DVD, BUGS S3 (Nuclear Family)
There didn't appear to be a credited writer on this one, which tends to suggest it's one of those written by committee and so isn't going to be one of the better episodes. Added to this was the fact that it was one of only two I missed from the original run (excluding episodes from before I started watching with the third episode of Season 2), in this particular case out all day on a trip to Weymouth and not getting back till late, so I didn't see it until I was able to borrow a video off someone the following year, meaning I never had quite the same connection to it (much like the other one I missed, 'Whirling Dervish'). All this to say that the sum added up to being the weakest of Season 3. When I say weak, it's in comparison to the general high quality of the series, so it's still a good, enjoyable episode on a par with examples such as 'Shotgun Wedding' and 'Newton's Run,' none of which are bad except in the light of the series' greats. What is it that prevents 'Nuclear Family' from taking off like one of the Medusa missiles that are the target of the bad guys this time? It veers too far into conventional government operative drama with not enough sci-fi or gadgetry other than the token GPS bracelet that handily (or wristily), made tracking down the kidnapped Beckett and his charge, Madam Natalya, a breeze. It's all stately homes, diplomatic functions and hospitals, I don't think there was a single 'BUGS' building in sight, unless you count the Bureau itself, which is cheating. And the villains are among the blandest, most uninteresting examples we've seen.
Sean Driscoll, almost entirely forgettable other than for his ability to beat up Ed (who, don't forget, is supposed to be a martial arts master!). I can't even remember what happened to him in the end - did he get away, was he captured? And then there's Bridget Kay, a woman apparently with a rubber head - she gets biffed by Alex, collapses in a chair, but is fine a few moments later without even the slightest hint of a bruise (I know, I know, the conventions of action-adventure). Ros does the same for her later (at least it's an improvement on giving Beckett her right hook as she did in 'A Cage For Satan'!), knocking her out cold, presumably. And just on a tangent: it's another convention that the team don't usually use guns, but was it wise of Ros to fling the gun away and leave Kay stunned, but free, on the ground? We know it wasn't since it turns into Kay showing up to threaten Ros with another weapon and while this was perhaps the best moment of the episode ("I'm not moving," Ros states bravely, while standing on a pressure pad that will blow up Beckett and Natalya if she steps off - typical of her brand of stubborn heroism), they don't mind blowing up baddies, so why not hold a gun on her? At least tie her up! I don't know why both Driscoll and Kay are such boring enemies, perhaps it's because there's simply nothing about them that interests or strikes any chord.
At least they did say that Driscoll was ex-SAS, so it recovers a tiny bit of Ed's pride that he could be so easily bested in physical combat (again!), but nowadays he's too busy bleating about whether Alex likes him or not, and I have to assume that this has made his usually taut senses into less than professional reactions. I hate to say it, but Alex may be a liability, a distraction for our main action man and no amount of her stepping in to save him can undo the damage (twice this time - she takes out Kay when Ed's fabrication skills fall short, and Driscoll in the hospital). At least he had an excuse in the second encounter, as he'd been involved in a car accident and injured when his bike went out of control after Driscoll chucked caltrops or an equivalent into his path. It was good to see Ed back in his natural habitat, on a bike (where he tends to drive a car now - another change due to Alex tagging along!), two different bikes, to be precise as he uses a Yamaha dirt bike for the chase (probably cheaper and more suited to being chucked about), and another, bulkier type when visiting Channing, but he's beaten yet again, and on his own ground as it were, so it's a bit of a shameful episode for him. As if to demonstrate that he doesn't have the strong persona he used to, his wardrobe is particularly lacking in the usual strong primary colour the others wear: he's got a grey jumper with coloured lines, admittedly bright, but not very visually representative of his character. He also does wear a red jacket sometimes, but this ties him to the red jumper Alex wears as if for some visual reminder of their tag team.
The same thing happens with Ros and Beckett: she wears a lime green suit jacket over black trousers (with pearl earrings), while he wears a tie of the same hue, a dull blue shirt and darker blue jacket. I don't know if the costuming was genuinely designed to complement each other, any more than Ed and Alex' was, but I'd like to think they thought that through. Trouble is, a lot of Ros and Beckett's interactions are tinged with the oneupmanship of Beckett versus Channing, rather than the friendship and ribbing of old. Mind you, there's plenty of ribbing on both sides as Beckett competes with Channing, happy whenever Ros is disapproving (such as when he foists a free sample on Natalya - the bracelet), but it comes back to bite him when he's forced to thank his nemesis (because the bracelet allowed Ros to rescue him), ending the episode with a bit of a whimper as Ed and Alex look on smiling at Beckett's losing score against Channing. It also veers too far into soap territory as Ros asks Ed not to tell Beckett her stuff's at Channing's house, after Ed's visited. It's all just a little uncomfortable - I don't mind it sprinkled in among the episodes, but this was a bit much. Channing's house would come into the next episode in a big way, but it was typical of Ed to sum up the opulence by saying understatedly, "Nice pad." Beckett reveals himself a little too much when Ros asks rhetorically if she isn't allowed a private life, and he says, 'No!' Funny, but it's been played a little too much.
The main story is about the President of an ex-Soviet country coming for a life-saving operation, and planning to go through with a nuclear decommissioning deal. Rostov comes across as this very avuncular, twinkly-eyed reformer, perhaps influenced by his potential life-ending situation (actor Trevor Peacock died only a couple of years ago, I believe). He's a nice old codger, but maybe the story is too much about the guest cast and not enough about our characters, I don't know. And this is the third episode in a row to feature an actor I knew from a children's TV series: this time actor Max Digby who was the slimy boyfriend in 'The Queen's Nose' and here plays the slimy son, Grigori. Instead of a mystery shot we get a mystery needle shot as we see it go into someone and I think you're supposed to wonder if it was Grigori or Ed except for the fact you can see it's Grigori's suit that's jabbed. But it was a good moment when Ed goes in hot pursuit after the villain takes off and they end up fighting on the roof of the hospital (good thinking to use the oxygen mask to ignite the smouldering cigar and using the flash as a diversion, even if a hospital allowing a lit cigar at all is hard to believe, but then they were different times and Rostov is a revered diplomatic figure…). It almost redeems him for all the failures and defanging the episode puts him through. Oddly, one shot is used twice: we see Grigori's POV as he grapples Ed on a ledge and Ed flings his arms over as if throwing Grigori, which is how he ends up falling, but it happened before he fell, too!
There are some fun little callbacks, though likely unintentional, as you'd only recognise them if you knew other episodes of the series very well. In fact one is definitely unintentional since it shows how bad Beckett's memory is: when Natalya asks if he's ever been in this position before (chained to a bomb with a woman he likes), he claims not, but in 'Whirling Dervish' that's exactly what happened to him and Selina. Exactly! The other one is an example of Ros reacting to her gadgetry personally as if it's a living thing, much like in 'Gold Rush' when she showed her malfunctioning gadget who's boss - this time all she needs it to do is set off Kay's car alarm as a diversion, but it won't comply so she ends up doing it manually by jumping on the bonnet, then casts the offending device away in disgust! I like that she has this personal connection to her inventions, it makes her more real than a mere genius, and I will say, one thing this season has achieved is bringing back the old Ros from Season 1 who was much more engaged rather than the generally more subdued and somehow remote version of Season 2. Ed's role in the original trio is psychoanalysed by Alex, so not content to show him up on a physical level she also has to deconstruct him! Not a good episode for either of them, really! It made sense what she said about him not being the leader or the tech genius, but it only added to his unsure footing and one thing I always liked about Ed was his cocky confidence and lightheartedness.
One character who neither gets any good or bad this week is Jan, who barely features, even though it is another big diplomatic mission, protecting this foreign official. The only interesting thing she had was the line about her policy being to trust no one until they've earned that trust. And there was plenty of suspicion to go around. It reminded me of 'All Under Control' where you're kept wondering who the saboteur is out of a small pool of suspects. Here we have Grigori, the son, Natalya, the young wife, and Varetsky, the security chief - he's another foreigner who sounds like he's spent most of his life in England judging by the thick regional accent. Manchester, I'd say in his case! Part of it has to be that when you know who the villain is there's no mystery to it, but usually that only encourages me to look for any telltale signs, either of true motives or misdirection, and there wasn't really much to enjoy in that regard. In truth, there isn't even a great deal of the kind of action we expect from the series and only that one, Bridget Kay-destroying, explosion to add to the tally (apparently the one hundredth of the series according to my counter!). At least we know Beckett's wardrobe is very hard wearing - he's forced to roll under the lip of a skip when Driscoll tries to reverse over him in the teaser, yet later he's attending a diplomatic reception in the same suit! Maybe his secret is multiples…
As I said at the start of this review, it's not that it's a bad episode, far from it. It's enjoyable, the characters are all there, but it's just not as gripping as it should be, despite some good directing (pulling back from that window as Beckett succumbs to gas; Ed's brutal fight on the rooftop while cutting back to Alex gazing at the used needle), and too many nondescript locations and characters. Dare I say that Beckett and his team are starting, ever so slightly, to look like mere government employees rather than the radical, unconventional outsiders who can always get the job done. Even if they can. I can't be longing for the days when they were freelancers again already, surely? Mind you, the very next episode would give a big taste of both the advantages of their position and a sense of freelance isolation. Which is perhaps why that one is a lot more memorable and much more anticipated! Oh, and could there be a rare reference to Gizmos in this episode? Ros gives Beckett a tie pin, the 'For Him' version of the bracelet, and says it's from the 'GPS Gizmo range.' I'd like to think she used the company name for her products, though it throws even further confusion on Gizmos in Season 4…
***
Friday, 18 March 2022
Doppelganger
DVD, Stargate Atlantis S4 (Doppelganger)
We've had 'touching crystal to unleash alien life form' before, so I was pleased to find that, thanks to Carter being here, she can cite various references to things 'SG-1' faced, including that memorable first season episode, and I didn't vividly recall all the plots that were mentioned so it made me want to rewatch 'SG-1' again as it's been many years since I went through those early seasons. I think they also mentioned Dwight Schultz's episode ('The Gamekeeper'), though in some ways this did all remind me why the 'Stargate' franchise always seemed like a less effective play on the Trek one, but that wasn't the only influence on this particular story as we get clear connections to the film 'Alien,' it's outright spoken about in dialogue, but then there's also original 'Star Trek' when you have Sheppard fighting an evil version of himself (he even asks Teyla at one point if this version had a goatee which is an in-joke about the fact Spock famously wore one as the Mirror Universe version of the character), but then it ends more like 'The Matrix' with two characters fighting in a different reality where physics don't necessarily apply, and you could even say the mention of the creature feeding on fear or anger was another connection to 'TOS.'
All that being said, I didn't feel they ever fully achieved the levels of paranoia and uncertainty that Trek had often done so well. It's not because there was no horror element to it, but they were once again demonstrating the pushing the envelope of what was acceptable in a relatively family based sci-fi series, what with the chest-bursting and violence. Where they failed was in creating atmosphere and escalating tension. Maybe it's the sets that are too light and spacious, or perhaps it's down to the acting, but it may simply be that atmosphere isn't the forte of the writers, while they have been more successful, certainly since last season, of generating a familial atmosphere, something they achieved in moments during this episode, such as the lovely final scene where each of our characters show up at the new 'alfresco' dining area which looks out over the city, since they can't sleep. I think part of it is that whenever there are dream-based stories, you expect the lines to be blurred, and when characters ostensibly wake up you're anticipating it turning out that they're actually still asleep, so when it happens it isn't exactly surprising, though I suppose if this was your first big sci-fi series you would be surprised.
What I did find a slight surprise was that the title didn't actually give away the plot too much, because that word conjures up images of duplicates, which is what I assumed would happen. Instead, it's only one entity jumping from person to person, and they do show that it has the power to scare someone to death since we see the beloved character, Dr. Kate Heightmeyer, advising her last patient. Okay, she wasn't one of the beloved characters (I much prefer Dr. Keller, who had quite a lot to do in this story, and I really hope they never kill off Zelenka!), but it's always sad when they get rid of any familiar face. Major Lorne is another one that appears as if to remind us there are one or two recurring characters that haven't been offed yet, so watch out! I was half expecting her death to be another event that hadn't really happened, but unfortunately it did and Kate is out. Otherwise the story was fairly simple - I liked the references to other events (but my favourite was Rodney mentioning the Commodore 64 computer, which wouldn't mean anything to people under a certain age, but for those of us who were alive in the Eighties, it brings a warm glow of nostalgia - for me, my first ever computer!), but as I said, the fear factor wasn't anywhere as high as the gore factor, and while I love a good creepy episode in which reality is bent beyond breaking point, this doesn't come close to some of the Trek greats ('The Thaw' from 'Voyager' being arguably the scariest episode of Trek ever, not just for the content, but the ideas and the horrifying sense of being at the mercy of something malevolent).
I'm glad we're getting to see a story that isn't tied into any ongoing plots, isn't building any lore or trying to be anything other than a standalone, even if it is the kind I've seen many times before, it's good to see how these characters will react. My only concern was that Carter doesn't seem quite as forceful and comfortable in the leadership position, and as I've noted before, I think she works best when she's being the science whizz and solving problems. It's hard to see her stand back and delegate, and while it makes sense for her character's promotion, it's going to take some serious getting used to. I don't believe she's clicked yet in that role on this series and I'm even wondering if it might have been better for Weir to remain rather than have this stunt casting. But we have yet to see her truly interact with the 'Atlantis' characters other than being the boss, and I'm sure it took time for Weir to bed in, too. It's just strange that such a (truly), beloved character as Carter isn't brilliant right out of the gate (or Stargate!). I'd love to know the behind-the-scenes story of how this all came about and what the other cast members thought about it, and why Amanda Tapping agreed. But the actress and character hasn't yet been challenged sufficiently (other than Ronon not accepting her at first), to bring out her mettle and show what kind of a leader she is. I hope it happens soon.
**
We've had 'touching crystal to unleash alien life form' before, so I was pleased to find that, thanks to Carter being here, she can cite various references to things 'SG-1' faced, including that memorable first season episode, and I didn't vividly recall all the plots that were mentioned so it made me want to rewatch 'SG-1' again as it's been many years since I went through those early seasons. I think they also mentioned Dwight Schultz's episode ('The Gamekeeper'), though in some ways this did all remind me why the 'Stargate' franchise always seemed like a less effective play on the Trek one, but that wasn't the only influence on this particular story as we get clear connections to the film 'Alien,' it's outright spoken about in dialogue, but then there's also original 'Star Trek' when you have Sheppard fighting an evil version of himself (he even asks Teyla at one point if this version had a goatee which is an in-joke about the fact Spock famously wore one as the Mirror Universe version of the character), but then it ends more like 'The Matrix' with two characters fighting in a different reality where physics don't necessarily apply, and you could even say the mention of the creature feeding on fear or anger was another connection to 'TOS.'
All that being said, I didn't feel they ever fully achieved the levels of paranoia and uncertainty that Trek had often done so well. It's not because there was no horror element to it, but they were once again demonstrating the pushing the envelope of what was acceptable in a relatively family based sci-fi series, what with the chest-bursting and violence. Where they failed was in creating atmosphere and escalating tension. Maybe it's the sets that are too light and spacious, or perhaps it's down to the acting, but it may simply be that atmosphere isn't the forte of the writers, while they have been more successful, certainly since last season, of generating a familial atmosphere, something they achieved in moments during this episode, such as the lovely final scene where each of our characters show up at the new 'alfresco' dining area which looks out over the city, since they can't sleep. I think part of it is that whenever there are dream-based stories, you expect the lines to be blurred, and when characters ostensibly wake up you're anticipating it turning out that they're actually still asleep, so when it happens it isn't exactly surprising, though I suppose if this was your first big sci-fi series you would be surprised.
What I did find a slight surprise was that the title didn't actually give away the plot too much, because that word conjures up images of duplicates, which is what I assumed would happen. Instead, it's only one entity jumping from person to person, and they do show that it has the power to scare someone to death since we see the beloved character, Dr. Kate Heightmeyer, advising her last patient. Okay, she wasn't one of the beloved characters (I much prefer Dr. Keller, who had quite a lot to do in this story, and I really hope they never kill off Zelenka!), but it's always sad when they get rid of any familiar face. Major Lorne is another one that appears as if to remind us there are one or two recurring characters that haven't been offed yet, so watch out! I was half expecting her death to be another event that hadn't really happened, but unfortunately it did and Kate is out. Otherwise the story was fairly simple - I liked the references to other events (but my favourite was Rodney mentioning the Commodore 64 computer, which wouldn't mean anything to people under a certain age, but for those of us who were alive in the Eighties, it brings a warm glow of nostalgia - for me, my first ever computer!), but as I said, the fear factor wasn't anywhere as high as the gore factor, and while I love a good creepy episode in which reality is bent beyond breaking point, this doesn't come close to some of the Trek greats ('The Thaw' from 'Voyager' being arguably the scariest episode of Trek ever, not just for the content, but the ideas and the horrifying sense of being at the mercy of something malevolent).
I'm glad we're getting to see a story that isn't tied into any ongoing plots, isn't building any lore or trying to be anything other than a standalone, even if it is the kind I've seen many times before, it's good to see how these characters will react. My only concern was that Carter doesn't seem quite as forceful and comfortable in the leadership position, and as I've noted before, I think she works best when she's being the science whizz and solving problems. It's hard to see her stand back and delegate, and while it makes sense for her character's promotion, it's going to take some serious getting used to. I don't believe she's clicked yet in that role on this series and I'm even wondering if it might have been better for Weir to remain rather than have this stunt casting. But we have yet to see her truly interact with the 'Atlantis' characters other than being the boss, and I'm sure it took time for Weir to bed in, too. It's just strange that such a (truly), beloved character as Carter isn't brilliant right out of the gate (or Stargate!). I'd love to know the behind-the-scenes story of how this all came about and what the other cast members thought about it, and why Amanda Tapping agreed. But the actress and character hasn't yet been challenged sufficiently (other than Ronon not accepting her at first), to bring out her mettle and show what kind of a leader she is. I hope it happens soon.
**
Hollow Man
DVD, BUGS S3 (Hollow Man)
I had this in mind as a bit of a 'Newton's Run' - a dog's dinner, perhaps, one of the weakest of the season, but in fact it's quite a pleasant surprise with some good guest characters, one of the biggest stunts the series ever pulled off, and strong integration of all five of our main characters. The ongoing story-lines don't impinge on the main course, but are elegantly woven into dialogue here and there, from the previously established hands of Miles Millar and Al Gough, who'd written for Season 2. And it looks a lot more like the 'BUGS' you expect, with hairsbreadth escapes and explosions, the characters doing what they're good at and in bright and shiny locales. There are still those now familiar elements of naturalism or mundanity to counterpoint the high tech opulence of places like the all-white vault at the Bank of England's Technical Operations building (which contained the vital print data), or the similarly white and shiny location used for the Rockridge Imaging press conference. Ethan Rockridge's own place (not sure if it's supposed to be an over-the-top office, complete with chef and dining area, or a very business-oriented home from which he works), contrasting to the extreme with the kind of flat North and Drake work out of, which in turn is very different to a lavish Minister's office, so we get all sides and sights of the kind of world the series can show.
Perhaps the most important part of the episode is how well each of the team are put through their paces, and we see every one, even Jan, in their element: Ed takes Alex with him to track down a dead man, Beckett and Jan are attending meetings, while Ros ends up wining and dining with Ethan as part of their mission to find out what's going on. We've even got Ros and Beckett going undercover as journalists for the press conference and Alex makes a quick change to show up at North's door for 'market research' while Ed sneaks in the back way, in his usual role of action man when he climbs up a rope to enter the interesting way. We even have Beckett showing his lack of diplomatic skills when he fails to pussyfoot around the Minister, much to Jan's irritation, though it ultimately doesn't matter because she knows this politician isn't going to be around much longer. There's an insight into politics and how they work, and in fact, the team is working to 'save the government's blushes' as it had put its reputation on the line for this new £100 note that is impossible to forge, so they're acting at the highest level. I found it interesting that it's all about the preservation of paper money, even though the Minister says electronic currency works, so I'm not sure what they were trying to say with that, if anything - twenty-five years later we still have our paper money, except it's not paper any more (not for much longer, anyway), but plastic, and you could say the 'freedom from the fear of forgery' is as much a motivation as ever.
It is Ros' story that has the most impact out of all the strands, because she comes up against a hero of hers. Unlike Pieter Van Straaten, from the previous episode, 'The Price of Peace,' this is a hero that she more than respects, and this time is allowed to interact with him, giving us a little background on her own career path: she was inspired down the technology route because of Ethan Rockridge, but she doesn't allow her respect to cloud her judgement. The reason these scenes worked best was because Ethan comes across as so genuine, even though he's managed to compartmentalise the truth of how he got to where he is, he still has qualms. It was a very well-rounded character and the performance of the actor really made it, when sometimes we see actors fulfilling only the most basic requirements of a guest role. Ethan makes you believe in him, and because of that we can believe he could listen to reason and Ros would be able to talk him round to doing the right thing and helping her take down the villains he's working with. It was a powerful moment when you hear the gunshot, another of what could be called a 'mystery shot' since you're not sure if he's done the deed or not, then we cut back to the room where Ros was tied to machinery and all we see is Ethan wrapping up the gun and walking slowly away. But he's not walking heavily away with the burden of murder behind him, it's the burden of what he has to do ahead of him, the camera following him as he walks past Ros as she slides into frame. Expert direction.
I did think at first, when they were talking of holograms, that they should have brought someone back from Season 1: William Swift. But it wouldn't have made sense for the story as it progressed, and Ethan Rockridge is a better character - he even sells his death better than most, slumping onto Ros as he mumbles his last words, there's no neat and tidy holding of the head and looking up into Ros' eyes, it's simply that he's vindicated himself and dies no longer the villain. Beckett gets his moment of violence as he slams Drake about, though ending up on a conveyor belt to destruction in the most cartoonish homage to ancient silent films - it could only have been more silly if they'd tied him to a railway track, but at least in this instance it comes out of an accident, stunning himself in the fall from fighting with Drake. Drake doesn't seem like the most thoughtful man, though he is violent and capable of action - in the teaser when he sees the jig is up he quickly takes out the two guards in the lift, but it's the Drake escape that remains a mystery as he somehow must have pulled himself up onto the top of the lift and found another exit, while carrying the giant disc (which I assume is a Laserdisc, though I never knew much about that technology), without breaking it! Quite a feat. He could have stayed to kill Ed when they fear they're under attack at North's apartment, but then they didn't know they were only up against two people, one of whom was very inexperienced, so the panic was understandable.
Similarly, you'd think Drake would have stayed to finish off Beckett, but again, he doesn't know how many agents are in the building so he doesn't stay around to get caught. It was quite surreal seeing actor Thomas Wheatley, in this role, since, much like John Labanowski playing Marius Trozek in the previous episode, he was also a well known face from a late-Nineties children's TV series. I imagine 'Aquila' came after this, I doubt I'd have made the connection at the time, but maybe. Latterly I also know him from one of the Timothy Dalton James Bond films, so his presence in this kind of role isn't quite as strange, but still… He teams up with a programmer who isn't happy with his lot and wants to make serious money - North's caravan under a viaduct reminded me of McTiernan from 'Down Among The Dead Men,' and Ed once again uses his electronic lock-pick to gain entry when so far we've seen more of the non-tech solutions this season. Maybe Millar and Gough hadn't realised the series was doing things a little differently now? Either way, I prefer the hallmarks of the series to be in evidence, and that includes Ed doing his usual things, except this time he's a little bit hampered by having to babysit Alex. It's true that he's the one who asked her along, and I like that Beckett tells him to watch out for her when he assumes she can't hear, even while earlier he'd treated her like an overambitious file clerk - it shows he does care about her, as they all do.
I say Ed was hampered, but not in terms of his actual work, just that the story puts him into positions it doesn't quite make sense for him to be in. For one thing he once again doesn't ride in on a motorbike (even though Alex could ride pillion, just as the villains do when they escape), so we don't get any kind of bike pursuit, which would have been good, but he has a new vehicle (a Toyota Land Cruiser), so he and Alex can sit side by side and have scenes together (where she lets him know where he stands - or falls if he's not careful!). But the really ignoble moment is when Reg Gibson at the Synchroscan printing place attacks him with a spanner and gets the better of him when we know Ed's supposed to be a martial arts champion as we've seen before (and would again, later this season). It's only so Alex can leap in and save him, performing her own hand-to-hand combat. I understand the need for her to be able to show off her skills, but I don't think it should have been at the expense of Ed. Now I could buy it if we were under the impression he was still recovering from his injury from the opening two-parter, but he demonstrates in this episode that he's fighting fit when he climbs up the rope to get into North's apartment, so it doesn't make sense. I want to see him and Alex as a team, but it needed to be organic, the way they are with each other. On the whole, though, Alex is good fun, her best moment coming as she puts her foot in it, showing up at the door and asking the villain to take part in her survey: "Let's start with an easy one, Mr. North - what's your name?"
Ed isn't completely anaesthetised by Alex, either. We see another example of his pinpoint accuracy with a gun (which makes you wonder why he doesn't carry one around at all times just to make it easier to take down villains as he'd have the skill to stop them with a nonlethal wounding!), where he fires a bug out of a dart gun to land on the small number plate of the moving bike as North and Drake flee - that was some aim! It made me think of when he takes down the pursuing helicopter's rear rotor in 'Out of The Hive,' this shot just as difficult to pull off. Ed comes on rather strong to Alex, who rebuffs his boyish advances, but it all adds to the sense of playfulness and partnership between them, just as Beckett shows care for her, and Ros is like a friendly mentor. Ros' own ongoing arc is mentioned, as in her weekend with Channing at the cricket in Barbados, and so is Beckett's financial situation. Indeed, right from the start he's getting ribbed by Ed for staring too longingly at the £100 note (and he displays some black humour when he asks if Ros and Rockridge are comparing bank balances), so you wonder why he'd still be in that situation now he's working for the Bureau - surely he'd have got paid by now, but the episode neatly wraps that up by the end where Beckett reveals the bank have finally given his card back, even if he has a spending limit of £99 only, which then turns into Ros having a little fun, saying she can adjust it! Sure, it's illegal, but she knows Beckett's good for it and it's just a little way in which she can help him out when she knows he won't accept anything from her.
The other ongoing issue is the possibility of a mole in the services. This time it's a file that was altered, specifically Drake's, but it doesn't actually play into the mole story as we find out during the episode it was a little favour this Minister did for Ethan Rockridge. He's the one who states that the days of secret service cowboys is over (which must have been something of a theme of the times in the Nineties, since 'Goldeneye' also gave the impression of Bond being a relic of the Cold War and now things have moved on), but the team proves their methods are still needed, exactly the reason Jan brought the team in in the first place, and while she wishes Beckett would be more diplomatic (and obviously doesn't know him well enough by saying that!), they really come to appreciate each other by the end, Beckett complimenting her on being quite an operator. But each of the team can claim that, and this really is an episode to show what they're capable of. For once, Ros isn't doing much tech work, she's schmoozing with Ethan and proves her worth on more than one occasion. I like that we see them operating alone and in pairs, as well as the larger group. Ros gets to wear a swanky dinner dress (and even in that she shows her action credentials when she leaps from Drake's bullets at the print shop). Oddly, it's not really about her crossing verbal swords with Ethan, there's more genuine interest and mutual admiration than anything else.
He shows her round his collection (which includes the first ever laptop computer - I wonder if it really was?), and they have dinner, but the most important thing to come out of it is Ros' motivation for what she does. Rockridge outright asks her why she plays 'spy games' and she explains they're not games, she makes a difference and she likes what she does, including getting to design her own stuff - solving problems is what she loves. It was a bit of a revelation to me that her high tech, credit card-sized digital camera is actually higher tech than I realised: it's a credit card-sized video camera, which I hadn't picked up on before and makes it even more impressive! Ros brushes up nice in the dinner scene, but earlier in the episode she continues her style this season with a white jacket over black skirt (with swirly white earrings), while Beckett looks particularly conventional in a grey suit with blue shirt and tie, and Ed continues to show his casual, relaxed attitude by wearing a stripy jumper. But notice that in the tag scene at the end the trio have returned to their almost primary colours, with Ros in blue, Beckett in green and Ed in yellow, as if to reassure us that things are back to normal.
One issue that comes up is the democratising of technology, though it wasn't explored, sadly (this is 'BUGS,' they're not likely to explore ideas in that way), with it being a little muddled on exactly what was meant. It was in Rockridge's thesis that Ros had read, and I wasn't sure if he was supposed to be agreeing with it or was in opposition to it by the fact that his holographic imaging machine was exclusive so that only the Bank of England would be able to use it, because otherwise, if anyone had access to it, then forgery would again become likely. But he does later talk to her about it and she's sorry she put him on the spot, so maybe it was actually calling him out on not being true to his own ideals, which again could be a hint of the double-sided nature of the man, who believes in making his own 'luck,' and yet did so through criminal means. Rockridge is so charming that you can believe in him, he isn't played up as sinister or smarmy, and we see this continue even once his own mask has been pulled off. The behaviour of his belligerent security chief also suggests he engenders loyalty from his workers: at Rockridge's he's the one who discovers Ros snooping, but when Drake takes the upper hand and pulls a gun on her, and his boss is patently not happy about it, he goes to do something to Drake and is only stopped by Rockridge himself, which showed quite a degree of subtlety, either from the writing or the performances. Earlier we saw George frogmarch Beckett out of the press conference and I do wonder when he had time to check Beckett was on the press list as we see him manhandle him while claiming he couldn't find him on any of their lists!
There are, as ever, some oddities to the episode: for one thing, why would North keep a photo of himself in a frame in his own caravan? It would seem the height of egocentricity, and he didn't come across quite like that, more like someone desperate to get money. It looked like the actual actor was operating the forklift truck at the warehouse, so I wondered if actor Angus Barnett actually had a forklift licence (perhaps not, judging by the way he bumps the pallet Ed's hiding behind!), or if the rules weren't as stringent then? The conveyor belt was the only thing that didn't make a lot of sense - the money's seen travelling in sheets for the imager to imprint holograms onto, but they seemed to move in a somewhat haphazard way, not all neatly aligned, and you'd think the device would need perfect placement for it to scan the holograms accurately… And shouldn't Beckett have been able to simply roll off the conveyor? I know he was waking from unconsciousness, but he seemed to sober up very quick. You'd think there'd be an emergency stop button, and in fact I thought I saw one on the controls where Ros was, but she preferred the more dramatic move of smashing the disc player to get the program disc out! These problems are forgotten in the light of: 1) Ed doing a rough southern accent to get him and Alex into the building, and 2) the terrific stunt where the HGV North drives out has had its brakes cut by Alex, while Ed, dangling from the chain as he tries to bring the door down, is fired upon as Alex leaps from between the cab and the trailer and Ed smashes the windscreen with the chain, then Drake and North proceed to side slam into a fuel dump, which erupts - the biggest stunt since they blew up a warehouse and blasted a car out the roof in 'Stealth'! With North driving Drake should've known his goose was cooked!
***
I had this in mind as a bit of a 'Newton's Run' - a dog's dinner, perhaps, one of the weakest of the season, but in fact it's quite a pleasant surprise with some good guest characters, one of the biggest stunts the series ever pulled off, and strong integration of all five of our main characters. The ongoing story-lines don't impinge on the main course, but are elegantly woven into dialogue here and there, from the previously established hands of Miles Millar and Al Gough, who'd written for Season 2. And it looks a lot more like the 'BUGS' you expect, with hairsbreadth escapes and explosions, the characters doing what they're good at and in bright and shiny locales. There are still those now familiar elements of naturalism or mundanity to counterpoint the high tech opulence of places like the all-white vault at the Bank of England's Technical Operations building (which contained the vital print data), or the similarly white and shiny location used for the Rockridge Imaging press conference. Ethan Rockridge's own place (not sure if it's supposed to be an over-the-top office, complete with chef and dining area, or a very business-oriented home from which he works), contrasting to the extreme with the kind of flat North and Drake work out of, which in turn is very different to a lavish Minister's office, so we get all sides and sights of the kind of world the series can show.
Perhaps the most important part of the episode is how well each of the team are put through their paces, and we see every one, even Jan, in their element: Ed takes Alex with him to track down a dead man, Beckett and Jan are attending meetings, while Ros ends up wining and dining with Ethan as part of their mission to find out what's going on. We've even got Ros and Beckett going undercover as journalists for the press conference and Alex makes a quick change to show up at North's door for 'market research' while Ed sneaks in the back way, in his usual role of action man when he climbs up a rope to enter the interesting way. We even have Beckett showing his lack of diplomatic skills when he fails to pussyfoot around the Minister, much to Jan's irritation, though it ultimately doesn't matter because she knows this politician isn't going to be around much longer. There's an insight into politics and how they work, and in fact, the team is working to 'save the government's blushes' as it had put its reputation on the line for this new £100 note that is impossible to forge, so they're acting at the highest level. I found it interesting that it's all about the preservation of paper money, even though the Minister says electronic currency works, so I'm not sure what they were trying to say with that, if anything - twenty-five years later we still have our paper money, except it's not paper any more (not for much longer, anyway), but plastic, and you could say the 'freedom from the fear of forgery' is as much a motivation as ever.
It is Ros' story that has the most impact out of all the strands, because she comes up against a hero of hers. Unlike Pieter Van Straaten, from the previous episode, 'The Price of Peace,' this is a hero that she more than respects, and this time is allowed to interact with him, giving us a little background on her own career path: she was inspired down the technology route because of Ethan Rockridge, but she doesn't allow her respect to cloud her judgement. The reason these scenes worked best was because Ethan comes across as so genuine, even though he's managed to compartmentalise the truth of how he got to where he is, he still has qualms. It was a very well-rounded character and the performance of the actor really made it, when sometimes we see actors fulfilling only the most basic requirements of a guest role. Ethan makes you believe in him, and because of that we can believe he could listen to reason and Ros would be able to talk him round to doing the right thing and helping her take down the villains he's working with. It was a powerful moment when you hear the gunshot, another of what could be called a 'mystery shot' since you're not sure if he's done the deed or not, then we cut back to the room where Ros was tied to machinery and all we see is Ethan wrapping up the gun and walking slowly away. But he's not walking heavily away with the burden of murder behind him, it's the burden of what he has to do ahead of him, the camera following him as he walks past Ros as she slides into frame. Expert direction.
I did think at first, when they were talking of holograms, that they should have brought someone back from Season 1: William Swift. But it wouldn't have made sense for the story as it progressed, and Ethan Rockridge is a better character - he even sells his death better than most, slumping onto Ros as he mumbles his last words, there's no neat and tidy holding of the head and looking up into Ros' eyes, it's simply that he's vindicated himself and dies no longer the villain. Beckett gets his moment of violence as he slams Drake about, though ending up on a conveyor belt to destruction in the most cartoonish homage to ancient silent films - it could only have been more silly if they'd tied him to a railway track, but at least in this instance it comes out of an accident, stunning himself in the fall from fighting with Drake. Drake doesn't seem like the most thoughtful man, though he is violent and capable of action - in the teaser when he sees the jig is up he quickly takes out the two guards in the lift, but it's the Drake escape that remains a mystery as he somehow must have pulled himself up onto the top of the lift and found another exit, while carrying the giant disc (which I assume is a Laserdisc, though I never knew much about that technology), without breaking it! Quite a feat. He could have stayed to kill Ed when they fear they're under attack at North's apartment, but then they didn't know they were only up against two people, one of whom was very inexperienced, so the panic was understandable.
Similarly, you'd think Drake would have stayed to finish off Beckett, but again, he doesn't know how many agents are in the building so he doesn't stay around to get caught. It was quite surreal seeing actor Thomas Wheatley, in this role, since, much like John Labanowski playing Marius Trozek in the previous episode, he was also a well known face from a late-Nineties children's TV series. I imagine 'Aquila' came after this, I doubt I'd have made the connection at the time, but maybe. Latterly I also know him from one of the Timothy Dalton James Bond films, so his presence in this kind of role isn't quite as strange, but still… He teams up with a programmer who isn't happy with his lot and wants to make serious money - North's caravan under a viaduct reminded me of McTiernan from 'Down Among The Dead Men,' and Ed once again uses his electronic lock-pick to gain entry when so far we've seen more of the non-tech solutions this season. Maybe Millar and Gough hadn't realised the series was doing things a little differently now? Either way, I prefer the hallmarks of the series to be in evidence, and that includes Ed doing his usual things, except this time he's a little bit hampered by having to babysit Alex. It's true that he's the one who asked her along, and I like that Beckett tells him to watch out for her when he assumes she can't hear, even while earlier he'd treated her like an overambitious file clerk - it shows he does care about her, as they all do.
I say Ed was hampered, but not in terms of his actual work, just that the story puts him into positions it doesn't quite make sense for him to be in. For one thing he once again doesn't ride in on a motorbike (even though Alex could ride pillion, just as the villains do when they escape), so we don't get any kind of bike pursuit, which would have been good, but he has a new vehicle (a Toyota Land Cruiser), so he and Alex can sit side by side and have scenes together (where she lets him know where he stands - or falls if he's not careful!). But the really ignoble moment is when Reg Gibson at the Synchroscan printing place attacks him with a spanner and gets the better of him when we know Ed's supposed to be a martial arts champion as we've seen before (and would again, later this season). It's only so Alex can leap in and save him, performing her own hand-to-hand combat. I understand the need for her to be able to show off her skills, but I don't think it should have been at the expense of Ed. Now I could buy it if we were under the impression he was still recovering from his injury from the opening two-parter, but he demonstrates in this episode that he's fighting fit when he climbs up the rope to get into North's apartment, so it doesn't make sense. I want to see him and Alex as a team, but it needed to be organic, the way they are with each other. On the whole, though, Alex is good fun, her best moment coming as she puts her foot in it, showing up at the door and asking the villain to take part in her survey: "Let's start with an easy one, Mr. North - what's your name?"
Ed isn't completely anaesthetised by Alex, either. We see another example of his pinpoint accuracy with a gun (which makes you wonder why he doesn't carry one around at all times just to make it easier to take down villains as he'd have the skill to stop them with a nonlethal wounding!), where he fires a bug out of a dart gun to land on the small number plate of the moving bike as North and Drake flee - that was some aim! It made me think of when he takes down the pursuing helicopter's rear rotor in 'Out of The Hive,' this shot just as difficult to pull off. Ed comes on rather strong to Alex, who rebuffs his boyish advances, but it all adds to the sense of playfulness and partnership between them, just as Beckett shows care for her, and Ros is like a friendly mentor. Ros' own ongoing arc is mentioned, as in her weekend with Channing at the cricket in Barbados, and so is Beckett's financial situation. Indeed, right from the start he's getting ribbed by Ed for staring too longingly at the £100 note (and he displays some black humour when he asks if Ros and Rockridge are comparing bank balances), so you wonder why he'd still be in that situation now he's working for the Bureau - surely he'd have got paid by now, but the episode neatly wraps that up by the end where Beckett reveals the bank have finally given his card back, even if he has a spending limit of £99 only, which then turns into Ros having a little fun, saying she can adjust it! Sure, it's illegal, but she knows Beckett's good for it and it's just a little way in which she can help him out when she knows he won't accept anything from her.
The other ongoing issue is the possibility of a mole in the services. This time it's a file that was altered, specifically Drake's, but it doesn't actually play into the mole story as we find out during the episode it was a little favour this Minister did for Ethan Rockridge. He's the one who states that the days of secret service cowboys is over (which must have been something of a theme of the times in the Nineties, since 'Goldeneye' also gave the impression of Bond being a relic of the Cold War and now things have moved on), but the team proves their methods are still needed, exactly the reason Jan brought the team in in the first place, and while she wishes Beckett would be more diplomatic (and obviously doesn't know him well enough by saying that!), they really come to appreciate each other by the end, Beckett complimenting her on being quite an operator. But each of the team can claim that, and this really is an episode to show what they're capable of. For once, Ros isn't doing much tech work, she's schmoozing with Ethan and proves her worth on more than one occasion. I like that we see them operating alone and in pairs, as well as the larger group. Ros gets to wear a swanky dinner dress (and even in that she shows her action credentials when she leaps from Drake's bullets at the print shop). Oddly, it's not really about her crossing verbal swords with Ethan, there's more genuine interest and mutual admiration than anything else.
He shows her round his collection (which includes the first ever laptop computer - I wonder if it really was?), and they have dinner, but the most important thing to come out of it is Ros' motivation for what she does. Rockridge outright asks her why she plays 'spy games' and she explains they're not games, she makes a difference and she likes what she does, including getting to design her own stuff - solving problems is what she loves. It was a bit of a revelation to me that her high tech, credit card-sized digital camera is actually higher tech than I realised: it's a credit card-sized video camera, which I hadn't picked up on before and makes it even more impressive! Ros brushes up nice in the dinner scene, but earlier in the episode she continues her style this season with a white jacket over black skirt (with swirly white earrings), while Beckett looks particularly conventional in a grey suit with blue shirt and tie, and Ed continues to show his casual, relaxed attitude by wearing a stripy jumper. But notice that in the tag scene at the end the trio have returned to their almost primary colours, with Ros in blue, Beckett in green and Ed in yellow, as if to reassure us that things are back to normal.
One issue that comes up is the democratising of technology, though it wasn't explored, sadly (this is 'BUGS,' they're not likely to explore ideas in that way), with it being a little muddled on exactly what was meant. It was in Rockridge's thesis that Ros had read, and I wasn't sure if he was supposed to be agreeing with it or was in opposition to it by the fact that his holographic imaging machine was exclusive so that only the Bank of England would be able to use it, because otherwise, if anyone had access to it, then forgery would again become likely. But he does later talk to her about it and she's sorry she put him on the spot, so maybe it was actually calling him out on not being true to his own ideals, which again could be a hint of the double-sided nature of the man, who believes in making his own 'luck,' and yet did so through criminal means. Rockridge is so charming that you can believe in him, he isn't played up as sinister or smarmy, and we see this continue even once his own mask has been pulled off. The behaviour of his belligerent security chief also suggests he engenders loyalty from his workers: at Rockridge's he's the one who discovers Ros snooping, but when Drake takes the upper hand and pulls a gun on her, and his boss is patently not happy about it, he goes to do something to Drake and is only stopped by Rockridge himself, which showed quite a degree of subtlety, either from the writing or the performances. Earlier we saw George frogmarch Beckett out of the press conference and I do wonder when he had time to check Beckett was on the press list as we see him manhandle him while claiming he couldn't find him on any of their lists!
There are, as ever, some oddities to the episode: for one thing, why would North keep a photo of himself in a frame in his own caravan? It would seem the height of egocentricity, and he didn't come across quite like that, more like someone desperate to get money. It looked like the actual actor was operating the forklift truck at the warehouse, so I wondered if actor Angus Barnett actually had a forklift licence (perhaps not, judging by the way he bumps the pallet Ed's hiding behind!), or if the rules weren't as stringent then? The conveyor belt was the only thing that didn't make a lot of sense - the money's seen travelling in sheets for the imager to imprint holograms onto, but they seemed to move in a somewhat haphazard way, not all neatly aligned, and you'd think the device would need perfect placement for it to scan the holograms accurately… And shouldn't Beckett have been able to simply roll off the conveyor? I know he was waking from unconsciousness, but he seemed to sober up very quick. You'd think there'd be an emergency stop button, and in fact I thought I saw one on the controls where Ros was, but she preferred the more dramatic move of smashing the disc player to get the program disc out! These problems are forgotten in the light of: 1) Ed doing a rough southern accent to get him and Alex into the building, and 2) the terrific stunt where the HGV North drives out has had its brakes cut by Alex, while Ed, dangling from the chain as he tries to bring the door down, is fired upon as Alex leaps from between the cab and the trailer and Ed smashes the windscreen with the chain, then Drake and North proceed to side slam into a fuel dump, which erupts - the biggest stunt since they blew up a warehouse and blasted a car out the roof in 'Stealth'! With North driving Drake should've known his goose was cooked!
***
Tuesday, 8 March 2022
Reunion
DVD, Stargate Atlantis S4 (Reunion)
Hard and painful is the lesson Ronon must learn. Perhaps it was too quick to learn in the space of one episode, I don't know, but it is over by the end, though one dangling thread remains - three friends, three Satedans are tracked down by Ronon and Teyla, renowned as Wraith killers, and it becomes a tale of divided loyalties as Ronon struggles with having a new boss that hasn't earned his trust and which he hasn't earned the trust of: Samantha Carter. It's funny Rodney seriously thought he was in contention for Weir's job, but he did, and it wasn't him, it was her. Yeah, like we needed it spelt out - clearly if Colonel Carter's coming onto a new 'Stargate' series she's going to be the boss! That's how it works, you get promoted. And yet… I can't help thinking command isn't her natural bent, it's not what she's known for - she's great at being tech support, even if that sounds condescending to say, but it's true. She solves problems, and I know we have that role covered with McKay and Zelenka, but somehow I can imagine the series taking off even more if she was 'merely' part of the team rather than leading the whole Atlantis project. I'd have rather Weir remained in command and Carter continued her usual role, but that's not how things happen, nothing stays the same, and in the end I'm just thrilled they brought an 'SG-1' character over to this spinoff, full stop, whatever she does.
I can't go on without remarking on the wonderful little scene with Christopher Judge wishing her well back at the SGC. I've long wondered why he never appeared in 'Stargate Universe' and if he'd ever show up on 'Atlantis,' and now he has. Sort of. We never get to see him actually on Atlantis, nor interacting with those characters, his small contribution is purely for the 'SG-1' fans and to make Carter's transition more final and to show the consequences - she's leaving her old team and job behind. I loved that they got him to do it and I so hope this isn't the last appearance he ever made in the franchise (I'm sure everyone wants to see him take Ronon down a peg or two, in brotherly friendship, of course, but this wasn't the appropriate episode to do it in!). It gave me hope that Carter suggested SG-1 come and visit sometime, and I was saying 'please, please' as while they've had some crossover, we'd never seen the full teams working side by side and that's what you really want. But the moment may have passed, 'SG-1' was off the air, and while they'd come back for a couple of spinoff films and guest appearances in 'Universe' for many of them, I don't know if they made it onto 'Atlantis' in any meaningful way. Which is not to say Teal'c's scene wasn't meaningful, because it absolutely was.
It is strange to see Carter in that position of organising things from the top down. I like that she stood up to the rudeness and brashness of Ronon, even if she did seem a little too gloss lipstick and mild words - again, it's a sign that they've taken the character further than she was ever designed to go and it remains to be seen if it'll work out, in the same way as I like Jason Momoa, but he still had some maturing to do in the acting stakes: most of the time he stays gruff and wry, but when he plays it emotional his voice squeaks! I shouldn't pick holes, and it actually suited the extremes he'd been taken to when he discovers these great friends of his, these loyal Satedans, had turned devil worshippers, basically, he's almost screeching in his disbelief and horror. I really did wonder if he'd be written out, just because we've seen so many cast changes in the first three and a bit years of the series, so different from 'SG-1' and its stolid continuation of the main four for so long. It was always going to end badly, however, as these renegade warriors were so smug and superior, easily slipping into emotional manipulation disguised as matey ribbing, so it was no surprise at all that they turned out to be bad news. I assumed it would merely be that their loose cannon ways were what would turn things around and make them a liability, I had no inkling they were actually quislings and collaborators, working with The Wraith. The loss of two of their friends that Ronon had known suggested their tactics and overconfidence were a downfall, but it was even worse than that - they allowed them to be killed for not joining The Wraith!
It was a real wakeup call for Ronon that there are so few sanctuaries from The Wraith and people who genuinely care about him, and no scene demonstrated that more than when he and Teyla are doing their usual sparring and she keeps whacking him until he tells her what's up. It really showed the strong development that has grown in their characters - in the past it was enough to just show them training, that these are The Warriors, that is Their Role, but here it showed a deeper friendship and led to the beans being spilled and Sheppard does his bit to try and help Ronon not to make the rash choice. It made sense that he wouldn't immediately take to Carter, as he's always found it hard to take orders, but has managed to find a niche in which to operate honourably and where he knows his skills are best used, instead of running around like a lone wolf, or with an undisciplined band for the adventure of it all. There's something more than thrills, what Atlantis is trying to do is far more important than that. But he is a warrior so of course they have to leave it to him to deal with his former friends - I would have preferred if our people had come in and rescued him at the last moment to reiterate that they are his team, they are his friends, but I can see why they'd want to make some big three-on-one fight of it. And a brutal, relatively gory fight it was for a 'Stargate' - you practically see a throat slit and an arm broken in front of you, which is surprising as it doesn't quite fit with the 'family' audience. There does seem to be a drop more language than there used to be, too, sadly.
I was quite unsure if this was going to work out as an episode - the idea of some old mates of Ronon's causing him to question his place in Atlantis' society sounded a bit old hat, something that's been done so many times, but they managed to work in an impossible to ignore motivation for this mission: The Wraith are trying to reprogram the Replicators, and obviously they can't allow that. I liked Rodney being left alone in this chamber to work on that, complete with a Replicator hanging in suspension. And then when the power goes down and it drops to the floor and walks out, completely ignoring the bullets our team are pummelling it with, like some kind of Terminator, intent only on beating up Wraith. I still question why Replicators would choose to assume humanoid form when they could change into any shape, but that's the convention they've chosen for this strand, it doesn't really matter. It remains to be seen if Carter will blossom into a strong leader as Weir so demonstrably was, and how she'll… not exactly integrate into the team, since she's in the office role now, but how the team will respond to her leadership. And despite Ronon not being among my favourite characters, there are signs that they've managed to do something to give him a little more dimension in both last season and this episode. If they can keep that up and give Teyla more crucial moments as when she parallels how he's feeling with her own experience of leaving her people, the Athosians, we could be on for another strong season as with the third. My only issue is I wonder if they'll bring back the Satedan who survived, because I'm not sure I want them to.
***
Hard and painful is the lesson Ronon must learn. Perhaps it was too quick to learn in the space of one episode, I don't know, but it is over by the end, though one dangling thread remains - three friends, three Satedans are tracked down by Ronon and Teyla, renowned as Wraith killers, and it becomes a tale of divided loyalties as Ronon struggles with having a new boss that hasn't earned his trust and which he hasn't earned the trust of: Samantha Carter. It's funny Rodney seriously thought he was in contention for Weir's job, but he did, and it wasn't him, it was her. Yeah, like we needed it spelt out - clearly if Colonel Carter's coming onto a new 'Stargate' series she's going to be the boss! That's how it works, you get promoted. And yet… I can't help thinking command isn't her natural bent, it's not what she's known for - she's great at being tech support, even if that sounds condescending to say, but it's true. She solves problems, and I know we have that role covered with McKay and Zelenka, but somehow I can imagine the series taking off even more if she was 'merely' part of the team rather than leading the whole Atlantis project. I'd have rather Weir remained in command and Carter continued her usual role, but that's not how things happen, nothing stays the same, and in the end I'm just thrilled they brought an 'SG-1' character over to this spinoff, full stop, whatever she does.
I can't go on without remarking on the wonderful little scene with Christopher Judge wishing her well back at the SGC. I've long wondered why he never appeared in 'Stargate Universe' and if he'd ever show up on 'Atlantis,' and now he has. Sort of. We never get to see him actually on Atlantis, nor interacting with those characters, his small contribution is purely for the 'SG-1' fans and to make Carter's transition more final and to show the consequences - she's leaving her old team and job behind. I loved that they got him to do it and I so hope this isn't the last appearance he ever made in the franchise (I'm sure everyone wants to see him take Ronon down a peg or two, in brotherly friendship, of course, but this wasn't the appropriate episode to do it in!). It gave me hope that Carter suggested SG-1 come and visit sometime, and I was saying 'please, please' as while they've had some crossover, we'd never seen the full teams working side by side and that's what you really want. But the moment may have passed, 'SG-1' was off the air, and while they'd come back for a couple of spinoff films and guest appearances in 'Universe' for many of them, I don't know if they made it onto 'Atlantis' in any meaningful way. Which is not to say Teal'c's scene wasn't meaningful, because it absolutely was.
It is strange to see Carter in that position of organising things from the top down. I like that she stood up to the rudeness and brashness of Ronon, even if she did seem a little too gloss lipstick and mild words - again, it's a sign that they've taken the character further than she was ever designed to go and it remains to be seen if it'll work out, in the same way as I like Jason Momoa, but he still had some maturing to do in the acting stakes: most of the time he stays gruff and wry, but when he plays it emotional his voice squeaks! I shouldn't pick holes, and it actually suited the extremes he'd been taken to when he discovers these great friends of his, these loyal Satedans, had turned devil worshippers, basically, he's almost screeching in his disbelief and horror. I really did wonder if he'd be written out, just because we've seen so many cast changes in the first three and a bit years of the series, so different from 'SG-1' and its stolid continuation of the main four for so long. It was always going to end badly, however, as these renegade warriors were so smug and superior, easily slipping into emotional manipulation disguised as matey ribbing, so it was no surprise at all that they turned out to be bad news. I assumed it would merely be that their loose cannon ways were what would turn things around and make them a liability, I had no inkling they were actually quislings and collaborators, working with The Wraith. The loss of two of their friends that Ronon had known suggested their tactics and overconfidence were a downfall, but it was even worse than that - they allowed them to be killed for not joining The Wraith!
It was a real wakeup call for Ronon that there are so few sanctuaries from The Wraith and people who genuinely care about him, and no scene demonstrated that more than when he and Teyla are doing their usual sparring and she keeps whacking him until he tells her what's up. It really showed the strong development that has grown in their characters - in the past it was enough to just show them training, that these are The Warriors, that is Their Role, but here it showed a deeper friendship and led to the beans being spilled and Sheppard does his bit to try and help Ronon not to make the rash choice. It made sense that he wouldn't immediately take to Carter, as he's always found it hard to take orders, but has managed to find a niche in which to operate honourably and where he knows his skills are best used, instead of running around like a lone wolf, or with an undisciplined band for the adventure of it all. There's something more than thrills, what Atlantis is trying to do is far more important than that. But he is a warrior so of course they have to leave it to him to deal with his former friends - I would have preferred if our people had come in and rescued him at the last moment to reiterate that they are his team, they are his friends, but I can see why they'd want to make some big three-on-one fight of it. And a brutal, relatively gory fight it was for a 'Stargate' - you practically see a throat slit and an arm broken in front of you, which is surprising as it doesn't quite fit with the 'family' audience. There does seem to be a drop more language than there used to be, too, sadly.
I was quite unsure if this was going to work out as an episode - the idea of some old mates of Ronon's causing him to question his place in Atlantis' society sounded a bit old hat, something that's been done so many times, but they managed to work in an impossible to ignore motivation for this mission: The Wraith are trying to reprogram the Replicators, and obviously they can't allow that. I liked Rodney being left alone in this chamber to work on that, complete with a Replicator hanging in suspension. And then when the power goes down and it drops to the floor and walks out, completely ignoring the bullets our team are pummelling it with, like some kind of Terminator, intent only on beating up Wraith. I still question why Replicators would choose to assume humanoid form when they could change into any shape, but that's the convention they've chosen for this strand, it doesn't really matter. It remains to be seen if Carter will blossom into a strong leader as Weir so demonstrably was, and how she'll… not exactly integrate into the team, since she's in the office role now, but how the team will respond to her leadership. And despite Ronon not being among my favourite characters, there are signs that they've managed to do something to give him a little more dimension in both last season and this episode. If they can keep that up and give Teyla more crucial moments as when she parallels how he's feeling with her own experience of leaving her people, the Athosians, we could be on for another strong season as with the third. My only issue is I wonder if they'll bring back the Satedan who survived, because I'm not sure I want them to.
***
The Price of Peace
DVD, BUGS S3 (The Price of Peace)
The team are finally off on their first mission together as members of the Bureau! Or are they? It takes a while, and Ros, for the most part, just hangs around in her office, or, at the end, swans off for a hot weekend in Barbados (ticket for the cricket), so it's mainly left to Beckett to carry the can, or Ed and Alex, who open the episode hanging out at some apparently very low security test track (could be the same one Ed was testing a bike at for some mates in 'Blaze of Glory'), and manage to fail so spectacularly at looking after a piece of high tech equipment that remotely cuts out engines. There are some obvious flaws right from the start, with General Chenlov and his partner in crime, Tony the caretaker (from children's series 'Out of Tune'), or rather Marius Trozek, able to sneak onto this track and deal with our agents (okay, so Alex is nothing more than a filing clerk, and Ed's an action man that sort of fell into this line of work), then they never get stopped even though they chug round the countryside in a big-grey-ugly-truck-with-windows (as a counterpoint to the similar kind of vehicle seen back in Season 1's 'Stealth,' owned by another foreign military bad guy), and you'd think they'd be easy to track down - how they ever managed to get into the country in the first place is a mystery, especially as Chenlov is wanted for war crimes, but we never go into that.
While it is easy to poke holes, it's also easy to sit back and enjoy the ride, and significantly, this episode marks a step up for Alex - for one thing she actually gets a name this time, but also we see just how bright she is by the fact she's read and retained knowledge on the files she was guarding. I was wondering what she'd been doing all that time at CORA, and now we know she was reading the files! The rest of the team tend to talk down to her, as is only right and fair since she is the underling, and I like the bookends of the team (if that's the right analogy), in that they have a new character below them, and a new character (Jan), above them, too. Alex gets a lesson in etiquette when Ed advises her not to call Beckett 'Nick' as only Ros gets away with that, and she's clearly warmed to the Bureau Chief's style and authority, though we do go a little bit into soapy territory with all the characters having some kind of issue in regard to each other. It's not that it feels forced, nor does it impinge upon the story, but it is more noticeable than just Beckett being nettled by Channing as in the first couple of episodes. But back to Alex - most importantly for her she makes a grave mistake, leaving her post, distracted by the sound of Trozek destroying the iris ID security system at the entrance to the Van Straaten diamonds building, when she should have stayed at the power switch as Beckett ordered her to!
But it's important to make mistakes, even though it almost cost her and others their lives and could have messed up the whole operation, because she can learn from this. Initiative is a good quality, but obedience and understanding of the role each person needs to play is another crucial skill. As it is, she alerts the villains to the presence of Bureau personnel - do they have files on all of them, and if so, why isn't 'Shelly Lammers' under suspicion right from the off since she looks much like Ros. I get that Ros is keeping a low profile despite the business needs to the contrary (although the mystery designer could be a big draw for her and Channing's brand if they chose to harness it, much like the artist Banksy), but it was already a suspicious situation, though we'd seen something similar before with a villain, where greed is their undoing (see 'Blackout'). It would seem hard to believe except for the idea of a mole that's being set up (I suspect the receptionist, Lou - who else have we seen in that whole building? The actress who played her was actually called Louise Bush). Anyway, Alex manages to best Chenlov in combat, no small feat, then Trozek arrives to beat her over the head and save his partner, in neat contrast to the start of the episode where Chenlov saved Trozek from her tenacious martial arts, able to give his associate one in the eye by noting how tough she is. But after that I thought she isn't seen again, though checking back Ros does help her up and she's there when the team come together after Trozek's death, but she doesn't have any lines so it's not surprising she blended into the background.
It felt like she might have been upgraded to the level of being one of the gang and hanging out at Ros' place, but it makes sense she isn't there, partly because Ros, Ed and Beckett are mates, not just colleagues, and Ros is leaving them to housesit for her while she takes a break in Barbados, and also because we get the first hint of a more important arc than Beckett's jealousy over Channing - they wouldn't have been able to discuss the possibility of a mole if Alex was there. This was actually touched on before as Jan tells Beckett one of the reasons his team will be useful is because they can deal with inside enemies, so it would seem unlikely she'd hire them if she were the mole, plus, who would she be selling out to, any villain of the week? Alex, similarly, doesn't have the profile of someone who would make a good mole, other than the fact she read confidential files, and Ros' trust in her is secure as we get a nice reference back to 'Blaze of Glory' when she says Beckett told her how she defended the files from him. Ros seems almost maternal towards the younger woman, in a distracted sort of way, and it gives her someone to talk to when the others are off. The dynamic had definitely changed in the team as we see them operate in twos rather than individuals - Ed even comes to the rescue of the kidnapped Beckett and his charge, Pieter Van Straaten, in a buggy instead of a bike. The writers went to the trouble of having Ed say he's going to stick to bikes in future after Chenlov takes out his tires, and Beckett notes he wouldn't have been able to perform the rescue on a bike (though he'd already done one such in the teaser when he pulls Alex on and speeds away from the grenades!).
The villains weren't bad, I mean they were bad bad, but they weren't ineffective. I like that their own faults are used against them which eventually causes them to turn on each other: so Ed's escape may have failed, retrieving only one out of the three objectives (incidentally, I thought he was going to speed over to the engine killer and have Beckett climb aboard using the vehicle as a shield - maybe he should have chosen one with bulletproof windows?), but it proved a diversion from Trozek accessing the Project Darkling satellite (not related to Starshield from Season 2!), with its missile payload, meaning he'd have to wait till it orbited round again. You'd think a satellite with missiles would be a bit of a contravention of space laws, but perhaps it was a joint initiative of all the big countries designed for shooting down asteroids, we don't get much background on it to know. I would also have thought that as soon as the Bureau Chief was held under duress that all his codes would have been changed, the same with Van Straaten and his optical security - unless the Bureau didn't tell his company he'd been kidnapped, since that would probably lead to the whole organisation being shut down in shame over their first big mission being a failure. And what was it with all those agent types when Beckett picks up Van Straaten, so many trench coats and yet they never get any backup in the episode?
The Bureau is meant to operate without backup, but when it was The Bureau of Weapons Technology we saw armed agents assisting Roland Blatty, so it's a bit of a comedown that our team don't afford the same concern, especially in this situation, but then again it's Beckett's fault for going off in his Jeep instead of the high profile limousine that had been planned - and what else goes on in that huge Bureau building that Beckett has to go down to a busy reception area to pick up a package? It's clearly not empty offices by the number of people around! The series is certainly less easy to pin down, even judging by the outfits the team wear, which used to be so easily identified and would remain the same across an episode, for the most part. Here, we see Ed back in his bikers' leathers when testing the engine killer (was Alex just going to cut his engine out - it might have ended up in a serious accident like the bike testing in 'Blaze'!), and only his yellow t-shirt or whatever it was underneath, stays the same when he's later in jogging top. Beckett mostly wears his green shirt and tie under a dark suit, while Ros is looking very formal in a zipped black suit, and blue, square-shaped earrings, in stark contrast to the 'street' wear she dons for her role as Lammers later on (handy she was able to get the exact same hat as Shelly wore in the photo!). Beckett actually does change into a white shirt and red tie, but that was after his kidnapping so he probably got a bit sweaty in that adventure.
He showed some courage in the face of certain death, he's always been pugnacious and stubborn when coming up against opposition, refusing to give them the Darkling code even when there's a gun in his face. He has to give in when Van Straaten is threatened, however, but he was just as bold and courageous as Beckett, urging him not to give up the code. Van Straaten was the best character of the episode, he shows himself confident, yet with a certain level of humility and realism - he knows the world is far from perfect so can't be goaded or threatened, and despite the tactic proving successful in his earlier dealings with Trozek, he regrets humiliating the man, which in a sense is what got us into this mess in the first place. There's a great sense of scope to the story thanks to Beckett being classed high up in the realm of security (even if he does fail), but there did seem to be a major flaw in all their operations in that they should simply have put a bug on Chenlov's truck and then swooped in and taken it with superior force. I suppose they couldn't really have done that while Van Straaten was held hostage, but there were other times. At the same time we don't know how many soldiers Chenlov has at his disposal - we only see one, driving the thing, but there could have been others, or a base nearby.
The other big question about the villains is why Chenlov waited so long to kill Trozek when he goes against his wishes and tries to steal the Van Straaten diamonds. I suppose it could have been a building tension within him, and while he claims to have ideas of a superior society they're supposed to be building, one where there's no place for greed, it's hard to buy any idealism coming from him who seems to be merely hard and cruel. I loved the mystery shot that plays out between them - it had been used so effectively in 'Schrodinger's Bomb' when we think Cassandra Neumann had been executed by her own Father, only for him to fall away to reveal Jean-Daniel had fired, and this one works just as well, as the camera cuts in close and switches between each of their eyes, Trozek and Chenlov facing off against each other like a Mexican standoff, except that the result has already happened, we're just waiting for the reveal of who was killed. Underground car parks are always good for echoey combat (I always think of 'Highlander'), so that was a well used space. Once again we have a lift plummeting to its destruction (see Easterhaus in 'A Sporting Chance'), though I don't think that's how they work! Still, it gave Ed a chance to use the engine killer, even if he ends up being a Trozek killer...
As usual there's some commentary on the team, in this case Ros' driving is mentioned again, this time by Channing, who says not everyone drives like her, when they're running late for the airport. Ros also shows disdain for Beckett's Jeep when he mentions being Van Straaten's driver, and of course he does end up transporting the Ripkin Peace Prize winner in it. It was nice to see someone Ros is excited about and it's a shame we never got to see her talk with Van Straaten, as she's clearly a big fan of his accomplishments - it just shows that even someone as successful and brilliant as her holds certain others in high regard. She continues to rake in the money as we hear about the Mark II version of her card camera (perhaps making a wry comment on certain tech companies when they mention the only difference is it's purple instead of yellow!), which helped clinch the Australasian deal. Her privacy continues to be very important to her as she reminds Channing she doesn't want any publicity or to attend any trade shows, but he manages to get to her heart by offering tickets to the cricket, which she's thrilled about - I believe this was one of those aspects of an actor's personal life coming to be used for the character they played as I think Jaye Griffiths was into cricket herself (just as we'd see Beckett interested in old records in Season 4, which came from Jesse Birdsall's personality). I even remember Griffiths doing a short spot on CBBC as part of the promotion for the new series of 'BUGS' by being interviewed while playing cricket in the studio one time, which I think was for this season! (Never could find it on YouTube, sadly).
We're supposed to have more doubt about Jan by Van Straaten's comment about it being such an 'innocent' codename. Not sure why he says that, it's as if the people behind it aren't so innocent, but I think it's all part of the idea to put a shadow in Jan's position. And the tech is quite fun - on top of the cool engine killer (or Microwave Interference Transmission weapon, as it's officially called), Ros is able to use a mobile phone as a live bug, even when it's been switched off. Chillingly, this is a reality in today's world that most people don't even think about (all the while they're happy to be tracked as they go about their business - it's a whole different mindset now), and Ros gets to do some amazing enhancement on the ransom video the villains send, as well as the CCTV outside their own Bureau - you'd think Chenlov would have moved away from the place before flinging off his helmet and chucking it in a bin. For that matter, if this Van Straaten card is so highly secure, how was he able to intercept the package and deliver the modified version? Surely whoever was supposed to deliver it would have checked in and that sort of thing, and an alert would have gone out that the procedure hadn't been followed? But these things are what you have to suspend disbelief over and assume a way was found, the important thing being that the story moved on apace. Lastly, we don't get so much of a tag scene this time, as it's more about the mole suspicions than levity to underline the team's friendship and another job well done, so there's an element of Season 2's chill, while also being moderately humorous in that Beckett's been one-upped by Channing.
****
The team are finally off on their first mission together as members of the Bureau! Or are they? It takes a while, and Ros, for the most part, just hangs around in her office, or, at the end, swans off for a hot weekend in Barbados (ticket for the cricket), so it's mainly left to Beckett to carry the can, or Ed and Alex, who open the episode hanging out at some apparently very low security test track (could be the same one Ed was testing a bike at for some mates in 'Blaze of Glory'), and manage to fail so spectacularly at looking after a piece of high tech equipment that remotely cuts out engines. There are some obvious flaws right from the start, with General Chenlov and his partner in crime, Tony the caretaker (from children's series 'Out of Tune'), or rather Marius Trozek, able to sneak onto this track and deal with our agents (okay, so Alex is nothing more than a filing clerk, and Ed's an action man that sort of fell into this line of work), then they never get stopped even though they chug round the countryside in a big-grey-ugly-truck-with-windows (as a counterpoint to the similar kind of vehicle seen back in Season 1's 'Stealth,' owned by another foreign military bad guy), and you'd think they'd be easy to track down - how they ever managed to get into the country in the first place is a mystery, especially as Chenlov is wanted for war crimes, but we never go into that.
While it is easy to poke holes, it's also easy to sit back and enjoy the ride, and significantly, this episode marks a step up for Alex - for one thing she actually gets a name this time, but also we see just how bright she is by the fact she's read and retained knowledge on the files she was guarding. I was wondering what she'd been doing all that time at CORA, and now we know she was reading the files! The rest of the team tend to talk down to her, as is only right and fair since she is the underling, and I like the bookends of the team (if that's the right analogy), in that they have a new character below them, and a new character (Jan), above them, too. Alex gets a lesson in etiquette when Ed advises her not to call Beckett 'Nick' as only Ros gets away with that, and she's clearly warmed to the Bureau Chief's style and authority, though we do go a little bit into soapy territory with all the characters having some kind of issue in regard to each other. It's not that it feels forced, nor does it impinge upon the story, but it is more noticeable than just Beckett being nettled by Channing as in the first couple of episodes. But back to Alex - most importantly for her she makes a grave mistake, leaving her post, distracted by the sound of Trozek destroying the iris ID security system at the entrance to the Van Straaten diamonds building, when she should have stayed at the power switch as Beckett ordered her to!
But it's important to make mistakes, even though it almost cost her and others their lives and could have messed up the whole operation, because she can learn from this. Initiative is a good quality, but obedience and understanding of the role each person needs to play is another crucial skill. As it is, she alerts the villains to the presence of Bureau personnel - do they have files on all of them, and if so, why isn't 'Shelly Lammers' under suspicion right from the off since she looks much like Ros. I get that Ros is keeping a low profile despite the business needs to the contrary (although the mystery designer could be a big draw for her and Channing's brand if they chose to harness it, much like the artist Banksy), but it was already a suspicious situation, though we'd seen something similar before with a villain, where greed is their undoing (see 'Blackout'). It would seem hard to believe except for the idea of a mole that's being set up (I suspect the receptionist, Lou - who else have we seen in that whole building? The actress who played her was actually called Louise Bush). Anyway, Alex manages to best Chenlov in combat, no small feat, then Trozek arrives to beat her over the head and save his partner, in neat contrast to the start of the episode where Chenlov saved Trozek from her tenacious martial arts, able to give his associate one in the eye by noting how tough she is. But after that I thought she isn't seen again, though checking back Ros does help her up and she's there when the team come together after Trozek's death, but she doesn't have any lines so it's not surprising she blended into the background.
It felt like she might have been upgraded to the level of being one of the gang and hanging out at Ros' place, but it makes sense she isn't there, partly because Ros, Ed and Beckett are mates, not just colleagues, and Ros is leaving them to housesit for her while she takes a break in Barbados, and also because we get the first hint of a more important arc than Beckett's jealousy over Channing - they wouldn't have been able to discuss the possibility of a mole if Alex was there. This was actually touched on before as Jan tells Beckett one of the reasons his team will be useful is because they can deal with inside enemies, so it would seem unlikely she'd hire them if she were the mole, plus, who would she be selling out to, any villain of the week? Alex, similarly, doesn't have the profile of someone who would make a good mole, other than the fact she read confidential files, and Ros' trust in her is secure as we get a nice reference back to 'Blaze of Glory' when she says Beckett told her how she defended the files from him. Ros seems almost maternal towards the younger woman, in a distracted sort of way, and it gives her someone to talk to when the others are off. The dynamic had definitely changed in the team as we see them operate in twos rather than individuals - Ed even comes to the rescue of the kidnapped Beckett and his charge, Pieter Van Straaten, in a buggy instead of a bike. The writers went to the trouble of having Ed say he's going to stick to bikes in future after Chenlov takes out his tires, and Beckett notes he wouldn't have been able to perform the rescue on a bike (though he'd already done one such in the teaser when he pulls Alex on and speeds away from the grenades!).
The villains weren't bad, I mean they were bad bad, but they weren't ineffective. I like that their own faults are used against them which eventually causes them to turn on each other: so Ed's escape may have failed, retrieving only one out of the three objectives (incidentally, I thought he was going to speed over to the engine killer and have Beckett climb aboard using the vehicle as a shield - maybe he should have chosen one with bulletproof windows?), but it proved a diversion from Trozek accessing the Project Darkling satellite (not related to Starshield from Season 2!), with its missile payload, meaning he'd have to wait till it orbited round again. You'd think a satellite with missiles would be a bit of a contravention of space laws, but perhaps it was a joint initiative of all the big countries designed for shooting down asteroids, we don't get much background on it to know. I would also have thought that as soon as the Bureau Chief was held under duress that all his codes would have been changed, the same with Van Straaten and his optical security - unless the Bureau didn't tell his company he'd been kidnapped, since that would probably lead to the whole organisation being shut down in shame over their first big mission being a failure. And what was it with all those agent types when Beckett picks up Van Straaten, so many trench coats and yet they never get any backup in the episode?
The Bureau is meant to operate without backup, but when it was The Bureau of Weapons Technology we saw armed agents assisting Roland Blatty, so it's a bit of a comedown that our team don't afford the same concern, especially in this situation, but then again it's Beckett's fault for going off in his Jeep instead of the high profile limousine that had been planned - and what else goes on in that huge Bureau building that Beckett has to go down to a busy reception area to pick up a package? It's clearly not empty offices by the number of people around! The series is certainly less easy to pin down, even judging by the outfits the team wear, which used to be so easily identified and would remain the same across an episode, for the most part. Here, we see Ed back in his bikers' leathers when testing the engine killer (was Alex just going to cut his engine out - it might have ended up in a serious accident like the bike testing in 'Blaze'!), and only his yellow t-shirt or whatever it was underneath, stays the same when he's later in jogging top. Beckett mostly wears his green shirt and tie under a dark suit, while Ros is looking very formal in a zipped black suit, and blue, square-shaped earrings, in stark contrast to the 'street' wear she dons for her role as Lammers later on (handy she was able to get the exact same hat as Shelly wore in the photo!). Beckett actually does change into a white shirt and red tie, but that was after his kidnapping so he probably got a bit sweaty in that adventure.
He showed some courage in the face of certain death, he's always been pugnacious and stubborn when coming up against opposition, refusing to give them the Darkling code even when there's a gun in his face. He has to give in when Van Straaten is threatened, however, but he was just as bold and courageous as Beckett, urging him not to give up the code. Van Straaten was the best character of the episode, he shows himself confident, yet with a certain level of humility and realism - he knows the world is far from perfect so can't be goaded or threatened, and despite the tactic proving successful in his earlier dealings with Trozek, he regrets humiliating the man, which in a sense is what got us into this mess in the first place. There's a great sense of scope to the story thanks to Beckett being classed high up in the realm of security (even if he does fail), but there did seem to be a major flaw in all their operations in that they should simply have put a bug on Chenlov's truck and then swooped in and taken it with superior force. I suppose they couldn't really have done that while Van Straaten was held hostage, but there were other times. At the same time we don't know how many soldiers Chenlov has at his disposal - we only see one, driving the thing, but there could have been others, or a base nearby.
The other big question about the villains is why Chenlov waited so long to kill Trozek when he goes against his wishes and tries to steal the Van Straaten diamonds. I suppose it could have been a building tension within him, and while he claims to have ideas of a superior society they're supposed to be building, one where there's no place for greed, it's hard to buy any idealism coming from him who seems to be merely hard and cruel. I loved the mystery shot that plays out between them - it had been used so effectively in 'Schrodinger's Bomb' when we think Cassandra Neumann had been executed by her own Father, only for him to fall away to reveal Jean-Daniel had fired, and this one works just as well, as the camera cuts in close and switches between each of their eyes, Trozek and Chenlov facing off against each other like a Mexican standoff, except that the result has already happened, we're just waiting for the reveal of who was killed. Underground car parks are always good for echoey combat (I always think of 'Highlander'), so that was a well used space. Once again we have a lift plummeting to its destruction (see Easterhaus in 'A Sporting Chance'), though I don't think that's how they work! Still, it gave Ed a chance to use the engine killer, even if he ends up being a Trozek killer...
As usual there's some commentary on the team, in this case Ros' driving is mentioned again, this time by Channing, who says not everyone drives like her, when they're running late for the airport. Ros also shows disdain for Beckett's Jeep when he mentions being Van Straaten's driver, and of course he does end up transporting the Ripkin Peace Prize winner in it. It was nice to see someone Ros is excited about and it's a shame we never got to see her talk with Van Straaten, as she's clearly a big fan of his accomplishments - it just shows that even someone as successful and brilliant as her holds certain others in high regard. She continues to rake in the money as we hear about the Mark II version of her card camera (perhaps making a wry comment on certain tech companies when they mention the only difference is it's purple instead of yellow!), which helped clinch the Australasian deal. Her privacy continues to be very important to her as she reminds Channing she doesn't want any publicity or to attend any trade shows, but he manages to get to her heart by offering tickets to the cricket, which she's thrilled about - I believe this was one of those aspects of an actor's personal life coming to be used for the character they played as I think Jaye Griffiths was into cricket herself (just as we'd see Beckett interested in old records in Season 4, which came from Jesse Birdsall's personality). I even remember Griffiths doing a short spot on CBBC as part of the promotion for the new series of 'BUGS' by being interviewed while playing cricket in the studio one time, which I think was for this season! (Never could find it on YouTube, sadly).
We're supposed to have more doubt about Jan by Van Straaten's comment about it being such an 'innocent' codename. Not sure why he says that, it's as if the people behind it aren't so innocent, but I think it's all part of the idea to put a shadow in Jan's position. And the tech is quite fun - on top of the cool engine killer (or Microwave Interference Transmission weapon, as it's officially called), Ros is able to use a mobile phone as a live bug, even when it's been switched off. Chillingly, this is a reality in today's world that most people don't even think about (all the while they're happy to be tracked as they go about their business - it's a whole different mindset now), and Ros gets to do some amazing enhancement on the ransom video the villains send, as well as the CCTV outside their own Bureau - you'd think Chenlov would have moved away from the place before flinging off his helmet and chucking it in a bin. For that matter, if this Van Straaten card is so highly secure, how was he able to intercept the package and deliver the modified version? Surely whoever was supposed to deliver it would have checked in and that sort of thing, and an alert would have gone out that the procedure hadn't been followed? But these things are what you have to suspend disbelief over and assume a way was found, the important thing being that the story moved on apace. Lastly, we don't get so much of a tag scene this time, as it's more about the mole suspicions than levity to underline the team's friendship and another job well done, so there's an element of Season 2's chill, while also being moderately humorous in that Beckett's been one-upped by Channing.
****
Tuesday, 1 March 2022
The Counter-Clock Incident
DVD, Star Trek: The Animated Series (The Counter-Clock Incident)
I'm so pleased the series ended on a good note and had a fitting end for the last ever episode to star the 'TOS' cast. They didn't know they'd be back for six films to come (more in some cases), so this was the second ending of Trek, though one that never really began, in the sense that it was all animation and the cast recorded their lines separately. But I'm glad it exists if only to show what Trek might have been like in the Seventies, the lost decade before the slow, gradual, but epic revival into a vast empire of stories, characters, and of course, the money-making merchandise, that Trek would encompass. I only have a couple of problems with this episode: that we got so little time to see the cute li'l child versions of the characters, and the tragic underuse of Dr. McCoy. Other than that the whole cast were well used, with James Doohan and Nichelle Nichols especially fortunate to get so much to do, both as their main characters and voicing all the guests. McCoy's lack of presence was a big disappointment, you could almost believe he wasn't in it at all except he gets a scene at the beginning walking onto the Bridge praising Mrs. April's pioneering work in developing medical equipment, and he's seen in a shot of the whole Bridge, but otherwise he remains silent.
By the end I expect he was relieved he had travelled by Transporter on occasion (often he was against it), as otherwise he'd never have been able to be reverted back to his normal age! That's the thing, though, McCoy's position is taken over by the husband and wife duo of Commodore Robert April and Sarah, and with so little time in an animated episode's running they didn't have room for our Doctor, sadly. It's a big shame, because, as Spock says about himself ageing slower as a Vulcan, so he's going to be the one to take command, McCoy was older, so he'd also have been in a suitable position to retain knowledge and adult ability for longer, but he wasn't used. I take issue with Spock's assertion because although, yes, Vulcan's do age at a slower rate in the sense that their lifespans are a good double portion to that of a human's, he himself is only supposed to be about the same age as Kirk, early thirties, so theoretically, if they're ageing backwards then he only has the same amount of time as them - if he'd been of much greater age I could agree, but there's always handy 'mysterious Vulcan physiology' to consider, so I didn't mind.
The joy of the episode is in seeing the 'first' Captain of the starship Enterprise (though now we'd say the first of the Federation Enterprises, not forgetting Jonathan Archer who commanded the Enterprise NX-01 before the Federation came into being), Robert April, a historical note that had long been thought of, but until this point had never been mentioned, let alone seen, on screen! In fact, he wouldn't be officially added into canon for a further four decades, when the 'DSC' episode 'Choose Your Pain' gave us a list of the best Captains in Starfleet history to that point, and April was there for all to see, alongside Matthew Decker, Jonathan Archer, Phillippa Georgiou and Christopher Pike, the last of which was much more famous as the 'first' Captain of the Enterprise. Robert April was actually a name that had been considered for the Captain when Roddenberry was making a list of potential names, so it didn't come out of nowhere and has the ring of historical truth to it which adds so much to the reality of Trek history, both in-universe and out of it.
Talking of in and out of universes, not content with introducing the original Captain, we also get a parallel universe story where our ship is unavoidably pulled into a reverse universe, an antimatter universe, a negative universe, to put it in the three different ways it was described. Long before 'Tenet' gave us physical travelling through time (as opposed to leaping to moments in history or future), 'TAS' did the same sort of thing. Sort of. And long before 'Voyager' gave us 'Innocence,' an episode in which they discover a race that ages backwards from adult to child. And long before 'TNG' gave us 'Rascals' in which we saw existing characters revert to childhood… Yes, 'TAS' gave us them all, and while those later episodes go into more detail and explore the concepts a little more fully, they were great additions to an already packed episode here. I already knew a little about the episode, that April was in it and that the crew were turned into children, so I did wish we could have had more of that, but it was just great fun to see them shrink and begin to lose their understanding of the controls - Arex was the funniest, a shame we didn't get M'Ress in this last episode, but you can't have everything - would have been nice to feature the voice of Majel Barrett, though, whether the Caitian or Nurse Chapel, but both Chapel and Barrett would have plenty to do in future.
On top of the obvious pleasure of adding April and his wife into the series, there are some fun references, such as their destination being Babel at the start of the episode, a location also headed for in 'TOS' ('Journey To Babel'), and 'Enterprise' ('Babel One'). We get another mention of Capella IV (as we did in the previous episode), which is where Sarah's flower comes from, there's a good view of the Engine Room, and there's talk that the mystery ship which flies past was going at Warp 36! This is all in the old warp scale, which later Trek altered to a maximum of 10, but in 'TOS' I think they may have gone as fast as Warp 14 on one occasion. In this they go up to Warp 11, then all the way up to 20, but that's because they're being pulled along by their own Tractor Beam held on the other ship as it heads for apparent destruction. Kirk gets close to panicky - maybe it was the thought of not just losing his ship and four hundred and thirty crew-members, but also losing a revered dignitary and his wife, and not only that, but a former Captain of his vessel, all in one go! Ambassador April even wears the great dress uniform Kirk wore in 'TOS,' though in one scene I did wonder if he was afflicted in some way, much as Pike had to move around in a special wheelchair - April had no legs in one scene where he's standing next to Kirk's Captain's Chair, you just see his upper body above it, but nothing below, so I wondered if he was hovering in something, like Rygel in 'Farscape,' but it was just a visual error. Funny, though!
What is much more serious about the episode is Ambassador April's situation: he's sad that he's going to a retirement do. He's reached Starfleet's mandatory retirement age of seventy-five, but he'd rather remain active. In later Trek there's the impression humans live much longer than they do now (or when the episode was made), so that retirement age doesn't sound quite as dramatic as it would have done. I think the retirement age would have been sixty-five then, though now people are living longer it's creeping up. The important message of the episode isn't so much that old people can still contribute to society if they want to, but that April has the chance to live life over again by the de-ageing effect of the other universe, and though he feels the vigour of youth back in his bones, and the thrill of taking command of the Enterprise, he's satisfied with his life and doesn't want to live it again. The closest parallel I can think of is in the 'TNG' episode 'Too Short A Season,' a story I've always liked a lot, in which an Ambassador takes a drug to recover his youth, while his wife remains an old woman. It makes you think there could be some great stories to tell which explored such things - what if Sarah decided she did want her youth back, for example. I like that they're satisfied with the life they've had (they even share a kiss, something I don't think Kirk ever did in 'TAS,' despite being a trope of 'TOS'), although I did wonder if they were heading towards some message of euthanasia, the evil practice of ending someone's life rather than waiting until natural death, but they never skirted that controversy.
The idea of the Transporter keeping a person's pattern is a sketchy one. There are all kinds of ethical issues around it, plus there's the impression that it could give eternal life, or eternal youth, but fortunately it's all left vague so we don't know exactly what was done or the requirements to be able to do it. 'Picard' has already set up issues difficult to get past for subsequent Trek in that area and the makers were usually very good at going well into detail on the universe in general, while keeping certain things vague and mysterious in order to preserve some kind of identifiable reality rather than going off into fantasy, which sadly seems to be the way of Trek these days. 'TAS' was an antidote to modern Trek for me, a reminder of the days when Starfleet structure, story structure, societal structure, were all set, instead of being bent and even broken by modern writers intent more on a kind of fantastical teen soap style that has lost most of what Trek meant. 'TAS' wasn't perfect, many of the episodes aren't even that good in themselves, but they do stand for the original way Trek represented, and that no doubt many younger viewers would consider 'old-fashioned' and irrelevant. For me it was like breathing air compared to the stuffy room of the current generation and I've enjoyed going through it and getting to see all the episodes when I'd only seen certain ones before.
James Doohan, the stalwart voice artist that gave us Scotty, as well as so many other characters across 'TAS,' goes out on a high with two guest roles: Robert April and Carl 4, the elderly son of the woman flying the mysterious ship, Carla 5 (while her Father is shown to be a toddler in a crib!). Nichelle Nichols also gets to play two other roles than Uhura, portraying Sarah April and Carla 5. There did seem to be a mistake in the dialogue when they're talking about Carla 5 not being understandable (she's speaking backwards). For one thing wouldn't the Universal Translator automatically be used at all times when a message comes through? And worse, it sounded like Kirk says the UT can tell them what 'he's' speaking, when it was clearly a woman, Uhura even confirming that in the reply she gives! And lastly, we also hear that components of the Enterprise were built in the San Francisco Navy Yards since April witnessed it, so perhaps the 'Star Trek XI' tomfoolery of building the Kelvin Timeline version of the ship on Earth wasn't so ridiculous? No, it was still ridiculous, and in this case it's said 'components' were built, so I can imagine parts being flown up to put it all together above Earth in Spacedock, as we saw in 'TMP.' Either way, 'TAS' will forever remain non-canon, but when they do elevate certain aspects of it into canon by a reference in a live-action series, it's always pleasing and a tribute to some of what they created here.
***
I'm so pleased the series ended on a good note and had a fitting end for the last ever episode to star the 'TOS' cast. They didn't know they'd be back for six films to come (more in some cases), so this was the second ending of Trek, though one that never really began, in the sense that it was all animation and the cast recorded their lines separately. But I'm glad it exists if only to show what Trek might have been like in the Seventies, the lost decade before the slow, gradual, but epic revival into a vast empire of stories, characters, and of course, the money-making merchandise, that Trek would encompass. I only have a couple of problems with this episode: that we got so little time to see the cute li'l child versions of the characters, and the tragic underuse of Dr. McCoy. Other than that the whole cast were well used, with James Doohan and Nichelle Nichols especially fortunate to get so much to do, both as their main characters and voicing all the guests. McCoy's lack of presence was a big disappointment, you could almost believe he wasn't in it at all except he gets a scene at the beginning walking onto the Bridge praising Mrs. April's pioneering work in developing medical equipment, and he's seen in a shot of the whole Bridge, but otherwise he remains silent.
By the end I expect he was relieved he had travelled by Transporter on occasion (often he was against it), as otherwise he'd never have been able to be reverted back to his normal age! That's the thing, though, McCoy's position is taken over by the husband and wife duo of Commodore Robert April and Sarah, and with so little time in an animated episode's running they didn't have room for our Doctor, sadly. It's a big shame, because, as Spock says about himself ageing slower as a Vulcan, so he's going to be the one to take command, McCoy was older, so he'd also have been in a suitable position to retain knowledge and adult ability for longer, but he wasn't used. I take issue with Spock's assertion because although, yes, Vulcan's do age at a slower rate in the sense that their lifespans are a good double portion to that of a human's, he himself is only supposed to be about the same age as Kirk, early thirties, so theoretically, if they're ageing backwards then he only has the same amount of time as them - if he'd been of much greater age I could agree, but there's always handy 'mysterious Vulcan physiology' to consider, so I didn't mind.
The joy of the episode is in seeing the 'first' Captain of the starship Enterprise (though now we'd say the first of the Federation Enterprises, not forgetting Jonathan Archer who commanded the Enterprise NX-01 before the Federation came into being), Robert April, a historical note that had long been thought of, but until this point had never been mentioned, let alone seen, on screen! In fact, he wouldn't be officially added into canon for a further four decades, when the 'DSC' episode 'Choose Your Pain' gave us a list of the best Captains in Starfleet history to that point, and April was there for all to see, alongside Matthew Decker, Jonathan Archer, Phillippa Georgiou and Christopher Pike, the last of which was much more famous as the 'first' Captain of the Enterprise. Robert April was actually a name that had been considered for the Captain when Roddenberry was making a list of potential names, so it didn't come out of nowhere and has the ring of historical truth to it which adds so much to the reality of Trek history, both in-universe and out of it.
Talking of in and out of universes, not content with introducing the original Captain, we also get a parallel universe story where our ship is unavoidably pulled into a reverse universe, an antimatter universe, a negative universe, to put it in the three different ways it was described. Long before 'Tenet' gave us physical travelling through time (as opposed to leaping to moments in history or future), 'TAS' did the same sort of thing. Sort of. And long before 'Voyager' gave us 'Innocence,' an episode in which they discover a race that ages backwards from adult to child. And long before 'TNG' gave us 'Rascals' in which we saw existing characters revert to childhood… Yes, 'TAS' gave us them all, and while those later episodes go into more detail and explore the concepts a little more fully, they were great additions to an already packed episode here. I already knew a little about the episode, that April was in it and that the crew were turned into children, so I did wish we could have had more of that, but it was just great fun to see them shrink and begin to lose their understanding of the controls - Arex was the funniest, a shame we didn't get M'Ress in this last episode, but you can't have everything - would have been nice to feature the voice of Majel Barrett, though, whether the Caitian or Nurse Chapel, but both Chapel and Barrett would have plenty to do in future.
On top of the obvious pleasure of adding April and his wife into the series, there are some fun references, such as their destination being Babel at the start of the episode, a location also headed for in 'TOS' ('Journey To Babel'), and 'Enterprise' ('Babel One'). We get another mention of Capella IV (as we did in the previous episode), which is where Sarah's flower comes from, there's a good view of the Engine Room, and there's talk that the mystery ship which flies past was going at Warp 36! This is all in the old warp scale, which later Trek altered to a maximum of 10, but in 'TOS' I think they may have gone as fast as Warp 14 on one occasion. In this they go up to Warp 11, then all the way up to 20, but that's because they're being pulled along by their own Tractor Beam held on the other ship as it heads for apparent destruction. Kirk gets close to panicky - maybe it was the thought of not just losing his ship and four hundred and thirty crew-members, but also losing a revered dignitary and his wife, and not only that, but a former Captain of his vessel, all in one go! Ambassador April even wears the great dress uniform Kirk wore in 'TOS,' though in one scene I did wonder if he was afflicted in some way, much as Pike had to move around in a special wheelchair - April had no legs in one scene where he's standing next to Kirk's Captain's Chair, you just see his upper body above it, but nothing below, so I wondered if he was hovering in something, like Rygel in 'Farscape,' but it was just a visual error. Funny, though!
What is much more serious about the episode is Ambassador April's situation: he's sad that he's going to a retirement do. He's reached Starfleet's mandatory retirement age of seventy-five, but he'd rather remain active. In later Trek there's the impression humans live much longer than they do now (or when the episode was made), so that retirement age doesn't sound quite as dramatic as it would have done. I think the retirement age would have been sixty-five then, though now people are living longer it's creeping up. The important message of the episode isn't so much that old people can still contribute to society if they want to, but that April has the chance to live life over again by the de-ageing effect of the other universe, and though he feels the vigour of youth back in his bones, and the thrill of taking command of the Enterprise, he's satisfied with his life and doesn't want to live it again. The closest parallel I can think of is in the 'TNG' episode 'Too Short A Season,' a story I've always liked a lot, in which an Ambassador takes a drug to recover his youth, while his wife remains an old woman. It makes you think there could be some great stories to tell which explored such things - what if Sarah decided she did want her youth back, for example. I like that they're satisfied with the life they've had (they even share a kiss, something I don't think Kirk ever did in 'TAS,' despite being a trope of 'TOS'), although I did wonder if they were heading towards some message of euthanasia, the evil practice of ending someone's life rather than waiting until natural death, but they never skirted that controversy.
The idea of the Transporter keeping a person's pattern is a sketchy one. There are all kinds of ethical issues around it, plus there's the impression that it could give eternal life, or eternal youth, but fortunately it's all left vague so we don't know exactly what was done or the requirements to be able to do it. 'Picard' has already set up issues difficult to get past for subsequent Trek in that area and the makers were usually very good at going well into detail on the universe in general, while keeping certain things vague and mysterious in order to preserve some kind of identifiable reality rather than going off into fantasy, which sadly seems to be the way of Trek these days. 'TAS' was an antidote to modern Trek for me, a reminder of the days when Starfleet structure, story structure, societal structure, were all set, instead of being bent and even broken by modern writers intent more on a kind of fantastical teen soap style that has lost most of what Trek meant. 'TAS' wasn't perfect, many of the episodes aren't even that good in themselves, but they do stand for the original way Trek represented, and that no doubt many younger viewers would consider 'old-fashioned' and irrelevant. For me it was like breathing air compared to the stuffy room of the current generation and I've enjoyed going through it and getting to see all the episodes when I'd only seen certain ones before.
James Doohan, the stalwart voice artist that gave us Scotty, as well as so many other characters across 'TAS,' goes out on a high with two guest roles: Robert April and Carl 4, the elderly son of the woman flying the mysterious ship, Carla 5 (while her Father is shown to be a toddler in a crib!). Nichelle Nichols also gets to play two other roles than Uhura, portraying Sarah April and Carla 5. There did seem to be a mistake in the dialogue when they're talking about Carla 5 not being understandable (she's speaking backwards). For one thing wouldn't the Universal Translator automatically be used at all times when a message comes through? And worse, it sounded like Kirk says the UT can tell them what 'he's' speaking, when it was clearly a woman, Uhura even confirming that in the reply she gives! And lastly, we also hear that components of the Enterprise were built in the San Francisco Navy Yards since April witnessed it, so perhaps the 'Star Trek XI' tomfoolery of building the Kelvin Timeline version of the ship on Earth wasn't so ridiculous? No, it was still ridiculous, and in this case it's said 'components' were built, so I can imagine parts being flown up to put it all together above Earth in Spacedock, as we saw in 'TMP.' Either way, 'TAS' will forever remain non-canon, but when they do elevate certain aspects of it into canon by a reference in a live-action series, it's always pleasing and a tribute to some of what they created here.
***
The Revenge Effect
DVD, BUGS S3 (The Revenge Effect)
Part two, then. And I have to say, it didn't seem as much like a second part of a single story as I'd thought. It carries across various plots such as Channing, Jan strong-arming the team into joining her, the new character of Alex (still unnamed, going by either her own monicker of Beckett's personal assistant, or Beckett's putdown: the file clerk), Ed's injury and stint in hospital, and most of all, Kitty McHaig's status as villain-at-large. But gone is the storyline of Andrew McHaig, the bad Father, Beckett's financial problems aren't at the forefront, and Kitty's plan seems to be merely to disappear now, rather than take down her Father's construction empire. I can see why those elements have been moved on from, the main one being that Andrew would surely have become an enemy if he knew our team had murdered his daughter, no matter how estranged she was. He did survive, didn't he? The last I remember of him was being in a hospital bed and Kitty getting his pulse rate up to dangerous levels, but I think he was left alive. Knowing him from that one episode I could just as easily imagine him admitting with heavy regret that Kitty deserved what she brought upon herself, so though he'd no doubt grieve for the lost little girl she'd been, I think his pragmatic business mind would have accepted her explosive fate if he'd been told. It might have been interesting to see his reaction to losing both children in such a short space of time. Or it may have dragged the episode down in morbidity, which wasn't what the series was going for as it's light, throwaway brand of entertainment decreed upbeat optimism.
Regarding Beckett's position, I was under the impression he kept it from Ros for much of the season (along with his secret affection for her), but Jan just blurts it out as another tool to lure Ros in. And she had said she could take care of the problem, so presumably he's solvent now, isn't he? Ed is naturally in a different position from last time in that he can no longer play action man with impunity, though he does his best, limping around the Duchess of Fortezza's country estate mansion while being hunted by the villainous vixen, Kitty McHaig, apparently as much for sport as for the purpose of extracting the passcode to all her riches. The one random element in the mix, which made things a lot more fun than a straight search and capture story, was Zak's turning face and tail, and giving our heroes a lead to be able to stop her (they should have got him to work for the Bureau!). The hints that Zak was more decent than destroyer first came in 'Blaze of Glory' when he shows concern that they're not following safety procedures upon entering the chemical weapons cache, and Kitty shoots his worries down. It's clear he didn't want to be shot down for real next time! He, perhaps naively, thought the plan was to create a disaster for the history books where no one died, and when Kitty kills one of her own allies (a solicitor or some kind of official working for her?), after he's given her the means to escape into hiding under a false name, was the last straw for a man you sensed had one foot out the door already. He's not of such high conscience that he'll give up the secret to the team, fully selling out his ex-boss, but he'll give them enough to keep Kitty busy.
I'm not sure why he didn't want her to simply be caught and locked up forever, other than fearing for his life, but it could also be that he'd be looking at a sentence as an associate and rather than trust to plea-bargaining or whatever, he'd rather take his chances on his own initiative, and assuages any conscience in a quite novel way. He's the sort of character I'd have liked see return, but never did. I don't know whether it's because I've been listening to a podcast reviewing Season 1 of 'BUGS' ('Fusion Patrol'), and one which is very critical and not always fairly, especially considering the aims of the series as a fun romp rather than a sophisticated drama series, but I did find myself questioning things a lot more, almost as if anticipating the issues they were going to have with this episode. I always like to nitpick and consider why this or that didn't make sense, but there were glaring problems in this one. The biggest being the bank account itself - you'd think it would immediately have been frozen by the authorities, you'd think it would require more than an internet connection to transfer all that money into a new account, you'd think they'd be able to trace what account the money had been transferred to, and you'd think Alex would have to provide much more proof of identity when trying to set up an account in the name of Ros Henderson than… saying she's Ros Henderson! At least the manager noted she'd managed to keep well out of the public eye, and there were no facilities in those days to bring up pictures of people online as there are now. In terms of the setting up of the passcode by Zak, he may have been hacking in to that secure client access, I'm not sure.
The old 'BUGS' charm never dies, however, and I enjoyed all the subverted expectations that were thrown in such as Ros suggesting they use the car to get into the mansion (I can understand Beckett's surprise - he was probably remembering her telling him how she got into Computer Recall by slamming an HGV through the reception area in 'Pulse'!), this bright red Ferrari she earlier described as 'road jewellery' to Channing who'd given it to her to demonstrate his dedication to their partnership. Their 'business' partnership, since it celebrates the Korean licences coming through for her patents. We'll see just how much he cares after she's had to report its loss to him… The big moment is all for Alex as she adapts on the fly and shows her worth when the team's original plan to infiltrate the bank goes wrong. She'd already shown she was quick-witted when she's the one to instantly see the passcode on Ed's cast, 'Miranda 2001' the only sequence that will fit the number of passcode characters available. I'm not sure where we're supposed to assume she gained all this initiative or training, but we already learned she's resourceful in that she's obviously quite young (I think the actress was nineteen at the time!), yet is already at the level of martial arts where she can teach. It doesn't quite fit with the humble position she's in as a mere file clerk, even for such an important organisation as The Bureau of Weapons Technology, but there are clearly hidden depths to this character. Sadly, I don't think we ever found out that much about her, it's just one of those things you have to accept and move on (like there being no police in the series, though in this case we do see airport security helping to restrain Ben as he strolls nonchalantly to the exit).
It is great fun to see her literally let her hair down and leap into a role in order to show what she's capable of, instead of giving up after the predetermined path comes to an end, especially as Beckett is so exasperated with her. This actually works to help get Ros on side, after she'd shown great opposition to giving up the team's independence, enjoying the joke on him and being impressed with Alex. Ed is easily dealt with in that his recent brush with death has made him less cocky and sure of himself, uncertain he wants to keep doing this stuff without a safety net, as he puts it (he'd rather watch an Australian soap to take his mind off it all - was it one he was in, or just made up?). That doesn't sound like the Ed we used to know, but then he is a bit older now, and has gone through a lot - you often notice he's pushed to the limit, so it's no surprise that the cumulative effect would be to blunt his youthful joy at risking life and limb every day. I'd have thought he'd always have been an easy sell since he's usually so laid back and happy for the other two to take the lead, so this is just a further development along that path for him. Ros on the other hand, you can completely understand not being happy to bend to Jan's will. For one thing she's a woman, so she's immediately going to push in the opposite direction to what Beckett wants her to do (even though she's usually a lot more logical and realistic), but even more than the position she's been put in, she's also just made it in the business world so it would be a hard thing when she's just ensured the team's future with her deals that she should suddenly have to reign it all in and kowtow after being her own boss!
I love the way we see how those on the inside react to her - Alex is an eager puppy asking if she's joining them and babbling a bit, while Jan tries to be honest, even about the fact she manipulated Beckett, to win her over. I think the biggest thing that makes her change her mind is that Beckett's been won over, and she trusts his judgement, I think. That he was in this need that she could have helped with has thrown her good fortune into disarray. She could have prevented this if Beckett hadn't been so pigheaded and asked her for help. She's uncharacteristically emotional after seeing Ed so depressed in hospital, so perhaps Channing's influence at making her feel more like a 'normal person,' if we can say that, may be having an effect on her usually controlled personality. In reality it was all part of the new look, a moment of rare vulnerability to try and make the characters a touch more human rather than entirely ITC characters made of rubber that always bounce back with a witty quip. Maybe the biggest factor that seals her deal as regards the Bureau, is that she ends up blowing Kitty to bits - even though it wasn't on purpose, she was hoping to take out a tire, that would surely be murder. It's not like we haven't seen the team kill villains before, but now might be a good time to have the weight of Jan behind them as Ros might need to access that level of protection? We see Jan showing trepidation at the requisitions invoice Ros has submitted, but you can tell she views it as the fish caught on the line, smiling to herself when she realises Ros is aboard. This was a test from her to see if she could push Jan, because she obviously isn't in need of the money personally, she could buy it all with her own funds, but it completed the 'sale' of freedom, as it were.
For whatever reason, on this viewing I did feel the story was somewhat anticlimactic compared to the setup in the first part, Kitty more a catalyst to get them under the wing of Jan's Bureau, and her rationale being they're a way to deal with the unorthodox enemies, and even those within (which they'd be doing later in the season). Stephen Gallagher sets the pieces up for other writers to knock down, and he did a fine job, I just don't feel this two-parter was quite up to his usual standards, especially coming right after the killer two-part finale for Season 2. Kitty was a good villain, and I sense there was even some Jean-Daniel DNA in there, whether it was intended or not: her weapon of choice is a bazooka, as favoured by the Frenchman, and one of her lackeys, Ben, even wears a chauffeur's uniform when picking up the Duchess. Not that these were that strange, but taken together, and considering Gallagher used them both in his introduction of JD, I can't help but see some parallel there. I do like that he manages to corral all the forces at their disposal, so there's the Code Red file, Alex is helping them out, and even Channing lends a hand with his business contacts to find out as much as he can, both the official line and the unofficial. We get a glimpse of the kind of good Kitty could have been responsible for when we learn her destructive art does have some real world practical applications, such as the Battle Wagon model used to clear minefields. Where she's only done this to make herself richer, she could have turned from crime and been a real force for good.
My usual insistence of noting the outfits and colours the team wear doesn't have quite so much import now as we see things are a lot more real world than they had been. Beckett continues to don his green shirt and tie under a smart suit, while Ros is in neutral grey and black, still smart, but it could denote her nature between personal/business freedom, and life under a boss. Ed is the least himself, in jogging bottoms and a jumper while held captive by Kitty, though by the end he's improved his condition so he has a yellow t-shirt under jogging outfit. But we aren't getting the leather jacket which would represent his full confidence, so maybe he's left that behind as this new, more careful Ed? The settings continue to remind us that this is far from the sci-fi version of Season 2 - there are no tasers, and there are few of the traditional shiny steel and glass buildings that we recognise as the series' staple backdrops. We still get that in the form of the Bureau HQ, high in some presumably government office block with its gleaming facade. But even the bank they attack isn't quite the usual look, and only when we get deep inside, to the dedicated password room where a single computer sits in the dark with strobing lights playing around it, is there a sense of the 'BUGS' of old. Instead, we have the beautiful surroundings of the countryside around the manor house, full of servants' passageways, wood panelling and, best of all, a confrontation on the roof, as well as more views of Ros' fancy place, both outside and in (we can see it was shot in Autumn by the colourful leaves strewing the ground).
Kitty's unhinged nature shows itself in her attitude to Ed - she's shrewd in the sense that she tries to trick him into escaping and phoning his friends to give them the passcode, but he's shrewder, and after that she relies on trying to kill him, which isn't going to get her her money! The point is to scare him into giving up, but she could have just pointed a gun at his head rather than chase him round the mansion, again showing her twisted nature - she seemed to suggest her art is merely a way of making money from morons, but perhaps this was actually a kind of performance art for her, the thrill of the hunt, the manipulation of this man she'd previously lured in. Maybe Ed should simply have told her a fake passcode, but then, as he said, he still wouldn't have been getting out alive, and at least while she was coming for him he'd have a chance. It is a shame she had to die, but that was the way of the series, and there wasn't going to be any question about her body never being found, or any ambiguity, because she's blown up in a fireball right in front of the team's eyes. Mind you, we did see someone escape from an exploding car once before (Zito in 'What Goes Up…'), but in that case he'd planned it and was in control, Kitty was simply trying to escape. There is only one major problem with the episode, for me, that stands out a lot more than banking security: Ed knew Zak had used a red marker pen to write the code on the back of the cast so all he had to do was ask Yasmine the nurse to tell him all the names and numbers in red, because there weren't many!
It's good to get to the state where our team are at the Bureau, all together, even though Ros is in her own private glass office surrounded by the latest computers, it's got the team to the point of transition, and for all the back and forth, and unhappiness, it's gone relatively smoothly to get the series into this new groove. We even end on a triumphant note as Beckett fist-pumps at the thought of Channing's face as Ros explains the loss of the Ferrari to him on the phone, so it has that traditional feel of the series even though it's going to be a bit different from now on. Would I have preferred the series to carry on as it had been and not have to worry about an overlord directing their operations? Maybe, but that's the good thing about a (relatively), long-running series: it can change and adapt, grow in new ways and explore new territory while still retaining the original style, breaking the template but also throwing new shapes, and with the cast all there and new characters in the mix it was an exciting time. And we now have a new way of getting clients or putting the team into more important situations than before, so it was probably for the best. I would question what the revenge of the title was: it couldn't be Ros because although she was distraught at Ed's situation, she didn't mean to blow up Kitty. And Kitty had already had her revenge on her Father, so…
***
Part two, then. And I have to say, it didn't seem as much like a second part of a single story as I'd thought. It carries across various plots such as Channing, Jan strong-arming the team into joining her, the new character of Alex (still unnamed, going by either her own monicker of Beckett's personal assistant, or Beckett's putdown: the file clerk), Ed's injury and stint in hospital, and most of all, Kitty McHaig's status as villain-at-large. But gone is the storyline of Andrew McHaig, the bad Father, Beckett's financial problems aren't at the forefront, and Kitty's plan seems to be merely to disappear now, rather than take down her Father's construction empire. I can see why those elements have been moved on from, the main one being that Andrew would surely have become an enemy if he knew our team had murdered his daughter, no matter how estranged she was. He did survive, didn't he? The last I remember of him was being in a hospital bed and Kitty getting his pulse rate up to dangerous levels, but I think he was left alive. Knowing him from that one episode I could just as easily imagine him admitting with heavy regret that Kitty deserved what she brought upon herself, so though he'd no doubt grieve for the lost little girl she'd been, I think his pragmatic business mind would have accepted her explosive fate if he'd been told. It might have been interesting to see his reaction to losing both children in such a short space of time. Or it may have dragged the episode down in morbidity, which wasn't what the series was going for as it's light, throwaway brand of entertainment decreed upbeat optimism.
Regarding Beckett's position, I was under the impression he kept it from Ros for much of the season (along with his secret affection for her), but Jan just blurts it out as another tool to lure Ros in. And she had said she could take care of the problem, so presumably he's solvent now, isn't he? Ed is naturally in a different position from last time in that he can no longer play action man with impunity, though he does his best, limping around the Duchess of Fortezza's country estate mansion while being hunted by the villainous vixen, Kitty McHaig, apparently as much for sport as for the purpose of extracting the passcode to all her riches. The one random element in the mix, which made things a lot more fun than a straight search and capture story, was Zak's turning face and tail, and giving our heroes a lead to be able to stop her (they should have got him to work for the Bureau!). The hints that Zak was more decent than destroyer first came in 'Blaze of Glory' when he shows concern that they're not following safety procedures upon entering the chemical weapons cache, and Kitty shoots his worries down. It's clear he didn't want to be shot down for real next time! He, perhaps naively, thought the plan was to create a disaster for the history books where no one died, and when Kitty kills one of her own allies (a solicitor or some kind of official working for her?), after he's given her the means to escape into hiding under a false name, was the last straw for a man you sensed had one foot out the door already. He's not of such high conscience that he'll give up the secret to the team, fully selling out his ex-boss, but he'll give them enough to keep Kitty busy.
I'm not sure why he didn't want her to simply be caught and locked up forever, other than fearing for his life, but it could also be that he'd be looking at a sentence as an associate and rather than trust to plea-bargaining or whatever, he'd rather take his chances on his own initiative, and assuages any conscience in a quite novel way. He's the sort of character I'd have liked see return, but never did. I don't know whether it's because I've been listening to a podcast reviewing Season 1 of 'BUGS' ('Fusion Patrol'), and one which is very critical and not always fairly, especially considering the aims of the series as a fun romp rather than a sophisticated drama series, but I did find myself questioning things a lot more, almost as if anticipating the issues they were going to have with this episode. I always like to nitpick and consider why this or that didn't make sense, but there were glaring problems in this one. The biggest being the bank account itself - you'd think it would immediately have been frozen by the authorities, you'd think it would require more than an internet connection to transfer all that money into a new account, you'd think they'd be able to trace what account the money had been transferred to, and you'd think Alex would have to provide much more proof of identity when trying to set up an account in the name of Ros Henderson than… saying she's Ros Henderson! At least the manager noted she'd managed to keep well out of the public eye, and there were no facilities in those days to bring up pictures of people online as there are now. In terms of the setting up of the passcode by Zak, he may have been hacking in to that secure client access, I'm not sure.
The old 'BUGS' charm never dies, however, and I enjoyed all the subverted expectations that were thrown in such as Ros suggesting they use the car to get into the mansion (I can understand Beckett's surprise - he was probably remembering her telling him how she got into Computer Recall by slamming an HGV through the reception area in 'Pulse'!), this bright red Ferrari she earlier described as 'road jewellery' to Channing who'd given it to her to demonstrate his dedication to their partnership. Their 'business' partnership, since it celebrates the Korean licences coming through for her patents. We'll see just how much he cares after she's had to report its loss to him… The big moment is all for Alex as she adapts on the fly and shows her worth when the team's original plan to infiltrate the bank goes wrong. She'd already shown she was quick-witted when she's the one to instantly see the passcode on Ed's cast, 'Miranda 2001' the only sequence that will fit the number of passcode characters available. I'm not sure where we're supposed to assume she gained all this initiative or training, but we already learned she's resourceful in that she's obviously quite young (I think the actress was nineteen at the time!), yet is already at the level of martial arts where she can teach. It doesn't quite fit with the humble position she's in as a mere file clerk, even for such an important organisation as The Bureau of Weapons Technology, but there are clearly hidden depths to this character. Sadly, I don't think we ever found out that much about her, it's just one of those things you have to accept and move on (like there being no police in the series, though in this case we do see airport security helping to restrain Ben as he strolls nonchalantly to the exit).
It is great fun to see her literally let her hair down and leap into a role in order to show what she's capable of, instead of giving up after the predetermined path comes to an end, especially as Beckett is so exasperated with her. This actually works to help get Ros on side, after she'd shown great opposition to giving up the team's independence, enjoying the joke on him and being impressed with Alex. Ed is easily dealt with in that his recent brush with death has made him less cocky and sure of himself, uncertain he wants to keep doing this stuff without a safety net, as he puts it (he'd rather watch an Australian soap to take his mind off it all - was it one he was in, or just made up?). That doesn't sound like the Ed we used to know, but then he is a bit older now, and has gone through a lot - you often notice he's pushed to the limit, so it's no surprise that the cumulative effect would be to blunt his youthful joy at risking life and limb every day. I'd have thought he'd always have been an easy sell since he's usually so laid back and happy for the other two to take the lead, so this is just a further development along that path for him. Ros on the other hand, you can completely understand not being happy to bend to Jan's will. For one thing she's a woman, so she's immediately going to push in the opposite direction to what Beckett wants her to do (even though she's usually a lot more logical and realistic), but even more than the position she's been put in, she's also just made it in the business world so it would be a hard thing when she's just ensured the team's future with her deals that she should suddenly have to reign it all in and kowtow after being her own boss!
I love the way we see how those on the inside react to her - Alex is an eager puppy asking if she's joining them and babbling a bit, while Jan tries to be honest, even about the fact she manipulated Beckett, to win her over. I think the biggest thing that makes her change her mind is that Beckett's been won over, and she trusts his judgement, I think. That he was in this need that she could have helped with has thrown her good fortune into disarray. She could have prevented this if Beckett hadn't been so pigheaded and asked her for help. She's uncharacteristically emotional after seeing Ed so depressed in hospital, so perhaps Channing's influence at making her feel more like a 'normal person,' if we can say that, may be having an effect on her usually controlled personality. In reality it was all part of the new look, a moment of rare vulnerability to try and make the characters a touch more human rather than entirely ITC characters made of rubber that always bounce back with a witty quip. Maybe the biggest factor that seals her deal as regards the Bureau, is that she ends up blowing Kitty to bits - even though it wasn't on purpose, she was hoping to take out a tire, that would surely be murder. It's not like we haven't seen the team kill villains before, but now might be a good time to have the weight of Jan behind them as Ros might need to access that level of protection? We see Jan showing trepidation at the requisitions invoice Ros has submitted, but you can tell she views it as the fish caught on the line, smiling to herself when she realises Ros is aboard. This was a test from her to see if she could push Jan, because she obviously isn't in need of the money personally, she could buy it all with her own funds, but it completed the 'sale' of freedom, as it were.
For whatever reason, on this viewing I did feel the story was somewhat anticlimactic compared to the setup in the first part, Kitty more a catalyst to get them under the wing of Jan's Bureau, and her rationale being they're a way to deal with the unorthodox enemies, and even those within (which they'd be doing later in the season). Stephen Gallagher sets the pieces up for other writers to knock down, and he did a fine job, I just don't feel this two-parter was quite up to his usual standards, especially coming right after the killer two-part finale for Season 2. Kitty was a good villain, and I sense there was even some Jean-Daniel DNA in there, whether it was intended or not: her weapon of choice is a bazooka, as favoured by the Frenchman, and one of her lackeys, Ben, even wears a chauffeur's uniform when picking up the Duchess. Not that these were that strange, but taken together, and considering Gallagher used them both in his introduction of JD, I can't help but see some parallel there. I do like that he manages to corral all the forces at their disposal, so there's the Code Red file, Alex is helping them out, and even Channing lends a hand with his business contacts to find out as much as he can, both the official line and the unofficial. We get a glimpse of the kind of good Kitty could have been responsible for when we learn her destructive art does have some real world practical applications, such as the Battle Wagon model used to clear minefields. Where she's only done this to make herself richer, she could have turned from crime and been a real force for good.
My usual insistence of noting the outfits and colours the team wear doesn't have quite so much import now as we see things are a lot more real world than they had been. Beckett continues to don his green shirt and tie under a smart suit, while Ros is in neutral grey and black, still smart, but it could denote her nature between personal/business freedom, and life under a boss. Ed is the least himself, in jogging bottoms and a jumper while held captive by Kitty, though by the end he's improved his condition so he has a yellow t-shirt under jogging outfit. But we aren't getting the leather jacket which would represent his full confidence, so maybe he's left that behind as this new, more careful Ed? The settings continue to remind us that this is far from the sci-fi version of Season 2 - there are no tasers, and there are few of the traditional shiny steel and glass buildings that we recognise as the series' staple backdrops. We still get that in the form of the Bureau HQ, high in some presumably government office block with its gleaming facade. But even the bank they attack isn't quite the usual look, and only when we get deep inside, to the dedicated password room where a single computer sits in the dark with strobing lights playing around it, is there a sense of the 'BUGS' of old. Instead, we have the beautiful surroundings of the countryside around the manor house, full of servants' passageways, wood panelling and, best of all, a confrontation on the roof, as well as more views of Ros' fancy place, both outside and in (we can see it was shot in Autumn by the colourful leaves strewing the ground).
Kitty's unhinged nature shows itself in her attitude to Ed - she's shrewd in the sense that she tries to trick him into escaping and phoning his friends to give them the passcode, but he's shrewder, and after that she relies on trying to kill him, which isn't going to get her her money! The point is to scare him into giving up, but she could have just pointed a gun at his head rather than chase him round the mansion, again showing her twisted nature - she seemed to suggest her art is merely a way of making money from morons, but perhaps this was actually a kind of performance art for her, the thrill of the hunt, the manipulation of this man she'd previously lured in. Maybe Ed should simply have told her a fake passcode, but then, as he said, he still wouldn't have been getting out alive, and at least while she was coming for him he'd have a chance. It is a shame she had to die, but that was the way of the series, and there wasn't going to be any question about her body never being found, or any ambiguity, because she's blown up in a fireball right in front of the team's eyes. Mind you, we did see someone escape from an exploding car once before (Zito in 'What Goes Up…'), but in that case he'd planned it and was in control, Kitty was simply trying to escape. There is only one major problem with the episode, for me, that stands out a lot more than banking security: Ed knew Zak had used a red marker pen to write the code on the back of the cast so all he had to do was ask Yasmine the nurse to tell him all the names and numbers in red, because there weren't many!
It's good to get to the state where our team are at the Bureau, all together, even though Ros is in her own private glass office surrounded by the latest computers, it's got the team to the point of transition, and for all the back and forth, and unhappiness, it's gone relatively smoothly to get the series into this new groove. We even end on a triumphant note as Beckett fist-pumps at the thought of Channing's face as Ros explains the loss of the Ferrari to him on the phone, so it has that traditional feel of the series even though it's going to be a bit different from now on. Would I have preferred the series to carry on as it had been and not have to worry about an overlord directing their operations? Maybe, but that's the good thing about a (relatively), long-running series: it can change and adapt, grow in new ways and explore new territory while still retaining the original style, breaking the template but also throwing new shapes, and with the cast all there and new characters in the mix it was an exciting time. And we now have a new way of getting clients or putting the team into more important situations than before, so it was probably for the best. I would question what the revenge of the title was: it couldn't be Ros because although she was distraught at Ed's situation, she didn't mean to blow up Kitty. And Kitty had already had her revenge on her Father, so…
***
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