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.

***

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…

***

Lifeline

DVD, Stargate Atlantis S4 (Lifeline)

I did fear for Weir. And my worst fear was realised. Or was it? It was clear she was going to sacrifice herself in some way to save the team, but they made it more uncomfortable with the fact that we don't actually see her die, they leave her dangling (not literally), as an unresolved plot thread. While that does give me hope that she's not out of the game yet, and it's almost certain from this that she'll make some kind of comeback, I don't want to get my hopes up only for some episode where they mount a rescue only to see her actual death. In some ways it might have been better to go the whole hog and do her in rather than keep us in suspense. But maybe they still had plans for her, and we know that characters from 'Stargate' generally reappear, whether they're main cast or recurring. For all I know this season could be a blip where the actress was ill or wanted to go off and do something else for a year and then come back for the final season. It's unlikely, I'll admit, but I'm not sure I can see Carter (now promoted to a full colonel, whatever that means), being part of the cast across two seasons after she'd just come off ten seasons of 'SG-1.' But that's the fun of not knowing what's going to happen, you can speculate and wonder until you do know.

What I know about this episode is that it didn't quite engage me as the season opener did. A large part of that was the sense of inevitability over Weir being taken out of the game, whether that be permanent or temporary, and so I didn't really enjoy it. It was also a little bit of a letdown when it came to the big heist to steal a ZPM from the Replicator homeworld, which amounted to little more than Sheppard and Ronon running down a few Atlantis stock corridors and doing computer stuff at a terminal. The word 'heist' conjures up all kinds of clever twists and turns (and I don't mean turning left or right in a corridor!), perhaps my expectations were set too high? And then when it's all gone smoothly and they get greedy and decide to risk uploading a command to the Replicators to go to war with The Wraith, I just felt that was poor decision-making. They should have rejoiced the plan went as well as it did, they'd got the ZPM and they hadn't had to activate the 'kill switch' on Weir to stop her from being taken over (why didn't they try to do it once they were on their way out, or did Rodney say it wasn't working?), quit while you're ahead! Instead, like gamblers they took success as an opportunity to go for an even bigger stake, and in doing so they sacrificed Weir. I didn't feel like there was even that much concern about it, as if this was what they'd been expecting all along!

I don't like over-emotive acting, the kind you see so much in TV now (especially the modern Treks), but I do like to feel some kind of loss or sadness emanating from a character's portrayal of keeping it just below the surface. I wouldn't criticise the acting, but I didn't get much from the characters. Maybe that was because they're mostly military, or it could be that the nature of Weir being taken from them meant there was ambiguity as to her fate, but there was some essential connection missing. The closest we come was Teyla packing Weir's belongings away, which in itself seemed a bit soon, as if they'd given up, no plan for a rescue mission, just 'she's lost and now we're going to need a new boss for Atlantis' (whoever could that be…?). The whole episode came across as a means to an end, rather than a tense, exciting series of developments in themselves, and that's a real shame after all the good work last season and in the opener. Not that there was no good character stuff: I felt Sheppard explaining his reason for leaving Teyla to guard and guide the city was very true to both characters, especially her - she would make an excellent leader if all went pear-shaped, and it was a privilege to be entrusted with it. At the same time it does come across once again as she's the one who gets least to do now, mainly thanks to Ronon taking her role in operations. You don't really need two alien warriors in these things, and that's sad.

I was a bit uncertain about certain parts of the episode, mainly the Replicators themselves. They come across as this franchise's Borg: unstoppable, uncompromising, deadly and completely alien (well served by David Ogden Stiers' return as Oberoth, with his understated, almost blank way of playing the leader). The idea of the shield that stops them in their tracks, but that they gradually adapt to (although that may have only happened in the simulation in Oberoth's mind), was very Borg, even the way Weir confronts them and sacrifices herself to save her 'ship' smacked of Janeway in the 'Voyager' finale. The word 'assimilation' even came up at one point! And when we see Weir finally overcome by the Borg, sorry, the Replicators, and they close in as the camera pulls back, it had the same feel of being pulled into a pit. But why do they exist in humanoid form, I'm used to seeing them as the impersonal Meccano sets clunking and rattling around that was used so much on 'SG-1'? Perhaps I forgot a line of dialogue which explained their penchant for human form in a previous episode. And the homeworld of the Replicators - I thought that meant THE Homeworld, but with Oberoth there it seemed as if it was just the Replicator planet they'd been to before.

Like the last episode, it was fun to have Carter and Dr. Lee doing stuff together again, and I was really hoping he would end up working with McKay and Zelenka, and he does sort of, at the end, but he just makes some clever remark about terminology and doesn't actually contribute anything. But then that's always been the joke about Lee - he's actually a bit incompetent and isn't one of these amazing brain-boxes like McKay or Carter that can solve all kinds of science riddles, he's just a useful assistant. Looking at all the pieces laid out side by side as I've gone through them in this review, it doesn't add up to much, but I'm not saying it was a bad episode, far from it, more that the season opener set the bar at a goodly level and they've already dipped a touch. The real quandary was whether it was worth risking one woman's life to force Replicators into confrontation with Wraith, but this series doesn't generally explore issues, it tends to focus on the action and razzmatazz. It may prove fortuitous that they had this opportunity and took it, but I'd prefer to think it was better to have got out of there with Weir fully intact. Sure, it was a good motivation narratively speaking, that she's only going to have this level of access to the Replicators this one time because if they tried it again they'd know about the previous attempt, and it was a big, juicy carrot, but at the same time it wasn't the be-all and end-all. Rodney could have found a way to do it in future, I have faith in him. So now I'm mixed - I didn't want Weir to leave, but do I want her to come back as recurring? But they're settled on a new planet now, soon to have a new boss, so I'll see where the story takes me.

**

Blaze of Glory

DVD, BUGS S3 (Blaze of Glory)

The title could easily refer to the triumphant return of the series to TV and the way it had reinvented itself. While the sci-fi elements (or perhaps it was the arc), hadn't been generally as well received as the first season's slightly more real-world style and completely episodic structure, they knew they had at least one more shot as two years of the series had been guaranteed just from the reaction to the first episode, showing just how strong the concept was and the faith the BBC had in it. I don't remember that original Saturday night that I sat down and enjoyed my first ever 'BUGS' season opener, but it was something special to me as I'd never got in on the ground floor before, having missed the entirety of Season 1 and only coming aboard Season 2 in the third episode, so this had been the first time I was anticipating the series and it didn't disappoint. I personally loved the sci-fi nature of the stories and the creeping chill of a big bad manipulating things from his prison cell, but in those days I didn't really know about preferences, I was simply glad to see more of the series. On the face of it, giving the characters home lives and romantic interests wasn't to my taste, but when I returned to the series when the DVDs came out in the mid-2000s I recognised it as the next logical step to develop the series: you need to have more continuity and connections so the world becomes more than a champagne bottle that's shaken about, fizzed up and the cork pops out, then an entirely new bottle is picked up next week - a slightly different flavour, but no relation to the discarded bottles that came before.

With Season 3 they chose not to abandon the idea of arc-based storytelling, and wisely so, but at the same time they went with a completely different approach - rather than the villain being the focus, it was our characters and their lives. It seems obvious today, but don't forget that the kind of ITC dramas from the Sixties and Seventies which 'BUGS' was trying to update to the Nineties, didn't have much character growth, if any, designed as they were to be watched in any order, dipped in and out of, and not necessarily made for the dedicated viewer. At the opposite extreme would be the soap operas that had gradually gained traction on a certain portion of the viewing public (and from which our three leads had migrated), and we were getting to the point where drama and sci-fi were realising they could deal in ongoing stories and build a loyalty in the way the soaps had done, while still having a foot in the episodic camp so as to be able to explore an idea. It's the best of both worlds, far more attractive to me than the complete serialisation of modern series' which often seem like bite-size chunks of plots rather than fully rounded or fleshed out stories. Made for binging rather than thoughtful cogitation. And I'm not saying 'BUGS' was particularly thoughtful, but it does throw up questions and ideas here and there, though its main objective was light entertainment thrills. We were only going to love the characters more if we were allowed to see beyond their immediate friendships, however, so it was the right choice.

The season begins with quite a shocking tone, perhaps carrying over from the major events of Season 2 in which we were threatened with a devastating AI takeover of humans, not just our civilisation, but our very minds, bodies and wills, too! We saw death and revival, we saw subterfuge and deception, and through it all we saw the great bond between our trio. That bond was about to be tested in new ways that we hadn't seen before: the three were about to become five, and not only that, their bond was to be interfered with by outside connections. I like to joke about it, but it's true nonetheless: Beckett had his money worries, Ros had sudden financial security and a boyfriend, and Ed… well, he got an earring! I don't know why the Australian was always the least to be developed, maybe there was some kind of bias because Ros and Beckett are English on an English TV show, or perhaps it was an attempt to keep one of them more mysterious. We'd find out a little about him later in the season (specifically in 'Buried Treasure'), but the man with no (sur)name remained largely an unknown. Was this one reason why Craig McLachlan reportedly wanted to leave? Or was it a ploy to increase his leverage on the series? I don't know, but I imagine he was the sort that always wanted to try his hand at a multitude of projects so perhaps being tied to a series for several months, three years in a row, was too much for him?

McLachlan would eventually leave before his time, sadly, spelling the death knell for the series which would limp along without him in Season 4, but at some point, I don't know whether they were actually into production or if it was during the scripting stage, he changed his mind about leaving immediately and the story was altered in consequence. Many of us have wondered at what point he would have been written out, whether it could have been right at the beginning with the motorbike crash, or in Part 2, which also has suitable moments to kill him off, but the most likely scenario is that scene at the end of this episode where he drives villainess Kitty McHaig's Battle Wagon away from his friends because it has a bomb counting down inside. In the event he has to type a code to defuse it and can't find the 'e' on the keyboard, bailing out at the last second, but still close enough to the blast to sustain serious injuries. It would certainly have given the series a different slant if Ros and Beckett were mourning the loss of their comrade (as we'd see in a different angle at the start of Season 4), especially regarding what happens to Kitty in Part 2, but it was far better for the series that Ed remained a central part of it. I have to say it would have been a really disappointing way for him to bow out simply from the fact the sequence wasn't one of the more exciting of the series - this lumbering vehicle trundles away down a dark tunnel. I don't know how they could have made it more dramatic or shot it to be higher paced, but other than the fact of Ed's daring and care for his friends, it isn't one of the stronger moments.

It's interesting that this opening episode has far less of the action quotient compared to the average episode before. Part of it is due to a lot of setup for the whole direction of the season, but it's also because more time is given over to character work. It provides a different change of pace and works as a transition story from what our team had been to what they would be, and no surprises, Stephen Gallagher was the man given the task. It's not just that he was the best writer on the series, he also seemed to care about the 'mythology' of it, keeping track of the details that had been previously established and pleasingly reiterating them to make the series so much more than knockabout action scenes (something that really came home to me seeing it on DVD). The biggest impact on the series had been The Bureau of Weapons Technology so it was fitting that it should become so integral to the ongoing series. Before all that, however, we're reminded of the fate of Roland Blatty and it's confirmed his entire staff were wiped out, either dead or comatose, setting up the terrific revival to come at the end of the season. Just as fascinating is getting some history added to this organisation as the weapons dump full of nerve agents and assorted nasties (we'd already seen that these dumps had been unwisely located in the city from 'Newton's Run'), was closed up by the order of The Bureau of Weapons as far back as 29 September 1953.

It's great to have such detail added to the series and gives it a scope beyond the idea of it being slightly in the future. Now it also has a past, just as Beckett's past would occasionally come up - in fact it does so again. While DOIC (Director of Intelligence Coordination) Jan doesn't mention The Hive by name (more's the pity), she does allude to Beckett's time working for the government and he says 'once you're out, you're out.' It was never explained why he wasn't allowed to come back to The Hive, but we can assume it was do with failing to protect SACROS, and anyway, he didn't seem too happy there and he's been much more content working with Ros under Gizmos. Or was that ever what it was called? It never gets a mention and it would come into play in only another year when someone else was running a Gizmos so it seems most likely that their business had developed into something else - perhaps with Season 2 they rebranded and discarded the old name and likeness, but it's never been clear what exactly their business is, other than the fact they work together as a trio and have various clients, plus usually work out of one location. It's sad that the red-walled apartment of Season 2 is gone, but in reality it would have been a set. I've no idea if they chose to break it down rather than store it (especially when you consider they knew they'd be coming back for at least one more year), or whether they wanted to freshen the series up visually as well as narratively.

The new Gizmos (as we really shouldn't call it), is actually Ros' new apartment, bought from the proceeds of success in a new business venture with Channing Hardy ("Never trust a man in a bow-tie" - a reference to Charlesworth from 'Hot Metal'?), who saw the potential in the Henderson designs and offered her a deal she couldn't refuse. I like that Gallagher provides reasoning for why she'd never marketed her gadgets before, and it's incredibly true to the character: she's never been asked before. In other words she really hadn't thought about it because money isn't her driving force. She reiterates that trait when she tells Beckett not to be impressed, she's not. It's tough for him because he's just gone bankrupt after foolishly trusting his ex-girlfriend (the one he 'nearly married'), and ending up being guarantor for a debt. This is all so far removed from the somewhat surreal tone of Season 2 that it's almost harder to take in: real world problems? Process servers? Money matters? Okay, so maybe it's not that far from the series' remit, they have dealt with banks a number of times, but it's never been this personal before. In the past they were only risking their lives, now it's their livelihoods, too! It was tough on poor Beckett, but it will get him to the point where he understand himself better in relation to Ros. Beckett and Ed are the same cheeky chappies as ever, but it's lovely to see Ros go back to the much more unreserved version of herself from Season 1. I don't know if she was told to be more contained for Season 2, and the shackles are off now, but something's definitely changed.

The style and panache introduced in Season 2 is still much in evidence. As well as Ros' attractive new apartment with its in-built pillar fish tank and pleasant natural light streaming in (it really feels like an apartment, though it could just as easily be another set, and is more likely to be), the team continue to dress in classy outfits to continue the visual representation of their success in the business (or to keep up appearances in Beckett's case) - Ros has a red top under grey trouser suit, Ed carries off a smart jacket over a lime green top, and Beckett sports a purple shirt and tie under a waistcoat, so the colourful nature of the visuals that helped maintain an appealing colour palette continues. In contrast to them we see the destruction art of villain-of-the-week Kitty McHaig, who expresses her bitterness at the way her Father treated she and her twin brother, Chris, through twisted sculptures and fire. Calling her exhibition 'Art War' she's actually quite intelligent and up on the technological industry - she's heard of Ros Henderson, for example, and even cites her as a possible source of the sabotage device our team find (which looked a lot like a spark plug!). You can see a lot of satire or commentary going on in this episode, with Kitty representing the view that art comes from troubled people and is bought by fools. Or even the cliche of her brother asking why she can't paint a nice picture - art must be negative and stems from a tortured soul. At the same time she's stringing her buying public along knowing they'll swallow whatever she gives them, a large element of truth in there.

The construction industry is also criticised as a powerful force that is only interested in money, and the time it takes to make the money. Andrew McHaig, owner of McHaig construction is this big, bullish unstoppable force who follows the rules only so far as he avoids paying out penalties, but is tough enough to take action whenever it's needed - you sense he expects the same from those who work under him. But it's more complex than that, he may be painted in a villainous light, but he's also responsible for these big projects and it's the attitude of big business to Get Things Done. That he hasn't treated his children right (even at his son's funeral he keeps his mobile phone with him and takes a call), is as much from their perspective, and on them as it is on him, but as we'll learn in Part 2, he's had his own problems and throwing himself into his work has always been the solution and reaped the rewards. Already there's far more going on with these characters than most 'BUGS' guests so you can see a concerted effort being made to build more dimension, not just to the series, but to the characters, too. Even how the season opens is different - we see nothing of our main cast when last season opener they were front and centre, right in the midst of action. Instead the audience is made to wait and anticipate a bit longer. And it's a stark opening as we see Chris commit suicide. That's quite a dramatic turn for such a fun TV series to lead with, but it shows the intent, they're not playing games here.

Interestingly they chose to stick with the same title sequence which still only contains images from Season 1 (something that always intrigued me about the series since I'd never seen any of those episodes, and every week I'd be tantalised about a lost past that I may never see!). That would change by necessity for Season 4, but either they felt people needed to be reassured this was the same 'BUGS' they remembered, or it cost too much to change up some of the clips used, so it remained the same. In fairness it was a superb choice of imagery and music so you wouldn't want it altered too much! I like the way we're introduced to each of our trio in different ways, involved in various things, so we're immediately aware they have lives outside the team. I wondered at first if Ed's testing of a high performance bike was to earn a bit of extra dough on the side, but later he says he was helping out a couple of mates. It's good to reiterate his love of bikes because it wasn't a trait used as much last season as it was in the first. I do wonder where he was limping off to as he does his John Wayne impression (that was funny!), as he seems to be heading towards empty fields and track! Obviously the setup of him injuring himself was originally planned for the story, partly as a reason he couldn't just escape the bomb in the Airport Link Tunnel where McHaig is working, but also as a preparation for his death when Beckett warns him one day he won't walk away from one of those stunts, which would have had much more resonance if that original plan had gone ahead.

Beckett himself has his own concerns as we see him go into financial meltdown, but he's a proud man and carries on with life as well as he can. It's fortunate in a way that he's presented with this huge problem of the weapons dump to take his mind off his personal life, and he doesn't lose his sense of purpose or sit around feeling sorry for himself, nor does he give up on his loyalty to the business and team when Jan tries to entice him away with a job offer. It struck me, could Jan have been responsible for engineering his money worries? Could she have somehow made sure the recording studio of Amanda Courtney's boyfriend went under solely to gain a hold over Beckett? Surely she wouldn't be that manipulative? Amanda didn't seem that nasty, either, though a touch bitter, when we saw her at the start of Season 2. We would come to respect Jan mightily, but at this stage of the season she's a complete unknown quantity. If she's this Director of Intelligence what department does she command - is she the boss of The Hive, SSD and Bureau, some kind of oversight to them, or completely unconnected? I don't think it was ever spelt out, other than Alex Jordan (who is only known as a very low grade filing clerk in this episode!), being enticed to help Beckett because it will be one in the eye for her boss, who seems to be quite dismissive toward her. It's all quite amusing and mysterious, but like a lot of things in the series it wouldn't be answered and we're left to speculate.

I do love that Beckett's first thought upon his bank account being frozen is that Ros is playing a trick on him, because we can believe she'd have the technical nous to do such a thing, even if it seems unlikely she'd go that far just to wind him up. Ed maybe, but that's another story… As badly as things have gone for Beckett, Ros' life is the mirror image - suddenly flush with wealth and opportunity, but it seems she's most concerned with ploughing it into the business. And she's still concerned about the little details, like saying she doesn't like the colour of the credit card-sized camera that's making all the money. Was the fact it was yellow a deliberate reference to her old faithful yellow car that she'd used for almost all of Seasons 1 and 2 and would never be seen again? Did she go off that colour and that's why she got rid of the car (since it never exploded or got crushed like most of her vehicles!). Was it to make room for Channing's gift of a new car that would be coming soon? Or am I, as a fanatic, reading too much into one single line of dialogue? One question I did have was who she was talking to on the phone when she's contacted about the tunnel issue - whoever's speaking to her isn't either Ed or Beckett because she asks this person to keep trying Beckett and she'll call Ed. Does she have a secretarial service? Is it McHaig? That wouldn't seem to fit as why would the client be ringing round for her. One of those little mysteries we'd never know.

One of the most fascinating things about the episode is being able to see the aftermath of what happened to The Bureau of Weapons. It's sad to see it reduced to a pile of physical files and boxes, and some cages of computing equipment, all overseen by this one file clerk. What was she even doing? Going through and filing it all away or waiting for the department to be started up again? The contrast is strongest when we see this little cardboard sign taped to a door, about as far as you can get from the stylish, technological design of the series, this broken down empty office used for dumping all the data in one place. What about their facilities, we know they had at least one testing site and now they're reduced to this? There's some fine symmetry with the first ever episode, 'Out of The Hive,' when Beckett and Ed met by the former getting the latter in a headlock (even though Ed was supposed to be a martial arts expert!), only this time it's the unassuming little frizzy-haired, glasses-wearing file clerk who sorts Beckett out! Again, it could be a deliberate thematic reference back or pure coincidence, but immediately Alex becomes this intriguing character, having already gained a measure of viewer sympathy by being on Beckett's side against Jan when he goes to CORA for the vital records. You do wonder why the government or some department therein isn't immediately all over the McHaig site, but then I think they covered that by saying he was keeping it internal as he didn't want work stopped, which is why he called in our team in the first place.

It's that outsider's mentality that Jan feels could be so useful in her position - people can trust the team where they might not be so quick to call in the authorities, and they've built up a good reputation for themselves which is another example of the series showing things have developed. The episode is full of uncertainty, whether it be the true nature of characters like McHaig, Kitty, Jan and Alex, or the various situations our main people find themselves in. At the same time it's still a pretty satisfying story insofar as the first part of a two-part episode can be. We get to the point where Kitty's villainy is apparent and deadly and I love the rivalry between Ros and her. Just as Beckett is immediately wary around Channing, distrusting him, his motives, and displaying a little jealous, too, Ros doesn't like the quick bond that's sprung up between Ed and Kitty and is full of disapproval for her. It's good writing, and the direction (other than the big action scene at the end), complements it. It may be a cliche to have Ed and Kitty's eyes lock across a crowded room at her exhibition, seeing each other through flames (just like the later 'Mission: Impossible 2' - fitting, since in the episode she does her Tom Cruise impression hanging down behind the JCB!), but it's not the kind of flare 'BUGS' generally went for, they were usually more about explosions and cameras gliding across anonymous office buildings.

There aren't a lot of gadgets in the episode, the most advanced being the one we only glimpse (Ros' card camera), but there is some heavyweight hardware to make up for it: the JCB transporting the warhead; Kitty's Battle Wagon; the 'overpack container' used to safely store the bomb. Everything is suitably big and imposing, whether that be the vehicles or the amount of people. Gone are the visions of empty streets from Technopolis, we're back to the real world and there are people all over the place. It's also notable that things take place in daylight when Season 2 was so full of dark scenes where the cast's breath could be clearly seen! I wonder if this was a stipulation of the actors, that they were tired of working in freezing, dark conditions. Or was it more to do with visual and thematic tones, as Season 1 was much more like this episode: bright, sunny and full of as many naturalistic locations and environments as shiny, modern 'BUGS' buildings. It's clear they've gone for this style on purpose, it's no accident. I love Season 2, it probably has to be the best for me, but 3 is very close to it in quality. It has the advantage of further advances in TV production, it looks a little better, technology has come a little further and I think I've probably looked forward to reviewing this season more than any of the others. It continues what would be a tradition beginning with Season 2, opening on a two-parter, it deals with the series' established history and characters while setting up new ones, and Gallagher makes it look so easy. Such a shame he couldn't stay for Season 4 or the series may have lasted a lot longer than it did…

Some last little trivia: Beckett could potentially have dated the episode as he asks for information on a Bureau operation from forty years ago (so we're in 1993? Nah, probably just being general). And how did he know Roland's old passcode? He also places the series in the definite location of London when often they'd appeared to try and be vague about time and exact location. There was a bit of a gaffe about the Bureau of Weapons, since in 'Assassins Inc' Ros claimed it was new, and here we see it's been going since the Fifties! Unless Roland had revived a long dormant department. There's no excuse, either, since Gallagher was responsible for the earlier story, too! And while the series looked so new and fresh it remains true to its own running jokes, such as Ed always having something inappropriate to say, or someone commenting on Ros' driving (Ed in both cases this time). Was Chris' line ("I've got to go now"), a sly reference to the suicides of Cyberax, since they said the same sort of thing, only adding there's something they had to do. I wouldn't be surprised. And then it all ends on neither a jolly laugh or a creeping chill, but instead has a new angle: Beckett is uncomfortably about to answer why Jan believes the team are working for her now, and the others don't look too happy with him. Roll on the next episode!

***

Adrift

DVD, Stargate Atlantis S4 (Adrift)

In the absence of good 'Star Trek' these days this fills the gap nicely. Who knows if the series will be able to live up to the consistency of Season 3, at the moment I don't care, all I care about are the immediate and continual problems our intrepid team on Atlantis are facing: this is 'Stargate' done as a disaster film and it carries you along. Before I get into that, however, there's an elephant in the room, or rather a Colonel not in the city: Samantha Carter. I have to admit I was stupidly spoiled on her addition to the 'Atlantis' cast by recently looking up the Companion books that came out to accompany the series back in the day and happened to see the cast photo on the front of the Season 4 edition. I was thrilled and overjoyed to see Carter part of the group, as unexpected as it was delightful, and I can only imagine how pleased I'd have been to see her face and Amanda Tapping's name come up in the opening credits without any prior warning, because as it was I still felt a warm glow - I wasn't a hundred percent sure that she'd be part of the series as a fully paid up main cast member, she could just as easily have had a recurring guest role and they simply decided to include her in the photo, but confirming her, at least for this season, was brilliant!

It makes absolute sense to bring over a character from the concluded 'SG-1,' and while I'd never considered who I'd most like to see, she'd definitely be up there, as much as I knew that most of the main 'SG-1' cast showed up in the 'Atlantis' sequel, 'Universe' (which I watched before this). I was so happy to see her as a proper part of this series that I forgot to see if there were any other cast changes in the opening credits, so it was with a heavy heart that I suddenly wondered if I'd missed Dr. Weir coming up, and then Torri Higginson's name appeared in the guest credits and my heart sank: they giveth and they taketh away. I was so hoping that Carter would simply be an addition rather than a replacement, especially as Beckett had been written out last season. And especially with the fact that Carter and Weir knew each other since she took over as the boss of the SGC for a short period when General Hammond left, I really wanted to see them work together again. I can only imagine it must be a money issue that they only had so much to spend on the cast and Tapping was likely to command a large portion of that so maybe they had to lose someone? This is why I really need the Companion books to find out this production history, because although it happened so long ago, it's news to me!

For the rest of the episode I was wondering if Weir would even wake up, so it certainly helped to create tension, though far from the positive kind I prefer (I'm not one of these people that enjoys thinking anyone could die at any moment, I don't think that's good writing - hence why Beckett's demise was so shocking and dramatic, since it was so well written and unexpected). What it did give us were two or three lovely scenes with some weight to them to counter the reliance on physical problems and give the episode a bit of heart. Surprisingly, Ronon was responsible for the most touching moment as he comes in to the comatose Weir's hospital bed and simply thanks her for allowing him to join her team. He didn't say much but it was all that was needed. Then we have the words you'd almost never expect to hear coming from the arrogant McKay's mouth: "I'm sorry," after he's disobeyed Sheppard's specific instructions not to activate Weir's Replicator nanites that remain in her body from before, even to save her life, because it will put the city at such great risk. And then there's Teyla who has such joy on her face when she talks to the newly woken Weir.

The conflict between Sheppard and McKay, well it wasn't really a conflict, more the usual bickering between them, where McKay knows so much more, but Sheppard is the man in charge and needs to be the one making the big decisions and it was a fascinating situation because it's not even that McKay has this rush of power because of the situation he's in, it's purely what he thinks is possible and what is in all their best interests throughout the multitude of problems he and Zelenka are largely responsible for fixing. He was right (so far), in doing what he did, even against Sheppard explicitly telling him not to, because it does save Weir. But I suspect it will come back to bite them in the next episode which is set up as a heist for much-needed ZPMs in the stronghold of the Replicator homeworld - I predict, sadly, that Weir will either become a threat because of the nanites in her which will somehow alert the Replicators, or, and perhaps also, she'll sacrifice herself to save them all. That's the kind of thing she'd do. I don't know what this means for the future leadership of Atlantis, whether Carter will become the boss or Sheppard, despite being military and Weir being civilian, but it throws up many questions like that and it certainly has me excited to see where they take things.

Whatever happens I will be sad, because I felt the balance of characters was so nicely set in Season 3, and then Beckett gets knocked off, and while Dr. Keller is also a promising character with a lot of potential, being this person with much less experience and concerned about her role (though she seems pretty confident in this episode), I'd have preferred them to keep the same mix of characters when they'd got so close to perfecting them. And now to have Weir leaving, whether it be next episode or in a few, it just won't have the same magic, or that's what I fear. I'll soon find out. In the meantime this was a good, strong episode to open the season, a cross between 'The Poseidon Adventure' and its 70s ilk, and 'Stargate: ER.' As soon as one problem is fixed or patched up, another comes along. The team have to work in difficult circumstances, a lot of civilian types flying the Jumpers to clear a path through an asteroid field. I felt there was some inconsistency in Sheppard's actions to defend the city - at first when one of the teams doing repairs is caught out when the shield shrinks, he demands they must be saved, while Rodney explains there's nothing they can do and if they try, the whole city may not survive. Then later, he's adamant they can't save Weir by activating her nanites, no matter what, the city's safety is paramount. Is it his personal feelings that he's overcompensating for (like Janeway and Chakotay on 'Voyager' they always seemed like there was something to play there), or is it that he learned from the earlier sacrifice and realised the city must come first?

I'm glad I boned up on what had happened at the end of Season 3 because they do throw you into the action with this premiere, and rightly so (after a quick recap), and the energy and drama is portrayed strongly. The effects, as I noted last season, have really turned a corner and they can do so much more than they used to be able to, with all those Jumpers shooting up asteroids, or Sheppard and Zelenka doing a space jump to the other side of a blown-out corridor (Sheppard suggests he call a Jumper when Zelenka gets shot through with a micro-meteorite, so surely it would have been simpler to do that before jumping across - maybe it would take too long, and he only said it after the injury since time wasn't going to make a difference if they didn't complete the repair?). One thing that didn't work quite so well was the city itself flying through space - it did look a little toylike, or a very detailed real world miniature, simply because it looked too in focus as it swept across the screen, but that's a minor quibble for an episode which has so much to impress. All this and Dr. Lee, too? They really poured a lot into this opening story and it worked. While I'll be sad if Weir is written out for good (if she lives she could return for Season 5, yes?), whatever happens I'm itching to find out, which is a success in my book. The only thing I'm not clear on is how they shaved Weir's hair off to cut out a bit of her cranium to relieve pressure on the brain, yet when she wakes up she has a full head of hair - a wig? Oh, and fun to see Yee Jee Tso of the 'Dr. Who' TV film.

***

How Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth

DVD, Star Trek: The Animated Series (How Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth)

I'm not surprised 'TAS' didn't make it beyond a couple of years with stories like this, indoctrinating children into the idea that humanity has progressed beyond the need for God. Of course it's couched in a much safer and less direct message (unlike 'The Magicks of Megas-Tu' which was distinctly overt in its message that the Devil isn't such a bad guy, just misunderstood!), that of an alien being who visited Earth and gave rise to various cultures such as the Mayans and their serpent god, or the Chinese dragon - a mishmash of cultures which this creature thought it was helping, but has now returned in vengeance because humanity is warlike, judged based on… The historical messiness didn't make any sense: if the kinds of things Mayans did was so good why did they practice human sacrifice and that sort of thing? I didn't understand how or at what point this serpent worm (another Satanic connection!), arrived and what effect it had on the cultures it encountered, but then it is only a kiddie cartoon with less than half an hour running time.

It is disturbing that this kind of specifically anti-God story was just included as part of the package, children absorbing it passively and no doubt many parents not even aware of the kind of messaging being presented. But as I hinted, it could also be used to show that false gods of other cultures that never knew the Judaeo-Christian God of the Bible misled people into all sort of things. Except that the idea is this being was supposedly trying to do good for them, its 'children' as it calls humans. But what did it do? As much as I could gather was that it required a perfect recreation of a city to its specifications which has no bearing on morality or behaviour and sounds like slave labour to me! Perhaps if they'd made it clear that this was the ideal way to live at the time, for sanitary needs, water, food and of course some kind of worship culture of this being, but in the episode it's just a riddle to be solved like some puzzle out of 'The Crystal Maze' - just turn the heads of all four snake statues so they all look towards the top of the pyramid and you win!

It reminded me of various Trek ideas, most obviously for the time would be Apollo and the ancient Greek gods that we learned in 'Who Mourns For Adonais?' were actually aliens that stopped off at Earth for a little devotion and worship, then eventually moved on, except for this one guy, Apollo, who couldn't quite bring himself to exit this galaxy because he missed the good old days when people believed in him. In his case he hadn't sent a probe back to Earth to see how things had progressed in order to decide whether to return and exact vengeance for failing him so badly, but it's the same story. Interestingly, you can also see another part of the Q character who took a lot from Trelane in 'TOS,' this seemingly omnipotent being (though clearly not), who puts humanity on trial at the start of 'TNG.' Then there's the Caretaker, a Sporocystian life-form the USS Voyager encountered in its pilot episode that Janeway ends up explaining to it that it's no longer needed by its children any more, the most overt 'we don't need God these days' sentiment expressed in Trek. I prefer it when they remain agnostic rather than come down so heavily on the subject, though of course they can always argue that in these cases they are specific enough and correct that these are false gods, so that they hardly ever actually mention The God in Trek (though I wouldn't be surprised if that changed), so as not to alienate a chunk of their viewership in Western nations.

It comes as more of a jolt in a children's animation than in live action Trek which has the luxury of a bit more time to explain itself and is really for adults, though suitable (for the most part), for the whole family (or used to be, can't say that for the new stuff). It's a shame they were wasting their time with such propaganda rather than trying to do something different that hadn't been done before in Trek, but is interesting from a historian's point of view to see the attitude shifts from 'TOS' to 'TAS' to 'TNG' and beyond as (Western) society has gradually become more and more secular and the pillars of faith and belief have been repeatedly undermined. It's not even that the episode is that entertaining - a mysterious alien probe self-destructed after arriving so the Enterprise goes to investigate only to be trapped in a 'force bubble' (unfortunate connotations with 'Star Wars'). A ship approaches and takes on the guise of a giant snake or dragon, then people get beamed away to some false reality to solve the mystery of the city. And then they get brought into the creature's zoo, which contains a large variety of outlandish, wild and weird alien animals, sadly none of which we know.

Kirk wakes up a Capellan Power Cat (presumably from the planet Capella IV which they visited in 'Friday's Child'), and its natural electrical charges threaten this apparently powerful godlike flying snake creature, showing it's not that powerful after all. Kirk saves it and it's happy ever after, with Kirk making his humanistic speech that seems much more akin to the 'TNG' attitude than 'TOS.' I liked that Spock was pompous enough to mention that aliens visited Vulcan, too, but in their case they left wiser than they came! I wonder when this happened because Vulcans had interstellar travel before the 'enlightenment' Surak brought, since when he changed their society some Vulcans left to become Romulans, so I don't know what was so wise about the Vulcans before that time, they were savage and violent, but after it, it wouldn't have made sense for aliens to visit in order to help inferior beings, since Vulcans weren't confined to their planet and so could have met them anywhere!

There's a rare appearance of a Native American Indian, one of the Comanche tribe, whose name is Mr. Walking-Bear - an interesting addition, especially as you'd think that such tribes would have moved with the times and started calling their people after things other than Earth creatures or situations. Maybe he should have been Mr. Tribble-shuffler, or Mr. Star-walker (Skywalker?), but maybe his parents were particularly traditional! It's fortunate that he happened to be in Mr. Sulu's position at Helm (not so fortunate for George Takei…), since he's the one to recognise the serpent image as being from Mayan legend. The fun thing is that you can tell he's voiced by James Doohan, while sitting next to Lieutenant Arex, also by Doohan, and Scotty calls up to the Bridge, too! Not only that, but Walking-Bear and Scotty are both part of the enforced Landing Party, and the serpent creature is also voiced by Doohan so it was a bonanza for him! I keep avoiding mentioning the creature's name, and that's because we hear at least three different pronunciations: Walking-Bear calls it what sounds like 'Cococan,' to Kirk it's 'Cuklocan' and Spock pronounces it 'Cuklucan'!

All this and Uhura turning pink? Yes, it's true - when the Enterprise is attacked by Coco's ship we see a shot of the Bridge and for some reason she's depicted as pink! There are other little mistakes, too, as I've come to expect with this series, such as McCoy turning the head of a statue but the voice which tells Kirk 'this is the last one, sir' is Walking-Bear's! And Coco's teeth change from white to green as it talks. It was certainly a colourful episode, I'll give it that (and nice to see what I assume was one of McCoy's anterooms in Sickbay), but I could do without the simplistic humanistic pride in how developed 'we' are now, especially in the light of 'Discovery,' 'Picard' and no doubt every other production of the Kurtzman era, throwing doubt on that 'evolved sensibility' and making the denizens of both 23rd and 24th Centuries the same as contemporary viewers. Sorry Gene, your vision didn't work out after all, because more 'Gritty,' 'Realistic' views make more money and less people feel insecure. The cherry on the cake is when they throw in some Shakespeare at the end as if to add some profundity, which is preferable to profanity, but has about as much place in a cartoon. Not to say there shouldn't be Shakespeare in 'TAS,' just that it made no sense - we're thankless children because we turned away a false god? Okay… Here's hoping the last ever episode will be a good one, it would be sad to go out on the quality of this.

*

Exodus (2)

DVD, Smallville S2 (Exodus) (2)

This marks the end of an era for me: the final episode of 'Smallville' to review. Fitting then, that it should be the point at which I pretty much abandoned the series on its first run. I actually watched the first two episodes of Season 3, but decided there was no point in continuing, until a few years later when I started my blog and gave it another chance as something I could write about, even if I didn't enjoy it. But this is the episode where things went off the rails, so I'm surprised to find I quite liked it in the past, because, similarly to 'Calling,' I found it to be less enjoyable now. I can see they were trying to recreate the success and drama of Season 1's epic cliffhanger, one of the high points of the entire series, but what we get instead is a litany of misery for all the characters and it's a real low to end a season on. Again, I can see now why they introduced the plot of Martha conceiving a child - it was to give Clark the most self-pitying moment of his life once he realises he's responsible for her losing the baby, causing him to go off the rails and, effectively, turn to drugs for solace and escape: the red ring of Kryptonite is a drug to him, and never an idea I liked. In fact that was the only thing I remotely remembered about the episode before re-watching, that he's somehow exposed to Red Kryptonite and ends the episode and season speeding off to Metropolis on a bike.

Where did he get that bike, stole it? But that was before he'd put on the ring. Maybe it belonged to Jonathan, something he was fixing up, we know he liked motorbikes. I wasn't impressed with the final shot, you'd think Clark would be speeding off in a rage, but he trundles along quite sombrely, so maybe the ring hadn't taken full effect as he was still so shell-shocked from what had happened. But it isn't the only thing I disliked about the story, a big part of that has to be Chloe, whose business it really isn't that her two friends, Clark and Lana, are together! She stomps around like everything's her business and flies off the handle when Clark won't tell her what she already knows, behaving like a spoilt child, then runs into the waiting arms of Lionel, metaphorically, to do his bidding and accept the assignment to investigate the Kents for him. Just as it shows Clark in a terrible light, not only that he turned to drugs, but also that he made such a bad decision as destroying his own ship and blowing up the storm cellar, it puts Chloe in the role of a petulant character, selfish and stupid. About the only character who gets out of the episode without blame is Pete, who doggedly tries to be a good friend as ever, and Lex, who for once, or once more, has chosen to do what's right and admit his crime to Helen of breaking into her office and stealing the vial of Clark's blood, right before their wedding.

There were a couple of things I liked about these events: one, that sense of irrelevancy and petty little day-to-day tiffs that confronts Clark just at the moment he's involved in something far, far bigger and more important - Chloe interrupts him on the way to putting Lionel's freshly minted Kryptonite key into the ship's octagonal slot, and while I feel Clark should have been more tactful and been able to think up a better pretext to get rid of her quickly, at the same time he is just a teenager, so it makes sense. That was a good part of the scene even if overall it just makes you sick to see Chloe behave so jealously and idiotically, making a fool out of herself. And I felt it was important for Lex to realise that doing good and choosing the right path doesn't mean you get what you wanted anyway (even though he does in the end!), it can mean sacrifice and loss, it doesn't make everything better, but it was still the right thing to do. It was encouraging to see a message like that, and to see Lex continuing to fight the growing drive towards evil within him, as we'd seen a number of times before, and which had made his character so compelling. As I said, in the end Helen returns and they continue with the marriage ceremony (though I don't know what happened to the big dinner we saw the rehearsal of last episode - wasn't Clark still to perform his Best Man speech, or was that it?), but even for Lex we don't end happily as he awakes on the way to his honeymoon just as his plane crashes into the ocean!

There was one other thing that stood out to me in the balance of good about the episode: Lionel being tricked by Pete and Clark so the latter can steal his key in the Kawatche caves. He's just given this smug speech about how people are at their weakest when they're angry and he loses it, almost striking young Pete, just pulling back at the last moment as he realises he's been beaten at his own game. That was priceless as we see so little truth in his character, so when he actually loses control, even for a brief moment, it's very satisfying. Something that can't be said for the rest of the episode and that neatly rounds out my experience of the series as a whole. Because I love the first season and find much to like about Season 2, but that's where it ended for me, and while I give some credit to the series for what it became in the last couple of seasons, and recognise there were occasional standout arcs and episodes in the middle seasons, for the most part it was a miserable cycle of trust and secrets, happiness and distrust, bizarre character flips and poorly thought out writing (much like the current crop of Trek series'!), so that taken as a whole I don't know that I could really recommend the series, though I would still laud Season 1 as being such a strong way to begin a series, so much potential, so much verve and panache.

That's really all there is to it - while Season 3 continues the story, is it really worth going there? I wouldn't mind seeing it again, not to write more detailed reviews as I did with these last few episodes of Season 2 that I'd previously reviewed, but just to see if my recollection of it as the worst season is justified! As for 'Exodus' it pretty much undoes all the good that had been built. Lex' life was about to be ruined, Pete would realise he couldn't help Clark, Lana and Chloe and their circular love/hate of Clark, even Jonathan and Martha and their potential 'happy ever after' comes crashing down. I must say I didn't remember how the baby storyline resolved, only that Clark never had a baby sibling. Nor did I remember what happened to the ship, and for Clark to just destroy his heritage like that… I know he was terrified Jor-El was going to do something to him or those he was close to, and now maybe he can't, but even so, it was a foolhardy thing to do. I have no idea how Jor-El was still able to communicate with him even after the destruction of the ship, but at this point, neither do I care. I'm not saying this was a terrible episode, it's certainly watchable and has some good moments as I've detailed, but it's hard to see Jonathan being more kindly and friendlier to Lex than to his own adopted son, no matter what trauma he and Martha have gone through, and it's hard to see so many characters go off the rails. Sadly, that was 'Smallville' all over, and going off the rails would become a regular occurrence. Even so, I'll always remember the series fondly for those bits it got right, it's bright colours and smiling faces, its depiction of goodness, courage and friendship, and not having it to review any more will be strange.

**