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.

****