Desert Journey

DVD, The Champions (Desert Journey)

Not a bad example of an episode, but not one of the better ones either. There are some famous faces to look out for, most notably a young Jeremy Brett as the main guest star, Dr. Who's Master Roger Delgado, and even an uncredited appearance from Star Wars' Darth Vader, Dave Prowse, getting chucked across a room by the diminutive Sharron!

The bomb attack at the beginning is a bit shocking, and the story moves along at a fair enough pace as they attempt to transport the Bay to his home country in order that he will rule it, despite it being against his will. He's also under attack from opponents. There are some good little uses of their powers, such as Sharron's brush with Muscles at the Bay's rowdy party, and learning the language of the Arabs by listening to what they say, to find out what they're planning.

And for the series, the location work was quite accomplished. Usually all the external shots take place on stage, with only ocassional stock shots of desert or snow, but here they'd gone to the trouble of having lookalikes filmed from a distance in desert-like conditions, which look like they are genuinely a foreign country. There's a surprisingly suggestive scene at the party where a reveller strips off on top of a table, and a dancing girl does her sterotypical thing in the Arab tent. Odd that so many of the Arabs are white! To begin with I was impressed they were actually sounding genuine, but after a while it did sound like they were merely jabbering.

A shame Richard wasn't more involved - the best ones have all three integral to the plot. And some scenes weren't the best studio sets (although the sandstorm-beset refuelling shack was fine). And what was going on with Sharron's hair?

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