The Ghost Plane

DVD, The Champions (The Ghost Plane)

Not one of the episodes I've ever thought highly of, despite the presence of Andrew Keir whom I always like seeing in things (like the second 'Dr. Who' film, 'Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD'). It's almost more of a 'Thunderbirds' or 'Captain Scarlet' episode, complete with model shots of the mysterious Mach 5 plane, and a slide show of this menace of the skies. Except our champions of law and order don't have high-tech vehicles, instead relying on hanging around in warehouses and that sort of thing. The most exotic mode of transport they use (in an episode in which they must have got through a ton of mileage, zipping about all over the world), is a bobsled in a brief sequence which looked as if it had come right out of 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service,' followed by a sleigh ride in which you can see they're travelling at an angle to the back-projection! There are also tails in cars and, I presume, trips in planes, considering how fast they get round the various countries they visit. I can see it was supposed to have the impression of an international hunt for clues, but it comes across as unfocused. The rationale of the villain, Dr. John Newman of Cambridge University, is that his work was turned down by the Western authorities so he gleefully sold them to the East in order that his 'genius' not be lost. If he really cared so much about one project, and it turned out to be as successful as it did in the Chinese trial, would he really cast his own side (in what we must remember was the Cold War), to the wolves in exchange for money and prestige with his people's enemies?

China getting a leg up in the technological revolution is a chilling thought even today, so back in the Sixties, the idea they could have instant air superiority with those potential two hundred and fifty planes only waiting upon the essential components before they became the terror of the skies, must have been even more of a big deal. Little is said of Newman's traitorous actions, it's just accepted he's a villain. More psychology would have been appreciated in the same way that the Iron Man in 'The Iron Man' was approached. This episode, in keeping with radically different styles week to week, which I like, is a very different prospect. It has the jet-setting where the previous episode took place in the grounds of one house, the three main characters are all used equally, but often separately, and we're back to one of them being captured. Sharron's the one this time, and I don't know why she didn't just fight back when being held by Newman. Once he was holding her and no longer pointing a gun I don't see why she couldn't have hefted him over the shoulders in some kind of Judo move, except the plot demanded she be locked in the refrigeration room, just as Craig and Richard had been put into cold storage in 'Operation Deep-Freeze.' This time the makeup effects were much better with frost all over her and the objects inside. I wasn't clear on why she was reaching so desperately for one of the plastic bottles, whether she planned to mix some chemicals of some kind and create a heat source that way, or if she was too dazed to think straight and was grasping at anything in reach.

It's back to a simpler, more stereotypical style of episode, filled with stock footage (which in fairness, apart from the faux pas with the sleigh ride, all looked suitable, as if it had actually been shot for the episode, where sometimes it's obvious the various different elements are from entirely separate things), military locations (the aircraft carrier and ship internal scenes looked detailed enough to be real locations rather than studio sets, so it certainly leaves me wondering in that regard), and our own stock sets - the staircase room is used for the lobby of the ski hotel, and we get the usual corridor, too, where the espionage drama first promises to hold twists and turns, before that angle is quickly killed off (literally, when Newman's henchman murders the spy who is Richard and Sharron's contact). I'd have liked to have had more intrigue around the ski lodge rather than speeding off to Cambridge, or Germany, or Albania, but they don't stay long in any place, yet it's still without a sense of building tension, where chasing down the clues before it's too late should have made it exciting. There's even some question, fittingly, over the identity of Krilov, as they call him, the contact. Their memories flash up an image of his file and we see his name is Anton Nicholaevitch, which Sharron's recall for faces is jogged by seeing him in person at the window. His alias is Kleber, so where did they get Krilov from?

Confusion reigns even more thanks to the credits featuring a 'Crolic,' when no one by that name was in the episode that I could make out. Perhaps the name changed in the script and they didn't notice the mistake in the credits? Mind you, I wasn't sure who Coates was, though I'd assume he was Newman's henchman, though I don't think he was named in dialogue. As usual, that leaves a few speaking roles uncredited: the leader of the Albanian soldiers (unless he was Crolic, but then why wasn't Krilov credited, he was more important to the story?), Director F. Murer of Spiegel Hoffman Import-Export (according to the signage on his office door), whom Sharron visits, is another, and the air coordinator of the aircraft carrier and his superior, both from the pre-credits sequence are more. Unless one was 'Admiral,' but I assumed that was the ruddy-faced guy in charge of the ship from where Craig and Richard swim to the shore to set charges on the equipment containing the vital plane components. It's all thoroughly confusing and I don't see why they couldn't have stretched to a couple of pages of credits for the guest actors when needed.

In keeping with the rest of the episode being less satisfactory than usual, the post-credits explanation of the champions' powers is completely divorced from the story and only features one of the team. Not in keeping with the rest of the episode, it's a really good one, with Craig out for a walk and spotting a delivery van with the handbrake left off, rolling down a hill towards a group of children kicking a ball around in the road! Clever use of speeded up footage makes him appear to run faster than any normal man as he races to get inside and hit the brake just in time, made even better by the comparative slowness of the delivery driver who also makes a sprint and is vastly outpaced, which makes Craig look even faster. Certainly one of the better openings, a shame it couldn't have been added to a better episode, but it is a throwback to how the early episodes chose to do it, where the sequence had no connection to the larger episode, and I prefer when it does, even if only in a small way, like a continuation of the scene is what starts off the episode.

Tremayne gets in a dig at the end about how he has the worst job of all of them: waiting. He also shows some shrewd suspicions about the mental recall of his agents a couple of times, although he never goes any further with it, just seems to accept the paper-thin explanations. First it's Craig getting hot under the collar at Hardwick, the official liaising with Nemesis, saying he should have remembered the proposal from Dr. Newman as relevant to the case, which he found through going over old newspaper reports. Tremayne calms things by saying: "Remember, we can't all have a memory or perception the equal of yours," but it seemed more like grunt work for Craig, scanning through newspaper archives. I suppose he had narrowed it down to the right sort of time, so he must have had excellent recall to do that, which suggests that (assuming this was before the series), the powers enhance the memory that was already there, not just for new memories created since they were endowed with their abilities. Craig explains it as something that just got in head, you know how it is, to Tremayne's narrowed eyes. If only they could have played up the suspicions as an ongoing thing, like the reporter in 'The Incredible Hulk' who gets closer to Banner each week. It would make sense because as he said, he does a lot of waiting, which means time for thought and speculation. He's also highly suspicious of Sharron's ability to remember a specific file on a guy when they have a rundown on over twenty-thousand people from all nations on their files, just from seeing his face, and she doesn't have any better explanation!

There seemed to be a slight mistake in something Richard said about this Krilov when they're talking about him. He says 'we' came across him on the Zoniss case, '64-'65, but he can't be talking about he and Sharron as they hadn't worked together before 'The Beginning,' but if he's talking about 'we' as in Nemesis the organisation, why would Sharron recognise the face or file? She could have memorised every file on record, I suppose, but it sounded like a slip-up in their history to me. One thing that was a positive was we actually see the entire map in Tremayne's office make a complete one-eighty degree turn - it was fascinating to me to see a glimpse of what lies behind as it turns: there's a row of seats all lined up against the wall, presumably all the way along, perhaps in case of a large briefing. After all, the reverse side is a large screen for slides and films, so I could imagine the whole building's workers going up to that office for important presentations and needing seats.

One other thing that lessens the episode is the lack of their powers being used. The main one is Richard sensing Sharron's distress as she freezes at 'The Refridgeration & General Export Company' at Roxham (yes, the sign had a 'd' in refrigeration), then he sends a telepathic picture to Craig of the phone number at the Anton Research place he's visiting where a technician or scientist called Bridges has been testing the component Krilov threw through their window at the ski lodge and determines it is advanced cooling technology. I suppose he couldn't really speak to Craig when Bridges was standing next to him - he already asks if he's alright after Richard sags from Sharron's anguish, but did he have the power to speak if no one was around to hear him? Either way it's an effective message, although usually it's Sharron that senses one of the others' pain so I thought she had greater empathy from being female, but this shows that's not the case unless she can also broadcast empathy more powerfully, as well. It would be interesting to see if either Craig or Richard could experience such a thing from the other if one of them was in a tight spot, as that would confirm it or not.

When you first meet Newman's fiance, Vanessa Bailey, at his rooms in Cambridge, you assume she's the leak since we'd already seen her with the henchman at the ski lodge, and you can imagine some young thing getting the secrets out of this older man then ditching him, but in actual fact Dr. Newman is the mastermind. It might have been more dramatic if they'd kept that quiet for a bit longer and continued with the impression of Vanessa as the main villain, then revealed Newman at a key moment rather than letting us see a sly look in his eyes after Craig left. I did wonder what Richard was going to do in the Albanian warehouse when she makes as if to explore down his end. His gun is drawn and ready, but would he have shot her or just knocked her out with the butt? That seems more in character for him, not least as the gunshot would have given the game away, anyway. And I wonder if that jetty or little wooden pier that Craig leaps off of into the water was the same location as the lake where he jumped in during 'The Invisible Man'? This time they use actual night shooting instead of day for night as they tend more towards (such as 'The Iron Man'), which makes a difference in making things seem more realistic.

Indeed, in general the quality of the production wasn't the issue, the stock footage was fitting and not scrappy, the locations were varied and there was plenty of outdoor filming. The cast were all important to the story and the guest cast were fine, it's just that, like the components to this fantastic new plane being hidden in functional, familiar, everyday items, the nuggets and gems this episode held were disguised within drabness. It never was exciting or gripping, more of a thought experiment, a contemporary exploration of what an Eastern superpower might do if they only had the upper hand in technology. It also seemed far from over as a potential threat: if the Chinese had one prototype then surely they could reverse engineer the individual components and manufacture them themselves instead of having to rely on the shipments coming from Newman? Granted, I'm putting today's capability of countries over what they were capable of fifty years ago, so perhaps it would have been unfeasible, but even then, couldn't they have put all their efforts into finding a new supplier now they knew what was required? It seems to me that it would be an ongoing threat that the Chinese would be putting all their efforts into this project once they'd tasted success with one plane. And the Western powers would surely be looking again at Newman's research to ensure they developed their own. But of course we're not privy to governments and what goes on at the top, how advances are accepted or discarded, and it's onto the next mission for our champions, such major technology advancements doesn't trouble their sleep, I'm sure.

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