Newton's Run

DVD, BUGS S2 (Newton's Run)

This was never one of my favourites, as fun as it is, probably because it doesn't feature much in the way of actual pulse-pounding tension. It should do, with the threat of the city being blown sky-high by a secret government weapons dump full of atomic, biological and chemical warheads, all stored together in close proximity for the coming of World War III. But the areas with most potential, the idea of governments secretly disobeying treaties and believing that the middle of a city is the best place to keep such weapons in order to keep it quiet, or the idea of computer controlled animals (and people?), wasn't explored so that it became more like some teatime children's series rather than the primetime Saturday night drama that it really was. Saying that, I'm sure it would have appealed to the younger viewers with a cute dog, Newton, being at the centre of it. But my first thought when they were talking about the bio-mechanical technology was that if it weren't for the friendly and caring Dr. Kim and dedicated Dr. Siegel (Siegal on screen in the episode, Siegel in the end credits), we might be suspicious of this Austin Institute, no matter how good the logo is. The goal is to help people with missing limbs and that kind of thing, so it's a worthy aspiration, but turning animals into robots (as Beckett put it), had a slightly sinister tinge. You'd just need the same bureaucratic mind that thought nuclear warheads in a city was a good idea, to wonder if animals as weapons might become a possibility…

Was that reference to the 'bureaucratic mind' a veiled reference to the Bureau of Weapons, coming immediately after Roland Blatty's organisation returned in 'Schrodinger's Bomb,' and immediately before they'd return again in the final two episodes of the season? Mind you, I'm seeing hints everywhere: the first thing I thought on seeing the Ai logo of the Institute (after admiring the design), was to wonder if this was a hint for the coming story: AI - artificial intelligence. Probably just a coincidence, just as having a story featuring the concept of Schrodinger's Cat preceded a story about a dog named after a famous scientist. Why was this female dog given a male name, anyway? The Bureau should have been involved as this would seem to be exactly their territory, dealing with weapons technology, that is what they're called, after all, but for whatever reason, possibly because they were already tied up with the Jean-Daniel storyline, and this was designed to be a completely standalone story, a pause before leaping into the storm of the two-part finale, they chose to bring back Wence and his SSD team who had been a mild thorn in the side during the first year's 'Shotgun Wedding.' Back when I first saw it I hadn't seen anything earlier than 'Bugged Wheat,' the third episode of Season 2, so I didn't know Wence, and that does add a little extra layer of significance to the story, especially as, for some reason (probably his incompetence!), he didn't come back for SSD's third appearance, in Season 3.

Wence is even more unhelpful than Blatty, it has to be said, and doesn't even bat an eye at the idea his superiors have sanctioned this sneaky weapons dump, as if he's used to a certain level of corruption and accepts it if it's in the national interest. He's deliberately shown to be stuffy so as to butt up against our heroes' freelance nature, allowing for bickering back and forth as a result. But he doesn't even have the courage of his convictions in those attitudes - he's about to leave Gizmos (which was a briefly confusing scene in itself as one moment we're at some flat where the villainous bikers of the week had their base, complete with red walls, then suddenly we're at Gizmos, also with red walls), so we know he accompanied them back to their HQ even though he seemed adamant they needed to get out of his (noticeably thinning), hair? Then Ros is looking at the screensaver which will later be cunningly revealed to be coded by its colours, Wence demands the disc, is on his way out, and at Beckett's insistence he owes them something he comes back and gives them a disc of information. So he's warned them off and then he's working with them, and eventually he decides it's best if they solve the problem on their own! No wonder he was ousted as Commander of SSD! It's like he can't help but share vital information, and then he backs away from it all because it would be too embarrassing to reveal the existence of this secret, and probably illegal, weapons dump. It makes no sense.

The villains themselves could just as well have threatened to reveal the existence of the dump to the world as blow it up, it would have had the same impact. They themselves, led by Alkmaar, are supposedly eco-terrorists, they want certain things to be done, but at the same time they're happy to cause the things they're against, described as short term damage for long term gain (I quite liked the idea they'd been building up to bigger crimes, starting with an oil spill by taking out an oil tanker, and now threatening citywide armageddon). It's never really clear if they have any principles or whether it's all a sham to grab power through money - we're told Alkmaar, and his Nordic Front, will go to any lengths to blackmail for money so that they can set up a breakaway state, so perhaps the eco side was truly a front for the Front. Alkmaar himself sounds possibly Scottish, or just northern English, as does one of his cronies (Korvig, played by Ralph Ineson who's gone on to be in so many things to this day, as a number of guest stars from the series have), and though they go by Scandinavian names I wonder if they're just adopted monickers as part of their organisation, though Nordic does mean North since it comes from the French word, nord, it doesn't matter what North!

The villains were among the weaker examples, although they make fearsome pursuers, zipping around on their dirt bikes in their distinctive colours (all black except for streaks of red, blue or yellow, respectively - even the villains are following some kind of clothing colour code this time!), but it makes me wonder why Ed's biking wasn't brought into the equation - I can imagine him being at the head of an epic chase across the city with these three bikers hunting him, perhaps with the hapless SSD on their tail at the same time. Instead we get Beckett taking Newton for her titular run, notable for using the 'Rapid Transit System' as Ed describes it, otherwise known as the Docklands Light Railway, or DLR. Ed isn't quite himself in this episode: not only does he never get on a bike once, or have anything to say about the fact that those they're up against are bikers, one of his own defining characteristics, he also shows great tact and care when dealing with Wence! Who is this Ed? He makes sure to call him 'Commander' when he humbly and courteously offers up his idea of… um, I'll come back to the idea in a sec, but he suggests taking Newton for walkies and having the SSD convoy as decoy. They like to switch the roles around from episode to episode, but this was really the one where Beckett got the lion's share of all the action, the only thing Ed got to do was fight Korvig (once again forgetting to use the advanced martial arts skills we know he has, or was it that his opponent was also skilled and cancelled him out?).

Beckett's the one who's taken to Newton (to the extent that Ros and Ed are disgusted when he invites her to dinner with them at the end, allowing the dog to sit up to table, which was most amusing), so he's the one that goes on the run, though he was most careless in losing his charge. The idea seemed to be a bad one from the start: why risk the dog at all when you could just have armed SSD guards keep vigil over it. There were only three enemies to deal with, after all, no matter if they are armed with the typical futuristic weapon of choice for Season 2: a Taser that fires bolts of energy! If we keep going along this line you have to wonder why they needed to use SSD as a decoy since they were heavily armed and had all the resources of the Department behind them, surely they could handle three miscreants. It would have been different if we'd seen a force of soldiers Alkmaar had at his command, but we didn't. And really, no one was going to be fooled by Beckett taking doggie for a walk, were they, since they knew what Newton looked like! That wasn't the last of the questionable decisions in the episode, or perhaps we can put it down to the writing (I didn't recognise the name of the writer of this one).

I know 'BUGS' is frequently ridiculous and you have suspend disbelief, but not content with the Taser blasters, they also allow Alkmaar perfect aim to hit Newton's lead at a distance, just at the moment it was taut, and she runs off (the actual run of the title). The biggest question is over Wence's decision to wash his hands of the affair and leave it to our team without backup. And how did Alkmaar even know about this top secret Facility 47 in the first place? It's not like we saw him gathering intel. Then we have moments such as Ros being chased by Tangsen, climbing between the tanker that is their mobile HQ (so why did they need the flat?), and the cab, while her pursuer crawls underneath, enabling her to drop a tyre on him! It doesn't look that heavy since it's tottering slightly when he's supposed to be crushed under it. Then there's the usual issue of villains not simply killing our heroes, but giving them a chance to escape (otherwise the series would have ended!), with the lackeys throwing a bomb at Ed and Beckett once they're cornered. Not very efficient as it put their own lives at risk and gave their victims time to get away when a simple shot from the Taser would seemingly kill (more in a moment). What was Ed's plan in the warehouse - Beckett's going to track down Newton using a dog whistle, Ed thinks he can do it faster with the remote control, but ends up whistling himself! And the dog cam, which looked good, would have been obscured by the fluffy fur around it. These all smack of script ideas that couldn't come to fruition in the actual filming, so maybe it was directing that was at fault? Except Brian Farnham was experienced at making the series. Maybe it can be put down to the production getting a little weary after so much shooting in the dark and cold across eight episodes, though they were able to raise their game back to the top with the subsequent two episodes.

The power of the villains' weaponry is also an issue: these Taser weapons, or perhaps they should be called electro-guns, kill poor Dr. Siegel in the storming of the Austin Institute, the raid that goes wrong and results in our team being called in. Is the Institute really as sensitive as it seems: the lab has a panic button in it, yet there's no indication that they deal with anything more deadly than a dog, and there are even armed guards on the premises! Do many scientific establishments have that? Anyway, the implication is that Siegel died, but that doesn't necessarily mean the hand weapons were that powerful, he might have had a bad heart. Except later, Ed appears to have killed Korvig in their struggle in the control room - he didn't seem to have a lot of choice, may not even have known the power of the gun, but he shoots Korvig and the only time we see him after that is lying on the floor, sightless eyes staring upwards! I was quite surprised that Ed was allowed to kill him, but then the other two are also dealt with in similar manner: Alkmaar is trapped in the tanker and Tangsen remains lying underneath the tyre, which is just below the tanker, while their own bomb (the usual poetic justice), has been dropped right there. You'd think the tanker was full of explosives the way it erupts, rather than sensitive computing equipment, but it was a beautiful explosion, I'll give them that! Surely Ros and Beckett should have pulled the villains clear to face justice, but I suppose they didn't know how many seconds were on the clock and self-preservation took over. Sometimes there's some ambiguity over whether they were responsible for the death of their enemies, but Ed at least (in self defence), clearly was on this occasion and the others could have pulled Tangsen clear…

I liked Beckett's reasoning that the intruders weren't after the knowledge or theory of the bio-mechanical tech, but the specific application of the dog, and the little guest star is adorable, they chose the right mutt for the role, it's just that the story doesn't hang together all that well when viewed with a critical eye instead of a relaxed Saturday evening doze as I imagine much of the population received it. And there isn't much in the episode to disturb such a doze, the characteristic thrills aren't as evident. Sure, we have Beckett being chased by men on bikes (why didn't the one that was close to him simply leap off his machine and pursue through the gap - bike leathers and helmet too bulky to fit?), and it was great seeing Ros do a nice one-eighty skid in her yellow car to go back for him. I also felt the 3D computer graphics simulation of the layout for the facility was impressive for its day, something we're increasingly seeing as the series goes on and technology progresses. And I do enjoy Wence, for all his bungling (he even gets captured by Alkmaar, somehow!), though having him and Ros tied up at Gizmos seemed a little derivative, we'd already seen it happen several times by this point (Beckett and Selina in 'Whirling Dervish,' Roland and Ed, in 'Schrodinger's Bomb' for two examples this season), so perhaps that was a moment Alkmaar needed to kill someone, Wence being the obvious sacrificial lamb. Not that I'd want him to die, but they never brought him back again.

'Schrodinger's Bomb' kept coming to mind in the episode (such as when you see the steel-barred door to the animals at the Institute, ripped right out of Dr. Neumann's museum), and not just as an example of how to do the series at its best, but things like Beckett saying he had no time to disarm the bomb, whose timer had gone down to seven minutes, yet in that previous episode he was confident of disarming two other bombs in thirty seconds! I know, they're different types of device, but it shows the difference in confidence levels and makes this story seem lesser. Interesting to hear Ros say the villains' file was half a gigabyte in size, which must have been rather big back then, a file of that size isn't exactly tiny now! Ros herself got to do her usual computer wizardry, and despite the tanker being a bit so-so as a mobile HQ (we never got to see it in motion - how about Alkmaar trying to get away by crashing through an SSD roadblock with Ros or Ed holding on for dear life on top?), I liked its internal setup. As I did the way they tracked Alkmaar's group using this bioengineered fluorescent agent which had marked them when they fled, including the rationale that it was there in case animals escaped. Of course 'smart paint' is in use all over the place now, as a deterrent to thieves, so they were ahead of the curve there (and it made sense since they were a scientific institute).

We find out SSD stands for 'Special Services Department' as there's a logo on the wall when Wence brings them in, so the details, though sparse, are there to be picked up - there's another reference to Beckett's previous career (even pre-Hive), when an annoyed Wence says he can see why his career in Marine Command stalled, although their's is another organisation (like the energy company Kanin worked for), who like to blow the doors off as the most pertinent means of entry. Fortunately it wasn't Gizmos this time, though we do get a repeat of the last time someone showed up to use the intercom - in 'Pulse' JD blasts the place, this time Alkmaar uses a captive Wence to gain entry. Ros looks stylish as ever (as opposed to Season 1), in a fetching mauve coat and square blue earrings, while Beckett sticks with his mustard shirt and Ed with a red shirt under his standard leather jacket. Both the Jeep and Ros' car get a little use, and the team do mostly work closely together except for when Beckett's out in the field. And I do like it, it just doesn't come together as well as it should, or could, and its placement between two of the series' best episodes makes it hard to see as anything more than merely good.

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