The Eye

DVD, Stargate Atlantis S1 (The Eye)

As I suspected, Robert Davi was employed to take over from Colm Meaney, whose leader, Cowen, is only mentioned and doesn't even make one scene, sadly. Davi carried it off, whether threatening Weir and McKay's lives, putting up with relentless wind and rain effects (and very effective effects they were too), or commanding his unfortunate troops, and even having to put up with sudden insubordination when Sora's personal vendetta against Teyla stops her from following his order to withdraw. I suspect he's dead, after Sheppard's point perfect shooting that knocked him back through the Stargate at the end. But Sora… She never rang quite true for me, and I don't know whether it was the actress' ability I question or the way the character was written, but she never seemed to have the real fire in her eyes that you'd expect from someone driven by burning vengeance. Even her motivation wasn't that well effected, Father Tyrus dying in a bit of a needless way by the hand of a Wraith guard, rather than by Teyla's hand as Cowen had decreed. As a result it wasn't entirely satisfactory when she relents on her violent confrontation, and I didn't really buy that she'd fling down her gun to engage in a knife fight with her sworn enemy. There was no chance she was going to win in such an arena, and she must have realised that, so you'd think she'd simply gun down her foe mercilessly.

She did seem to have qualms about killing, though, so maybe it was true to the characterisation that we'd been presented with over these three episodes featuring the Genii. I was expecting some kind of change of heart that would bring her over to the Atlantis crew's side, with Weir getting through, or something happening, but it never did, except Teyla chose not to kill her. Was she grateful, or was she shamed into then helping her hated opponent carry Dr. Beckett back to the control centre? She was an uneven person, one minute following orders, albeit reluctantly, constantly standing up against unnecessary killing, but then wanting to have the visceral pleasure of killing Teyla slowly at close range! I would suspect an unstable personality… She's not the only one to attempt killings, with Major Sheppard proving his warrior soldier's cred as much as Teyla did in the blade contest (even if it was annoyingly shot in the half-dark, making it harder to appreciate the moves, it was still good to see Teyla finally get to do some fighting as I always suspected she would in the Teal'c role). He pulls no punches, or bullets to be precise, going round killing the enemy soldiers without compunction. In a way it's slightly unsettling, because usually it's just aliens and monsters, not humans like us. I noticed they didn't actually show the shooting of the three he cunningly hangs above - it seems they weren't going to show too much gun damage, whereas they were fine with the Ancient weapon that merely stuns.

I didn't understand why they wouldn't be stunning everyone, but I suppose the military mindset is that deadly force must be used to quell invasion. If Sheppard was aping John McLane last time, this week it's John Rambo (the music even becomes a little 'First Blood'), using guerilla warfare tactics to deal with the incursion. He shows no mercy, taking out the bad guys who will show no mercy to him, and when Ford arrives with a stun weapon he tells him to leave it behind. It's not pretty, it's a dirty job, but someone has to do it. The most shocking moment is when he gets the Stargate shield raised as Genii reinforcements come through, and it's quite sickening to think that every blat we hear is a Genii being squished like a bug on a windscreen. But he had to be uncompromising to deal with the likes of Kolya, who first lies that Weir is dead, before threatening to kill her again. I never thought she was going to be shot, at least not fatally, but it was a heroic moment, and an uncharacteristically unselfish move from McKay to stand in front of her - she was impressed he stood in front of a gun for her, and although it was ultimately self-serving (he wasn't lying when he vehemently exhorted Kolya as to the vital importance of both himself and Weir if they wanted to raise the shield), it was still brave - you just know there's a spark of decency in there waiting to flicker into flame when the chips are down!

Beckett, Teyla and Ford's side of the story, stuck in a Jumper until they can make it back, then arriving to give some support, was pretty much by the numbers, and none of them made a great deal of difference. It's sad, but Ford once again doesn't come across as much of a soldier, getting annoyed with Beckett, and they all wander down the corridors like a disorderly rabble, even once Sheppard's met up with them. I was just waiting for an opportunistic Genii to gun them all down, as they really weren't operating well in a military style. Similarly, the effects of the ultimate wave engulfing Atlantis as the shield protects it, wasn't quite what it should have been. I have to remind myself that these are effects on a TV budget so I shouldn't expect 'Interstellar' levels of realism, and for the most part the CG worked well. Particular praise must go to the production and behind the scenes staff that constructed a waterproof set and were able to blast fake rain at the actors (I bet that was their favourite day!), in a believable simulation of storm conditions that did make it feel like a feature film. The actors, too, should be complimented for bravely taking many scenes of drenching and shouting - it really added to the experience.

I'm glad this last part was more impressive than the buildup, I just would have liked Meaney to have been a part of it, but perhaps this isn't the last we'll see of the Genii. Unless they get wiped by The Wraith, in which case we won't. But Sora is held prisoner, and they don't have a good track record of keeping prisoners (or anyone), for long, so the groundwork has been laid for further animosity. I felt after three serialised episodes we could have had a more in-depth final scene, perhaps with the whole team sitting down to a meal or some sort of celebration for successfully surviving the storm and defeating the intruders, and as much as I liked Sheppard's joke about the next storm being in twenty years so how far in advance can they book leave, it deserved more for the characters' sake. They still haven't quite got a good handle on the ensemble, they do them fine in groups, but maybe that's because they're used to the four or five (with a couple of recurring characters), main cast interacting and aren't so capable with a larger group? A good episode for all that, Sheppard a proper tactician and Weir and McKay performing admirably together.

***

The Alternative Factor

DVD, Star Trek S1 (The Alternative Factor)

What of Lazarus? That's the open ended question Kirk poses as a final conundrum to leave us with. But my question would be, "What of Lazarus' beard?" It was never a thick, bushy, well-cultivated hair growth at the best of times, but it goes from straggly goatee and Fu Manchu moustache combo to a few hairs loosely struggling under the category of 'beard' in the space of a couple of scenes! Literally, Lazarus' beard growth diminishes from being on the ship one moment to beaming down with the Landing Party with a few faint follicles the next. Either the Transporter has that effect on certain people from antimatter universes, or something fishy was going on… It would be easily explained away if we'd had the anti-Lazarus replace our version, but we know it's the same guy because he's wearing the 'bandage' (as McCoy calls it, but it's more like a plaster - Kirk must think his Doctor incredibly inappropriate if he really was joking about the disappearing patch, perhaps to cheer him up, but in his defence he was under a lot of stress at the time, pressure from Starfleet Command, the ship's safety, and a perplexing mystery, so he wasn't thinking straight or he'd have paid more attention!). This isn't the only sign of an episode in a part of the season where there's a distinct impression that the budget, time and patience was being stretched. This was about the twentieth episode produced (give or take the original pilot), so I can imagine that no matter how well organised and machinelike the production had become, things must have been getting strained by this stage.

The other big factor (the alternative factor, you could even call it), in deducing this is the fact of the location shooting being replaced by stage scenes towards the end - once Kirk's travelled through the corridor between universes he appears in the other and you can see how dark the sky has become, a big arc light glaring at him to make it seem like day, but they can't hide the fact that it was late evening with fading light. Then the very next scene is Kirk walking towards Lazarus' spaceship on a set, when previously it had been lodged neatly in a natural landscape. They do a fine job of approximating the great outdoors of the planet, but it is noticeable. Kirk himself also comes across as quite tired and stressed, but that could be as much to do with the pressure put on him by his superiors (the first time an authority from Starfleet Command has appeared on the Viewscreen to give Kirk his mission directly). Even with these glaring production faults I can't help but be drawn to this episode and I always think well of it. It's something to do with the weight of such a huge mission, the atmosphere of doom and desperation, the weird Jekyll and Hyde flipping of Lazarus, seeing another part of Engineering (an alternative factor, you might say), where the Dilithium Crystals are housed, the thought of a hole in reality which has let something terrible in, and the eternal struggle set in motion by episode's end, giving it an intangible, bittersweet, almost melancholy regard for one being's sacrifice for the good of two entire universes that puts me somewhat in mind of the two Sybok's fighting each other at the end of 'Star Trek V.' What must be endured for the needs of the many.

I suspect that film found a few things from this episode to influence it, with its religious theme a clarion call: Lazarus outright declares his mission a holy cause, though we later learn he is the mad one of the pair, so whatever he says must be examined with scrutiny (he's like the anti-Van Gelder - that Doctor from 'Dagger of The Mind' seemed insane, but was actually fully rational, if not in control, whereas Lazarus, though driven, appears calm, with purposeful intent, and is actually bonkers). His mission to destroy a monster is actually to kill himself in another universe, whom the sane target suggests is because his mind was turned by the discovery of this parallel existence and couldn't cope with the idea of another version of himself. This isn't exactly the greatest rationalisation for someone going mad, but we can assume he was already possessed of an extreme personality, this only serving to further warp his mind to the extent he can only succeed through murdering his alternate. This isn't the case for pretty much any other parallel universe story we'd go on to see in Trek, with perhaps the Intendant of the Mirror Universe the only one to be as extreme as Lazarus (well, she, and full-bearded Riker screaming about the Borg taking over his universe in 'Parallels'), but even she was more enthused and intrigued by meeting her double than wanting to kill her.

Lazarus' language certainly ups the stakes and helps us believe in the vague story motivation of the 'winking out phenomenon' as it is scientifically monickered to account for the entire galaxy going out of phase, or, well, winking out for a second or two - the Commodore that calls up Kirk to give him his orders says the effect has occurred in every quadrant of the galaxy… and beyond! I like that, because it makes it sound like the galaxy as we would later come to know it: the pie-shaped oval cut into four slices, one for each quadrant, and if they can somehow detect things happening even outside our galaxy that's something else that hints at an even greater understanding of, and scope to, the event than we'd ever seen before. It also makes me think of the anomaly waves from the Delphic Expanse of 'Enterprise,' and while they didn't have the power to pull off warping the three-dimensional structure of the sets in those days of limited visual effects, they do a brilliant job with simple devices: a star field with some kind of galactic nebula appears interposed with what we see, as if space itself is leaking into the ship. And later, the marvellously realised corridor, lit up in neon blue with the negative image of whomever enters it, the turbulent camera view swirling, floating, weaving and tripping in nightmarish, hallucinogenic form, everything slowed down and sluggish. Even on the planet when Lazarus rushes towards his enemy and the image blurs, blasting winds kick up dust and bend plants, flashes fill the screen, and people are flung around, it's so full of indescribable weight of moment.

It would be easy to see the entire episode as a daft, eccentric and wacky B-story out of some fifties sci-fi serial, with bad makeup, indeterminate production values and pulpy, almost indecipherable ideas muddled together. Even Lazarus' little spaceship (a 'time chamber,' a 'time ship,' as Lazarus calls it), looks like some retro cool design from the fifties. The momentousness only adds to its feeling of unreality: if Kirk doesn't get to the bottom of this it could mean the end of all life, not just in our area of space, or even our galaxy, but our universe, and a parallel duplicate too! The stakes couldn't be much higher, yet the puzzle is abstract and uncertain. What should he do? He's trying to help Lazarus, but it's not until he meets the other one that he realises he's been working with the wrong one whom, if he'd succeeded in getting through to the antimatter universe, would have set off a catastrophic explosion. At least, I think that was the threat… It doesn't matter when Kirk goes through to that side, or, seemingly when the other Lazarus comes over here (so maybe it's only when both meet in the same universe?). There's much that doesn't make sense, its logic impenetrable for being so vast a concept of destruction on a magnitude we can't conceive of, because we can't conceive of Everything (or even Everything x2).

The Commodore's orders don't even make a lot sense: he mentions evacuating the surrounding areas of ships and colonies, and sending in the Enterprise to work it all out without any backup, but if this could spell the end of everything there'd be no point moving anyone anywhere and Starfleet Command would be better spent throwing all their resources at this problem! That may have been before they knew about the likelihood of annihilation, then just the possibility of an invasion (a Code Factor 1 message: invasion alert! Another one? - we only just explored that in 'Arena'!), but even so, the responsibility rests heavily on Captain Kirk, his ship the bait. The inconsistency in the production side of things, from Lazarus' beard to the move indoors from a previously open and expansive external environment are added to the inconsistency of the story. So what is there to like? The atmosphere of the piece, and it is this, combined with a strangeness that, when added together with the out of tune production and uneven storytelling, actually makes the whole thing more cohesive for being universally messy and confused. It's hard to pin down, but I suspect, had this been turned into one of the films (say, Harve Bennett took a shine to this one rather than 'Space Seed'), it would have fared as badly as 'Star Trek V.' And I would have liked it a lot. Because I like 'Star Trek V' a lot: sometimes ambition supersedes petty concerns over effects and story logic, sometimes it's enough to be presented with something baffling, so vast and incalculable that its charm is what makes it, and I think this has some of that kind of charm.

It can be a little boring when Kirk and Spock are discussing their outlandish speculations on the fate of the galaxy and what might be happening, and they're deep into discussing the technical issues and spouting the technobabble. But it's all done in earnest, with seriousness, which the Kelvin Timeline films could never do because they'd always be doing it with tongue in cheek, cocking a snook at the audience, winking… the winking out phenomenon would have taken on a whole new meaning; a demeaning meaning; the alternative factor, if you will… I'm starting to bleat and babble like Lazarus himself, but that's the sort of episode it was. It helps that, like Sybok, I like Lazarus. He seems as earnest as anyone else in the story, he has these great, serious, emotional pleas to be believed, and to explain, and to find and stop the terrible being he is sworn against. "He is death - anti-life," is his description, which fires the imagination, and you think that no shambling rubber monster suit is going to cut it this time, and indeed, nothing could live up to the imagination after such admonitions and warnings. So it was he, himself, that was his own nemesis (shades of 'Star Trek Nemesis' and many other duplicate doppelgänger stories), the calm, rational, cool version from the antimatter universe stark and strong contrast to his wild accusations and tales.

A lot of trouble could have been avoided if the crew of the Enterprise had lived up to their brave Captain, intelligent Science Officer and warm Doctor, most specifically the Redshirts. What of them? I'll tell you what: they do a terrible job! The guard assigned to Lazarus when he's on the Bridge should have stuck close to this unknown guest, but instead he doesn't follow him directly into the Turbolift when the man storms out. On the upside this does give us the chance to see a bit of the technology at work, but so subtly you wouldn't even think of it - Lazarus walks in, the doors close as the Redshirt waits calmly, then walks in when they reopen, and Lazarus walks out alone when he exits, so you can tell from that they're deliberately implying that the Turbolifts aren't in name only, they really move some! It was about a second between Lazarus entering, the door closing, then opening again to admit the Redshirt which tells you how fast they can go. It doesn't excuse the guy, of course, just as letting the Captain do all the work is no excuse for Redshirts on the Landing Party! They just stand there watching as Kirk struggles with the slippery Lazarus, and do nothing to help! Nor does Spock, who could have easily reached over and dropped the guy with a touch. It wasn't like Kirk ordered them to help, though, so maybe he prefers to do it his way and doesn't require interference? And I have to say, if it had been Scotty manning the Transporter Room instead of Mr. Redshirt Work Experience Student, Lazarus wouldn't have got off the ship!

Scotty is notable in his absence, as is Sulu, especially right after an episode where everyone was clearly involved. Uhura does her usual communications work, and there's an added frisson that these are priority messages from Command coming in, but apart from that… Oh, Mr. Leslie (or Mr. Lesley if you go by the end credits), gets his best episode so far: not only does he man the Helm, sit in the Captain's Chair (again), is given orders, the Captain addressing him by name, he even gets the odd line or two. So where's the Mr. Leslie action figure, and why no appearances in the motion picture series? He was robbed! But seriously, it is good to have the usually silent regular figure on the Bridge actually a part of the story a little bit, even though it's at the expense of Mr. Sulu. Sulu probably didn't mind being absent for that shift, considering a repeat of the old ship wobbles and people thrown around (which hasn't happened as much this season as I'd have expected). Their timbers were most definitely shivered this time. There's even a repeat of what happened in Phaser Control in 'Balance of Terror,' only this time the noxious gases fill up the Engineering 'B-side' and Spock doesn't have to rush down there to pull anyone out. And I must mention Kirk using the cool little mini computer again - this time it's in Sickbay, and it has a disk in it. Talking of which, Uhura drops one of those disks into the armrest on the Captain's Chair, which I had never seen before and didn't realise it had that capability - that must be one high-tech chair!

The lasting impression of the episode is one of mystery and awe, the impossible sacrifice of a man locked in eternal physical combat with his own image a potent symbolism for something. Maybe the episode isn't very well regarded because it doesn't make a lot of sense and it does come across as muddled and confused, but for me it retains a poignancy that I must have first felt in childhood (possibly the same reason 'Star Trek V' strikes a chord, too). There's no gathering on the Bridge at the end, everything isn't fine - yes, the ship's safe, but at great cost to one individual, no matter how freely he took on the responsibility. And I like the look of the episode, mainly featuring outdoor locations, seeing a bit more of the ship, and generally the atmosphere of portent. When they stated that if Lazarus' ship was destroyed in our universe it would be destroyed in the antimatter one also, I don't think it meant that if anything was killed or destroyed here it would destroy it there in parallel, it was just the ship that was the doorway at each end of the corridor between, and shutting off one would do the same to the other. It was fun to realise I watched this almost fifty years to the day of its original broadcast, but the only answer to the question 'what of Lazarus?' is that he'd still be fighting the good fight.

***

Armorines: Project S.W.A.R.M.

N64, Armorines: Project S.W.A.R.M. (1999) game

Initial impressions weren't particularly favourable, but as always, I gave it a chance and 'Armorines: Project SWARM' turned out to be a fun gaming experience well worth the £4 I paid for it on ebay. Back in the days of the N64 this was one of the first games that stuck in my mind from 'N64 Magazine' and their preview. Desert. Black bugs scuttling across it. What wasn't to like? But finding 'GoldenEye' and more serious shooters, I never got around to playing this more simple sub-genre, and had my fill with the first two 'Turok' games. At my current stage I'm interested in going back to the games on that console (which remains my favourite of all time), the ones I never played in particular, and this was one of the few that I was on the lookout for. But as I said, even taking into account how aged the N64 has become, I wasn't entirely sure I'd made a good buy and might be stuck toiling through a basic, boring shooter for a while. The controls were either too sensitive or not sensitive enough, I couldn't decide which, subsequently never allowing me the feeling of complete power over my character that I have felt in other games, and little irks stood out: the game wouldn't save the control preferences so you had to go through the options every time you switched it on, just to set things up as you wanted (for the record I had Friendly Fire On, Auto Aim Off, and Horizontal and Vertical Control set to the maximum of 15).

The opening Siberia levels weren't great looking, and spending half the time battling to bend down to the little bugs skittering across the snow was a great source of irritation. The front end was pretty scrappy and very old-fashioned with its ALL CAPS SCROLLING TEXT and basic look. There was also instant death from falling and I felt I'd gone back to an age even older than the N64. I love the Amiga, but some of that system's presentation could be a bit ugly, and that was the level here. But as I continued and became accustomed to the game on its own terms I was surprisingly impressed - I began to get into it and appreciate the graphics and style, especially for the fact that I was able to play it on S-Video instead of mere standard Composite. It used the Expansion Pak so it looked crisp and sharp, and despite the angular surfaces and flat textures of the N64, they did a good job on the level design, with varying environments of a good size, and excellent animation on the bugs. The multi-legged creatures scuttling after you were remarkably creepy, especially with the insect-like cries, and playing with earphones only heightened the creeping horror - the sound of beating legs and screeches coming for you when health is low, was most effective indeed!

Thanks to the Expansion Pak, lighting was used to very good effect in realtime, as seen in other games in the middle or late period of the console's life, such as 'Donkey Kong 64' and 'Perfect Dark' - sometimes you needed to use your gun in order to light pitch black tunnels or corners, which added a tactical edge to proceedings, and the night vision was also an essential piece of kit in certain areas, where you felt more vulnerable in complete darkness with restricted vision. I found the standard weapon to be the most useful, though I could have done with an auto-reload feature, although again, running out of bullets after twenty rounds (I played as Lewis with the lower charge rate), with the awful clicking sound of an empty chamber as the bugs swarm you is a further tactical element that needs to be considered. I definitely found it difficult reloading while also trying to escape the hordes and I had to press B several times sometimes to activate the reload. The standard gun isn't that powerful, but like Samus Aran's arm cannon in the 'Metroid' series it has infinite reloads so you can keep firing. Having that freedom is useful when you're trying to hit scuttling enemies that can be literally running up and down the walls to get to you. Once I'd got over the biggest flaw of imprecise control (and it did take some getting used to, may even have had something to do with my controller's old and less responsive handling), I found the game to be engaging and though the objectives weren't on the same level as 'GoldenEye,' they prevented the game from merely being a shoot-'em-up without any thought.

It brings to mind 'Body Harvest' for being a lone man blasting bugs, though that was skewed more to an RPG and vehicle-based exploration, whereas the vehicle sections in this were more limited and on-rails. These weren't my favourite moments, but you can't help but marvel when a game of this age sits you in the cockpit of a big, thumping cannon and flies you over a desert landscape where you have to pick off the bugs, then the next thing you know you're down on the ground and running around in that very landscape you'd seen from above. Like the old 'Turok' games, fogging was an issue, but it only added tension really, as you couldn't see too far ahead, and it was never close enough to be debilitating. Music was also from the 'Turok' stable (unsurprising I suppose, considering they both came from Acclaim), with the same kind of jungle drums. But the sense of scale worked well and the water effects impressed, as did the ability to affect the environment, shooting switches or standing on pads to alter the layout or set things in motion. It was missing the stats common in other shooting games of the time (yes, 'GoldenEye' and 'Perfect Dark' again), so there was no reason to try and beat scores or get more kills, complete levels in a record time or with greater accuracy, and neither could levels be accessed again once completed so I did appreciate the password option which allowed replaying any level of choice.

It was the Jungle levels that first made me realise this was a game I was enjoying rather than playing through out of a sense of duty or for completion's sake. It did require the momentum of regular play, however - I got stuck on one of the Volcano missions for about three weeks because I only had brief plays in that period, it was harder going back in having been away for a week. Also, the game sometimes required you to take leaps of faith and then react to whatever you were plunged into: an early level where you were supposed to jump off a ledge into a pool of water, with the only clues being the sound of a waterfall and your commanding officer sending a message about descending further. The Volcano level where you had to jump down into a cavern and were confronted by a fast-moving lava flow was also a sticky situation and took a number of tries before I worked out how to escape (find a wall with a climbable surface), but it could occasionally appear to be trial and error, especially as dying from falls into bottomless pits was a constant possibility and furthered the impression of an old-school mentality to proceedings! It wasn't as bad as the many precision-jumping moments in the first 'Turok,' I hasten to add…

Whether you were creeping through underground tunnels of the manufactured kind or the natural sort, or out in a more open environment, they were varied enough to keep the experience pleasurable, even if the last section, the Hive, was a victim of the usual last level syndrome: more chance to fall off edges, more enemies, etc. Getting bogged down in exterminating every bug was a necessity when a level was new, as you needed time and space to locate your bearings and understand the structure of a level, but once you knew what to do and where to go, you could often blast through, ignoring the creatures as much as possible, which is how I kept getting back to the final Queen battle which took a few attempts to complete. As with a lot of games of this era the end was a big letdown post-battle with the big nasty, which wasn't actually all that difficult to take out. You killed the Queen then you saw Lewis running away only to get caught in the resulting explosion, followed by the alien ship being blasted to smithereens. And roll credits. There was a crackle as if a final transmission or report was going to come through, but then it cut to credits as if skipping something, which was annoying, because there's no underlining that the mission is complete, you're just exploded! The addition of these little messages coming through during gameplay worked well and made things seem a little less linear, and indeed the game wasn't exactly linear, but ultimately was - you had a couple of routes through some levels, to choose at your leisure, but they all had to be explored eventually.

I didn't enjoy the game to the extent that I wanted to plunge right in as the second character, Lane, especially as it looked like she had the same route through the game, just with different weapons, but I could imagine myself playing it again one day. Though the Egypt level was how I had imagined the whole game being, with attractive sandy dunes and rocky outcrops, and bug hordes crawling out of the crevices, there was much more to it than that. The animation on the creatures was very good indeed, very creepy, with some signs of intelligence, especially in the way they would often attack from side to side instead of making directly for you. It was also a different experience to have enemies that could come from any plane: the sides, the ceiling, or creeping out of the ground, and with improved AI this could have been incredible! So there were control issues (other options were available, but I couldn't get on any better than with the standard), in case I failed to draw attention to that, it got a bit buggy, the puzzles didn't always seem to work every time, there was slowdown, and for the last Hive levels the sound would go, but even with all these problems, and taking into account its age, it was a remarkably entertaining, atmospheric and enjoyable FPS, that was a challenge without being ridiculous, and rarely dragged. A recommended experience from me.

***