrens is a huge wooded area in New Jersey, given the name "barrens" because of its sandy, acidic, nutrient-poor soil. The area is rural and largely undeveloped to this day, but its unique conditions allow for a wide diversity of life. The barrens often suffer forest fires, which actually help trees reproduce. The barrens are most famous for the legend of the Jersey Devil, a creature allegedly born as the thirteenth child of a woman named Mrs. Leeds. The creature supposedly has a horse-like head, and unleashes a blood-curdling scream when approached.

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  As seen in the episode

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  A real-life photograph of Lake Atsion

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  An old artist's rendering of the devil

118 Heroes

Location: Melos Island, Greece 26.32E, 37.01N (6,250 miles)
Reality: Milos
Myth: Apollo, Medusa

On the island of Milos, Quest Enterprises recovers a huge statue of Apollo, with Dr. Quest and Hadji present for the uncovering. The statue falls during extraction, breaking its head and releasing a mystical power. Dr. Quest employs Questworld to analyze the head pieces and reassemble them, but Jeremiah Surd intervenes to collect the mystical power, attempting to seal the Quests in Questworld by becoming Medusa. Jonny stops his plan and rescues the others.

Milos is a Greek island in the Sea of Crete, famous as the recovery site for several statues—most notably Venus de Milo. The island is volcanic, and hosted several early cultures that produced pottery and frescoes. Archaeologists recovered an archaic statue of Apollo from the island, possibly serving as the basis of this episode. Apollo is a key god in the Greek pantheon, associated with countless ideals and phenomena.

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  From the episode

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  Real-life photograph of a coastal settlement on Milos

119 The Ballad of Belle Bonnet

Location: Four Corners, Arizona 109.88W, 37.52N (N/A miles)
Reality: Four Corners

While caving near the Four Corners region, the Quests witness ghost-like phenomena from an underground lake. They discover that it's connected to the legend of Belle Bonnet, a fierce woman who attempted to rob a stagecoach so that the money could be used to keep a poor Native American school open. Two other robbers attacked the stagecoach that Belle had claimed, and in the resulting chaos, she fell through a sinkhole and died in the caverns. On a return trip, the Quests are betrayed by a fellow climber, but the ghost of Belle Bonnet kills him, and the Quests use the reward money for the stolen gold to keep the Native American school open in modern-day.

The Four Corners is the area around which the boundaries of the American states New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona meet. Most of the surrounding area is maintained by the Navajo Nation and the Ute Indian Reservation, which operates tourist amenities near Four Corners Monument, a ground-monument marking the site of the boundaries' intersection. The region is part of the Colorado Plateau, helping to stabilize weather systems that move eastward to the central United States. The nearest metropolitan area is Farmington, New Mexico.

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  As seen in the episode

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  Four Corners Monument

120 In the Darkness of the Moon

Location: The Yukon, Canada 135.71W, 65.33N (2,848 miles)
Reality: Yukon
Myth: Werewolf

A purported werewolf attack brings the Quests to the Yukon, where they meet Dr. Marie Metier, a humanitarian doctor aiding the local natives. They discover that she's the female descendant of a family cursed such that males become werewolves on the nights of full moons, and later find that the werewolf stalking the region is a blood male relative. They confront the beast, and Jonny heroically administers a serum developed by Metier and Dr. Quest that changes the werewolf back into a human permanently.

Yukon is the westernmost and smallest of Canada's three federal territories, bordering Alaska to the extreme north of the country. The territory is only sparsely populated, experiencing an Arctic climate that allows few crops to grow. The Yukon River runs through the territory, and the largest city and capital is Whitehorse, with a population of roughly 22,000. English is the most common language, though several groups of European or First Nations ancestry populate the area, some of them descended from gold miners who rushed to the region in search of fortune in the late 19th century. The Aurora Borealis can be seen from the Yukon.

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life photograph of the Yukon River

121 The Secret of the Moai

Location: Easter Island, Pacific Ocean 189.05W, 27.31S (5,750)
Reality: Easter Island
Science: Rongorongo

Thousands of years ago, an alien conducted DNA-altering experiments on ape-creatures on Easter Island; the alien's head bore a resemblance to the statues later built on the island. A volcanic eruption trapped the alien inside his ship beneath layers of manga—until the Quests drill it out while conducting an investigation. They find that rongorongo actually featured a musical script that could be used to alter DNA and evolve or devolve species. Jeremiah Surd is watching, and sends a strike team to take the technology, but the aliens return, sending Surd away and wiping the Quests' memories of their investigation.

Easter Island is a Polynesian island in the Pacific and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Colonization by Polynesians occurred sometime in the first millennium CE, and the residents constructed several moai monuments for which the island is famous. The island's populatoin fell into serious internecine conflict in the 17th and 18th centuries, and European profiteers and slave traders inadvertantly helped kill 97% of the population through disease and abduction. The ecosystem of the island also collapsed around this time through complete deforestation. The islanders made wood carvings with a possible writing system called rongorongo; the markings are undeciphered to this day, as the only literate members of Easter Island society died in the European interventions.

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life photograph of Easter Island monuments

122 Expedition to Khumbu

Location: Kingdom of Nepal, Khumbu 87.12E, 28.03N (N/A miles)
Reality: Khumbu
Science: Yeti

The Quests and an associate, Professor Kyle, visit a monastery in remote Khumbu said to house the disconnected arm and hand of a yeti. Dr. Quest becomes lost while exploring, and the other Quests struggle to find him as Kyle stages a monk coup at the monastery and retrieves the arm. The threads unite when Dr. Quest learns that yeti are descendants of neanderthals and an intelligent species. The coup is repressed and Kyle is killed; the Quests depart, keeping the secret of the yeti with them.

Khumbu is a subregion of the Sherpa settlement of the Himalaya Mountains, including Everest and the famous Tengboche monastery in its scope. Many Sherpa in the region can understand basic English, and several speak it fluently. The area is very popular with tourists for its peaks and other areas of exploration. Yeti are mythological creatures said to inhabit the Himalayas, and reported anecdotally starting in the 20th century. The episode probably draws on an alleged yeti scalp from the Pengboche monastery; scientific analysis proved the scalp was a forgery.

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life photograph of Namche Bazar in Khumbu

123 Ice Will Burn

Location: Northeastern Siberia 165.23E, 71.56N (7,536 miles)
Reality: Siberia
Myth: Hollow Earth

While flying over Siberia to a research station for a meeting with Dr. Quest, Jessie's Quest Jet crashes through a frozen surface and lands in a hollow world below. The world is inhabited by several descendants of Siberains who fell through the ice many years prior, and depend on a small volcano for warmth and habitation. Jessie makes friends with a girl in the group, Kazrina, and tries to stop child sacrifices to the volcano, whose power has been waning. The villagers turn on Jessie and Kazrina, but they escape in a homemade dirigible.

Siberia is a huge swath of Russian land that composes almost all of northern Asia, and is dominated by a taiga climate with a tundra along the northern edge. Siberia is sparsely inhabited, mostly populated by Russians and a few native ethnic groups. The area is rich in minerals and natural resources, and connected to western Russia via the Trans-Siberian Railway. The Hollow Earth theory is the idea that the planet is hollow inside, with underground civilizations living beneath the eath's crust. The idea is popular in fiction, and a tiny application of it appears in this episode.

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life photograph of Siberia

124 Future Rage

Location: Northeastern Siberia 0.00, 90.00N (2,475 miles)
Reality: North Pole
Science: Melting of Polar ice packs, Aurora Borealis

Ezekiel Rage hijacks Big Baby Two, a triple-power thermonuclear bomb, and has several copies manufactured and rigged to detonate in tandem at the North Pole to melt the polar ice packs. The Quests and federal agents from the United States launch separate missions to stop Rage, traveling across the snow beneath the Aurora Borealis. They eventually find Surd's base, and Jessie is able to distract Surd by appearing as his daughter Karla thanks to the Aurora long enough for the federal agents to bring it under control. Dr. Quest successfully disarms the nuclear bomb shortly after.

The North Pole refers to the point at which earth's north axis of rotation meets the earth surface. It's a point in the Arctic Sea, which is perpetually covered by ice pack. Explorers, tourists, and some military naval vessels often venture to the North Pole for novelty. Polar ice pack at the north and south poles help lock in methane and help regulate temperature. The North Pole's ice cap is expected to melt by 2014; in the episode, the effects of the nuclear blasts and nuclear winter would have been much more damaging than the melting of the pack ice. The Aurora Borealis (and auroras in general) are light displays that occur in the ionosphere due to interference between the earth's magnetic atmosphere and solar wind.

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life NOAA photograph of the North Pole

125 Alligators and Okeechobee Vikings

Location: Florida Everglades, Okeechobee 80.71W, 27.34N (N/A miles)
Reality: Everglades
Science: Viking expansion

Deep in the Florida everglades, apparent eco-terrorists attack a drilling rig operated by a man named Avary. He afterward calls in Dr. Quest to investigate the attack, but the Quests discover secret pumping stations meant to drain the Everglades and cause irreparable environmental damage, while Jonny and Hadji discover a lost Viking settlement. The Vikings have been raiding the drilling rig, understanding that it threatens the eco-system in which they live. Jonny and Hadji make friends, and the combined force leads another assault at night, freeing the captured Dr. Quest and Race, and destroying Avary's operations.

The Florida Everglades are subtropiocal wetlands in southern Florida that host an incredible diversity of plant and animal life. Americans originally tried to drain the Everglades and convert the land for urban and agricultural use, but after half of the wetlands were converted, conservation efforts began to save the ecosystem. The wetlands still suffer from declining water quality and invasive species, and conservation is proving difficult. The Viking cell draws on the real-life journeys of the Vikings to North America, though no evidence of a Viking settlement exists as far south as Florida.

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  As seen in the episode

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life photograph of Mangrove trees in the Everglades

126 To Bardo and Back

Location: Cheyenne, Wyoming 105.32W, 49.13N (1,746 miles)
Reality: Cheyenne, Wyoming
Myth: Bardo

While playing a game in Questworld, Jonny finds Jeremiah Surd, who takes the appearance of a huge bull to try and crush Jonny. He's thwarted, and the Quests go to Cheyenne, Wyoming to see Race participate in a bull-riding contest. Surd uses his tricks to infuriate the bull, who throws Race and puts him in critical condition. The Quests go into his mind and realize he's in Bardo, an intermediate state between life and death. They try to lure him back, but Surd arrives to try and push Race into the afterlife. Race recovers and turns the tables; Surd nearly dies before Julia and Lorenzo pull him out of Race's mind.

Cheyenne, Wyoming is the largest city and capital of the American state of Wyoming, with a population of roughly 53,000 measured by the 2000 census. The city appeared shortly after the Union Pacific Railroad was built through the area, and the city does host rodeos as seen in the episode. Bardo is a Tibetan word that means "intermediate state" and refers to six traditional states in Tibetan Buddhism. The episode probably draws on the Chikkhai bardo stage, known as the "Moment of Death", for their depiction of Race between life and death.

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  As seen in the episode

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life photograph of downtown Cheyenne, Wyoming

201 The Mummies of Malenque

Location: Colombia - 7.21N, 75.85W (2,675 miles)
Reality: Colombia
Science: Mummies

The Quests journey to Colombia to visit Estella Velasquez, Jessie's mother and Race's ex-wife. The teens quickly run into trouble when they encounter armed thugs. They escape, but soon set out for the jungle again, discovering a cave system. Inside is a laboratory, used by a man claiming to be the last descendant of the Malenque civilization and synthesizing a plague recovered from the Malenque mummies, who tried to use the plague in antiquity and were killed by it. Jessie is infected, but the Quests defeat the man and recover the antidote just in time to prevent her death.

Colombia is a large Spanish-speaking country in northwest South America. Considered a middle power with a rich cultural heritage, Colombia's rise and government has been challenged by insurgents and the cocaine trade. Though episode depicts step pyramids, such structures only existed in Mesoamerican cultures to the north, though other types of ruins exist in Colombia. The step pyramids in the episode closely resemble the archetypical pyramids of Teotihuacan, a famous archaeological site in Mexico.

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life photograph of the remains of a Muisca temple contemporarily called El Infiernito near Villa de Leyva

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  For illustration purposes, a real-life photograph of the Teotihuacan archaeological site

202 Rock of Rages

Location: Prague, Czech Republic 14.28E, 50.63N (5,475 miles)
Reality: Prague
Myth: Golem of Prague

Dr. Quest and his family fly to Prague to try and decipher the Golden Scriv, an item associated with the Jewish golem legend. He successfully activates the object, which can write on any surface, and his colleague uses it to activate the golem by writing a symbol on its forehead. Race learns that the man is an ex-KGB agent named General Vostok who plans to use the power of the golem to create a Communist world. The Quests regroup at Prague Castle, which is fortified against Vostok's golem attack. In the chaos of his offensive, the Quests strike the symbol from the golem's head, deactivating it.

Prague is the capital of the Czech Republic, and famous for being extremely well-preserved, sometimes called "The Golden City" for this reason. The city is divided into several districts and bisected by the Vltava River, across which the famous Charles Bridge spans. Prague Castle (with the cathedral of St. Vitus at its center) overlooks the city from high in the Hradčany (castle district), and the city features several other examples of antique architecture. The city suffered under Communist rule after World War II, but has recently enjoyed an economic bloom like most eastern-bloc states after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

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  As seen in the episode

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life photograph of Prague Castle

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  Real-life photograph of Prague Castle at night

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  Real-life photograph of several bridges (including the Charles Bridge) from within the castle district

203 Bloodlines

Location: Calcutta - 88.37E, 22.65N (10,751 miles)
Reality: Kolkata

Hadji uses Questworld to dredge his earliest memories, including one in which Pasha Peddler appears to try to kill him. He flies to Calcutta with the Quests to track down Pasha and ask him about the memories, but Pasha's shop is trashed. They're attacked by thugs then and later while flying the Dragonfly Jet, and accidentally land at the Sultan of Bangalore's palace. The Sultan reveals he's Hadji's cousin and promises to kill the Quests, who learn that Hadji was son of a former Sultan; Hadji also reconnects with his mother, Neela Singh, and the Quests break free, killing the evil Sultan Vikram in the process.

Kolkata, formerly known as Calcutta, is a large Indian city and was capital of India during the British Raj government. The city's area was occupied for centuries, but the city came to serious growth after English East India Company became involved with the site. The Japanese bombed the city in World War II, and since the partition of India and Pakistan, the city has suffered from ethnic, religious, and other forms of violence, and has often been strained by refugee movements. The city's economy stagnated in the latter 20th century, but has recently begun to recover. The city government is the longest democratically-elected Communist government in the world. For a description of Bangalore, check The Bangalore Falcon's entry.

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life photograph of a busy Kolkata street

204 Race Against Danger

Location: South Sea Island - 164.83E, 12.37S (7,590 miles)
Science: Cloaking device

Race and the rest of the family visit an old armed forces obstacle course that Race holds the record on. They're also there to witness the use of new holographic cloaking technology. The trip turns sinister when Dr. Quest and Hadji are kidnapped, leaving Race and Jonny to run the course, which has been outfitted with deadly traps. Lucius Kreed, an arms dealer from Race's past, appears to be running the course for his own enjoyment. They survive the course and confront Kreed, who turns out to be Greg Temple, Race's old Intelligence One partner who assumed Kreed's identity. They flee as the island self-destructs.

The island used in this episode is completely fictional.

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  As seen in the episode

205 The Dark Mountain

Location: Mount Washington, New Hampshire 71.66W, 44.21N (128 miles)
Reality: Mount Washington
Myth: Bigfoot

The Quests suffer a break-in, and the intruder seems to be Bigfoot. They also run in with two exotic game hunters who are pursuing the creature. Bigfoot stole a mechanical device with a homing beacon in it; the Quests use it to track the creature to Mt. Washington, and begin searching the mountain. They eventually find that the creatures are aliens in disguise who've waited for human civilization to produce technology capable of repairing their downed ship, hidden within the mountain. The hunters appear to bag the aliens and expose the secret, but the Quests overpower them and allow the aliens to leave.

Mt. Washington is a mountain in New Hampshire reputed for its incredibly harsh weather and high winds at the summit; it currently holds the record for the highest surface wind speed ever recorded at 231 mph (372 km/h). The summit experiences winds in excess of hurricane force on average for a third of each year. An unnaturally large amount of precipitation falls on the mountain, which is at the convergence of several storm tracks. A weather station operates on the mountain, which is also a popular tourist attraction and the site of a few annual marathons and races.

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life photograph of Mt. Washington

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  Real-life photograph of the observatory

207 Undersea Urgency

Location: Pacific Ocean, 200 Miles West of Chile 75.39W 24.85S (N/A miles)
Reality: Pacific Ocean
Science: Underwater habitat

Dr. Quest, Jonny, and Jessie visit the Verne Research Laboratory, a fully-habitable underwater research station set to open soon. Construction blasting opens a rift in the sea floor that unleashes several amphibious monsters who attack the station and kill several personnel. Jonny and Jessie struggle to get back to the main station while Dr. Quest and Dr. Simone Duval try to find a means of escape. Jonny and Jessie find a mini-submarine and save them, but Dr. Duval is killed and the station is effectively ruined by the attack.

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of earth's oceanic divisions, encompassing almost a third of the earth's surface. The episode features a huge underwater habitat; such structures have been used since the 1960s for research, both on underwater locales and the psychology and physiology of the humans inside them. The concept was pioneered by famous French ecologist Jacques Costeau. Though no underwater habitat has ever achieved anything close to the proportions shown in the episode, some small habitats are used for tourism and hotel services, and projects to create more ambitious hotels are planned across the world.

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life photorgraph of an underwater habitat called "Aquarius" and used for NASA training

208 Nemesis

Location: Malaysia 102.56E, 4.33S (13,308 miles)
Reality: Malaysia, Centre Spatial Guyanais
Science: Space weapon

Dr. Quest and the others venture to Mylenesia for the launch of the country's first telecommunications satellite. General Yala stages a military coup at the launch site, and Dr. Zin returns to reveal that the launch contained an orbital laser weapon, which he uses to threaten the world. The Quests escape his death trap at the launch site and attack his control center on board a ship, disabling it and defeating General Yala. The satellite, which contained a self-destruct failsafe, soon explodes, leaving the world safe from Zin's threat.

Malaysia is a country in southeast Asia consisting of thirteen states and three federal territories; its situated near the equator, and experiences a topical climate. Though the episode's itinerary screen says "Malaysia", the episode takes place in the fictional country of Mylenesia. The parallels are obvious, as Malaysia launched its first telecommunications satellite (MEASAT-1) in early 1996 from Centre Spatial Guyanais, a launch site that resembles the episode's.

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life image of Malaysian tea fields

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  Real-life image of a Centre Spatial Guyanais launch site

209 DNA Doomsday

Location: Solomon Islands, South Pacific 164.08E, 1.63S (2,856 miles from Hawaii 158.59W, 21.38N)
Reality: Solomon Islands
Science: Biocomputers

At Fort Latimer near the Solomon Islands, Dr. Karel pioneers a biological computer he calls the "Genoprocessor". The computer runs amok after a security simulation, assimilating identities of people it finds and running the course of the simulation—its directive being the launch of a nuclear missile at the United States. The Quests arrive to visit with Karel and find the escaped computer; they try to stop the launch, and Jonny enters Questworld to save the assimilated identities. Hadji succeeds in jeopardizing the DNA of the computer, and the people are saved the next day.

The Solomon Islands is a country consisting of nearly one-thousand islands and a constitutional monarchy with allegiance to the British royals. The islands were inhabited by Melanesian people for thousands of years before they became a protecterate of Britain. They achieved independence in the 1970s, and recently suffered ethnic violence and destabilization. Fort Latimer is a fictional creation, though the islands were used as a major staging area for Allied air raids in World War II.

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life aerial photograph of some of the islands

210 Ghost Quest

Location: Canada - 66.37W, 45.82N (221 miles)
Reality: Bay of Fundy

While sailing on the new Questor II, Jonny, Jessie, and Hadji find a mysterious island with a mansion inhabited by a gentle caretaker. He tells them that the mansion is the site of a tragic love story from the past, and that ghosts of the two lovers—Jean Leger and Lady Caroline—often appear. The ghosts possess Jonny and Jessie and begin fighting according to their original heartbreak as Hadji helplessly watches. The ghosts fortunately reconcile through their dialogue, and pass on with a kiss. The teens then leave the island, which completely disappears.

The Bay of Fundy is a bay on the Atlantic coast of North America, on the northeast end of the Gulf of Maine between the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, with a small portion touching the U.S. state of Maine. The Bay of Fundy is known for its high tidal range and the bay is contested as having the highest vertical tidal range in the world with Ungava Bay in northern Quebec and the Severn Estuary in the UK. Some sources believe the name "Fundy" is a corruption of the French word "Fendu", meaning "split", while others believe it comes from the Portuguese fondo, meaning "funnel." Folklore in the Mi'kmaq First Nation claims that the tides in the Bay of Fundy are caused by a giant whale splashing in the water. Tidal electric power generation is currently being investigated.

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life photograph of sea cliffs on the bay

211 Nuclear Netherworld

Location: Las Cruces, New Mexico 107.05W, 32.61N (N/A miles)
Reality: Las Cruces, New Mexico
Science: Biosphere 2

When an ecological dome project near Las Cruces poisons the local water supply with radioactivity, rancher and Jonny Quest's grandfather, Doug Wildey, sends a ranch hand to investigate. He turns up dead, and the dome's security force abducts Jonny, Hadji, and Doug, revealing that they're secretly mining uranium underneath the domes to sell to international buyers and arms makers. The three try to escape the mining facility, foiling the guards and forcing the leader of the operation to pursue them in a hovercraft. He crashes into radioactive material, and the mine is discovered by the authorities.

Las Cruces is the second largest city in New Mexico, proximate to argicultural regions fed by the Rio Grande and a few small systems of mountains. The White Sands Missile Range sits nearby. The ecological domes featured in the episode are most certainly taken from the Biosphere 2 project, an effort to build a closed ecosystem near Oracle, Arizona. Though controversial, Biosphere 2 facilitated fascinating scientific missions and experiments.

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life photograph of Las Cruces

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  Real-life image of Biosphere 2's exterior

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  Real-life image of Biosphere 2's interior

212 Eclipse

Location: New Orleans 90.14W, 30.52N (1,524 miles)
Reality: New Orleans
Myth: Succubus

Dr. Quest and Race leave Jonny, Hadji, and Jessie alone to have fun in New Orleans, but Hadji soon becomes spellbound by a woman named Elise after the teens save her form an apparent mugging. She's secretly a demon who drains the life of others for sustenance, and needs to do so every 50 years. Jonny and Jessie have a bad feeling about her, and pursue Hadji to her mansion. Jonny meets Arnaud, one of the apparent muggers, along the way; he explains the story, telling Jonny that Elise killed his sister years before. Together, Arnaud and the teens confront the demon and try to kill her with a silver sword. She falls, but possibly survives the attack.

New Orleans is the largest city in Louisiana and famous for its rich history and culture of music and celebration. The city is often called the most "unique" in America, and hosts annual celebrations reflecting its multilingual, multiethnic background; it is held to be the birthplace of jazz. It was founded by the French in the 18th century, and was acquired in 1803 by the United States of America with the Louisiana Purchase; the British nearly captured it in the War of 1812. The city grew to importance as a major port, and pumping systems allowed development of lower-level areas. The city's importance as a port waned in the 20th century, and it was decimated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

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  As seen in the episode

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life photograph of Bourbon Street

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  Real-life photograph of a residential street

213 Without a Trace

Location: Salt Lake City, Utah 112.14W, 42.31N (2,192 miles)
Reality: Salt Lake City

A government strike team arrests Dr. Quets and Race Bannon, accusing them of using a Questworld program to hijack Airforce One. The teens do some sleuthing and find out that Jeremiah Surd was behind the attack; they travel westward to Salt Lake City, where the plane is being covertly held. Surd captures them and flies the plane by remote control, setting it to unleash some of his nerve gas after a certain period of time. Through Questworld, Jonny and the others stop Surd and save the plane and president.

Salt Lake City is the capital of Utah and an important city to the Mormon church, which owns the central plaza and has its chief temple complex there. The town gets its name from the nearby Great Salt Lake, the largest salt lake in the western hemisphere of the earth. Salt lakes have higher salinity and mineral content than other lakes because water is not allowed to flow out of them, simply evaporating and leaving behind minerals.

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life photograph of Salt Lake Valley

214 Village of the Doomed

Location: Devon, England 4.13W, 51.32N (N/A miles)
Reality: Devon
Science: Mind control

Dr. Quest and Jonny venture to the Devon district of England to fish and rest on vacation, but they're attacked by a ravenous man. Dr. Quest learns at the local clinic that a professor is pioneering a mind control chip there for use in keeping populations happy and eradicating crime and sadness. Dr. Quest challenges the ethics of the program, but the corporation manufacturing the chip try to capture him and Jonny. A confrontation follows at the corporate headquarters in the country, and Jonny disables the satellite dish propagating the mind control, freeing the local town's denizens, who turn on the corporation.

Devon is a large county in southwest England, and the only in the country with two separate coastlines. The country contains England's only natural UNESCO World Heritage site, the Dorset and East Devon Coast—also known as the "Jurassic Coast" for its geology and features. It's also home to two national parks (Dartmoor and Exmoor), and enjoys a mild climate that aids in attracting tourists. Devon was one of the first areas settled after the last ice age, and was occupied by the Romans for around 250 years. The county has suffered a decline in some traditional industries, gaining greater reliance on tourism. Devon isn't actually a village, as depicted in the episode.

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life image of Saddle Tor in Dartmoor

215 Dark Sentinel

Location: Cameroon, Africa E15.31, S6.12 (6,181 miles)
Reality: Cameroon

In Cameroon, loggers are destroying trees that hold a sap with curative, perhaps cancer-curing powers. Tribal chiefs began unleashing the tribal guardian—a huge, menacing monster stored within the psyche of a boy named Ngama, and causing him serious, life-threatening injury each time it appears. The monster scares away the loggers, and Jonny goes into the boy's mind via Questworld, tricking the monster into destroying its entryway, and ensuring the boy will be safe from suffering another summoning in the future.

Cameroon is a country on the central-western shore of Africa, sometimes called "Africa in Miniature" for its geographic and cultural diversity; it's home to over 200 distinct ethnic groups. The country's official languages are English and French, originally being a German colony before being divided to the British and French after the first World War. The country enjoys high social and political stability, allowing for the construction of essential infrastructure and industry—including logging, seen in the episode. The country's government still suffers from corruption.

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life photograph of the Cameroonian countryside near Ngaoundal

216 Other Space

Location: Bayou near New Orleans 91.11W, 29.21N (1,587 miles)
Reality: Bayou
Science: Multiverse

The Quests visit a secret military installation in Louisiana known as Project Gateway to observe the activation of a gate to another dimension. When the gate is turned on, three beings come through from the other dimension and begin building infrastructure to transform earth to more closely match their home world. They capture Dr. Quest and send him back into their dimension, sparking a fight between Race and a government liaison who wants to self-destruct the project without Benton's recovery. The teens manage to bring Dr. Quest back and sabotage the connection between worlds; Dr. Quest then detonates the facility's fusion reactor to close the link permanently.

A bayou is a body of water typically found in flat, low-lying areas, and can either refer to an extremely slow-moving stream or river (often with a poorly defined shoreline), or to a marshy lake or wetland. Bayous are commonly found in the Mississippi River region of the southern United States, with the state of Louisiana being famous for them. A bayou is frequently an anabranch or minor braid of a braided channel that is moving much more slowly than the mainstem, often becoming boggy and stagnant, though the vegetation varies by region. Many bayous are home to crawfish, certain species of shrimp, other shellfish, catfish, alligators, and myriad other species.

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life photograph of bayou in Louisiana

219 The Bangalore Falcon

Location: Bangalore, India 86.17E, 20.11N (10,762 miles)
Reality: Bangalore
Myth: Shambala, Shangri-La

Hadji takes the Quests sight-seeing in Bangalore courtesy of Pasha Peddler's helicopter, but the trip takes on a new purpose when Hadji spots an endangered falcon close to falling off a cliff's ledge. He rescues the falcon, and two women claiming to be ornithologists arrive to see it. They later try to steal the bird, declaring themselves the daughters of Dr. Zin (popularly known as the Zin Twins). They follow the falcon to Shambala, a mythical place with eternal life-giving waters that appears once every 500 years. They take some of the water, but the Quests escape their capture and rupture their tank from the air (denying Zin his prize) as both groups flee the place before it disappears again.

Bangalore is the capital city of the Indian state of Karnataka, and India's third-most populous city. It's considered the "Silicon Valley" of India thanks to its numerous research institutions and technological industries. Before falling under British control, the city was ruled over by the Maharaja of Mysore; in recent times, it attained the status of the "Garden City of India" thanks to restorative projects. The franchise's depiction of Bangalore is more that of a remote mountain area than a massive urban population on a plateau. Shambala is a hidden kingdom mentioned in Tibetan Buddhist mythology; the myth was aggrandized in Western fiction, probably responsible in turn for the myth of Shangri-La, a fictional place of immortality created in James Hilton's 1933 book, Lost Horizons.

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life photograph of Bangalore Palace

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  Real-life photograph of ruins of Tsaparang, an abandoned city thought by some to be Shambhala

220 Diamonds and Jade

Location: Djakarta, Java 106.05E, 7.11S (13,125 miles)
Reality: Jakarta
Myth: Shadow play

On the streets of Jakarta, a shady deal for a gem takes place, but the buyer is killed by a monster. The Quests arrive and meet Jezebel Jade, who wants to recover the gem. They set up a sting operation at Jade's home, but the plan goes awry when the brothers selling the gem unleash a shadow monster from their Wayang kulit puppetry; it destroys her house. They track the brothers to the city, and a confrontation follows. Jonny and Jessie use a mirror to turn the shadow on itself, and the brothers are foiled; Jade gets away with the gem.

Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia; the name Djakarta is an old name that fell out of use in the late 20th century. The city is located on the coast of the island of Java, and contains over 9 million people in its metropolitan area. Wayang kulit is the most popular form of shadow puppetry and play in Indonesia; kulit refers to the careful leather construction of the shadow puppets. Construction of best-grade puppets takes several weeks.

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  As seen in the episode

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life photograph of central Jakarta

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  Real-life photograph of Wayang kulit

221 The Edge of Yesterday

Location: Meteor Valley State Park
Reality: Meteor Crater
Science: Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event

At Meteor Valley State Park, a research trip two miles into the earth's crust is about to take place. Ezekiel Rage arrives and lowers a thermonuclear device down the shaft, then caves it in with a bomb. Seven days later, he announces the bomb's existence and the impending end of the world due to disruption of tectonic plates. Jonny activates a time travel program on the advice of his father, and the teens are able to stop Rage seven days in the past. He pursues them back into Questworld, and in the chaos of a struggle, accidentally takes the device into prehistory, where it detonates, perhaps fulfilling a causal loop.

Meteor Valley State Park has no corresponding location in reality, but is probably conceptually tied to Meteor Crater, site of an meteorite impact in Arizona around 50,000 years ago. Scientists only recognized the site as the result of a meteorite impact in the 20th century, after Daniel Barringer conducted several physical investigations. The site is now used as a tourist attraction. As for underground nuclear explosions, several governments conducted tests of bombs this way, though certainly not 2 miles underneath the earth's surface.

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life photograph of Meteor Crater in Arizona

222 The Haunted Sonata

Location: Prague, Czech Republic 14.02E, 50.06N (5,475 miles)
Reality: Prague

Alena Stasny invites the Quests to a piano recital by a budding pianist girl named Irina Kafka. The piano is possessed by a ghost during the recital, and Jonny and Jessie investigate, recovering a lost sonata in underground catacombs. Jessie meanwhile hits it off with Miloš Dunček, descendant of Franz Dunček, the composer whose work was played at the recital. Jonny and Jessie eventually learn that Franz plagiarized his work from Anna Kafka, Irina's ancestor; Miloš and his butler try to kill them to keep the secret hidden, but the ghost dispatches them and subsequently restores a missing piece of the lost sonata.

Prague is the capital of the Czech Republic, and famous for being extremely well-preserved, sometimes called "The Golden City" for this reason. The city is divided into several districts and bisected by the Vltava River, across which the famous Charles Bridge spans. Prague Castle (with the cathedral of St. Vitus at its center) overlooks the city from high in the Hradčany (castle district), and the city features several other examples of antique architecture. The city suffered under Communist rule after World War II, but has recently enjoyed an economic bloom like most eastern-bloc states after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Prague was the living place of many famous composers.

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  As seen in the episode

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life photograph of Prague Castle

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  Real-life photograph of Prague Castle at night

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  Real-life photograph of several bridges (including the Charles Bridge) from within the castle district

223 General Winter

Location: Sea of Okhotsk, North Pacific 149.13E, 53.01N (3,958 miles from Anchorage, Alaska)
Reality: Sea of Okhotsk

In the Sea of Okhotsk, General Vostok detonates a bomb that freezes the ocean around it to capture a submarine, which he uses to enter a submarine base and take it over the same way. There, he forces Professor Erikson to pioneer weapons using the Bifrost Effect, seen in the freeze bombs. The Quests come in the Dragonfly Jet, but Vostok successfully has it disabled and forces Dr. Quest to also work on making a freeze gun. Benton achieves a working gun, and uses it to stage an escape with the other Quests and the captured submarine crew. They leave a freeze bomb behind them in the sea, which freezes Vostok's torpedoes; they blow up, killing Vostok.

The Sea of Okhotsk (Russian: Охо́тское мо́ре) is a part of the western Pacific Ocean, lying between the Kamchatka Peninsula on the east, the Kuril Islands on the southeast, the island of Hokkaidō to the far south, the island of Sakhalin along the west, and a long stretch of eastern Siberian coast (including the Shantar Islands) along the west and north. The sea was popular among whaling ships in the 19th century, and was recently used in the Cold War by American submarines to tap into Soviet underwater transmission cables. It has no name in traditional Japanese, despite its proximity to Japan.

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  As seen in the episode

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life photograph of Nagayevo Bay

224 Night of the Zinja

Location: Tokyo, Japan 140.03E, 36.01N (10,800 miles)
Reality: Tokyo
Science: Androids

Dr. Zin appears to be dying, and tells his daughters to carry on his legacy. Meanwhile, in Tokyo, the Quests arrive to deliver mechanical prototypes to one of Dr. Quest's colleagues. A strange man steals them, and the Quests unsuccessfully pursue him; they find out that he's an android. A transceiver leads them to the Zin Twins' hideout, where they're producing android ninjas; Jonny meanwhile heads to stop one of them from assassinating the Prime Minister of Japan and American president. Both groups are successful, and Dr. Zin appears to reprimand the Zin Twins for failing in their mission.

Tokyo is the most populous city and capital of Japan, and famous for hosting the Imperial Palace of the Emperor and districts such as Shinjuku and Akihabara, a center of commercial electronics. Tokyo is a reliable setting for high-technology fiction. Androids are robots designed to look like humans, and Japanese engineers have pioneered recent creations of such automatons, including androids that can sing or perform a limited range of basic functions.

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  As seen in the episode

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life photograph of Tokyo's Shinjuku district

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  Real-life photograph of a tea pavilion within the Imperial Palace

225 The Robot Spies

Location: Cairo, Egypt 31.31E, 30.06N (6,825 miles)
Reality: Giza Necropolis
Myth: Sekhem scepter

Dr. Quest and Race return from a Maine airport to find the Quest Compound in flames and the teens abducted with Estella Velasquez. They seek help from Jezebel Jade, who proposes a trip to visit a nefarious dealer, Stephano DePace, for information on Dr. Zin's hideout (and secretly, to steal the Scepter of Osiris from him). They succeed on both counts, but their driver, an agent of Zin, gases them and takes them to his pyramidal lair. Inside, Dr. Zin controls their minds with the scepter and a gauntlet, but Bandit disrupts his control and the Quests flee to safety, with Zin's fate uncertain in the collapsing palace.

The Giza Necropolis is a collection of ancient Egyptian monuments on the outskirts of Cairo, containing the three great pyramids and the Great Sphinx. The Great Pyramid of Giza is the only surviving member of the original seven wonders of the world. Though many believe the Necropolis to lie in the remote desert, it's very close to urban development from Cairo. The episode probably didn't explicitly use the Giza Necropolis as its location, but drew on its imagery for its more remote location. The Sekhem scepter is a ritual scepter in ancient Egypt, signifying power and command, and possibly having its origins as a fetish of the god of Osiris.

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  As seen in the episode

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  As seen in the episode

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  Giza Necropolis at night

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  Sekhem scepter heiroglyph

226 More Than Zero

Location: CVenice, Italy - 45.08N, 12.13E (5,525 miles)
Reality: Venice
Myth: Possibly Poveglia

The Quests (minus Jessie) respond to the invitation of two French scientists who ask for their presence at a haunted mansion near Venice as they activate a ghost-tracking machine. The machine doesn't work as planned, actually empowering the malevolent entity that haunts the Venetian mansion. The entity kills the two French scientists and tries to ensnare the Quests, who meanwhile learn from their ferryman that the house is haunted by the power of a black pearl as controlled by a man named Frederico. Jonny breaks the black pearl in a confrontation with the monster, killing Frederico and allowing the ferryman—a man named Jacobi from centuries ago cursed to eternal life without eternal youth—to rest.

Venice is a famous city in northern Italy, most renowned for its scenic canals built on the Venetian lagoon. The episode's plot may be based off the island of Poveglia, an island near Venice used by the Romans to confine plague victims, and used again for this purpose during outbreaks of the bubonic plague in Europe. In recent times, a mental hospital was founded on the island. Local lore speaks of a mental health doctor who tortured and killed patients before being thrown from a bell tower. Legend has it he survived the descent, but was strangled by a mist that came out of the ground immediately after.

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  As seen in the episode

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  Real-life photograph of Venice

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  Real-life photograph of Poveglia

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