I'm not sure how you avoid that, but it is what it is. Goku, with the help of Dende, manages to track down 18's twin brother and offers to spar. It's weird to think that this is the first time these two have met, but it's true.
On the plus side, 17 no longer has any desire to kill Goku. On the contrary, he's living a relatively quiet, peaceful life as a husband and father, working at a wild life preserve. This is no ordinary preserve, however. Rather than protect picnic baskets, he protects rare, endangered species from some of the most heavily armed poachers I've ever seen. Seriously, overkill much? Maybe the heavy artillery is meant to deal with 17, who keeps hindering their efforts. That's the only explanation I can come up with. Not that it matters, even when they're armed to the teeth, the group is no match for 17 and having Goku to assist only makes the conflict that much more one sided.
Malice aside, 17 does agree to spar a bit. Much like with Krillin, he holds his own surprisingly well and, much like with Krillin, I had a hard time buying it. They say he's been training, but Goku has skyrocketed and, while 17 is no slouch, I have a hard time buying that he would even stand a chance.
I get what the show is trying to do, show that other characters can be relevant despite having two divine characters (who were already way ahead of the rest of the pack even before the godly ascension) leading the charge, but it really doesn't make any sense. Remember, super saiyan 3 Gotenks got his clock cleaned by base-form Copy-Vegeta, so even with training, 17 shouldn't have held up as well as he did.
When the fight does end, Goku tells him about the tournament and the offer to join the team, only to have 17 reject it. Goku does make a valiant effort to convince 17 to change his mind, offering to pay 17 like he did with 18. When 17 clarifies that he's set and is more interested in protecting the animals, Goku even offers to have Goten and Trunks fill in and keep watch for the few hours that they'll be gone. It still isn't enough, but points for trying. Even coming clean about the stakes seems to do little to dissuade him.
Granted, we know that he's going to eventually join, but I thought it was a nice touch, having the episode end with that rejection intact. This appears to be a 2 parter, as there is a cliffhanger involving alien poachers who show up out of nowhere to take the one animal that 17 was most dead set on protecting. I'm guessing that 17 will join by the end of that episode, but we'll have to see.
The fight itself was OK, and seeing 17 again was certainly nice, but oddly, the real highlight for me was Dende mentioning Uub. He's not explicitly mentioned by name, but Dende does refer to him as the reincarnation of Kid Buu. Laying down some retroactive foreshadowing for DBZ's epilogue was a nice touch as well, with Dende telling Goku that he would have to be the one to train the boy when he gets a little older.
All in all, though, this was a solid outing. It had a nice balance of character interaction, development, fight sequences, and even some nice continuity nods for added flavor. For 20 minutes, that's quite a lot to pack in. Hopefully, the second part can follow through. I'm not too worried, this show has handled the 2 part stories rather well, but we'll see when that comes out.
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