Fair warning, Season 2, Episode 23 of Batman Beyond, Sentries of the Last Cosmos is not a great episode. The plot is pretty dumb, the set-pieces uninspired, and the animation weak. But it has one thing going for it; two name drops. There is a reference to Jar-Jar Binks and another to Philip K. Dick. The Jar-Jar reference fell flat with me but I loved the shout-out to PKD. Instead of watching a bad episode I began to wonder why I had such reactions to the names.
It might be a contextual issue. Terry mentions Jar-Jar to highlight the lameness of another character. PKD gets his props when a science-fiction writer is proud of a typewriter once owned by Dick. There is something more inspiring using a name positively instead of insultingly. Or maybe it is because Terry has no connection to Jar-Jar but any science-fiction author would at least respect PKD for his prodigious output. I think both of these ideas are plausible reasons for a name drop to go over well with the audience.
Another possibility links PKD with the overall theme of the episode. Without going into too much detail (because the episode doesn’t deserve it) the early plot hinges on the trope of using a video game war to secretly recruit people to fight that same war in real life. The blurring of reality and the virtual world is a very common concept in science fiction. Dick’s work often explored the idea of characters encountering a shifting reality. Jar-Jar was a klutz with big ears, PKD invited us to question the nature of our own reality.
I only watched Sentries of the Last Cosmos because I am working through Batman Beyond while listening to Batrankings. It’s not an episode I will revisit until I forget how lame it is. The mentioning of Philip K. Dick is the highlight of the episode and now that I’ve told you about it, there’s no reason for you to watch Sentries either.
The Keasy Depot 