Absent Friends

DVD, BUGS S4 (Absent Friends)

Season 4. The infamous Season 4. The derided Season 4. But other than a change in Eds you wouldn't know it from this first episode which plunges straight into a hunt for the missing Ros and charts the emotional twists and turns as first one lead, then another all come to nothing, until Beckett is the only believer left that Ros is still alive, and even he begins to doubt himself. This is absolutely his episode, everything revolves around him or his absence and Jesse Birdsall is given free rein to emote to the max, something I'm pretty fed up with in modern TV ('Star Trek: Discovery' being the worst example), but in this case it is different. Beckett had just found joy and now he's had it ripped out from under him barely two seconds later, it's understandable that he'd react in the extreme, and it's certainly in character - in fact he's always been the most sensitive of the original trio (and indeed, the extended Bureau cast who joined in Season 3, too), even from the very first episode he was almost crying over his mate Ballantyne's disappearance, and ever since he's been hotheaded and quick to jump to extremes. That's probably one of the main reasons we like him so much because he counterpoints the others, especially Ros, who has always been so calm, the brain, to Beckett's heart and Ed's brawn.

I can't go long without mentioning Ed. This was the most contentious issue with 'BUGS' continuing for a surprise fourth year, when it had only been planned to run to three: Craig McLachlan, the Australian who'd been the first character we met at the beginning of the series, 'Out of The Hive,' introduced as a skilled helicopter pilot and a crack shot, had left the series leaving a gaping void in the trio. Why, I've never learned, and even on meeting the actor in 2007 it wasn't really a situation where you could have a proper conversation and ask such a question, but I do know it had been coming for a while as he was originally supposed to exit at the start of Season 3, but fortunately changed his mind before that was set in stone. Perhaps he wanted to go back to Oz, maybe he wanted to branch out into other things and felt constrained in a continuing series, I don't know? The fact is he left, taking with him a large portion of the series' humour and joie de vivre. The writers were therefore put into a serious dilemma: should they write Ed out, get rid of him in some way, either temporarily or permanently, or recast and keep the momentum of the story going regardless. They chose the latter option, likely due to being written into a corner by the cliffhanger ending that may well have saved the series, but also meant it would have been very tricky to leave out Ed - he was hardly going to abandon the quest for a missing Ros, was he!

Yet that is pretty much what happens in this opening episode, and unfortunately it doesn't do Steven Houghton any favours in the likability stakes. He was already replacing a much-loved character who'd been such an integral part of a series that had been around for three years, but he isn't written terribly well when it would have been in the series' interests to put him in as positive a light as possible so audiences would more easily accept him. It makes sense that the first we see of him he's in the familiar position of flying a helicopter as he and Beckett try to track Ros' car, there's no confusion over this being Ed, other than the fact he has a Northern English accent rather than an Australian one. No offence, but they and the image they conjure up couldn't be more different if they'd had him speaking in a Saudi Arabian accent! It wouldn't have killed Houghton to at least attempt to portray Ed with the same background as he had before, surely all actors like a challenge (Ed always did!). It's difficult to grasp the logic behind the choices here, whether they hired him simply as a suitable type to do action scenes, or whether the actor himself wanted to differentiate himself from his predecessor's portrayal, we'll probably never know. And of course it's hard coming into a well established series and taking on the mantle of an existing character, but at least make some effort not to be so different!

Whether this was the writers putting a positive spin on it, or not, in one interview, someone (possibly Colin Brake, the writer of this episode), suggested that in genre TV the replacement of actors wasn't out of the ordinary and is all just part of the make-believe and would be accepted by the audience and they'd move on, but it is hard to agree with that idea, especially as it makes sci-fi/fantasy seem like it doesn't have very discerning followers, they'll just go with whatever, it doesn't really matter. Of course at the time we did, there was no alternative, but it hasn't helped the season's reputation at all, though it would be far from the only questionable choice they made with it, as the negative outlook would be a major factor in losing the fun and pleasure of the series. But at this stage we hadn't got to that yet and this follows on directly from the closing scene of 'Renegades,' even to the extent that we see a very brief shot of McLachlan from behind, though it is a blink and you'll miss it as he's the last to come up the stairs at Ros' swanky apartment, but he is there! The introduction of Houghton actually comes before we meet him in the flesh aboard the helicopter as they cleverly recreated the photo of the team with their medals where Ros is ripped off, and Houghton's grinning face has been inserted, so I thought that was some good attention to detail.

Detail is one of this episode's strong points as so many references to the series' past are thrown in (Ros' love of cricket; Beckett reading her file before he met her; maybe even Chris' riot foam gun was a reminder of the glue gun that halted Jean-Daniel in his tracks?), and logically, too, not gratuitously, that it's truly a joy to see. Colin Brake wrote many of the series' episodes and was also Script Coordinator or something, so he was an old hand on the series, and I suppose with the other major departure of the year, in Stephen Gallagher (they lost one Stephen and gained another Steven!), the best writer of the series, and co-consultant, Brake was the most experienced and knowledgable hand on the tiller. Gallagher's loss would be felt as keenly as McLachlan's (at least we know why he left - to work on his own project, 'Oktober'), but not in this opening episode which moves very well and doesn't give us time to take in the changes because it continues the pace of the series we knew and constantly reminds us of what went before, as well as a few things to add to the mix. It shows they still had the old magic at play, even if it does rely on the goodwill generated from the past, and especially the situation they're left in by the previous episode. But they fully jump into that and this is why this is still 'BUGS' doing what it did best, throwing the characters into action. There are some red herrings chucked in, with them wondering if Ros could have been kidnapped by someone they'd come up against since their Bureau began, and Jan suggesting it could be someone from their freelance days.

Immediately it makes regular viewers salivate on the possibilities of past villains returning, and while it doesn't fulfil those expectations, it cleverly subverts them, while at the same time not stinting on the past: Channing Hardy returns for a couple of scenes which are both top drawer for entertainment value, whether it's Beckett venting his frustrations on his former rival and manhandling him around the lobby of a hotel, or later when Channing gets him out of prison and he has to eat humble pie, and especially once Beckett's sheepishly apologised Channing shows there're no hard feelings and wishes him all the best in the hunt for Ros. I'd have liked if he'd offered to put all his business resources into finding her, but maybe it wouldn't have been appropriate and in any case Channing would have been led to the same conclusion as everyone else: that she was dead. The other major callback for aficionados is the previously unseen Terry Williams, who existed only as a name that Beckett had dealt with at Gizmos back in his Hive days (does Gizmos belong to him, why was he gone when Ros took over, did she sell it back to him? So many questions). Again, I'd have liked them to have spoken about how Terry helped him in the past, it's obvious it was only a passing thing, maybe they only met one time years ago, but connecting back to the very first episode was absolute joy, although when I first saw this episode it didn't mean anything to me because I hadn't seen the first year, it's only with repeated viewings on DVD I came to realise how much series continuity there was, and made me care about it even more.

We hear all kinds of facts, some of which we knew, such as Ros' penchant for 'phone freaking' and other misdemeanours in her younger days, and we get a better sense of what those wild times consisted of, meeting a couple of those friends, but also hearing that her activism wasn't against technology, but the uses it was put to. I can't help thinking Ros would have a lot to say about tech in today's world so it's a shame we don't have her perspective now. We find out she was engaged to Terry once, and has four cars, though no mention is made of the Grand Cherokee Jeep which Beckett drives in this episode, so maybe she gave it to him seeing as she has so much cash after her successful business dealings. It doesn't look good for Ros when blood matching her DNA is found in a bullet-riddled car in what must be the Thames (Canary Wharf Tower is in the background after taking a break for a year! - also returning is the glass tunnel seen in 'Out of The Hive' I believe, and maybe 'A Sporting Chance'), but no one watching really thought Ros wasn't going to come back. For one thing she's in the new opening titles, complete with a final image of all five characters, including Houghton's Ed, laughing together, so that rather blew the surprise, and even if it doesn't ruin the fact she's alive, it does show everything alright again at some point. Then again, with this season maybe we needed a sense of hope for that considering how unhappy it would be for the most part! Nice to see Jan Harvey and Paula Hunt bumped up to the titles instead of just a post-titles credit, and they picked some good scenes for the compilation, but it was never going to replace that familiar opening that had served for three years.

I've always been a bit confused, because I was so sure I'd seen the final year in widescreen when it was on TV, but then the DVD set was in the same fullscreen ratio as the first three were, so now I don't know if I misremembered or if it was only the final three episodes, which were delayed until the following year, 1999, but surely they'd all have been shot in the same format at the time, wouldn't they? It doesn't really matter, but it would have been nice to have seen some of the series in the new viewing format that was just coming in at that time, a time of transition that 'BUGS' didn't quite straddle - had it continued I'm sure it would have been dealing with ideas such as the Millennium Bug (in fact I may have read that in an interview as one of the potential stories had the series kept going), and technology being ever more involved in our lives they'd always have had concepts to play with. Here, the issue is biological weaponry, and its control by the military - I liked the rationale for Ros' disappearance that Sunstorm, the group she'd co-founded years before, couldn't trust anyone since the enemy they were up against was so powerful they were above suspicion. It is hard to accept that Ros wouldn't just involve her friends and colleagues in this desperate quest as it's exactly the kind of thing they'd been fighting against forever, and even an enemy within the government, but we have to assume Terry was very persuasive, even if he does come across as quite an unassuming personality.

It makes sense to some extent, because if Ros had let in Beckett, she'd have to have included Ed and Alex, then Jan would have found out and probably she'd have got to a point where she'd have to account to her superiors, and that was a risk that couldn't be run. We do get to see what appears to be Jan's boss, or one of them, in Mrs. Gardner, and this being a two-parter to kick off the year, just as Season 2 and 3 did, many of the characters, including her, would return in part two. One character would return a couple more times, however, and that was the surprise addition of Coral Henderson, Ros' dear old Mother! Going by the early years when there was very little attempt made to explore the characters other than the essence of friendship between them, featuring family members would have been very strange, but by this point they'd certainly gone into them a lot more and this wasn't such a strange departure, nor would it be the only parent of a main character we'd see. It does seem very harsh of Ros not to at least let her own Mother know she was okay instead of faking her death and a classified memorial service being held - it must have been very hard for Mrs. Henderson. It was a lovely moment in the episode when we see the service and Jan gives a touching speech about her former agent - a great touch was the camera panning down a wall of plaques, showing one for Roland Blatty as well as Ros. I didn't recognise any other names, maybe they should have used Roland's Bureau associates who were also Cyberaxed, but then again it opens up the world so you wonder about other agents you've never heard of before and shows that there's plenty that goes on we're not privy to.

While many of the hallmarks of the series are present, such as Beckett driving a Jeep, the Canary Wharf Tower, Ed flying a helicopter, explosions, countdowns, etc, not everything is the same. For example, the clothing, which I've been following throughout since it was often an attempt to make the series bright and attractive through colour, isn't in this episode. Beckett still wears his bright green shirt and tie, but other than that everyone is in quite nondescript outfits, with Ed in a sort of outdoor hiking coat and Ros dressed in black, perhaps to represent the black ops situation she's in. Beckett goes through several outfits, at one point in a white shirt with black waistcoat when he's desperately seeking any shred of evidence to confirm Ros is still alive, intransigent to the idea she could be dead - seeing things in black and white, in other words. But there is still colour injected into the episode through the blue neons of the Bureau 2 offices and especially in the red and yellow neons used to illuminate Felton Down, the suspicious research facility that is developing the weapons Sunstorm is out to prevent falling into the hands of General Russell (played by Robert Addie who died from cancer in 2003). I don't know if they had a mandate to try and make the series look a little more grown up, I don't remember how the look played into the season so it'll be interesting to see on that score.

One thing that was uneven was Ed. As I said, he's introduced sensibly in his native habitat, but then he's the one who notices the voice chip in Ros' phone that gained the intruder access - it's not the sort of thing Ed, far from a techy mind, would have noticed, it's like they just needed more for him to do. And in the scene where Beckett had to escape the memorial and he follows him out, he's entirely unsympathetic in a way you can't imagine Ed being. Sure, he might have faced 'facts' more easily than Beckett, but he'd have been a bit more subtle in how he voiced it. In a way, the fact that Houghton doesn't feel that close to Beckett only emphasises his loneliness, so inadvertently it works, but to Ed's detriment. The hardest thing to accept is when Jan promotes him to Bureau Chief with Beckett's stormed off and resignation. It does make a kind of sense Jan would want someone she knows, and also the freelance sensibilities of these people is why she wanted them in the first place, plus this is a chance for Ed to accept more responsibility and grow - he did say he'd changed his image for Alex in 'Renegades,' so this is a step further, and I'd have loved to see how McLachlan would have played it, but it's hard to put Houghton into such an un-Ed-like position when he's already struggling to convince. But there really isn't anyone else because they hadn't developed other recurring characters, so the choices are Ed or Alex, who was just a filing clerk turned junior agent, so that would have been even more of a leap! Maybe they could have brought someone in from the Hive or SSD?

Where I do buy Ed (other than he gets to drive the Land Cruiser, though a darker colour than McLachlan's vehicle, as well as asking if he gets a pay-rise!), is logging a route plan, as being a pilot he was very much used to the rules of the air, so though he'd not usually be the one to play things by the book, in this case it does make sense, though of course in this instance it proves to be his downfall - Beckett's following the Sunstorm van, but the Sunstorm van is following Ed and Alex as they transport the Felton Down material, so it wasn't going to end well. It's good that we have Chris and Morag, who are hard faced enough to seem like they would kill at a moment's notice, and also the wildcard of the guy that turns up to threaten Dr. Corcoran, adding new layers of trouble. But the core of the story was always Beckett's dogged search for Ros and his refusal to give up on her, while she squirms at having to make him believe she's gone, desperate to tell him, but torn between loyalties old and new. It's expertly drawn to the point where they finally meet in the midst of a hijacking, Ros speeding off while Beckett sinks to his knees crying her name. He’s cried that name many times, but never with a question mark at the end. All he knows is she's pretended to be dead, hasn’t tried to contact him, and now drives off with a man she was once engaged to. Of course Beckett can’t see the tears in her eyes as she speeds away... It is melodramatic, but it works to show how hurt he is and it's probably the most dramatic moment of the season and really makes you want to see part two for how they'll resolve such fraught troubles.

One moment that worked most logically was when Beckett tries to call in to the Bureau to patch him through to Ed and his code is refused. On the surface that seems very harsh that Jan would have struck him off so quickly and completely, but it could be tight protocols on such things were brought in after the events of the previous episode where Roland Blatty was able to use his old Bureau codes when they should have been suspended, so in my view this was a knee-jerk reaction to that breach of security, it's just unfortunate it hinders Beckett, and the Bureau's mission, but also serves him right to some degree for not keeping control of his fiery temper. It's also well worked the way Ros is kept out of the picture for so long - she doesn't appear (other than in the recap at the start), until thirty-three minutes in as the camera pulls back to see her sitting at a terminal next to the 'bad guys,' as they seem. She wouldn't be in the final episode much later on, either, but that wouldn't be quite as effective! But with a powerful cliffhanger that culminated in a strong buildup, this bucked the trend of what is universally acknowledged as the weakest year of the series, and showed what was possible, even if the cracks were already baked in to the pot. The last little bit of the end credits also marked a change with the series' website (www.bugs.co.uk), being advertised for the first time, signalling the continuing march of technology.

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