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.

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