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!

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