DVD, Stargate SG-1 S9 (Arthur's Mantle)
What I want to know is what happened to Tony Todd? The end of the story comes so swiftly that we're left hanging - the guy couldn't stay in his devastated village, his people had all been massacred, so where was he going to go? What was he going to do? It's a bit of a big plot thread to leave so completely bereft of explanation, and unless the next episode shows him at the SGC it's going to annoy me! That's the thing with serialisation: you're never sure if something was left hanging to increase anticipation for the next episode, or was an oversight in the narrative. It was good to see the Sodan and their leader again, even if the B-story (or was it the A-story, I'm not sure on that count), conveniently allowed Colonel Mitchell to assist Teal'c so usefully. It's an invisible people story, one that's been done before, even on 'SG-1,' and was probably best exampled in 'TNG' with 'The Next Phase.' It's the same thing here: a couple of members of the team or crew find themselves out of phase with our dimension and have to deal with a threat that is on that same plane of existence to help their team-/crew-mates. It's not as groundbreaking or even impressive effects-wise as that old 'TNG' corker, but like most recycled Trek stories 'SG-1' likes to use, they do a fine job of translating it to their own style and characters. It's more about Carter and Mitchell's irritation with Dr. Lee, rising even more when he accidentally puts Daniel in the cloak, too, by his boffin meddling (with a fun 'Honey, I Shrunk The Kids' reference!).
The premise is that Carter's found an Ancient device that belonged to Merlin - he was an Ancient that worked on a weapon to defeat The Ori because the other Ancients couldn't be bothered with worrying about them, so he hid it in another dimension. It's taken a long time for the King Arthur mythology that opened the season in its first couple of episodes to return, they really haven't explored it, so if nothing else it begins to bring the season full circle, even if, like Mitchell being invisible just when Teal'c could use some help against an enemy that can turn invisible, it's all very convenient that they find it at this stage. For The Ori are playing dirty, or dirtier, anyway - they turned Volnek into a ravening, crazy man who killed all his people mercilessly and had become no better than a beast. It all goes a bit 'Predator' with Teal'c stalking through the forest like a black Schwarzenegger, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that this was their chief influence for the planet-side story. It doesn't entirely work - although the Sodan are supposed to be the warriors of warriors, and their culling by only one of their altered brethren should send a chill up the spine, there isn't a lot of atmosphere there, you don't get a foreboding atmosphere that this violently insane monster is going to appear (or not appear, since he's invisible), at any moment to slaughter Stargate personnel, and there isn't really an attempt to put Teal'c in jeopardy so he really needs Mitchell - it's more like the Colonel shows up and Teal'c sees the logic of letting him lure Volnek into the tripwire of some claymores because he can't be injured.
Whenever out of phase stories occur, doesn't matter the series, there's always a major logic flaw that it's difficult to overlook and makes absolutely no sense: in other words, if they can't interact with anything, they can't touch, eat, drink, etc, then why can they stand on solid ground? Why don't they sink right through the Earth or whatever planet they're on, or even worse, float around? What forces have sway over them, because if they're in some other dimension why would gravity keep them to the floor, and why would the ground even be the same? Obviously you have to ignore that side of things and they don't even address it, even in the few moments of approaching technobabble when either Carter or Lee begin to explain something and it's quickly cut through by someone else because it's not really relevant, they just have to deal with the consequences rather than explore or understand the scientific theories behind the wonders, unlike with Trek where they would positively enjoy spouting their jargon and going all the way down the rabbit hole. Either way works, and at least they do show that some of the characters understand it, but like Mitchell, the audience doesn't necessarily need to, so it's fine.
It's sad to think we won't get any more Sodan stories as they were a fine addition to the series, unless they opt to allow Tony Todd to hang around at the SGC, or even better, join SG-1, which would be even better, but that's never going to happen. I fully expect not to hear anything more about him. With only a couple of episodes left in which to deal with The Ori threat, assuming they don't keep them for the final season, which they may well do, I wonder how they're going to stymie the evil plot of this 'unstoppable' enemy, though my money would be on the newly discovered weapon of Merlin… I just hope the team gets to work together, because although it's good to see Carter trying to assist Dr. Jackson from the other dimension with how the device works, and the same can be said for Mitchell's attempt to help Teal'c on the Sodan's world, it's generally better when they're all working on the same problem together. I will say that once again they managed to give the episode the feel of older seasons where they'd encounter some sci-fi staple device and have a knockabout trying to get out of the fix they were in. Like Trek, they'd got to the point where they could cite several episodes (like the crystal skull or Anubis' cloak), where similar events occurred before. Close to being a satisfying story, but the wrap-up's too quick and the device wasn't fully explored because they're saving it for more episodes, I suspect. One fun little thing was seeing Doug Wert as the leader of the SG team that accompanies Teal'c on the Sodan mission - he played Wesley Crusher's Dad, Jack, on 'TNG'!
**
Tuesday, 26 February 2019
Nutcracker
DVD, The Champions (Nutcracker)
It wasn't the toughest of nuts to crack, was it? Not for the superior abilities of our champions, and because the challenge was diluted across other areas, the central problem was a mere wisp of a task requiring only a photographic memory to defeat. The premise sets them up for a deadly game of problem-solving that has an added sting of danger from mere heist, but because it's just a basic 'puzzle' rather than a series of difficulties which would tax even enhanced humans, they had to fill out the story with other elements, yet never satisfyingly achieved that, either. If they'd followed the test route to its logical conclusion we'd have had all three trapped in a maze of some kind, physical and perhaps psychological, a chance for the trio to really flex their mental muscles and skills to the utmost because each other's survival would depend on it, but instead it veers off into standard territory of one of the gang being captured and the others trying to track them down. In some ways it couldn't be more like 'The Avengers,' with its London setting (yet again! They can't get enough of old London town, despite being a series where the globe is their oyster), its peculiarly British eccentricities (a secret vault hidden by a quality London shop), and its villain of a medical professional using subliminal messaging to control his patients. It's not the unoriginality that's the problem, though: we'd already seen subliminal or hypnotic suggestion ('Shadow of The Panther' to name one), and a surgeon who controls his patients ('The Invisible Man'), and they were some of the better stories.
No, it's the inability to commit to the premise fully, and give us an internal test in the same manner that the agents were tested by the external threat of the enhanced agents in 'The Experiment' to see how they measured up to people on their level. It's also a bit repetitious, which drags the episode down a little, mainly in the vault sequence, but also in the fake police chasing down first Lord Mauncey's surly, alcoholic guard after he's strangled his charge to death, and then Richard, as pleasing as it was to see footage of cars zipping around London streets rather than stock footage (although scenes inside the vehicles were sometimes back projection - we also get another obviously painted backdrop as the view from the shop window). The vault had stuck in my head from previous viewings, and why I had the impression of a deadly dull episode. The logic doesn't seem to hang together too well, either: that anyone of the few people wanting to access the files contained in the vault have to go through an identification by the Manager of Aberdon & Jones shirt and tie-makers (in the Brummell Arcade off Piccadilly, to be precise), giving the correct code to be allowed in, then take a lift (disguised as a changing room), down to a lower level, then flip the correct switches to form a pattern on a bank of lights, then finish off a tune on a keyboard, and finally set the tumblers to the correct numbers to open the vault door… Just imagine if they had a memory blank and forgot what they came down for!
The files, including the mysterious 'F' file, are said to be NATOs top secret documents, but how useful are they with that level of access? Anyway, ignoring the ridiculousness of how to access these files, we see the sequence played out by Lord Mauncey, and to the episode's credit, the teaser does begin quite mysteriously with all this secret code stuff in everyday settings that would spark off the imagination of younger viewers watching, I'm sure. But then we have the briefing with Major Duncan, head of M7, British Intelligence, talking through each step of the verification procedure, and although it's in different form, with slides and photos, and verbal explanation, it feels like you're going through the whole thing again. And then of course we have to see Richard do it, so by the time he gets back to the lift and starts back for his tie, you're really hoping he's not going through the whole process yet again - it's with relief you see him pick up the tie from the keyboard and leave! Going back to the justification for such sensitive material being treated this way, you have to wonder what benefit could be taken from the files when you're only ever allowed ten minutes down there, no cameras (they say the files couldn't have been photographed, but what about miniature lenses?), and files that contain pages and pages of facts and figures that are not allowed to be removed from the vault! So what actual use are these files with those restrictions upon them?
Admittedly, only nine people, including Mauncey were allowed access, so perhaps they're just sensitive details that can't be destroyed, but aren't necessary day to day, held in storage in case they should ever be needed for whatever purpose, but it's charitable to allow for logic and reason in such staged setups. I can believe in Nemesis being called in in order to test the quality of the security, which had already passed the test of Mauncey since he wasn't able to actually remove the 'F' file, but Duncan wants to make sure there are no holes in the system. I'm not sure why he needed to leave in deadly safeguards that he tells them are there as a last resort, but doesn't say where, how and what, nor does he turn that part of the test off. It's to be dramatic, but even given the record of Nemesis are they really going to risk life and limb to test a security system for a bunch of files? The point is to put the champions in jeopardy, except we never do find out what the final safeguard after the gas would have been - at first it's easy to suppose that the police are on the lookout for anyone exiting the shop, but then you find out they aren't really police (which gets me to another question - how could a couple of dental surgeon John Warre's receptionists impersonate policemen in London without being pulled in by the real coppers, which in those days were always in whistling distance of each other?).
We also don't ever find out what Warre's motivation for stealing the files was, or what other uses he puts to the audible subliminal messages he implanted in the minds of high-ranking patients such as Mauncey or Duncan. Was it all a ploy to get at the files or was he just a baddie for hire, dealing with whatever came his way and infiltrating government departments, or whatever, as the opportunity arose. It's another of those stories that ends with the bad guys being smacked around by Craig and Richard, they walk out shaking the dust off their hands, effectively, a job well done. And that's it, no answers, not even Sharron joining them there, let alone a debriefing with Tremayne where we might have found out what it was all about. I'm sure British Intelligence isn't going to be very pleased with Nemesis since they were already pleading with Tremayne in the previous episode, and now one of their top men is shown to be compromised, albeit not with his complicity, so you have to wonder how they'd save face in front of this international organisation. I wish there had been a bit of international espionage competition in the series, perhaps using the guy that interrogated Craig in 'The Interrogation,' and other countries' official networks to provide some rivalry and drama. In all of this we don't even find out what was so special about the 'F' file itself, it's just a means to an end. Probably the most abrupt finish to an episode so far.
I actually liked the episode ever so slightly more than I expected, as I thought it was going to be the most boring of the lot, but the vault sequence doesn't go on all that long and the car sequences weren't bad, even if bad guys pretending to be police is a bit of a trope of these kinds of series, but what partially saved the story was the interactions of the main trio of characters who were professional, yet lighthearted in their usual way - when Sharron expresses concern about what to do if they encounter the deadly safeguard Craig glibly says, "Send flowers." It's that kind of relaxed interplay they do so well. Having said that, and enjoyed Craig trying to keep up with Richard until the 'police' throw caltrops under his wheels to bring him to a halt (shouldn't he have leapt from the vehicle and followed on foot, given the extreme levels of athleticism he's capable of?), or Sharron showing compassion to the captive Mauncey, after their meetings or briefings, the three don't do all that much together, with Sharron once again being protected by the noble Craig and Richard who take on the challenge of the vault by tossing for it, Richard the 'lucky' winner. At least there was a hint of the characters' personal lives when, on Craig expressing the desire to get this mission over as quickly as possible so they can return to Geneva, Sharron suggests he wants to get back to 'Magda,' whoever she is. It's only a little thing, but it fills them out a bit when they talk about their real lives outside the job, something we're used to in TV shows since that time, but wasn't attempted much in Sixties TV shows like this.
Once again their powers are mostly pushed into the background so that, apart from Richard's photographic memory being key to getting in and out of the vault without any trouble, they could be in just any old ordinary spy series. Even the photographic memory isn't an impossibility as some humans do have that ability naturally so they were still failing to use the qualities of the series to the full at this time. Still, as ever, there are a few instances, ranging from subtle to obvious uses of powers beginning with the post-credits scene, as you'd expect, where Craig's at a stall (the Bar B-Q Dude Ranch, no less), of a funfair, presumably in America (so perhaps he was on leave and maybe the lady he was with was Magda?), since a cowboy comes riding down through the use of stock footage (I'd love to know what film or series it was from), and shows his abilities with a six-shooter, only to be bested by Craig when they both fire at a target. Not one of the memorable post-credits and might be out of place for an episode so London-centric, but maybe it was put in deliberately to add the global feel missing from the rest of the episode. More likely they didn't consider things that carefully and just chucked it in there because it was ready to use! Sharron shows her intelligence by predicting the 'F' file is what Tremayne's about to talk about, then has to cover her leap as if she was being too clever, though it's a stretch to see all that in the scene. She also acts as a human lie detector, able to tell Mauncey is being truthful when he says he doesn't know why he tried to remove the 'F' file, which is her best moment, I would say.
When Craig and Richard break into Duncan's office to track down the codes for the vault as part of their test, they use intuition to find his hidden safe, but not in the manner of special powers, just common sense, so that doesn't qualify. Richard's big moment is recalling all the codes and passes to get through the vault's security, but it was more interesting that he comes to during Warre's men's abduction of him while they consult with the voice on the security camera and he's pretending to remain unconscious even when he gets a slapping from one of them and ignores the smelling salts thrust under his nose. The last instance of their powers being used is when Craig comes to the rescue at Warre's dental surgery, throwing one of the receptionists over his own desk in the way they like to hurl people head over heels. At the same time, in the other room Richard seemingly succumbs to the hypnotic lights and sounds used to condition Warre's patients, but just when we think he might be in danger of coming under the influence he hasn't, leaping up and knocking the other man about, as well as Warre - I love how he leaves the blond henchman propped up on top of one of the filing cabinets like a rag doll! And that's everything, powers-wise.
The internal sets were reuses of several we've seen a number of times over the series, with Warre's rooms looking almost identical to those of the Doctor in 'The Invisible Man,' with its tiled floor, which is ironic considering how similar he was to that character, except with less personality and motivations that remained hidden. The most fascinating set for me was seeing Tremayne actually talking to his agents in the area on the other side of the screen in his office. Up till now we'd just been teased with that part of the room, occasionally allowed a glimpse behind that huge rotating map to see a row of chairs, or filing cabinets when Richard's file was stolen, but this time they're all sat round that side and you can see the windows stretch right across, with Tremayne looking out, and a little coffee table to sit round. The row of chairs against the wall are still there, with a bookcase next to them featuring a piece of sculpture on top. We don't see the cabinets, but then the camera doesn't look at that part of the room, but after so many episodes of being intrigued by that hidden side of the most important location of the series it was actually exciting to get such a good look over there, especially as it was so unexpected!
Maybe I missed out one of Richard's abilities from my list as when Duncan hands him the photo of the keyboard he'll be encountering in the room before the vault he looks at it intently, but once he's passed it on, Craig flips over the paper cover to reveal the photo! So Richard must have been using some x-ray vision to be able to see through the paper. It was funny when I noticed that. Another funny visual happening was when the police pull over the surly guard who's just finished off the unfortunate Mauncey - they drive in front of him and come to a stop a few metres ahead, but I suppose brakes in those days weren't as effective, as the guard's car keeps going until it's almost on top of the police car and there's a great judder from that car which made it look like the guard had driven right into the back of it. I couldn't be sure because the policeman gets out of his vehicle at just that moment so it could have just been the change in weight inside the vehicle that made it look like it lurched from a bump. At first I wasn't sure if this guard was working for Warre as he's so unpleasant to old Mauncey and clearly has character flaws as demonstrated by his surreptitious swig from a whisky bottle when his fellow guard's snoozing over his paper, but it could be that he was yet another dental patient that had been conditioned to kill, as he doesn't recognise the fake officers and they shoot him, so maybe he didn't even know that he'd just killed a man. It was certainly of interest to see the police use an early form of the breathalyser to test this guard for alcohol: a bag with a little tube. Makes me wonder how it worked.
Warre is a typical power-hungry villain as shown by his pleasure in controlling his victims, but also in a flair for the melodramatic, speaking to Richard through the CCTV camera in his cell. It occurred to me just how old this series is when Richard asks the camera if Big Brother is watching him - it was so strange to think that the book that created the concept, '1984,' was less than twenty years old at the time this episode was made! Warre wasn't much of an adversary, not like the doc from 'The Invisible Man,' and you never really had a strong sense of who he was and what he wanted. If anything, his henchmen had more power on screen with the power of authority of the law behind them in their impersonation. I'm assuming they were Walcott and Travers from the credits as they were never named in dialogue, and I have no idea which was which. The guard who murdered Mauncey didn't even get a name in the credits, and strangely, while the Manager and his Assistant at Aberdon & Jones were both awarded names in Major Duncan's briefing (Clive Perburn and David Hollis, respectively), they were only credited by their roles. For once, apart from these little aberrations, the credits were clear cut, everyone who had a role of any significance being credited. Only the other guard (who never moves, let alone speaks), and the American customer speaking at the shop, go uncredited.
For once the position of the episode in the DVD set's order is exactly the same as its production position: fourth from last. It's yet another that suffers from almost ignoring the unique tenets of the series and you can see by this time they were just pumping out stories to complete the thirty, or at least that's how it seems when you watch them. The actors don't look tired, far from it, and I didn't guess that this was genuinely one of the last to be shot while I was watching. It's not that the format was tired, either, they just hadn't expanded upon it, perhaps it was constrained by the needs of TV at the time. So they could mention Craig's friend Magda, but we weren't going to ever see her. And while Tremayne had had a few outings from his office earlier in the series, by this stage he was just there for a few words of instruction, mostly at the beginning. There were no recurring cast members outside of the main four and no returning villains - each episode was rigidly separate from the others, for the most part, which only made it that much more special when something like 'The Interrogation' came along out of the blue. 'Nutcracker' wasn't one of the worst, but beneath its shell it cupped only a withered little piece of nutty goodness, not a tasty treat to be enjoyed over and over again. Nut the best, then.
**
It wasn't the toughest of nuts to crack, was it? Not for the superior abilities of our champions, and because the challenge was diluted across other areas, the central problem was a mere wisp of a task requiring only a photographic memory to defeat. The premise sets them up for a deadly game of problem-solving that has an added sting of danger from mere heist, but because it's just a basic 'puzzle' rather than a series of difficulties which would tax even enhanced humans, they had to fill out the story with other elements, yet never satisfyingly achieved that, either. If they'd followed the test route to its logical conclusion we'd have had all three trapped in a maze of some kind, physical and perhaps psychological, a chance for the trio to really flex their mental muscles and skills to the utmost because each other's survival would depend on it, but instead it veers off into standard territory of one of the gang being captured and the others trying to track them down. In some ways it couldn't be more like 'The Avengers,' with its London setting (yet again! They can't get enough of old London town, despite being a series where the globe is their oyster), its peculiarly British eccentricities (a secret vault hidden by a quality London shop), and its villain of a medical professional using subliminal messaging to control his patients. It's not the unoriginality that's the problem, though: we'd already seen subliminal or hypnotic suggestion ('Shadow of The Panther' to name one), and a surgeon who controls his patients ('The Invisible Man'), and they were some of the better stories.
No, it's the inability to commit to the premise fully, and give us an internal test in the same manner that the agents were tested by the external threat of the enhanced agents in 'The Experiment' to see how they measured up to people on their level. It's also a bit repetitious, which drags the episode down a little, mainly in the vault sequence, but also in the fake police chasing down first Lord Mauncey's surly, alcoholic guard after he's strangled his charge to death, and then Richard, as pleasing as it was to see footage of cars zipping around London streets rather than stock footage (although scenes inside the vehicles were sometimes back projection - we also get another obviously painted backdrop as the view from the shop window). The vault had stuck in my head from previous viewings, and why I had the impression of a deadly dull episode. The logic doesn't seem to hang together too well, either: that anyone of the few people wanting to access the files contained in the vault have to go through an identification by the Manager of Aberdon & Jones shirt and tie-makers (in the Brummell Arcade off Piccadilly, to be precise), giving the correct code to be allowed in, then take a lift (disguised as a changing room), down to a lower level, then flip the correct switches to form a pattern on a bank of lights, then finish off a tune on a keyboard, and finally set the tumblers to the correct numbers to open the vault door… Just imagine if they had a memory blank and forgot what they came down for!
The files, including the mysterious 'F' file, are said to be NATOs top secret documents, but how useful are they with that level of access? Anyway, ignoring the ridiculousness of how to access these files, we see the sequence played out by Lord Mauncey, and to the episode's credit, the teaser does begin quite mysteriously with all this secret code stuff in everyday settings that would spark off the imagination of younger viewers watching, I'm sure. But then we have the briefing with Major Duncan, head of M7, British Intelligence, talking through each step of the verification procedure, and although it's in different form, with slides and photos, and verbal explanation, it feels like you're going through the whole thing again. And then of course we have to see Richard do it, so by the time he gets back to the lift and starts back for his tie, you're really hoping he's not going through the whole process yet again - it's with relief you see him pick up the tie from the keyboard and leave! Going back to the justification for such sensitive material being treated this way, you have to wonder what benefit could be taken from the files when you're only ever allowed ten minutes down there, no cameras (they say the files couldn't have been photographed, but what about miniature lenses?), and files that contain pages and pages of facts and figures that are not allowed to be removed from the vault! So what actual use are these files with those restrictions upon them?
Admittedly, only nine people, including Mauncey were allowed access, so perhaps they're just sensitive details that can't be destroyed, but aren't necessary day to day, held in storage in case they should ever be needed for whatever purpose, but it's charitable to allow for logic and reason in such staged setups. I can believe in Nemesis being called in in order to test the quality of the security, which had already passed the test of Mauncey since he wasn't able to actually remove the 'F' file, but Duncan wants to make sure there are no holes in the system. I'm not sure why he needed to leave in deadly safeguards that he tells them are there as a last resort, but doesn't say where, how and what, nor does he turn that part of the test off. It's to be dramatic, but even given the record of Nemesis are they really going to risk life and limb to test a security system for a bunch of files? The point is to put the champions in jeopardy, except we never do find out what the final safeguard after the gas would have been - at first it's easy to suppose that the police are on the lookout for anyone exiting the shop, but then you find out they aren't really police (which gets me to another question - how could a couple of dental surgeon John Warre's receptionists impersonate policemen in London without being pulled in by the real coppers, which in those days were always in whistling distance of each other?).
We also don't ever find out what Warre's motivation for stealing the files was, or what other uses he puts to the audible subliminal messages he implanted in the minds of high-ranking patients such as Mauncey or Duncan. Was it all a ploy to get at the files or was he just a baddie for hire, dealing with whatever came his way and infiltrating government departments, or whatever, as the opportunity arose. It's another of those stories that ends with the bad guys being smacked around by Craig and Richard, they walk out shaking the dust off their hands, effectively, a job well done. And that's it, no answers, not even Sharron joining them there, let alone a debriefing with Tremayne where we might have found out what it was all about. I'm sure British Intelligence isn't going to be very pleased with Nemesis since they were already pleading with Tremayne in the previous episode, and now one of their top men is shown to be compromised, albeit not with his complicity, so you have to wonder how they'd save face in front of this international organisation. I wish there had been a bit of international espionage competition in the series, perhaps using the guy that interrogated Craig in 'The Interrogation,' and other countries' official networks to provide some rivalry and drama. In all of this we don't even find out what was so special about the 'F' file itself, it's just a means to an end. Probably the most abrupt finish to an episode so far.
I actually liked the episode ever so slightly more than I expected, as I thought it was going to be the most boring of the lot, but the vault sequence doesn't go on all that long and the car sequences weren't bad, even if bad guys pretending to be police is a bit of a trope of these kinds of series, but what partially saved the story was the interactions of the main trio of characters who were professional, yet lighthearted in their usual way - when Sharron expresses concern about what to do if they encounter the deadly safeguard Craig glibly says, "Send flowers." It's that kind of relaxed interplay they do so well. Having said that, and enjoyed Craig trying to keep up with Richard until the 'police' throw caltrops under his wheels to bring him to a halt (shouldn't he have leapt from the vehicle and followed on foot, given the extreme levels of athleticism he's capable of?), or Sharron showing compassion to the captive Mauncey, after their meetings or briefings, the three don't do all that much together, with Sharron once again being protected by the noble Craig and Richard who take on the challenge of the vault by tossing for it, Richard the 'lucky' winner. At least there was a hint of the characters' personal lives when, on Craig expressing the desire to get this mission over as quickly as possible so they can return to Geneva, Sharron suggests he wants to get back to 'Magda,' whoever she is. It's only a little thing, but it fills them out a bit when they talk about their real lives outside the job, something we're used to in TV shows since that time, but wasn't attempted much in Sixties TV shows like this.
Once again their powers are mostly pushed into the background so that, apart from Richard's photographic memory being key to getting in and out of the vault without any trouble, they could be in just any old ordinary spy series. Even the photographic memory isn't an impossibility as some humans do have that ability naturally so they were still failing to use the qualities of the series to the full at this time. Still, as ever, there are a few instances, ranging from subtle to obvious uses of powers beginning with the post-credits scene, as you'd expect, where Craig's at a stall (the Bar B-Q Dude Ranch, no less), of a funfair, presumably in America (so perhaps he was on leave and maybe the lady he was with was Magda?), since a cowboy comes riding down through the use of stock footage (I'd love to know what film or series it was from), and shows his abilities with a six-shooter, only to be bested by Craig when they both fire at a target. Not one of the memorable post-credits and might be out of place for an episode so London-centric, but maybe it was put in deliberately to add the global feel missing from the rest of the episode. More likely they didn't consider things that carefully and just chucked it in there because it was ready to use! Sharron shows her intelligence by predicting the 'F' file is what Tremayne's about to talk about, then has to cover her leap as if she was being too clever, though it's a stretch to see all that in the scene. She also acts as a human lie detector, able to tell Mauncey is being truthful when he says he doesn't know why he tried to remove the 'F' file, which is her best moment, I would say.
When Craig and Richard break into Duncan's office to track down the codes for the vault as part of their test, they use intuition to find his hidden safe, but not in the manner of special powers, just common sense, so that doesn't qualify. Richard's big moment is recalling all the codes and passes to get through the vault's security, but it was more interesting that he comes to during Warre's men's abduction of him while they consult with the voice on the security camera and he's pretending to remain unconscious even when he gets a slapping from one of them and ignores the smelling salts thrust under his nose. The last instance of their powers being used is when Craig comes to the rescue at Warre's dental surgery, throwing one of the receptionists over his own desk in the way they like to hurl people head over heels. At the same time, in the other room Richard seemingly succumbs to the hypnotic lights and sounds used to condition Warre's patients, but just when we think he might be in danger of coming under the influence he hasn't, leaping up and knocking the other man about, as well as Warre - I love how he leaves the blond henchman propped up on top of one of the filing cabinets like a rag doll! And that's everything, powers-wise.
The internal sets were reuses of several we've seen a number of times over the series, with Warre's rooms looking almost identical to those of the Doctor in 'The Invisible Man,' with its tiled floor, which is ironic considering how similar he was to that character, except with less personality and motivations that remained hidden. The most fascinating set for me was seeing Tremayne actually talking to his agents in the area on the other side of the screen in his office. Up till now we'd just been teased with that part of the room, occasionally allowed a glimpse behind that huge rotating map to see a row of chairs, or filing cabinets when Richard's file was stolen, but this time they're all sat round that side and you can see the windows stretch right across, with Tremayne looking out, and a little coffee table to sit round. The row of chairs against the wall are still there, with a bookcase next to them featuring a piece of sculpture on top. We don't see the cabinets, but then the camera doesn't look at that part of the room, but after so many episodes of being intrigued by that hidden side of the most important location of the series it was actually exciting to get such a good look over there, especially as it was so unexpected!
Maybe I missed out one of Richard's abilities from my list as when Duncan hands him the photo of the keyboard he'll be encountering in the room before the vault he looks at it intently, but once he's passed it on, Craig flips over the paper cover to reveal the photo! So Richard must have been using some x-ray vision to be able to see through the paper. It was funny when I noticed that. Another funny visual happening was when the police pull over the surly guard who's just finished off the unfortunate Mauncey - they drive in front of him and come to a stop a few metres ahead, but I suppose brakes in those days weren't as effective, as the guard's car keeps going until it's almost on top of the police car and there's a great judder from that car which made it look like the guard had driven right into the back of it. I couldn't be sure because the policeman gets out of his vehicle at just that moment so it could have just been the change in weight inside the vehicle that made it look like it lurched from a bump. At first I wasn't sure if this guard was working for Warre as he's so unpleasant to old Mauncey and clearly has character flaws as demonstrated by his surreptitious swig from a whisky bottle when his fellow guard's snoozing over his paper, but it could be that he was yet another dental patient that had been conditioned to kill, as he doesn't recognise the fake officers and they shoot him, so maybe he didn't even know that he'd just killed a man. It was certainly of interest to see the police use an early form of the breathalyser to test this guard for alcohol: a bag with a little tube. Makes me wonder how it worked.
Warre is a typical power-hungry villain as shown by his pleasure in controlling his victims, but also in a flair for the melodramatic, speaking to Richard through the CCTV camera in his cell. It occurred to me just how old this series is when Richard asks the camera if Big Brother is watching him - it was so strange to think that the book that created the concept, '1984,' was less than twenty years old at the time this episode was made! Warre wasn't much of an adversary, not like the doc from 'The Invisible Man,' and you never really had a strong sense of who he was and what he wanted. If anything, his henchmen had more power on screen with the power of authority of the law behind them in their impersonation. I'm assuming they were Walcott and Travers from the credits as they were never named in dialogue, and I have no idea which was which. The guard who murdered Mauncey didn't even get a name in the credits, and strangely, while the Manager and his Assistant at Aberdon & Jones were both awarded names in Major Duncan's briefing (Clive Perburn and David Hollis, respectively), they were only credited by their roles. For once, apart from these little aberrations, the credits were clear cut, everyone who had a role of any significance being credited. Only the other guard (who never moves, let alone speaks), and the American customer speaking at the shop, go uncredited.
For once the position of the episode in the DVD set's order is exactly the same as its production position: fourth from last. It's yet another that suffers from almost ignoring the unique tenets of the series and you can see by this time they were just pumping out stories to complete the thirty, or at least that's how it seems when you watch them. The actors don't look tired, far from it, and I didn't guess that this was genuinely one of the last to be shot while I was watching. It's not that the format was tired, either, they just hadn't expanded upon it, perhaps it was constrained by the needs of TV at the time. So they could mention Craig's friend Magda, but we weren't going to ever see her. And while Tremayne had had a few outings from his office earlier in the series, by this stage he was just there for a few words of instruction, mostly at the beginning. There were no recurring cast members outside of the main four and no returning villains - each episode was rigidly separate from the others, for the most part, which only made it that much more special when something like 'The Interrogation' came along out of the blue. 'Nutcracker' wasn't one of the worst, but beneath its shell it cupped only a withered little piece of nutty goodness, not a tasty treat to be enjoyed over and over again. Nut the best, then.
**
Tuesday, 19 February 2019
The Scourge
DVD, Stargate SG-1 S9 (The Scourge)
Reminding me of 'Tremors' or some other low-budget horror film, this was disturbingly creepy from the moment the innocuous weevils burst from their viewing container and spilled out all over the floor. There's something hideous about a teeming mass of small creatures - I remember reading some short story in Secondary School about someone that collected snails until they were covering his whole house, the place dank with their slime, and I've never forgotten it. This episode tapped into that psychological disgust, and though the space bugs weren't all that realistic in their CGI guise, the sensible use of sound and the effects of their close presence only added to their virulent unpleasantness as SG-1 fight to keep a party of representatives from the International Oversight Advisory from being devoured as the redshirts are, not to mention the entire base at the Gamma site. I wish there had been more establishing of the base and its occupants so it was even more shocking to see it ripped apart by its own self-destruct, but even if there isn't enough character time afforded to that end of things, it's still horrifying to see. I could have wished for a few more character-building scenes, like that between Daniel and Shen, especially as she suggests he might get the chance to work for the Stargate program in the future under China, or Woolsey's combative exchanges with short-tempered Colonel Carter, but like all low-budget horrors you're not supposed to be getting the most rounded characters, so it fits the mood. And they do achieve some character early on when we meet the scientists working on these bugs.
I liked a lot about this episode, from the quick reaction to the scientists' discovery of the infestation (likely to be a new attack by the Priors now that their virus is being defeated), in the lab, pressing that emergency quarantine button that seals the door and sucks all the creatures away (a small mistake, feeding the bugs meat-related food, much like Gremlins, turns them into ravening carnivores), to the presence of Woolsey on the tour, and the addition of the Chinese angle as another Shen hints that China isn't going to stand by and put up with the American military's continued dominance of the Stargate. That had a ring of reality to it, as that's the kind of thing that would be happening if such a device were discovered in our modern world. In fact things would be a lot harsher now, but the issue of who owns the 'gate, and America pretty much fobbing off the rest of the world with 'finders keepers, but you can send people over to play in our backyard,' not really cutting it by this point. The reality is that this is an American TV series so of course it would be the US that found and controlled the 'gate, but I wonder what the series might have been if they'd tried something radically different from the start and set it as a US team that has to tread diplomatically as they take part in another superpower nation's coordination of its use? In all likelihood, China or Russia would have kept it all to themselves until some unknown challenge taxed their resources and only then might they have been interested in seeking alliance in exchange for the sharing of resources.
Like coming up against the Replicators. But these bugs were much creepier than those machines ever were, because they're living creatures deliberately engineered to cause maximum threat. Not that that was always apparent in the story, for the idea of echo location didn't appear to be that accurate as how could you echo-locate from underground? Or am I getting confused with sonar? Either way, sometimes the bugs were affected by noise, and other times not, as Mitchell and Teal'c could walk stealthily to avoid them, yet when they make a grand final attack on the science station they don't pay any attention to the barrage of bullets that had previously set them ringing and turned them away. Naturally, SG-1 is successful in keeping the whiny officials alive and the only thing really missing was a scene where they all come off their high horses and meekly thank these soldiers for saving their hides. It was done a lot better in the 'DS9' episode 'The Forsaken,' when Bashir had to do a similar thing and show his professionalism in the face of grumbling, officious diplomats that had to be treated with respect, yet kept alive. It's a bit of a stereotype that these sort of people are privileged and childish, but conflict has to come from somewhere, I suppose!
The good that comes out of it is that Woolsey finds more positives to say about SG-1 and the Stargate program, so that seems to set any budgetary concerns aside, at least for the near future. It's always good to see Robert Picardo again, and I'm sure they put in that whole scene in the 'gate room where he expresses trepidation about travelling via the Stargate as a joke, since most people know him best as The Doctor from 'Voyager,' who was always beaming to places on that series, being disassembled and reassembled on a regular basis in the same sort of process as the 'gate puts you through. Perhaps the lighting was a little flat when it could have done with more darkness to suit the mood, and once they get out into the open air the threat seems much diminished, even though it isn't, as we see by a couple of redshirts being gorged on where they fall. The cave also looked somewhat fabricated, and you could tell it was an elaborate set compared to the outdoor scenes. But it did have that old-style SG-1 feel about it with only the team of four to depend on each other, and with the added burden of civilians to babysit making it more challenging. It's also good that, while connected to the Prior arc, it's a standalone adventure which is wrapped up by the end. And Dr. Lee is as amusing as ever, I wish he'd been in it more. Something should have been said about the entire Gamma site complement that were killed by either the bugs or the self-destruct, but that's par for the course, and it was all but certain that SG-1 were finished, too, in the eyes of the SGC.
***
Reminding me of 'Tremors' or some other low-budget horror film, this was disturbingly creepy from the moment the innocuous weevils burst from their viewing container and spilled out all over the floor. There's something hideous about a teeming mass of small creatures - I remember reading some short story in Secondary School about someone that collected snails until they were covering his whole house, the place dank with their slime, and I've never forgotten it. This episode tapped into that psychological disgust, and though the space bugs weren't all that realistic in their CGI guise, the sensible use of sound and the effects of their close presence only added to their virulent unpleasantness as SG-1 fight to keep a party of representatives from the International Oversight Advisory from being devoured as the redshirts are, not to mention the entire base at the Gamma site. I wish there had been more establishing of the base and its occupants so it was even more shocking to see it ripped apart by its own self-destruct, but even if there isn't enough character time afforded to that end of things, it's still horrifying to see. I could have wished for a few more character-building scenes, like that between Daniel and Shen, especially as she suggests he might get the chance to work for the Stargate program in the future under China, or Woolsey's combative exchanges with short-tempered Colonel Carter, but like all low-budget horrors you're not supposed to be getting the most rounded characters, so it fits the mood. And they do achieve some character early on when we meet the scientists working on these bugs.
I liked a lot about this episode, from the quick reaction to the scientists' discovery of the infestation (likely to be a new attack by the Priors now that their virus is being defeated), in the lab, pressing that emergency quarantine button that seals the door and sucks all the creatures away (a small mistake, feeding the bugs meat-related food, much like Gremlins, turns them into ravening carnivores), to the presence of Woolsey on the tour, and the addition of the Chinese angle as another Shen hints that China isn't going to stand by and put up with the American military's continued dominance of the Stargate. That had a ring of reality to it, as that's the kind of thing that would be happening if such a device were discovered in our modern world. In fact things would be a lot harsher now, but the issue of who owns the 'gate, and America pretty much fobbing off the rest of the world with 'finders keepers, but you can send people over to play in our backyard,' not really cutting it by this point. The reality is that this is an American TV series so of course it would be the US that found and controlled the 'gate, but I wonder what the series might have been if they'd tried something radically different from the start and set it as a US team that has to tread diplomatically as they take part in another superpower nation's coordination of its use? In all likelihood, China or Russia would have kept it all to themselves until some unknown challenge taxed their resources and only then might they have been interested in seeking alliance in exchange for the sharing of resources.
Like coming up against the Replicators. But these bugs were much creepier than those machines ever were, because they're living creatures deliberately engineered to cause maximum threat. Not that that was always apparent in the story, for the idea of echo location didn't appear to be that accurate as how could you echo-locate from underground? Or am I getting confused with sonar? Either way, sometimes the bugs were affected by noise, and other times not, as Mitchell and Teal'c could walk stealthily to avoid them, yet when they make a grand final attack on the science station they don't pay any attention to the barrage of bullets that had previously set them ringing and turned them away. Naturally, SG-1 is successful in keeping the whiny officials alive and the only thing really missing was a scene where they all come off their high horses and meekly thank these soldiers for saving their hides. It was done a lot better in the 'DS9' episode 'The Forsaken,' when Bashir had to do a similar thing and show his professionalism in the face of grumbling, officious diplomats that had to be treated with respect, yet kept alive. It's a bit of a stereotype that these sort of people are privileged and childish, but conflict has to come from somewhere, I suppose!
The good that comes out of it is that Woolsey finds more positives to say about SG-1 and the Stargate program, so that seems to set any budgetary concerns aside, at least for the near future. It's always good to see Robert Picardo again, and I'm sure they put in that whole scene in the 'gate room where he expresses trepidation about travelling via the Stargate as a joke, since most people know him best as The Doctor from 'Voyager,' who was always beaming to places on that series, being disassembled and reassembled on a regular basis in the same sort of process as the 'gate puts you through. Perhaps the lighting was a little flat when it could have done with more darkness to suit the mood, and once they get out into the open air the threat seems much diminished, even though it isn't, as we see by a couple of redshirts being gorged on where they fall. The cave also looked somewhat fabricated, and you could tell it was an elaborate set compared to the outdoor scenes. But it did have that old-style SG-1 feel about it with only the team of four to depend on each other, and with the added burden of civilians to babysit making it more challenging. It's also good that, while connected to the Prior arc, it's a standalone adventure which is wrapped up by the end. And Dr. Lee is as amusing as ever, I wish he'd been in it more. Something should have been said about the entire Gamma site complement that were killed by either the bugs or the self-destruct, but that's par for the course, and it was all but certain that SG-1 were finished, too, in the eyes of the SGC.
***
Choose Your Pain
DVD, Discovery S1 (Choose Your Pain)
Each episode has so far followed a pattern: that of being slightly worse than the preceding episode. It's an achievement of sorts, considering a Trek season used to start of really well, then dip a little, then gradually improve, but those were in the days when they had twenty-plus episodes in which to explore this world, and now we're down to a mere fifteen. Not that you'd know it, as it seems from the speed of the unravelling story that they think they're spooling it out over seven seasons! By which I mean that very little actually happens. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the rationale behind shorter seasons has tended to be that each episode will have more money and time spent on it, thus making it much better on an episode-by-episode basis, with no more 'filler' stories or redundant remakes of previous examples from other series' in the canon. Every episode was supposed to be vital and energising to suit the needs of modern audiences' short attention spans, the story rocketing along in serialised form without a pause for breath, or a rich examination of the pieces they're playing with on this particular game board. So what's happened with 'Discovery' if that's the case? Genuinely, each episode is less eventful than the last, with little characterisation, no exploration of the world or building on the period they're inhabiting. Stuff just happens. In this case, Captain Lorca is captured by the Klingons.
Somehow it was all so tame and tidy. This whole business of the Klingons allowing their prisoners to choose who gets a beating in order to keep them from bonding, didn't make sense. Who gets to choose, and why would anyone choose themselves? Now, I know why this capture happened, because I already know the spoilers to come later in the series, but if something's well acted and dramatic then it doesn't matter how many times you see it, or how much you know in advance, it will still make an impact. But here we have Lorca captured with no fanfare, presumably close to the Starbase (which, as you can now expect from their approach to the series, looks nothing like the facilities we saw in 'TOS'), at which he's attending a war council with his superior officers. He's thrown in a cell, all in order to meet a couple of new characters, is tortured, and then 'escapes.' If you've watched Trek then you'll have seen many such episodes, but where 'The Chute' from 'Voyager' showed the brutality and degrading nature of such a position, and 'Allegiance' from 'TNG' gave us the more thoughtful approach of not turning on fellow captors, but working together to solve a problem, or 'Hard Time' of 'DS9' addressed the psychological aspects of captivity, 'Choose Your Pain' has nothing to delve into, it's all surface. It's about setting up a future enemy, of preparing for a future plot twist, it's not satisfying in itself, it doesn't explore an issue, it is, like I said, just doing stuff with little to no immediate consequence. In other words it's basically filler!
This isn't completely fair. The B-story of Saru struggling with both Burnham's usual rebellious tendencies (because she knows best), and his own inadequacies in command, had the seeds for a meaningful development, but it's so spare and slight as to be a whisper of Trek quality on the outskirts of a honking stupidity that I'm beginning to see envelops the general mass of the series. I really do wonder how the young audience that hasn't had experience with Trek, or thinks it's boring, has latched onto this series, since I have to admit that I'm finding 'Discovery' a teensy bit boring. It's not even about comparisons with past Trek - 'Enterprise' had a lot of issues and things I didn't like about it, there were a fair few episodes that were as dull as this one, but it at least showed the promise of other Trek and we did get a number of great episodes, crucially, the opening salvo of Season 1. But then that was made by people that knew Trek back to front and the mistakes or flaws were more because they were trying to do something different without overturning the boat, or on the other extreme they were being too careful not to meddle with canon or continuity, and their own ennui with Trek as it stood was losing them their confidence and drive. This new team doesn't have that excuse. Like 'Enterprise,' they came out of the gate doing something new, but they went too far and they haven't even captured the vibrancy and excitement of that failed series.
I am in danger of prejudging this series before I've fully experienced it, as I keep saying in each review, and I am continually grateful for more Trek to discuss and examine, but how long should I go on trying to be amicable and accepting when I see so little of the spirit of Trek in evidence? So many of the aspects of Trek are missing: I've narrowed Trek down to why I'm still so drawn to it, even after twenty-five years of engaging with this universe, and it can be encapsulated by a theme of good people solving problems. You can see a sliver of that in this episode's moral difficulties in using a living creature to make their 'Displacement-Activated Spore Hub Drive' (to give it its full grand monicker), when they believe the process is damaging it. And we see Stamets being selfless enough to try an alternative by using himself in place of the creature when the necessity is imperative if they're going to rescue their Captain. But it's still lightweight, and we've already explored this issue in the preceding episode. Going over the same ground isn't the problem, but getting somewhere is. I think one of the main problems with the series so far is that they refuse to explore the world we're in. For a start they refuse to play by the rules of that world and the fact that they have touch screen consoles and bizarre technology that has neither the look nor feel of this period wouldn't bother me if the stories were gripping and I was becoming emotionally invested in the characters, but it's things like that that keep niggling at me and so I know that the story isn't papering over the historical inconsistencies.
Again I ask why you would choose a period of Trek history, then not bend over backwards to be true to it. Instead they have the same arrogant attitude as JJ Abrams and his team had when making the Kelvin films. It isn't just the aesthetic they've half-inched, it's the approach, all surface sheen with a few backhanded references to Trek history for the purists to get excited about. This series is at least putting a slightly more Trekkian spin on things than those films, but then they have more time to do so, and this may as well have been set in the Kelvin Timeline for all the relevance it has to pre-Kirk days. This time the references are myriad, though blink and miss them, the best being a list of Starfleet's finest Captains (Matthew Decker, Jonathan Archer, Robert April, Phillippa Georgiou and Christopher Pike), and while it is gratifying to see these names why couldn't we have seen images of them? When it comes to it, it's also a shameless narrowing of the world since there aren't any other names on that list that we don't know and surely in the century since Archer there would be other famed Captains? If a couple of unknowns were included that would expand the universe, allowing us to speculate on them and perhaps one day meet them or hear their story. It's also an arbitrary selection, as how could the computer know which to choose - is it popular opinion, a measure of their score ratings across all missions, or some other indefinable ranking system? In reality they're just choosing the names we know, and that's fine, but it's another example of how this series works (or not).
The Benzite's homeworld, Benzar, also scores a mention by Lorca in his appraisal of the Klingon advance, as well as the Ophiucus system (where Mudd was heading in 'TOS'), and if you look carefully at a star-map at one point you can see Rura Penthe, the famed Klingon prison planet, and Space Station K-7 as easily recognisable locations of yore. There are probably others, and they certainly know enough of the lore to throw in these references that only the hardcore will notice, but that's all they are. It's not like we're actually getting to see a Benzite or visit Benzar. In fact the series has been practically devoid of aliens. Sure, you have the Klingons, but it's not like we're getting to know them, and they still irritate me with their stupid dome-heads and no explanation of this bizarre look, or talk of other types of Klingon, and I'm wondering if it'll ever be addressed or just ignored. They're just lumbering cannon fodder (which they often were in the other series', don't get me wrong, but there were a number of great characters that stood out from that race), and you have to wonder with those ridiculous fat claw hands they have, how did they ever build anything, especially as precise and intricate as the torture device L'Rell thumbs over Lorca's face to keep his sensitive eyes open to the light (I really wanted his eye medication to be named as Retinax!)?
The Klingon ship that kidnaps Lorca is designated 'D-7' yet looks nothing like one. Okay, so you can barely make out its shape, but why go to the trouble of specifically categorising it as something we know, then not showing it in all its glory? And why would L'Rell take the time to learn languages when the Universal Translator handles all that, or are they positing it hasn't been invented yet? And what's with the ugly Klingon Disruptors that spits targets into green puffs of vapour? And why would people still use a stick to clean their teeth in the 23rd Century? It's a wasted opportunity and it only further irritates because this is the kind of thing you want: to see the things they're referencing, to go deeper into this period and this world, to justify why things look different to the way we think they should. To address the issues, to show they know what they're doing, to have fun with the playing pieces in the game, not just having them there for the sake of it! We still don't get time to grow attached to the guest cast, like Keyla, we still don't get any explanation or justification for the robot people or augmentation all around us on the Discovery, like Airiam in this episode, a robot woman who has a couple of lines and nothing else. We see vague shapes of alien crewmembers in the Mess, but we're not introduced to them, we're not even allowed to see them properly. They're just background flavour, except we're not allowed to taste. It's infuriating, and is the kind of thing we'd be allowed time to take in if the series was giving us a full-length season. Instead we have to make do with another 'TOS' character being brought in for no apparent reason, and like Sarek, Harcourt Fenton Mudd looks and sounds nothing like the great performance of Roger C. Carmel, the originator of the galaxy's most scurrilous scoundrel.
Again, forewarned is forearmed, and it was no secret they were bringing back old Harry (or bringing him forward since this is the earliest appearance of him in Trek history). As far as I'm aware, no one was clamouring for his return, and while he has the distinction for being one of the few characters in 'TOS' to appear in more than one episode, and he can be fun to deal with, he's not that interesting. And when you make him almost nothing like the huge, garrulous figure we know, you don't just diminish his ridiculous stature, but any hope of recreating a character as he was, negating the point of having him there at all. There's nothing about him that makes him necessary to be Mudd (as with Cumberbatch as Khan), he could have been any conman or rogue, but they foolishly assume that by appropriating the name it will draw in the half-fans, the casuals, who remember the name, but don't have a clear idea of who he was or what his purpose was. A sort of Lord of Misrule that came into the highly ordered, serious battleship of the original Enterprise under Kirk, and caused them a different kind of challenge. This one is just a common rogue without the jovial twinkle, and it doesn't matter how many times they throw in a reference to his wife, Stella, it doesn't make this version any more interesting.
If that wasn't enough to put me off, they also show how 'avant-garde' they are by throwing in some offensive expletives off the cuff with no necessity or purpose other than because they can. It was pointless for Tilly and Stamets (and Tyler), to be throwing out words like that except to make people sit up and see this Trek is different. It certainly is different, but not good different. It's unnecessary, and is hardly the kind of badge of honour the series should be aspiring to as the first Trek to use such words. It's not like it was a major thing, but the fact they threw it in there on what felt like a whim, was disappointing. Like I said, good Trek for me is good people solving problems, but I haven't seen many problems solved, nor many good people. I'm not saying they're bad people 'cuz they said naughty words, ummm… I'm just pointing out the juvenile approach taken by these writers in all directions. Again, if they were crafting an intelligent, compelling story I can forgive a lot of things, but the issues I have with the series are only magnified because I can't get onboard with the direction, approach and style of it all. Ironically, you can see from the episode's deleted scenes that some things that would have enhanced a Trek feeling, were cut from the episode, and yet they have the time to make episodes as long as they wish, so why chop Saru's Acting Captain's Log, or the door override he does to get into Engineering. Stuff like that is bread and butter for Trek and helps make it more comfortable and real. At least we hear that there are one hundred and thirty-four crew aboard Discovery, which I can't remember if we'd been told before, so even the crumbs of facts are something to hold onto.
I'm afraid I'm holding out less and less hope for not only this season, but for the multiple productions and projects coming from this current Trek stable. Because if this is how they wanted Trek to be then no doubt that style will extend to everything else they do. Whether the season will show any of the fingerprints of Trek royalty in Nicholas Meyer, Joe Menosky and others, I really don't know, but so far it seems the young guns are ruling the roost and not ruling it very effectively. An episode about Saru struggling with his own nature and his issues with Burnham sounds like a good idea, but when it's just thrown in amongst other things it doesn't work out so well. I don't even get a sense of progression or scale in the war, there's very little to grip onto, but those things that were in the first episode are still the only bright lights, namely Saru and Burnham. It's a shame the other characters are a good deal less likeable. And I have to ask: what was going on with that final shot of Stamets' reflection remaining in the mirror after he'd left the room? I know what it's referring to, but was it supposed to be taken literally, that there's a man in the mirror autonomous from Stamets? Or is it a metaphor, a little hint of what's coming? It's just bizarre. At the moment I'm choosing my pain, and that pain is to keep hoping that the series will improve, that there will be at least one good episode somewhere along the line, and that they won't just keep relying on limping the ongoing story along - is there even an ongoing story yet? So far it's 'war,' and the use of the spore drive, but it hasn't turned into anything. It's Star Trek, Jim, but not as we like it.
**
Each episode has so far followed a pattern: that of being slightly worse than the preceding episode. It's an achievement of sorts, considering a Trek season used to start of really well, then dip a little, then gradually improve, but those were in the days when they had twenty-plus episodes in which to explore this world, and now we're down to a mere fifteen. Not that you'd know it, as it seems from the speed of the unravelling story that they think they're spooling it out over seven seasons! By which I mean that very little actually happens. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the rationale behind shorter seasons has tended to be that each episode will have more money and time spent on it, thus making it much better on an episode-by-episode basis, with no more 'filler' stories or redundant remakes of previous examples from other series' in the canon. Every episode was supposed to be vital and energising to suit the needs of modern audiences' short attention spans, the story rocketing along in serialised form without a pause for breath, or a rich examination of the pieces they're playing with on this particular game board. So what's happened with 'Discovery' if that's the case? Genuinely, each episode is less eventful than the last, with little characterisation, no exploration of the world or building on the period they're inhabiting. Stuff just happens. In this case, Captain Lorca is captured by the Klingons.
Somehow it was all so tame and tidy. This whole business of the Klingons allowing their prisoners to choose who gets a beating in order to keep them from bonding, didn't make sense. Who gets to choose, and why would anyone choose themselves? Now, I know why this capture happened, because I already know the spoilers to come later in the series, but if something's well acted and dramatic then it doesn't matter how many times you see it, or how much you know in advance, it will still make an impact. But here we have Lorca captured with no fanfare, presumably close to the Starbase (which, as you can now expect from their approach to the series, looks nothing like the facilities we saw in 'TOS'), at which he's attending a war council with his superior officers. He's thrown in a cell, all in order to meet a couple of new characters, is tortured, and then 'escapes.' If you've watched Trek then you'll have seen many such episodes, but where 'The Chute' from 'Voyager' showed the brutality and degrading nature of such a position, and 'Allegiance' from 'TNG' gave us the more thoughtful approach of not turning on fellow captors, but working together to solve a problem, or 'Hard Time' of 'DS9' addressed the psychological aspects of captivity, 'Choose Your Pain' has nothing to delve into, it's all surface. It's about setting up a future enemy, of preparing for a future plot twist, it's not satisfying in itself, it doesn't explore an issue, it is, like I said, just doing stuff with little to no immediate consequence. In other words it's basically filler!
This isn't completely fair. The B-story of Saru struggling with both Burnham's usual rebellious tendencies (because she knows best), and his own inadequacies in command, had the seeds for a meaningful development, but it's so spare and slight as to be a whisper of Trek quality on the outskirts of a honking stupidity that I'm beginning to see envelops the general mass of the series. I really do wonder how the young audience that hasn't had experience with Trek, or thinks it's boring, has latched onto this series, since I have to admit that I'm finding 'Discovery' a teensy bit boring. It's not even about comparisons with past Trek - 'Enterprise' had a lot of issues and things I didn't like about it, there were a fair few episodes that were as dull as this one, but it at least showed the promise of other Trek and we did get a number of great episodes, crucially, the opening salvo of Season 1. But then that was made by people that knew Trek back to front and the mistakes or flaws were more because they were trying to do something different without overturning the boat, or on the other extreme they were being too careful not to meddle with canon or continuity, and their own ennui with Trek as it stood was losing them their confidence and drive. This new team doesn't have that excuse. Like 'Enterprise,' they came out of the gate doing something new, but they went too far and they haven't even captured the vibrancy and excitement of that failed series.
I am in danger of prejudging this series before I've fully experienced it, as I keep saying in each review, and I am continually grateful for more Trek to discuss and examine, but how long should I go on trying to be amicable and accepting when I see so little of the spirit of Trek in evidence? So many of the aspects of Trek are missing: I've narrowed Trek down to why I'm still so drawn to it, even after twenty-five years of engaging with this universe, and it can be encapsulated by a theme of good people solving problems. You can see a sliver of that in this episode's moral difficulties in using a living creature to make their 'Displacement-Activated Spore Hub Drive' (to give it its full grand monicker), when they believe the process is damaging it. And we see Stamets being selfless enough to try an alternative by using himself in place of the creature when the necessity is imperative if they're going to rescue their Captain. But it's still lightweight, and we've already explored this issue in the preceding episode. Going over the same ground isn't the problem, but getting somewhere is. I think one of the main problems with the series so far is that they refuse to explore the world we're in. For a start they refuse to play by the rules of that world and the fact that they have touch screen consoles and bizarre technology that has neither the look nor feel of this period wouldn't bother me if the stories were gripping and I was becoming emotionally invested in the characters, but it's things like that that keep niggling at me and so I know that the story isn't papering over the historical inconsistencies.
Again I ask why you would choose a period of Trek history, then not bend over backwards to be true to it. Instead they have the same arrogant attitude as JJ Abrams and his team had when making the Kelvin films. It isn't just the aesthetic they've half-inched, it's the approach, all surface sheen with a few backhanded references to Trek history for the purists to get excited about. This series is at least putting a slightly more Trekkian spin on things than those films, but then they have more time to do so, and this may as well have been set in the Kelvin Timeline for all the relevance it has to pre-Kirk days. This time the references are myriad, though blink and miss them, the best being a list of Starfleet's finest Captains (Matthew Decker, Jonathan Archer, Robert April, Phillippa Georgiou and Christopher Pike), and while it is gratifying to see these names why couldn't we have seen images of them? When it comes to it, it's also a shameless narrowing of the world since there aren't any other names on that list that we don't know and surely in the century since Archer there would be other famed Captains? If a couple of unknowns were included that would expand the universe, allowing us to speculate on them and perhaps one day meet them or hear their story. It's also an arbitrary selection, as how could the computer know which to choose - is it popular opinion, a measure of their score ratings across all missions, or some other indefinable ranking system? In reality they're just choosing the names we know, and that's fine, but it's another example of how this series works (or not).
The Benzite's homeworld, Benzar, also scores a mention by Lorca in his appraisal of the Klingon advance, as well as the Ophiucus system (where Mudd was heading in 'TOS'), and if you look carefully at a star-map at one point you can see Rura Penthe, the famed Klingon prison planet, and Space Station K-7 as easily recognisable locations of yore. There are probably others, and they certainly know enough of the lore to throw in these references that only the hardcore will notice, but that's all they are. It's not like we're actually getting to see a Benzite or visit Benzar. In fact the series has been practically devoid of aliens. Sure, you have the Klingons, but it's not like we're getting to know them, and they still irritate me with their stupid dome-heads and no explanation of this bizarre look, or talk of other types of Klingon, and I'm wondering if it'll ever be addressed or just ignored. They're just lumbering cannon fodder (which they often were in the other series', don't get me wrong, but there were a number of great characters that stood out from that race), and you have to wonder with those ridiculous fat claw hands they have, how did they ever build anything, especially as precise and intricate as the torture device L'Rell thumbs over Lorca's face to keep his sensitive eyes open to the light (I really wanted his eye medication to be named as Retinax!)?
The Klingon ship that kidnaps Lorca is designated 'D-7' yet looks nothing like one. Okay, so you can barely make out its shape, but why go to the trouble of specifically categorising it as something we know, then not showing it in all its glory? And why would L'Rell take the time to learn languages when the Universal Translator handles all that, or are they positing it hasn't been invented yet? And what's with the ugly Klingon Disruptors that spits targets into green puffs of vapour? And why would people still use a stick to clean their teeth in the 23rd Century? It's a wasted opportunity and it only further irritates because this is the kind of thing you want: to see the things they're referencing, to go deeper into this period and this world, to justify why things look different to the way we think they should. To address the issues, to show they know what they're doing, to have fun with the playing pieces in the game, not just having them there for the sake of it! We still don't get time to grow attached to the guest cast, like Keyla, we still don't get any explanation or justification for the robot people or augmentation all around us on the Discovery, like Airiam in this episode, a robot woman who has a couple of lines and nothing else. We see vague shapes of alien crewmembers in the Mess, but we're not introduced to them, we're not even allowed to see them properly. They're just background flavour, except we're not allowed to taste. It's infuriating, and is the kind of thing we'd be allowed time to take in if the series was giving us a full-length season. Instead we have to make do with another 'TOS' character being brought in for no apparent reason, and like Sarek, Harcourt Fenton Mudd looks and sounds nothing like the great performance of Roger C. Carmel, the originator of the galaxy's most scurrilous scoundrel.
Again, forewarned is forearmed, and it was no secret they were bringing back old Harry (or bringing him forward since this is the earliest appearance of him in Trek history). As far as I'm aware, no one was clamouring for his return, and while he has the distinction for being one of the few characters in 'TOS' to appear in more than one episode, and he can be fun to deal with, he's not that interesting. And when you make him almost nothing like the huge, garrulous figure we know, you don't just diminish his ridiculous stature, but any hope of recreating a character as he was, negating the point of having him there at all. There's nothing about him that makes him necessary to be Mudd (as with Cumberbatch as Khan), he could have been any conman or rogue, but they foolishly assume that by appropriating the name it will draw in the half-fans, the casuals, who remember the name, but don't have a clear idea of who he was or what his purpose was. A sort of Lord of Misrule that came into the highly ordered, serious battleship of the original Enterprise under Kirk, and caused them a different kind of challenge. This one is just a common rogue without the jovial twinkle, and it doesn't matter how many times they throw in a reference to his wife, Stella, it doesn't make this version any more interesting.
If that wasn't enough to put me off, they also show how 'avant-garde' they are by throwing in some offensive expletives off the cuff with no necessity or purpose other than because they can. It was pointless for Tilly and Stamets (and Tyler), to be throwing out words like that except to make people sit up and see this Trek is different. It certainly is different, but not good different. It's unnecessary, and is hardly the kind of badge of honour the series should be aspiring to as the first Trek to use such words. It's not like it was a major thing, but the fact they threw it in there on what felt like a whim, was disappointing. Like I said, good Trek for me is good people solving problems, but I haven't seen many problems solved, nor many good people. I'm not saying they're bad people 'cuz they said naughty words, ummm… I'm just pointing out the juvenile approach taken by these writers in all directions. Again, if they were crafting an intelligent, compelling story I can forgive a lot of things, but the issues I have with the series are only magnified because I can't get onboard with the direction, approach and style of it all. Ironically, you can see from the episode's deleted scenes that some things that would have enhanced a Trek feeling, were cut from the episode, and yet they have the time to make episodes as long as they wish, so why chop Saru's Acting Captain's Log, or the door override he does to get into Engineering. Stuff like that is bread and butter for Trek and helps make it more comfortable and real. At least we hear that there are one hundred and thirty-four crew aboard Discovery, which I can't remember if we'd been told before, so even the crumbs of facts are something to hold onto.
I'm afraid I'm holding out less and less hope for not only this season, but for the multiple productions and projects coming from this current Trek stable. Because if this is how they wanted Trek to be then no doubt that style will extend to everything else they do. Whether the season will show any of the fingerprints of Trek royalty in Nicholas Meyer, Joe Menosky and others, I really don't know, but so far it seems the young guns are ruling the roost and not ruling it very effectively. An episode about Saru struggling with his own nature and his issues with Burnham sounds like a good idea, but when it's just thrown in amongst other things it doesn't work out so well. I don't even get a sense of progression or scale in the war, there's very little to grip onto, but those things that were in the first episode are still the only bright lights, namely Saru and Burnham. It's a shame the other characters are a good deal less likeable. And I have to ask: what was going on with that final shot of Stamets' reflection remaining in the mirror after he'd left the room? I know what it's referring to, but was it supposed to be taken literally, that there's a man in the mirror autonomous from Stamets? Or is it a metaphor, a little hint of what's coming? It's just bizarre. At the moment I'm choosing my pain, and that pain is to keep hoping that the series will improve, that there will be at least one good episode somewhere along the line, and that they won't just keep relying on limping the ongoing story along - is there even an ongoing story yet? So far it's 'war,' and the use of the spore drive, but it hasn't turned into anything. It's Star Trek, Jim, but not as we like it.
**
Full Circle
DVD, The Champions (Full Circle)
The title is a generous estimation of an episode that could just as well have been called 'Runaround' or 'Wild Goose Chase,' because, for all its circular narrative being accurately described as a full circle, it's also a summing up of its inconsequential nature. The lesser episodes are coming out now at the end of the DVD set, which is as good a place as any to hide them, and it's not as if these are bad episodes, every one has its moments, but it can't be ignored that few of the recent episodes have fired the way some earlier stories did. It's not even that they were actually the last to be filmed, this was another of the middle episodes, though around the last third of the series to be made, with some of the best episodes still to reach production, so the excuse can't be that they were tired by this time and were just bashing out any old idea to meet the total number of episodes they'd committed to. Or that the actors were fatigued with their roles, or the writers were lacking inspiration. Maybe it was just a bad patch, a slump as the production had hit seven or eight months and winter was approaching. Choices make a difference, and the way the cast were used varied from episode to episode. Sharron's barely in this one, and Nemesis must have a very attractive employee benefits package since the woman's always on leave! You could understand it if Bastedo was off filming scenes for a Sharron-heavy episode at the same time, but none of those made at this time were big on her character so there seems to be no rationale for excluding her.
This time Craig is the main, and almost sole, focus, being sent to HM Prison Birch Hill for smuggling if his 'fixer' characterisation as a prisoner is anything to go by - he brings in cigarettes, alcohol and matches to impress his target, the real reason he's behind bars: Paul Westerman, convicted of spying on the Embassy of The Colombrian States in London. I don't know whether the series was avoiding the use of a real nation so as not to affect sales to foreign countries, but it's obvious that it's supposed to be the Colombians, and in Tremayne's briefing to Craig and Richard he gestures to the northern region of South America, calling it a sensitive area, so it's not like they even disguise it. I don't think the name was ever spoken, and it's possible it could be a spelling mistake in the Embassy's wall plaque, but it seemed to be they were doing it deliberately. Another oddity is that, while they have the Ambassador speaking in a thick foreign accent, his security man looks and sounds British. You'd think they'd bring in their own security rather than hire locals! Then again, the crux of the story is that Westerman, ostensibly spying for British Intelligence or some undetermined third party, is actually a naturalised citizen of the Colombrian States, despite his English looks and accent, so perhaps they have a lot of British sympathisers (I'm sure it had nothing to do with the security man being a small role they didn't bother to cast as carefully as Garcian, but then his aide, who never utters a line, looks suitably ethnic, so…).
The pre-credits ends with Westerman caught trying to escape the scene of his break-in where it was heard he took photos of documents containing top secret instructions to the Colombrian ambassador about the new defence treaty with Britain - only there's no film in his camera! It's supposed to be a big deal - where could he have hidden it, why is he so smug, etc, but it's more perplexing than gripping, and the plan to keep tied to him by having Craig break out of prison and 'allow' his cellmate along for a price so he can stay on his tail until he presumably goes back to where he hid the film, was scanty and too convenient, especially when Garcian hires an external criminal, Alfred Booker, to get Westerman out. He must have been suspicious when two escape offers were made in quick succession, and although Craig does a good job of being surly and hard to make friends with, only agreeing to help on the mention of payment, it all feeds into the ultimate realisation that there was no film, it was all a setup to… um, get Britain and the Colombrians in a state of distrust so they could make a different treaty… or something… I didn't quite follow, mainly because it wasn't very absorbing, the setup of the story really only a setup to get Craig into some trouble. It's not like they even use their powers much, it's more like a traditional spy story from 'Mission: Impossible' - a man infiltrates a group to solve an international problem by posing as a different character and things go wrong somewhere along the line.
Another issue I had with the episode was the way it portrays Craig and Richard - Sharron was unaffected by dint of barely being seen, Richard actually sends her back to Geneva because he doesn't think there's anything she can contribute, not because she's useless, but due to it being so straightforward a mission. It was arbitrary to say the least, and actually, they could have done with an extra pair of hands, or more specifically, fists, since both look a bit useless: Richard gets beaten up by three men working for Booker. He captures the escaped convicts when they come to Richard's prearranged car. You'd think Richard would have been able to manage three thugs. Craig doesn't look quite as bad, and in fact manages to come off well when he's so confident in the escape plan while Westerman is terrified of heights on top of the wall. But although Craig notices Westerman sneaking his wallet into Craig's pocket so he can be mistaken for the man, he goes along with it and ends up being tortured with weights in a scene reminiscent of 'To Trap A Rat' where he was similarly stretched out (horizontally in that case). He can't have been in too much pain as neither Richard nor Sharron sense it. In the end, he survives longer than the contraption attached to the ceiling, which is pulled out of its sockets when so much weight is applied by Booker's sour-looking henchman, Mr. Poulton.
Where were the powers they've used so well before? It was too much like any old spies from any old series rather than using the uniqueness of itself to any great degree. Sure, there is evidence of their abilities along the way, but they were mostly small. Even the post-credits scene, which admittedly was appropriate for the episode since Sharron was supposed to be on leave and we see a repeat of the scene from 'The Mission' where she picks up a couple of hitchhikers that prove a bit of a handful and ends up giving them a whacking as she passes through a tunnel, but although it was slightly extended, I never like it when they recycle these scenes as they did on several occasions. That was the extent of Sharron's display of prowess, and the others don't fare much better: Craig uses his advanced hearing to listen in on Pickering's conversation with Westerman about getting him out - Pickering's the small time prison 'fixer' whom Craig's essentially in competition with as he's the man connected to the outside, passing on messages from Westerman's associates. There are moments it's not clear if the champions' skills are being used, or just their natural ability, as when Craig drills the bars loose, then pries them out with his strength - from Westerman's surprised look you could assume it's a feat, but when he had to use a drill to soften them up in the first place it doesn't look nearly as impressive. He lowers the panicky Westerman down the wall of the prison with ease, but any reasonably strong man could probably do the same, so it's really only his resistance to the torture that shows resilience beyond other humans.
He's quick to recover and takes Booker as a hostage, violently threatening to snap his neck, then takes great satisfaction in pummelling his torturer, Poulton, and dealing with Booker, too. Richard senses the slap Poulton gave him when he was still tied to the torture device, and that's the extent of the abilities he uses, unless you count getting into the prison in the guise of an Irish priest. Why he needed to have an accent I don't know, other than for the comedy value. It seemed like his involvement as the Nemesis liaison with the Colombrian Embassy would be a conflict of interests - he couldn't be more British in his outlook and accent, yet he's the one to fulfil the diplomatic role when it's his own country that has the issue with the Embassy. I suppose you can put it down to his extreme professionalism and the good name Nemesis carries. In fact, Carrington, the British Intelligence man that meets with Tremayne, sounds rather evasive and untrustworthy, the way he appeals to the head of Nemesis, though of course Tremayne remains neutral in his dealings. It turns out the inference that the intelligence service isn't to be trusted was only a blind to make viewers suspicious. Relations can't be broken off after all because the plot was uncovered, so it may as well all have been a dream for all the relevance paid to this sequence of events designed to put our champions in peril.
Even the ending is limp and forgettable, with Sharron not present it's just Craig and Richard meeting with Tremayne. Sometimes an episode ends so abruptly that you feel such a scene was necessary to round out the plot, but in this case it appeared an extraneous time-waster since the conclusion was reached in the previous scene, and if they weren't even going to have all the champions together… Mediocre is how best to describe the episode, with the only real interest being in so many sets being reused from other episodes: the staircase room looked to be there, though it was at a different angle so it may have been some other set rather than the usual one. Certainly the room Richard used at a hotel in 'Project Zero' was back as Booker's place, and the gym where Craig's tortured looks to be the same place they filmed the post-credits of Richard and Craig putting Dave Prowse to shame from 'The Invisible Man,' as well as places like the Embassy office we've seen a number of times. One view of interest was a shot from behind Tremayne's desk looking towards the main door, which was a different angle and a sign that on occasion they could try something different, only in this episode it was wasted.
I did wonder if they actually filmed in a real prison as the set certainly looked right and the corridor was much wider than the usual one they redressed for various sets, though it seems unlikely they'd go to all that trouble even if they did film around the outside of a real place, even going so far as to have someone wave a light in the window for when Pickering is signalling. I was confused at Poulton's bruised face, which is there before Craig punches him, but it may be that he was one of the three men that fought with Richard, it was just difficult to see in the gloom. There's one small mistake that is unavoidable, however: when Sarah, Booker's female accomplice, holds up Westerman's wallet you can see how it's laid out, and there even appears to be the top of a photograph inside, which would presumably be Westerman, though the shot changes to a closeup and the layout's different with no incriminating photo sticking out. It would be a pretty big blunder if they did mistakenly have a photo of the man when he's pretending to be Craig Sterling! The one other blooper is when Sharron stops to look at her map in the extended post-credits scene and you can see a member of the crew just standing there, reflected in her side window. Whoops.
Regarding the cast, there aren't too many questions around credits, although poor Poulton isn't afforded anything because he barely gets a line, even though he has a significant role as torturer and abetter of Booker, yet Sergeant Fairfax of Special Branch, a character that only has a couple of lines in the teaser, is credited! The vagaries of acting. I assume Garcian was the ambassador since there's no other credit that would account for him, though he wasn't called by name in the episode, and the only questionable credit is for 'Collins' - he could have been the man that ordered Richard out of his getaway car before he and two others gave him a drubbing. Except that I'm pretty sure that's Poulton. The most likely candidate must be one of the prison guards as he gets a few things to do, and this also explains Poulton's bruises. Mysteries all cleared up! Except for how Craig did that little trick with the tie, flipping it up and putting a knot in it with a flick of the wrist. The real mystery is why the characterisations of the guest cast are so limp. Westerman was fine, he at least had some interest to him because of his confidence, then his terror of heights, and his devious manner, but the others were very bland - Booker might have been a decent character except he didn't make much sense and they should have gone more into his double-crossing nature, plus Sarah was completely irrelevant and had nothing to contribute. It really makes a difference if you get a strong guest cast to play against so that was yet another point against this episode that was, ultimately, pointless.
**
The title is a generous estimation of an episode that could just as well have been called 'Runaround' or 'Wild Goose Chase,' because, for all its circular narrative being accurately described as a full circle, it's also a summing up of its inconsequential nature. The lesser episodes are coming out now at the end of the DVD set, which is as good a place as any to hide them, and it's not as if these are bad episodes, every one has its moments, but it can't be ignored that few of the recent episodes have fired the way some earlier stories did. It's not even that they were actually the last to be filmed, this was another of the middle episodes, though around the last third of the series to be made, with some of the best episodes still to reach production, so the excuse can't be that they were tired by this time and were just bashing out any old idea to meet the total number of episodes they'd committed to. Or that the actors were fatigued with their roles, or the writers were lacking inspiration. Maybe it was just a bad patch, a slump as the production had hit seven or eight months and winter was approaching. Choices make a difference, and the way the cast were used varied from episode to episode. Sharron's barely in this one, and Nemesis must have a very attractive employee benefits package since the woman's always on leave! You could understand it if Bastedo was off filming scenes for a Sharron-heavy episode at the same time, but none of those made at this time were big on her character so there seems to be no rationale for excluding her.
This time Craig is the main, and almost sole, focus, being sent to HM Prison Birch Hill for smuggling if his 'fixer' characterisation as a prisoner is anything to go by - he brings in cigarettes, alcohol and matches to impress his target, the real reason he's behind bars: Paul Westerman, convicted of spying on the Embassy of The Colombrian States in London. I don't know whether the series was avoiding the use of a real nation so as not to affect sales to foreign countries, but it's obvious that it's supposed to be the Colombians, and in Tremayne's briefing to Craig and Richard he gestures to the northern region of South America, calling it a sensitive area, so it's not like they even disguise it. I don't think the name was ever spoken, and it's possible it could be a spelling mistake in the Embassy's wall plaque, but it seemed to be they were doing it deliberately. Another oddity is that, while they have the Ambassador speaking in a thick foreign accent, his security man looks and sounds British. You'd think they'd bring in their own security rather than hire locals! Then again, the crux of the story is that Westerman, ostensibly spying for British Intelligence or some undetermined third party, is actually a naturalised citizen of the Colombrian States, despite his English looks and accent, so perhaps they have a lot of British sympathisers (I'm sure it had nothing to do with the security man being a small role they didn't bother to cast as carefully as Garcian, but then his aide, who never utters a line, looks suitably ethnic, so…).
The pre-credits ends with Westerman caught trying to escape the scene of his break-in where it was heard he took photos of documents containing top secret instructions to the Colombrian ambassador about the new defence treaty with Britain - only there's no film in his camera! It's supposed to be a big deal - where could he have hidden it, why is he so smug, etc, but it's more perplexing than gripping, and the plan to keep tied to him by having Craig break out of prison and 'allow' his cellmate along for a price so he can stay on his tail until he presumably goes back to where he hid the film, was scanty and too convenient, especially when Garcian hires an external criminal, Alfred Booker, to get Westerman out. He must have been suspicious when two escape offers were made in quick succession, and although Craig does a good job of being surly and hard to make friends with, only agreeing to help on the mention of payment, it all feeds into the ultimate realisation that there was no film, it was all a setup to… um, get Britain and the Colombrians in a state of distrust so they could make a different treaty… or something… I didn't quite follow, mainly because it wasn't very absorbing, the setup of the story really only a setup to get Craig into some trouble. It's not like they even use their powers much, it's more like a traditional spy story from 'Mission: Impossible' - a man infiltrates a group to solve an international problem by posing as a different character and things go wrong somewhere along the line.
Another issue I had with the episode was the way it portrays Craig and Richard - Sharron was unaffected by dint of barely being seen, Richard actually sends her back to Geneva because he doesn't think there's anything she can contribute, not because she's useless, but due to it being so straightforward a mission. It was arbitrary to say the least, and actually, they could have done with an extra pair of hands, or more specifically, fists, since both look a bit useless: Richard gets beaten up by three men working for Booker. He captures the escaped convicts when they come to Richard's prearranged car. You'd think Richard would have been able to manage three thugs. Craig doesn't look quite as bad, and in fact manages to come off well when he's so confident in the escape plan while Westerman is terrified of heights on top of the wall. But although Craig notices Westerman sneaking his wallet into Craig's pocket so he can be mistaken for the man, he goes along with it and ends up being tortured with weights in a scene reminiscent of 'To Trap A Rat' where he was similarly stretched out (horizontally in that case). He can't have been in too much pain as neither Richard nor Sharron sense it. In the end, he survives longer than the contraption attached to the ceiling, which is pulled out of its sockets when so much weight is applied by Booker's sour-looking henchman, Mr. Poulton.
Where were the powers they've used so well before? It was too much like any old spies from any old series rather than using the uniqueness of itself to any great degree. Sure, there is evidence of their abilities along the way, but they were mostly small. Even the post-credits scene, which admittedly was appropriate for the episode since Sharron was supposed to be on leave and we see a repeat of the scene from 'The Mission' where she picks up a couple of hitchhikers that prove a bit of a handful and ends up giving them a whacking as she passes through a tunnel, but although it was slightly extended, I never like it when they recycle these scenes as they did on several occasions. That was the extent of Sharron's display of prowess, and the others don't fare much better: Craig uses his advanced hearing to listen in on Pickering's conversation with Westerman about getting him out - Pickering's the small time prison 'fixer' whom Craig's essentially in competition with as he's the man connected to the outside, passing on messages from Westerman's associates. There are moments it's not clear if the champions' skills are being used, or just their natural ability, as when Craig drills the bars loose, then pries them out with his strength - from Westerman's surprised look you could assume it's a feat, but when he had to use a drill to soften them up in the first place it doesn't look nearly as impressive. He lowers the panicky Westerman down the wall of the prison with ease, but any reasonably strong man could probably do the same, so it's really only his resistance to the torture that shows resilience beyond other humans.
He's quick to recover and takes Booker as a hostage, violently threatening to snap his neck, then takes great satisfaction in pummelling his torturer, Poulton, and dealing with Booker, too. Richard senses the slap Poulton gave him when he was still tied to the torture device, and that's the extent of the abilities he uses, unless you count getting into the prison in the guise of an Irish priest. Why he needed to have an accent I don't know, other than for the comedy value. It seemed like his involvement as the Nemesis liaison with the Colombrian Embassy would be a conflict of interests - he couldn't be more British in his outlook and accent, yet he's the one to fulfil the diplomatic role when it's his own country that has the issue with the Embassy. I suppose you can put it down to his extreme professionalism and the good name Nemesis carries. In fact, Carrington, the British Intelligence man that meets with Tremayne, sounds rather evasive and untrustworthy, the way he appeals to the head of Nemesis, though of course Tremayne remains neutral in his dealings. It turns out the inference that the intelligence service isn't to be trusted was only a blind to make viewers suspicious. Relations can't be broken off after all because the plot was uncovered, so it may as well all have been a dream for all the relevance paid to this sequence of events designed to put our champions in peril.
Even the ending is limp and forgettable, with Sharron not present it's just Craig and Richard meeting with Tremayne. Sometimes an episode ends so abruptly that you feel such a scene was necessary to round out the plot, but in this case it appeared an extraneous time-waster since the conclusion was reached in the previous scene, and if they weren't even going to have all the champions together… Mediocre is how best to describe the episode, with the only real interest being in so many sets being reused from other episodes: the staircase room looked to be there, though it was at a different angle so it may have been some other set rather than the usual one. Certainly the room Richard used at a hotel in 'Project Zero' was back as Booker's place, and the gym where Craig's tortured looks to be the same place they filmed the post-credits of Richard and Craig putting Dave Prowse to shame from 'The Invisible Man,' as well as places like the Embassy office we've seen a number of times. One view of interest was a shot from behind Tremayne's desk looking towards the main door, which was a different angle and a sign that on occasion they could try something different, only in this episode it was wasted.
I did wonder if they actually filmed in a real prison as the set certainly looked right and the corridor was much wider than the usual one they redressed for various sets, though it seems unlikely they'd go to all that trouble even if they did film around the outside of a real place, even going so far as to have someone wave a light in the window for when Pickering is signalling. I was confused at Poulton's bruised face, which is there before Craig punches him, but it may be that he was one of the three men that fought with Richard, it was just difficult to see in the gloom. There's one small mistake that is unavoidable, however: when Sarah, Booker's female accomplice, holds up Westerman's wallet you can see how it's laid out, and there even appears to be the top of a photograph inside, which would presumably be Westerman, though the shot changes to a closeup and the layout's different with no incriminating photo sticking out. It would be a pretty big blunder if they did mistakenly have a photo of the man when he's pretending to be Craig Sterling! The one other blooper is when Sharron stops to look at her map in the extended post-credits scene and you can see a member of the crew just standing there, reflected in her side window. Whoops.
Regarding the cast, there aren't too many questions around credits, although poor Poulton isn't afforded anything because he barely gets a line, even though he has a significant role as torturer and abetter of Booker, yet Sergeant Fairfax of Special Branch, a character that only has a couple of lines in the teaser, is credited! The vagaries of acting. I assume Garcian was the ambassador since there's no other credit that would account for him, though he wasn't called by name in the episode, and the only questionable credit is for 'Collins' - he could have been the man that ordered Richard out of his getaway car before he and two others gave him a drubbing. Except that I'm pretty sure that's Poulton. The most likely candidate must be one of the prison guards as he gets a few things to do, and this also explains Poulton's bruises. Mysteries all cleared up! Except for how Craig did that little trick with the tie, flipping it up and putting a knot in it with a flick of the wrist. The real mystery is why the characterisations of the guest cast are so limp. Westerman was fine, he at least had some interest to him because of his confidence, then his terror of heights, and his devious manner, but the others were very bland - Booker might have been a decent character except he didn't make much sense and they should have gone more into his double-crossing nature, plus Sarah was completely irrelevant and had nothing to contribute. It really makes a difference if you get a strong guest cast to play against so that was yet another point against this episode that was, ultimately, pointless.
**
Tuesday, 5 February 2019
Off The Grid
DVD, Stargate SG-1 S9 (Off The Grid)
Baal turns out to be the biggest sci-fi collector out there when he starts stealing 'gates (there's an idea they should have latched onto: full size 'gate replicas!), from various planets to further his plans for a new empire, but seemingly gets destroyed by the Lucian Alliance which come looking for one of their own. We see several Baals, so it's difficult to know if there's supposed to be one directing things or if they've become like the Borg with a hive mind, all in cahoots. If not, and they are genuinely individual, despite being exact clones, then what happens if they decide to do different things, and is there one 'main' Baal? It looked like it might turn into something dramatic when we have these two factions of bad guys facing off, but there really wasn't much of a fight at all, and the only energetic moments come from SG-1 doing what they always used to do and firing automatic weapons at stupid, lumbering, staff-wielding Goa'uld as if the events of the last season or two never happened. In one sense it's lovely to experience an episode that is just like the series of old, but in another, it reminds you of the over-complicated, not that well plot-driven narratives and repetitive nature of much of the conflict with that enemy. Plus we need O'Neill there to add that little extra something.
As it is, and it is nice to see SG-1 being SG-1 (like the last season or two never happened), the episode is as lumbering as the Goa'uld they face, with Landry going off to get information from the previously captured Nerus, SG-1 spending half their time as captives of the Lucians and half pinned down in the 'gate collection room on Baal's ship, without much of anything to enjoy. It's one of those that makes the characters feel static when so much has moved on or changed in the series, and it's strange to be critical of an episode that is so old 'Stargate,' especially as we've now had a run of these middle of the season episodes that have gone back to the old formulas and ways of telling the story, or familiar settings and approaches, but this one is an example of the more mediocre stories they would too often do, and while it may have ramifications for the overall season, on its own wasn't the most gripping. It's perfectly adequate, and introduces a new ship (the Odyssey), and its commander (Colonel Emerson), but isn't it a bit soon to have a new hero ship that can zip over to a planet in a few hours and bail our heroes out of their scrapes? It takes away the sense of their independence and ingenuity and we could have done with at least a few episodes where they don't have the cavalry coming to their rescue, forcing them to be more resourceful and daring.
There would be other ships than the Prometheus, but they could have been engaged with other missions. And I never liked Nerus as a character, he just wasn't interesting. And the way Landry offhandedly asks if the Stargates were blown up with Baal's ship makes it seem like it wouldn't be a big deal, but I thought the 'gate explosion was supposed to be massive? Maybe I'm misremembering… But it all seemed too pat, and I've never liked this band of smuggler pirates, or whatever the Lucian Alliance is, so meeting one of their higher ups, Netan, held no interest for me either. I always think of them as more of a 'Stargate Universe' story element, though that came much later. The 'piece of cake' line was good, but the episode lacked lustre, was join the dots in Stargate-land, and didn't really achieve anything beyond a runabout with SG-1 behaving like the SG-1 they used to be, which isn't always enough. Plus the things they did to try and pep the story up were unnecessary time-wasting - I refer specifically to the opening where we see SG-1 running from some enemies before being trapped by the Stargate beaming away before they can use it. So we then see how it got to that point, but we could have just arrived there chronologically without doing it twice. Except they want to throw us into some action to get people to keep watching, I understand that, and I'm not against the storytelling device when it's used to good effect, but it felt redundant here.
**
Baal turns out to be the biggest sci-fi collector out there when he starts stealing 'gates (there's an idea they should have latched onto: full size 'gate replicas!), from various planets to further his plans for a new empire, but seemingly gets destroyed by the Lucian Alliance which come looking for one of their own. We see several Baals, so it's difficult to know if there's supposed to be one directing things or if they've become like the Borg with a hive mind, all in cahoots. If not, and they are genuinely individual, despite being exact clones, then what happens if they decide to do different things, and is there one 'main' Baal? It looked like it might turn into something dramatic when we have these two factions of bad guys facing off, but there really wasn't much of a fight at all, and the only energetic moments come from SG-1 doing what they always used to do and firing automatic weapons at stupid, lumbering, staff-wielding Goa'uld as if the events of the last season or two never happened. In one sense it's lovely to experience an episode that is just like the series of old, but in another, it reminds you of the over-complicated, not that well plot-driven narratives and repetitive nature of much of the conflict with that enemy. Plus we need O'Neill there to add that little extra something.
As it is, and it is nice to see SG-1 being SG-1 (like the last season or two never happened), the episode is as lumbering as the Goa'uld they face, with Landry going off to get information from the previously captured Nerus, SG-1 spending half their time as captives of the Lucians and half pinned down in the 'gate collection room on Baal's ship, without much of anything to enjoy. It's one of those that makes the characters feel static when so much has moved on or changed in the series, and it's strange to be critical of an episode that is so old 'Stargate,' especially as we've now had a run of these middle of the season episodes that have gone back to the old formulas and ways of telling the story, or familiar settings and approaches, but this one is an example of the more mediocre stories they would too often do, and while it may have ramifications for the overall season, on its own wasn't the most gripping. It's perfectly adequate, and introduces a new ship (the Odyssey), and its commander (Colonel Emerson), but isn't it a bit soon to have a new hero ship that can zip over to a planet in a few hours and bail our heroes out of their scrapes? It takes away the sense of their independence and ingenuity and we could have done with at least a few episodes where they don't have the cavalry coming to their rescue, forcing them to be more resourceful and daring.
There would be other ships than the Prometheus, but they could have been engaged with other missions. And I never liked Nerus as a character, he just wasn't interesting. And the way Landry offhandedly asks if the Stargates were blown up with Baal's ship makes it seem like it wouldn't be a big deal, but I thought the 'gate explosion was supposed to be massive? Maybe I'm misremembering… But it all seemed too pat, and I've never liked this band of smuggler pirates, or whatever the Lucian Alliance is, so meeting one of their higher ups, Netan, held no interest for me either. I always think of them as more of a 'Stargate Universe' story element, though that came much later. The 'piece of cake' line was good, but the episode lacked lustre, was join the dots in Stargate-land, and didn't really achieve anything beyond a runabout with SG-1 behaving like the SG-1 they used to be, which isn't always enough. Plus the things they did to try and pep the story up were unnecessary time-wasting - I refer specifically to the opening where we see SG-1 running from some enemies before being trapped by the Stargate beaming away before they can use it. So we then see how it got to that point, but we could have just arrived there chronologically without doing it twice. Except they want to throw us into some action to get people to keep watching, I understand that, and I'm not against the storytelling device when it's used to good effect, but it felt redundant here.
**
Desert Journey
DVD, The Champions (Desert Journey) (2)
Just as 'The Dark Island' was the first episode produced, but not shown in that position, 'Desert Journey' was the final production of the series and yet isn't the last, and is a personal milestone for me as it was the first episode I reviewed for this blog, which began almost exactly ten years ago. The passage of time hasn't improved this particular episode, but watching the series in a more analytical and detailed manner has made me appreciate all the episodes more to some degree. If this had been the final bow of our champions the ending would have been somewhat suitable considering the three of them are all together in a jeep in the desert, driving off into the sunset. Hang on, they're actually driving away from the sunset, so it's not quite right, and I'd prefer Tremayne being in the final scene with them - I don't remember how the actual final episode on the original DVD set (the order in which I've always watched the series), ends, but I hope it has a more planned conclusion. At least the three of them were together, which is more than can be said for the majority of the episode which is very much focused on Craig and Sharron's efforts to forcibly take an unwilling leader to his people in the North African country of El Hammi (home of the hamsters?), while Richard is coordinating… something, with the high official of the land, Yussef.
It's very telling that 'Happening' had been the penultimate episode made as this one uses its sets, some stock desert footage, and even strains of the same music. The former was better, partly because it was fresher, and partly because this episode doesn't feature any characters with a level of personality to equal Banner B. Banner! Furthering the series' ability to pick out actors that were going to mean something in the years to come, Jeremy Brett is the man to join the likes of Donald Sutherland and Peter Wyngarde as the main guest, playing The Bey, a playboy who throws wild parties and cares not a jot for his people, even at a time of such political instability, and whom is kidnapped by the champions in an effort to get him to see sense, at the same time as saving his life from those elements that want civil war and have so far kept him quiet by feeding him money for his casually hedonistic lifestyle (most ably portrayed by an overzealous reveller who strips off while dancing on a table at one of his parties). Of course, after spending time with the good and selfless heroes, and being saved by them, he comes round to seeing the error of his ways and is encouraged to take up his rightful position as leader - there's nothing to say he didn't order a massive hedonistic party across all of El Hammi in celebration, but he seemed a more sober man following his experiences in the desert: knowing people have tried to kill you would probably do that.
Although 'Happening' is a more happening episode, this episode wins out in the technical department: usually the series made use of stock footage of foreign countries to portray them, but I don't know whether they found they had an excess of budget at the end of production of the previous twenty-nine episodes, but they clearly made some effort to actually film in some real desert landscape - at first you assume the jeep going across the dirt tracks and through rocky passes was the usual found stock, but then we start to see The Bey running around out there, and Craig and Sharron are also seen, though obviously photo doubles as was often used in some of the other location shooting that took place in various episodes, presumably to save time when the actors didn't need to be there to say a line or have a closeup. It's harder to hide them this time due to the bare landscape and closer filming. Sharron's hair is a dead giveaway in this regard as she's either wearing a massive wig that looks like a lion's mane, or she grew her own hair out in a great fluff in readiness for more auditions now her employment was coming to an end. In the stock you can see a much more modest hairdo which, while it could be mistaken for the same at the back, is not as bulked up on top. Here ends The Hairstyle Report for this week… Sharron really got to be glamourous across the episode, hair not even getting blown through with sand or dust from the long travelling, as well as dressing up in party frock to try and impress The Bey and get into his confidence.
The authentic approach to this episode's production does look like an all-out attempt to go out on a high, with the desert location shooting, but also with the casting of people for the Bedouin tribe that really looked the part and sounded authentic in their Arabic. I was waiting for them all to speak in accented English the way the guest cast was doing in Yussef, Tuat and Said's roles. Not being all that fluent in Arabic I can't tell if it was genuine or gobbledygook, but it sounded real to my unpracticed ear and I liked that the Sheikh, the most important man and likely the most educated, was an English speaker, translating for his men, with Said having a man to do the same. It makes a nice change and the only thing missing were subtitles, but then we wouldn't have been able to showcase a new ability for Sharron: to pick up a language in super quick time. It makes sense they should be able to do this, as we've already seen them able to memorise anything they read, and read at ridiculous speed, so why wouldn't their brains be capable of decoding what is essentially a code, by listening for the common sounds and extrapolating the speech pattern from it. It's only a minor detail in the course of the episode, but one that gives her and Craig the upper hand when dealing with what becomes the enemy.
Upper hands are their most common use of power in the episode: there are several occasions when brute strength is required and used. It starts early for Sharron who threatens the position of The Bey's current woman friend at the party she joins, Sonia coming at her from behind with a nasty dagger off the wall. She makes the mistake of threatening this intruder instead of just stabbing her, probably hoping to frighten her rather than actually do any damage, but she isn't aware of Sharron's iron grip which forces her to drop the blade. 'Muscles,' another of The Bey's guests, steps in, also underestimating her, and finds himself doing a head over heels manoeuvre which lands him flat on his back, much to his surprise! Later, when the party's over, she tries to get The Bey to come with her, but in the absence of assent she's forced to give him a single sharp chop that knocks him out, and carries him off bodily - it seems the champions have learned from all the kidnappings they've endured, and this time it's their turn to do it. While they never technically get captured themselves, they still have to escape from the 'hospitality' of the Sheikh. It's not the last time The Bey is subject to their superior force, getting all panicky in the dangerous flight they make until Craig has to grab his wrist to keep him from interfering. He's threatened several times through the journey and soon learns to watch his ways as he's not going to win out against two such determined individuals.
Craig's daredevil flying, the instruments affected by the stormy weather, is quite similar to 'The Beginning,' except in that case there was a swirling blizzard and he hadn't been endowed with the skills and abilities he can now draw upon, so it's almost routine to be flying in such conditions, neither he nor Sharron the least bit worried they'll make it down to the Kaiser Oil Company staging post. The men who work there soon become suspicious of this strange pair and their wrapped up guest, but not before their jeep is stolen and the next stage of the journey is on. When they stop during the ride, Craig and Sharron hear the cocking of guns from soldiers up in the rocks, so are prepared for the gunfire that follows - they'd already been warned by the staging post men, who don't want any trouble with the natives, that they have one hundred miles of Bedouins and thieves to cross before they reach the American hospital at Tula, but they still have to actually do it. The next ability to be used is their usual personal communication with the twinkly music where they discuss what's going on during a night in the Bedouin tents. After the escape, Craig takes the time to draw a simple map diagram in the sand of the desert and sends this telepathic visual message to Richard so he can get to them, something else that was key to the conclusion of 'Happening,' so it's not so impressive here as it's neither a moment of tension or an exciting new development.
At least Richard got another scene as he spends most of his screen time poking around the room in which he and Yussef discuss what happened - he finds a bug under a lampshade that the baddies are using to listen in, and shorts their machine, but it's not otherworldly powers of intuition, just his own conventional experience. Even the exciting handing out of Said's just deserts where he's gunned down through the door he was about to open in order to kill The Bey at the end, is Craig's moment! The only other champion ability to be shown is in the post-credits scene, this time Sharron alone again: she's in the Highgrove Baths and swims underwater without coming up for air longer than a normal person. It's not the most stunning display of ability, she doesn't even do an Olympic-class dive or swim at ridiculous speed, so it's not one of the better examples. In the interests of balance, Richard should really have had his own solo scene since he's in the episode so little, but all these small things add up to an episode that doesn't quite make it, as enjoyable as it is. He gets more than Tremayne, who's only there for the one scene of briefing his agents - once again we're privileged to see the other side of his great map where he shows black and white film footage of the unrest and clashes in El Hammi. The more interesting thing for me is that after the film we see the screen rotate back around and we can see a row of chairs up against the wall and no sign of the filing cabinets we'd seen before, although they were more to the right and we don't see that area.
The plane set we've seen several times before, but the staging post had been Banner's place in the Outback in the previously filmed episode. I can see why they would be keen to reuse it, as it was quite an elaborate set for the series with all that sand piled up outside and they do an excellent job of making it vastly different as this fuel depot in the North African desert. The same sandy backdrops were reused, as you'd expect, though you can see marks in the canvas occasionally that take away from the reality. Due to the simpler nature of golden dunes and clear blue sky it generally looks more real than some of the other episodes' backdrops when they were trying to do something more elaborate. Apart from this, I didn't really spot many flaws in plot or production, except for the briefcase bomb that Said, pretending to be Major Tuat at Yussef's meeting, leaves suspiciously, giving it a good push forward onto the table before exiting for his 'urgent' phone call. And the bomb itself wasn't very effective and must have been a bit of a dud, since Yussef was standing right next to it when it went off and all he got was a slight cut to the forehead! Okay, so we don't actually see where he was at the moment of explosion, he could have wandered over to the window, but I didn't get the impression anyone actually died or was seriously injured.
Yussef is played as a very noble man, his first thought for the others in the room rather than himself, and though perhaps misguided in his love for The Bey, seeing his leader as someone who 'crosses the desert to join us, passes through the tribes untouched, sent by destiny,' from the little we see he seems just the sort of man to assist The Bey in his new role. It's quite a leap from Roger Delgado's most famous role as The Master on 'Dr. Who' (the original and best), and only makes me admire him more. Another sci-fi franchise is represented by Dave Prowse of 'Star Wars' as the uncredited 'Muscles,' his second appearance on the series after the post-credits of 'The Invisible Man.' You'd think the episodes would have been filmed at the same sort of time because of this, but that was one of the early productions. Except that in most cases the post-credits were filmed independently of the main story so it could be that that scene was done around the same time as the party scene of this episode. There are a whole raft of uncredited roles this time by sheer weight of numbers in the extras department: we have the politicians or dignitaries at Yussef's meeting, the guards or soldiers (the one who lets Said in has lines), the two lifeguards that witness Sharron's feat at the swimming pool, the wild party attendees, including two who even get names (Carlo and Katrina), the Bedouins and their belly dancer, and even Said's henchman who assassinates Tuat and acts as interpreter for his boss.
At the same time, Sonia is credited, which wasn't that big a role, as well as Branco and Curtis (who I assumed was the main guy working for Kaiser Oil). Major Tuat was only there at the beginning but gets a credit, too. So you can never account for who's going to make the list. Just as you can never account for how much use of powers is going to be necessary, and whether the story's any good. In this case I'd say the production values were more important, as the story is a simple survival tale that could have done with a lot more peril in the way that you really felt bad things were about to happen in 'Happening.' I'm glad the production order wasn't the transmission order, though from the sound of it different regions may well have played them in whatever order they felt like, and the series could be shown that way because it was made to be self-contained from episode to episode with no serial stories or characters beyond the main four. 'Autokill' would be a much better way to go out than this one, even though I appreciate what they were doing with the riding off (away from), the sunset, and I wonder what the actual final scene they filmed was? Sadly, such things are probably lost to the mists of time, unless Stuart Damon or William Gaunt remember and can write it down. If ever there was the likelihood of a book it was for the 50th Anniversary last year, but I never heard a peep about the series, sadly.
**
Just as 'The Dark Island' was the first episode produced, but not shown in that position, 'Desert Journey' was the final production of the series and yet isn't the last, and is a personal milestone for me as it was the first episode I reviewed for this blog, which began almost exactly ten years ago. The passage of time hasn't improved this particular episode, but watching the series in a more analytical and detailed manner has made me appreciate all the episodes more to some degree. If this had been the final bow of our champions the ending would have been somewhat suitable considering the three of them are all together in a jeep in the desert, driving off into the sunset. Hang on, they're actually driving away from the sunset, so it's not quite right, and I'd prefer Tremayne being in the final scene with them - I don't remember how the actual final episode on the original DVD set (the order in which I've always watched the series), ends, but I hope it has a more planned conclusion. At least the three of them were together, which is more than can be said for the majority of the episode which is very much focused on Craig and Sharron's efforts to forcibly take an unwilling leader to his people in the North African country of El Hammi (home of the hamsters?), while Richard is coordinating… something, with the high official of the land, Yussef.
It's very telling that 'Happening' had been the penultimate episode made as this one uses its sets, some stock desert footage, and even strains of the same music. The former was better, partly because it was fresher, and partly because this episode doesn't feature any characters with a level of personality to equal Banner B. Banner! Furthering the series' ability to pick out actors that were going to mean something in the years to come, Jeremy Brett is the man to join the likes of Donald Sutherland and Peter Wyngarde as the main guest, playing The Bey, a playboy who throws wild parties and cares not a jot for his people, even at a time of such political instability, and whom is kidnapped by the champions in an effort to get him to see sense, at the same time as saving his life from those elements that want civil war and have so far kept him quiet by feeding him money for his casually hedonistic lifestyle (most ably portrayed by an overzealous reveller who strips off while dancing on a table at one of his parties). Of course, after spending time with the good and selfless heroes, and being saved by them, he comes round to seeing the error of his ways and is encouraged to take up his rightful position as leader - there's nothing to say he didn't order a massive hedonistic party across all of El Hammi in celebration, but he seemed a more sober man following his experiences in the desert: knowing people have tried to kill you would probably do that.
Although 'Happening' is a more happening episode, this episode wins out in the technical department: usually the series made use of stock footage of foreign countries to portray them, but I don't know whether they found they had an excess of budget at the end of production of the previous twenty-nine episodes, but they clearly made some effort to actually film in some real desert landscape - at first you assume the jeep going across the dirt tracks and through rocky passes was the usual found stock, but then we start to see The Bey running around out there, and Craig and Sharron are also seen, though obviously photo doubles as was often used in some of the other location shooting that took place in various episodes, presumably to save time when the actors didn't need to be there to say a line or have a closeup. It's harder to hide them this time due to the bare landscape and closer filming. Sharron's hair is a dead giveaway in this regard as she's either wearing a massive wig that looks like a lion's mane, or she grew her own hair out in a great fluff in readiness for more auditions now her employment was coming to an end. In the stock you can see a much more modest hairdo which, while it could be mistaken for the same at the back, is not as bulked up on top. Here ends The Hairstyle Report for this week… Sharron really got to be glamourous across the episode, hair not even getting blown through with sand or dust from the long travelling, as well as dressing up in party frock to try and impress The Bey and get into his confidence.
The authentic approach to this episode's production does look like an all-out attempt to go out on a high, with the desert location shooting, but also with the casting of people for the Bedouin tribe that really looked the part and sounded authentic in their Arabic. I was waiting for them all to speak in accented English the way the guest cast was doing in Yussef, Tuat and Said's roles. Not being all that fluent in Arabic I can't tell if it was genuine or gobbledygook, but it sounded real to my unpracticed ear and I liked that the Sheikh, the most important man and likely the most educated, was an English speaker, translating for his men, with Said having a man to do the same. It makes a nice change and the only thing missing were subtitles, but then we wouldn't have been able to showcase a new ability for Sharron: to pick up a language in super quick time. It makes sense they should be able to do this, as we've already seen them able to memorise anything they read, and read at ridiculous speed, so why wouldn't their brains be capable of decoding what is essentially a code, by listening for the common sounds and extrapolating the speech pattern from it. It's only a minor detail in the course of the episode, but one that gives her and Craig the upper hand when dealing with what becomes the enemy.
Upper hands are their most common use of power in the episode: there are several occasions when brute strength is required and used. It starts early for Sharron who threatens the position of The Bey's current woman friend at the party she joins, Sonia coming at her from behind with a nasty dagger off the wall. She makes the mistake of threatening this intruder instead of just stabbing her, probably hoping to frighten her rather than actually do any damage, but she isn't aware of Sharron's iron grip which forces her to drop the blade. 'Muscles,' another of The Bey's guests, steps in, also underestimating her, and finds himself doing a head over heels manoeuvre which lands him flat on his back, much to his surprise! Later, when the party's over, she tries to get The Bey to come with her, but in the absence of assent she's forced to give him a single sharp chop that knocks him out, and carries him off bodily - it seems the champions have learned from all the kidnappings they've endured, and this time it's their turn to do it. While they never technically get captured themselves, they still have to escape from the 'hospitality' of the Sheikh. It's not the last time The Bey is subject to their superior force, getting all panicky in the dangerous flight they make until Craig has to grab his wrist to keep him from interfering. He's threatened several times through the journey and soon learns to watch his ways as he's not going to win out against two such determined individuals.
Craig's daredevil flying, the instruments affected by the stormy weather, is quite similar to 'The Beginning,' except in that case there was a swirling blizzard and he hadn't been endowed with the skills and abilities he can now draw upon, so it's almost routine to be flying in such conditions, neither he nor Sharron the least bit worried they'll make it down to the Kaiser Oil Company staging post. The men who work there soon become suspicious of this strange pair and their wrapped up guest, but not before their jeep is stolen and the next stage of the journey is on. When they stop during the ride, Craig and Sharron hear the cocking of guns from soldiers up in the rocks, so are prepared for the gunfire that follows - they'd already been warned by the staging post men, who don't want any trouble with the natives, that they have one hundred miles of Bedouins and thieves to cross before they reach the American hospital at Tula, but they still have to actually do it. The next ability to be used is their usual personal communication with the twinkly music where they discuss what's going on during a night in the Bedouin tents. After the escape, Craig takes the time to draw a simple map diagram in the sand of the desert and sends this telepathic visual message to Richard so he can get to them, something else that was key to the conclusion of 'Happening,' so it's not so impressive here as it's neither a moment of tension or an exciting new development.
At least Richard got another scene as he spends most of his screen time poking around the room in which he and Yussef discuss what happened - he finds a bug under a lampshade that the baddies are using to listen in, and shorts their machine, but it's not otherworldly powers of intuition, just his own conventional experience. Even the exciting handing out of Said's just deserts where he's gunned down through the door he was about to open in order to kill The Bey at the end, is Craig's moment! The only other champion ability to be shown is in the post-credits scene, this time Sharron alone again: she's in the Highgrove Baths and swims underwater without coming up for air longer than a normal person. It's not the most stunning display of ability, she doesn't even do an Olympic-class dive or swim at ridiculous speed, so it's not one of the better examples. In the interests of balance, Richard should really have had his own solo scene since he's in the episode so little, but all these small things add up to an episode that doesn't quite make it, as enjoyable as it is. He gets more than Tremayne, who's only there for the one scene of briefing his agents - once again we're privileged to see the other side of his great map where he shows black and white film footage of the unrest and clashes in El Hammi. The more interesting thing for me is that after the film we see the screen rotate back around and we can see a row of chairs up against the wall and no sign of the filing cabinets we'd seen before, although they were more to the right and we don't see that area.
The plane set we've seen several times before, but the staging post had been Banner's place in the Outback in the previously filmed episode. I can see why they would be keen to reuse it, as it was quite an elaborate set for the series with all that sand piled up outside and they do an excellent job of making it vastly different as this fuel depot in the North African desert. The same sandy backdrops were reused, as you'd expect, though you can see marks in the canvas occasionally that take away from the reality. Due to the simpler nature of golden dunes and clear blue sky it generally looks more real than some of the other episodes' backdrops when they were trying to do something more elaborate. Apart from this, I didn't really spot many flaws in plot or production, except for the briefcase bomb that Said, pretending to be Major Tuat at Yussef's meeting, leaves suspiciously, giving it a good push forward onto the table before exiting for his 'urgent' phone call. And the bomb itself wasn't very effective and must have been a bit of a dud, since Yussef was standing right next to it when it went off and all he got was a slight cut to the forehead! Okay, so we don't actually see where he was at the moment of explosion, he could have wandered over to the window, but I didn't get the impression anyone actually died or was seriously injured.
Yussef is played as a very noble man, his first thought for the others in the room rather than himself, and though perhaps misguided in his love for The Bey, seeing his leader as someone who 'crosses the desert to join us, passes through the tribes untouched, sent by destiny,' from the little we see he seems just the sort of man to assist The Bey in his new role. It's quite a leap from Roger Delgado's most famous role as The Master on 'Dr. Who' (the original and best), and only makes me admire him more. Another sci-fi franchise is represented by Dave Prowse of 'Star Wars' as the uncredited 'Muscles,' his second appearance on the series after the post-credits of 'The Invisible Man.' You'd think the episodes would have been filmed at the same sort of time because of this, but that was one of the early productions. Except that in most cases the post-credits were filmed independently of the main story so it could be that that scene was done around the same time as the party scene of this episode. There are a whole raft of uncredited roles this time by sheer weight of numbers in the extras department: we have the politicians or dignitaries at Yussef's meeting, the guards or soldiers (the one who lets Said in has lines), the two lifeguards that witness Sharron's feat at the swimming pool, the wild party attendees, including two who even get names (Carlo and Katrina), the Bedouins and their belly dancer, and even Said's henchman who assassinates Tuat and acts as interpreter for his boss.
At the same time, Sonia is credited, which wasn't that big a role, as well as Branco and Curtis (who I assumed was the main guy working for Kaiser Oil). Major Tuat was only there at the beginning but gets a credit, too. So you can never account for who's going to make the list. Just as you can never account for how much use of powers is going to be necessary, and whether the story's any good. In this case I'd say the production values were more important, as the story is a simple survival tale that could have done with a lot more peril in the way that you really felt bad things were about to happen in 'Happening.' I'm glad the production order wasn't the transmission order, though from the sound of it different regions may well have played them in whatever order they felt like, and the series could be shown that way because it was made to be self-contained from episode to episode with no serial stories or characters beyond the main four. 'Autokill' would be a much better way to go out than this one, even though I appreciate what they were doing with the riding off (away from), the sunset, and I wonder what the actual final scene they filmed was? Sadly, such things are probably lost to the mists of time, unless Stuart Damon or William Gaunt remember and can write it down. If ever there was the likelihood of a book it was for the 50th Anniversary last year, but I never heard a peep about the series, sadly.
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