"Reveal very little at a tediously slow pace" – Me, 2007
77,000 words on some sci-fi shows I liked and some I didn't, giving you the lowdown on the latest VHS releases and DVD boxsets, sometimes covering the same eras more than once across different releases at varying degrees of obsolescence, and closing by recommending you import cheap Chinese pirate copies like I did. It was definitely worth picking these out of the trash.
Written for dooyoo.co.uk from 2000–2011 (aged 14–25).
B
If the shoe doesn't fit, simply mutilate your toes
***
Written on 22.03.10
Ronald D. Moore's acclaimed 'reimagining' of the Battlestar Galactica sci-fi franchise in 2003 brought a lot more to the table than just swearing and improved CGI effects (though it has those too), carving a separate identity from the well-loved original and grabbing the attention of critics as well as teetering precariously on the edge of mainstream acceptance for its frank and unapologetic presentation of such pertinent contemporary issues as the war on terror, suicide bombings and government corruption - all veiled slightly by being set in space and centring on a human civilisation with subtle differences from our own, as if that was fooling anybody.
Despite the main plot heading down some slightly bizarre avenues over its four-and-a-bit-year run, Battlestar Galactica still stands as one of the strongest, most consistent and most thoughtful TV series I've ever had the pleasure of watching. It's really good. So good, in fact, that I couldn't bring myself to review the series proper, for fear of failing to adequately express just how good it is. So fortunately, if only for that reason, the powers-that-be commissioned this follow-up story to tie up some loose ends, give fans a little more of the BSG universe, and attempt to give a newfound coherence to some of the show mythology's more incoherent asides by taking a revisionist approach.
In satisfying the first two criteria, Battlestar Galactica - The Plan exceeds admirably. Unfortunately, it never really succeeds in trying too hard to graft the illusion of a grand scheme of things onto a series that essentially, and very understandably, tended to evolve according to the whims and changing focuses of its writers over four years. It's sort of like a full-length version of those 'webisodes' they released between the second and third seasons of Lost, attempting to fill in some of the gaps but doomed to be ultimately extraneous.
To avoid making this review even more alienating to non-fans than this TV movie already does quite well by itself, I'll give a brief overview of what it's about. The Plan is a part-nostalgic, part-revisionist, part-original retelling of the first two years of the series, beginning chronologically with the events in the original three-hour miniseries that saw the 12 colonies of humanity wiped out in an unprovoked attack by the Cylons, a race of robots and humanoid clones that were created by humans several decades earlier to be their servants, only to rebel and eventually go their separate ways following a bloody war.
Over the next two years, the surviving 50,000 or so humans wandered through the universe in a debilitated fleet of spacecraft led by the mighty Battlestar Galactica, occasionally getting into scrapes with the Cylons while also dealing with humanoid Cylons who had infiltrated the fleet, some in key positions of power.
This TV movie opens and closes with a conversation between two of the Cylon models known as Number One, played by science fiction veteran Dean Stockwell (probably best known as Al from Quantum Leap), in which they debate whether the Cylon attack on humanity was really the correct 'plan' of action. One of the major plot threads that runs through this film, which re-contextualises a number of events that happened over the first two seasons of the show from the Cylon perspective, is seeing how the two different copies of Number One are affected by their experiences of living among humans to reach such different verdicts. Unfortunately, the other sub-plots introduced for the film don't work as well, and largely feel like re-workings of old ideas from episodes.
By featuring an abundance of stock footage from relevant episodes of the series, The Plan is partly a good excuse for a money-saving clip show, though to its credit the use of old material never feels gratuitous. That's more than can be said for the several instances of full frontal female nudity, as the producers seem intent on showing off the loosened restrictions of the made-for-DVD format with juvenile abandon. If I was about 16, these wouldn't count against the film (they'd probably add a star or two to be honest), but it does feel quite pointless. And it's not as if any of the main stars get their kit off - well, no more than they usually do - so there's nothing to get excited about in a 'Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me' way.
My main problem with The Plan is that it doesn't truly satisfy any target audience. While it's nice for the fans to see the connections between some events that were previously left up in the air, some of these revelations are actually a little disappointing, and the whole thing smacks far too much of George Lucas-style revisionist TV history, even tactfully re-editing iconic scenes from the series or adding snippets of new dialogue (the television equivalent of bending jigsaw pieces so they fit any shape) to try to make sense of a story that already made adequate sense if they'd just left it alone.
New fans will be put off by the jumping around and assumptions of existing knowledge, while existing fans may be left wishing they could see more original footage of the actors, only a select few of whom appear in new material, the rest only being seen in archive footage. By taking place in season two of the show, back when the status quo was as relatively uncomplicated as it could hope to be, The Plan is at least less alienating to newcomers than it would be if set in season four, but it still makes enough references to later events in the series' continuity - including spoiling what is probably the series' biggest mystery, the identity of the Cylons - to potentially ruin things if a newcomer saw this first and then decided to track down the rest of the series.
Maybe I'm complaining too much; Battlestar Galactica finished its final season with a definitive ending, and this is a bonus chance to hang out with the characters for another couple of hours. If the unsanctioned comments of director/star Edward James Olmos are to be believed, this is likely to be the first of several TV/DVD movies expanding the Battlestar Galactica franchise, along with the new spin-off Caprica which I've yet to be interested enough to watch.
I don't know if the mediocrity of The Plan necessarily indicates that the series' achievements are all firmly lodged in the past, but I still wouldn't consider it essential viewing even for casual fans of the show. As for the four main seasons and 2003 mini-series, well, you should own those on DVD already.
Advantages: More Battlestar Galactica for fans.
Disadvantages: A lot of recycling, and not too well-suited to any audience demographic.
Caprica
Does anyone actually like prequels?
**
Written on 05.01.11
Were prequels prominent in mainstream TV and cinema before The Phantom Menace, or am I just too young to remember? Didn't the very word 'prequel' used to have a sense of novelty about it - the way 'reboot' no longer has either? The last decade has seen a seemingly increasing number of franchises being stretched beyond breaking point by stepping back and giving us answers to questions we never knew we had - and when we think about it, don't really care about, since we already know how things end, have seen all the exciting stuff, and know who won't die.
There's probably at least one example of a good prequel out there somewhere that's succeeded in truly expanding and enhancing a successful franchise and introducing it to a new audience (maybe that Star Trek film, now I think about it), but it sure isn't Caprica.
Unless you're a sci-fi loving nerd from space, you probably haven't heard of this series, especially with TV networks' ridiculous broadcasting schedules trying their damnedest to prevent the show developing any kind of casual following. Caprica was billed as an attempt to create a science fiction family saga, sort of like Dallas with cyborgs and a less insidious theme tune, and was also a prequel to the successful 'reimagined' sci-fi series Battlestar Galactica, which concluded in early 2009. Now that Caprica has concluded too, after a grand total of 18 episodes, it would be fair to say that it failed to succeed in any of these respects - as a Galactica prequel, or as a science fiction show aimed at a more mainstream audience.
The fact that this series was cancelled before its first season finished airing is not indication alone of its low quality - after all, plenty of series have been cancelled before their time, due to low ratings or networks failing to 'get it' (Farscape springs to mind, and I'm reliably informed that Firefly was pretty good too). But it wasn't only low ratings letting Caprica down, as the series didn't even seem to be very popular with its niche market.
The mixing of genres wasn't handled very well - sci-fi fans didn't want to watch a soap opera, and soap fans are hardly likely to tune into a show featuring killer robots and holo-bands. Perhaps most tellingly of all, even die-hard Battlestar Galactica fans didn't really like it. That's putting it mildly - from some of the reactions I've seen on the internet, some consider its existence to be outright blasphemy. Which is apt, considering the prominence of religious themes in this increasingly dull show.
To use an over-used example from the sci-fi realm, the origin of the Cylons (read: robots) as shown in Caprica feels like a case of 'midichlorians.' This was the unpopular explanation given for the existence of The Force in the Star Wars prequels, which served to demystify and effectively spoil the mythology of that franchise by providing an unnecessary answer to a question no one had asked in the first place.
I can't really remember the midichlorians thing myself, not being enough of a masochist to have ever re-watched the Star Wars prequels (though enough of a masochist to have sat through the whole of Caprica, evidently). But there are further allusions that can be made between Caprica and the worst elements of the Star Wars prequels - notably the tangential and tedious plots that never feel like they're going anywhere, over-reliance on CGI, and all the bloody teen angst.
That's right, Caprica taps heavily at the I-hate-my-parents nerve from day one, and despite the writers commendably making several clear changes to the show's direction across the course of the 18-episode series, based on what seemed to be working and what didn't (and they didn't always get this right), this root never goes away. One of the teens calls her mother a 'stupid, disgusting cow' towards the end of the run, in a scene typical of the show's edgy realism and down-with-the-kidz credentials.
Caprica's failure wasn't a shame, and its cancellation was inevitable and deserved. The first five minutes of the pilot episode, featuring terrorism, tragedy and big explosions, showed great promise that was never really followed through on, and the rest of the series was largely a meandering mess of disparate plot threads - some of the least interesting of which ended up taking centre stage as things progressed. The focus on religion was particularly disappointing, considering the general fan backlash against how this was handled in the later episodes of BSG before it, and the writers also relied far, far, far too much on cliffhanger endings featuring important characters being held at gunpoint, stepping off bridges, or otherwise pretending to die prior to their certain rescue the following week. The fact that most of Caprica's core characters were really irritating only made the inevitable character-on-beeping-life-support-machine reveals all the more infuriating.
That's not to say that the performances were bad, as people like Eric Stolz and... actually, I can't think of anyone else who put in a really impressive performance. Esai Morales never had a chance to do much of anything as grieving lawyer/father turned mobster Joseph Adama, whose character arc was probably the least well executed of the lot, and watching the teen cast (okay, twentysomethings pretending to be teens) is mostly excruciating, in the way I imagine a typical scene from Roswell or Dawson's Creek to be. In other areas, the special effects were pretty good. Of course they are; it isn't 1996 any more. You can get decent CGI puppies in toilet roll adverts these days.
With the news that creator Ronald D. Moore is now working on a second BSG prequel titled Blood and Chrome, which will follow the events of the first Cylon war (and doubtless bring a whole load of continuity problems of its own), the writers have hopefully learned from their mistakes here. There should be little room for religious pondering or teen angst in a series set in the midst of a bloody (and chromy) war, and while it's almost certainly destined to fall in the shadow of the excellent Battlestar Galactica itself, at least there's some hope of a decent series that isn't ashamed to call itself science fiction. Even if it's essentially another pointless prequel.
The last five episodes of Caprica just aired on the US Sci-Fi channel in a typically disrespectful burn-off marathon. They'll probably be on Sky at some point, and you can get the whole series on DVD. I don't know why you'd do that though.
Crime Traveller
**
Written on 18.09.07
Continuing my trawl through TV time travel series that are either forgotten or deserve to be forgotten (or both), Anthony Horowitz’s ‘Crime Traveller’ was one of many quasi-sci-fi family dramas designed for the post-‘Casualty’ time slot in the decade and a half that the BBC decided to ignore the potential appeal of reviving ‘Doctor Who.’ As a time travel series with a fairly original premise and a Red Dwarf cast member it was destined to be something of a cult hit if nothing else, and that perhaps explains its eventual release on DVD a decade after 8 million regular viewers casually forgot about it and moved on.
These ambitious writer-creator projects are always worth checking out simply for the level of thought and enthusiasm that goes into them, but ‘Crime Traveller’ sadly failed in all areas to become the next ‘Jonathan Creek.’ The series is based on a similar, and fairly familiar premise: a male and female crime-solving team with professional differences and inevitable mutual attraction utilise unconventional methods to uncover the culprit. Except that while Jonathan Creek is interesting, funny and often ingeniously written, ‘Crime Traveller’ runs out of steam almost straight away by spending eight episodes insistently demonstrating Horowitz’s ‘definitive’ theory of time travel at a cost to the plot. All of the usual crime show clichés are involved and most of them are quite half-hearted, from stereotypical supporting characters and villains to convenient plot oversights and pointlessly extravagant stunts, including running across a railway line in front of a train, and driving a car through the wall of a high building and into a river, along with plenty of explosions. Each case is necessarily over-complicated just like in any Holmes or Creek mystery (bracing myself for abuse in daring to equate those two characters), and the real purpose of the show seems merely to demonstrate clever planning of each week’s time travel journey.
The two main characters are stereotypical police detective Jeff Slade, played by former ‘EastEnders’ star Michael French, and his friend the forensic scientist Holly Turner, played by Chloë Annett shortly after her role in the high profile ‘Red Dwarf VII.’ While there is a complete absence of chemistry between them as mentioned earlier, the characters are entertaining enough to watch in their own right and are written well to cooperate on the cases in different areas according to their specialties, Jeff most commonly going in for the action- or spy-oriented roles and cracking poor or tasteless jokes as Holly complains about her lousy lot in life and the demeaning tasks that she sees as beneath her, demonstrating considerable diversity from her usual roles (for those unfamiliar with Chloë’s role in Red Dwarf, this was a form of sarcasm). Michael French in particular seems poorly cast, smiling all the time and seeming quite aloof and detached rather than personally involved in the way everyone else manages, but there are some quite good supporting roles for Sue Johnston as Jeff’s bossy boss (shortly before her major role in ‘The Royle Family’) and a convincingly naïve graduate trainee played by Richard Dempsey, just one of the many child actors falsely predicted for greatness after starring roles in the BBC’ s classic ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ who went on to do little else on the stage or screen (Camilla Power was really good in them, though).
After the necessary introductory episode that sets up the time travel concept very nicely, each show forms a self-contained story in which the two crime fighters persuade each other to use their secret time machine for just one more jaunt (designed by Holly’s father, who became lost in time). It’s good to see a realistic sense of pressure on Holly’s activities with the machine, in terms of both her grave attitude towards it (compared to Jeff’s predictably carefree manner in one of many contrived contrasts between the two) and its debilitating financial toll in terms of costly equipment and electricity bills to her run-down apartment. While the machine is bound to be a bit of a visual letdown for viewers due to its basis in twentieth century styled technology, Holly’s explanation of the time travel principles is very interesting (if you’re the sort of person who finds that sort of thing interesting), and is consistent throughout the show’s brief run. The fundamental principles is that the past cannot be changed, not as a matter of Star Trek style morality but as a mere matter of physics; events that unfold for the characters during their trip in the past, which can be anything up to a day prior to the time they left but is often much shorter, have already occurred in the ‘real’ past, hence their job of investigation rather than crime prevention. This is demonstrated well in the second episode, when a number of seemingly inconsequential events occurring in the moments before the time machine’s activation are revealed to have been caused by Holly and Jeff in their frantic race back to the machine for the return trip, required to break the so-called ‘loop of infinity.’ I know, I know, I’m confusing myself and I just watched the damn thing. As a slightly less taxing example, Holly and Jeff pass two janitors whose faces are concealed in the first episode on their way to the machine, and later in that episode they end up posing as janitors and are forced to hide their faces from their past selves to prevent them being seen, thus completing the loop.... No, that was just more confusing wasn’t it?
‘Crime Traveller’ would probably work quite well as a novel, where time could be spent discussing the principles of time travel in more detail, though it would then be a lot harder to insert the nice incongruous background details without them seeming a little too uncanny on the printed page. Chloë Annett is well cast as the snooty but still irresistible scientist, even if her role is pretty much the one she played on Red Dwarf with a little more emotion, less crap jokes about cottage cheese, and a costume that isn’t made of PVC. Michael French is less impressive, his single permanent facial expression getting quite annoying as the episodes go on, but probably drew in a few mainstream fans who recognised him as whoever it was he played in EastEnders, a show far too mainstream for my eccentric/terrible tastes (delete as appropriate). There wasn’t an awful lot that could have been done if a second series had been commissioned unless the concept had been expanded dramatically, which more often than not results in these sort of shows spiralling up their own time tunnels.
I respect Horowitz’s idea and was intrigued to check out some more of his work, until I noticed that his other failed series was that really terrible ITV show ‘The Vanishing Man’ in which Neil Morrissey rode around invisible on a motorbike and did nothing else, at least that’s what I remember of it. He has done more successful things, like ‘Foyle’s War’ and many episodes of ‘Poirot,’ but he should perhaps be kept away from flimsy science fiction premises and has-been comedy actors for everyone’s sake.
One series of eight fifty-minute episodes was broadcast from 1st March to 19th April 1997 on BBC 1 (never repeated), and the complete series is now available on DVD from Amazon.co.uk priced £31.98.
Advantages: A second chance for Chloë Annett, and some interesting time travel theories.
Disadvantages: Could its basis in a weak pun title be any more obvious? Michael French is rubbish as well.
****
Written on 10.12.07 [2013–16 DW updates]
Continuing my backwards voyage with the various incarnations of the time-travelling Time Lord, this encounter with Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor takes us back to the black-and-white era, as the Doctor once again faces his most famous, most lethal and most resoundingly popular foes. Well, out of the robotic ones, that is. Alright, at least out of the ones with handlebars coming out of the sides of their heads.
While the less distinctive Cybermen are often, in plot terms, indistinguishable from the more well-known Daleks, thirsting for seemingly endless destruction, this cyborg race features the added horrific twist of taking their living victims and transforming them into emotionless Cybermen by placing their brains into a robotic body, succinctly expressed in their leader's statement, "you will be like us." Sort of exactly the same as would later be done with the Borg in 'Star Trek: The Next Generation,' right down to the race's imaginative name. And I guess the Daleks did something similar with the Robomen in their early episodes, but this is still slightly different.
While it's clear that the Cybermen will always be a low-rent substitute for Daleks in ratings-seeking Doctor Who recurring villain terms - Van Damme to the Daleks' Schwarzenegger if you will (though still higher up than the Master's Ralf Möller), this early instalment is among their most effective appearances, even if it's appearances that present one of the biggest drawbacks. It may seem a little nit-picky (yeah, as if scrutinising Doctor Who episodes wasn't already way beyond such a lightweight term), but contrary to the iconic and immortal design of the Daleks, the Cybermen seemed to change with every single outing, advancing slowly towards the design more-or-less standardised in the eighties (but still updated for the new series).
The Cybermen look and act like homogenous, unfeeling robots, but like less glitzy zombies their movements are all a little too clumsy and slow for them to be considered a serious threat outside of hugging distance. There's no trace of humanity apart from the shape and movement of the suits, and while still looking fairly primitive and tacky by modern standards, they've come a long way since looking really stupid only a year earlier in 'The Tenth Planet.' Their voices are convincingly mechanical in a late sixties way, provided by Peter Hawkins through what sounds like the type of artificial voice box my great-granddad used to have, but occasionally end up indecipherable unless the lines are spoken very slowly. Despite the drawbacks, the Cybermen do end up feeling like a serious threat in this episode, but rather a limited one at the same time; the most famous and dramatic scene of the frozen creatures' awakening, bursting free from their plastic cocoons and climbing down to confront their resurrectors, is weakened by the slight disappointment of there only being about ten of them.
The Doctor's random involvement with this story is, as usual, purely down to a twist of fate or arbitrary chance that consistently dumps the TARDIS into pivotal events of galactic importance, but the humans he meets on Telos above the Cybermen tomb know precisely what they're doing. The Doctor's motley entourage of an eighteenth-century Scotsman and nineteenth-century Victorian girl in what would be viewed amongst her contemporaries as a truly obscene skirt (it shows a bit of lower leg and everything, nice!) joins forces with the even more diverse team of fuddy-duddy English archaeologists, spaceship officers affecting embarrassing American accents, and the project's double-crossing financers who originate from one of those non-descript foreign countries that all bad people came from in 1960s television, all united in the desire to explore the last tomb of the Cybermen and learn its valuable secrets.
Quite why the Doctor doesn't attempt to stop them from pushing levers and opening hatchways before the inevitable happens by the finale of episode two seems like a bit of an oversight, but we have to forgive him for being a mere sapling of four-hundred-and-fifty years old at this point in the series, about half the age of the BBC's current Doctor. It goes without saying that the Cybermen are awoken from their sleep, this time through the intention of a deranged madman (and woman) who foolishly believe they can command the creatures to do their bidding, and the story turns into a tale for survival from the metal men and their bulky-brained controller in the tomb below, and the Cybermen's lethal robot caterpillars in the deceptive safety above.
Although the straightforward duplicity and predictable plot twists are quite crude by today's standards, this is still a high quality episode of early Doctor Who, and one of the relatively few serials from the Patrick Troughton years to survive intact after the BBC wiped much of its archive in the early seventies to save buying some new tapes, the idiots. The focus on logic brings out the Doctor's scientific side which is always nice to see, and when the purpose of the tests is revealed, it actually makes a lot of sense and adds to the story rather than seeing like a last-minute turnaround as employed by many later episodes. As for the accuracy of all that stuff the Doctor says about integers and things, it certainly sounds genuine, but could easily be technobabble. I'm not clever enough to know these things.
The characters are a little stupid - the baddies for believing they can control the Cybermen simply through their (non-existent) generosity, and the goodies for allowing the baddies to walk freely around the complex even after revealing their true colours, free to plot further schemes and pick up the ray gun that everyone seemed to forget they left lying around an episode or so earlier, but Professor Parry at least displays some commendable intelligence when updating his earlier and clearly foreboding plan of "let's split up" with a more cautious "safety in numbers, people."
What makes this episode a little less commendable four decades later are the rather distracting undercurrents of race and sex prejudice, harmless for the most part but a bit questionable in the characters' voiced decision to leave the women on the upper level out of presumed danger, guarded by Roy Stewart as the sole black character Toberman, who provides the muscle and nothing else (but does redeem himself by the end, though in a far too simplistic sacrificial manner of the sort that would be repeated by Star Trek's first black captain in the second Star Trek feature film). Even the Doctor's companion Jamie (Frazer Hines) utters some ludicrously stereotypical Scottish exclamations at one point, and although this is easily and intentionally attributed to the character's archaic origins, you'd need to have seen previous episodes to be aware of this. Watching this in isolation, he's just an amusingly inept Scotsman in a kilt.
Deborah Watling plays the Doctor's other companion Victoria, and brings the alluring cuteness of innocence that I always find the most agreeable with Doctor Who companions (I'm revealing far too much about my psychology here), paradoxically running around with a gun and playing the same bizarre and confusing game with my hormones as later companion Sarah Jane Smith in 'Pyramids of Mars,' when she strapped a rifle to a wedding dress. The story opens with Victoria's introduction to the TARDIS following on from the previous episode, and a pleasant, character-building scene later on fills in all that viewers need to know about what happened there.
Troughton himself is great as the energetic, aloof, whimsical and occasionally angry Doctor forced to contend with the idiots surrounding him, and he's one of the Doctors I'd enjoy seeing more of - if so many of his best shows hadn't been erased, of course. The guest cast is all quite good but is prone to overacting, and the minor presence of the spaceship captain and his lieutenant is enough to cast a cringe-worthy shadow with George Roubicek's appalling American accent, but one noticeable feature is the overly relaxed attitude towards mistakes. Actors fluff and stutter their lines quite noticeably, regulars and guest cast alike, particularly in the tomb scenes of episode two which may indicate time pressure on that particular shoot, and I actually found that this added a nice sense of history to the viewing experience, in the days before home video re-watching was a consideration. There's also a slightly annoying inconsistency as everyone has their own idea of how to pronounce "Cyberman."
'Tomb of the Cybermen' is a good classic episode of Doctor Who that's forgiven for being a little primitive for coming so early in the canon. The special effects are often laughable, from the use of reversed footage to save the crew filming similar scenes twice, to the most amusing instance where Toberman's hand-to-hand combat with a Cyberman leads him off-screen, only to return two seconds later to fling an obviously empty Cyberman suit at the far wall. The cybermats (robot caterpillar things) look quite bad but are scary enough en masse, and a final note should go to the composer of the excellent theme music used for the Cybermen here and in their previous episode 'Moonbase,' though it seems that rather than being an original composition for the series, it was simply ripped off from some other source. Sort of a metaphor I suppose, for the whole cybermen assimilation, um, thing... nah, forget it.
Advantages: One of the more memorable Cybermen stories, and a rare complete serial for Troughton.
Disadvantages: Suffers from its low budget, and displays questionable attitudes in hindsight.
**
Brian Hayles wrote several notable Doctor Who serials before his death in 1978, most famously introducing the Ice Warriors in the Patrick Troughton era. These reptilian Martians return in Hayles' 1972 story 'The Curse of Peladon,' in which they teach Jon Pertwee's Doctor a little humility as he learns not to act solely on his instincts, or to judge by appearances alone. This is a good thing, as one look at the ludicrously phallic, one-eyed hermaphrodite hexapod delegate from Alpha Centauri would surely have the scarecrow man rolling in hysterics.
This gathering of assorted odd-looking and unanimously green aliens is explained as a conference to judge the worthiness of planet Peladon to join the Galactic Federation, despite its rather primitive civilisation, and there is significant division in the royal ranks between those who support and oppose the endeavour. Arriving on Peladon by accident, and becoming stranded as the TARDIS plummets off the edge of mountain, the Doctor and his dolled-up companion Jo Grant are only to happy to play along as they are naturally mistaken for the Earth delegates, whose true arrival has been rather conveniently and mysteriously delayed.
It's another episode placing the Doctor and his companion in the centre of an important political conflict, and for the most part this slightly dull four-parter follows the familiar pattern. There's an insecure young King (played by David Troughton, son of Pertwee's predecessor) who relies on the counsel of his two opposing but collaboratively-bearded advisors, one of whom is killed to strengthen the validity of the other, slightly deranged and evil one. Peladon's conflict is based on the rising prominence of rational thought over old superstitions and beliefs, with progressive individuals such as the late King and the new King's closest friend Torbis (Henry Gilbert) pushing forward for this galactic union, and others led by Hepesh (Geoffrey Toone) fearing the destruction of their culture and values that advanced technology would bring. It's an old story and could easily have been made into a more obvious metaphor for real-world concerns, such as Native Americans opening casinos on their holy land or whatever, but Hayles prefers to keep it self-contained. It's not often that Doctor Who was written with any specific political agenda in mind, unlike Star Trek, so it's a shame this rare opportunity wasn't embraced here.
The moral crisis is played out reasonably well, particularly in the confrontation between the Doctor and Hepesh in the third episode, and it's interesting to see just how far this effective villain of the piece will go to preserve his culture. From the viewer's perspective, it's a little irritating and unbelievable that Hepesh wasn't revealed as the culprit until the start of the final part, but there are a couple of fairly satisfying twists involving the alien delegates, the highlight being the sabotage of the robotic Arcturus that brings out underlying racial tensions and nicely places the Doctor as the logical chief suspect. Outside of this, the whole thing seems a little too stretched and repetitive as a four-part story of almost two hours in length, with some plot points such as the burgeoning romance between the besotted King and Jo, and the Doctor's fight to the death with Grun feeling like pointless distractions to spice up the political drama. But this was still an early stage of Doctor Who, comparatively speaking, and although everyone involved knew exactly how to pull off episodes like this by now, they hadn't quite got the knack of how to make them really fun.
Although he's one of the faces I've always most associated with the role, I've never been particularly fond of Pertwee's Doctor in comparison to most of his predecessors and successors, but anyone who enjoys this incarnation's bizarre and slightly unconvincing mix of aloof grandfatherly compassion, gobbledygook technobabble and kung fu fighting should find plenty to satisfy them here, and thankfully in restricted and relevant doses. The Third Doctor certainly has a strong and commanding presence required of the role (and lacking in some of the later, younger incarnations), but generally gives off a stuffy and pompous air that I don't enjoy as much as the eccentricity of Patrick Troughton, the mania of Tom Baker or the jollity of Sylvester McCoy. It's enjoyable watching him feign confidence and knowledge when introduced as the Earth ambassador, bluffing his way through for the most part with only a hint of insecurity added by Pertwee through necessity before bluntly asking if he can be taken through the situation in more detail, please, but the rest of the episode sees the Doctor quite sombrely exploring tunnels, taming wild beasts and reporting back to his companion. A few lines of funny dialogue wouldn't have gone amiss, and his relationship with Jo is far from one of the most interesting the series has offered; it obviously lacks the sexual tension of the recent series (that would just be plain weird - he only gets as far as tugging on her cheek), and Katy Manning herself is distinctly average in her portrayal of another in a long line of well-spoken, pretty young women to ride chastely alongside the Doctor through time and space. An advantage of her relative naivety as an everywoman, as opposed to an alien or scientist, means that the Doctor is permitted to explain things like the Ice Warriors to her for the benefit of new viewers.
However thoughtful and historically relevant its aim, 'The Curse of Peladon' (and indeed, its eventual sequel 'The Monster of Peladon') will always be remembered best, or worst, for its alarming alien creations. The inhabitants of Peladon themselves appear essentially identical to humans, with only a brown streak along the centre of their hair denoting otherwise, but the planet is also host to a near-extinct species of horned monster passed off as the incarnation of Aggedor, represented by statues that resemble 1980s children's sitcom alien 'Alf.' The monster suit is glimpsed only briefly in the first few parts before being presented a little over-zealously in the finale, and while there's never any doubt that there's an athletic man inside the suit, it stands up well several decades later and isn't much different from monster suits still routinely used in sci-fi and fantasy productions today. Less acceptable is the ludicrous creation that is Alpha Centauri, an irritating, shrill-voiced, green phallus in a gold cape with one huge eye that doesn't blink all the way, and six arms of which only two appear to be functional... for some reason. Alpha Centauri is without a doubt one of the most ridiculous creations ever devised for the programme (particularly as the humour was clearly unintentional), and acts as a prime example of the BBC's 1970s effects and budget failing dramatically to live up to what must have been an intriguing and promising character sketch. The Arcturus delegate isn't much better, a small puppet bearing a permanently shocked expression (and a face that looks like Ren from 'Ren & Stimpy'), but the bubbling and condensing water effects are pretty good.
The Ice Warriors come off a lot better, even if I was left unsure as to whether their scaly suits were supposed to be armour or genuine hide, and their struggled, hissing breathing is distracting in a good way, helping them to seem more genuinely alien. The miniature model of Peladon's castle is only glimpsed briefly at the start, unlike the disappointing tiny TARDIS that materialises below it, but for the most part this episode is free of special effects, relying more on its Medieval setting and traditional weapons. One distraction I couldn't shake off across the episodes was the lack of any real civilisation being seen on Peladon, outside of the cramped castle and its handful of guards. This episode would have benefitted greatly from drafting in a few more background extras or even creating more significant roles to expand the credibility of this isolated fortress in the middle of nowhere, though it's possible this was due to budget limitations; it would be interesting to learn whether Gordon St. Clair, who played the King's Champion, was paid as much as the speaking cast for his comical closed-mouth mumblings as the 'mute' Grun.
This Third Doctor serial is so far unreleased on individual DVD or as part of any 'most ridiculous alien creatures' box-set, but it makes for a reasonably enjoyable stand-alone story for Pertwee, Jo Grant or Ice Warrior fans, without any alienating references to past stories or larger continuity issues to deter newcomers, aside from a brief bit of inconsequential theorising from the Doctor at the end as to the true nature of their arrival. I was glad to see some apparent inconsistencies and oversights being cleared up by the end, particularly involving the weirdly overdue Earth delegate whose arrival would have spelled trouble for the time travelling duo, but all the same this isn't an episode I'd recommend to casual viewers as either an introduction to classic Doctor Who or even an arbitrary insight into the Pertwee years, as there are substantially more representative serials out there, with or without shrieking oversized phalluses in capes.
Advantages: Thoughtful arguments of cultural preservation and judgemental attitudes.
Disadvantages: Overlong, a little dull, and some really stupid looking aliens.
****
Written on 24.08.07
Originally screened from October to November 1975, Robert Holmes’ ‘Pyramids of Mars,’ based on an earlier draft by Lewis Griefer, is often regarded as one of the finest episodes in the entire long-running series. Featuring just about everything that made Doctor Who so enjoyable, with the exception of the humour, which is necessarily absent in this dark tale, this four-parter is easily the most action-packed and finely plotted that I’ve seen, intelligently crafting a link between Egyptian mythology and ancient extraterrestrials years before shows such as Stargate popularised the wacky theory, and thus allowing for great sets, ancient riddles, unstoppable robot mummies and an ultimate villain (implicitly the real-life Satan) whose lust for evil and total destruction surpasses even that of Dalek creator Davros, introduced the previous year.
As always, the opening part has the task of setting up the situation and contriving a reason for the Doctor to become involved at all, and this episode acts as a perfect example of how to do that right. After an atmospheric introduction in an Egyptian tomb, which raises questions that will be answered over the next half hour, the Doctor (Tom Baker) and his companion Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) are seen flying through space-time towards a rendezvous with UNIT on Sarah’s present-day Earth that will inevitably be delayed by the upcoming events. The TARDIS experiences unexplained turbulence and Sarah screams at a ghastly demonic apparition that she feels is ‘totally malevolent,’ causing the Doctor to trace the disturbance to its source, which turns out to be an English country estate in 1911. Snooping around the premises, the pair soon discover an imminent plot to free an ancient evil from thousands of years of entombment, threatening both the present and the future of the universe with one of the greatest dangers the Doctor has ever encountered.
Doctor Who is well remembered for its ability to scare, receiving as much criticism as it did praise for scaring children and adults alike, and this episode is among the most successful. The animated mummies are terrifyingly efficient as they walk slowly but directly towards their intended victims in broad daylight, but the major concern comes with the Doctor, whose usual jovial and care-free demeanour is replaced with one of concern and cold practicality as soon as he realises the threat posed by Sutekh. It’s interesting and refreshing to see Tom Baker play the role with such seriousness after the clowning around he is more famous for, and the character is placed in serious danger as he becomes personally involved towards the end. His response to Sarah’s criticism that he should mourn the four men who have died is a simple and logical reasoning that he has to concentrate on the bigger picture of death on a planetary or galactic scale, making this one of the more thoughtful episodes also.
Elisabeth Sladen is also excellent here, now seeming completely at ease in the role and really looking the part in a white wedding dress, armed with a rifle. It’s a curious sight that I was happy to take away from the episode. The strong supporting cast adds further weight and believability to this tale, and whatever the viewer’s personal attitude towards Gabriel Woolf’s gloating and maniacal take on Sutekh, it’s great to see an enemy who could seriously beat the Doctor, provided he wasn’t so easily distracted. His justification for evil is chilling, simply claiming to ‘find it good,’ and although the Doctor’s ultimate triumph is a little disappointing for coming right out of left-field, the story at least makes logical sense from start to finish.
As well as terrifying children, ‘Pyramids of Mars’ similarly lives up to the tradition of dodgy special effects, though for the most part these are limited in scope. The main effect of the sarcophagus time portal is simply a tunnel of flashing multi-coloured lights, its main problem being that the on-screen journey lasts for far too long and the prop work is a little shaky. The manor house and the surrounding grounds look excellent, but the scenes inside the Martian pyramid are less convincing, as are the Styrofoam Egyptian artefacts that the actors try their best to bestow the illusion of weight upon. The robot mummies look good, and satisfyingly alien, and it’s amusing to watch each actor interpret the role differently, either wobbling from side to side or making stereotypical robotic arm movements, and their presence keeps the action quotient high in the early parts as well as the dramatic ending. The final part is the most exciting, as usual for these serials, and plays out like an episode of the Crystal Maze (although the Doctor would insist that it’s Ancient Egyptian logic puzzles), rounding off this excellent romp.
‘Pyramids of Mars’ is one of the better Doctor Who serials I’ve seen, well written to remain entertaining with hardly any of the slips in quality or excitement that usually afflict these four-parters. The Doctor and Sarah make a great partnership now that she’s fully integrated into his ways and mannerisms, even taking some on herself, and it finally allowed me to see why her character is so popular among fans. Add to that the memorable performances from Michael Sheard as the grief-stricken, ill-fated Laurence Scarman, Bernard Archard as his zombified brother and Gabriel Woolf as the riotous villain, and just about everything is as good as it could be in this serial, which is a bit of a shame as it’s always enjoyable to poke fun at the dodgy old series. The DVD still bears a surprising ‘U’ certificate despite the potential nightmare-inducing scenes, and features the usual high quality special features such as an audio commentary with several cast members, a behind-the-scenes retrospective entitled ‘Osirian Gothic,’ deleted scenes and a fan parody ‘Oh Mummy’ in which Woolf was somehow convinced to reprise his villainous role. Fans of the new series who are interested in checking out the older episodes would do well to start here, or alternatively with one of the more humorous Baker stories such as ‘City of Death.’
Advantages: High adventure with robot mummies let loose in an English country manor.
Disadvantages: Slightly disappointing ending, and Sutekh's future potential lost.
***
Written on 30.07.07
This claustrophobic four-part story opened Tom Baker’s fourth year as the Fourth Doctor, and takes place in the gloomy environment of an early twentieth century lighthouse on the South coast of England, in the supposedly haunted area of Fang Rock. Written by Terrance Dicks, long-serving script editor and writer of the first Tom Baker episode ‘Robot,’ this is another of many episodes that place the Doctor in the role of detective hunting down an evil alien threat amidst an ensemble of clueless, antiquated and ultimately expendable humans.
The Fourth Doctor is accompanied by Leela, the attractive savage who invited herself aboard the TARDIS a number of episodes earlier and caught the attention of some viewers with her aggressive demeanour and tight leather outfits. Leela has evidently mellowed between series, still jumping at the chance to die in glorious combat with a superior enemy when it arises, but mostly content to accompany the Doctor to Brighton and don a more respectable woolly jumper, though her tribal instincts still seem to prevent her from wearing a bra (or did I imagine it?)
The self-contained story is fairly formulaic as both a Doctor Who adventure and a murder mystery, with a sinister opening carried solely by the impressive guest cast as weird and inexplicable things start to happen on Fang Rock, before the Doctor comes onto the scene by random chance and sets himself up as chief investigator (claiming that although he isn’t in charge, he is ‘full of ideas’). The reliance on cliff-hanger endings for the first three parts could be seen as a rather desperate shock tactic to maintain interest, particularly as the crashing yacht in the first comes out of nowhere, and even more so the deaths of characters one-by-one, but the majority of the supporting characters are so well developed that their deaths (that may or may not occur, I wouldn’t want to spoil things) are far more genuinely shocking than those of stuntmen or background characters in more wide-reaching episodes. The exception has to be the shrieking secretary Adelaide Lessage, whose well-spoken lady-in-distress feels fully deserving of her ultimate fate, especially when compared to the lovable, hard-working Yorkshiremen who tend to the lighthouse every day and night without being permitted a single drop of alcohol.
Every episode belongs thoroughly to the Doctor, it is his show after all, but the domineering attitude of both the character and the increasingly eccentric actor is rarely more prominent than in this serial. As always, Tom Baker’s Doctor seems to operate on a different plane to everyone around him, gleefully taunting a dangerous alien with no apparent thought for his own safety and clearly regarding the scurrying humans around him as naive and inferior, flippantly commenting on galactic situations of which they have no knowledge, and generally behaving inappropriately in pursuit of his own entertainment, such as suddenly leaping to his feet mid-conversation and emphatically declaring that he hasn’t been formally introduced to the people he is talking to. Nevertheless, Baker provides a few rare glimpses of a more human side to the Doctor when he discovers the first corpse, and when he is genuinely concerned for Leela’s safety at the conclusion.
Like Leela, whose warrior background, it is explained, has given her a relaxed attitude towards death, it’s a little disturbing to see them both sharing jokes and laughing almost immediately after an innocent person has lost their life. It’s much like the closing scenes of many old Star Trek episodes, where Kirk and McCoy would make a racist joke against Spock and the three of them would smile as their starship left orbit of the planet whose society and belief system they had decimated. Leela herself stands out well despite the Doctor’s prominence, her savage background being mentioned several times but absent from the opening part where she seems merely to be the Doctor’s latest brunette in a loose fitting jumper. She easily has the most amusing lines, instructing the squabbling survivors that they will listen to the Doctor’s instructions or else she shall rip out their hearts, and administering some satisfying face slaps to the bawling secretary. Louise Jameson carries out the whole performance in an irritated dead-pan manner that works excellently in marking her out as separate from the human characters and closer to the Doctor’s spectral level, and seems only to benefit from the allegedly aloof and intimidating behaviour of Tom Baker on set, particularly in this story. Although the character isn’t at her most impressive here, the scenes she shares with the Doctor make it clear that alien companions had a lot more to offer than humdrum humans, and her clear independence, despite a strong belief in all of the Doctor’s actions, leads to a very nice final scene.
The Victorian lighthouse setting certainly makes this episode stand out in the vast Doctor Who canon, not least in terms of appearance, as the darkly lit lighthouse interior is completely convincing, particularly the curved stairway and the sense of characters grouped above and below each other inside the structure. Even the exteriors are believable enough, and it’s only in the final shot of the TARDIS disappearing that the scene is revealed, quite clearly, to be a miniature. The special effects are much the same as always, based largely on lighting and flame effects bringing to life the not-quite-believable Rutan ship, and the final monster reveal, which occurs as early as episode two, will only be truly shocking to someone who has never seen the series before. The Rutan in its true form is really quite disgusting, aided by reflective lighting, and its ascent up the spiral staircase is equally scary and amusing (one-nil against the Daleks then, ha ha. Except that this joke doesn’t work as Daleks can climb stairs easily, despite the persistent insistence of lazy stand-ups).
‘Horror of Fang Rock’ is a relatively slow and confined Doctor Who story and is far from unique in its survival and mystery elements, but what matters is its success as a science fiction horror story. Although the Rutan is exposed far too early in the plot, the initial evidence of electrocution and missing bodies is an exciting set-up, and this focus on electricity itself fits perfectly into the historical period of the piece, following an earlier discussion between the young apprentice and the mouldier, older lighthouse keeper on the merits or drawbacks of this new power source over traditional oil lamps. It’s nice to have the human element to balance out the non-human regulars (or at least, not in the traditional sense), even if this leads to repetitive criticism of humanity’s narrow-mindedness, but most of all it’s great to see the Doctor’s skill as a technician (pronounced ‘tesh-nician’ by Leela, a quick but fallible learner) figuring largely in the plot. Tom Baker effectively conveys the Doctor’s sense of nostalgic wonder at these early days of electricity, and it’s moments like these that make his penchant for endless time travels in an unreliable craft easier to understand.
Advantages: Interesting setting, and a great supporting cast.
Disadvantages: Predictable and long-winded suspense story.
****
Written on 26.11.07
As one of the relatively few stories written by the late, great Douglas Adams outside of his own Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, this otherwise rather obscure instalment of Tom Baker's fifth year as the Doctor retrospectively acquires new importance and value, while also running the risk of being dangerously over-rated for Adams' presence alone. Adams would write for the show on two more occasions, jointly with Graham Williams for the celebrated 'City of Death' and going solo one finale time with the distinctly odd 'Shada,' which bears the unfortunate distinction of being the only episode halted half-way through filming due to a BBC strike, and was thus never completed. As the only completed episode written entirely by the young Douglas Adams, does 'The Pirate Planet' represent a true bridge between the established universe of Doctor Who and the burgeoning Whole Sort of General Mish Mash of the 'Hitchhiker's Guide?'
The answer is: no, not really. While it's noticeably more humorous, satirical and ludicrously bizarre than the average Doctor Who episode of the time, this still slots comfortably into one of the series' long-established sub-genres, that of a crazed megalomaniac hopping around the universe, destroying worlds in pursuit of personal gain. In this instance, the villain is an anonymous Captain (played by Bruce Purchase) whose vessel oddly seems grafted to a mountain above a vast mine complex on planet Zanak. As the Doctor (Tom Baker) and his companion Romana (Mary Tamm) arrive on this oddly populated world that they believed would be the uninhabited Calufrax, in search of a lost artefact forming part of the legendary Key to Time, their investigation into the apparent disappearance of Calufrax leads to the astonishing revelation that Zanak (the whole darn planet) is in fact a gigantic hollow spaceship that materialises around the outside of mineral-rich worlds and drains them of their wealth, regardless of the destruction to native life. Needless to say, the Doctor isn't too happy about this dastardly plot of planet plundering, and applies his usual skills of diplomacy, care-free carelessness and an unwavering belief in his own invincibility to stroll up the mountainside and have a gnatter with the shouty Captain.
As I'm a fan of Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide series (as is probably pretty obvious from my nerdy and alienating in-jokes), I did enjoy this serial more than a fan of Doctor Who's more sombre and serious side might do, but distinct authorial touches are very few. The aspect of this script that struck me the most (you'll notice I'm referring to the scripted dialogue itself, rather than its ultimate realisation on-screen, which is another matter entirely) is its inability to take itself seriously, something that will likely impede enjoyment for less open-minded viewers. Adams seems determined to deconstruct all of the clichés of science fiction and Doctor Who in particular, from incompetent guards to gloating arch-villains and stupid technology, to the ultimate cheesy revelation that the tyrant's next target is a heavily-populated, blue-green planet in the Sol system...
That's not to say that this is expressly written as a comedy episode, but the self-parodying undercurrent restricts it from ever being too convincingly dramatic, apart from select key scenes. The most vocal villain of the piece, the roaring captain in command of the titular 'Pirate Planet,' couldn't look more like a space-age pirate if he tried; his ridiculous get-up including a shiny plastic eye patch, a metallic 'hook' arm and even a robot weapon effectively functioning as a parrot, sitting on his shoulder. But for all this silliness, Adams' script rewards patient science fiction fans with a whole host of original and ingenious concepts that came close to blowing my mind, ideas layered around each other with such skill that it doesn't even seem to matter that the twists revealed in the fourth episode don't really line up to what we've been watching for the previous three weeks. This is partly due to Bruce Purchase's distinctly one-dimensional performance of the apparently subtle Captain, whose bawling, pig-headed performance is deduced by Romana to be a mere act to fool the real enemy of the piece, but hearing Purchase's unwavering, irritating yell persist for four episodes regardless of his mood, I couldn't help feeling that the performers weren't exactly up to speed with the plot or its intended effects. Unfortunately, the general disappointing quality of acting all-round (apart from the inimitable Baker of course, who even gets a great angry scene in episode two), highlights more of a problem than a mere instance of actors ruining a tongue-in-cheek story by playing it too straight.
With the over-arching search for the Key to Time providing a loose foundation for these 1978-79 episodes, the plot avoids the usual problem of the TARDIS arriving at these alien worlds seemingly at random, though for all Adams' valiant attempts towards the end, the larger quest doesn't really play any part in the development of the story, something that is obviously to its benefit when viewed independently like this (though the entire Key to Time season of the show has been released as a larger box-set for completists). The other distinguishing feature of this season is the presence of Mary Tamm's Romana, unfortunately doomed to be forever viewed as the more annoying but more attractive Romana after Lalla Ward took over the role for the next couple of years, but her nature as a fellow Time Lord as opposed to yet another wide-eyed, stupid human companion makes for some nice and very different banter with the Doctor as she pits her by-the-book academic training against his seasoned experience, and unexpectedly scores a small victory. Romana may be irritating, but it feels like a necessary irritation at this point, especially as this is only her second outing, though it has to be said that Mary Tamm doesn't exactly put in a stellar effort to add depth to her character beyond her overly made-up, smug exterior.
The Mentiad dissidents are one of the weakest links of the story, a home-grown resistance movement that is set up rather nicely, but ends up seeming like nothing more than a troupe of zombie goths in orange robes, whose final, pivotal scenes again border on self-parody at an inappropriately dramatic moment. The Captain's overly loyal, Smithers-like assistant Mr. Fibuli is also a very nice character, and Andrew Robertson's performance is fine if not particularly enlightening, but in the end he is a little under-used. The less said about the bland performances of the Zanak natives the better, though Adams does write a fairly substantial role along with some nice, family-friendly witticisms for the easily overlooked K-9 - it's just a shame he had to include the ridiculous face-off between the Doctor's robot dog and the Captain's robot parrot, which makes for the low point of the episode in many respects.
In visual terms, this is a pretty nice-looking episode that never comes off looking too cheap, with refreshing outdoor footage in some hills that nevertheless fails to gel with the studio 'outdoor' scenes and that also features some dodgy-looking alien technology sticking clumsily out of a hillside. Still, the Captain's ship interiors all look pretty good, and a touch of realism is added through location filming at what looks like a real mine, and what's probably a water pumping station of the kind used in every episode of 'Red Dwarf' ever. However much you may dislike the idea of the space pirate Captain, he does look undeniably cool if a tad goofy, sort of a Saxon cyborg with hints of Lego Technic, and the flying Aircars end up looking as acceptable and convincing as they were ever going to be in seventies BBC serial. The only really lousy effect is the over-zealous camera shaking as Zanak dematerialises, which may even last long enough to induce sea sickness or epilepsy.
'The Pirate Planet' is a flawed and strange episode that's a far cry from a classic, but is certainly recommended viewing for anyone who enjoys the more light-hearted side of the show. The subtle comedy and elaborate science fiction concepts balance out evenly, despite failing to really reconcile in the end, and the lack of consistency may be partially due to the re-writes and significant editing applied to Adams' original, incomprehensible script by script editor Anthony Read, a job Adams himself would take over the following year, just in time to insert more gratuitous Hitchhiker's references into random scenes. Tom Baker sports a slightly distracting cut lip throughout this episode, which the producers in their wisdom attempt to explain with a brief stumbling scene early on that's silly but fun, and Baker really lets rip with an impressive emotional range when confronted with the insanity and genius of the Captain's trophy room of compressed planets, declaring, "the concept is simply staggering. Pointless, but staggering." A little like this oddball story, which I couldn't help but enjoy immensely.
Advantages: Douglas Adams' deconstructive debut, featuring a cyborg pirate and his impossible spaceship.
Disadvantages: Distractingly lousy acting and plot inconsistency that won't stand up to repeated viewings.
**
Written on 15.08.06
Tom Baker’s increasingly eccentric fourth Doctor faces the Daleks and their megalomaniacal creator again in this sequel to the classic origin story, ‘Genesis of the Daleks.’ While Davros and his race in the earlier episode were very consciously portrayed as Nazis, and the Daleks thus infinitely worse creatures of evil by extension, ‘Destiny of the Daleks’ sees the pepper pots of the present-day locked in an intergalactic Cold War with another robotic race, both delaying their attack for the time of maximum opportunity that never arrives. This was the last episode penned by Dalek creator Terry Nation.
‘Genesis’ was one of the most popular Who serials, and the next appearance of the ever-popular Daleks had a lot to live up to (especially from the type of people that would call the show ‘Who.’) At four parts, the action is less stretched than the six-part predecessor and there are some nice plot twists, but on the whole it's pretty pointless, the Tardis only arriving on Skaro in the first place due to its 'randomiser' function.
Lalla Ward is introduced as the Doctor’s regenerated assistant Romana, and despite a shaky start she would go on to become one of his most interesting companions, certainly my favourite of the ones I’ve seen, despite the commendable tendency of others to display more skin. Romana’s cosmetic regeneration scene is played for laughs, but the comic timing feels a little uncomfortably off, though it might have just been Tom Baker’s eyes having that effect on me. Ward can still play the screeching damsel-in-distress role essential to the series when required, but her shared background with the Doctor allows for more comfortable banter than was ever really possible with bumbling humans.
Following the regeneration frolics comes a brief scene that establishes the Doctor’s technical ingenuity, which will play a larger role later, and provides the rather contrived reason for K-9’s prop handlers avoiding the unpleasant rocky terrain of Skaro (the dog has some kind of cyber-laryngitis and has to stay in robo-bed). These early scenes may reflect the touch of ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ author Douglas Adams, who even slips in a brief reference to his series when the immobile Doctor reads a book by the fictional Oolon Colluphid. The first part of the serial is the least action-packed, allowing the audience to become accustomed to the new character interaction before a wall falls on Tom Baker and the plot starts to pick up.
Davros’ unveiling is saved for the cliffhanger of the second part, but the scenes that follow are all quite disappointing. David Gooderson lacks the insane delivery of his definitive predecessor Michael Wisher, and to make matters worse, Davros’ wrinkly mask looks false and rubbery, and is being visibly stretched to fit the larger actor’s face. The mothballed scientist is ridiculed and patronised right from the onset as the Doctor offers him a jelly baby; it’s hard to take the character seriously after that. The story constructs a nice parallel between the two adversaries as it draws to a conclusion, not in the league of Luke/Vader or Crichton/Scorpius (I’ve watched too much sci-fi) and sadly lacking the intensity of their first encounter in ‘Genesis,’ most memorably Davros’ enthusiastic daydream of an ultimate virus that would wipe out all life and thus make him a god. Most offensive of all is the farcical ‘robbery of Davros’ scene, overlaid with a ridiculous fun-fair style musical score that makes it seem as if the characters are riding a Davros-faced roller coaster around cheap BBC sets.
It’s disappointing to see the formerly rebellious and independent Daleks crawling back to their creator, a trend that would sadly continue for the rest of the show’s run. Far from the fallible but ruthlessly effective aliens of the earlier years, the Daleks are portrayed here like lost children, desperately seeking the help of their creator to help them win a war and backing off at the slightest hint of a threat. This leads to an enjoyable scene where the Doctor acts the part of a terrorist and straps a bomb to Davros’ wheelchair, barking commands at the Daleks to back away which they reluctantly follow.
Apart from introducing the new Romana and re-introducing Davros to the universe, this episode lacks the epic scale that viewers may have expected. As with most late Tom Baker episodes (especially the excellent ‘City of Death’), there’s a general light-heartedness brought about by the Doctor’s eccentric behaviour and general care-free attitude, almost as if he knows it’s just a TV show, and all the silver-haired extraterrestrial men and women merely players. He dares to taunt a Dalek on the level below with the legendary ‘stairs’ joke that continues to provide material for lazy stand-up comedians, and his ultimate method of escape appears brilliantly improvised, despite being the final nail in the coffin for the Daleks’ scare factor. Even Dalek plungers are seen to have a real use here, attracting metal objects and handing them to Davros. That’s right, not plumbing like Eddie Izzard so wittily imagined. Most humorous of all is a scene where three distinct Daleks voices chant ‘Obey!’ in turn, as one sounds a lot like Zippy from Rainbow.
The series’ oft-criticised special effects hold their own in this episode through their understatement, restricted to blue beams for the Dalek ray guns and some shots of the model Movellan ship landing and hardly shaking at all. The interior of the alien ship appears to be a simple re-dress of the Tardis set, while the ruined interior of the Kaled city from ‘Genesis’ provides an effective contrast to the many exterior scenes that were probably filmed in some quarry or other. The Daleks are a little more colourful than usual, although not to the extent of the earlier Peter Cushing films, and despite the Movellans’ low budget white suits, dark make-up and silver braided wigs, their appearance doesn’t lend itself to instant laughter in the way the Swampmen did two episodes earlier. The only make-up embarrassment is the afore-mentioned Davros, who looks like a melting old woman. It's probably not so bad if the viewer hasn’t seen the character before.
‘Destiny of the Daleks’ is a mediocre Dalek story that can be better appreciated in light of its highly contemporary Cold War parallels. Tim Barlow plays the role of an escaped human prisoner far better than the supporting cast of ‘Genesis of the Daleks’ managed, unhindered by the actor’s deafness. There’s also the throwaway introduction of a new, prominent alien race that would never be seen again, and Daleks who are less scary than ever, who allow Romana to live so she can shift some rocks. The ending of the episode at least invites speculation over what will happen next to the increasingly wussy Daleks.
With the possible exception of entertaining quips like the Doctor’s “if you’re supposed to be the superior creatures of the universe, why don’t you climb up after us?”, there’s nothing legendary in this episode comparable to the powerful “do I have the right?” hesitation of 'Genesis,' resulting in a sequel that is a bland let-down at worst, and a bit of Dalek fun with some funny dialogue at best. Baker's entertaining delivery even renders the Doctor's ludicrous warfare analogy of 'rock, paper, scissors' forgivable, even though it consumes more of the plot than necessary and makes no sense whatsoever.
Advantages: Good dialogue, great outdoor scenes and Tom Baker at his manic best.
Disadvantages: Too many plot holes, and a disappointing return for the series' most popular villains.
**
Written on 17.08.07
The BBC’s twentieth anniversary special for Doctor Who was the second in a line of occasional stories to feature multiple incarnations of the titular character as played by (for the most part) the original actors, and is certainly the most crowded. Taking place by chance in Peter Davison’s tenure as the well-mannered, cricket jersey clad Fifth Doctor, writer Terrence Dicks attempts to craft a meaningful plot to intelligently contrive a reason for five Doctors, five of their companions and a whole host of famous enemies to appear together on-screen as the BBC had decreed. Understandably, and perhaps inevitably, the result is less than cosmic.
‘The Five Doctors’ is fundamentally a guilt-free celebration of the programme’s illustrious history, which had aired uninterrupted at this point, and an opportunity for self-indulgence. Unlikely crossovers such as this are usually relegated to the realms of speculative fan fiction, so when a long-running franchise takes such a masturbatory leap, the highly anticipated result (‘Alien vs. Predator,’ Kirk and Picard in ‘Star Trek Generations’) is bound to be a let-down. To its credit, this episode, like many of the more forgettable Doctor Who stories, doesn’t take itself too seriously, despite Dicks’ revelations regarding the history of Gallifrey, the home planet of the Doctor and his race of Time Lords. There are also a couple of unavoidable casting issues that the story has to contend with, most glaringly the absence of the Fourth Doctor from the action due to actor Tom Baker declining to return so soon after leaving the show, and the necessary replacement of the late William Hartnell by another actor portraying his First Doctor, namely Richard Hurndall. Many of the Doctor’s companions from all incarnations are brought back just for the sake of it, with others (especially those unique to the Tom Baker years) being absent. This leaves Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee as the only bona fide original Doctors to play alongside Davison.
As a fan of the Baker era primarily, most episodes I’ve seen being from that period, I was understandably disappointed with the lack of the Fourth Doctor or his companions in this story, leaving me without a clear point of reference. This Doctor and his companion Romana do appear very briefly in an early scene, rowing down a river and having a natter in a sequence from the un-broadcast 1979 episode ‘Shada,’ but the weakest of explanations is provided for their absence from the main plot; the reason seems to be something along the lines of the time scoop malfunctioning for some reason, causing the shadowy figure responsible to slam his fist on the equipment in frustration, and for the Fourth Doctor’s limbo state to be squeezed desperately into a few lines of dialogue concerning the danger it poses for Doctor number five. Or something like that. More amusing is the promotional photo-shoot that saw this episode’s Four Doctors (Hurndall, Troughton, Pertwee and Davison) posing around the wax dummy of the Fourth Doctor borrowed from Tussaud’s Doctor Who exhibit.
The premise of ‘The Five Doctors’ is that someone or something has scooped (or attempted to scoop) each of the Doctor’s incarnations from different points in space and time, as well as a select few of their companions. They have all been deposited in different parts of a grim region that they all soon realise is the infamous Death Zone on Gallifrey, their only hope of returning home or getting to the bottom of all this being a treacherous journey to the fabled Tomb of Rassilon. Each of the Doctors, and those they travel with, are initially dumped in random parts of the wasteland, meeting up at different times and opting to take different routes to the imposing tower, each littered with their old enemies. The presence of bumbling Cybermen, a token Dalek and even a Yeti for the hardcore fans all seem quite arbitrary to the larger plot, and are clearly just a chance to pay homage. More interesting is Anthony Ainley as the Master, a pantomime-like villain whom the Third Doctor even describes as ‘my best enemy,’ but who is at least integral to the mission, and whose mischievous nature keeps the viewer guessing throughout. The Time Lords also feature prominently as expected, allowing for further exploration of their government and society.
The main reason this episode fails is due to the weak and almost childish plot, full of illogical holes once the final twists are over and done with, and amounting to little more than a dungeon adventure with repetitive and incompetent adversaries. The Doctors themselves hold their own, each seeming true to their era of the series from Hurndall’s imitation of Hartnell’s kindly old man to Pertwee’s action hero and Davison’s thoughtful pacifist, but none of the companions does anything other than act moronic and gullible, even those with more experience like Sarah Jane Smith. The First Doctor’s granddaughter Susan is the worst offender, inexplicably showing up nineteen years on from her last appearance and then spraining her ankle so she has to remain behind in the TARDIS for the duration. There are a few scenes that work well, particularly Pertwee and Sarah’s confrontation with a new enemy in the form of the sinister lightning-quick Raston Warrior Robot (which may look stupid, but felt like a serious threat), and the antagonistic dialogue between Pertwee and Troughton’s Doctors, who presumably crossed swords in the earlier ‘The Three Doctors’ but don’t get enough scenes here to amount to anything more than an amusing couple of insults. The rest of the banter between Doctors is truly awful and even cringe-worthy in places, the relentless gags and puns along the lines of ‘be you later’ (they don’t actually use this one, but they’re all just as bad) making for a very weak reunion scene. There’s even a use of the ‘Doctor’/’Who?’ joke.
There’s a conflict of interests here, between this story standing alone as a tribute episode and being part of the 1983 season, as the new viewer is dropped into the Fifth Doctor’s situation with no idea who his companions are, or even, as was the case when I watched it, whether the bloke sitting on the grass getting high on ions was just a random native of whichever Earth-like planet the TARDIS had landed on this time, or a regular character. Much of this story takes place outdoors, and thankfully the quality of the camerawork has improved since the Tom Baker era to the point that location shooting isn’t noticeably worse than the results achieved in a studio (think of the drop in picture quality whenever Basil Fawlty went outside his hotel). Unfortunately, the alien vistas aren’t particularly convincing as anything other than rural England, the Death Zone itself being a fairly amicable set of country lanes that even serve Jon Pertwee’s Whomobile before it’s struck dead with one of the ominous lightning bolts that prove so threatening for several minutes before never being seen again. Of course, there’s the ever-present danger of falling off a reasonably steep grassy bank. In terms of the notorious special effects, there’s very little use of such visuals apart from the floating funnel that scoops up the Doctors, which looks quite good (I believe it’s a more recent re-mastering rather than the original effect however), and a few ray gun blasts that are so small on-screen as to be acceptable.
The first Doctor Who episode to be released on DVD, ‘The Five Doctors’ is a fairly effective celebration of the series that does about as much as can be expected within the defined guidelines. If Tom Baker’s Doctor and his companion (probably his one-time-wife Romana) had been present, the plot would be even more stretched and farcical than it is already, and it wouldn’t have made for a suitable exit for the character. Long-time fans will benefit a little more from the subtle references and in-jokes that it’s obvious are being made between the lines even though I don’t fully understand them, and as an opportunity to get the different Doctors on screen at the same time, however pointless and wasted it may be, it was a nice idea. Not being familiar with the early William Hartnell episodes I can’t say whether Richard Hurndall does a fair impersonation, but the teaser of the original actor’s memorable closing monologue from ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’ is a thoughtful tribute in itself, and a great way to launch into the opening credits. After the series was cancelled in 1989, anniversary episodes and one-off specials tended to be parodies or otherwise comic interpretations of the series, which proved more entertaining. With the revised series now having completed its third year, and appearances already ticked off for Sarah Jane and her stupid robot dog, it remains to be seen whether the surviving actors will feature in a contrived ‘The Fourth to Tenth Doctors’ reunion story, with Tom Baker’s place being taken by that bloke who does his voice in whatever that impressions show is, because Tom can’t be bothered to attend.
I certainly hope not.
Advantages: Wow, characters from the past we thought we'd never see again.
Disadvantages: Lack of Tom Baker, and overall a very weak story.
How Many Killings?
***
Written on 12.11.07
If this late Dalek serial were to be rated based on body count alone, it would be a damn fine episode. As it stands, Peter Davison’s solitary clash with the Doctor’s most popular foes continues right where Terry Nation signed off with his disappointing swan song ‘Destiny of the Daleks’ and forms the second entirely mediocre Dalek story of the 1980s, a trend that would only be broken with a final, surprising success in the Sylvester McCoy era, when Ben Aaronovitch made the wise decision of ignoring the stagnant continuity that was so tediously built up across these tales in the series’ twilight years (before it, too, was resurrected, of course).
With 1984’s arbitrarily titled ‘Resurrection of the Daleks,’ Eric Saward expands on the Daleks’ situation as Nation unceremoniously left it four years earlier, and once the customary layers of double-crossing are over and done with, the story only gets stupider. When we last caught up with the armour-plated mutants, they were frantically searching for their ancient creator Davros, an unshakeable presence in all Dalek episodes following his introduction in the excellent ‘Genesis of the Daleks,’ which unfortunately refused to be his departure. After Tom Baker’s Doctor succeeded in beating him a second time, the megalomaniac cyborg was sentenced to imprisonment in suspended animation – not execution of course, as that would prevent him from acquiring an inevitable means of escape at a later date and permitting the Doctor Who writers another desperate attempt to win back viewers with the ever-popular enemies.
The Daleks’ motive in ‘Resurrection,’ under the leadership of the Supreme Dalek, is more confusing and irregular. They are now losing in their galactic war against the Movellans, who have unleashed a virus fatal only to Daleks, and desire to free Davros from his ninety-year imprisonment (time moves strangely in this series) in the hope that his scientific superiority will bring about a cure. While it’s good to see the Daleks retaining their independence this time round, after being reduced to lost children in their previous episode, this story is essentially a superfluous and pointless means to get them back on TV screens after an extended absence that – I presume – was due to a lack of worthwhile story ideas, though that didn’t stop them here.
The action is once again based on contemporary Earth, 1984 in this case, though the ultimate reasoning behind this is just about the weakest and most desperate that the series ever put forward. A prison ship housing Davros comes under attack from an enemy vessel, while elsewhere the TARDIS is yanked down a time corridor and winds up near a warehouse in London, filled with strange blue canisters and swarming with British Army personnel. As it becomes clear that this is all another evil Dalek scheme, the Fifth Doctor begins to regret his predecessor’s decision not to wipe them out when he had the chance. He vows not to make the same mistake the next time he comes face-to-face with Davros, which is bound to happen sooner rather than later, as the thawed evil genius hatches a plot to duplicate the Doctor’s body and send his clone to the High Council of the Time Lords on a mission of assassination...
As may be clear from the brief synopsis, there’s a lot going on in these four episodes, and the various plots and stages of duplicity frequently clash in a way that only winds up confusing. Like many episodes of the Eighties, there’s also a strong sense that this was written more for up-to-speed fans than casual viewers interested in seeing a bit of Dalek, and while some touches are harmlessly sentimental, such as the Doctor’s brain scan that brings up visual parade of the role’s previous actors and many of the Doctor’s companions, the background of the Movellan conflict from ‘Destiny’ and in fact all of the revised Dalek mythology from ‘Genesis’ are pretty much required foreknowledge if the Daleks’ plot is going to make any kind of sense. The Doctor himself is rather disappointing in this story, too swamped by ill-fated guest stars and pointless, trouble-making companions to get much time in the spotlight, and even the more pivotal and dramatic scenes in the final part lack the resonance of Tom Baker and his predecessors due to Davison’s naturally less commanding presence. The Daleks themselves fare even worse, thankfully avoiding the stupid, hapless comedy touches that diminished their scare factor in ‘Destiny’ (though one does get shoved out of a window, repeatedly chirping “my vision is impaired, I cannot see”), but retaining their irritating tendency to procrastinate with executions until a more dramatic moment arrives. It’s hard to find them too threatening when they spend an age moving slowly forward to a victim yelling their catch-phrase “exterminate!” and appearing to be so shocked at the occurrence that they forget to actually fire their lasers. They at least get a scary musical theme though, which is quite cool.
Visual effects designer Peter Wragg (later of Red Dwarf) churns out some quite good looking battles and explosions with model spacecraft, but the rest of the effects are mediocre at best, and ludicrous at worst. While the simple tilting and shaking of a camera is a reasonable enough manner to express the effects of the time corridor on the TARDIS, the less said about the shaving foam spewed forth from infected Daleks, the better. Most distracting of all are the invisible laser blasts, which may be more in agreement with real-world physics than the garish blue beams of the Daleks, but even with a sound effect ripped straight from ‘Galaxians’ it makes it very difficult to believe that these people are actually being shot, especially when the victims fall over, after a delay, in what can only be described as a pantomime fashion. The acting in this serial is as disappointing as the script, especially among the lower ranks of cannon fodder extras who completely fail to convince as prison ship officers, despite wearing nifty Thunderbirds-style hats (or perhaps this just makes it worse). There’s one notable guest star in the form of EastEnders’ Les “Dirty Den” Grantham, who plays Davros’ zombified mechanic with a suitable degree of cockney casuality, but the other prominent guest performer Rodney Bewes leaves much to be desired from his low-rent Ian Holm. Terry Molloy becomes the third actor to don the Davros mask and shout too much, and some poor extra has to pretend to be strangled by a slimy Dalek mutant prop twice.
‘Resurrection of the Daleks’ is just another disappointing Dalek story, satisfying the need for Peter Davison’s Doctor to come up against them at least once. The plot is a mix of recycled and contradictory ideas, extending to the predictable cliffhanger endings to each of the four parts that invariably see a Dalek advance towards the Doctor yelling its battle cry – only to be conveniently thwarted within the first second of the next show, and when the eventual contrived revelations arrive, it’s best to allow the brain to switch off for a while. This story is probably most notable for its violence and high body count, as a huge number of extras are seen falling to Dalek rays and their face-mutilating gas attacks, which are actually pretty gruesome. There’s a fair degree of real danger as the Army threatens to shoot Tegan if she attempts to desert the warehouse, and however much this serial takes a dump on the Daleks, the red glow of their leader’s den of evil looks pretty menacing on screen.
The main problem with this story is how seriously it sticks to the dull Dalek mythology that Terry Nation left behind, especially as by the end, nothing has really happened apart from a load of dead, insignificant bodies. Ultimately, this reason is enough for the Doctor’s companion Tegan (Janet Fielding) to call it a day, and her voiced reason for abandoning the Doctor and his adventures can easily be interpreted as the voice of the general public switching off in these declining years: “it stopped being fun.”
Advantages: Again, again with the Daleks. You may be a fan.
Disadvantages: General poor quality across the board, a disappointing confrontation for Davison's Doctor.
****
Written on 05.11.07
Prior to watching this late episode of the BBC’s long-running sci-fi series, Colin Baker’s chirpy, garishly costumed incarnation of the Doctor was one that had thus far passed me by, entirely by choice. I had nothing against the actor (how could I if I’d avoided his episodes like the Cybermen plague?), but wasn’t too keen on seeing yet another actor struggling to work his way through increasingly disappointing scripts and being forced to wear a ridiculous multi-coloured jacket complete with sickening corporate branding of the question mark motif, that I would guess didn’t help significantly to shift Colin Baker action figures or curly wigs.
The good news is that 1985’s ‘Vengeance on Varos’ is an enjoyable two-parter that stands out in these later years, containing the right mix of tense drama, daft special effects and, perhaps most importantly, smatterings of humour that actually come off as funny, rather than just embarrassing. The episode is based, predictably, on Varos – a former prison colony housed inside a series of domes on an otherwise inhospitable rock, where the hard-working populace is kept in line through threat of executions, doubling up as the principal form of televised entertainment. It’s an interesting Orwellian dystopia that provides a great background for the episode without bogging the viewer down in unnecessary details, but even more impressive are the tale’s parallels to contemporary real-world concerns, as a greedy alien race attempts to monopolise trafficking of the planet’s precious mineral at an unreasonably low cost. As usual the Doctor arrives to sort this dastardly situation out, along with his well-endowed companion Peri, as his time-travelling TARDIS stalls in space and requires Varos’ unique product.
This era of the series was broadcast as extended forty-five minute episodes, similar to American shows, and this two-parter works much better in this format than as a more traditional four-parter that would have severely stretched the concept and spoiled the pace by adding an extra half-hour. The various nefarious technologies of Varos are well conceived enough to hold the viewer’s attention for the duration, most evident in their creative forms of execution such as through genetic manipulation in the ‘transmogrifier,’ and although the essentially human guest cast is fairly average on the whole, it does have one very notable exception in the form of the really commendably unpleasant Sil, an ostensibly aquatic creature who seems like a sort of cross between a tiny Jabba the Hut slug and those fish enemies from ‘Stingray,’ with a tendency to waggle his tongue in a laugh that is quite physically sickening. Nabil Shaban really immerses himself into the role which is great to see, though he does occasionally shout his lines with such vigour that it’s hard to decipher the actual words (I didn’t mind though, I was more amused by how much he sounded like Adrian Edmondson in ‘The Young Ones’).
The planet’s Governor, played by Martin Jarvis, interestingly shifts from being the presumed figurehead of the bad guys to the story’s most sympathetic figure, once it’s revealed that the ruling position is always offered on a short-straw basis, as each decision he is forced to make for the good of society in the long-term is put to vote by the viewing masses and his fate decided by their consensus. The televised theme is the finest touch of these episodes, not only for the funny metafictional endings to each part but primarily for the marginal married couple that are occasionally shown watching the main plot unfold and providing an enjoyable running commentary from their limited domestic perspective. These brief scenes move from creepy dark humour, as the husband complains about the lack of decent executions on the airwaves nowadays, to more serious life-and-death rivalry as the couple’s ideologies clash over the escalating political situation and she threatens to turn him in for his rebellious sympathies, but being Doctor Who it all ends happily ever after. Most entertaining is their relaxed, couch potato reaction to the planet’s first alien contact in the form of the Doctor, who the wife supports because she likes his funny clothes.
The major drawback of the plot is the Doctor’s customary invincibility and reliance on phenomenal luck, even leading to a really disappointing deus ex machina ending that comes out of nowhere to sort the situation out. To their credit the bad guys are quite effective, despite an unwise tendency to leap into vats of bubbling green acid when surprised, consistently tracking and trapping the Doctor and his fellow rebels as they move about the complex. There’s one particularly silly scene that’s entirely forgivable as it works so well, as a guard dismisses the pivotal arrival of the TARDIS and its colourful occupants as a mere malfunction of his “anti-hallucination helmet” –the most humorously named alien gadget I’ve come across in a while. The traps themselves become ever more ludicrous as the episode goes on, from the illusion of a gigantic fly to the ultimate last-ditch effort of sending out the honking, cannibalistic old men in nappies. Like I said, this episode does have its drawbacks.
‘Vengeance on Varos’ is a solid ninety-minute story with good pacing, some funny scenes and some downright ludicrous ones too, but it still doesn’t stand up to the series’ much greater successes during its peak in the 1970s. There’s a fortunate lack of alienating references to other episodes that casual viewers may not have seen and certainly won’t remember, and some nice make-up as Peri changes into a bird, but its dystopian setting has been done many times before. Colin Baker is well suited to the Doctor, lacking the commanding presence his older brother had in the role (that was just a joke to momentarily tease you, there’s no relation to Tom Baker) and wearing a really crap costume, but he seems genuinely comfortable with the performance – it’s just a shame the script treats the character so inconsistently, beginning as a bumbling incompetent and suddenly becoming all-knowing. His companion Peri also does little beyond the damsel-in-distress role, but her tight catsuit and respectable cleavage will probably be enough to satisfy most fans, even if her clearly faked American accent is pretty horrible. If you plan on braving the Colin Baker era, this is a good place to start: just try not to watch Sil while you’re eating. You will vomit.
Advantages: An entertaining and darkly humorous adventure.
Disadvantages: Some weak characterisation and reliance on fortunate happenstance.
****
Written on 31.08.07
The last Dalek episode to be produced for seventeen years, Ben Aaronovitch’s ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’ finally draws the long-running feud between the Doctor and the mutated killing machines to a conclusive finale, just in time for the show’s sudden cancellation a year later. The most iconic villains of Doctor Who, the Daleks first appeared as early as the second serial in 1963, although this twenty-fifth anniversary special (of sorts) opts instead to revisit the location of the very first episode ever produced, ‘An Unearthly Child.’
As an unofficial anniversary episode, this four-part serial does feel a little bit like a present for hardcore fans, but for the most part the celebratory in-jokes and references aren’t allowed to interfere with the main story, to the extent that those less familiar with the series would have to Wikipedia it to get that information. As a late Doctor Who episode, when the series was in a state of creative and popular decline, ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’ is actually a surprisingly enjoyable story, especially for managing to pull off yet another Dalek plot and make it interesting. The pepper-pot menace was effectively re-introduced in the classic Tom Baker-era story ‘Genesis of the Daleks,’ complete with less than subtle Nazi overtones and an ugly, maniacal leader in the form of Davros, but every episode produced thereafter saw the Daleks deteriorate into brainless, unthreatening and ridiculous adversaries. While such traits are still present in sections of this episode, particularly towards the end, it largely succeeds in giving the armour-clad mutants a satisfying send-off, from an extended conflict demonstrating the power of a single Dalek unit to some amusingly chilling revelations clearly targeted directly at terrorising young viewers: the Daleks can float upstairs, and their base of operations is in the school cellar!
Much has been said about Sylvester McCoy’s performance as the Seventh Doctor being below par in his first year, but as this second year episode is the earliest of his era that I’ve seen, I’m not able to comment on the change. McCoy is certainly a very distinctive Doctor, if a little less imposing than I’m used to, and he maintains an air of cool and professional practicality and detachment throughout the episode as he struggles with his own conscience. He has a great scene in a bar with Joseph Marcell, debating the consequences of noble actions, which can pass viewers by at first, but is a key scene to understanding the later developments when looking back. There are a number of such scenes well integrated into the plot that are satisfyingly played out by the end, providing a reason for characters’ treacheries and offering an implicit final, thoughtful parallel between the evil menace from Skaro and one a little closer to home. The threat of a species called... neo-Nazis.
Set in 1963, contemporary for the first William Hartnell episode but now itself a relic, this episode is a thoughtful and intelligent look at some of the changes that have occurred in the years between, when Doctor Who had broadcast uninterrupted. The most obvious is the historical oddity of the Doctor’s young companion Ace, whose punky attire and modern cassette decks are out of place in the earlier context in the same way that Rose’s mobile phone shocks people from Ace’s own era in the new series (yes, I’ve been watching that too). Left unspoken are some of the sociological advances made since the early days of the series, summed up perfectly in Ace’s visible disgust at finding a ‘No Coloureds’ sign on the residence she is occupying. Sophie Aldred isn’t the best actress Doctor Who has ever had, her feisty teenager reminding me more of a children’s drama series (the actress was twenty-six at the time), but I’m prepared to forgive this for the services she provided in teaching me how to write, as the kind-voiced presenter of ‘Words and Pictures’ among other educational shows I grew up with. The character is given some quite emotionally challenging scenes which Aldred doesn’t really pull off in a convincing way – though in her defence she isn’t given dialogue more cutting than “you toerag!” – but fortunately the rest of the cast is quite impressive, including the late George Sewell who I remember as the spoons-playing boss from ‘The Detectives’ a little later in my childhood.
The pacing of this episode is quite good, never really getting dull across the two hours and throwing up a few twists well before the final part to keep the momentum going. Once again I have a bit of a problem with the repetitive cliffhanger endings for parts one and two, both of which end with a main character (first the Doctor, and then Ace) being approached by extermination-hungry Daleks and then getting saved within the first two seconds of the next episode, and as a self-conscious grand finale to the Dalek and Davros arc that began in 1975, the Doctor is forced to indulge viewers (through Ace’s questioning) in some slightly dull back-story concerning the Daleks themselves and the Hand of Omega for which they are searching, which actually left me more confused than I’d started after their brief conversation on the stairs. It’s great to see the Doctor manipulating characters into carrying out his own intentions, even if his initial lack of guilt at bringing the Dalek threat back to Earth is a little odd (though all explained by the final part), and though there is much to debate about the finale, it’s very interesting to see first-hand that the Doctor’s views and judgements can be changed by time and experience.
On the technical side of things, by this point in the show’s ill-fated history the special effects were really starting to catch up with the writers’ imaginations, as this episode looks really great. The Dalek model has never really dated, despite being updated slightly ever so often, and the large shuttlecraft model looks really good in the school playground. The opening pull-back-and-reveal of 1960s Earth to the approaching Dalek ship is an effective homage to the opening of ‘Star Wars,’ and the Dalek effects have never been better: the extermination blasts are simplistic and to-the-point, the hovering device looks convincing, and the transmat teleportation effect is extremely nicely done, the mutated interior of the Dalek appearing to materialise slightly ahead of the armoured shell. Unfortunately, the garish eighties opening titles look extremely dated, attempting primitive CGI in place of the classic Kaleidoscope effect of the seventies, but the variation on the theme music is quite nice. Less impressive is the incidental music composed for the episodes themselves, which is often incredibly obstructive and irritating synthesised rock that feels completely out of place with the action. The creepy child character is also given a very silly and stereotypical ‘creepy child’ horror style theme that started to get on my nerves, but I was fortunately able to find it amusing at the same time.
‘Remembrance of the Daleks’ is certainly an episode designed with fans in mind, and as such may serve to put off casual viewers with its frequent references to past episodes and incidents, but for the most part a balance is maintained. It’s undoubtedly the best Dalek story since ‘Genesis of the Daleks,’ keeping them terrifying (even if they are revealed to be ridiculously bad shots when shooting stationary targets at close range) and treating the viewers with intelligence – perhaps a bit too much intelligence in my case, as I’ve only realised some of the more subtle plot points in writing this review. I’ve avoided the later Doctors of the original series before now, but found McCoy suitably intriguing and devious here that I’ll have to check out some more. Even if it means putting up with Sophie Aldred’s spunky teen in her formative years, before she ditched the baseball bat for Magic Pencil.
Advantages: Intelligent return of the series’ most popular villains.
Disadvantages: Weak moments in the final part, and over-reliance on tense cliffhangers.
****
Written on 29.10.07
Oh my god.
I’m guessing that was the reaction of Doctor Who’s remaining viewers when presented with this astonishing serial in the show’s penultimate year before cancellation, and it still packs a wallop almost twenty years later. Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor and his companion Ace (Sophie Aldred) arrive on a dystopian world in which sadness is outlawed on punishment of execution, carried out by the highly memorable Kandy Man: a ridiculous, high-voiced robot made of sweets, in the style of Bertie Bassett.
It’s easy to see why many fans and casual viewers dismiss this episode as the point at which the declining series lost the plot completely, with its farcical scenario, ludicrous ideas and abundance of pink. But choosing to be difficult as always (and to enforce my obviously superior opinions), I have to say that ‘The Happiness Patrol’ is one of the most entertaining and creative Doctor Who serials I’ve seen. I’m not even being sarcastic when I say that I think it’s great.
What’s not to love? At a mere three episodes the plot never feels stretched, especially in comparison to many other serials, and its melding of a traditionally bleak totalitarian scenario with loads of stuff about sweets creates something along the lines of a sinister meeting of ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ and ‘Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory,’ both visually and thematically. The Kandy Man himself, not the focal point but clearly the most memorable feature of the episodes for better or worse, is obviously completely ludicrous, spending most of his scenes screeching to his creator and co-worker Gilbert for help as he repeatedly falls for the Doctor’s traps, which commendably manage to be both inspired and stupid at the same time. He and Gilbert share some of the most laughable dialogue ever broadcast on television, and I couldn’t care less if this humour was intentional or merely a side effect of the absurdity that was somehow unforeseen, it makes me laugh either way.
Even on the more serious side, this episode works quite well in presenting a bleak and ironic colony based on shallow merriment, created by the ceaseless piping of lift muzak through speakers and compulsory distribution of sweets, even if the Doctor’s care-free, invincible attitude prevents it from ever seeming threatening. He and Ace allow themselves to be incarcerated merely to see what they’re up against on their self-proclaimed mission to sort this planet out, and throughout the three episodes we see McCoy’s Doctor strolling casually between pivotal enemy locations and conversing with key bad guys without evoking suspicion, even when discussion is carried out down the barrel of a ray rifle. Fortunately, he shows genuine concern for Ace when she seems to be in danger, and acts according to a clear moral compass that prevents him from reverting to the merely silly figure of earlier episodes. His ultimate solution to save the lives of the protesting ‘killjoys,’ as the Happiness Patrol refers to those who refuse to embrace their superficial form of contentment, is a little easy but nevertheless logical, and we should all be thankful that his brief flirtation with blues singing is cut mercifully short by the intrusion of Earl’s harmonica.
Ace is worked nicely into this episode, as Aldred continues to channel the character’s strong sense of principles displayed throughout the more serious ‘Remembrance of the Daleks,’ when immersed in this corrupt society. It’s quite a girl power episode with the nefarious Helen A making up for what she lacks in presence and intimidation by sticking rigidly to her own beliefs that what she is doing, ostensibly a way to reduce population overcrowding, is truly for the greater good, though it’s a little hard to remember who is who through all the powdered faces and pink wigs. Even the proficient puppet sniffer rat-dog Fifi keeps up the child-scaring side of things (presumably writer Graeme Curry decided that the Kandy Man wouldn’t really satisfy this requirement), and as well as providing those necessary chase scenes to keep up the action and running-about quotient, her ultimate fate makes for quite a nice and satisfying ending to the story. Despite the shorter episode count and prominence of the main plot, Curry still manages to squeeze in a number of memorable supporting roles that help to flesh out the story significantly, from the Doctor’s harmonica-playing friend Earl, a black American helping to add an exotic flavour, to the series’ more typical well-spoken, white old Englishmen, whose scenes are of little interest right up until the bizarre homo-erotic finale. A fragile story like this could be ruined significantly if any of the actors paid too much thought to some of the script’s more absurd notions, but fortunately it’s all played straight, with the right levels of fear and despair when called for – though to be honest, McCoy’s lousy attempt to pull a concerned face at the end of episode one makes for a pretty unconvincing cliffhanger.
After the liberating exterior locations of ‘Remembrance,’ the return to claustrophobic sets is a little disappointing, but this episode succeeds in putting across a distinctive look that perfectly matches its tone, from the dimly lit grey alleyways revealing its film noir influence to the brighter lair of Helen A, the customary lab/factory of the Kandy Man and the convincing pipe tunnels beneath the city. Some of the props look pretty cheap, particularly the wireframe golf carts acting as the preferred method of transportation, but the alien designs of Fifi, the Pipe People and even the Kandy Man are all a credit to the production team, working as they were with such small budgets. One distracting feature of the episode is the editing, which seems to cut away from scenes slightly too early with frustrating regularity as if the episodes were over-running and had to be trimmed by precious milliseconds at any opportunity, though watching it back two decades later, along with the bright studio lighting, it allows for a certain nostalgia over old BBC productions, something that’s also helped by the shockingly poor early computer effects used for this series’ opening titles.
Although long available on VHS video, ‘The Happiness Patrol’ has yet to feature in the BBC’s seemingly random schedule of Doctor Who DVD releases, but when that inevitable day arrives it will surely be greeted with a mixture of excitement and disgust. I may be completely wrong – this episode might just be the most offensive, steaming pat ever defecated by the British Broadcasting Corporation – but it made me laugh, cry and nod my head in ethical concurrence. Alright, it didn’t make me cry. I’m not that weird.
Picture of the Kandy Man: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/ce/Kandy_Man.jpg
Advantages: One of the most bizarre and absurd Doctor Who serials.
Disadvantages: One of the most bizarre and absurd Doctor Who serials.
Farscape
21st Century Sci-Fi!
*****
Written on 04.09.03
Farscape is as close to post-modern sci-fi as you'll likely see for some time, and it's set right here in the 21st century... just in a very different part of the universe to what we're used to.
The decline of Star Trek in recent years, with the increasingly less creative Voyager and Enterprise, has caused newer and fresher television series to take over as the leading shows of 'modern sci-fi.' None are more original, interesting or enjoyable than Rockne S. Bannon's acclaimed "Farscape." Farscape's premise is as follows: an American astronaut, John Crichton, is on a test flight in Earth's orbit when his module becomes engulfed by a wormhole. This phenomenon sends Crichton to an undefined part of the universe, where he is taken aboard a living ship, a Leviathan called Moya, crewed by escaped prisoners in the midst of a conflict. Crichton becomes accepted by the bizarre characters and is content to remain with them aboard Moya, hoping to find another wormhole that will lead him home.
If Farscape's premise sounds like a mix of 'classic' science fiction TV shows, this is far from accidental. Often heralded as the new Buck Rogers or Blakes 7, Farscape manages to incorporate these elements of successful shows while also remaining unique and original. The alien creatures encountered over the seasons often stretch far beyond bizarre, while episodes can vary from clichés such as shrinking to groundbreaking and inventive concepts such as the show's main storyline, and even a partially animated episode. For all the programme's humour and silliness, there are also a large number of moral decision-making episodes in the style of many a classic Star Trek plot. It would be easy to call Farscape a very modern sci-fi show, or indeed one that's ahead of its time.
While providing enjoyable storylines and characters, Farscape is also aided a great deal by high quality computer effects to show planets, spacecraft and alien life forms that seem believable. And as for the puppets, so what if you can see the mould ridges; they look great!
Ben Browder manages to make the main character of Crichton believable as a man forced to live what may be the rest of his days with a load of aliens, and Crichton's sarcasm, humour and general instability over the years will no doubt be due in a large part to the actor's skills and ad-libs. The other main characters on Farscape are all aliens, but some don't show it. The Sebacean Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black) starts as someone with whom Crichton can have heated debates about the sexes, eventually becoming the astronaut's lover. D'argo (Anthony Simcoe), a big Luxan man with a huge sword, facial hair and plenty of tentacles acts as a much more likeable token Worf-style character, proud of his honour but also capable of cracking the occasional joke and losing his temper without much provocation.
The Delvian blue, bald woman Zhaan (Virginia Hey) eventually leaves the series in season three, which doesn?t help in keeping the sanity level aboard Moya particularly high, while the introduction of care-free Nebari greyish woman Chi'ana (Gigi Edgley) at the end of season one makes sure the show gets plenty of playful and sexy scenes to keep viewers alert. As the show progresses, familiar faces become less of a presence and other characters are constantly introduced, but the only major additions to Moya's crew and allies over the years are Peacekeeper bad guy-turned-ally, although by no means by choice, Bialar Crais (Lani Tupu), metal-faced slave Stark (Paul Goddard) and enemy turned enemy-in-captivity-who's-still-not-trusted, Scorpius (Wayne Pygram). The Jim Henson creature shop characters of Pilot and Rygel also integrate into every episode to the point where you often forget they?re made of rubber.
The main 'mythology' plot of Farscape begins towards the end of the first season, with the excellent "The Hidden Memory." Crichton?s nemesis Scorpius, leather clad and hell-bent on obtaining wormhole knowledge from John's mind, is introduced as the series' main villain to replace the unintimidating "insane military commander" Bialar Crais who never seemed too much of a threat in the pilot episode. Towards the end of the second season, Crichton becomes increasingly erratic and deranged as a mental clone of Scorpius, implanted when his mind was probed unsuccessfully for knowledge of wormholes, begins to take over. Even when the computer chip is removed from Crichton's brain, the clone remains behind, leading to all manner of wacky scenes taking place inside John's mind. In the final season, Scorpius is disowned by the Peacekeepers and forced to seek refuge aboard Moya.
It's a very complex plot that does not consume too many episodes in itself, but is intricately woven into the stand-alone shows in a way that makes it a constant presence, often with funny consequences. Scenes taking place in Crichton's deranged mind are always a guaranteed enjoyable experience. The only problem with continuing plot threads is that they can alienate casual viewers, which was apparently the primary reason that Farscape was not permitted to continue for a fifth season by the Sci-Fi channel.
Reasons to watch Farscape, if you've been aware of it for some time but never decided to watch, like me, are the excellent episodes, great characters and spectacular visual effects. If you're a fan of sci-fi like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine or Stargate SG-1, where a main storyline dictates the course of many episodes but also leaves room for plenty of unrelated shows, then you'll love Farscape. And don't let yourself be put off by the puppets, it's more interesting than seeing human-shaped adversaries every week. The series may be over, for now, but the franchise is far from fading away; last I heard there was talk of continuing Farscape with an animated feature, and if enough new fans start to discover the show, like I did, there's every reason it can continue in some form in the future.
Farscape will truly set the mould for future adventure sci-fi series over the next decade, and any claims that it is the new Star Trek or Star Wars are well deserved. The show's presence on Australia's Channel 9 and weekly 6.45pm Monday slot in the UK on BBC2 for four years guaranteed many viewers in both countries, and hopefully repeat runs by both channels, along with more major stations in the US, will help Farscape in getting recognised or discovered the way the original Star Trek series went from a cult following in the 60s to the most mainstream television phenomenon of the 70s through repeated showings. The show is not currently airing on BBC2, but can be seen daily on Sci-Fi channel on Sky Digital.
At present it's only been gone for a year, production-wise, so it doesn't look like the adventures of John Crichton are old news just yet...
Advantages: Excellent and inventive sci-fi, Characters and situations are very enjoyable, Looks great
Disadvantages: Not all episodes are guaranteed sci-fi classics, but this can be said of every show (unless you're a bit strange)
****
Written on 09.04.04
Farscape is truly a post-modern sci-fi show, if such a definition exists. The basic premise of an astronaut ending up in a distant location, on a ship of escaped convicts, seems like a simple mix of Buck Rogers and Blake's 7, but ingenious storytelling, fantastic character development and a talent for both humour and incredibly dark, emotional storytelling have earned it a huge cult following internationally that led to an uproar when the Sci-Fi channel cancelled the show after its fourth year. In the tradition of classic Star Trek, the efforts of fans worldwide through the 'Save Farscape' campaign have now led to a new mini-series to tie up loose threads before deciding the future of the franchise, and production is nearing an end on this series.
Unlike episodic sci-fi series such as the popular Star Trek: The Next Generation, Farscape follows in the tradition of shows such as Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Buffy the Vampire Slayer in that its stand-alone episodes are often integrated into a number of continuing and developing plots that span the series' entire run. This first boxset, released by Contender Entertainment Group in the UK and ADV vision in America, features the first four episodes of Farscape and as such are essential viewing for any fans of the show. A show's first year is notoriously difficult to execute, and while some of Farscape's finest episodes occur later in this first year, it does take some time for the show to "find its feet" in order to continue telling interesting and emotional stories.
EPISODES
1.01 - PREMIERE
The necessary pilot episode for the show sees all-round American John Crichton (Ben Browder) accidentally creating a "wormhole" in space during the test flight of his Farscape One module in Earth's orbit. With no time to assess what has happened to Earth or why there is an intergalactic battle raging around him, John is caught in some sort of tractor beam and taken aboard a huge, brown, elegant space vessel that he describes as "big... really big."
That ship is Moya, a living Leviathan fusion of biological and technological parts on which criminals are transported. John is directed towards the command centre by the ship's small service robot DRDs, and is injected with translator microbes by these machines so he can understand the words being shouted at him by the big guy with tentacles who has hold of his throat.
As the action progresses it becomes clear that the aliens have escaped from their prison cells and are under attack from the oppressive Peacekeepers, a military race that appear human to the naked eye but who are in fact Sebacean. Moya's Pilot, a living being fused to the ship's systems, manages to execute a StarBurst manoeuvre that puts they some distance from the fighting and allows everyone to clear their heads. John is not trusted initially due to his resembling a Peacekeeper, but his experience with gravitational manoeuvres proves his worth and he slowly gains the aliens' trust, while having to come to terms with the fact that the Peacekeeper Captain Crais, a man who believes John deliberately charged his brother's ship and killed him, is after his blood.
VERDICT: This pilot episode introduces everything necessary to the show; it is full of action and discovery, and most of the regular characters are introduced. John is the everyman whose human values and outlook account for the viewer's perspective of the bizarre situations he finds himself in, while the aliens look great. The big guy with tentacles is D'argo, a young Luxan warrior who could at first be seen as a bit of a "Worf" (from Star Trek) character, but who develops as the series progresses. Zhaan is a bald, blue priest from Delvia, whose calm and spiritual nature has been self-taught following her violent past. Aeryn Sun is a Peacekeeper, stranded aboard Moya after she escapes and deemed "irreversibly contaminated" by Crais. Rygel XVI, one of the Jim Henson company's remarkable animatronic characters, is a manipulative and self-serving deposed royal, who is a far cry from Kermit but who still manages to be likeable. Finally, the ship's Pilot is a huge and very convincing animatronic character, possibly the most level-headed of the bunch and certainly the one without whom the crew would be stranded.
There are also excellent visual effects on the commerce planet and during the battles, while Subvision's mix of electronic, tribal and symphonic music is used to its full potential here. Once the series gets into full-swing the storylines that begun here start to get solved and then twisted into something far more enjoyable, but this works as a solid pilot episode that gives viewers a hint of what to expect. 7/10
1.02 - THRONE FOR A LOSS
The fourth episode to be filmed, this was moved ahead of schedule as it is more exciting. The series' main storylines are not expanded upon in this first batch of episodes, but it is interesting to see the development of character friendships and hostilities.
In this episode, Moya is orbiting a planet in order to acquire food for the crew, when a group of local Tavlek warriors march on board and steal Rygel, who they believe to the crew's leader. It seems that the Tavleks earn their pay as mercenaries and through hostage ransoms, and their weapon of choice is an armban d gauntlet device that fires energy. Having salvaged one, it becomes obvious tp the crew of Moya that these devices can damage the user's mind as D'argo becomes even more aggressive and arrogant than usual, and while Rygel isn't really worth risking their necks, the crew become concerned for their comrade when it transpires that he has stolen an essential part of Moya's systems that she needs in order to StarBurst. A gung-ho trip to the planet seems the only option, as long as the gauntlet users can keep their heads.
VERDICT: Much more fun than the first episode, this sees the beginning of the antagonistic friendship between John and D'argo, and the first hints of atrraction from John towards the stoic Aeryn. The action is fast-paced, and writer Richard manning inserts plenty of what would become token Farscape humour, while the episode never slips into the trap of being too silly or "for the sake of it." Farscape is world beyond the badly-planned sex-fest of shows such as Lexx.
1.03 - BACK & BACK & BACK TO THE FUTURE
D'argo allows a crippled ship to dock inside Moya as they are a race that the Luxans are allies with, but an encounter with the technology on board causes John to experience strange flashes of the future which progress in intensity and frequency until it is really not clear which time frame he is inhabiting.
VERDICT: More of a cerebral episode, the time traveller plot has been done to death in other sci-fi series, but the Farscape take is still original. Some hints of sexual scenes also indicate that despite the Jim Henson logo, this is not a show for children.
1.04 - I, ET
The second episode in production order, this is quite weak in terms of storyline and was moved further down the line, although the crew's distrust of one another makes more sense when viewed in the original production order. Essentially, Moya crash-lands on a swamp on a world not unlike 20th century Earth, and John finds himself in a situation in which he is the extraterrestrial being hunted by the Government.
VERDICT: Some good character scenes and fantastic special effects of Moya crashlanding do not make this a memorable episode, but it's interesting to see the curious and innocent John Crichton of this episode, compared to the much darker and hardened character he becomes through his experiences later on.
SPECIAL FEATURES
The first disc includes a documentary behind-the-scenes on all the aspects of Farscape's early days, with interviews conducted with the producers, the Creature Shop and the principal actors, however this in itself damages the special features of the later discs as their interviews form the bulk of this feature.
Farscape is the most original sci-fi series in years, and is certainly the antidote to the heaps of re-hashed Star Trek ideas currently in production. Now re-released as one of five slimline cases within the season 1 boxset, this DVD includes audio commentaries for all four episodes: 'Premiere,' with series creator and prominent writer Rockne S. O'Bannon, executive producer Brian Henson and star Ben Browder (John Crichton); 'Throne For a Loss' with stars Ben Browder and Claudia Black (Aeryn Sun); 'Back & Back & Back to the Future' with Ben Browder and director Rowan Woods; and 'I, ET' with stars Claudia Black an d Anthony Simcoe (Ka D'argo).
Farscape's first season gets off to an acceptable and enjoyable start, and the remarkable potential is clear from the outset. However, these episodes do not show Farscape at its creative, exciting, funny and original best and would not be recommended to any newcomers to the show; later episodes may prove difficult to follow at first, but display what a unique and unappreciated show Farscape can be. The series' entire run is constantly being repeated at 5pm and 11am on the UK's sci-fi channel and used to inhabit a BBC2 prime-time slot until the series ceased production. An excellent Farscape website for the latest news on the mini-series, a forum and in-depth episode reviews and guides can be found at farscapeworld.com
Advantages: Fantastic sci-fi series, despite these episodes not showing it at its very best, Excellent acting, characters, special effects, music and plot, Interesting audio commentraies and documentary
Disadvantages: The series has not become the masterpiece it would later be
Farscape – Season 2
*****
Written on 05.07.06
The second season of the Jim Henson Company’s recent science-fiction series Farscape remains one of the most impressive of the show’s four years. Striking an excellent balance between whimsical space adventure and more serious, epic tales, this batch of 22 forty-five minute episodes features some of the show’s finest, even if the quality, tone and general direction of the episodes is somewhat inconsistent.
Season opener ‘Mind the Baby’ concludes the threads left dangling from the previous year as quickly as possible before launching into a new season of developing romantic relationships, the return of long-lost sons (including that of the living ship), alien mind cleansing, epileptic pulse gun battles and a man pushed to the brink of destructive, schizophrenic insanity. Farscape is high quality sci-fi for sci-fi fans bored of flawless starships crews, transporters, technobabble solutions and shield failure percentages, and avoids the ‘reset button’ formula by featuring characters who really do grow and learn from their triumphs and mistakes.
As explained in the brief voice-over introduction on the opening credits to each episode, Farscape is essentially the story of displaced human astronaut John Crichton, roaming and struggling to survive in a hostile, unknown area of the universe aboard a living ship crewed by escaped prisoners of various alien species, some of whom are closer to human than others. The voice-over from season two remains unchanged since the first series, despite significant changes to the storyline over the final episodes of that season, but it still works. Although Crichton’s stated goal is still “just trying to get home,” this unlikely agenda is delayed in season two as Moya’s crew generally attempt to lurk out of sight of their leather-clad nemesis Scorpius, the “insane military commander” intent on obtaining the secrets to wormhole travel that lie, reluctantly, in Crichton’s subconscious.
This is undoubtedly the best year of the show for the character ensemble, as the show began to focus intensely on Crichton/Scorpius (the hunt) and Crichton/Aeryn (the love) dynamics in the following years. ‘Taking the Stone’ and ‘A Clockwork Nebari’ are the closest Chiana fans will get to an episode focussing on that particular character, and although D’argo is especially prominent in ‘Liars, Guns and Money’ during the search for his long-lost son, the only true episode dedicated to the character is the below average ‘Vitas Mortis.’ Always uninteresting, Zhaan’s time to shine comes in ‘Dream a Little Dream’ and ‘The Locket,’ and even the ship’s animatronic Pilot gets a unique exploration in ‘The Way We Weren’t,’ a powerful episode for Aeryn also, and one of the series’ finest.
The later years of the series are more focused on maintaining and escalating the show’s primary story arcs, and season two is the final year that retains the innocence of throwaway stand-alone episodes. That said, it’s usually the episodes that comment upon the series’ main plot – namely Crichton’s increasingly erratic behaviour due to a neural implant placed in his brain by Scorpius – that fare better. There are some excellent comedy episodes in the form of the fun body-swapper ‘Out of Their Minds,’ the strange ‘Crackers Don’t Matter’ and the insane ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again,’ as well as some darker and more experimental offerings in the second half. The Crichton/Scorpius plot lurks behind many episodes, but is only allowed to dominate the end of the season in the brilliant and action-packed ‘Liars, Guns and Money’ trilogy and the emotional ‘Die Me, Dichotomy.’ The season boasts another trilogy, the earlier ‘Look at the Princess,’ which is a great stand-alone piece concerning Crichton’s marriage to a Princess under some truly appalling conditions, including transformation to a statue, decapitation and an enforced spacewalk without a spacesuit.
Unlike most sci-fi series, Farscape found its feet at a surprisingly early point, arguably as early as episode seven of its first season, and by the start of season two the writers have ironed out almost everything that was awry with its predecessor: characters who were unsuccessful as villains have been usurped by meaner foes and are now allies; the character dynamic is excellent; and there are fewer shows that offer nothing but a waste of time, excluding the second and third episodes of season two which are disappointing. Farscape never sought mass popularity, but was successful at achieving the die-hard fan base typical of involved, complex TV dramas. More Star Wars than Star Trek, but with more interesting characters, more colourful sets and more swearing, Farscape offers excellent and addictive viewing, and season two is a perfect place to start. It avoids the varying quality of the still-excellent first season, but doesn’t require as much in the way of off-putting plot and character knowledge as the third and fourth years. There are lots of funny-looking aliens and stuff too.
The DVD boxsets of Farscape are a bit of a let-down, mainly in terms of price. Seasons one and two commonly retail at around 40 pounds on retailers such as Amazon.co.uk, which although still fairly expensive is still a drastic drop from the 70-80 pounds R.R.P. As well as every episode in perfect quality and original unbroadcast, uncut form (especially notable in a disturbing eyeball-removal scene and an oddly controversial head butt that pushed the UK age classification up to 18 for the set), buyers get a selection of behind-the-scenes interviews with enthusiastic cast members, and several audio commentaries. These commentaries are a bit disappointing, as they’re always so arbitrary on Farscape boxsets, tending to appear only on early episodes or, occasionally, those that are somehow notable, for example fan favourites or those written by a cast member. The commentary on episode one, ‘Mind the Baby,’ did however help me to spot one of the show’s very rare glaring bloopers in the form of a very visible stage-hand’s hand holding up a shaky prop. My other reasonable gripes with these DVD, again common to all Farscape releases, is the lack of subtitles or audio options (aside from afore-mentioned commentaries) and the sheer quantity of un-skippable company logos on insertion of each disc that becomes irritating and adds at least a full minute of corporate hypnosis to the otherwise jovial viewing time.
Season two isn’t quite Farscape at its creative and dramatic peak, but as the plot builds to the epic conclusion, it certainly shows signs of getting there. While the curious mystery plot thread is enthralling throughout the season on first viewing, as Crichton receives occasional and increasing ‘flashes’ of Scorpius that seem only to drive the enemies closer together, once the mystery is solved and the plot dealt with, it can seem like too much foreshadowing on repeated viewings, even if the excellent subtlety of early ‘neural clone’ appearances can only be fully appreciated in hindsight. There are one or two too many random episodes, but for newcomers to the series, that’s not necessarily a bad thing as these maintain the distinctive Farscape style without the excessive burden of story arcs. The principle cast is all excellent, evidenced in the body-swap episodes where Ben Browder (Crichton) does fantastic impressions of Rygel and Aeryn, and Claudia Black (Aeryn) vice-versa, and the computer generated special effects are of the highest quality that can be expected of a TV budget at the time. The DVD set only really fails on price, something that can be avoided by seeking out imports (such as Region 4 DVDs from Australia) which are often much better value, if your DVD player can play them.
In Farscape, bad guys win, and nice guys are put through hell until they become murderers and terrorists themselves. Infinitely resourceful and patient, and always one step ahead, Scorpius is the perfect villain, and as his reasoning becomes clear it becomes difficult not to sympathise with his quest. Even if Crichton’s brain must be dissected to help accomplish it. As Crichtin points out to his shipmate Chiana when she realises she won’t see her brother again, ‘since when do people like us get what we want?’
Advantages: Some of the series' strongest episodes and character development
Disadvantages: Too many unimpressive offerings in the season's first half
*****
Written on 20.09.04
The fifth DVD box set of Farscape's second season contains what I consider to be the three finest hours of the hit adventure series, and in television history on the whole. A truly epic finale to an otherwise hit-and-miss second year, the 'Liars, Guns and Money' trilogy and the concluding 'Die Me, Dichotomy' expand the series' premise beyond all expectations and provide, through tense drama, explosive action and debilitating loss, something that everyone can enjoy, irrespective of their previous feelings towards the genre.
WHAT IS FARSCAPE?
My name is John Crichton...I'm lost...an astronaut...shot through a wormhole...in a distant part of the universe...trying to stay alive...aboard this ship...this living ship...of escaped prisoners...my friends...If you can hear me...beware...If I make it back...will they follow?...If I open the door...are you ready?...Earth is unprepared...helpless...for the nightmares I've seen...Or should I stay...protect my home...not show them that you exist?...But then you'll never know...the wonders I've seen...”
Farscape is the acclaimed sci-fi adventure series filmed in Australia, cancelled by the Sci-Fi channel after four seasons but recently resurrected as a mini-series thanks to fan pressure. Farscape is noticeable different from other, more well-known science fiction series such as Star Trek: The Next Generation for a number of reasons: firstly, there is an ever-expanding storyline that consistently manages to surprise, entertain and excite viewers with growing strength each season as a credit to the writers; secondly, it is a great deal more fun. This is not a catalogue of exploration and discovery, but the struggle of an oppressed group of people in uncharted territory facing almost insurmountable odds. The Jim Henson Creature Shop provide fantastic alien creatures as well.
Comparisons to Buck Rogers and Blake's Seven are inevitable and understandable by the premise, but the series itself is something completely unique. By the second series the show had really found its feet, and able to concentrate on larger and more fascinating plots centred around the reluctant hero, and most desirable commodity, John Crichton (Ben Browder). The introduction of the flawless and clinically evil adversary Scorpius (Wayne Pygram), hell-bent on extracting wormhole equations from Crichton's subconscious, adds a new level of danger and personal tragedy to the series as it becomes clear that John has been implanted with a neural clone of Scorpius that has, over the course of the year, been growing in its ability to control his thoughts and actions.
THE EPISODES
2.19 - Liars, Guns & Money part I: A Not-So-Simple Plan
2.20 - Liars, Guns & Money part II: With Friends Like These...
2.21 - Liars, Guns & Money part III: Plan B
The opening trilogy sees the return of the character Stark (Paul Goddard), who has managed to locate D'argo's long-lost son in a slave auction. The misfits aboard Moya hatch a delicate plot to rob a nearby Shadow Depository, a shady bank for outlaws and other souls who are forced to avoid using regular channels, however the plan falls into jeapordy when it transpires that their most lethal foe Scorpius is on the planet checking up on his acquisitions. Once Scorpy learns of Crichton's presence, he shows the full extent of his malevolence by purchasing the lot of 10,000 slaves himself and killing all but D'argo's precious son: a prize he offers in exchange for Crichton. A predictable rescue plan is formulated aboard Moya, until it becomes clear that John has headed willingly into the clutches of his enemy. John is desperate to rid himself of the neural clone, even if he has to sacrifice his mind...
2.22 - Die Me, Dichotomy
In the final episode of the series (my personal favourite episode), the crew of the crippled Moya find a skilled doctor operating on a frozen world. John has learned from Scorpius' arachnid accomplice that the chip can be removed from his brain without costing him his life, but Scorpy's neural clone is now able to control his body for a limited time, leading to the death of his beloved Aeryn (Claudia Black). As John lies immobile on an operating table with his brain exposed, Scorpius promptly arrives to retrieve the gathered wormhole equations that could prove to be the ultimate power in the universe...
THE DVD
All four episodes are presented in crisp and clear quality, allowing for the award-winning special effects and colourfully exotic creatures and landscapes to be seen as was originally intended. The episodes are featured in their uncut form, retaining the sexual references and more extreme or graphic scenes that were edited for the BBC's 6pm showings, while the sound quality is perfect. Aside from the usual chapter selection there are several interesting special features on this release for more hardcore fans, including interviews with Paul Goddard and Wayne Pygram (Stark and Scorpius respectively) and behind-the-scenes information. These two DVD discs have now been re-released as part of Contender Entertainment's season two box set.
VERDICT
Farscape is an under-appreciated series, but is certainly not for everyone: the intergalactic setting and use of animatronic characters will put off as many people as it attracts, but the brilliance of the show lies in the expert storytelling and the top quality performances by the virtually unknown Australian, British and American cast. The seasons finales were always long-awaited treats for fans as they brought ongoing story threads from the year into sharp focus, always somehow managing to leave an even more distressing cliffhanger ending to lead into the next experimental and highly successful season.
For Farscape fans, I would recommend the third season on the whole as a strong and varied year, although these are the episodes I have watched the most, and which contain some of the most memorable scenes in the franchise. There is a lot of backstory and plot development to digest (the main reason that the show was cancelled, in fear of alienating casual and new viewers), but most of this can be picked up fairly easily. Ben Browder, Gigi Edgley, Claudia Black, Anthony Simcoe and Wayne Pygram are incredibly talented actors who bring life to characters that could otherwise seem a little too out of place, while Rockne S. O'Bannon and David Kemper deserve full respect for making a slightly stale and repetitive genre entertaining, funny, gripping, exhilarating, sexy, tense and emotionally charged like never before.
One Plan at a Time
****
Written on 13.08.07
The third season of Farscape still remains my personal favourite in the prematurely cancelled epic science fiction series, as the show expands far beyond its original boundaries and weaves a finely crafted story arc across a colourful season of strongly individual episodes, before creative blunders and corporate interference weakened the series in its fourth and ultimately final year.
As always, very little time is spent in the first episode of the year resolving the cliffhanger moment of the previous season, in order that the writers can be free to start sowing the seeds that will define the forthcoming year, appropriately christened by this opening episode as the ‘Season of Death.’ The job of the season opener is not an enviable one, responsible for concluding the exciting and climactic episode that preceded it and delivering a satisfying conclusion, and although the slightly confused and rushed events of ‘Season of Death’ don’t hold up as well to those of its illustrious predecessor ‘Die Me Dichotomy’ (understandably as it’s perhaps my favourite single episode of the entire series), it scores above the disappointing opening shows of the other seasons and stands strong as an individual forty-five minutes of television.
Much effort is made, especially in these earlier stories, to keep each episode distinct and self-contained to avoid putting off newcomers, something that ultimately fails as the plot grows necessarily more complex, and this is helped by the unique sets and supporting characters used in each episode (apart from the two-parter), providing some effective contrast to the previous season which was mostly set within the brown corridors of Moya. ‘Season of Death’ picks up at the ice planet where season two left off as a web of double-crossing is exposed, before the crew takes a long-overdue (but obviously short-lived) break at a commerce station in ‘Sons and Lovers,’ instead becoming involved in a rescue operation. The two-part ‘Self-Inflicted Wounds’ re-introduces wormholes to the series at long last, after season two reduced them almost to a euphemism, and although a little long-winded and plagued by technobabble, these episodes hold key events and revelations that are vital to the ongoing plot. Finally, ‘...Different Destinations’ continues the theme of death and despair as a visit to a peace monument teleports the crew back in time and interferes with history.
I really can’t praise Farscape enough, as will probably become annoyingly evident through my reviews of this finest season, but repeated viewings often favour these earlier episodes of set-up less than the more satisfying episodes towards the end of the season, when situations escalate and the show begins to deliver on long-awaited promises. As such, these first five episodes are still very entrenched in the concerns born out of the season finale, with John and Aeryn’s mutual acknowledgement of love hindered by her decision that involvement would lead to danger, and the deteriorating health of Zhaan hanging over all the proceedings, her fate being ultimately decided before the end of the ‘Self Inflicted Wounds’ two-parter. D’argo’s original character arc is also effectively brought to a conclusion as his long-lost son, finally tracked down at the end of the previous year, betrays his trust and his heart and leaves the dynamic of Moya shattered for future repair, while other parties such as Scorpius and Crais remain out of sight somewhere in the Uncharted Territories, but never too far away to return when required by the plot.
This original DVD release, now incorporated into the complete third season box-set, features the first five episodes across two discs, each contained in a separate DVD box within a larger outer case. This waste of space is a little excessive, as is the recommended retail price for a mere five episodes (despite comparing well to older VHS releases that would have contained half as much for the same price), and it does at least make the set look impressive and attractive on the shelf, the five spines depicting a publicity shot of the season featuring all the major characters and thereby encouraging completist consumption. The special features are particularly impressive in this set, not yet featuring the commentaries that are assigned to select episodes in the complete season sets but always including detailed behind-the-scenes notes and production galleries as well as, on the second disc, the interesting and enjoyable ‘Farscape Undressed’ documentary produced by the Sci-Fi channel prior to season three’s airing to bring new viewers up to speed. It’s a great extra that’s particularly useful here, and helped me to understand things better when I foolishly decided to start watching the series from this half-way point many years ago, hosted by stars Ben Browder and Claudia Black out of character and even featuring some animatronic work for Rygel XVI.
These five episodes aren’t in the league of Farscape’s best, partly due to their early position in the season before the plot had really picked up, but also due to weak decisions in the writing that would rarely resurface in the rest of the year. ‘Sons and Lovers,’ while deliberately low-key, is perhaps the finest of the bunch, granting some serious screen time to D’argo and moving his character on significantly, as well as that of his former lover Chiana. The human John Crichton dominates the rest of the proceedings, necessary due to his status as the main star but also often a cause for resentment by fans, though his relationship difficulties with Aeryn aren’t handled in a particularly engaging or meaningful way at this point, presumably as the writers bide their time for the serious screwing around they have planned in the next box-set. My main problem is with the slightly disappointing ‘Self-Inflicted Wounds,’ which initially promises to be a mind-blowing episode but ultimately comes off as an extended and fairly uneventful story forced to rely on uncharacteristic technical vocabulary over the more human(oid) elements that carry Farscape along best. Newcomers don’t have too much to contend with at this early point, as the Scorpius/wormholes plot has faded into the background for the time-being, but at the same time there’s a noticeable lack of the energy that drove season two towards its dramatic conclusion. Things can only get better.
Advantages: Sets the tone for the upcoming year, with Farscape's usual high quality writing.
Disadvantages: A couple of mis-steps.
Farscape – Season 3, Vol. 2
I'm Your Daddy
*****
Written on 20.08.07
The sadistic writers behind the Jim Henson Company’s Farscape always enjoyed putting the characters through hell, from John Crichton’s first tumble down a wormhole dumping him in a distant corner of the universe to his increasingly problematic relationship with Aeryn Sun. It’s with the sixth episode of season three, a deceptively simple zombie horror adventure entitled ‘Eat Me,’ that this relationship takes a very drastic fork, while the separation of Moya’s crew in ‘Thanks for Sharing’ is a bold decision that keeps the show fresh, and keeps viewers guessing, for a significant portion of the season.
Farscape was never comfortable inside the boundaries of predictable television, simultaneously a reason for its creative genius and its ultimate cancellation for encouraging its own obscurity, and the splitting (‘twinning’) of protagonist John Crichton, without a convenient death before the end credits to return the status quo, is one of the iconic moments of the entire series. Even without this perfect ending, the episode itself would remain a clear Farscape classic, incorporating effective horror elements alongside all its usual strengths and featuring a memorable guest star performance from Hammer Horror veteran Shane Briant as the smooth-talking lunatic Kaarvok. ‘Thanks for Sharing’ is less riveting, forced to balance a self-contained plot of family government (itself a little too reminiscent of the previous year’s ‘Look at the Princess’) with the repurcussions of the previous episode, which saw the discovery of a wounded Crais aboard Moya’s son Talyn (yeah, the ship had a baby in season one. It’s alive and stuff, and Talyn’s all young and juvenile. I warned you that this series was heavy on backstory). The unforseen splitting of the crew into Moya and Talyn parties is an exciting move, and carried out at the right time, with the series’ most overcrowded main cast list yet, even taking into account the absence of Zhaan. The following episodes for some considerable time alternate between stories set on each ship, providing greater screen time and development for the supporting characters despite the constant presence of a Crichton on both, each with a mental clone of Scorpius bouncing around inside his brain. It’s clear that by this point, the series has become rather confusing.
Thankfully, each episode remains strongly individual, and despite occasional references to ‘the other Crichton’ or the threat posed by the distant Scorpius, each episode could conceivably be enjoyed in isolation from the rest. ‘Green Eyed Monster,’ an expert writing job from lead cast member Ben Browder who would write a second episode in season four, is another fairly perfect example of a Farscape episode, combining a paranoid tale of jealousy with the escape from the stomach of a massive space monster. Led by the fantastic dynamic of an irate Crichton, his former nemesis Crais and the intermediary Aeryn, the reduction of my favourite character Stark to a comedy character elsewhere in the story is even forgivable at this point in the run. The first of the Moya stories, ‘Losing Time’ is a fairly standard possession episode that also plays on paranoia, and dumps some unexpected and frankly unwanted character changes on Chiana, but also allows the male bonding of John and D’argo to begin in full force, one of my favourite aspects of the show and certainly the strong point of these Moya-based episodes. The final episode ‘Relativity’ seemingly brings a close to the short-lived story arc of the Peacekeeper Retrieval Squad led by Aeryn’s bitter mother, the reason the crews were forced to separate three episodes earlier, and is essentially an action-packed survival story in an unconvincing jungle set, enjoyable but spoiled by some more silly comic relief from the Stark/Rygel double act.
This set of episodes really launches season three into its individual and fascinating plot arc, with two John Crichtons faced with different concerns: one is free to embrace his love for Aeryn, while the other must contend with the inevitable conflict with the seemingly indestructible Scorpius, who now has the dangerous wormhole knowledge from his mind. Although the larger screen time for characters was a wise and noble move, it is ultimately rendered less successful than promised by the increased focus on John’s relationships with his true love and his enemy, as both dominate the proceedings even when absent, leading to less advancement for old favourites D’argo, Chiana, Rygel and Pilot, as well as lesser seen newcomers to the main cast in the form of Crais, Stark and the ultimately pointless Jool. Chiana’s gift of a special power of foresight in ‘Losing Time’ borders on offensive, as if the end of her relationship with D’argo had proved her to be a one-dimensional, selfish character after all, and the writers’ obvious shying away from the Nebari Resistance arc of season two that promised so much for the character has led to this pointless and drastic super-power as a sort of consolation. Nevertheless, season three remains my favourite in Farscape’s illustrious run, and this is a strong collection of some of the finest episodes and more mediocre material, moving forward in exciting and very satisfying ways.
The DVD extras are identical to those of the first set, with behind-the-scenes information and galleries complimenting each episode, but without the benefit of a documentary this time. Limited edition deluxe box-sets came with additional artwork and a miniature prop replica in an inconveniently sized collector’s box, but the scaled down box-set is also available as part of the complete third season, rendering these older releases less cost-effective, despite their impressive appearance on the shelf.
Advantages: Immediate launch into the show's finest plot arcs, successfully experimenting with genres.
Disadvantages: Division of the cast has inevitable repercussions.
Farscape – Season 3, Vol. 3
The Half-Blind Leading the Blind
****
Written on 27.08.07
Farscape’s more bizarre and creative side comes to the fore in the middle of the third season, with each episode taking a slightly different slant on the regular style. From the revelatory Scorpius origin story that reverses the established dynamic by having Scorpius communicate with a neural clone of John Crichton, to the acid trip that is ‘Scratch N Sniff,’ this batch of mostly excellent shows continues to prove why this science fiction series was a modern television classic, and its third year the finest of the lot. And this is before we’ve even reached the animated episode.
By this central point, the story arc of season three is in full swing, as Scorpius’ experiments with wormholes, gleaned from the secrets he ripped from Crichton’s brain, are shown to be developing at a disturbing rate, and with ominous outside pressure. It’s chilling just how casually Scorpius reveals that the Scarrans are a major force to be reckoned with, setting up the inevitable bloodbath that will dominate the following year, while the human heart of the series (used in the loosest possible sense) is once again put through the grinder as one of the Crichtons is separated from his lover, and his duplicate forced to put himself in extreme danger. The dividing of episodes between stories set on the living ship Moya and her juvenile son Talyn continues to be an effective way to explore these alternate stories, and although the constant presence of John Crichton and even Scorpius in both tends to overshadow the supporting characters, the male bonding between John and D’argo has never been more enjoyable than during this period of isolation, culminating in ‘Scratch N Sniff.’
Special attention deserves to be granted to this unique episode, which divides fans and was moved to an odd late night slot on its BBC 2 airing, as the style is apparently based on the rapid editing of a music video. It’s certainly entirely strange and pushes the weird-for-the-sake-of-weird barrier to the limits, but it’s the knowing absurdity of it all, presented as John’s account of events in order to explain how he and D’argo were kicked off a planet and lost all of their money (and is therefore not entirely trustworthy, and prone to significant embellishment). Ben Browder’s wife Francesca Buller is a memorable if annoying presence as the cockney alien Raxil, while Gigi Edgley (Chiana) is given a rare opportunity to demonstrate her fire juggling ability. Compared to this lunacy, the other episodes seem fairly tame and ordinary, though it’s only the Talyn-based episode ‘Meltdown’ that has the unfortunate distinction of being the weak link, and certainly the low point of the entire season, rehashing an aliens-messing-with-our-emotions plot and destroying Starks’ credibility as a character forever, for which I truly resent it. ‘Incubator’ is better, and an interesting overview of Scorpius’ history as an engineered Scarran-Sebacean half-breed, but also an episode I feel ambivalent about for moving that character on from Darth Vader-esque villain of evil to a shade of grey. Farscape handles shades of grey expertly, and thankfully the culmination of these events in the later episode ‘Into the Lion’s Den’ is the perfect and only way this could have been satisfyingly concluded.
The remaining episode on this shortened set (sets one and two featured five episodes each, while the remaining three feature four episodes) is one of my very favourites, and the strongest point of the Talyn arc. Revisiting plot threads from way back in the first season, one of which I wasn’t even aware had been dangling before its return here, ‘Infinite Possibilities Part 1: Daedalus Demands’ closes the box-set on the most exciting cliff-hanger since the end of season two, which was itself the most exciting since Riker’s order to ‘fire!’ half-way through Star Trek: The Next Generation (I’ve lost you now, I’m sorry. Well done for wading through this far). The return of Furlowe and the Ancients are handled excellently, and it was a stroke of genius to combine them, while also allowing for the first real altercation with the full force of the evil Scarrans. With the regrettable exception of Stark as usual, all the characters are excellent here, from Crais’ blindness to Rygel’s uncharacteristic murderous demeanour, and the desert setting makes a nice change from the ship-board shows of late, making up for the Talyn crew’s last excursion into a jungle that was all too obviously a plant-filled soundstage. The guest cast is excellent, and the cliffhanger ending holds particular significance for me as it took an awfully long time for me to see the second instalment after buying this.
Viewers who found the transition between the two living spaceships seamless when it began may begin to find the shifts jarring at this point, but I still enjoy the change of atmosphere provided by the claustrophobic Talyn episodes compared with the vast and empty, and ultimately more depressing Moya shows. Both ships feature some excellent dynamics and a couple of weak ones at the same time, the squabbling rivalry between Chiana and Jool acting much the same as the daft Rygel and Stark scenes on the other vessel, but each camp has much to offer in terms of progressing the plot, even if the original Retrieval Squad threat has now been dealt with. Wayne Pygram puts in a fine performance in ‘Incubator’ as the tortured Scorpius growing up as a Scarran slave, and it’s both interesting and intelligent how the series all begins to come together. With the strong exception of ‘Meltdown,’ which can easily be avoided (though is annoyingly referenced later in the excellent episode ‘Bad Timing,’ meaning that it can’t simply be erased from the archives) this batch of episodes shows the series at its freshest and most uncompromising, building the anticipation of where the myriad plot threads are heading, and where they (and the estranged crews) shall meet in the end. The more important question is, which Crichton will survive? The next box-set provided the answer in typical Farscape fashion.
Advantages: Superb expansion of the series' scope, with some of the finest looking episodes.
Disadvantages: 'Meltdown' is really terrible.
Farscape – Season 3, Vol. 4
*****
Written on 03.09.07
Earlier in the third season of the Jim Henson Company’s epic sci-fi series Farscape, the hero John Crichton was split into two equal and original versions of himself, one of whom completely failed to die and thus press the handy ‘reset button’ before the end of the credits, leaving the crew (or rather, the man himself(s)) with a problem, one that was answered all too soon by the division of Moya’s crew onto two ships forced to retain radio silence with each other. The Crichton aboard Moya discovered the plans of his enemy Scorpius to harness the devastating power of wormholes with knowledge stolen from his brain, and became determined to stop him at all costs as soon as the opportunity presented itself (probably as the season draws to a dramatic climax, if we’re being honest). The other Crichton flew away on an action-packed love cruise on Talyn with his lover Aeryn Sun, and finally received the full knowledge of the Ancients that would allow him, and all his persecuted alien friends, to go home. Then one of them died.
As this review covers four episodes beginning with ‘Infinite Dreams Part 2: Icarus Abides,’ it’s entirely necessary to reveal that the Crichton aboard Talyn is forced to sacrifice his life to prevent the Scarrans acquiring wormhole technology, a truly tragic moment but one that explodes the potential of the John-Aeryn relationship. Even as Aeryn struggles to understand her loss in the moving episode ‘The Choice,’ she must be aware of the uniquely difficult experience that awaits her when the two crews are finally reunited in the final episode of the box-set, appropriately titled ‘Fractures;’ Aeryn’s simple response to his presence makes for one of the most memorable lines in the entire series. I personally adore this decision to kill the Crichton who underwent the greatest character development, and his posthumous message to his ‘twin’ recorded by Stark prior to his departure cements the fact that they remain the same individual even after their different experiences. It sets up an incredible dynamic full of questions for the remainder of the season and far beyond, but one that is momentarily forced to wait due to more pressing galactic concerns.
‘Infinite Possibilities Part 2’ is a wholly satisfying conclusion to the first part that finally shows the destructive potential of wormholes in a very literal sense after the discussions that have dominated the show for so long, and along with its companion is easily the finest of the Talyn episodes. ‘The Choice’ also features the remaining Talyn crew, but in an extremely fractured capacity on a Blade Runner-esque planet (in terms of its hulking, neon appearance) and is one of the most emotionally intense and disturbing of the series’ entire run, centred entirely around Aeryn with the dead Crichton relegated to the background for once. In complete contrast, ‘Revenging Angel’ is one of the funniest and zaniest episodes (I swore never to use that word in a review, but I think it’s the most appropriate here) that the Farscape writers ever came up with, combining extended animated sequences in the style of ‘Road Runner’ with ridiculous props for the live action sequences inside Crichton’s unconscious mind. Farscape has always done comedy superbly, with only a couple of glaring exceptions, and ‘Revenging Angel’ remains one of the most popular experimental episodes of the run, and the perfect counterpoint to the harrowing nature of the episodes surrounding it. Finally, ‘Fractures’ is a fairly enjoyable story based once again around paranoia and suspicion, but one in which the primary plot is of far less concern than the more pressing issues of the Moya and Talyn crews’ reunion, and the consequences that brings. Those initial scenes are what the episode will be remembered for most of all, as well as the disturbing mental images of Hynerian sex.
Farscape takes a noticeably darker turn as season three approaches a conclusion, with ‘Revenging Angel’ providing the only release from some seriously depressing and emotionally draining television. It’s fair to say that by this point, the desire to weave the larger plots of the series carefully behind stand-alone stories has failed to some extent, as unrelated events such as those of ‘Fractures’ simply seem to be at odds with advancement of the main story arc, but ‘The Choice’ stands out as a great example of a story that is entirely self-contained, while also providing an epilogue of sorts to the Talyn story arc that ends once Crais picks up Moya’s transmission and location. The visuals of that episode are excellent even for Farscape standards, with suitably disturbing and mutated alien creations of the Jim Henson Creature Shop perfectly suiting the drab cyberpunk setting. Interesting aliens continue to appear to a smaller degree in ‘Fractures,’ notable for featuring the first female Hynerian (Rygel’s species, the animatronic character who is often described in terms reminiscent of a slug or a toad), an androgynous Nebari (Chiana’s pale-skinned race) and a friendly Scarran.
Notably absent from these episodes is Scorpius, or at least the real Scorpius (neural clones in Crichton’s animated mindscape don’t count), making John’s final announcement that he intends to go aboard the leather-clad cadaver’s Command Carrier and destroy his wormhole research a thrilling finale to the set that promises big things for the finale episodes, with which Farscape never disappoints.
Advantages: Bold and surprising plot twists, while continuing to craft excellent individual shows.
Disadvantages: Becomes fairly impenetrable for newcomers at this point.
Farscape – Season 3, Vol. 5
*****
Written on 10.09.07
Like many plot-based series, each season of Farscape builds upon the last, but also concentrates largely on a self-contained sequence of events that build to a climax at the end of the year, leaving the writers to start afresh with the next. An awful lot has happened in season three even by this point, the crisis of the Peacekeeper Retrieval Squad, the division of the crews and the duplication of John Crichton all having drawn to natural conclusions, leaving the leather-clad spine of the season as Scorpius’ nefarious wormhole research, which he hopes will provide the Peacekeepers with the ultimate source of power. At the end of the previous box-set, Crichton vowed to get aboard Scorpius’ ship and stop him at all costs, leading viewers to anticipate another multi-part epic storyline to land on their doorsteps with the release of this fifth and final box-set.
It’s such a shame that the first episode is so entirely disappointing, particularly as it steals some of the thunder from the truly incredible things to be found in those that follow. Rather than offering a trilogy, as was the case with the end of season two, the writers instead opt for a ‘near-trilogy,’ by writing an entire episode as a prelude to ‘Into the Lion’s Den.’ Unfortunately, it’s almost entirely unnecessary, the relevant scenes of the meeting between Scorpius and representatives of the Moya crew being included in the next episode’s ‘previously on Farscape...’, but viewed without this hostility as a single stand-alone episode with its own merits, there are a few excellent scenes that should not be overlooked. These mostly do not concern the primary plot, which sees the afore-mentioned meeting turned into a hostage situation by some disappointing and very annoying guest villain ape creatures, though the interaction and team-work of Scorpius and Rygel presents an excellent dynamic that would never be seen again. Rather, the main strength of ‘I-Yensch, You-Yensch’ concerns the scenes aboard Moya, which see the young and aggressive gunship Talyn becoming increasingly unruly and destructive to the point that the crew consider euthanasia. It’s incredible just how touching these scenes can be, concerning a living ship which communicates simply by lights and through its oversized cannon, but it’s no less engaging than the death of the alternate Crichton several episodes previously.
After this forty-five-minute-long interruption of sorts, ‘Into the Lion’s Den’ finally arrives and delivers the most incredible two-parter in the series’ entire run, beating the previous season finale storylines which steadily improved, and proving greater than anything season four or the later mini-series would achieve, despite their high quality. The first episode is largely concerned with setting up the galactic situation in a definitive manner, and aside from a very silly rocket pack action scene that perhaps should have been cut, its analysis of the shades of grey involved in politics is the finest plot twist the show has ever crafted, as Crichton starts to wonder whether he should allow Scorpius to develop the wormhole technology after all. The second episode is the real classic, and features many of my most favourite moments in the entire history of television as it moves towards its climactic and devastating finale. The production values are incredible for these shows, featuring huge sets and some incredible visuals (the shot of Scorpius standing defiant on a staircase as water breaks through the wall behind him and cascades down the steps may be over-the-top, but it’s also the very definition of dramatic). This episode sees the departure of main characters as well as the introduction of others, truly begging the question of what will happen next. It’s astounding that this wasn’t the season finale, but evidently the writers had other plans.
Thus we get the true conclusion to season three, and it’s time to focus on the characters, namely John Crichton and Aeryn. Recent events have allowed them to avoid the issue of how she is going to let him back into her life, and ‘Dog With Two Bones’ does not shy away from answering it from every angle imaginable. Even more fascinating is the series’ first real analysis of the consequences that lie ahead if Crichton gets his wish and returns home to Earth, as a mysterious Old Woman allows him to ‘see through the lies’ of his delusions towards the real truth. At first this episode disappointed me slightly, but viewing it in the correct context, or even looking back after the significant events of the fourth season, it’s one of the most incredibly powerful that Farscape has ever produced, and deals with some vital concerns that have been left unsaid since Crichton first fell out of the wormhole three years earlier. This final episode compliments the preceding two-parter perfectly, the only drawback being a partial focus on a comparatively uninteresting plot concerning an irate rogue Leviathan.
As the events of the season come to a head, independent and unrelated hostage situations and angry spaceships only serve to get in the way of a powerful and satisfying conclusion, which is fortunately delivered here in spades. ‘Into the Lion’s Den’ is among the finest of Farscape’s episodes, while ‘Dog With Two Bones’ is a more seasoned and acquired taste, but one that is nevertheless worthy as an ending to the season, even if the specific cliffhanger moment proves a little disappointing by erupting out of nowhere, quite literally. ‘I-Yensch, You-Yensch’ is the low point of the set, still redeemed by the scenes with Talyn and some great interaction of lesser-seen character dynamics, but largely serving as an interruption. It’s clear that whatever budget was allocated for this episode was transferred to the fantastic looking two-parter where it was put to much better use, though unfortunately leaves the earlier episode looking comparatively rubbish with its thin blue make-up (under which a pinker tone can very clearly be seen) and uninspired stale cafe set. Season three of Farscape remains the strongest and most unique, and these episodes provide perfect conclusions to the major story threads, both plot- and character-based. The major drawback is that the admittedly excellent scenes between John Crichton and Aeryn Sun in the finale condemn all of the supporting characters into even smaller roles for the upcoming season than they were restricted to in this, as season four becomes effectively ‘The John-Aeryn Show.’
These five individual box-sets, each containing two DVDs, were eventually compiled into the complete season three box-set, retaining the behind-the-scenes text and images and deleted scenes, and adding commentaries to select episodes. A limited edition collector’s box was also released for each of the five sets several years ago, and this fifth box-set came with a rather unimpressive replica of a Peacekeeper ident chip, as seen in several episodes earlier in the season to contain a message from Aeryn’s mother. The final ‘E’ on the spine of this release forces all who compulsively collected the DVDs to spell out ‘FARSCAP’ to complete their collection, but essentially there is no way those viewers could do without this, one of the most vital of the Farscape box-sets ever to be released. Along with all the others from season three.
Advantages: Epic!
Disadvantages: First episode feels like filler.
Farscape – Season 4
****
Written on 21.05.06
From its original premise, an everyman astronaut's struggle to find his way back to Earth, the Jim Henson Company's 'Farscape' quickly evolved and continued to expand into something far more complex, novel and entertaining.
While run-of-the-mill shows such as 'Star Trek: Voyager' base themselves in a homecoming plot that tediously and predictably sees a fanfare return in the final episode, Farscape again defies all expectation by featuring a purely accidental return home in the middle of its fourth year [SPOILERS!], and the sombre but profound message that you can't settle down and go backwards when there's more at stake than your own selfish happiness.
Disc 1: Crichton Kicks / What Was Lost part 1: Sacrifice / What Was Lost part 2: Resurrection
Disc 2: Lava's a Many Splendoured Thing / Promises
Disc 3: Natural Election / John Quixote / I Shrink Therefore I Am
Disc 4: A Prefect Murder / Coup By Clam
Disc 5: Unrealized Reality / Kansas
Disc 6: Terra Firma / Twice Shy
Disc 7: Mental as Anything / Bringing Home the Beacon
Disc 8: A Constellation of Doubt / Prayer
Disc 9: We're So Screwed part 1: Fetal Attraction / We're So Screwed part 2: Hot to Katratzi
Disc 10: We're So Screwed part 3: La Bomba / Bad Timing
Starring Ben Browder, Claudia Black, Anthony Simcoe, Gigi Edgley, Raelee Hill and Wayne Pygram.
Despite featuring one of the show's finest moments in the trilogy of episodes centred on John Crichton's return to Earth, the fourth season is viewed by many fans as a decline from the spectacular heights of season 3. A combination of pressure from the Sci-Fi channel and the writers' own wishes to take the series in a darker direction results in a season that's weaker on the whole, with many more throwaway episodes than any season before. Despite the wishes of all involved to avoid the epic over-arching storyline present in every episode of season 3, a style that was judged to alienate casual viewers (perhaps justly so), season 4 fails to find any kind of middle ground: there are several unconnected episodes scattered throughout, but the focus is still on the grander scheme of things.
This wouldn't present a problem if the story arcs here weren't frankly much duller than anything the show has attempted before, as well as overly extended after the epic and conclusive end to the previous year. The early two-parter is perhaps the low point of the whole series, but things slowly pick up as the year progresses, and as usual the build-up whets appetities for an action-packed finale.
Farscape was frequently lauded as the most exciting sci-fi series on TV, and its appeal certainly deserves a wider audience, although it may take some time to get past the strange looking aliens, quirky humour and quasi-Muppets. The story of John Crichton, astronaut of increasing importance to intergalactic powers for his unique knowledge of wormhole travel through space, the other equally fascinating characters continue to be eclipsed by the major storyline in the fourth season. While season 3 dealt with the overcrowded cast by splitting the crew in two for half of the year, season 4 has less excuse for reverting to one-dimensional mode every so often.
Irritated fans began labelling Farscape "The John and Aeryn Show," and nowhere is this more true than in the second half of season 4, where John's obsessive, destructive search for his stolen fiancée encompasses all. Newcomer Sikozu fills the role of sexy alien newcomer and does little else, and although the shifting allegiance of erstwhile arch nemesis Scorpius is carried out expertly, it nevertheless leaves the series lacking an impressive main adversary 'Darth Vader' figure, settling instead for the now-dull Peacekeepers and corny but scary Scarrans.
One of Farscape's strengths has always been its willingness to try something new and inventive, and this continues somewhat in season 4. One of the best episodes is 'A Constellation of Doubt,' which superbly integrates a television interview and documentary format into the show's standard style, although the silly 'John Quixote' does little more than provide some psychedelic strangeness for 44 minutes, despite some ingeniously subtle foreshadowing of later events that should be enjoyed by fans. There's also a nice use of disjointed continuity in 'A Prefect Murder,' an impressive stand-alone episode that can be equally enjoyed by newcomers and long-time viewers, and the powerful finality of the closing episode 'Bad Timing' that ends the season, and for a time the entire series, on a typically explosive note.
Farscape was cancelled after its fourth season, as the problems the network had with season 3 had evidently not been successfully sorted out, but a campaign by the fans (ala the original 'Star Trek') led to the short and fairly satisfying mini-series 'The Peacekeeper Wars' in late 2004. Season 4 is perhaps the show's weak point, but this is contestable: the overall story arc is at times painfully dark and extremely convincing, but the occasional lapses into simplicity (mostly present in the first half of the season) hinder that maturity.
This DVD set features all 22 episodes from season 4, as well as all the bonus material included on the individual boxsets released two years earlier. The sound and picture quality is perfect as usual for these sets, the series' distinctive colourful look and modern sharp focus enhanced even further by the show's shift from full frame to widescreen format for the fourth season.
As usual there are fairly arbitrary DVD commentaries on a few scattered episodes from cast and crew, interesting and nicely geeky guides to terminology used in the show and background information on characters, as well as an infuriating and pointless "video game" based on the first episode, which requires the player to select the left, right, up or down buttons on the DVD player's remote control to guide the movement of the characters or else get eaten by a big CGI space hound. Fans of the equally annoying but addictive arcade classics 'Dragon's Lair' and 'Space Ace' should appreciate this novelty.
The fourth season of Farscape is still an essential quarter of this excellent series for fans, but newcomers should avoid and start elsewhere. The DVD boxset itself is ridiculously overpriced, not contributing enough "previously unreleased" material to justify a £70 or £80 price tag. I would recommend buying the five individual boxsets, although these are similarly extortionate at the moment on websites such as Amazon.co.uk and Play.com. I imported the Region 4 set from Australia, which is where Farscape was filmed, and thus my boxset has added patriotism... and I saved over £50.
Lexx
Sex, Guts and Cowardice
***
Written on 31.03.04
A fan of a lot of modern science fiction, I was introduced to Lexx by one of my friends when it was shown on Channel 5 several years ago. At the time it seemed to be a programme with some good ideas, but which was trying to be a little too innovative or genre-mixing to be successful. I recently decided to give Lexx another try, primarily as there was a 10 pre-owned videos for £15 offer at the local Cash Converters where the strange man sometimes shouts approval at my Manowar clothes. [Takes one to know one.]
Lexx is essentially a late 90s - early 00s sci-fi show set in a dark and oppressive future with innocent, good-willed fugitives flying around in a giant dragonfly-esque spaceship, the Lexx, which we are often reminded is "the most powerful destructive force in the universe." Unlike some genre shows such as Star Trek, I could go into detail with the comparisons but overall it's clear that Star Trek is more appealing to the masses and has much higher production values, the cast is limited to only a few crew members:
CHARACTERS
Stanley Tweedle is a middle-aged, insecure security guard who winds up on the Lexx after failing to report to have several of his organs removed after failing to follow procedures. He is granted the 'key' to the Lexx, meaning he puts his hand in a certain spot on the ship and it recognises only him, and this is likely the only reason he is kept aboard. Stanley has sexual feelings towards Zev, however he's not really in love with her; he's just a single man who's not blind.
Brian Downey plays Stanley and although he can be annoying and a little badly acted at times it's enjoyable to once again see the lowest guy on the social ladder being thrust into a command situation. Not exactly original, you only have to watch Red
Dwarf, Dark Star, etc., but it's the main clue that this show is intended to be taken 'with a pinch of salt' as some fools would say. Not me though, I would never stoop to using that in a review.
Zev clearly and unashamedly forms most of the show's appeal. Originally played by 19-year-old German actress Eva Habermann, Zev was an unattractive housewife who failed to please her child husband and was put into a machine to change her into a love slave. This fortunately happened while the area she was being transformed in was under attack and as such she managed to keep her mind intact and have a noticeable bodily upgrade. A 'cluster lizard' head was also involved in the process which has made her tendencies occasionall animalistic- Niice.
When the show became a regular series, Eva was replaced by Xenia Seeberg with a character name change to 'Xev.' While not quite as alluring an actress, she still managed to give the show some ratings by occasionally removing her clothing. Eva Habermann was not completely up to scratch as an actress, although her nude scenes did the trick a little better.
-Kai is the last of the Brunnen-Gi, am ancient race with a proud cultural heritage who were wiped out by the nasties. Kai's body was reanimated after his death so he could serve as an undead assassin, and needless to say he conveniently becomes friendly and vengeful again when in the company of the other main cast members. The most interesting character in terms of his plot and background, and in more terms if you're a lady, Kai allows the show to retain its credibility and intrigue a little more, despite a few too many jokes about him being dead. "The dead do not have fantasies" and lines like that start to become a little grating, and will never reach the success of the classic "Goddammit Jim, I'm a Doctor not a bricklayer!" Rest in peace, DeForrest Kelley.
Kai is played by Michael McManus, a quite artistic individual whose lack of acting experience doesn't hinder his portrayal of the 'nice zombie.' Kai always reminds me of Edward Scissorhands in terms of his appearance, but at least he's an impressive male character as opposed to the ant-hero Stanley.
Robothead 790 is the Jar Jar Binks/Wesley Crusher/annoying and embarrassing character of the show and although there may be a lot of people who like him, I certainly don't. The severed head of a robot guard, 790 was annoyingly injected with the love slave thing that was meant for Zev and as such is attracted to her. Right from the very first "access is denied precious. All access denied except to the chambers of my heart" I knew I hated him, and his voice is fairly annoying as well. The head is plastic, with video recordings of eyes and a mouth inserted; the voice and mouth are those of Jeffrey Hirschfield, one of the writers.
LEXX: THE MOVIES
The beginning of Lexx is actually very impressive, and I would recommend the first feature-length episode, "I Worship His Shadow," to any fan of action-packed, religion-inspired, character-led science fiction such as Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Babylon 5 or even Farscape, however the following episodes certainly contain a large amount of disappointment.
Lexx was originally one of the sci-fi channel mini-series that come along every so often and are usually god-awful, although there are some which are worth watching such as the recent adaptations of Frank Herbert's novel Dune. The first Lexx episode introduces everything that is necessary to know about the show and the fourth and final episode of the mini-series comes back to this plot, however the second and third episodes are attempts at unrelated stories which don't work too well, especially with the long winded 90-minute time slots.
The world of Lexx in the first episode is very well presented, with a dystopian and oppressed populace similar to Orwell's "1984" or Zamyatin's "We." That's right, I know more dystopia novels than you. Stanley's job is tedious and if there is one classic scene in Lexx, aside from Eva Habermann's shower in episode 2, it's this introduction of Stanley refusing a shuttle captain entry into a gate because she fails to provide a code. "Nobody asks for code anymore!" Stanley is adamant in his request, the tedium of his job showing itself when he aims screwed up paper balls at a hole leading to an incinerator just to see the nice purple flash of fire. Stanley is overruled by a higher ranking security guard, no difficult task as Stanley is already a lowly class 4, and told to report to the authorities for punishment.
The enemy of the Lexx crew in series one is "His Shadow", the powerful being similar to a 'Big Brother' character who is revered among the subjects and used in their greetings, and whose mind contains the knowledge of all the other "His Shadow"s who have come before him. The series would have been a real hit, and a member of my DVD collection, if this story had dominated the mini-series, however it was not meant to be. An advantage of the mini-series over the later series is the surprisingly prestigious guest star list; episode 2 features Tim Curry (unfortunately I only know he's in Muppet Treasure Island but he is in other stuff), episode 3 stars Rutger Hauer (Blade Runner, he played the baddie) and the final episode stars Malcom McDowell (Clockwork Orange, Star Trek Generations).
The original mini-series of Lexx has a lot of potential, but often fails when it tries to become more episodic. Episode 2's plot regards strange hormone changing conditions, which is basically an excuse for some stramy scenes, while episode 3 is all about a garbage planet where peoples' organs and limbs are used to make the 'pattern,' the only food source.
LEXX: THE SERIES
Following the mini-series, Lexx was commissioned as a weekly serial and would go on for four seasons. The sets changed and the overall tone was much different as a regular series, and while there were plenty of mediocre or terrible episodes it still provided enjoyable hours of TV. Series 2 continued the exploration of the Dark Zone, mostly trying to find protoplasm or something to keep Kai alive, and this series even featured a musical episode: "Brigadoom." Unfortunately, according to a lot of fans on the internet, this was not a wise or enjoyable forty-five minutes. A trait I respect Lexx for is its creativity and daring, as the third series featured all thirteen episodes in a long story arc all revolving around the planets Fire and Water and the evil enemy of Fire, called Prince. Such steps always make it difficult to recall specific episodes, as any fans of Buffy's layer years will agree, but are really good 'for the fans.'
Lexx may have been cancelled forcibly after its fourth year, this remains unknown to me, however the writers managed to end the story quite nicely. Although I haven't seen many episodes of Lexx after the mini-series I have followed the plot and characters, and their very deliberate lack of development.
TONE & STYLE
"Makes Star Trek look like Noggin the Nog" was a sticker that graced the cover of Lexx volume 2 when it came out on video, and as a Star Trek fan I found this a little silly. After all, Star Trek's aim has always been to present the viewer with a positive outlook on the future of mankind, while also highlighting some of the inherent dangers and decisions which we may have to make. Someone who only catches the occasional Voyager may not have noticed this and I wouldn't blame them, as this is most present in the original series, the Next Generation and Deep Space Nine - the latter of which probed deeper into the 'perfect' future and gave such great lines as "it's easy to be a saint in paradise" and "paradise has never ben so well-armed." Hail the Sisko.
The writers of Lexx have clearly intended to make the show 'zany' and 'wacky,' to use very unoriginal and non-descriptive terms, and the first episode shows us plenty of sexuality, gore, guts, brains, weapons, insecurity and death. As a long-time fan of all of these things equally, the first episode is a dead winner, however a lot of the later humour seems a little contrived and deliberately 'zany.'
OVERALL
Due to its slight diversity of style, Lexx might as well just be classed as a sci-fi show. An adult sci-fi show in any case. There's comedy but it's not a comedy show like Red Dwarf. My favourite episode of Lexx, and the only one I will watch on a regular basis when I feel like it, is "I Worship His Shadow," the first one, as it's got everything that makes the show quite good. Malfunctioning technology and all. The show doesn't work well as a series and it wouldn't be one of my regular viewings even if it was on TV at all over here. My basic opinion of Lexx is that it will appeal to some people a lot, but it could have been so much more.
Oh and by the way, the Lexx itself gets food from eating some matter off planets and is capable of destroying planets very quickly with its Death Star-style ray. The soundtrack to the series is also quite alluring, being the "Brunnen-Gi" war song from the first scene of the first episode.
Advantages: Some interesting ideas, Upbeat style, Some good effects
Disadvantages: Nothing to distinguish it from better series, Plots are often wafer thin and unimpressive
Lost – Season 1, Part 1
Live Together / Die Alone
****
Written on 09.07.07
Yes, I have defected to the mainstream and become addicted to ‘Lost.’ I’m not proud of it.
This premature DVD set contains the first twelve episodes of the first season, released in the UK shortly after Channel 4 hit the half-way point on its late screening of the series. A more concise and worthwhile complete season boxset would inevitably follow, but for new fans of the show, eager to acquire for the Christmas market, this DVD set seemed to be the perfect purchase, despite boasting an unreasonable price tag that has dropped significantly since. With a handful of special features that can be found on the complete season boxset, these half-season DVDs are rendered obsolete in a fairly short space of time, to the extent that it appears the third season has been held off until the complete set is released in the autumn, presumably something to do with the UK broadcasts being taken over by Sky.
‘Lost’ is a series that came along at just the right time, applying an old plane crash survival cliché that has new relevance to American viewers after September 2001, yet long enough after to avoid being too directly related. Stylistically, the series continues the trend of TV that thinks it’s a novel, telling one expansive story slowly and carefully over the course of twenty or so episodes per year in the style of ‘Twin Peaks’ and ‘Babylon 5.’ Previous hit shows largely relied on a contrast between heavy plot arcs and stand-alone episodes with self-contained stories for fear of alienating casual viewers, for example ‘The X-Files’ or ‘Buffy,’ but Lost makes no such concessions. The gambit appears to have been successful, as millions of loyal viewers watch the show religiously as each page is turned, but for others the bigger picture is too painstaking and infuriating to wait for.
This really is no fault of the show, but more of peoples’ expectations. In the early 1990s, David Lynch’s ‘Twin Peaks’ was never intended to be about solving the murder of Laura Palmer, and indeed it may never have been answered if the writers had had their way. Unfortunately, most viewers became so invested in the ‘plot’ that the series had to cater for them, rather than continue as a parodic soap opera of strange characters. This would ultimately prove to be the show’s downfall, and something that more recent trends of ‘Lost’ have been forced to emulate, placing plot advancement in the foreground to satisfy those viewers desperate for answers on their own time scale, rather than that of the writers. ‘Lost’ is a show that has to be viewed as character-based as much as a show with a mysterious and slowly unfolding story arc, and as the introduction, season one is granted a little more space in balancing these elements, while also occurring before the writers admittedly run out of such character ideas.
After the two-part pilot episode, which really should be viewed as a feature length episode to get the most out of it, the familiar ‘Lost’ format is set up: events on the island, focusing on a core group of survivors across one or two days, interspersed with flashbacks directly relating to one specific character. There are no subversions of the format at this point, and the flashback scenes are mostly relevant to each character’s current situation, and to fill the audience in (or not, in some cases) on their ‘past life.’ The characters are all excellently performed and despite representing a humorously PC group of individuals (but where’s the gay couple and the cyber-nerd?), they are almost always worth watching. Viewing in hindsight, it’s tempting to try and catch the actors out in their limited knowledge of characters we now know so much more about, but at this early stage they mostly act one-dimensionally enough to avoid such inconsistency. The primary ensemble is set up within the first several episodes, as it becomes evident that the series will be dominated by the conflicting personalities of Jack (the doctor), Kate (the ex-criminal), Locke (the hunter) and Sawyer (the con-man) foremost, though the initial episodes favour Charlie and Sayid more than the series will ultimately choose to. The flashback cycle starts again at episode eleven, with Jack and then Kate receiving a second outing before many of the supporting characters have been given a chance, but it’s obvious in some cases, particularly Hurley and Walt, that their histories will be very revealing, and are being saved for a reason. Others like the dispensable Shannon and Boone will eventually be granted out of mere fairness.
As someone who has enjoyed watching Lost with patience for the development of the characters and plot, my primary concern is always that the writers are consistent with their evolving concepts, and these early episodes set things up excellently. It’s obvious after only a couple of flashback episodes that the majority of the characters, if not all of them, are struggling to overcome something from their past, even if the persistent use of ‘daddy issues’ becomes grating over time. The island has given them a chance to start over and repent, the spiritual dimension being characterised by Locke, whose apparently insane devotion to the environment is granted a basis in episode four. The tension set up around this point between some characters’ passive faith in their rescue, also seen as denial, and others’ practical ‘embrace’ of the island by moving from the beach to the sustaining environment of the caves is one of the strongest messages the show has transmitted, and is one of the reasons I prefer watching these early episodes to those that came after.
With a cast of dominating personalities, the series has permission to tackle serious political and moral issues on many occasions, and is partial to using tried-and-tested symbolism to achieve those ends. From the obvious Biblical imagery of the caves as the Garden of Eden, highlighted by Locke name-dropping Adam and Eve and furthered by the use of Sawyer as Kate’s carnal temptation, there’s a lot that literary or film analysts have seen before, but that’s not to say that the allusions are merely to show off. The series constructs its own mythology right from the start as the more inexplicable aspects of the island become apparent, particularly through the visions of characters and the experiences of Locke, and small mysteries such as the black and white stones and the French maps. Depending on the personal style of each episode’s writer, the metaphors are occasionally less subtle, pandering to the lowest common denominator by beating viewers around the head with symbolism (particularly the episode ‘The Moth’).
As popular, by-the-numbers television, the plot advances at the expected rate. This means that by the mid-point of each season, initial introductions and set-up will be out of the way, with new elements being introduced to ultimately lead to a conclusion over several episodes. As the first half of the first season, anyone looking for answers is going to be a little disappointed, but the series has fulfilled its plot-thickening duty admirably and memorably by the final episode of the set. By this half-way point, the native inhabitants of the island have made their presence felt to the newcomers, the French transmission from the pilot episode has been traced to its surprising source, and Locke and Boone have stumbled across a mysterious steel object buried in the foliage, all of which form the basis for the rest of the season.
As for the special features, this set is fairly generous, though as explained earlier these would eventually find their way onto the complete season one boxset along with those from its ‘Season One - Part Two’ brother. Most episodes feature an ‘audio commentary,’ though not in a traditional manner, as the episode plays without interruption until the scene jumps suddenly to a piece of behind-the-scenes filming inserted. The scenes are always relevant, but I had to abandon this option after the first one as it’s really interrupting and I found myself waiting tensely for the next one to appear. The set also contains a long documentary on the filming of the pilot episode, which will be enjoyable for those who enjoy these behind-the-scenes things, and interviews with the cast on landing the roles.
Lost has perhaps been so successful due to the creators’ apparent attempt to be a show to end all shows, incorporating elements from most of the television genres imaginable (within reason: there’s no animated episode or game show), the flashbacks allowing for deviations from the essential survival/mystery plot to the realms of medical drama and romantic tragedy. As the show continues, it almost seems like the writers are trying to tick off all the clichés imaginable from a checklist (was anyone really surprised when Ana-Lucia turned out to be a cop in the second season? Not to mention disappointing trends for pompous arch villains in the most recent series), but again this selection of episodes benefits from being fresh and, admittedly, not really having the time to run ideas into the ground. While many watching these episodes back will be irritated with the comparatively slow progress of ‘answers,’ this stage is more concerned with the introduction to the characters through the interaction of their flashback memories and concurrent actions on the island, which work much better and more relevantly than the tedious and often arbitrary flashbacks of the following seasons, which have increasingly served only to impede progress of the island arc. At this stage, interest is divided equally, flashbacks allowing some relief from the samey tropical landscape and survival situation.
That’s not to say that these are the best episodes of Lost, although in my opinion, many of them are (‘Walkabout,’ for instance, is much stronger than any of the subsequent episodes based around Locke), but on the whole they are much more watchable than a similar batch would be from the second or third season. It also obviously helps that the series doesn’t demand substantial foreknowledge at this point, and it would be far less alienating to newcomers who won’t have to struggle through jargon about Dharma, time travel or those goddamned numbers. Despite being rushed into production, the series finds its feet incredibly quickly, and although the focus of the series has changed substantially with each season, it’s only really the two-part pilot episode that ‘feels’ a little different, for trying to tackle a much larger situation with less intimacy than the usual episodes.
One of the most irritating aspects of these early episodes is the creators’ penchant for ending on a pointless musical montage, which doesn’t only spoil the illusion of an isolated existence (the premise that Hurley is listening to the songs on his personal stereo is a bit of a weak excuse, I’m glad his batteries seemed to run out after a while), but also means that the writers avoid ending the episodes on a strong note. This is the case for about half of the episodes on this set. Otherwise, the direction and style of the series are impressively cinematic, like much American television drama today, although there’s perhaps a little too much reliance on hand-held camera when it isn’t really necessary. From the modest, personalised reveal of the plane wreckage in the first episode to the twist of Locke’s wheelchair in the fourth, this series impressed me from the start with its careful execution, and avoidance of cheap shock value. Even so, viewers after such cheap thrills are still catered for with several episodes featuring scenes of Kate or Sawyer (depending on your orientation) wearing mostly water.
The mysteries have always been central to Lost, and even within twelve episodes there’s plenty of speculation to be had: Where does Ethan come from? What happened to the French woman’s child? Who will Kate sleep with first? What the hell did Locke see? The dangling threads have always been so open to interpretation, and that’s got to be one of the main attractions of Lost, even for stupid viewers who insist on voicing their poorly thought-out ‘solutions.’ For at least one and a half seasons, I was fairly convinced that Walt’s dog Vincent and the island’s smoke monster were the same thing, but the writers don’t seem to be backing up my obviously wrong theory any longer. What do they know?
Advantages: Excellent start to the intriguing series.
Disadvantages: Initially over-priced, and later irrelevant once the first season boxset was released.
Lost – Season 1, Part 2
You Like Games, John?
Written on 16.07.07
*****
The second half of the first season of ‘Lost.’
Although the only reason for these split sets was clearly to release some of the episodes ahead of time of the complete box-set, conveniently in time for the Christmas rush of around October, the nature of the series’ traditional plot arc structure means that the two halves do compliment each other in very different ways. While the first third or so of each season set up the premise and prominent characters of the show, the middle section began to introduce mysteries and plot developments that would, traditionally, be resolved by the end of the year. The second half of season one takes a slightly different tone right from the onset, with a greater sense of mystery added to the character flashbacks to compliment what’s happening on the island, and a more active role by many in either adapting to or escaping the new environment, as it becomes increasingly obvious that no one is coming to rescue them.
As the seasons of Lost continued, viewers who evidently watched only to receive fast and direct answers to the mysteries found their patience severely tested, to the point that the writers caved in to demand in the last half of season three. Although it can be a little annoying to see threads deliberately stretched, as they were in the disappointing second season, the pace of these earlier episodes is near perfect, each episode containing enough plot progression to keep things moving steadily along as several days pass on the island each time. Still, they would probably offer very little to those same viewers who already know most of what’s going on, and thus have no reason to watch.
The advancement of the plot isn’t the only reason to watch Lost, as I explained in my review of the first box-set, as there would be little point in spending forty-five minutes waiting patiently for revelations that could be more practically read on the internet (and if anyone really does ‘watch’ Lost in that way because they find the episodes themselves a bit dull, they’re kind of missing the point). The story is driven by the large ensemble cast of characters, whose stories don’t always advance the ‘main’ plots, but are interesting and enigmatic enough in their own way. Somewhat disappointingly, the flashback cycle had already begun again by episode eleven, as Jack and then Kate received a second offering that thankfully added more shading to the picture of their past life than later re-treads would manage, but the second half of the season still strives to fill in all the blanks by covering the more minor characters as well as providing a second helping for Locke, Sawyer, Sayid and Charlie. The flashback for Jin is especially interesting, as it provides the contrasting perspective to his wife Sun’s flashback earlier in the year and explains his nefarious actions, perhaps annoying viewers a little with its reliance on sub-titles to translate the Korean (it always amuses me how the Iraqis in Sayid’s flashback speak perfect English in comparison), but proving that the writers are capable of very interesting and unusual characterisation, particularly with this pair.
For a viewer watching the episodes back, who already knows all the basics, these later flashbacks are actually a lot more interesting than the earlier ones, which did little more than set up the one-dimensional foundations of the leading players (Jack likes to fix people; Kate was born to run; Locke doesn’t like being told what he can’t do; Sawyer is a bastard but he’s tortured so that’s okay, etc.). Right from the first episode of the set (technically episode thirteen), Boone’s flashback features a cameo from Sawyer as he is dragged through a police station, while Sawyer’s subsequent episode sees him drowning his sorrows with Jack’s late father. While some of these crossovers are nothing more than fun but insignificant ‘Easter eggs’ for the viewers to spot, such as Hurley appearing on Korean TV, there’s a very clear degrees-of-separation element being introduced that sets up a lot of intrigue for the show’s future development, which in hindsight it has perhaps failed to really live up to. Of course, viewers muct remember the fact that pretty much all of the characters were in the same city for at least a day before their flight out from Sydney, which significantly narrows the improbability of such meetings! It’s still a very nice touch, and with the disturbing and foreboding histories of Walt and Hurley finally revealed there are only greater mysteries to be solved.
Lost’s first season is the strongest opening season I’ve seen in a series for some time, but for all its adventurous nature, it often remains disappointingly shallow and predictable. After introducing the conflict between Locke and Michael as rival father figures for Michael’s son Walt in the first half of the season, which initially threatened to be quite disturbing as Locke took quite an interest in the boy and promised to show him ‘a secret,’ the conflict is finally dealt with in quite an unsatisfying and soppy way, as both men work together to save Walt’s life from a polar bear, and in the process find the usual respect for each other, blah etc etc. Even Sawyer’s quite silly vengeance against a boar that he partially believes may be the reincarnation of the man he killed wimps out at the end, almost as if all of these island creatures and monsters are conspiring to create a heart-warming tale of brotherhood and love. It’s amusing to hear Hurley letting out his suppressed rage in his focus episode that there are monsters and murderers around, but no one seems to be doing anything about it; similarly, Locke’s speech about the threat of the so-called ‘Others,’ and the rafts built by Michael to escape the dangerous island, provide the necessary reality check to the seemingly blissful ignorance the characters manage to express as they go about their daily lives. The story requires real threats to be present all the time in order to be really successful and riveting, and the two-part epic finale accomplishes the drama perfectly, making it the finest episode of the lot.
Despite being a serialised television series, Lost endeavours to be both a novel and a major motion picture, and achieves both of these goals to an extent, particularly in the cliffhanger finale. The cast is completely excellent and mostly convincing, amusingly PC but also intelligently multi-racial, demanding a lot of American-born Daniel Dae Kim who is forced to act entirely through face and body language and snippets of a Korean language that the actor doesn’t even understand. Some of the supporting cast, primarily those in the flashbacks, belong much more to the world of traditional and more low-budget television, and it shows in comparison to the experience of the leads. The cinematography is as excellent and cinematic as can be expected of television these days, as are the understated special effects (mostly explosions), while it goes without saying that the genuine and amazing tropical location keeps the series looking fantastic and believable, and not boring as I originally worried it might after watching the first episode.
It’s great to see the series evolving in response to what may have been audience reaction also, as the annoying music montage endings are now gone (it could also have had something to do with Hurley’s discman batteries running out), and the drama is heightened. The season ends on two incredibly exciting scenes, one out at sea and one above the hatch, promising more than any inevitably disappointing conclusion could satisfy. Season two may have been incredibly slow with the answers, but imagine if the series had been cancelled right there, as many great (and really terrible) series have before it. It must have been an interesting summer of speculation for American viewers, while the UK schedule was struggling to catch up.
The special features on this DVD are fairly impressive, but once again they would all appear on the complete season one set, offering nothing exclusive here. ‘Lost: On Location’ delves behind the scenes on a few selected episodes from across the year, there’s a documentary explaining the idea of the flashbacks for viewers who somehow haven’t understood it (basically an excuse for a small clip show), and some fairly enjoyable bloopers and deleted scenes. The set still retails at £15 to £20, which means no one will buy it when the complete season one costs only £10 more. Still, it’s a not-entirely-meaningless method of dividing the first season between its initial set-up phase and its more exciting plod towards conclusion. Usually with shows such as this, and the later seasons of this show especially, the conclusion proves far more satisfying than the teasing and frustrating messing around at the start of the year, but Lost’s surprisingly strong beginning makes both parts of this season equal halves.
Advantages: Plot develops in interesting and satisfying ways, at an acceptable pace.
Disadvantages: Too light-hearted and heart-warming at times. (I know, I have no soul).
Lost – Season 2, Part 1
4 8 15 16 23 42
***
Written on 27.07.07
The second season of 'Lost' had a lot to live up to after the strong first season, and the general heaps of criticism it received indicate that it did not do an adequate job. It seemed that the main criticism of critics and viewers alike was the lack of definitive answers provided by the writers for the increasing number of mysteries they introduced, and in particular the excruciatingly drawn-out phallus-teasing that saw a fairly limited number of events spread across twenty-four episodes of television. This lack of patience in the general public for the grand scheme of Lost's creative staff is understandable when viewing the series on a weekly basis rather than at each individual's leisure with a DVD set, with the frequent interruptions to the schedule leaving audiences waiting on a cliffhanger 'to be continued' style finale for an uncomfortable duration. Season two is guilty of failing to respond well to audience feedback in this regard, particularly as viewing figures dropped for this exact reason as early as the first half of season one.
The second season isn't big on answers. It is successful in expanding the show's mythology and background considerably and setting up a large bank of material to draw on for future seasons, but does nothing to win back those impatient viewers who switched off as soon as it became clear that the monster/dinosaur/pissed-off giraffe out in the jungle was not going to be satisfyingly explained within the first five episodes of the series. Watching Lost back in hindsight as an extended novel-for-television, a novel that is now over half complete, season two both builds upon the introduction offered in season one as well as introducing entirely new elements presumably as the writing team realised that this hugely successful show had a few more years left in it. This DVD set contains the first twelve episodes of season two, the set-up to the set-up, and is very big on introductions. As well as explaining the mysteries behind, or rather beneath the 'hatch' that dominated the latter half of season one, a selection of new major characters are introduced with whole new backstories to be explored through the series' flashback format, and further encounters occur between the plane crash survivors and the island's native inhabitants, the mysterious 'Others,' although almost nothing is revealed in that area until later in the season and well into year three. The same goes for the mysterious visions of the absent Walt, which are dragged out far beyond breaking point.
Even as a veteran of similar extensively plotted TV series, Lost really does test my patience, here more than anywhere else. Even within the first two episodes of season two, it's clear that the path ahead is going to be very long and very tedious, as both episodes end on the very same scene, reached from two different forty-five-minute-long angles, and are finally concluded in episode three by the presumed man with the answers (in the form of Desmond) running off, not to be seen until the season finale. It's clear that the writers approached season two with the bigger picture in mind, and were content to spread it evenly across an entire year of television, but even that doesn't account for the contradictions that start to creep in, even between Desmond's appearances at the beginning and the end. The introduction of new characters was a wise move, even if it was ultimately all but negated, and implies a recognition that some of the existing ensemble have outlived their usefulness in terms of having episodes devoted to their backstories.
The flashbacks are my main issue with season two of Lost, as episodes focused on the leads Jack and Kate particularly had started to get repetitive even by the end of season one, and even with the addition of new blood and changes to the format (the interesting episode 'The Other 48 Days' is presented entirely as a flashback, covering the timeline of the first season from the perspective of the tail section survivors), very little is revealed from characters the second, third or fourth time around that hasn't already been hammered home. Even worse, the flashback format has seemingly become arbitrary, with some flashbacks inserted simply to tell us a little bit more about what happened in the years before the crash in a way that influences neither the concurrent plot, nor even the attitude or actions of the central character on the island as they 'remember.' This is all but verified in the second episode 'Adrift,' an episode originally planned to explain more about Sawyer as he and Michael drift back to the island on their destroyed raft, which was changed at the last minute to waste time showing once again that Michael missed his son's early childhood. Sitting through the flashbacks really becomes a chore, and something that perhaps should have been left to the first year.
Now that I've let off all the steam that comes with discussing season two, there's the matter of explaining how, if it's so annoying, it managed to earn those three stars. Still in terms of the show's writing, the development of the Dharma Initiative and those creepy training videos are the strong point that differentiates the episodes starkly from the first season, not least in a visual manner. With access to a structure complete with a record player, an ancient computer and shower facilities, as well as limited supplies of packaged food, the island and flashback scenes begin to merge to the point that a greater measure of identification is required in discerning whether the story being told is past or present. Right from the memorable opening scene of the season, the writers jump at the chance to play with the audience's heads in this way – after all, they dumbfounded us with Locke's wheelchair right at the end of 'Walkabout' – and the retro time capsule of the Swan 'hatch,' as the characters still refer to it, is an excellent backdrop for the new stories being told, even if the significance of the numbers that must be typed into the computer every 108 minutes is absent from this half of the season. A few dangling plot threads from the first season are very satisfyingly solved, particularly that of the crashed Nigerian drug plane and the radio transmission picked up by the ill-fated Boone within it that we learn was answered by someone from the tail section, but as the season progresses it relies increasingly on shock endings that come right out of nowhere and occasionally, particularly regarding Jack's talk of raising an army at the end of 'The Hunting Party,' lead right back to nowhere.
Even if the characters are becoming a little boring, the excellent performances of the cast keep them watchable, especially as this is the major season of conflict between rival 'camps' of the survivors, in the loosest and most metaphorical sense. Matthew Fox and Terry O'Quinn continue the great rivalry they developed in the season one finale as the two major male leads, as Josh Holloway and Dominic Monaghan fade into the background a little more to set up their darker streaks in the second half of the season, and Evangeline Lilly keeps Kate convincing, especially as we finally learn 'What Kate Did' in the episode of the same name, despite the really annoying material written for her. The new cast are a mixed bag, and far more prominent here in their introductions than they were presumably ever intended to be in the series proper, the main problem being with their leader in Michelle Rodriguez, an actress who it would be fair to say has a very singular manner of delivery. On the other hand, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (known to some fans as 'Triple-A') has a very commanding and enigmatic presence as the religious Mr. Eko, the actor's penchant for method acting (allegedly by arriving on set two hours early and never speaking out of character, something that can be glimpsed in the bloopers) enhances his convincing performance, even when he imposes a forty day vow of silence on himself for killing one of the Others in self-defense. Continuing his excellent performance from the first season, Korean-American Daniel Dae Kim continues to out-perform his co-stars by speaking a language he has no real knowledge of, and is granted a great scene of comic relief in Hurley's dream in 'Everybody Hates Hugo' where Kim is finally allowed to speak in American English, although in the dream he insists that it's Hurley who is speaking Korean.
Lost lends itself perfectly to DVD release, capturing the feature film quality of the picture and sound and also making room for helpful extras to build upon the series for dedicated fans. The special features on this truncated set would eventually form a section of the complete 'Extended Experience' season two set, and just like the season one part one and two DVDs there is nothing exclusive to be found here, so it makes much more sense to buy the complete second season which works out much cheaper than the individuals – and as always, the second half of the season is more enjoyable. The extras are along the same lines as season one, with behind-the-scenes featurettes on half of the episodes, deleted scenes from flashbacks that aren't exactly riveting (answering many viewers' rhetorical question, or perhaps just mine, of, 'if this pointless, waste of time flashback made it into the final episode, what on earth did they leave out?'), selected audio commentaries, and quite nicely the surreal promo advertisement directed by David LaChapelle exclusively for Channel 4, which UK viewers may remember from 2005. Showing the cast waltzing in a slow motion daze amongst the burning plane wreckage on the beach and proclaiming their stereotypical professions in a chaotic, echoed voice-over ('one of us is a doctor, one of us is a criminal'), it serves to completely confuse and mislead viewers as to what the show is about, but it's still very interesting to watch, especially knowing it was filmed after the first season finished and the characters shown as paired dancing partners will hold some symbolic significance. This is the sort of forgotten thing that DVDs (well, and YouTube) are great at preserving.
There is no way that newcomers to Lost should start here, at perhaps its weakest point (though I personally have a greater dislike for the first half of season three, before the show turned around and became compulsive viewing again). There is also no reason to buy this specific set any longer, as it was rendered obsolete as soon as 'The Extended Experience' came out some months later, although it is always useful and revealing to examine each season in this bisected manner to pit set-up against pay-off and determine their combined success. It isn't a real triumph for season two, which accomplishes very little in these first twelve episodes and even admits to stretching a single day's worth of action across several episodes of narrative unlike the faster first season, but it's great to see the show get a very visual turnaround with the new setting of the Swan station to break up the repetitive, if admittedly incredible Hawaiian scenery. It's a shame that some of the mysteries don't go anywhere within the TV series and are instead consigned to the extracurricular 'Lost: The Experience' interactive game across the internet, something that must have been a lot of fun for investigative fans in learning the history of Dharma that is nevertheless inconsequential to the events happening on the show, and as viewers the largest mystery looming over these episodes that still hasn't been answered is whether Geronimo Jackson was ever a real band, or whether the creators are playing even more mind-games with viewers in insisting that it's genuine.
Namasté.
Advantages: New setting of 'the Swan' and the introduction of Dharma make things more intriguing.
Disadvantages: The season takes far too long to get going, arriving at nowhere by the half-way point.
Lost – Season 2, Part 2
Smells Like Carrots
***
Written on 07.09.07
The second half of Lost’s disappointing second year has the natural advantage of being licensed to provide answers to hungry fans, rather than the introductions of plot threads and new characters that necessarily dominated the first part. Ultimately, season two would reveal very little at a tediously slow pace, but the developments in key episodes of the run-up towards the season finale expand the scope of the series’ mythology nicely and, most importantly for the ABC television network, kept viewers guessing and eager through last summer. Watching the show back on DVD with the hindsight of another year, the deliberate red herrings and ultimately pointless distractions of short-lived characters detract from the enjoyment, as do the repetitive and equally pointless flashback scenes that comprise much of the screen time. An interesting finale clearly isn’t enough justification for what is fundamentally a very trying year of the disproportionately popular show.
Despite suffering from most of the same problems as the first half of season two, these episodes succeed in introducing bold new twists to the established format, just as patience with the normal order of things reaches breaking point. For the first time, the character flashbacks are used to directly address events that have transpired on the island, either during the forty-odd days since the characters crash-landed there, or even further into the past. New mother Claire (Emilie de Ravin) is the first to receive this treatment, finally recalling her drugged ordeal as a prisoner of the hostile ‘Others’ in their medical station on the island, in an episode that essentially revises that enemy threat entirely. Following his shocking return and change of heart towards the end of the year, Michael (Harold Perrineau) enlightens the viewers with memories of his experiences during his week-long absence and dealings with the Others, while the season finale grants a sizeable chunk of its feature-length running time to popular newcomer Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) to better explain the more recent history of the island, the DHARMA initiative and, most importantly of all for patient viewers, the reason behind the crash of Oceanic Airlines Flight 815 back on day one.
Tampering with the flashback format was probably the wisest move the writers could have pulled off at this point in the show’s development, yet these brief excursions in a new direction only serves to draw attention to the redundancy of the regular flashbacks in every other forty-five minute episode. There are a couple that aren’t entirely unwelcome, specifically the unexpected spotlight on background characters Rose and Bernard and the revelation of Hurley’s (Jorge Garcia) time in a mental hospital, but the rest essentially provide nothing but tedious distraction from the island events, which are proceeding with glacial haste as it is. The main problem with these flashbacks is their repetitive nature, reminding the viewer of the main characters’ one-dimensional traits that we already knew, dressed up in an ever-so-slightly different clichéd scenario from last time.
This consequently affects the development of these characters in the main island plot, as they are required by stylistic convention to act in a manner that reminds them of past indiscretions. Thus, we see ex-Republican Guard Iraqi Sayid (Naveen Andrews) forced to torture someone yet again, and another flashback reminding the viewer that he’s actually a nice guy who regrets his actions – but, y’know, sometimes you just gotta torture the information out of uncooperative people when the stakes are higher than your own conscience. Perhaps worst of all is the backwards progression of Sawyer (Josh Holloway), the financial con-man who seems locked in a Wall Street cycle of boom and slump as the writers make him loveable, then despicable, then loveable, and now despicable again for the remainder of this season. Elsewhere, the Korean couple Jin and Sun are given some prominent developments, but their formulaic flashback episodes have now completely lost the charm that made them some of the highlights of season one, while Charlie’s turnaround to ‘the dark side’ is dealt with in a bland and uninteresting way after his actions with Claire’s baby and the heroin stash earlier in the year.
Not every character is treated as poorly as the above examples, as the writers’ obvious favourites are given plenty to work with. Hurley, initially a sizeable piece of scenery who was promoted to a main character during the first season, is given a cute love interest and interesting psychological profile to make up for his binge eating earlier on. Michael’s progression is truly shocking, but permissible and enjoyable as it is essentially completely true to his established character. The curious Mr. Eko (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) takes on a serious role as the foil for John Locke (Terry O’Quinn), whose own sudden turnaround from believer to resentful victim of a supposed practical joke is an interesting focus of the latter episodes, being resolved climactically in the finale. The departure of Michelle Rodriguez’s Ana-Lucia is a wise move that the writers had apparently planned all along, making her flashback episode with Jack’s father seem like an unforgivable waste of everyone’s time, but it’s a shame that her unpopularity led to her fate being shared with fellow newcomer Libby (Cynthia Watros), whose character had a lot of potential and was just getting interesting. But then, whoever credited the Lost writers with making sound decisions?
In terms of the island plot, the second half of season two primarily concerns itself with turning established ideas on their head, and succeeds rather well. Locke’s crisis of faith emerges when he and Eko find a second DHARMA station thanks to the extremely eerie ultraviolet map discovered in ‘Lockdown,’ which implies that the necessity of pushing the button in the Swan station every 108 minutes ‘to save the world’ is nothing more than a psychological experiment. The season finale reveals the truth through trial and significant error, and the tying-up of ancient plot threads (particularly those concerning electro-magnetism) is satisfyingly done, even if it does urinate on the chips of everyone who held out for a larger theological reason for the plane crash. Less riveting is the evolution of the island’s presumed native inhabitants, colloquially referred to as ‘the Others,’ who are revealed to possess a greater degree of technological sophistication than they originally made clear (what was the reason for the convoluted cover-up and fake beards? It makes no real sense, other than as a revision by the writers between seasons).
Rousseau’s capture of a man claiming to be stranded balloonist Henry Gale forms a significant part of the island storyline that spans several episodes, as the characters, scarred by experience and presuming guilty until proven innocent, lock him up as a potential Other. The mystery is handled quite well, with enough signs pointing to each conclusion, but all of these plot threads are quite obviously and irritatingly stretched out as effectively a lead-in to the final episode. The purported time scale of the series helps to explain matters, with each episode taking place over a single day or even less, but can’t excuse the dull writing which is also annoyingly plagued by jarring inconsistencies, particularly evident between Desmond’s first appearance at the start of the year and his subsequent return in ‘Live Together, Die Alone.’ The larger plans may be in place to guide the writers along each season, but many details are clearly last-minute amendments; on the positive side, this means that the series responds enthusiastically to feedback and criticism, allowing for the departure of unpopular characters and increased prominence for fan favourites.
The special features of this set are identical to those found on the complete season two set, which also includes everything from the first half of the season and further bonuses as part of its ‘Extended Experience.’ The glimpses behind-the-scenes are more focused on the development of characters and plot this time around rather than the creation of sets and introductions of new faces in ‘Season 2 – Part 1,’ and although it’s interesting, it seems like fairly standard offerings for a DVD these days. Season two continues to hobble along in a significant slump from which it wouldn’t emerge until half-way through the next season, when things finally started looking up and the series began to push forward at an enjoyable pace into exciting territory again, and although season two features some vital revelations and unique characters, its significance does not match up to its entertainment value, which is frequently below-par. Still, the finale’s good, so it doesn’t matter if the other twenty episodes are dull – right?
Advantages: Satisfying season finale with long-overdue answers.
Disadvantages: Poor writing spoils the majority of characters, and extends the plot to breaking point.
***
Written on 09.11.07
As the exhausted Star Trek franchise tactfully slumbers in anticipation of a second big-screen re-birth with the imaginatively titled ‘Star Trek’ at Christmas 2008, a delicate re-make of the original series featuring such notable alumni as J. J. Abrams and Simon Pegg, what better time to return to that classic and incredibly influential series with an in-depth look at its more notable episodes? Well, some time in late 2008 would probably make more sense, but there are a lot of DVDs and even I have a limit on how much Trek I can handle in a week.
Star Trek: The Original Series, as it’s officially titled on merchandise nowadays to distinguish it from its successors, was the first series of the long-running franchise to be released on DVD in the form of simplistic individual releases containing two episodes each, without any notable special features (unless you count ‘interactive menu’ as a special feature, which they did in those days). Later years saw Paramount release more attractive box-sets of complete seasons for the various Trek series, The Original Series coming late in line, though aside from an unnecessary shuffling of episode order to reflect the original airdates (a less satisfying manner of watching the series than the more accepted production order that these original releases followed), there was little to differentiate the newer releases from the originals apart from flashy boxes and a limited number of entirely disappointing extras in the Star Trek DVD tradition. In its endless greed, Paramount has since tagged the odd episode into themed boxsets representing all of the television series, usually the same three episodes again and again, while the re-mastered versions of the episodes with a long-overdue polished print and distracting new special effects are due to be released on High Definition DVD some time very soon.
The good thing to come out of all of this corporate abuse of fan loyalty is that DVDs of the series are incredible easy to come by, and often very cheap as a result, and these original, individual releases allow buyers to select their personal favourite episodes or ones they might have missed. It takes me back to the days before complete series box-sets became the norm, and people willingly shelled out unreasonable sums of cash for inferior quality VHS videos containing up to ninety minutes of telly.
The first two episodes released on DVD format are, as expected, the first two voyages of the U.S.S. Enterprise under Captain James Kirk, titled ‘Where No Man Has Gone Before’ and ‘The Corbomite Maneuver.’ While this accurately reflects the production order of the original series, and imitates the identical VHS releases from over a decade earlier, creator Gene Roddenberry had previously recorded an earlier pilot episode titled ‘The Menagerie,’ starring Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike and featuring an entirely different crew with the sole exception of Leonard Nimoy’s iconic Mr. Spock; the first pilot did not prove successful with the NBC producers, but Roddenberry was given a second shot to sell his innovative sci-fi series, leading to the first episode of this set. Although ‘The Menagerie’ was never aired in the original run, the majority of its footage was incorporated into a later two-parter that took its name, causing the original to revert to an earlier title of ‘The Cage’ when eventually released on VHS. This original pilot in its unedited form was ultimately tagged on to the final volume of these two-part DVD releases (volume 40), though personally I feel it would sit more comfortably alongside its immediate successor ‘Where No Man Has Gone Before,’ as both are fine examples of a series starting out with little idea of its destination, littered with cute inconsistencies from the series as it would ultimately transpire.
On to the episodes themselves, these are both memorable early voyages of the Enterprise but are nowhere near the series’ best, which would largely occur towards the end of its first successful year and into its second, before the slump of its mediocre final season. Learning where his first pilot faltered in the “wise” eyes of TV executives (my use of inverted commas there indicates sarcasm, in case you were unaware or simply enjoy your intelligence being insulted by patronising comments in brackets), Roddenberry turned out a more tolerable second attempt with ‘Where No Man Has Gone Before,’ which in essence amounted to less philosophising and more fist-fighting. While this tendency to bow to commercial pressures makes it weaker than the excellent unaired pilot, there’s still much for fans to enjoy in this first show beyond spotting the oddities of one-time crew members, familiar characters wearing the wrong colours and working in the wrong division, and the ludicrously tall eyebrows of Mr. Spock. It’s actually quite a creepy and tense episode with (allegedly) the highest body count of the original series, as Kirk’s First Officer and closest friend Gary Mitchell is affected by an energy wave as the Enterprise passes through an energy barrier at the edge of the galaxy, evolving into a dangerous superhuman with glowing eyes and a lust for destruction.
A large number of early Trek episodes feature similar ‘man becomes god’ plots as Roddenberry tries to force his humanist morals down the viewers’ throats, and although many later episodes pull it off better and more meaningfully, this has the advantage of Gary Lockwood’s memorable performance as Kirk’s old buddy, sadly never to be seen again, though I wouldn’t want to spoil the fairly predictable plot. I haven’t seen Lockwood in anything outside of his most famous role as the-astronaut-who-wasn’t-Dave in ‘2001: A Space Odyssey,’ but his performance here is surely among the more memorable of the whole series, while other one-time co-star Sally Kellerman performs similarly adequately as Mitchell’s she-god accomplice (though obviously weaker and more prone to emotional outbursts, being a woman in a sixties TV show). The best scenes are Kirk’s bedside chats with Mitchell in sickbay as he becomes increasingly sinister and threatening, and their close connection means that the absence of DeForrest Kelley’s Doctor McCoy until his debut in the following episode is hardly felt at all. On the downside, the one-time Dr. Piper (Paul Fix) does nothing interesting whatsoever, Spock smiles a little too much for a Vulcan, and the physics are more than a little dodgy even for early Star Trek (an antiquated twenty-first century Earth ship reached the edge of the galaxy? Riiight...), but otherwise it has most of the ingredients of a classic Trek episode. Characters scream and tumble over the shaking bridge, pink lights are passed off as special effects, Scotty jabbers on about damaged engines, there’s a cracking matte painting of alien terrain, and Kirk gets his shirt ripped in a fight on some unconvincing rocks. It was enough to earn the series a weekly spot in the schedule at least, and Roddenberry and numerous other writers could set about expanding the horizons of the twenty-third century in ever more interesting ways.
‘The Corbomite Maneuver’ is a little disappointing as the next in line, but it’s still an enjoyable, if entirely average episode, and suffers for taking place entirely onboard claustrophobic starships after the alien settings of the two pilots. This is another episode based around danger, though a more general threat of destruction to the Enterprise than the emotional and spiritual conflict of the previous instalment, as a mysterious spinning cube blocks the vessel’s path and delivers a threatening message, proceeding to emit radiation and require destruction like those tapes in ‘Mission: Impossible.’ The Enterprise’s defensive attack is not greeted fondly by the mysterious First Federation, which sends a gigantic spherical ship piloted by a ridiculous looking alien named Balok to deal with this threat posed by the puny Earthmen and their Vulcan. While it’s mostly remembered for its whimsical turnaround in the final couple of minutes, this is an episode otherwise entirely based on the threat of imminent destruction, something viewers are reminded of with irritating regularity by Sulu’s ceaseless countdown (that even gets on the nerves of Scotty, causing the helmsman to limit his updates from then on), and as such it pales in comparison to other episodes that once again perform the same function, only better. It’s forgivable for coming so early on in the series, before any of the major alien races had been presented or even imagined yet, and there’s still quite a lot going for it. There’s once again a large role granted to a one-time character in the form of Anthony Call’s Lieutenant Bailey (that’s what I like best about these early episodes), while other major faces are introduced for the first time: Nichelle Nichols’ Uhura, the aforementioned McCoy, and Grace Lee Whitney’s huge-haired Yeoman Janice Rand, who gets some nice (if a bit typically sexist) scenes with Kirk setting up the romance that may have blossomed if Whitney hadn’t been fired part way through the first season. The drama is also maintained quite sufficiently, and Kirk’s analogy of poker isn’t as stretched as allegories tend to be on television series such as this.
These two early episodes don’t present the series anywhere near its peak, but are nevertheless entertaining in their own right, and further forgivable as prototypes of a developing television series that no one, including Gene Roddenberry, would really get to grips with for some time. ‘Where No Man Has Gone Before’ will always seem slightly better and more fascinating than it actually is due to its legendary status as episode one, and though ‘The Corbomite Maneuver’ feels far more run-of-the-mill, it still grants some great scenes of Kirk under pressure, including his first banter with Bones (who also utters an early version of his famous “I’m a doctor, not a...” catch-phrase). The first episode is the one most affected by the shuffling of more recent DVD releases into airdate order, as its unique uniforms, Enterprise model, personnel and other inconsistencies jar considerably when watched as the third episode of the run, so that’s another reason I prefer these earlier releases. Like the Narnia books and Star Wars, the original creation order is really the only sensible way to enjoy these things no matter what crazy schedules the producers try to insist on further down the line; it may seem a pointless and trivial nitpick to dwell on, but this is Trek after all, and surely that’s what it’s all about?
Advantages: A fairly strong start with the templates for many classic episodes, with fun inconsistencies to spot
Disadvantages: Disappointing after the magnificence of the earlier, unscreened pilot.
Written on 16.11.07
The early episodes of Star Trek are particularly entertaining to watch in light of the programme’s later years and its successive spin-offs, as the series struggles to shake off distinctly twentieth century attitudes to find its feet in Gene Roddenberry’s futuristic and brightly coloured humanist Utopia. The late Roddenberry himself admitted experiencing a learning curve over the course of the series’ production, and in the decades that followed, citing his attitude towards women as one key element that was perhaps ever so slightly questionable in the early days. Nowhere is this more evident than in the fun but rather embarrassing ‘Mudd’s Women,’ one of the few episodes written by Roddenberry himself, featuring a bizarre melding of mythology, a highly modern theme of drug dependence, and an attitude towards women that’s more than a little dodgy. The other story on this slim collection is the far superior ‘The Enemy Within,’ written by acclaimed science fiction author Richard Matheson (probably most famous for ‘I Am Legend’), that introduces the cliché of the transporter failure in what remains its most memorable and outlandish malfunction even forty years later, and provides the egocentric William Shatner with an opportunity to play against his favourite actor: himself.
‘Mudd’s Women’ is among the weaker offerings from the original series, and its main interest for fans is likely its continued display of slight inconsistencies and oversights compared to the series as it would soon be established. Spock smiles too much, the crew’s velour uniforms have quite clearly shrunk in the wash, the warp engines are powered by lithium (as opposed to the more suitably fictional dilithium) and Uhura wears yellow, but otherwise this plays out in a similar manner to many episodes, including a climactic run-around on a rocky sound stage and the enhancement of female beauty through a warbling saxophone theme and Jerry Finnerman’s soft focus photography.
The episode opens with the Enterprise in pursuit of an unidentified craft that seems eager to shake them off, so eager that the fool piloting it (automatically and correctly assumed to be a ‘he’ by the Enterprise officers in a teaser of the male-dominated forty-five minutes to follow) accidentally pushes his engines to overload and destroys his own ship. Fortunately, miracle worker engineer Scott (James Doohan) was able to beam the life-forms aboard the Enterprise before they met an untimely end, and the full-blooded Scotsman is struck by the irresistible beauty of the arrivals, as is anyone else who happens to come across them apart from their sleazy companion and owner, an unconvincingly Irish space pimp named Harry Mudd (Roger C. Carmel) who describes the women as his ‘cargo.’
Much of the episode is based around the male crew members smiling giddily and trying to peer down the flimsy costumes of the travellers, the first of many examples of the ‘Theiss Theory of Titillation’ (by which costume designer William Ware Theiss calculated the sexiness of an outfit according to the likelihood that the actress would fall out of it), and there’s plenty of material on the trafficking of women for French feminists to have a field day with, but it’s not all outdated, pre-equality sleaziness. It is mainly that, but not only that. It becomes increasingly clear that the women’s beauty, appealing though it is, is being enhanced by some form of drug referred to at first in ambiguous terms, which Mudd provides and regulates, and the ultimate moral of the episode is a bit of a shock that verges into fantasy rather than the show’s usual science fiction.
Along with the literary analyses that can be made if you’re really bored, ranging from the crone/maiden dichotomy to the elemental nature of the women’s backgrounds in water, air and earth based colonies, this episode does largely forsake the series’ usual genre in place of something that seems more suited to the past; Harry Mudd certainly doesn’t belong in the twenty-third century, and neither do the miners of Rigel XII whose costumes, attitudes and technology reveal them to be one of the series’ less subtle examples of taking twentieth century elements and simply dumping them into space unaltered. It’s still a fun episode, and has some more great scenes with the main characters (particularly DeForrest Kelley’s Dr. McCoy), but it would have been an enormous miscalculation if this story, one of three submitted by Roddenberry to be the series’ pilot, had been the first episode produced, defining a much different series.
From one of the weakest episodes to one of the best, at least in the early period of the series, ‘The Enemy Within’ is the classic Jekyll and Hyde division of Captain Kirk (Shatner) into his ‘good’ and ‘evil’ halves, again continuing to explore slightly fantastical themes that perhaps wouldn’t have been permitted as the show became more grounded in its own pseudo-science. Like the episodes of the previous DVD, this is another exciting and tense survival story, as a landing party led by Mr. Sulu (George Takei) is stranded on a rapidly freezing planet while Scott and his engineers frantically work to fix the ever-unreliable transporter. This being an early episode before some concepts were properly introduced, let’s pretend there was some problem with the ship’s unmentioned set of shuttlecraft that prevented them from flying down to the rescue instead. Although it’s essentially the B-story to bulk out the episode and add the danger element, the scenes on the freezing planet are some of the episode’s best, and the use of low-level phaser fire to heat rocks is another ingenious use of technology from Matheson.
William Shatner’s performance as good and evil Kirk is rooted towards the more famously ludicrous end of his acting spectrum, and while it’s a little hard to take their fights seriously even beyond the obvious stunt double due to the exaggerated staggering of ‘good’ Kirk and the daft yelling of his ‘evil’ counterpart (bizarrely wearing eye shadow; another subtle hint of Roddenberry’s attitudes?), it all makes for one of the most entertaining and intelligent episodes of the early run. The script is so good that it’s perhaps a rare example of a story that works better on the page than on the screen, mainly due to Shatner’s indulgence, as Matheson writes some incredibly revealing dialogue for Spock concerning his own inner conflict between his human and Vulcan halves, opposing elements that would be played against each other in several notable episodes of the next three years. While the overall message is pretty much exactly the same as it was in Robert Louis Stevenson’s original novella, that we need both halves to live, the episode features some commendably dark scenes as ‘evil’ Kirk overloads on Saurian brandy and practically rapes Yeoman Rand (Grace Lee Whitney) in scenes that must have been difficult to get past the strict censors of the time. To top it all off, the vast engineering set is seen for the first time, and there’s a really stupid-looking alien Chihuahua with spikes stuck all over it.
The series continues to explore new areas and define its own sub-genres even at this early point, while continuing to expand on the lead characters with varying degrees of subtlety. The first episode lets this release down significantly and doesn’t stand up well four decades later, but ‘The Enemy Within’ is a classic re-telling of a favourite plot that easily beats the many, increasingly desperate transporter malfunction episodes of ‘Star Trek: Voyager.’ This episode is the one to watch for anyone interested in seeing William Shatner at his most ridiculous and easily mocked, or for anyone interested in compiling an edited audio version that implies Kirk and Spock are gay lovers: there’s a lot to work with.
Advantages: Interesting concepts explored as the series starts to recruit legitimate sci-fi writers.
Disadvantages: Dodgy view of women in the former, and ludicrous overacting from Shatner in the latter.
Written on 30.11.07
The early episodes of the original Star Trek, despite demonstrating the occasional glitch with later continuity, also contain some of the finest plots the series would ever produce, before it started to re-tread old ground and resorted to increasingly desperate ideas in its later seasons. Fortune favours the fans with this third DVD collection of episodes presented in their original production order, as both happen to be superior examples of what the series was capable of even at this early stage. For containing two episodes of such high quality without one being below par, this release is among the most essential of these budget DVDs - unless you have the larger season box-sets of course, but you know you'd never get round to watching them all.
Fans should find everything that was enjoyable about the original series across these two very different episodes, from the tense horror-thriller 'The Man Trap' to the wackier and truly uninhibited antics of 'The Naked Time,' with little in the way of lousy, repetitive dialogue or pointless fist-fight scenes that tend to creep in to lesser offerings. This being a 1966 vision of the future, the shows are still plagued by cheap effects, unconvincing alien landscapes and occasional lapses into scientific implausibility, but anyone who watches this forty-year-old show with such a degree of humourless criticism should be led swiftly and silently from their parents' cellar into their customised Galileo shuttlecraft styled caravan and administered a single merciful phaser blast. They give honest nerds like me a bad name.
These episodes are both completely brilliant, and I'd plead that they be made compulsory viewing for fans of Trek and television sci-fi in general if it wasn't already so obvious and well-documented. The basic plots are fairly straightforward, and can each be summarised in a very short sentence:
The Man Trap: An old lover of Dr. McCoy's turns out to be a scary salt vampire.
The Naked Time: The Enterprise crew get drunk on an alien virus and wacky things happen.
Nevertheless, there's still an awful lot to appreciate beneath the surface, particularly in the way of character development that would remain all but unsurpassed for the rest of the series. The removal of inhibitions in 'The Naked Time' allows for an intimate analysis of major and minor crew members, resulting in some unforgettable scenes as Spock loses control and pounds a monitor to a pulp while bawling about love, while Sulu strips to the waist and terrorises all who stand in his way with a sword. Even 'The Man Trap' is high on character drama, as Spock frantically tries to persuade McCoy into firing on the salt-sucking creature that's taken the form of his beloved Nancy. DeForrest Kelley gets more to do in this episode than he would in many others over the next three years, which was presumably the reasoning behind the fairly silly title originally proposed as 'The Unreal McCoy,' before existing temporarily as 'Damsel with a Dulcimer.' Even today, many remember the show as 'The Incredible Salt Vampire,' as jokingly suggested by David Gerrold, and the name has stuck for the otherwise anonymous creature.
The salt vampire is one of the more outlandish alien creatures to appear in the original series, seeming more like something from 'Doctor Who' than Trek, and one of several monster suits (including Balok from the an earlier episode and the Gorn from 'Arena') to be designed by Wah Chang. It's certainly a refreshing change to see something so truly alien and monstrous in a series that otherwise relied mainly on painting actors green or dressing them up as Romans, and there's something of an endangered species moral tucked away beneath the high-adrenaline hunt. The 'ancient ruins' of Planet M-113 have dated considerably less well, the small soundstage with its red walls acting as an alien sky appearing in one of its less convincing guises, but however claustrophobic these sets are, it's refreshing to get away from the Enterprise so often in these early shows. The special effects are still being sorted out and experimented with, most notably the phaser that fires a stream of blue waves that actually looks pretty cool but will doubtless have been spoiled in the current re-masters, and a stun blast has the strange effect of slowing down actor Alfred Ryder's speech. These slip-ups are just the kind of thing I love in embryonic TV series, but they become less frequent from this point on as everything settles down.
Another of my favourite aspects of these early first season voyages is the focus given to constructing a sense of community on board the Enterprise, something that would vanish all too soon as the developers established what the show was about, and found no place for minor small-talk. Primarily, this gives Nichelle Nichols some dialogue outside of her usual restrictive "hailing frequencies open, sir," something the character even openly laments in her attempt to befriend Spock. 'The Naked Time' pursues this 'lower decks' focus even further, granting an unprecedented major role for Bruce Hyde as Kevin Riley as he succumbs to the water-based virus and proceeds to hijack the ship from Engineering, ordering ice cream for the crew and singing ditties from his Irish heritage. Gene Roddenberry's future wife Majel Barrett, commonly known as the First Lady of Star Trek due to her significant influence and multiple characters across all series (mostly as the voice of the Enterprise computer), makes her first appearance as McCoy's assistant Nurse Chapel and gets to go all mushy over Spock, attracted to his silent and mysterious inner conflict as I'm sure many girls were in the sixties until Leonard Nimoy released his Bilbo Baggins single and destroyed any credibility he had as a viable sex object.
With a couple of exceptions that no doubt focused solely on Kirk, the series never produced a more insightful character episode than this, as inhibitions are stripped away and viewers get to peek into the private thoughts and desires of an insecure Kirk, a sorrowful Spock and a positively psychedelic Sulu. This is unsurprisingly George Takei's favourite episode, and the scenes of Sulu prancing topless through the wooden corridor sets armed with a lethal fencing foil (changed from a katana in the original draft due to quite right fears of racial stereotyping) are some of the most memorable the series would ever produce. This episode is also notable for being the first instance of time travel in Star Trek, through an entirely pointless ending that sees Spock develop an intermix formula that hurtles the Enterprise back in time several days and would have acted as a cliffhanger into the episode that later became 'Tomorrow is Yesterday,' but as it stands this is merely a weird and quite distracting conclusion to an unhinged episode.
There remain a couple of quite major plot errors in this episode, chiefly the terrible Starfleet environmental suits made from bright orange shower curtains that merely flap over the characters and leave huge gaps for viruses and vacuums to easily penetrate, as clearly demonstrated when Lieutenant Tormolen scratches his nose through the bottom of the hood, but for its humour (both funny and really awful) and unique penetration into the characters' inner conflicts and true natures, this remains one of the most popular episodes of the original run. It also has the distinction of being the most integral instalment for those bizarre fans who insist on Kirk and Spock's relationship being based on far more than friendship or respect, if you see what I'm getting at there. I mean that they are gay. It's almost plausible if you mute the dialogue and edit shots together in a different way and are mad.
These two episodes present the original series at its very best, from the genuinely chilling corpses with sucker-stained faces in the first to Leonard Nimoy getting a rare chance to act out of character, in-character, in the second. The Next Generation made an offensively terrible sequel twenty years later that should be avoided entirely.
Advantages: Two of the best episodes, featuring a salt vampire and Sulu going crazy ape bonkers with a sword.
Disadvantages: The young series is still finding its feet, leading to some odd scenes.
You Smell Like a Girl
Written on 07.12.07
The fourth (now-)budget DVD twin-pack of classic Star Trek episodes again provides an entertaining clash of polar opposites, pitting the whimsical, adolescent coming-of-age tale 'Charlie X' against the merciless 'Balance of Terror,' the latter providing the introduction of the Romulans and the nastiest space-submarine face-off until 'Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.' Despite taking substantial liberties from the series' norm as it was coming to be established, to the annoyance of creator Gene Roddenberry as well as a minority of fans, the latter episode is widely regarded among the finest offerings of the original series, though opinion would seem to be divided on the merits and embarrassments of the former.
'Charlie X' represents the peak of the original series as a space-bound soap opera, expanding on the sense of community and familiarity that added a pleasing touch of humanity to this often coldly scientific future in these early episodes, and its basis in a distinctly 1960s character drama will either make or break it with fans. The story remains rooted in science fiction as ever, as Captain Ramart of the U.S.S. Antares hands over a young human male to Captain Kirk's care, for delivery to his surviving family on a starbase that lies on the Enterprise's flight path. The Antares seems strangely eager to get rid of the boy, identified as Charles Evans (Robert Walker, Jr.) who has apparently spent the last fourteen years being raised in isolation from human contact by a race of alien beings, and accordingly experiences a little trouble adjusting to life on a shipful of his own kind. Bombarded with the desires and strong emotions a young man must contend with during this difficult stage of adolescence, especially aboard a ship where miniskirts are compulsory uniform for attractive female officers, Charlie expectedly has a little trouble fitting in, to the point that he innocently mimics a couple's friendly butt-slapping when bidding farewell to Yeoman Rand (Grace Lee Whitney) and magicks away the face of a laughing crewman.
It becomes obvious that Charlie is more than your average hormonal seventeen-year-old, and not only for the actor clearly being about ten years older. His dangerous, mysterious powers seem to have no limits, as crew members vanish according to his will and the departing Antares explodes after Charlie causes one of its engine components to "go away," and even Kirk's resourceful crew seems unable to stop him as he personally takes command of the Enterprise towards its densely-populated destination. There's no doubt that this is a fun episode despite the danger, disappearances and deaths, and even if Roddenberry's stretched adolescence metaphor gets on your nerves a little, some of Charlie's parlour tricks are quite enjoyable, from making Spock quote deadpan poetry amidst his sensor reports to removing a woman's face, which is actually pretty spooky.
Scenes in the recreation room are always enjoyable, partly for being so rare in the series as it would soon be defined, and however much you may enjoy or loathe it, Nichelle Nichols' song to Charlie remains its most memorable appearance. As well as being one of the major episodes for soon-to-depart Whitney, this is a good episode for William Shatner as Kirk is placed outside his comfort zone of commanding nameless, red-shirted security officers to their deaths and must instead struggle to explain the facts of life to a teenager. It's surprisingly amusing, especially given the poor quality of jokes on the original series in general, and you can't help but feel a little sorry for Kirk. That is, until he dons the really horrible Starfleet-issue gym shorts and gets down to some homo-erotic wrestling, then it just gets awkward. For its distinctly Sixties outlook that quite clearly places women as the second, weaker sex, this is one of the episodes more likely to fade from the archives in centuries to come, but its character focus was enough to attract the attention of a young Ira Stephen Behr, who later wrote extensively for the spin-off series 'The Next Generation' and 'Deep Space Nine' before taking over that latter series half-way through and instantly turning it into a more character-centric series, apparently in the 'Charlie X' tradition.
'Balance of Terror,' on the other hand, is classic Star Trek at its most aggressive and warlike, as writer Paul Schneider presents a far more militaristic view of the Federation than would otherwise be seen outside of the feature films. Never seeking to hide the fact that the whole story is essentially ripped off the 1957 submarine film 'The Enemy Below,' Schneider's story is most memorable for introducing the Romulans as the first major alien race in the Star Trek universe, second to the Vulcans of course, a species with whom they seem to share a common ancestry. Their visual resemblance of the enemy Romulans - essentially the America-based Earth's cold war opponents in this turbulent political time - is enough to elicit unprecedented racial hostility in the Enterprise's weapons officer Lieutenant Stiles (Paul Comi), and although he is justly reprimanded by Kirk, his attitude does seem to be out of sync with the twenty-third century Utopia as Roddenberry imagined it, adding to the oddness of this instalment.
Contradictions aside, this is a brilliant episode and among the very best of the original run, the tense 'submarine battle' with the Romulan ship (equipped with a cloaking device that advantageously works both ways, meaning the Romulans can't see what the crafty Enterprise is doing either) still remaining exciting for today's viewers, and not even let down significantly through inferior visual effects. Although it was chosen as the first outing of the recent re-mastered series with brand spanking new computer-generated effects of the Enterprise, the Romulan ship, their weapons and assorted explosions, the original effects still do the trick nicely; the cloaking device is represented by a simple fade-out against the starry background, the Enterprise's phaser bursts shoot out from the right place, and the Romulans' distinctive energy weapon appears as an adequately menacing great ball of fire, unleashing quite horrific, flesh-burning destruction on the Earth outposts it assaults. The tiny model Romulan ship, decorated with a painted bird of prey motif, looks a little silly and basic by the series' later standards as it moved into higher budget feature films, but the cramped bridge set and familiar pointed ear make-up make a nice change from the series' usual human 'aliens,' even if the Roman allegories are ludicrously overdone, and the impractical helmets of enemy extras clearly only present to save the make-up budget from moulding a few more ears.
One of the most impressive features of this episode is Mark Lenard's memorable role as the unnamed Romulan commander, whose character duels in a stalemate with his equal opponent until Kirk gets the better of him and the two can finally communicate their respective admiration before the Romulan executes his final command. Lenard would don the pointed ears again a year later to play his most famous role as Spock's father, before swapping them for a dented forehead to play the first fully made-up Klingon in the opening scenes of the first Trek feature film, but this early role remains his finest performance. The tragic bookending of the episode with an ill-fated marriage ceremony is another very nice touch, whether Schneider stole that from 'The Enemy Below' or not, and most of all this episode serves to highlight that the future may not be all that peachy after all.
While the second episode alone would be reason enough for a Trek fan to own this DVD, 'Charlie X' is a great deal more expandable, whimsical and entertaining though it is. The popularity of 'Balance of Terror' guarantees it a place among every other Star Trek DVD anthology from here to eternity right next to the other popular episodes 'The City on the Edge of Forever' and 'The Trouble With Tribbles,' so it will remain readily available in a number of formats for a long time to come. More serious and ardent Trek fans - who are clearly way less cool and with-it than me - will likely find unreasonable fault with this forty-one-year-old episode due to inconsistencies it may raise with the recent prequel series 'Enterprise,' but the easy solution to this temporal paradox is to simply never watch an episode of that terrible series, which was justly cancelled before it could drag the franchise even deeper into obscurity. You're much better off sticking with the silly ancient series, which was also cancelled for being rubbish, but which knocked out a fair few corkers along the way.
Advantages: Nice balance of episodes - a light-hearted character piece and a gripping war drama.
Disadvantages: Subject to sexism and really bad costume decisions.
Written on 24.12.07
****
As Star Trek proceeded through its first classic, season, its writers continued to check off archetypal science fiction themes, as well as expanding the show's premise to deal with more inherently human matters. Both episodes featuring on the fifth DVD pit the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise against dangerous technology in control of dangerous men, while also raising intriguing questions of human identity and psychology that would continue to permeate the franchise through its later incarnations.
As the series finally settles down and gets its space legs, traits of earlier episodes are abandoned for better or worse in favour of establishing a repeatable format, but the show still impresses with novel concepts and ideas introduced on a weekly basis. So while viewers may be a little irked by the cheap re-use of an earlier matte painting for the Tantalus Penal Colony and Kirk's love for his vessel once again allowing him to keep his head when all around are losing theirs, we're treated to Star Trek's first android life forms; the first Vulcan mind-meld; some great new musical themes that would be repeated ad infinitum over the following three years; and the first disconcerting signals that beaming down to a shady location in a bright red shirt may not be the wisest career decision.
The two episodes on this volume are 'What are Little Girls Made Of?' and 'Dagger of the Mind,' both united in their dealings with new technology, as well as a particularly dark and chilling atmosphere for the customarily bright and colourful series. The first episode marks the second appearance of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry's future wife Majel Barrett in her role as the Enterprise's Nurse Christine Chapel, and she puts in a highly memorable performance even if it is marred slightly by once again being rooted primarily in her relationship with a man; previously it was her unrequited love for Mr. Spock, and here the reunion with her estranged fiancée of five years, the elusive Dr. Roger Korby (Michael Strong). Korby's archaeological expedition to the ancient planet Exo III has been strangely silent in that time, and only with the Enterprise's cautious visit does Chapel's old flame confirm his continued survival.
The Doctor makes a mysterious request that Kirk beam down to his research station alone due to the sensitive nature of his discoveries, though he extends the invitation to his beloved Christine once she introduces herself, and Kirk stretches hospitality further by bringing along a couple of red-shirted security officers just to be on the safe side. You know, just in case there's a huge, monstrously strong android living in the underground tunnels, intent on throwing trespassers into its bottomless chasm. Korby reveals that his assistants are advanced, ageless androids, manufactured with the technology left behind by the long-extinct civilisation of Exo III; only Ruk (Ted Cassidy) is an original creation, and by the time he explains the fate met by his creators, it's already too late. Understandably curious, Kirk is introduced to the android manufacturing machine a little more intimately than he perhaps wished, as Korby intends to send the Captain's android clone back to the Enterprise with a sinister mission of his own...
The plot may be a little straightforward in retrospect, but even after seemingly endless TV plots of evil clones and robot duplicates, the duplication of Kirk remains effective and very sinister, particularly during its covert escape discussion with Chapel over dinner that the writers pull-back-and-reveal as the original Kirk is escorted into the room. The ludicrously tall Ted Cassidy does look effectively alien in his mottled, skull-like make-up and unusual proportions, but perhaps of even greater note is Sherry Jackon's character of the female android Andrea. It's creepy enough that Korby has clad her in such a legendarily tantalising costume (another great, sexist piece from William Ware Theiss!), and there's more than a little hinting from Nurse Chapel's disgruntled attitude that he has enjoyed the obedient machine's company during his years of isolation, but the emergence of emotions as she develops feelings for Kirk makes for some powerful and horrible scenes as the Captain uses this human 'glitch' against her.
One of the strongest aspects of Robert Bloch's script is Kirk's use of brains to outwit his opponents rather than falling back on the cliché of a melodramatic fist-fight in a torn shirt, and his solution to making his android duplicate suspicious further cements the developing trust between Kirk and his First Officer Spock. I really like this episode, despite its final message being a little confused and inconclusive, but there would be plenty of opportunities to explore the human/machine dilemma in the decades to come, as 'The Next Generation' and 'Voyager' series incorporated artificial intelligence characters into their main casts.
Far from providing some light relief in contrast, as previous pairings have done, the subsequent 'Dagger of the Mind' is an even more ghastly story that doesn't even have the excuse of ancient aliens or advanced androids to cover up idealistic malpractice. Set during a routine cargo drop at the remote penal colony on Tantalus V, this is fundamentally an episode about psychology, as Kirk and ship's psychiatrist Dr. Helen Noel (Marianna Hill) investigate the mysterious circumstances that led to a former worker at the colony (Morgan Woodward) becoming clinically insane and stowing away aboard the orbiting Enterprise before being detained. The colony's administrator Dr. Tristan Adams (James Gregory) explains that the deranged Van Gelder accidentally exposed himself to the experimental neural neutraliser device, but Spock's unorthodox investigation into the madman's own mind using risky Vulcan methods uncover the real, sinister truth behind the neutraliser's application.
While it drags on slightly and the confined sets feel a little claustrophobic and cheap (the neural neutraliser consists of a big chair and a smoke detector on the ceiling above), 'Dagger of the Mind' remains a memorable and significant episode of the early run, with a spectacularly energised performance from Morgan Woodward that allegedly left him emotionally fragile for weeks afterward. As this is the original series, the presence of a female officer in the landing party, no matter how accomplished in her field, inevitably descends into a form of Kirk attraction at some point, but the experiment with implanting false memories of their relationship works as a chilling analysis of just how effective the neural neutraliser can be - sadly, a revelation that arrives too late.
While Dr. Adams feels a little like the next in a developing line of misguided or misled human antagonists, especially coming so soon after Dr. Korby in the previous episode, the situation down on the high-security colony is believable and terrestrial enough to remain suspenseful, and balanced out nicely with the Vulcan mumbo jumbo going on in the skies above. In another 'allegedly,' it's reputed that the mind-meld was conceived as a result of a re-write, after the original plan to have Spock hypnotise Van Gelder was deemed inappropriate for audiences due to his lack of medical qualifications; it would only have been acceptable for Doctor McCoy to perform the operation in his place.
It's clear that someone was paying attention to continuity and background details at this point in the series, something that more pedantic fans should be thankful for, meaning that the isolated archaeologists of 'What Are Little Girls Made Of?' are still equipped with old-style Starfleet equipment as seen in the pilot episodes, while an Earth-bound cargo container in 'Dagger of the Mind' bears the intriguing destination of 'Eurasia NE,' dropping hints concerning Earth's united world government that would never really be confirmed, at least not in this series.
The character of Helen Noel in this latter episode would never appear again, and was originally scripted to be Grace Lee Whitney's recurring character of Yeoman Janice Rand, a decision that was altered as it became apparent that the show would be continuing for some time yet, and the threat of a serious love interest for Kirk was something the producers wished to avoid - it makes her presence on the DVD cover a little odd though, until you look at some of the others and realise just how arbitrary these cover shots are. This absence of Rand is a bit of a shame, but makes sense as the character would inexplicably vanish completely in a few episodes' time due to Whitney's departure from the series. Come to mention it, where are Scotty and Sulu in these two episodes?
**
Written on 26.12.07
After the thought-provoking science fiction concepts of the previous DVD volume, this pair of episodes follows a decidedly different course, abandoning notions of the alien in favour of human concerns and even, in the second episode, failing to resemble sci-fi at all. While opinion may be divided on the merits of the episode 'The Conscience of the King,' an effective mystery and revenge tragedy set against the ever-reliable gimmick of a Shakespeare production, it would be fair to dismiss the preceding episode 'Miri' as one of the poorest, most irritating and problematic the series ever churned out, even compared to its significantly low points in the final season.
The plot of this first episode is as well-known and well-parodied as many from the classic series, but however intriguing it may be in concept, the final product is a considerable disappointment, and the first episode of the series that I would deem unwatchable, even for fans, who would be the most disappointed of all. Continuing its exploration into the depths of uncharted space, the U.S.S. Enterprise picks up an archaic S.O.S. distress signal from a strange new world that astonishingly appears to be an exact duplicate of Earth. Wow, I can't wait to see how they explain that, this ought to be great!
Beaming down to find the source of the broadcast (predictably in the 'North American' continent) and offer their assistance, Captain Kirk and his landing party find the town apparently deserted, before being attacked by a sickening, rampaging humanoid creature that shortly expires. Eventually locating a helpful native in the form of the young girl Miri (Kim Darby), Kirk and his crew learn that the majority of the planet's population wiped itself out centuries before, in an accident with a life prolongation experiment. The only survivors were children, who now live as a juvenile, playful gang calling themselves 'the Onlies,' and bearing a hostile attitude towards this invasion by Kirk and his party of 'grups' (a slang corruption of 'grown-ups').
As Kirk starts to exhibit signs of contracting the disease himself, Spock and Dr. McCoy deduce that it is still running rampant on this world, and only affects humans as they enter puberty; the children, though apparently ageless, are slowly falling victim to the disease as they mature, and Miri herself only has a short time to live. Quarantined on the planet and with an estimated lifespan of a week, can Spock and McCoy devise an antidote? Can Kirk calm the children down before he is bonked on the head one too many times? Could the children's dialogue be any more appalling?
This is one of my least favourite episodes for a variety of reasons, each of which would hinder the quality of even the finest episode in isolation, but when these lousy forces are combined, it makes for a powerfully bad show (sort of like Captain Planet). The child actors - excluding Kim Darby of course, who is quite obviously nineteen rather than twelve, and Michael J. Pollard who is an even more absurd twenty-seven - are terrible, and their scripted dialogue and spontaneous games are beyond cringe-worthy, entering into the realm of vomitisation. As one of many obvious signs that this episode was significantly rushed, the young cast was merely drafted in from the families of the actors and studio crew (William Shatner's daughters are there, alongside Grace Lee Whitney's twin sons), and their lack of professionalism shows. Another glaring oversight concerns the opening mystery of this Earth duplicate's creation, which is soon forgotten and goes completely unexplained! Further bad touches come with the disappearance of the red-shirted security officers after the early scenes, and the pointless shock revelation dropped into one of Kirk's log entries that the children will run out of food within a few months: as if we weren't already facing the more serious threat of a one-week deadline for the development of the vaccine.
While it's true that the current media climate has ludicrously exaggerated audiences' attention to suggestive paedophilia (as 'Brass Eye' so memorably demonstrated), it's still a little uncomfortable watching William Shatner abuse a prepubescent teen's crush on him, and linger a little too long in his adoring glances. The only positive thing to come out of these weird scenes is the opportunity presented for Grace Lee Whitney to get some substantial, emotive scenes in her final performance as Kirk's lusty, stupid-haired Yeoman Janice Rand, a regular character up to this point who would suddenly vanish hereafter due to alleged sexual abuse suffered on the set, according to Whitney's autobiography, or alcohol according to others.
In addition to this memorable swan song from Rand, the episode also makes up a little (but just a little) for all the embarrassing dialogue with a couple of great scenes between the three major characters Kirk, Spock and McCoy (William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley), cementing their strong friendship under crisis. Kirk's command that the two officers will have to isolate the virus and develop a vaccine is met with deadpan sarcasm from McCoy, who asks, "is that all, Captain? We have five days, you know." These three core performers are all very good in this episode, particularly Kelley, and it's a shame Nimoy is forced to contend with some of the overly melodramatic exclamations placed before the commercial breaks, as he expresses concern that the virus they have created may equally be "a beaker full of death!" It's also a refreshing change to have some proper outdoor filming on the Paramount lot after the claustrophobic starships and unconvincing alien vistas of previous weeks, even if the unaltered street set from 'The Andy Griffith Show' is weakly and apologetically explained by Spock's further unexplained analysis that the planet resembles Earth "circa 1960." Oh dear.
The second episode on this set is fortunately much better, though is slightly odd for abandoning science fiction entirely in place of a surprisingly dark murder mystery plot. With its lofty Shakespearean overtones, compassionate allegory of the vengeful search for Nazi war criminals and a depiction of Kirk as a ruthless manipulator capable of abusing affection, this is far from the standard Star Trek fare but is an interesting instalment capable of reaching a wider audience, even if its uniqueness serves to alienate some of the regular viewers. The episode opens with the Enterprise lured to Planet Q by an old friend of Kirk's, under the false pretence of a scientific breakthrough; for once, this deceit is well-intentioned, as Leighton informs Kirk of his suspicions concerning the lead actor in a travelling Shakespearean troupe currently passing through the sector. He believes that the elderly Anton Karidian is in fact the infamous Kodos the Executioner, the butcher of Tarsus IV who ordered four thousand men, women and children to their deaths twenty years earlier and was presumed dead. Only Kirk, Leighton and a handful of others would recognise him, but Kirk has his doubts - until his old friend ends up dead, and a series of mysterious coincidences leaves the Karidian Players stranded on Planet Q with only the Enterprise to ferry them to their next destination, and a hypothetical checklist of old witnesses to eliminate.
'The Conscience of the King' is an intriguing mystery that's slow to play out, but features some very memorable scenes. Kirk's seduction of Karidian's daughter Lenore in an attempt to covertly learn about her father is a little disturbing as well as amusingly raunchy ("all this power, surging and throbbing yet under control... are you like that, Captain?"), and the second appearance of the ill-fated engineer Kevin Riley after his memorable role several episodes earlier is one of the most effectively horrific of the series, particularly as his previous appearance was so light-hearted. Nichelle Nichols gets to sing him a pleasant song in one of Uhura's few substantial appearances outside of her customary constraints of opening the hailing frequencies, and there's a bizarre moment early on when the lounge band on Planet Q performs a rendition of Alexander Courage's Star Trek theme music within the show itself, which was never particularly suited to outer space. It's also worth noting that McCoy's mention of eugenic experiments being carried out on Tarsus IV, and "not for the first time," offers exciting foreshadowing for fans of one of the series' most memorable episodes, but that's a long way away yet.
With 'Miri' letting this package down substantially, and 'The Conscience of the King' not being a fair representation of the series as a whole, this is the first point in the series that the quality really slips. This original DVD release also adds nothing of interest for fans beyond its low price, presenting the episodes in the same "remastered" form as the late nineties VHS releases that hardly seems to have cleared the print up at all. There are no special features (unless you count an interactive menu) (which you shouldn't), and most ridiculous of all, really demonstrating the half-hearted production job of these sets, the cover features a character who doesn't even appear in either of these episodes! Two stars only because the second episode provides a little compensation for the embarrassment of the first.
**
Written on 15.01.07
"An incredible fortune in stones, yet I would trade them all for a hand phaser, or a good, solid club."
'Arena' has become about as legendary as any individual Star Trek episode could hope to achieve, its simple tale of one-on-one combat between equal adversaries having inspired numerous similar plots (though it has precedent) as well as direct parodies, and some of its unique features have taken on a disproportionately strong presence in Trek fandom, most notably the reptilian Gorn race that would never be seen in the series again. This was the first episode written by producer Gene L. Coon, one of the series' most consistently inspiring writers whose stories frequently concerned the reconciliation of opposing forces, triumphing over prejudice in some of Star Trek's finest hours. While this isn't one of his finest offerings despite its popularity, it's still a very strong episode and one of the most prominent for William Shatner as the central figure of Captain Kirk, transported to a distant planet and isolated from his ship and crew, forced to contend in brutal life-or-death combat with the captain of the alien ship the Enterprise was pursuing.
The conflict is orchestrated by the powerful Metrons, yet another advanced race of godlike aliens who consider it their prerogative to interfere in the affairs of primitive species (that's you and me) and criticise our barbarous ways. Coon's moral statement is diluted by his presentation of the adversarial Gorn as a stereotypically violent creature relying on brute strength in contrast to Kirk's intellect, but Kirk's ponderous soliloquies do an effective job of summing up twenty-third century morals, even if it contributes to the image of Starfleet captains as arrogant lecturers that would be more fully realised in Jean-Luc Picard. Of course, aside from all the talking, this is likely such a popular entry for featuring so many explosions, proximity to which (here, as well as in other episodes) caused Shatner and co-stars such as Leonard Nimoy and DeForrest Kelley to suffer from incurable tinnitus in later life. However ardently pacifistic the viewer may be, it's hard not to get caught up in the frantic race for survival as Kirk scrambles across Vazquez Rocks with the hisses of the pursuing Gorn echoing all around, and even the opening scenes provide the first glimpse of space combat for some time, introducing photon torpedoes to the starship's arsenal in accompaniment to more traditional phasers.
However immortal this instalment of the franchise may be, it ends up seeming to me like a fairly average forty-eight minutes. Wah Chang's Gorn costume may look rather fake but it's undeniably great to watch lumbering about on screen, and its return to the franchise was eagerly awaited across four decades until the prequel series 'Enterprise' finally caved in and gave the creature a cameo return in one of its final episodes. On a more personal note, Kirk's entanglements with the creature were already familiar to me years before I even saw this series, for featuring in 'Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey' (my favourite film when I was six). There are a number of flaws that keep this episode from being truly great, from its over-emphasised morals to the uselessness of the Enterprise and its thumb-twiddling personnel, which although vital to the plot, makes for some particularly un-riveting scenes as the setting switches back and forth. Gene L. Coon ironed out these sorts of problems for his later contributions which were among the best the series had to offer, but ironically 'Arena' remains his most recognised.
Of course, these DVD releases contain two episodes, but there's a good reason I neglected to mention 'The Alternative Factor' until strictly necessary, and the reason is that it's absolutely terrible. Undoubtedly the worst episode by this point in the series (there are some in season three that may take the biscuit, but I'll see those in due course), this episode fails to impress on a number of levels, and gives the distinct impression of a production crew, unimpressed by a weak script, that was past caring about the quality of that particular week's instalment. As tends to be the case, there were a couple of unforeseen drawbacks that ended up making this episode slightly more abominable than it would have been: first was the failure of conscripted actor John Drew Barrymore to bother showing up for the key role of Lazarus, leading Robert Brown to be drafted in as an less suitable last-minute replacement, while a scripted and filmed romantic sub-plot between his character and the Enterprise's Lieutenant Charlene Masters was excised in post-production after networks in Southern states objected to the interracial entanglement. This bigoted decision caused the missing minutes to be filled with pointlessly repetitive shots of Lazarus stumbling over rocks in the lousy-looking bizarro sequence that was already significantly over-used.
The plot seems relatively straightforward, but it becomes increasingly difficult to follow precisely what's going on as it develops, though it's equally possible that was merely my attention wandering. Freaky stuff is going on in the universe: the fabric of space-time seems to have been interfered with in a manner even Mr. Spock is at a loss to explain, but the Enterprise is able to track the disturbance to a barren, rocky planet nearby. An unconvincingly-bearded human calling himself Lazarus seeks the Enterprise's help in escaping an unseen foe, but even as he recovers in sickbay, his assailant appears to catch up with him and inflict further damage. It becomes (fairly) evident that there are two versions of Lazarus, both locked in an endless struggle for some unexplained reason or compulsion, each crossing over between our universe of matter and a parallel universe of antimatter, represented on screen by a blank, glowing region printed as a negative. If the fight continues it will jeopardise both universes, or something, or perhaps not, but for whatever reason it's up to Kirk to sort things out in the manner Starfleet Academy taught him: tumbling combat over rocky terrain. Did he learn nothing from 'Arena?'
This is an incredibly tedious episode to watch, particularly due to the over-use of the matter/antimatter fight sequences accompanied by a "spinning newspaper" style effect and a meaningless photo of the Trifid nebula superimposed, that I presume is representative of "the universe." Adding insult to injury, Lazarus' one-man vessel is the most ridiculous ever to feature in the series, looking like a carriage from a theme park's flying saucer ride, and the character's wispy beard becomes distractingly fuller, thinner, longer and shorter with each scene, disappearing almost entirely on one occasion. 'The Alternative Factor' is a disappointing episode that is easily ignored in the canon, but unfortunately serves to drag down what could otherwise have been a fairly decent DVD, though one thankfully lacking in special features so completist fans aren't compelled to buy it. It's unfortunate that the fairly good 'Arena' couldn't be twinned with something more impressive, but that's the risk that comes with releasing episodes in strict production order: sometimes you get lucky and sometimes it stinks.
*****
Written on 17.01.08
At its very best, Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek envisaged an optimistic future in which the idealism of John F. Kennedy's America was provided a fully-realised outcome in the United Federation of Planets, and it's the series' firm belief in these utopian principles that makes some of its more significant instalments all the more historically fascinating and uplifting to watch.
Glimpsing some of the cheap special effects and corny aliens afforded by the series' modest budget provides an understandable source of humour for many casual viewers, often pigeonholing the original series within a retro reputation isolated from the more recent spin-offs. Yet, in their ceaseless desire to rob fans of their money, Paramount have recently sought to rectify this by repackaging the series with all-new computer generated effects that look just as unconvincing as the original models, and will appear just as dated within a decade or so, but are at least partially successful in tricking fickle viewers into thinking they're watching a worthwhile modern television show, as opposed to a dusty relic. This is the main reason I think the remastered episodes are a complete waste of time and an insult to the series, preventing its historically significant optimism for looking as dated, clunky and washed-out as it deserves.
There's a reason for this ranting (aside from the fact that it felt pretty good!), summed up by the excellent episode 'Tomorrow is Yesterday.' Written by one of the series' finest, D. C. Fontana, this is the first Star Trek episode to forsake the stretched alien analogies that would increasingly allow the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise to interact with alien civilisations whose cultures closely parallel Earth at various points in its history (especially in the show's second season), and instead sends the starship directly back in time to the USA in the twentieth century, before that destination became a cliché among later time tourists. While this episode includes many of the usual gags and moral crises that would be expected - the Enterprise being reported as a U.F.O. (which of course it is), accidental interaction with humans from the past who learn too much about the future, and wide-eyed wonder at the marvels of twenty-third century technology such as portable communication devices (um... wow), the episode is particularly noteworthy for correctly anticipating the success of NASA's Apollo program.
The oft-cited line from this episode sees Lieutenant Uhura receive a radio transmission concerning "the first manned moon shot" launching from Cape Kennedy on the coming Wednesday, allowing the Enterprise crew to date their arrival to the late 1960s and for viewers of all repeat runs and video releases to more accurately place it in 1969. It isn't the lucky guess of Apollo 11's Wednesday launch that stands out, but rather Fontana's faith in an endeavour that was only beginning to come together as the episode was produced. As unfortunate coincidence would have it, the first Apollo mission ended disastrously on the day following this episode's first broadcast, but American perseverance would eventually see it come to fruition before Star Trek's decade was out. Curiously, the episode this does have a tenuous relation to is the radically different and much earlier 'The Naked Time,' the climax of which saw the Enterprise accidentally launched into a time warp for the first time. The twentieth-century Earth episode was originally outlined as a follow-up to that story before the idea was postponed and the original ending modified, which was probably a good thing as it allowed the cast and crew to be fully settled into the series before this ambitious story was tackled in due course.
The Enterprise has ended up in this unfortunate situation through an encounter with a "black star" - another nice instance of dating the episode, as the more common term "black hole" would not be coined until later that year. Of all the places it could have ended up, the ship had the rotten luck to materialise above a US air base, from whence fighter pilot Captain John Christopher is sent to investigate. Accidentally tearing apart his flimsy vessel with a tractor beam, Kirk orders the pilot beamed aboard where he must be detained in order to prevent contamination to the timeline. Unfortunately, in an episode that continues to pile unfortunate events on top of each other with amusing regularity, Spock learns that Christopher must be sent back for the sake of his as-yet-unborn son, whose contributions will be vital for humanity's future. The next problem is how to sneak into a secure military installation and delete evidence of this unwanted first contact so that the pilot's outlandish story will never be believed...
While "future people visit now and laugh at how backwards we are" is a much overused device in science fiction, even within the Star Trek franchise itself (most notably the fourth feature film), this episode, as an early example, feels fresh and avoids some of the usual dumb jokes and embarrassments. The story is much more about trying to repair damage through covert means than strolling downtown for frolics and making Spock hang around with hippies for a laugh, as the series would find embarrassing ways to cover such ground later on. Captain Christopher (Roger Perry) is an interesting character for being so unfairly treated by the Enterprise crew, at least compared to past figures they encounter in their other cute time excursions, and it's also interesting to see Spock being pushed to invent novel time travel theories on the spot, outside of his usual comfort zones. This is an episode that works excellently on both a superficial and meaningful level, and its time travel concepts, methods and morals form the basis of all that come hereafter. As a bonus, there's even a minor sub-plot about the Enterprise's refitted computer flirting with the crew that provides some cheap laughs.
The accompanying episode on this DVD is another classic, 'The Return of the Archons,' which introduces further Star Trek firsts: Kirk flagrantly breaking the Prime Directive of non-interference, and discussing a computer to death. Written by series creator Roddenberry, the larger themes concern his customary humanist principles of the importance of freedom and individual thought outside of an oppressive doctrine, in this case the enforced "will of Landru" that renders the citizens of Beta III zombie-like in the daytime before launching into a debauched night of "Festival" as an outlet for their repressed emotions, but Roddenberry might as well be talking about all forms of organised religion, particularly his personal grievances with the Catholic church. The Lawgivers' enforcement of absorption into the Body is more than a little reminiscent of how conformist regimes would later be personified by the Borg in 'Star Trek: The Next Generation.' A quite major and distracting contradiction crops up despite this story's commendable intentions, the theme of conformity being undermined somewhat by Kirk's voiced decision that this civilisation be remodelled "in a human form." Hmm...
This latter episode's unusual costumes and filming on an exterior soundstage lend it a distinctive look within the series that is particularly welcome after the previous ship-board show, while the unfolding mystery plays out at a satisfying pace, though it does fall back on tried-and-tested territory once undercover investigation becomes melee combat in a cave set. It's a lot of fun to see Spock reminding his Captain (and the viewer) of the Federation's primary principle of non-interference in the affairs of less developed civilisations, only for Kirk to disregard the regulations as inconvenient; it's surprising he lasted the full five-year mission. Of all the individual DVDs, this is among the very best for containing two episodes of such high quality, and they're both satisfyingly different. 'Tomorrow is Yesterday' is one of the series' finest, and offers 1960s viewers the unique perspective of the Enterprise through the eyes of a 1960s man. Y'know, with that domed saucer and cylindrical protrusions, it does look like a flying saucer...
****
Written on 19.01.08
The second half of Star Trek's first classic year was the most consistent period in the show's brief history (brief if discounting the gargantuan proportions the franchise would later take on through its various spin-offs), and its episodes consistently dealt with dark and relevant social issues in inspired ways. This collection is preoccupied with war, first presenting a bizarre alien conflict fought entirely with computers that nevertheless results in all-too-human casualties (well, humanoids with big hats at least), a creative take on the threat of Mutually Assured Destruction featuring many highly relevant parallels to the Cold War being "fought" at the time of broadcast.
The second episode, the famous 'Space Seed,' indulges in more speculative science fiction and dooms our own immediate future to a cataclysmic Third World War of eugenics in the early 1990s. No, I don't remember it either. While it thankfully overestimates twentieth century humanity's appetite for destruction and level of genetic breakthroughs, Carey Wilber's sole writing contribution to the series remains one of its most popular, to the point that it received a high-profile sequel in the second Star Trek feature film.
The first offering 'A Taste of Armageddon' is a little odd for being the second episode in a row that Captain Kirk beams down to an alien world, observes its strange and dangerous culture, and decides that it just has to go. The situation written by Robert Hamner is so extreme that it may require a certain suspension of disbelief to entertain at first, until the reflections of America's Cold War and War in Vietnam hit home and it becomes that little more plausible. The conflict is fought between two neighbouring planets, the unseen Vendikar and the focal Eminiar VII, which is treated to another superb matte painting I'd love to have on my wall.
As is always the case with these civilisations until Kirk pays a visit, an amicable but clearly insane status quo has been maintained between the two warring states for centuries, which allows them to fight without the use of costly weapons or damage to property. The entire war is fought with computers in a high-stakes game of Battleships, and anyone unlucky enough to be in an area designated as a hit must voluntarily step into one of many conveniently located disintegration chambers. The premise alone would surely provide Kirk with enough vitriol to smash this crazy system, but when the visiting Enterprise is itself declared a target, and its crew politely commanded to beam down within twenty-four hours for their own disintegrations - well, that really pushes Jim over the edge. It would still be a few episodes yet before Kirk was forced to confront his own contradictory feelings about war in 'Errand of Mercy.'
Despite deteriorating into standard jailbreak fare by the half-way point, this is another high quality episode of the series with a great eerie atmosphere as the initial bombardment is declared but Spock fails to detect any traces of damage, before the shocking truth is revealed. The Cold War parallels are a little heavy-handed but perhaps necessary, as casting the Romulans and Klingons in the roles of Soviets elsewhere in the series seemed a little too oblique for some viewers; the casualty reports are another novel feature that are easily overlooked today, but at the time may have reflected such reports being part of televised news broadcasts from Vietnam. Another feature that makes this episode quite special is the significant role afforded to Chief Engineer Scott in commanding the Enterprise while Kirk and Spock are trapped on the planet, after James Doohan's absence for much of the first season. Scotty gets to prove himself as much more than a one-joke character as he confidently takes to the captain's chair and handles the turbulent political situation with aplomb, but for those who enjoyed the one-joke aspect there's still plenty of that to go round, with convincingly Scottish lines such as, "aye, the haggis in the fire for sure."
'Space Seed' is a more perfected offering, introducing a guest villain that works on all levels. Khan's artificially advanced strength, intelligence and ambition make him a perfect match for Kirk even though he is out of time; Ricardo Montalban ('Fantasy Island') is brilliant in the role; he eloquently quotes Milton and has the arrogance to compare himself to Lucifer, and he proves his dastardliness by smacking Nichelle Nichols across the face. Khan's takeover of the Enterprise is even more tragic for the innocence and pacifistic style that the episode starts out, the Enterprise coming across a derelict spaceship from Earth's past, launched in the days before the warp drive afforded convenient interstellar travel, and the survivors of its hibernating crew are revived for another chance at life. Details are sketchy of the ship's time period due to the global turmoil, but it's assumed that these highly-toned figures must be refugees escaping the tyrannical rule of the genetically-engineered supermen. This is a very incorrect assumption.
'Space Seed' is a fantastic drama that involves the entire main cast rather than the more limited Kirk v. Khan focus of 'Star Trek II' (not to give away whether Khan survives this episode or anything), and if its has any flaws it's primarily in the series' repeatedly dubious presentation of women; Marla McGivers is one of the most fickle of the fickle female Lieutenants introduced over the course of the series, easily seduced by Khan because she has a thing for powerful tyrants. Others may find fault with the repeated references to a Third World War occurring in the 1990s laughable in a '2001: A Space Odyssey' way, but it only ever presented a minor problem for the series once the unthinkable happened and the franchise lasted that far into the future. The risk of a stupid person being confused and offended that a programme made in the sixties made an inaccurate observation of events three decades down the line is worth it for the episode's intriguing commentary on genetic engineering that may still rear its ugly, malformed head at some point in the real future of the 2030s, by which time we'll all definitely have Jetsons-style flying cars and robot maids. Definitely.
****
Written on 22.01.08
Volume thirteen collects two more memorable episodes from the first season of Star Trek, both being products of what was perhaps the most consistently high quality creative period in the show's history. The writing standard didn't necessarily slip as the show moved into its second season, but many of the plot styles introduced and expanded on so memorably here would see much re-use in the years to come, even beyond the original series' end. The photo of the late James "Scotty" Doohan on this basic DVD is as arbitrary and misleading as the rest of them, as the character hardly features at all in these predominantly Kirk/Spock entanglements.
'This Side of Paradise' offers some pleasant location filming to break up the often stuffy atmosphere of starship sets, and is the series' most detailed observation of twenty-third century pastoral living. The colonists of Omicron Ceti III sought a 'Good Life'-style escape from technological dependency, and now work fields for a living in an idyllic garden paradise: at least, until their unfortunate extermination from deadly berthold rays. The U.S.S. Enterprise is given the sombre duty of visiting the planet to catalogue the details of the colonists' demise, and Captain Kirk and crew are surprised to see the farmers still contentedly alive and well... perhaps a little too well. Sulu's question of whether they may actually be dead is dismissed as unhelpful and silly, but it's clear that something mysterious is going on, revitalising the colonists and even healing up old scars. Kirk instigates an investigation, allowing Spock to renew his acquaintance with Leila Kalomi, a former scientist who is now contented with agricultural life and wants to share her secret with her old flame. Leila leads Spock to a wobbling flower that abruptly sprays him with spores and causes the half-Vulcan's years of mental conditioning and emotional repression to break down.
This episode is one of the finest for Spock, and consequently for Leonard Nimoy who is offered the rare (but recurring) opportunity to put in an emphatic emotional performance. While this had already been accomplished with his tears and guilt in 'The Naked Time,' here Spock gets to let his hair down, hanging from a tree and laughing at his flummoxed Captain before sneaking off to some tall grass to have his lusty way with Leila, now that he can finally return her affections. Kirk himself receives equal limelight but is cast in a very different glow, struggling to retain control over his mind even after the entire crew of the immobilised starship has beamed down to the planet, leaving him alone in its vast, empty hulk. With a reputation for flamboyancy that's well earned, William Shatner nevertheless portrays this more timid, fearful and isolated depiction of Kirk excellently, making the later scenes aboard the empty Enterprise sufficiently eerie.
However impressive they may be in isolation, the episode's finest moments come when Kirk and Spock face off, first with words and later by throwing objects. It's unusual for Kirk to be the voice of reason needing to restrain his Science Officer, and although D. C. Fontana's script is already noteworthy for containing such eloquent observations on humanity's timeless incompatibility with paradise, its crowning moment comes in Kirk's deliberate antagonising of Spock, launching into a tirade on his questionable parentage and unsuitability for Leila. "Does she know what she's getting, Spock?" he inquires, before providing his own provocative answer: "A carcass full of memory banks who should be squatting on a mushroom instead of passing himself off as a man! You belong in a circus Spock, not a starship," he concludes, "right next to the dog-faced boy!" The pacing of this episode is a little slow, though the attractive location keeps this from being a real problem, and although the guest cast is impressive as always, it's amusing to see some of the regular performers a little out of their depth in being forced to act spaced-out and trippy, particularly George Takei.
'The Devil in the Dark' is reputed as one of Star Trek's most successfully moralistic episodes, and is another gem from producer Gene L. Coon, who was apparently so impressed with the Horta suit created prior to this episode's conception that he set about writing this tale to guarantee its immediate use. I had only seen still photos of this episode for many years before finally having the opportunity to view it properly, and although I've always found the creature's suitably ugly and distinctly "alien" design impressive, I was a little disappointed to see it on screen, mainly as it's so obviously just a lumpy sheet placed over a scurrying actor. This limitations aside, this is another great episode that provides one of the series' most fitting examples of seeking out new life and new civilisations; the Horta, a silicon-based life form that can burrow effortlessly through solid rock and dissolve men and machinery in its acidic wake, is one of the most outlandish creatures seen since the salt vampire in 'The Man Trap.' While both creatures share the common trait of being the last of their kind, this episode deals with the issue in a far more enlightened manner, owing to the series' firmly established moral ground under Geen L. Coon's supervision.
Suffering from the same issues of drawn-out pacing as its predecessor, this episode still provides an exciting hunt for the creature that's been murdering miners and red-shirted security officers before the predictable but still effective conclusion as it runs into the telepathic Spock and an opportunity for communication presents itself. The tense relationship between Kirk and Spock crops up once again, as the Captain must have faith in his friend, and there's similarly an opportunity for McCoy to prove his medical expertise in the field. An odd issue with this episode is the complete lack of female characters taking part (there is one exception, but that would be telling...), presumably as the idea of a female security officer or miner even by the twenty-third century was never even considered a possibility in 1967, and even Jill Ireland in the previous episode only really exists as a vehicle to vent Spock's newfound emotions. If this lapse in progressive sexual representation is a cause for offence I'd advise that viewers steer clear of these episodes (and the majority of the series in general, come to mention it), but do you really want to miss out on the sights of Spock swinging upside-down from a tree and attacking Kirk with a chair?
*****
Written on 22.05.08
Most notable for introducing Star Trek's most famous enemies the Klingons at a surprisingly late point in the first season, 'Errand of Mercy' is particularly interesting for its presentation of a militaristic Starfleet of the sort previously seen in 'Balance of Terror,' and rarely again due to Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry's pacifistic view of his utopia.
Fundamentally a cheaper equivalent of the previously-introduced Romulans, the Klingons here are much different from those in the later Trek canon, being more stereotypically villainous and their alien make-up consisting only of shiny vests. Despite these visual limitations, the performance of John Colicos as Commander Kor makes for one of the most satisfying adversaries for Kirk in the original series, second only to Ricardo Montalban's Khan in the earlier 'Space Seed.' With its effective use of location filming, memorable final twist and heavy-duty analysis of war, the episode being created when the Cold War was still at its height, this is one of the finer statements on war that the series would ever make, especially in light of its inconsistent treatment further down the line.
The other episode on this collection, 'The City on the Edge of Forever' is commonly cited as the best episode the series ever produced, a plaudit I can't really disagree with. Despite the oft-repeated gimmick of accidental time travel back to the twentieth century (the second time this had happened thus far in the series, and by no means the last), this episode is able to take a considerate and fascinating look at genuine Earth history without the flimsy camouflage of metaphor usually used for 'Earth-like' civilisations. Joan Collins' memorable performance as Edith Keeler makes for one of the few Kirk love interests that actually works rather than repulses (she isn't green for a start), and the interaction between the lead characters Kirk, Spock and McCoy has never been better, the only disappointment being the relative scarcity of the latter. Not to mention that the creepy Guardian of Forever is surely the most intriguing form of the time travel the crew would ever encounter, much more visually interesting than that sling-shot-round-the-sun nonsense.
With two classic episodes, this is one of the strongest individual DVD releases of the original series.
***
Written on 22.05.08
The final episode of the first year of the original Star Trek, 'Operation: Annihilate!' is a slight anticlimax after the high quality of the previous stories, forgoing debates over the nature of war, slavery and the human condition in favour of a story about zapping alien jellyfish. Fortunately, the writing standard at this point in the series prevents the idea from ever seeming too ludicrous, despite the resemblance of the neural parasites to cheese on toast, and with some family tragedy for Captain Kirk and a (seemingly) bold sacrifice by Mr. Spock, the emotional connection is as compelling as the scenes of Starfleet officers running around a park, shooting squeaking flying alien things that want their brainwaves.
This two-episode DVD crosses over into the show's second season, and this time it isn't quite so easy to take things seriously. 'Catspaw' is notable as the series' deliberately-conceived Halloween episode, the only time it would attempt to cash in on a holiday event. The alien cultures of Star Trek frequently demanded a severe suspension of disbelief, but here the sorcerers, ghostly witches straight from Macbeth and badly-matted giant black cat stretch credibility too far, meaning that anyone watching the episode should loosen up, enjoy the humour (both intentional and not), and ignore any nagging doubts as to how exactly this fits into the series' established canon.
***
Written on 22.05.08
A well-conceived exploration of the exotic possibilities of love, 'Metamorphosis' is penned by one of the original Star Trek's most consistently impressive writers Gene L. Coon, whose scripts universally focused on those themes of acceptance and racial prejudice that helped raise Star Trek above a mere space adventure series. Rather than a case of black or white skin, the example here is so far-fetched that the script feels the need to hammer its ideas home in a manner that may be insulting to viewers who could already see where it was going, but that nevertheless presents an idealistic view of the future by contrasting the easy acceptance of Starfleet officers with the more twentieth-century perspective of Cochrane, a human living alone on a planet with only a sparkling gas entity for company.
'Friday's Child' sees the return of the Klingons for a disappointing conflict over mining rights on a tribal planet, a rather weak follow-up to the previous year's 'Errand of Mercy' that established the race as a force to be reckoned with. With plenty of location filming, this at least avoids the claustrophobic feeling that can sometimes prove an issue with ship-bound tales or those set on alien vistas that are very obviously a studio (as in the previous episode), but ideological contradictions, inappropriate light-hearted moments and the least impressive Klingon commander of the series prevent this from being a classic.
***
Written on 22.05.08
'Bread and Circuses' sees the second season of Star Trek enter a problematic period, as increasingly desperate attempts are made to visit various iconic points of human history (allowing for the borrowing of sets, props and costumes from Paramount period dramas), and pass them off as alien civilisations. To their credit, writers Gene Roddenberry and Gene L. Coon develop a truly definitive excuse within the script, as Captain Kirk deems the Roman civilisation of the alien planet, blessed with equally human technology from the mid-twentieth century, to be 'an amazing example of Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planet Development.' A sound theory indeed, but one that would become increasingly stretched as the show visited planets of Nazis, Chicago gangsters and Native Americans in subsequent weeks.
The episode itself is rather enjoyable, if you can look past the Roman contrivance. It makes some interesting points about the rise of Christianity without becoming overly preachy as the series tended to when faced with the issue of religion, and of course there's some low-budget gladiatorial combat if the fight scenes of 'Amok Time' weren't enough for you. The second episode of the DVD, 'Journey to Babel' is a more thoughtful and considered affair, even if it's mostly memorable for introducing Spock's parents - the Vulcan Sarek and the human Amanda - and some of the original series' iconic alien races, the blue-tinted, antennae-clad Andorians and pig-faced Tellarites, all delegates to a Federation conference.
This episode's plot and pacing make it less compelling than its predecessor, but as a murder mystery it's more accomplished than 'Wolf in the Fold' earlier in the season, and is another chance to explore Spock's psychology after 'Amok Time.'
**
Written on 22.05.08
The two episodes collected on its twenty-fourth DVD volume see the original Star Trek series becoming curiously complex in its choice of alien adversaries, with episodes based around a vampire cloud creature and an immense space amoeba that consumes starships.
'Obsession' is particularly interesting as an exploration of Captain Kirk's psychology, as he is forced to confront the creature that he first encountered as a younger man, with all the inevitable vengeance that enlightened Starfleet officers are supposed to pretend they never experience. The cloud creature itself is disappointing, both in its on-screen form and its essential similarity to the much more memorable salt vampire of one of the series' earliest episodes, and despite its noble intentions, the episode doesn't stand out in the canon.
By contrast, the image of the U.S.S. Enterprise being sucked into an 11,000 mile long space amoeba is one of the more striking visual effects of the original series, and something that could only have been produced in the sixties. It's a little difficult to take either of these episodes entirely seriously, partly due to the insubstantial villains, but the danger level is high in both, and all actors involved almost convince you that they're performing in a worthwhile show.
***
Written on 22.05.08
Following the earlier 'Bread and Circuses,' 'A Piece of the Action' sees the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise encountering another alien civilisation with remarkable parallels to a specific period of Earth's history, but this time with a more convincing explanation. In this manner, the episode is an interesting exploration of cultural contamination, depicting the effects that a single book can have on an easily influenced culture - in this case, a copy of 'Chicago Mobs of the Twenties' left behind a century earlier by a negligent Earth captain - but on the other hand, this is merely a feeble excuse to dress Kirk and Spock in pinstripe suits and get them to play gangsters.
Although one of the more throwaway episodes, this is a lot of fun, and never takes itself seriously enough for the obvious flaws to present a major problem. Anyone who enjoys gangster films should enjoy this TV-friendly, sci-fi take on all of the clichés, and there are plenty of great lines for Spock as he performs out-of-character and attempts to get to grips with twentieth-century slang and technology in a manner that would be furthered in the fourth Star Trek film.
'By Any Other Name' is more serious but less interesting, once again seeing the Enterprise hijacked by superior life forms who, it turns out, have a fatal flaw that the crew can exploit. There are some genuinely creepy scenes as almost the entire Enterprise crew is reduced to miniature blocks of powder, and some curious references to earlier episodes mentioning the galactic barrier ('Where No Man Has Gone Before') and Eminiar VII ('A Taste of Armageddon'), all of which point towards a series that has now settled firmly into its stride, perhaps at a cost to its creativity from this point on.
Risk Is Our Business
**
Written on 22.05.08
'Return to Tomorrow' introduces another Star Trek plot that would be re-used within the science fiction genre, as characters are forced to share their bodies with alien consciousnesses that have no physical forms of their own. The episode makes some valid and interesting points, even though the series has made them before, as the argument between a fragile human body and comparatively immortal android form lead crew members into making difficult decisions, while the possessed Captain Kirk must submit to the ordeal of having to embrace women he hardly even knows. Oh, wait.
'Patterns of Force' is a particularly unwelcome addition to the Star Trek canon that really isn't entertaining enough to justify its existence. Hot on the heels of the previous DVD's gangster episode, here we see an alien culture that has been mirrored on Nazi Germany by a mad Starfleet defector, just one of the episode's many uncomfortable gimmicks. Despite its convincing appearance, the costumes and decor clearly being on loan from some Paramount period drama or other set in the same era, this episode feels like an arbitrary and very cheap attempt to engage with a period of history that viewers will be familiar with, making obvious observations about how bad the Nazis were before bringing things to a predictable conclusion.
The original series doesn't really get much worse or throwaway than this, and due to its presentation of the Nazis, the episode was banned in Germany for a number of years. This seems unreasonably harsh, unless the debate was one of quality. Star Trek was usually much better than this.
The Last Gunfight
**
Written on 22.05.08 [2016 updates for TOS season 3]
At the end of its second long year, Star Trek was facing cancellation, a fate it was eventually saved from due to a persistent letter-writing campaign from fans. In a practical and ambitious move, series creator Gene Roddenberry opted to make the final episode crossover as a pilot episode for a new series to take Star Trek's place, involving a secret agent and his shape-shifting feline companion. One of these series was picked up for the following year; the other was not.
'Assignment: Earth' is coloured throughout by the sleazy sense of being a failed advertisement, and if feels distinctly out of place in the series, even down to the U.S.S. Enterprise's very presence in the twentieth century for the purpose of 'historical research,' which is pretty ridiculous considering the enormous risks usually associated with time travel in the series. Several elements feel like re-treads of the previous year's excellent 'Tomorrow is Yesterday,' ironically set a year later in 1969, while the rest feels like a sort of rubbish version of 'Mission: Impossible.' Even the colon in the title is the same, for goodness' sake. Guest star Robert Lansing as acceptable as Gary Seven, but the whole thing feels like a big mistake, and a severe anticlimax for a season finale.
Beginning the third season in fine form (at least in terms of production order - the original airdates were fairly random), 'Spectre of the Gun' once again takes a scene from Earth history and revises it in an outer space setting, but this time with a satisfyingly surreal twist. In a creative budget-saving manoeuvre, the gunfight at the OK Corral is re-enacted as historically bizarre punishment for Kirk and his crew after they flagrantly disregard warnings not to enter Melkotian space, but the town is only half-complete. It's strange, it's predictable and in the end it's rather pointless, but it's still a fun instalment of the series, even if non-American viewers won't be as impressed.
Behold the God Who Bleeds
***
Written on 22.05.08
No one ever claimed the original Star Trek series to be particularly cryptic in its metaphors, and the episode 'Elaan of Troyius,' a clear take on the story of Helen of Troy, is one of many examples of how to make these conventions insultingly obvious to the standard TV audience. France Nuyen guest stars as Elaan, the Dohlman of Elas, who the Enterprise is transporting to an arranged marriage on the conveniently named Troyius, a planet near to Klingon space. This episode is significant for introducing the famous Klingon starship model for the first time, in place of the awful animated blips that had previously passed for ships in the distance, but the recycled plot itself is far from enthralling. Elaan's magical tears that cause any man to fall in love with her border too much on cheesy fantasy for this to be taken seriously as a Star Trek episode, a fate that befalls many instalments of the third season.
Much better is the subsequent episode, 'The Paradise Syndrome.' In some ways reminiscent of '2001: A Space Odyssey' released the same year, with its huge obelisk and notion of primitive humans 'seeded' throughout the universe, this is one of the best episodes the third season would produce, and one of the finest character episodes for Captain Kirk as he loses his memory and joins a tribal society as his crewmates attempt to find him. This episode makes for an excellent debate, as Kirk the space-age commander is given a more simple life and the choice must be made whether to enforce a return, and even aside from William Shatner's performance, the scenes aboard the Enterprise between Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy are comparatively rare treats, as the two bicker and share mutual concerns without Kirk's overbearing middle-man interference. The series would rarely be this good again.
His Brain Is Gone!
**
Written on 22.05.08
A contender for worst episode ever made, 'Spock's Brain' is at least laughably bad, as opposed to the several episodes that are merely tediously awful. In a similar manner to 'Snakes on a Plane,' the title doesn't try to do anything clever with metaphors or Shakespeare quotations as other tend to, but merely states the facts: an alien woman steals Spock's brain, and Kirk and McCoy must get it back.
It really is a particularly silly episode even for old Star Trek, from the dodgy cavemen and terrible acting of guest actress Marj Dusay to the ridiculous props designed to turn McCoy into a miracle healer, and to allow Spock to walk without a brain. I guess it's one of those episodes that has to be seen to be truly believed, and there are many less entertaining episodes out there. Writer Gene L. Coon was allegedly so embarrassed about the way the show turned out, he resorted to the pseudonym Lee Cronin.
'Is There In Truth No Beauty?' is a more serious episode, but one that's ultimately less enjoyable, and one of many ship-bound episodes in this lower budget season that tends to blur together with the rest. The notion of a race of beings whose thoughts are sublime, but their formless appearance unbearably ugly is quite interesting, if once again entering the realm of the fairy tale, and even less satisfying is the attempt at portraying this with a visual effect of multicoloured flashing lights. Another episode for Spock, brain intact this time, it's also the series' only real treatment of blindness before The Next Generation introduced a blind pilot.
****
Written on 22.05.08
Some of the last great episodes the series would ever make, both 'The Empath' and 'The Tholian Web' are memorable dramatic instalments that made a substantial impact, the first being omitted from the original airing by the BBC due to its allegedly 'sadistic' content, and the latter winning an Emmy award for special effects. Both are also great character pieces for the triumvirate of Kirk, Spock and McCoy, once again put through their paces and relying on their mutual trust.
'The Empath' concerns the plight of an empathic alien whose species is mute and can only communicate through telepathy. The Enterprise landing party is exploring an abandoned planet when they are abducted and taken below ground by a pair of malicious alien scientists identifying themselves as the Vians, who proceed to experiment on the officers and torture them. It really is quite a mean episode, if a little dull and distinctly lacking in visual flair - the Vians seem like essential recreations of the Talosians from the first Star Trek pilot episode, and the set is merely a black room - but it's still one of the more overlooked offerings of the original series, and one of the few episodes to focus primarily on DeForest Kelley's McCoy.
'The Tholian Web' is deservedly more well-known, even if its action-adventure premise is again an essential re-use of earlier plots such as 'The Doomsday Machine.' Investigating the deaths of an entire crew aboard the U.S.S. Defiant, the Enterprise soon becomes ensnared by the same threat in the form of the Tholians, who employ a unique trap similar to a vast, three-dimensional spider's web that surrounds the Enterprise as it searches for the missing Captain Kirk. This is a mysterious and visually exciting episode that's up there with the best space adventure of the series, and the stunningly exotic Tholians are a welcome addition to the Trek universe that would sadly never be seen again. Well, except in the disappointing prequel series 'Enterprise,' but that doesn't count.
Again With the Klingons
***
Written on 22.05.08
'For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky,' as well as featuring an ungainly title, is also a fairly interesting episode that sadly would have worked much better on paper than in a low budget 1960s television series.
The notion of a generational asteroid containing an entire population with no idea as to the nature of their environment is science fiction at its best, reminiscent of something Arthur C. Clarke might have written if Robert Goddard hadn't got there first in 1918. Sadly, the effect is never really convincing, leaving me wondering just how long it would take the population of Yonada to walk to one of those all-too-near studio walls masquerading as false alien sky. The episode has another serious side in the form of Dr. McCoy's fatal illness and his decision to leave the Enterprise and live out his short time as he wishes, making for an unprecedented second focal episode for the character in a short period, after the previous DVD's 'The Empath.'
'Day of the Dove' is yet another Klingon episode, but fortunately not one that seems forced as season two's instalments tended to. Michael Ansara is convincing as Kang, even through the shoddy blackface make-up he's forced to endure, and this episode really helps to bring back the Klingons' villainous side in a way that hadn't really been achieved since their introduction back in season one. Sadly, the episode is largely let down by reliance on yet another cloud creature as the mute villain of the piece, looking exactly the same as the other energy beings of the series around this point as budget presumably dictated, but the ultimate resolution to the conflict, along with the Klingon takeover of the Enterprise, are both cool enough to make this a worthwhile watch.
**
Written on 22.05.08
'That Which Survives' isn't a particularly bad Star Trek episode, but it's certainly one of the least memorable of the original series' run. The Enterprise landing party is stranded on a rocky planet, yet again, and haunted by the image of Losira, a woman whose touch can kill. Lee Meriwether is suitable as the villain of the piece, and would probably give me nightmares if I'd seen it as a child, but otherwise this feels much like a re-tread of the early episode 'The Galileo Seven,' with the landing party forced into a survival situation and the Enterprise out of reach.
By contrast, 'Let That Be Your Last Battlefield' is strikingly memorable, featuring Gene L. Coon's adversaries Bele and Lokai, the two survivors of a long-extinct alien race whose racial hatred led to their destruction, and is still fuelling their conflict across the universe. Bele and Lokai appear physically identical to the Enterprise crew despite their mutual accusations of repulsion, respective halves of their bodies being tinted stark black and white, and it becomes clear that the racial hatred is dependent on which side these colours are arranged. Bele's people are black on the right-hand side; Lokai's on the left. If it sounds pedantically familiar, it was at least an inventive way to address serious racial issues in a metaphorical manner to avoid annoying feeble TV executives.
This episode makes some valid arguments against racial hated that are ultimately little more than platitudes, but it's interesting to note just how long, far and irrepressible the mutual hatred seems to be. Another fine piece of work from Gene L. Coon, his last contribution to the series.
**
Written on 22.05.08
Continuing to re-tread old ideas through its final season, Star Trek offers another exploration of insanity that's significantly less accomplished than the earlier 'Dagger of the Mind,' and even re-uses the same prop in the form of the neural neutraliser chair, here re-imagined as Garth of Izar's torture chair. The insane former Fleet Captain fulfils the same role as every other villain of the week in the original series, but the character's madness at least allows actor Steve Ihnat to make him quite enjoyable on-screen, as well as shockingly cruel at times in his treatment of his Starfleet 'guests' and fellow escaped inmates, most notably the green-skinned Orion slave girl Marta, one of the more alluring alien females from the original series. Not that there's anything funny about me or anything. Alright, green girls are hot.
The episode's plot is rather predictable and much the same as others, and its main delight comes in the array of aliens on display, not seen in this magnitude since season two with the reappearance of Andorians and Tellarites among others. The other episode on this DVD, 'The Mark of Gideon' is a more serious commentary on a sociological problem, in this case dealing with a planet's overpopulation crisis. The gimmick of a full, planet-bound reconstruction of the Enterprise is difficult to swallow as anything other than a cheap budget-saving device, but the reveal of hooded green aliens silently staring in through the windows is one of the creepier moments of the series, and its statements are well considered. It may not be one of the most memorable episodes of the series' run, but Trek was always at its best when confronting important social issues of the time, and while this episode is ultimately a little disappointing, it at least deserves recognition for its boldness.
*
Written on 22.05.08
'The Way to Eden' is unquestionably one of the worst episodes of Star Trek. The very notion of space hippies hijacking the Enterprise to travel to Eden is insulting to anyone who enjoys the series, and even worse are the scenes of interaction between the 'hijackers' and the strangely docile crew, who never seem particularly threatened by the scantily clad terrorists. Everything about this episode is awful, from the attempts once again to imagine what space-age hip language would be like to the blatant re-use of the Tholian ship and a pointless musical performance between Spock and one of the hippies. Guest star Charles Napier wrote the terrible songs himself, serving to date the episode in a less satisfying way than others, and if there's one episode of the original Star Trek series you must avoid, it has to be this one.
'Requiem for Methuselah' is inevitably better (in fairness, the bar was set incredibly low), but it's not good enough to save this DVD. The Enterprise crew is suddenly struck by an outburst of Rigelian fever and travels to a seemingly abandoned planet to obtain the cure, only to be apprehended by a man calling himself Flint, who possesses a collection of art that seems to substantiate his claims to having been an immortal Earth man living under various famous guises. It's a common idea also seen in 'Doctor Who' (such as the episode 'City of Death') that works in theory but is a little hard to swallow on screen, but there are at least some nice emotional scenes towards the end that prove Kirk to be a little more than a frivolous womaniser. A little more.
***
Written on 22.05.08
The penultimate release of the original Star Trek DVD sets (yep, nearly there) is more entertaining than others towards the end of the largely disappointing third season, featuring the series' last decent episode in the form of 'All Our Yesterdays' and a fairly dull but slightly amusing conflict romp in 'The Savage Curtain.'
'The Savage Curtain' is much the same as the popular first season episode 'Arena,' with Enterprise officers forced into armed conflict by a race of superior beings merely for the sake of it, with the threat of the Enterprise's destruction if they don't prevail. Except this time Kirk and Spock are joined by the historical figures Abraham Lincoln and Surak of Vulcan to make up a side of 'good' forces, forced to fight against a team consisting of Genghis Khan, the Klingon Kahless the Unforgettable, Zora of Tiburon and the fictional twenty-first century human Colonel Green. And the superior beings are talking rock men. It's a throwaway episode that's only really memorable for its more outlandish scenes, most notably Abraham Lincoln floating in space in a quite comfortable chair, but at the end of the day it's harmless fun, though 'Arena' is a lot better.
'All Our Yesterdays' comes to the rescue with the only truly classic episode of the late run, as the Enterprise attempts to rescue the inhabitants of a doomed world whose sun is about to explode, only to be informed that they've all taken refuge in the planet's past through a complex time portal managed by a librarian whose name is amusingly Mr. Atoz ('A to Z,' you see). As Spock and McCoy travel back to the planet's ice age, Spock curiously begins to regress to a more primeval state before his people learned to control their emotions, with uncomfortable consequences. Fortunately for McCoy, there's an attractive woman with them to avoid their professional relationship crossing any sort of line.
Meanwhile, Kirk is accused of being a witch in a different period of history, with more uncomfortable consequences, this time based less around ice and more around fire. It's a very good time travel episode with some well-conceived gadgets, and perhaps indication that a fourth season wouldn't have been so bad after all.
***
Written on 22.05.08
True to form for a season finale, the final episode of the original Star Trek series is pretty weak. It's a run-of-the-mill possession story at best, and an insulting display of 1960s sexism at worst, as Captain Kirk's old flame Dr. Janice Lester becomes obsessed with switching bodies with the commander and stealing his life, out of nothing more than feminine jealousy. You almost expect McCoy to chip in with a comment about it being her time of the month or something.
This episode is fairly lousy, and quite derivative of earlier, better episodes - the body swap machine is reminiscent of the android maker in 'What Are Little Girls Made Of?', and the possession thing was done more successfully in 'Return to Tomorrow.' Still, it's a last chance to hang with the original crew before they reverted to an animated form in the seventies cartoon series, and promptly aged in time for their big-screen debut, and for that reason alone... and it really is that reason alone... it will always be memorable in the Star Trek canon.
Fortunately, not even the sleazy DVD producers at Paramount would get away with releasing a single forty-five minute episode to DVD, and the set is bulked out very substantially with the classic unaired (at the time) pilot episode 'The Cage' from five years earlier. Starring Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike, 'The Cage' remains one of my very favourite of all the Star Trek episodes, and it's interesting to see how the series could have turned out in a significantly different fashion, with only Leonard Nimoy's Spock character remaining when the series was revised in 1965 and took the form we know today.
'The Cage' is an excellent tale of the human condition that was previously re-used to form much of the season one two-parter 'The Menagerie' (DVD volume 8), and with its high budget appearance, memorable performances and dark subject matter, it's comparable to a TV movie more than a standard episode, and certainly better than anything the series would produce in its final year. Five stars for 'The Cage,' one star for the other thing.
Illogical? A Little
***
Written on 09.10.03 [2013 update in slightly more detail]
It's very easy to forget that the animated Star Trek existed, and many people would rather it stay forgotten.
In a bizarre inverse-proportionality anomaly that could seem reminiscent of a Star Trek plot, the more you collect and read about the other Star Treks, the less you recall this 1970s spin-off. The reason for this is that Gene Roddenberry and the guys were not too pleased with this series, the first reincarnation of the phenomenal 1960s sci-fi show which only really achieved success in the early 70s re-runs. All of the official encyclopedias and magazines deliberately fail to recognise this series, but the unofficial guides are always better, funnier and cheaper anyway, so buy them instead.
The basic premise of this show was that it continued the Enterprise's "five year mission" to explore strange new worlds, constantly break the Prime Directive, and generally have sex with green women. The most impressive facet of this show, and the only thing that will likely cause fans to go out and buy it, is the presence of almost all the original actors doing voice-over roles for their characters.
William Shatner returns as Captain Kirk, with his distinctive voice that many bad impressionists think they can do, Leonard Nimoy still plays the enjoyable character of Mr. Spock, the late DeForrest Kelley spouts out more "I'm a doctor, not an X" lines as McCoy, Nichelle Nicholls is Uhura, unfortunately less appealing in drawn form, George Takei is helmsman Sulu, and meanwhile James Doohan is still trying out that Scotty accent. The only main character that did not reappear was Walter Koenig's Chekov, the young Russian navigator who was introduced part way through the original series' run, only to be replaced by a four-armed alien man called Arex. Crazy.
Being a 70s cartoon, the animated series was obviously shorter in length than the 48-minute live action episodes, and was drawn in a style that seems reminiscent of Scooby Doo. Block colours, pupils for eyes and crazy running legs show its age but that's alright because the 60s show still looks old. With the cartoon licence, Gene and the writers were able to experiment with concepts that would have proved impossible to do, or would have just looked stupid on the live action show. In a medium where it's cheaper to blow up a planet than to hire a voice actor, the Enterprise crew became fitted with 'life support belts ' that allowed them to breathe in space, while the aliens and locations only got weirder.
Something in favour of the animated series is the quality of the writing. From memory, I can recall episodes seeming a little below standard, but there were also some written by established sci-fi writers. I can't quite recall now, but I think D.C. Fontana, a female writer for the 60s show, returned along with other "giants" of the day, making sure that it wasn't just a cash-in sequel to Star Trek. Many of the plots were actually quite good, although they often seemed to be trying to exploit the freedom of the drawn world.
There were problems however, inevitably leading to the series blasted out of the "official" Star Trek canon. I tried a play on words there. With all its variety, it gets very annoying to see the same head shot of actors talking to each other again and again. Many of the plots were also not as true to the characters and established universe as they should have been, especially in comparsion to the later films and series of the 90s. And above all, it was a cartoon! Many people prefer to watch cartoons to live action shows, I personally find American cartoon comedy "Family Guy" one of the funniest shows on television, but it doesn't really work. It's reasonable to assume that the fact contemporary encyclopedias and Fact Files would present the reader with colour photos of Captain Picard, Deep Space Nine, Andorians, and then something that is obviously a drawn person would seem confusing to the reader. I agree with their decision.
Following the lack of real success with The Animated Adventures, or whatever this series was officially known as, the new live-action "Star Trek: Phase II" was planned and developed but ultimately never filmed. Instead, the success of Star Wars led to the first Star Trek film being brought out in 1979, and this was the start of Trek's rebirth. I occasionally like to download an animated episode, as the only place I've ever seen them on TV was on CBBC when I was little, as it's basically like reading one of the often-interesting Star Trek comic books, but I can appreciate how much this series might have meant to those convention-going Trekkies of the 70s. In days before Star Trek was severely overused (i.e., the series Enterprise and Voyager), this must have been a real gem. Shame about the drawing.
Let's See What's Out There...
**
Written on 21.02.07
The first season of most long-running shows will end up looking a little naïve and discordant in hindsight, and the freshman year of Star Trek’s first television sequel offends more than most in this regard. The new series would take roughly three years to become fully embraced by fans of the original series, and watching these first twenty-six episodes it’s fairly obvious why. Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the 24th century is noble and exciting, and sets the scene perfectly for infinite exploration of the human and alien condition, yet this opportunity is somehow wasted almost entirely.
At its worst, The Next Generation sees a crew of wooden caricatures in spandex pyjamas visiting unconvincing alien cave sets and solving a boring ecological problem over the course of forty-five tedious minutes, and it often feels like season one couldn’t escape this formula. The new U.S.S. Enterprise and its crew had been thoroughly detailed and evolved over the course of more than a decade, based in part on the aborted ‘Star Trek: Phase II’ series that eventually became the first Star Trek film in 1979. It seems ridiculous that, will all this preparation, things could meander along so fruitlessly for so long before the series started getting anywhere.
The series is set in the tranquil political climate of the mid-24th century (okay, 2364 if you want the specifics. No point pretending I don’t know these things). The Federation, which still seems to consist primarily of humans as it did in the Original Series despite the series’ claims otherwise, is engaged in a period of galactic exploration and diplomacy that will all too soon be shattered as new and old alien forces threaten its safety over the course of the next seven long years. Old enemies the Klingons are now content to sit behind their borders thanks to a peace treaty, and the new Enterprise under command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) even has a Klingon serving on its bridge. Picard’s crew fits the bill for a late-80s TV show, led by white American actors with a couple of notable exceptions. Owing to the sensibilities of the time, the Captain is now accompanied by his psychiatrist on the bridge, and the security officer is – wait for it – a woman!
The show’s updated tagline, ‘to boldly go where no one has gone before,’ self-consciously removes the masculine pronoun with something more fitting to the universal message the show always intended to express, even if it often floundered along the way. None of the characters are particularly interesting in this first series, perhaps owing to Roddenberry’s specific instruction of ‘no conflict’ that seriously weakened the show, apart from Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner), the android who wishes to be human. The characters would all receive more generous development and storylines in the future, but series one is content with shallowness. This isn’t a criticism of the cast, who are mostly excellent apart from Marina Sirtis as Counsellor Troi and Wil Wheaton’s ever unpopular boy wonder Wesley Crusher, but lies entirely in weak writing.
This DVD set, released several years ago, collects the entire first season in its original grainy late-80s print, with an extra disc of passable special features, mainly interviews recorded in 1987, 1988 and 2001. The packaging is unusual and quite interesting, and seems to be modelled on some aspect of 24th century technology, perhaps a storage case of some kind. Whatever it is, it fits in perfectly with the look of the series, even if the weak plastic case is in constant danger of snapping. Each DVD contains four episodes, which come with subtitles, audio options and the customary scene selections. Beginning with ‘Encounter at Farpoint,’ the feature length (90 minute) series opener, we are introduced to the cast, to a new on-off enemy, and to the rushed writing that would pervade the series as a whole, as it’s obvious even before being informed on the special features that this was a 45-minute story that had to be padded out to two parts.
There are some classic shows collected here, but far less when compared to seasons three to six, for example. Especially notable are ‘Datalore,’ where the android is given an evil twin, the confusingly titled ‘11001001’ in which the Enterprise is half-inched and Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes) falls in love with a hologram, and my favourite, the X-Filesesque ‘Conspiracy,’ a surprisingly effective and gory conclusion to a plot thread introduced several shows earlier. Unfortunately at this point, for every strong episode there’s at least two horrendous ones. This can be seen right from the first disc, which is rounded out after the pilot with the embarrassing remake of an Original Series episode in ‘The Naked Now,’ and the questionably racist presentation of a tribal African-style culture in ‘Code of Honor,’ which led to the writer being sacked.
Star Trek: The Next Generation was a staple of 1987-1994 TV, and remained prominent for some time after, amidst the ever-growing spin-off series it spawned and inspired. The first season presents the show at its very worst, and even by its very average conclusion hasn’t managed to drag itself into a truly distinctive style. The characters are inconsistent and frankly pretty boring, and many wouldn’t be treated with any depth for years later (some never at all). This series is enjoyable to watch partly from a purely nostalgic viewpoint, as the naïve presentation of technology and designs that change every week before becoming standardised forever after is quite a fun thing to spot. It’s also interesting to watch Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby), the security officer who was eventually fired from the series twenty episodes in after old Playboy photos came to light. Yar was one of the most interesting characters in the few scenes she was given to truly shine, and though her meaningless death is quite cool and bold, it represents a loss for the series. The only benefit is that her position can then be taken over by the Klingon Worf (Michael Dorn), whose character was a last-minute addition to the show and therefore seemed to just hang around the corners of the bridge without any obvious task to perform.
In failing to set up any kind of consistent universe or political scenario, The Next Generation was free to warp into its second, equally disappointing season burden-free, and directionless. It’s hard to look at these mediocre, often childish early episodes as anything other than wasted opportunities and a waste of everyone’s time. This wasn’t going to win over any die-hard fans just yet. It doesn't help that these sets are completely overpriced.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Who Needs a Starship?
*****
Written on 20.07.00 [2012 update in slightly more detail]
While not always the most popular of the (presently four) Star Trek series because of its dark storylines and military aspect, I find Deep Space Nine the most varied and exciting of the shows. The early few seasons got off to a rough start and were regularly failures, but in the third series and beyond we have witnessed some of the most complex and twisting plots and story arcs in any television show. What with the always-dubious Cardassian, Garak, originally known little about and considered a spy, only to end up being found out as the son of one of Cardassia's most prominent figures. The arc with the evil Gul Dukat and the Dominion War were also very clever, and the religious and action aspects of the show have added some excellent storylines and mind-blowing special effects.
My favourite episodes are prominent ones that twist the whole story of the series and make everything appear in a different light. The two-parter "In Purgatory's Shadow"/"By Inferno's Light" in seris five which saw Cardassia join the Dominion and in which we find out that the Doctor Bashir who's been on the series during the last few episodes has been a changeling (evil shapeshifter) imposter, and "Tears of the Prophets", the finale of series six, in which a main character (Dax) is killed, the wormhole is destroyed (a holy gateway through space which has been a vital object for the station's storyline), a huge space battle is seen with incredible special effects, and we see how these things can affect the crew.
Deep Space Nine is sorely-misjudged show that has received a lot of bad press, but once you start watching it you realize just how good it is. It deals with probably every social and cultural issue that presents a problem, and proves once and for all that you don't need to have a starship to have a story.
Advantages: Great storylines and special effects worthy of films.
Disadvantages: Some of the early shows were a bit poor.
***
Written on 17.09.07
The third and often most overlooked Star Trek series, ‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’ (DS9) was essentially a spin-off of the popular ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation,’ and first aired during its sister show’s sixth year in 1993. The first series to be produced without the oversight of Gene Roddenberry, DS9 was intentionally designed to be a very different counterpart to the other series, which was most evident in its setting on a relatively static space station rather than a mobile starship and its increasing reliance on complex plot arcs and character development as opposed to anomaly-of-the-week episodes. The series was devised and created by Roddenberry’s hand-picked successor Rick Berman and the late Michael Piller, the latter often credited with introducing a more “human” character-based approach to storytelling in his earlier tenure on The Next Generation as opposed to the earlier seasons that focused more on technology. This is particularly evident in the concept of DS9, which introduces a strong ensemble of officers and civilians alike, many of whom are disreputable or untrustworthy in stark contrast to The Next Generation’s clean-cut Starfleet. DS9 is often billed as ‘the darker Trek,’ a statement grounded in both its fondness for uncomfortable or controversial themes, and the sinister alien architecture of the alien space station itself.
For all the praise I tend to heap on DS9, particularly in contrast to the other Star Trek series, the early seasons present something of a disappointment, at least for viewers fond of the series’ later tendencies under the supervision of the great Ira Stephen Behr. The Deep Space Nine concept introduced effectively in the feature-length pilot episode ‘Emissary,’ that of Starfleet arriving to oversee the redevelopment of the planet Bajor following its long-awaited victory over the oppressive Cardassians, strongly hints toward a more serialised direction for this new series, yet the first season in particular favours unconnected stand-alone episodes that often demonstrate very little of what this series is capable of achieving. As well as the usual recycled plots based on anomalies and malfunctions (the station breaks down more than the Enterprise holodeck), many of the opportunities to explore the resident alien cultures are wasted in favour of bland humanoid-aliens-of-the-week distractions that really could have taken place in any series, with any crew, as the staff writers attempt to find their feet and break away from the singular style of what was previously considered ‘Trek.’ The benefit of running concurrently with The Next Generation at least means that the writers know vaguely what they’re doing, even if this leads to a less distinctive series at the beginning, and however shaky the first season of DS9 may be, it’s light years beyond the embarrassing early years of that other show.
There are, fortunately, a fair few notable episodes scattered amongst the mediocrity here in this slightly shorter season (debuting as it did one-third of the way through the American TV year), some of which are still considered among the best that the show ever produced, although the hit count is lower than for all the later seasons. ‘Emissary’ is an excellent introduction, which does the perfect job of introducing the hulking, mysterious space station through the eyes of the Starfleet officers audiences have grown accustomed to over the years, before moving in to meet the semi-hospitable locals. There’s some great tension evident between the crew members at this early stage, particularly between Starfleet’s Commander Sisko and his First Officer Major Kira, a Bajoran ex-terrorist who initially considers the Federation’s presence a danger, so soon after the Cardassian withdrawal. An additional plot thread explodes out of nowhere as Sisko and his science officer Dax discover a stable wormhole to the other side of the galaxy that both opens up the station as a major interstellar port, and helps to fulfil a Bajoran prophecy in the franchise’s first real exploration of religion, something Roddenberry always objected to during his lifetime.
Other stand-out episodes that touch on the series’ larger themes include ‘Duet,’ an excellently written character piece between Major Kira and a Cardassian war criminal that sees her make peace with her violent past and start to move on, and the thoughtful finale ‘In the Hands of the Prophets’ that exposes the corrupt and fragile nature of the Bajoran Provisional Government, while also addressing relevant issues of religious tolerance illustrated through Bajoran parents’ complaints over Keiko O’Brien’s scientific approach towards teaching about the wormhole, which to them is a Celestial Temple for their gods. Earlier Bajoran stories such as ‘Progress’ and ‘The Storyteller’ don’t really hit the marks correctly, which is forgivable at this early stage, and it’s commendable that the series also starts to focus extensively on resident species such as the Ferengi and Cardassians with a depth that was previously offered only to Klingon culture. One of this season’s few outright blunders is the episode ‘Q-Less,’ which brings the popular Next Generation trickster Q to the station for the usual shenanigans, but only serves to prove how incompatible these two series’ ideologies are. Other crossovers are treated with more consideration and integrate more successfully, notably Captain Picard’s brief cameos in the pilot episode and later appearances by Lwaxana Troi and the Klingon Duras sisters, as well as some cool but gratuitous fan-pleasing use of the Borg in flashbacks, but the weaker episodes on the whole tend to suffer from the transference of a ship-bound premise to the DS9 format, which restricts its potential and stretches credibility.
The series defines itself straight away as a slightly chaotic and fairly dismal situation, explored through the plights of officers whose families have to endure the new living conditions after being used to the five-star luxury of brightly lit space hotels such as the U.S.S. Enteprise, and special credit needs to be given to the sets. The station interiors are truly amazing, apparently the largest permanent sets in Hollywood during the series’ run, from the bustling two-level Promenade and its various establishments, particularly Quark’s bar (which feels a lot more authentic and lively than the Enterprise’s Ten Forward ever did), to the eerily lit corridors and rolling cog-like airlocks (I always loved those!) Many of the non-Starfleet inhabitants are also seedy and nefarious, Quark himself clearly being a criminal as well as a bartender and effective holo-brothel owner (that’s right, DS9 admitted what everybody’s really using those holosuites for), and even if the Starfleet regulars are a little disappointingly moral in comparison, they at least get drunk and make mistakes. As a fan, it’s also interesting to see the officers actually doing some work in these early seasons, before the series seemed to abandon this notion as an inconvenience.
Avery Brooks’ black captain has always been another major talking point of the show as the franchise moved into the politically correct nineties, additionally granting Commander Sisko the role of male single parent (what a forward-looking series), and his relationship with his teenage son Jake is one of the highlights of the early years. Cirroc Lofton plays the young Sisko with the appropriate mixture of cheeky enthusiasm and bored loneliness, and his complete lack of interest in becoming a Starfleet officer or boy genius entirely avoids the earlier series’ Wesley Crusher syndrome. Brooks takes to the role well, evolving into a more hard-edged and militaristic commander in later years as the show goes that way, but it’s particularly nice to see him arriving in the pilot episode as an unwelcome and threatening stranger, before suddenly being revered as the reluctant religious icon of Bajoran prophecies when he discovers the wormhole. Nana Visitor essentially takes over the existing role of The Next Generation’s Ro Laren character, as Michelle Forbes wasn’t interested in becoming a regular on the new series, and she’s given some great sexy-feisty scenes and shouting in the character’s key episodes. The only other female lead is Lieutenant Jadzia Dax played by the towering and tantalising Terry Farrell, though her character is noticeably stilted in this first year as a more stoic, Spock-like figure than the outgoing party animal she suddenly becomes in season two onward. Although a little dull for the most part as the necessary explainer of weird goings-on, the character is given some nice exposition and some touching scenes in her titular episode ‘Dax.’
The remainder of the human/Starfleet cast consists of the inspired pairing of Doctor Julian Bashir and Chief Miles O’Brien, the latter transferring from many thankless years as the Enterprise’s transporter chief to unleash Colm Meaney’s full potential in realising Starfleet’s everyman, as well as one of my all-time favourite characters in the franchise. O’Brien’s endless task of maintaining and fixing the unreliable station is enjoyable to watch, although his friendship with Bashir wouldn’t develop for some time yet, Siddig El Fadil’s character largely being an annoying starry-eyed optimist in these early shows. The other double act is, of course, Odo and Quark, who effectively play the roles of cop and petty criminal in a number of entertaining B-plots and will clearly never get along, although the same probably isn’t true of Rene Auberjonois (‘M*A*S*H’) and Armin Shimerman (‘Buffy’), the talented and patient actors who spend hours in make-up to bring the series’ most recognisable faces to life. The station’s harbour-like nature leads to a reliable, regular guest cast forming over time, but in this first season their appearances and roles are extremely limited.
Produced concurrently with the last two years of The Next Generation, and then its immediate successor ‘Star Trek: Voyager,’ Deep Space Nine was always kept a little in the shadows during its original run, something quite fitting to its reclusive and dark nature but ultimately damaging for its viewing figures, which were nevertheless always quite high, particularly in these early years before the worst excesses of Voyager made viewers bored of the franchise. It’s my hope that the future will rediscover this brilliant and unique series, particularly once the repetitive Voyager and ‘Enterprise’ have faded from public consciousness, as it’s always been a favourite of mine. This year, in a move both generous and greedy at the same time, Paramount have re-released all of the earlier DS9 DVD season box-sets in a more streamlined and cheaper form, which must be a bummer for those who shelled out £70 or more to buy the original bulky cases released in 2003. Despite less stunning artwork, the interior of each set is exactly the same, featuring four episodes per DVD and an acceptable, if fairly limited selection of special features on the final disc, mainly focused on the creation of the show through interviews with the cast and crew. It’s nice that these sets have been made more affordable for fans, and although season one is the weakest of the lot, it still includes a couple of great memorable shows as well as the invaluable pilot to make every DS9 collection complete.
It would get a lot better after this, but like the tedious opening titles it takes its frelling time.
Advantages: Great pilot episode, and an interesting change of direction for the franchise.
Disadvantages: Far too many weak re-treads of Star Trek clichés stunt the series’ development.
****
Written on 24.09.07
Deep Space Nine’s second year is an improvement over the first, but progress towards the distinctive and classic series it would become is slow. As in the first season, the individual plots of this longer second year are mainly determined by characters, opportunities or threats passing through the station and interacting with its crew, the opposite of other Star Trek series which headed out to the unknown. On the other hand, the reliance of many episodes on visiting the newly discovered Gamma Quadrant through the nearby stable wormhole keeps DS9 from being as distinctive as it would sometimes like to be, though there is a marked improvement in character-centric episodes and longer story arcs that distance the show further from The Next Generation, which was at the time screening its seventh and final year.
In a bold attempt to out-do its previous achievements and prove its independence, DS9’s second year opens with an unprecedented three-parter that continues to explore local Bajoran politics. Although it would ultimately be outdone by the six-parter that opens season six, and the mammoth ten-part finale of the series, these first three episodes remained the longest extended story in the franchise for several years, themselves only one piece of the larger Bajoran continuity that resurfaces in other memorable episodes this season. Although the actions of ‘The Homecoming,’ ’The Circle’ and ‘The Siege’ are instigated by the station’s Bajoran first officer Major Kira, the plot ultimately expands to provide something for all of the regular cast members and is the perfect way to open the series; it’s a shame more DS9 stories weren’t told in this manner, which really benefits the extensive primary and recurring guest cast, a diverse group to rival even that of the Simpsons. After this epic, it’s back to familiar single episode storylines for the majority of the season with the exception of ‘The Maquis,’ an ultimately disappointing but well-meaning prelude of sorts for ‘Star Trek: Voyager,’ but unlike the first season, most episodes are based on characters rather than random happenings, something that better suits the series’ style.
In terms of relationships, much is achieved here that perhaps should have occurred in season one, had the first year granted the characters the appropriate development time. Commander Sisko’s single parenting of a teenage son forms several B-plots as their close relationship continues to provide a warmth to the show that was lacking in earlier Star Trek series, while most characters experience some form of romance, even providing a serious long-term lover for Kira. Bashir and O’Brien develop their famous friendship after getting off to an antagonistic start, the beginning of what would ultimately become Ira Behr’s obsession with male bonding as seen in the later seasons, and Odo and Quark continue their timeless bickering and rivalry. Although the series is still primarily concerned with telling individual stories at this stage, the more memorable episodes and scenes are those that relate to the larger scheme of things, or set important events in motion. Not only is this the season that introduces the powerful Dominion threat from the other side of the wormhole, name-checked several times through dealings with Gamma Quadrant races before their introduction in the finale ‘The Jem’Hadar,’ but exploration continues in the search for Odo’s race in the episode ‘The Alternate,’ before it was shockingly revealed at the start of season three. Add to this the series’ first real Klingon episode, which brings back the three major Klingons from the original series played by their original actors in an enjoyable revenge tale, as well as the first visit to the so-called Mirror Universe since the classic Star Trek episode ‘Mirror, Mirror.’
Although largely transitory, and even introductory in a way the uneven first season couldn’t quite achieve, season two is a strong year for DS9, and although the style of the later years is more to my liking, many of their elements can be found here, not least in terms of episodes that would have direct sequels or eventually form a larger story arc. The strained relationship between the Bajorans and the Cardassians, their former oppressors, isn’t given quite the attention it would seem to deserve despite several noteworthy episodes, and by the following year’s peace treaty it all seems too long ago to really matter. Episodes like ‘Necessary Evil’ tackle such matters head-on, taking us on a trip down memory lane into Kira’s earlier years that allows for a fascinating exploration of the space station as it was under Cardassian rule, complete with ghetto fencing and smoke machines in every crevice. ‘The Collaborator’ is the perfect and long-awaited follow-up to the first season finale, and the great episode ‘The Wire’ re-introduces the long-forgotten and mysterious Garak from way back in episode two, one of my favourite characters from the series who would feature in increasing prominence from this point on. Furthermore, this season throws out a couple of obligatory Ferengi comedy episodes that are usually hit or miss, the best being ‘Rules of Acquisition’ which manages to be funny and make a relevant social point. Last but not least, season two grants fans of actor Colm Meaney and his everyman Chief of Operations their first of many torturous treats as ‘Tribunal’ unknowingly spawns an entirely new DS9 sub-genre, affectionately nick-named ‘O’Brien Must Suffer’ by the writing staff.
Easily overlooked in comparison with the more striking later seasons, or perhaps too easily skimmed over as merely ‘the year that introduced the Dominion,’ I found a new fondness for season two after a few years spent solely at the other end of the spectrum, and in terms of its character focus and introduction of key recurring themes and plot threads I think it beats season three, leaving the first season far behind in its wake. Recently re-released on DVD with the same special feature interviews as the original release, this series continues to look great: the mid-90s video effect looks slightly fuzzy even on the DVD transfer, but the vast station and its fascinating background alien extras designed by Michael Westmore’s team make this more believable and for me, far more enjoyable than the ship-board Treks. It’s great to see the characters really settled in to their initially horrific surroundings by this point, spending more time in the bar than they apparently do on duty (but still wearing their Starfleet uniforms, in a rather silly oversight that no one ever bothered to address), and it’s obvious that isolated, worthless stories are being slowly phased out in favour of the bigger picture. The series’ original premise continues to yield the strongest episodes as the Bajorans rebuild their devastated civilisation and struggle with politics, and the finale introduces a new threat to rival even the Borg.
At the end, Sisko is warned by a scaly, drug-controlled, genetically engineered alien warrior, whose people have just destroyed a powerful Enterprise-type ship, to cease exploring the Gamma Quadrant and stick to his own side of the wormhole – or else there’ll be trouble. But then, Sisko never was the most cool-headed of the Star Trek captains...
Advantages: Great character-driven stories, and many seeds sown for future developments.
Disadvantages: Weaker individual episodes continue.
Tough Little Ship
****
Written on 01.10.07
The third season of Deep Space Nine is where everything changed, and the series finally found its feet. Some series, such as its predecessor ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation,’ took several years to develop to their full potential. With DS9, the change was immediate, and occurred as soon as major writer Ira Stephen Behr took over as Executive Producer twenty-one episodes in, taking DS9 in the direction he had always envisaged. Season three does indeed get better as it goes along, peaking at the end thanks to Behr’s newfound freedom in granting increased focus to characterisation, conflict and space battles, but there are some excellent episodes earlier in the run. Unfortunately, this series suffers somewhat from network insistence that changes had to be made to keep up with the new series Voyager, which would premiere part-way through the year, leading to the introduction of a regular starship and a subsequent backwards step after the progress that was made defining the show’s individuality in season two.
The introduction of the U.S.S. Defiant is an important event for the series, and grants greater freedom for drama and conflict than the puny runabout shuttles ever did, but despite its cramped and spartan battleship interiors, episodes centred around the Defiant’s exploration of the Gamma Quadrant do little to disassociate the series from The Next Generation and Voyager. DS9 always worked best when using its space station setting to its advantage, dealing with a regular cast of characters or just those passing through, and in particular the focus on the local Bajoran culture is significantly diminished. Even the new threat of the Dominion, which initially promises to become the centre of the series, is largely abandoned in favour of unconnected stories in the manner of the earlier seasons, leading to a number of frankly forgettable shows that lack the DS9 touch and could conceivably occur in any of the five Trek series. On the positive side, some of these stand-alone episodes are works of genius, and the series continues to push the boundaries of what was formerly acceptable in a Star Trek show. Character focus is less intense than last year, which is slightly disappointing but also a natural slump as the viewers and performers are now fully aware of their nuances.
The two-parter ‘The Search’ opens this season, and intentionally sets out to shock, though fails to attain the same level of excellence as the first pilot episode or season four’s excellent ‘The Way of the Warrior.’ The natural sequel to last season’s finale, Sisko returns to the station after an absence to investigate the Dominion threat in his cool armoured spaceship that can turn invisible but, as this is DS9, is a little untested and prone to malfunction. The cliffhanger ending to part one is one of the series’ most memorable, as Odo finally reunites with his people, but the second part has a disappointing “it was only a holodeck” style conclusion that serves to spoil things. The Dominion is explored soon after in an interesting manner with the revealing episode ‘The Abandoned,’ but would not resurface again until near the end of the season with the incredible two-parter ‘Improbable Cause’/’The Die is Cast,’ still among my favourite DS9 stories and a terrible demonstration of the Dominion’s evil will and abilities. Other excellent episodes include the earlier two-parter ‘Past Tense,’ a time travel story that, for once, shows the viewers their future of Star Trek’s mid-21st century, where the homeless are forced off the streets into poorly maintained ‘Sanctuary Districts.’ Similar to the later film ‘Star Trek: First Contact,’ this episode sees Starfleet officers accidentally interfering with a significant historical event that all goes awry when the leader of the revolution is killed. It’s certainly one of Star Trek’s most thoughtful and well-executed time travel stories, and only ruined very slightly by the unnecessary comic relief of the Defiant’s crew beaming to various time periods in their search for Sisko, Bashir and Dax, and confronting several silly stereotypes such as hippies.
Although the count of character-based stories is less than in season two, each main cast member is granted at least one excellent show in season three. Sisko confronts his reluctant role of Emissary for the first time since the pilot in the intriguing ‘Destiny’ (the first episode I ever saw, though obviously that isn’t important) and spends some quality time with his son in the touching ‘Explorers.’ Dax’s fascinating Trill physiology is explored extensively in the creepy ‘Equilibrium,’ and Odo’s love for Kira is revealed in the otherwise slow ‘Heart of Stone.’ O’Brien is put through hell yet again in ‘Visionary,’ which features a great scene of the station exploding, and although Bashir’s rapid-ageing offering of ‘Distant Voices’ is a little derivative of The Original Series, the British pair get a fantastic B-plot in ‘Explorers’ that includes a drunken rendition of ‘Jerusalem’ and demonstrates Ira Behr’s fondness for male bonding better than any other scene so far. Even the Ferengi episodes manage to remain above-par rather than merely silly, seeing the return of Wallace Shawn’s hilarious Grand Nagus Zek in the deceptively spiritual ‘Prophet Motive’ and the completion of Quark’s nuclear family with the introduction of his rebellious mother in ‘Family Business.’ Less notable is the episode ‘Defiant,’ an action-packed excuse to feature Jonathan “Riker” Frakes in the show to boost ratings.
DS9 continues to grow slowly but surely in the third season before the sudden revamp by Behr towards its conclusion, and would never be the same again. Although plot threads developed and introduced here would continue to define the show’s development, the bland sci-fi plot of something like ‘Meridian’ or the messing-with-our-emotions formulaicness of ‘Fascination’ would only surface on rare occasions of writer’s block from the experienced creative team. Looking back, it’s a little disappointing that the Dominion wasn’t dealt with in any major way, particularly as even greater network interference for season four demanded a departure from that story for an entire year to focus instead on re-introducing the Klingon threat and introducing The Next Generation’s Worf to the cast, but it’s forgivable for the excellent stories being told between the larger arcs. Bajor and Cardassia get a definitive peace treaty almost off-screen, which effectively ends the Bajoran arc of the earlier years, and a new, speedier title sequence and explosive season premiere would see the series move on from its roots and take on an entirely new life the following year. All seasons have been available on DVD since 2003, and have recently been re-released in slimmer, more cost-effective forms that contain the same mediocre special features of interviews on the final disc.
Season three is still preoccupied with the sort of transition that should have been left behind in season two, but it finds its way by the end as Sisko is finally promoted to captain, grows a beard, and shaves his head to celebrate.
Advantages: Finally finds its way.
Disadvantages: Disappointing ratings-grabbing attempts to compete with ‘Voyager.’
Damn Dirty Klingons
*****
Written on 27.10.05
The fourth season of Deep Space Nine, the ambitious and exciting companion to the less involved Star Trek: Next Generation and Voyager, manages to be one of the strongest and most consistent of the series' entire seven-year run. This is despite network limitations, the rather forced introduction of a favourite character to boost ratings and increasing deviation from the series' original style.
Fortunately, in the hands of new big cheeses Ira Stephen Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe (Behr and Wolfe? Interesting), replacing the series' less ambitious creators Rick Berman and Michael Piller, all of these dubious developments are turned into virtues. DS9 is much more than "the dark Trek" or "the series set on a space station," it's also the series with the most heart, the most rewarding story arcs and the most guns. Take your pick.
DS9 ON DVD
Paramount's DVD package of season 4 is, as usual, very nice to look at and very extortionate. At least it was when first released: now approaching two years old, the seven season boxsets have been reduced to half price at around £25.99 on major websites such as Play.com and Amazon.co.uk
The special features continue to be nothing extraordinary, but the interviews with cast and crew, along with the pretty collector's booklet, compliment the season package and give a sense of value for money. But of course, the main feature is the 26 episodes of season 4, from 'The Way of the Warrior' to 'Broken Link,' spread as usual across the seven discs with four episodes per disc, and the final two on the special features disc.
The boxset is a little bulkier than necessary for the aesthetics of the hard plastic case, an improvement over the flimsier Next Generation sets, but really it's only the width of about three regular DVD cases, when Paramount could have released these discs separately (and probably will, the greedy...)
DISC 1
1 & 2. The Way of the Warrior
3. The Visitor
4. Hippocratic Oath
The series opens in grand style with a feature-length (or two part) episode, 'The Way of the Warrior.' As expected, this is an action-packed, heavily storyline-based episode but not to the degree that would put off newcomers. In fact, this episode showcases pretty much everything that makes DS9 great, exempting the religious angle that would become more prominent later in the run. The dialogue is at its very best here, with some excellent scenes between the alien characters (that's where these series usually go wrong: Starfleet's cream-of-the-crop officers are only interesting for so many minutes) and an excellent blend of computer animation and motion control model footage, one of the last times models would be used prominently in the series before everything was controlled by computer.
Michael Dorn is re-introduced as Lieutenant Worf, Starfleet's only Klingon officer and one of the most popular characters from The Next Generation, a series that came to an end over a year earlier. This necessitates the introduction of a Klingon plot that, while distracting in the large scheme of things, makes for a nicely different episode to kick off the season.
Thanks to some great writing over the course of this season, Worf integrates perfectly (he was definitely the best choice of character to fit in on the station: I can't imagine Wesley Crusher or Captain Picard being very popular), and by season 5 feels like he's been there all along. And best of all, because he's already an established character, we get to avoid all those tedious and embarrassing introductory episodes!
QUARK: "First it was the Cardassians, then it was the Dominion, now it's the Klingons! How's a Ferengi supposed to make a decent living in a place like this?"
DISC 2
5. Indiscretion
6. Rejoined
7. Little Green Men
8. Starship Down
'Rejoined' was a bold move, but in hindsight an episode that shouldn't have provoked much controversy: Star Trek's "lesbian kiss" episode. The show expertly avoids treating a relationship between two same sex characters as unusual (despite there never having been any sightings in the series before) by focusing instead on the taboo that in Trill culture, two new hosts who used to carry the symbionts (it's a long story: more simply they re-incarnate somewhat, but in different bodies) cannot be involved if they have already been together in a previous life. This is a great metaphor for the whole issue, and the discussion between Bashir and Kira over whether Jadzia should be allowed to pursue her relationship runs along the lines of "it's a stupid taboo, but their culture's not ready for it yet." A perfect view of why many less liberal viewers turned off this show in disgust and wrote letters of complaint.
DISC 3
9. The Sword of Kahless
10. Our Man Bashir
11. Homefront
12. Paradise Lost
'Homefront' and 'Paradise Lost' could have been something spectacular, and perhaps would have been if not for the very skimpy budget and rushed writing deadlines. Some fans were unhappy that the series seemed to be heading in an X-Files conspiracy direction - the Founders, shape-shifting leaders of the Dominion (that's the big bad guys from the other side of the galaxy) have infiltrated Starfleet Headquarters on Earth by mimicking some of its admiralcy. The end message is still powerful, "they're everywhere," but looking back this is a two-parter that promises much but doesn't have much of a bearing on the series as a whole. Still, there's a pretty space battle between Federation ships seen from above.
DISC 4
13. Crossfire
14. Return to Grace
15. The Sons of Mogh
16. Bar Association
Ah, Dukat. The biggest mistake of DS9's first four years was allowing its greatest enemy to be, well, not really an enemy or a threat at all. The power-crazed Cardassian becomes sick of his crippled Government's tolerance of Klingon attacks in 'Return to Grace' and turns renegade. This is a great show for Kira, as well as the astonishingly low-profile introduction of Dukat's second-in-command Damar, whose role in the series would be heightened to the point where he was leader of Cardassia, but the writers still don't pin down the character's wicknedness. They did a good job in the earlier 'Indiscretion,' when he tracks down his illegitimate daughter in a slave camp and almost kills her to preserve his reputation, but here he's having bloody dinner with Kira Nerys. Never mind, things will change soon enough.
DISC 5
17. Accession
18. Rules of Engagement
19. Hard Time
20. Shattered Mirror
One of the highlights of every season, when done well, is what the writers call the "torture O'Brien" episode. Or in this case, the excellent 'Hard Time.' One of Trek's darkest and most emotional episodes, this sees the always excellent Colm Meaney portray Chief O'Brien at his most psychologically scarred. Due to accidentally committing some petty crime on an alien world, O'Brien is forced to spend twenty years in imprisonment - inside his own mind. A much faster and more efficient form of punishment, according to the aliens, but one that has a devastating effect on the Chief: he hasn't seen his wife or daughter for what feels like twenty years, and his closest friend during his "incarceration" never really existed. Then why does he keep seeing him now he's back on the station?
Ending with a gripping scene where Bashir finds O'Brien clutching a phaser to his neck, this is one of my favourite episodes of the series and definitely not the light-hearted "everything's going wrong with the controls, oh no" situation that Colm Meaney is sadly mostly used for.
DISC 6
21. The Muse
22. For the Cause
23. To the Death
24. The Quickening
The Maquis were never very interesting. In fact, the only real reason that DS9 devoted a two-part episode to their introduction back in season 2, and that the final episodes of The Next Generation did a little to further this, is that they would be one of the features (oddly almost completely ignored after the first episode) of then-new spin-off 'Star Trek: Voyager.' A band of Federation citizens who have betrayed their oath of allegiance due to their hatred of the oppressive Cardassians, whose space their worlds now inhabit, the Maquis are most often used when the writers want an excuse to show 'the Badlands,' a swirling, crackling part of the Cardassian/Federation demilitarised zone that looks quite cool on screen. 'For the Cause' isn't much different, but does have the advantage of finally providing a good character episode for Eddington, the head of Starfleet security on DS9, and turning Sisko's relationship with Kasidy Yates on its (bald) head.
DISC 7
25. Body Parts
26. Broken Link
The season could have ended on a stronger note, but 'Broken Link' is a memorable episode. The ending is two-fold: firstly, and most importantly for viewers, Odo is robbed off his shape-shifting powers by the Founders as penance for him reluctantly killing one of his kind a year before. Yeah, Odo's a good guy but his race are the enemy, confusing I know - but this is half-way through the series' run. Secondly, it appears that Gowron, the crazy-eyed leader of the Klingon Empire, and the one who went to war with the Federation, is himself a shape-shifter. 'Broken Link' suffers for having to lead to the shock revelation that will keep fans talking over the summer (on the internet, obviously. We don't experience human contact or emotions) and looks quite cheap, but it's a great character piece for Odo, one of the more interesting characters aboard the station.
VERDICT
Season 4 is, surprisingly, a good place to start for newcomers to the series. There are a few dodgy episodes ('The Muse' in particular - two stories that don't connect in any way at all, and are also both rubbish), but far less than in the previous seasons. The tone is still relatively dark, but the war-torn depression is still far away and the characters generally get along heart-warmingly well.
DS9 is an ensemble show in the style of The Next Generation and Voyager, as opposed to the original series and the most recent shoddy follow-up 'Enterprise' which concentrate on the principal select characters, and this seasons really does provide screen time for everyone in equal measure. There's not an incredible amount in overall storyline development, but this makes for a strong set of (mostly-)stand-alone shows that can be switched on and enjoyed by people regardless of their Trek education.
Plus, this was the series that made the Klingons nasty again, and the joke about the Enterprise flying around Uranus and wiping them out became slightly more relevant than it had been since 1987. Except that DS9 is set far off in the Bajoran system, nowhere near any of the risqué named planets in out own solar system. And if I'm going to be that pedantic, the joke about Kirk having three ears was never that accurate either. Spock was the one with the funny ears, and he only had two. Kirk was the one with the hilarious wig.
*****
Written on 07.05.04
"Look, a gay Star Trek club. You could join that, you like Star Trek."
"I don?t like Deep Space Nine though!"
(Misquote from Little Britain, © 2003 Matt Lucas and David Walliams)
The name 'Star Trek' means different things to different people. To some children it can mean fast spaceships and people shooting Borg, while older fans often associate it with fond memories of William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and DeForrest Kelley visiting planets of Romans and things, and for a great many people it means glasses-wearing nerds who are thirty years old, live with their parents and often have a voice like a bad John Major impersonation.
To me, Star Trek means Deep Space Nine; of the five Star Trek series produced between 1964 and the present day it is likely the least well-known and least-liked, and there are several reasons for this; for a start, the show's stationary setting, literally on a space station, is very different from the alien-of-the-week format of the other series, and while there are a great many stand-alone episodes there are even more ongoing plots that run throughout the series and would put off many casual fans. But as is usually the case with plot-heavy science fiction adventure series, such as the excellent Farscape and the quite appalling Lexx, the people who like it, REALLY like it.
DS9: BACKGROUND
Deep Space Nine is a space station orbiting the planet Bajor, now run by the Federation (that's the good guys). The station was previously run by the oppressive Cardassians, who occupied Bajor for over sixty years before finally being driven out by the Bajoran Resistance, and the Federation were immediately se nt in to help the planet get back on its feet.
This was the plan anyway, but the discovery of the first stable wormhole in close proximity to Bajor by the station's commander, Benjamin Sisko, increases the importance of both Bajor and the station. The wormhole is a practical means for vessels to travel to a point in the distant Gamma Quadrant, while its religious significance as the Bajoran Celestial Temple has repercussions for Sisko and his crew.
CHARACTERS
The personnel of the DS9 station, its three runabout shuttles and the warship the U.S.S. Defiant are the focus of the series, although in a break with tradition they are not all the clean-cut Starfleet officers viewers had come to expect from the franchise. But none of them seem to do any real work anyway.
CAPTAIN BENJAMIN SISKO (Avery Brooks) - This African-descended man's discovery of the wormhole led to him being hailed as the Bajorans' "emissary," a religious significance he did his best to shun in the early years, but which he finds himself increasingly believing in as the series progresses. His wife was killed several years earlier, and he is raising his son JAKE SISKO (Cirroc Lofton) alone. The fifth season sees Sisko firmly accepting his emissary role as he experiences visions that spell doom for Bajor.
MAJOR KIRA NERYS (Nana Visitor) - Former terrorist and member of the victorious Bajoran Resistance, Kira is the station's first officer and Bajoran liaison. Originally a little feisty, her faith in the Prophets is strong, and this season sees her give birth to the O'Briens' baby. (A long story, created to explain the actress' pregnancy).
CHIEF MILES O'BRIEN (Colm Meaney) - Originally from the Next Generation, O'Brien has a family aboard the station and regularly finds himself in increasingly bad situations. The writers opt for at least one 'torture O'Brien' episode each year, as his everyman persona makes this both exciting and disturbing. The torture O'Brien in season 5 sees him committing sabotage on the station to avoid an alien presence from killing his wife.
LT. COMMANDER WORF (Michael Dorn) - The Klingon security officer from the Next Generation was transferred to the station when hostilities began once again with the Klingon Empire. He commands the Defiant, and in this series begins his ultimately tragic relationship with Dax.
LT. COMMANDER JADZIA DAX (Terry Farrell) - The station's sultry Trill science officer, she has a huge slug-like symbiont in her gut, but was still voted the sexiest woman in sci-fi.
DOCTOR JULIAN BASHIR (Alexander Siddig) - Quite naïve and annoying when the series began, Julian's experiences have changed him, and there are dark revelations uncovered in season 5 regarding his genetically engineered past.
QUARK (Armin Shimerman) - The local Ferengi barkeep, Quark's shady dealings can be forgiven for the amount of light comedy he brings to the episodes. His family problems become even more complicated in season 5, but at least he gets his licence back.
ODO (Rene Auberjonois) - The station's unusual security chief, Odo's people are the braisn behind the evil Dominion, but they removed his shape-shifting abilities when he betrayed them. This season sees major changes for Odo, and his long-running feud with Quark comes to a head when they are marooned on an inhospitable world.
THEMES & ISSUES
Deep Space Nine is much more of a character show than the other Trek series, and the constant political tensions and wars in the vicinity make for a much darker show, a tone helped by the Cardassian architecture of the sets. This is one of the few television series that tackles religion in a very understandable and sensitive way, while also having a strong focus on family, the effects of war and conflict, suspense and very welcome comedy episodes.
EPISODES & STYLE
The fifth season holds several major turning points for the series, and as such is the most important and also most exciting year. Tensions with the Klingons are put on hold, and the balance of power goes through an unexpected shift when the treacherous Gul Dukat forges an alliance between the powerful force of the Gamma Quadrant's Dominion, and the crippled Cardassia. This invites a Dominion presence through the wormhole, and as the series approaches an end it is clear to all that a Federation-Dominion war is imminent. The final episode of this season ends dramatically with Sisko and his crew being forced to abandon DS9 and Bajor, turning it over to Dominion and Cardassian hands, which leads into the war-driven series that follow.
The tone of the fifth season begins similar to what has come before, with some light-hearted character episodes, before taking a dark turn. Anyone who is a fan of 4;he Next Generation, Voyager or Enterprise will not necessarily like Deep Space Nine as it is essentially a completely different show in the Star Trek canon.
NOTABLE EPISODES
'TRIALS AND TRIBBLE-ATIONS' - this show was created to celebrate Star Trek's 30th anniversary, and sees the Deep Space Nine crew sent back in time to a series from the original Star Trek. This leads to some excellent and highly believable 'Forrest Gump'-style visual effects as actors from the recent series are inserted into the older episode to interact with Kirk and his crew. Eight years on, these effects still look incredible, and this makes this enjoyable romp one of the most popular DS9 episodes, if atypical.
'THE ASCENT' - The ultimate episode for fans of the antagonistic relationship between Quark and Odo, as the duo are stranded on a frozen planet and must climb a series of mountains in order to set up a rescue beacon. Odo's newfound status as a "solid" is also shown to a great extent here.
'IN PURGATORY'S SHADOW'/'BY INFERNO'S LIGHT' - This two-parter in the middle of the series is my favourite piece of Star Trek, and it rewards long-time fans by completely changing the focus of the series. Great effects, an outstanding plot and an atmosphere that you could cut with a Bat'leth, it's often painful to watch as the characters are faced with the situations. A testament to the actors.
'EMPOK NOR' - As close as Star Trek gets to making a horror film, this is very tastefully and expertly done, as O'Brien and an engineering crew are sent into Cardassian/Dominion territory to recover parts from an abandoned station, and one of the series' regular characters suddenly embarks on a murderous rampage. Gripping, and very different from the norm.
'A CALL TO ARMS' - The epic season cliffhanger, with some of the best special effects of the entire series.
WILL I LIKE THIS?
Deep Space Nine started out quite similar to other Star Trek series, but it quite soon developed its own character, especially when control was handed from the rather unimaginative Rick Berman and Michael Piller to the genius of Ira Stephen Behr and the writing staff in the third season. The name 'Star Trek' in the title will doubtless have gained this series more viewers than it would have had otherwise, and was the reason I was able to watch it on BBC2 during the mid-90s, but although it shares the same universe, principles and film techniques of other Star Trek series, it will not necessarily be enjoyed by the same fans.
Obviously if you dislike the science fiction genre as a whole, you will not like this series, and feel free to leave all manner of abusive comments to this review. I would suggest though, that fans of such series as Farscape, Stargate SG-1, Andromeda and even perhaps Buffy the Vampire Slayer will enjoy this more than those who swear by The Next Generation, Voyager and Enterprise, as the level of character development and focus on expansive storylines is much more an issue here than in other incarnations.
Deep Space Nine's entire run was shown by the BBC in evening time slots when the episodes were first sh own in the UK, so if you tended to watch those kind of programmes, there's a fair chance you saw this, and this is the programme at its creative and enjoyable peak, without a sub-standard episode.
THE DVDS
The entire run of Deep Space Nine was released in 2003, following 2002's Next Generation releases and preceding this year's releases of Voyager. The DVDs have been very neatly designed, in hard plastic cases that look great either as stand-alone seasons or the complete set, and the picture and sound quality is perfect.
There are four episodes on each of the first six discs, the final two on a seventh disc along with the special features. These interviews with the actors and production staff are worth watching for fans of the series, but essentially don't reveal anything new that people who followed the series' production don't already know. They feel a little tagged on in order to bulk the sets out, as it's primarily the episodes themselves that the viewer is buying.
My only problem with the DVDs, aside from the fairly disappointing extras, is that they are very expensive. The cheapest they retail on the internet is around £50, with £58.99 being the usual price on Play.com and elsewhere. Furthermore, anyone who buys them from high street retailers end up paying around £85, and people do.
One way around this that will not be to everyone's tastes is to import the sets from elsewhere, but the DVDs are never as impressive as the UK versions. The American Region 1 releases feature basic plastic covers, and my Asian import is very badly designed. The discs still work however, and it only cost me £13 from an eBay seller. Due to some of the complications involved in this however, I cannot recommend it to everyone, but Deep Space 8;ine was one of the most involving and creative space adventure series of recent years.
The disappointment of the recent Star Trek films seems to hint that a new approach is required, but Berman's Star Trek staff would never make a DS9 film. They are idiots.
Advantages: Original and very enjoyable episodes, Excellent atmosphere throughout, unmatched by other series, Great effects, actors, plotlines and humour
Disadvantages: Not to everyone's tastes, Price of the DVD will put many people off
*****
Written on 12.06.04
You hate Star Trek.
I can accept that; I dislike some Star Trek myself.
You hate Star Trek because it is boring, unrealistic, repetitive, not exciting and too clean cut.
If you enjoy action films, war stories, espionage, soap operas, romance and shows of a truly epic proportion, your immediate judgement of the show that was Deep Space Nine should not be tarnished by your bad experiences of other Trek. It still has Klingons though.
Originally in the shadow of The Next Generation and then, when it finished, Star Trek: Voyager, DS9 was often seen as the underdog of the Star Trek world, its very different style and focus on more important themes and long-running storylines putting off some people who wanted some cheap sci-fi thrills. But like long-running adventure series and even programmes such as the Sopranos and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, DS9 consistently rewarded and surprised the long-time viewer.
Season six of DS9 is arguably one of the finest seasons of any sci-fi series ever made. Without a trace of the things that make other incarnations of Star Trek often dull and with much more focus on the effects of war and character interaction, this contains some of the most memorable and exciting episodes of any science fiction series as well as plenty of explosions and some blood and Iggy Pop.
STYLE & CONTENT
Speaking as on obvious fan of this show, season six is probably its high point. The original writing team were long gone and ideas that had been a long time in suspense and development had now been thrown in full whack. The Federation that had seemed so immaculate and Utopian with Picard's crew was now in a full-scale galactic war with the brutal group of races known as the Dominion, whose foothold into the vicinity through their new Cardassian members meant that even with Klingon help it was becoming a losing battle.
The war dominates many of the episodes and gives the show a darker tone but there is still time for all the things that proved successful in the show's past. There are tastefully executed comedy episodes, intense character dramas and a fair amount of snogging thrown into the mix, while some episodes pushed the Star Trek envelope even further than had been attempted before:
FAR BEYOND THE STARS
The most inspired episode of this season remains most of the cast and crew's very favourite and is the very sensitive 'Far Beyond the Stars.' This episode takes the idea that Deep Space Nine has all been the creative imaginings of a Benny Russell, a black science fiction writer living in New York in the 1950s, played by Avery Brooks (the series' lead role as Captain Sisko). Benny is respected by his peers at 'Incredible Tales' magazine but is sadly required to "sleep late" on days when photography would be required. Armin Shimerman's character sarcastically exclaims:
"If the world's not ready for a woman writer, imagine what would happen if they learned about a Negro with a typewriter. Run for the hills, it's the end of civilisation."
Benny is suddenly inspired to write the story of Deep Space Nine, with a black captain in command of a space station. To show the differences over fifty years (after all, in 1992 Paramount had no trouble commissioning this very same show), Benny is told politely by the leading editor that he must make the captain Caucasian or the public won't accept it. Benny refuses and continues writing Deep Space Nine until the editor (Rene Auberjonois) agrees to give it a try... and the entire run of magazines is pulped by the publishers.
"According to the publishers this issue did not live up to our usual high standards."
Benny is unable to accept the society and collapses into a fit. Once he is allowed to leave the hospital he sees one of his friends shot for breaking into a car (Cirroc Lofton, who usually plays Jake Sisko the captain's grown son). It's clear that he was shot for his race, but when he intervenes, Benny is beaten into a coma by the police officers.
Once he awakens from his vision, Sisko is uncertain whether his reality is real. It was clear that the Prophets sent him the vision for a purpose, that we must remember the mistakes of the past.
THE DOMINION WAR
The sixth season begins with a six part story arc, something previously unattempted in the franchise. These six shows focused on Sisko and the crew of the U.S.S. Defiant fighting off the Dominion and attempting to retake the Deep Space Nine station that had been occupied by their enemies. Meanwhile, on board the station the non-Federation members of the crew have to endure life with the Dominion which, while not particularly dangerous due to the organisation's attempts at maintaining balance and peace in the sector, certainly does not bode well for the future. The episode 'Sacrifice of Angels' is a fantastic conclusion to this story arc and one of the most satisfying episodes ever.
THE EPISODES
Following is a brief summary of all twenty-six episodes. There is no real excuse for this behaviour apart from insomnia and a genuine love of this series: to lose the shred of respect I was previously clinging on to, I have also rated each episode out of five stars (those things that usually censor swear words such as sh**) according to its content and impact. As William Shatner famously asked an actor playing a Trekkie on Saturday Night Live, "have you ever kissed a girl?" I'm afraid it's hard to find one at 3am.
Disc 1
A TIME TO STAND ****
Sisko and his crew take a Jem'Hadar ship on an undercover mission in Dominion territory
ROCKS AND SHOALS ****
The Defiant's crew are stranded on a deserted planet along with an opposing force of Jem'Hadar warriors suffering withdrawal
SONS AND DAUGHTERS ***
Worf's son Alexander signs up for duty and is posted to Worf's ship, while Dukat's daughter returns to DS9
BEHIND THE LINES **
The Female Changeling arrives on DS9 and links with Odo, causing him to lose interest in the safety of his friends
Disc 2
FAVOUR THE BOLD ***
Kira's new Resistance on DS9 is exposed and Rom is sentenced to death, while Sisko unveils a plan to retake the station
SACRIFICE OF ANGELS *****
In this epic instalment, Starfleet and the Klingons fight through to DS9 but are too late to prevent the minefield from being eradicated
YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED... ****
With the Dominion temporarily pushed back, Worf and Dax plan their wedding ceremony, including the gruelling bachelor party
RESURRECTION **
An alternate version of Kira's old flame arrives from a parallel universe, working for the evil Intendant
Disc 3
STATISTICAL PROBABILITIES ***
A group of unstable genetically enhanced patients are brought to DS9 to benefit from Bashir's company
THE MAGNIFICENT FERENGI ****
The Dominion have kidnapped Quark's mother, so in an uncharacteristic display of chivalry he forms a band of warriors
WALTZ ****
In this chilling and disturbing episode, Sisko is stranded on a planet with the unstable Dukat
WHO MOURNS FOR MORN? ***
Morn is reported dead, and this brings some of his old business associates to the station and specifically to Quark
Disc 4
ONE LITTLE SHIP ***
A runabout investigates a strange shrinking anomaly when the Dominion interrupt and seize the Defiant
FAR BEYOND THE STARS *****
This classic episode sees Sisko experience a vision where he is a struggling black writer in the 1950s
HONOUR AMONG THIEVES *****
O'Brien has been sent undercover to expose the mysterious Orion Syndicate, but he becomes attached to the leading man
CHANGE OF HEART ***
When his new wife is badly injured on a vital mission, Worf must decide whether to place his duty or his feelings first
Disc 5
WRONGS DARKER THAN DEATH OR NIGHT ***
A transmission from Dukat leads Kira to use the Orb of Time to investigate whether her mother was ever his lover
INQUISITION ****
A mysterious, shifty organisation at the very heart of the Federation is introduced and they desire Julian Bashir
IN THE PALE MOONLIGHT *****
Sisko must turn his back on his principles when the need to bring the Romulans into the war becomes vital
HIS WAY ***
Julian's new holo-program of 1950s Las Vegas offers Odo the chance to finally express his feelings for Kira
Disc 6
THE RECKONING ****
The penance for Sisko's favour from the Prophets is finally exacted and he must choose whether to risk his son's life
VALIANT ***
Jake and Nog are attacked in a runabout but rescued by a crew of cadets whose experiences have left them over-confident
PROFIT AND LACE **
Female rights on the Ferengi homeworld are reaching new heights, and Quark must undergo a sex change operation
TIME'S ORPHAN ***
Miles O'Brien's daughter falls through a portal and spends eighteen years fending for herself, alone
Disc 7
THE SOUND OF HER VOICE **
The Defiant picks up transmissions from a dying woman who helps the distanced crew explore their own feelings
TEARS OF THE PROPHETS *****
The huge cliffhanger ending sees the death of a regular character, an epic battle and the destruction of the wormhole
THE DVDS
As usual the DVDs are presented in a stylish hard plastic case and the special features are interesting, if brief. Discussions with the cast and crew on specific episodes and the changes made are insightful but still feel a little tagged on to bulk out the set. With the price at a hefty £58.99 (or around £85 if you're foolish enough to buy it from HMV or Virgin), this is only a set for the collector however inferior but much more affordable Chinese imports can be bought from eBay international over at eBay.com. That, as you can probably tell, is what I have done, paying around £12 for the several seasons of the show that I bought.
VERDICT
An excellent season of Deep Space Nine and science fiction in general. Dark, emotional, exciting and tense, this is TV at its greatest and features the perfect balance of large-scale epic storylines and smaller, more contained outings for the casual viewer. Anyone interested in DS9 could manage adequately even from starting at this late point, however my preference is to start at the fourth season, the first truly great year, and work my way forwards.
No Vulcans, no human-versus-machine debates, only one space anomaly and plenty of action and excitement. Star Trek at its very best.
*****
Written on 04.06.04
'In Times of War, the Laws Fall Silent'
The final year of a long-running television show, especially one with continuing storylines and a loyal fan following, needs to provide a satisfying conclusion to a large number of plot threads. The final year of Star Trek's boldest and darkest incarnation did not disappoint those who had followed its characters and developments since 1993, as the writing staff took some interesting decisions: the first half was surprisingly low key in providing stand-alone episodes and foreshadowing later developments, before the series plunged straight into a ten-part epic, tying up loose ends and leaving even more open for possible future developments.
BACKGROUND
Over the seven years, Star Trek's space station-bound third incarnation came a long way, aided mainly by the change in writing staff after the third season. While the original notion of a station out in the far reaches of known space, providing aid to a recently occupied planet while having to balance out the changing political situations in the area, was a little bland for some people's tastes, the introduction of a powerful and immense enemy force from the distant Gamma Quadrant by the name of 'The Dominion' changed everything: immediately the show became more about protecting the Federation from this threat, but it was only at the end of the fifth season that the Dominion carried out its all-out invasion of the Federation, leading to the outbreak of war.
Seasons six and seven are primarily led by the idea of a large-scale war, and while this deterred those who watched Star Trek for its messages of peace and its superhuman characters, others found the examination of the human condition under stress the most interesting development in the franchise's history. Captain Benjamin Sisko and his crew of less than perfect Starfleet officers and Bajoran militia firmly established himself as a much different commander than Kirk or Picard, and the increasing focus on the show's huge assortment of regular and recurring characters meant that the final season had a lot of work on its hands.
STYLE & THEMES
The seventh season begins surprisingly low-key after the devastation and death at the end of season six, but this is all part of the writers' plan to continue as normal and then surprise viewers towards the end. The first six episodes are fairly standard 'space opera' that the show does so well, focusing on the characters and their problems rather than the space phenomena common to the more popular Next Generation.
This series continues its focus on the themes that made DS9 unique among sci-fi shows: its in-depth exploration of religion through the Bajoran's beliefs, the devastation and personal effects of war and loss, and the importance of family and friendship. If you've been put off by the bland and dull nature of some Star Trek shows in the past, there is very little by this point in Deep Space Nine, aside from the appearance of familiar races such as the Cardassians and the Cornish pasty-headed Klingons, so this should not form the basis of your opinion.
NOTABLE EPISODES
This season is one of DS9's best, and there are many character pieces of note. 'Field of Fire' sees new crewmember Ezri Dax having to face the violent past of one of her previous hosts when solving a series of murders on the station, 'Take Me Out to the Holosuite' is a fun baseball romp with the ultimate morals of "it's taking part that counts" and "Vulcans can be smug," while 'It's Only a Paper Moon' is a very sombre look at the debilitating effects of personal injury.
The darker side of the show is not lost in the first half, with the ultimate gritty war episode 'The Siege of AR-558' presenting the most violent and grim Star Trek episode in history, while 'Covenant' examines suicide cults and confirms that Sisko's ultimate nemesis, the Cardassian Dukat, is completely insane and undeniably evil.
The ten-part story arc at the end is the highlight of the season however, with its focus on every character and their importance (or lack of) to the overall scheme of things. This is Deep Space Nine at its very best, remaining unpredictable, tragic, enjoyable, funny and full of impressive special effects. Penumbra / 'Til Death Do Us Part / Strange Bedfellows / The Changing Face of Evil / When it Rains... / Tacking into the Wind / Extreme Measures / The Dogs of War / What You Leave Behind parts I & II.
THE DVD
All 26 episodes are very clear and crisp, despite the soft lens the series is filmed in, although the show slightly predated the modern convention of making every sci-fi show in a widescreen format. As usual with the DS9 releases there is a final disc of special features, all of which provide an interesting look behind the scenes, focusing especially on the end of the series and the cast and crew's reactions to their seven year commitments coming to fruition, but they still feel a little tagged on for the sake of it. Still, the DVDs are presented in an excellent sturdy plastic case, and small extras such as a collector's booklet complete the effect. There are plenty of language and subtitle options as well.
VERDICT
Season seven is not DS9 at its absolute best, and as is always the way with the end of a popular series, there are some conclusions that were not made as satisfactory as they could have been. The writers still deserve credit however, especially for allowing focus on some great stand-alone episodes amidst the frantic rush to meet the series' end.
As stated earlier, this is not Star Trek at its most traditional, and has more in common with shows such as Farscape, Stargate SG-1 and Buffy the Vampire Slayer in terms of its exploration of characters and important themes over time rather than using the "reset button" format of many shows. Anyone interested in Deep Space Nine would certainly not find this season the most inviting due to amount of knowledge that can be required at times, and it's my opinion that season four is the best starting point; the first three years were important, but far less impressive.
The drawback with these DVDs, apart from the lack of extensive special features, is the rather extortionate price: Play.com and other websites often charge £58.99 as the lowest price. I have found that importing from eBay.com can provide a bargain - the equivalent of £12.00 for a Chinese import of inferior but still watchable quality - but I can't recommend this to everyone. Deep Space Nine was always overshadowed by the end of the Next Generation and the beginning of Voyager, and it's my hope that subsequent re-runs could inspire more science fiction fans to re-discover what an excellent show it was.
Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek: Voyager 6.9
Written on 17.07.00
THE NEW VOYAGER VIDEO- READ THIS BEFORE YOU BUY IT!
This month's newest release, Star Trek: Voyager 6.9, is a good watch but shadowed by the previous release, volume 6.8.
In "Spirit Folk", the holographic Irish town, Fair Haven (last seen in the episode "Fair Haven" earlier this year) comes back on-line. For Janeway, this is a chance to again see her "perfect man", in the form of Michael Sullivan, a holographic Irishman. In this episode, the holograms begin fearing the Voyager crew as spirits, and it all makes up for a fairly enjoyable yet overall poor episode.
"Ashes to Ashes" is better, and features yet another doomed romance for Harry Kim (a hologram, a Borg, the wrong twin, a member of a xenophobic race, and now a corpse), in the form of a crew member who died years ago and has now been ressurrected as an alien . Overall, a story that gets quite dull and has an obvious conclusion.
Thanks for reading and if you're a fan, please look here every time you see a new video on the shelves, as I'll buy it and review it as soon as I can. [This was never updated again.] If I say they're good, they will generally be to your liking, but don't take my opinions as solid. If the occurrences of an episode sound good to you even though I've given it a thumbs-down, don't be put off, but everyone has different views. Please let me know what you think with a comment, or e-mail me at [Gives his family's Freeserve email address].
Advantages: Interesting, thought-provoking stories.
Disadvantages: The episodes aren't as good as usual.
Stargate SG-1
*****
Written on 08.03.03
I saw, and enjoyed, the Stargate film when it was rented out by my family in about 1995, but was never too interested in watching the series once I heard it had begun, even though the videos were always in my face as I bought unwise quantities of Deep Space Nine and Voyager off the shelves whenever my pocket money cleared. It could have been the fact that it was shown on Channel 4 that put me off, or that the only guy who I ever heard talking about it wasn't particularly one of my closest friends. (I later discovered that the Tok'ra Martouf bears an uncanny resemblance to this fool).
I only started watching Stargate SG-1 at my friend's house around autumn of last year (2002), and was almost immediately hooked. Sky One seemed to anticipate this, and very soon began showing episodes daily right from the start. Episodes like 'The Nox' increased my appreciation even further, possibly due to the appearance of DS9's Armin "Quark" Shimerman, or just the aceness of episode. Needless to say, soon my eBaying turned towards Stargate DVDs.
Compared to other sci-fi programmes I like, notably the later Star Trek series, Stargate is certainly very original and not afraid to act a little silly for the sake of entertainment. This is also I quality I've always admired of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, one of the reasons it's my favourite Star Trek by a long way, as well as the ongoing plots and reappearance of a large number of guest characters. There's also a perfect balance between characters, with the two scientists and two action men, including the token stoic, formal alien and nice young lady.
A quick overview of the plot is that the US military send small teams through the 'Stargate' alien device, unearthed in Egypt, to other Stargates throughout the galaxy, with the intention of exploration and the possibility of recovering advanced alien technology for humanity. (Opinions on the film would be useful in understanding the initial Stargate concept). The Stargates were built by the Ancients, who remain an unknown and mysterious race until the end of the sixth season. Only problem is... well, the major problem anyway aside from numerous malfunctions, is the Goa'uld, an alien worm-like species who take humans as hosts, taken from Earth and scattered over hundreds of worlds centuries ago.
SG-1 consists of Colonel Jack O'Neill, Doctor Daniel Jackson (both of these were in the film, but played by different actors who are the only thing that cause me to watch the movie far less than I would otherwise), Captain Samantha Carter, and Teal'c. As basically explained as possible, Teal'c's a nice Goa'uld. Over the years, the team avoid death (nearly always), thwarting the Goa'uld and making Earth seem increasingly vital and advanced, with aid from the Asgard and the Tok'ra. For more information, see my reviews on the DVD volumes. Or other peoples', just mine are better... well, I get miles.
I?d basically recommend Stargate (SG-1) to anyone who likes enjoyable, funny (O'Neill banter mainly), often epic sci-fi; possibly also those who are a little annoyed with countless spatial distortions and quantum singularities causing inevitably-safe catastrophes to invincible starships. Or maybe you're tired of utopian futures and want to see a bit of contemporary machine gunning. There are also a disturbing amount of apostrophes used, which isn't helped by the Egyptian pronunciations of all the Goa'uld enemies.
Notable episodes, all of which can probably be downloaded at rather small file size off the internet... not that anyone would want to use such programmes, one from each season, would be:
'Children of the Gods'- still one of my favourites, and the first episode so it's a little integral to your initial understanding of the plotlines. Also offers a nice distraction if you find yourself longing for the simpler days of season one, when Apophis was the bad guy and space travel was limited.
'The Serpent's Lair'- first episode of season 2, continuing from the cliffhanger from season 1. Some great, high-budget space action that still remains in the "simpler" days of the show. Nice visuals, and plenty of peril.
'Legacy'- won't be anyone else's favourite of the third series ( I don't suppose), but I like it. Daniel's going a bit mad and starts seeing demons and Goa'uld everywhere, and some nice Carter/ Dr. Frasier action at the end. (Not that kind of action).
'Window of Opportunity'- a great example of how the show deals with more average human beings than the well-rounded future characters soften portrayed in other shows, while also dealing with a sci-fi concept. A time loop causes O'Neill and Teal'c to live the same day again and again, and they are forced to learn Latin in order to communicate the knowledge to Daniel after every loop. Too many funny moments to mention, but I'm always cracked up by O'Neill playing golf through the Stargate, and the unbelievable bad luck of Teal'c as he is hit in the face by a door every time the loop starts again!
'Summit'- Daniel is sent undercover to investigate the Goa'uld. This is part one of a two-parter, but some nice reds and enjoyable storyline. There's also some stuff with the others down on a Tok'ra planet.
'Redemption'- the two-part starter of season 6 sees new SG-1 member Jonas helping with the development of Earth's first interstellar craft, while Teal'c returns to his son Rya'c after hearing of his wife's illness. New enemy Anubis is also introduced, and he's ace. (What? This is my opinion, I can have views).
Season seven is due to start on Sci-Fi in the US, and Sky One in the UK in a few months. Channel 4's currently showing season 5 on its first terrestrial run, and I'm not sure what Sky's doing right now; they just reached the end of season 5 in their incredibly useful daily run. If anyone's interested in more info on new episodes or synopses, I've found Gateworld.net to be the best source.
***
Written on 09.03.03
Still entrenched in the simpler, early days of the TV show, Stargate's Volume 6 DVD offers a mixture of plot-furthering and random, fun shows for both the devoted and passive fans. As usual with the older releases, the picture quality is not so great for a DVD and there's nothing in the way of extras apart from scene selections, animated menus and several audio/subtitle options, but four episodes and nearly three hours makes it value for money when commonly found quite cheap on the internet. As for the episodes:
SERPENT'S SONG
An episode that would require some degree of background knowledge to the series ot fully appreciate, "Serpent's Song" deals with a dying Apophis, the Goa'uld who would have destroyed or enslaved the human race if not for the intervention of SG-1 at the start of season 2, and explores the ethical and realistic notions of whether he should be allowed to die. Meanwhile, a mysterious and extremely powerful ancient Goa'uld Sokar, who takes his name from the Egyptian god of death, is slowly pushing through the iris that keeps the Stargate sealed.
The teaser (pre-episode titles) to this episode certainly start the DVD off with a bang, with some shots of Apophis' ship being shot down from space into a desert, however the action dwindles after this. Aside from the interesting and mysterious idea of Sokar, the storyline seems to drag on and not properly develop, and I certainly would only recommend the episode to a dedicated fan of the series. If not for the finale to season 2, I suspect MGM might have converted this into some form of clip show.
HOLIDAY
Meeting a frail old man called Machello in an advanced laboratory, apparently a notable hero in the battle against the Goa'uld, the team return to Earth unaware that the old man has swapped his presence with Daniel Jackson's. While Daniel lies comatose, Machello explores the local neighbourhood, intent on living life as a free man after being hunted f or so long. Meanwhile, attempting to discover how the body swap machine works, Jack and Teal'c become involved in an identity crisis of their own.
An enjoyable episode, added to by the hilarity of Christopher Judge portraying Richard Dean Anderson's character. I'm not sure how they are able to get away with Michael Shanks playing both Daniel and Machello, as I find it rather obvious, but on the whole an easy to grasp episode and funny romp. Reminds me of the Red Dwarf episode "Body Swap."
ONE FALSE STEP
Exploring a primitive alien world, SG-1 find they may be causing the inhabitants to fall ill. However, once Jack begins to experience the same symptoms, eyes fall towards the local plant life. A nice random episode, not particularly great but watchable. I always like it when some outdoor action is included in episodes rather than simply the SGC all the time- the alien species are interesting as well.
SHOW AND TELL
A young, dying boy speaks of invisible aliens who wish to destroy his people. Jack is particularly sympathetic to the boy's cause as he reminds him of his dead son. Not a strong episode, the only real high points are the battles with the invisible (nice money-saving technique there) aliens, and the shock value of the boy's alien mother being killed in front of him. One of the weaker episodes of the season, although the child actor is good.
Overall, a good DVD but no fantastic episodes- only "Holiday" would be a possibility to call a 'classic.' As I said, the extras aren't too great and even the cover simply features Richard Dean Anderson in a scene not really relevant to any of the plots.
V
Dirty Scientist Kids
****
Written on 21.09.07
Simply titled ‘V,’ Kenneth Johnson’s two-part miniseries spawned an immediate sequel and a subsequent television series, all of which were handled by different writers and deviated ever further from Johnson’s original vision. Grounded more in political thriller and historical allegory than its science fiction premise, which was allegedly only added late in development to cash in on the box office success of Star Wars, ‘V’ documents the arrival of a fleet of flying saucers to the Earth, and the events that transpire in the subsequent months.
The miniseries is dedicated ‘to resistance fighters everywhere’ and ensures that the parallels between the alien visitors and oppressive regimes of the past and present are made expressly clear rather than a hidden sub-text, with a particular focus on Nazi Germany of the late 1930s. The visitors employ sickening propaganda, their emblem resembles a swastika, and they encourage impressionable youths to join ‘The Visitors’ Friends,’ an organisation comparable to the Hitler-Jugend that encourages them to turn in their own families if they suspect them of conspiracy. The elderly Jew Abraham Bernstein recognises the danger from the start even as his family are awed by the visitors’ generosity and ‘snazzy uniforms,’ and he ensures the protection of doctors and scientists, the groups being targeted and implicated in conspiracy by the visitors in order to remove the potential threat they pose in discovering their weaknesses and the true nature that lurks beneath their grinning human exteriors.
‘V’ is a mammoth project, boasting a comparably large budget and an extensive main cast covering all walks of life. This politically correct effort is amusing, particularly as all of the characters are fairly stereotypical and in many cases entirely one-dimensional, but it does succeed in demonstrating the various consequences of life under a fascist regime, and the need for diverse groups to put aside their differences when working together towards a common goal (though their explicit targeting of the visitors’ alien appearance as a means to incite hatred is oddly contradictory to this attitude). One of the film’s strengths lies in its dedication to realism, and this extends to nearly all of the characters. The glaring exception is reporter-turned-action-hero Mike Donovan (Marc Singer), who spends the majority of the film leaping nimbly between explosions and gun fire, but the rest of the characters are often significantly flawed, in some cases losing loved ones through their own treachery or bad decisions. People are also realistically mortal here: although the open ending invites and encourages future sequels, its nature as a two-part miniseries means that viewers can never be entirely confident that the main characters are going to survive to the end.
The characters come together, for the most part, in the second part of the miniseries once the resistance movement begins in earnest, and spend the first hour and a half in entirely separate storylines. The group’s reluctant leader is the scientist Robin Maxwell (Blair Tefkin, after original actress Dominique Dunne was strangled by her abusive boyfriend), and despite being put down with some tedious macho retorts from Marc Singer’s character, she carries it off well. The child actors are all a little annoying and unconvincing in their emotional scenes, which is to be expected really, but there are no other major areas in which performances are sub-standard, despite their B-movie roots. There’s so much going on, and so many different domestic plots to follow, that it’s hard to empathise directly with one group over the other in these three hours, but some characters intentionally stand out more than others. Less admirable are the stereotyped roles of urban black man and Mexican smuggler granted to Michael Wright and Rafael Campos respectively, especially as they are given dialogue and clothing more suited to cartoon caricatures.
The realism of the miniseries is explicitly highlighted by news broadcasts documenting the first meetings with the visitors, in which a reporter suggests that those accustomed to science fiction ideas such as ‘Darth Vader’s Star Destroyer’ will be ‘disappointed’ by the relatively mundane practicality of the mothership interiors. A memorable shuttle chase scene towards the end of the film is its only real nod towards that sort of action sci-fi, with most of the explosions, air strikes and hand laser stand-offs essentially being hi-tech equivalents of action film staples, as seen in the opening scene of a more traditional conflict in El Salvador. The special effects are of a high standard despite being kept to a modest minimum, and although the superimposed model shots all reveal a tell-tale black matte line around the edges, the props are convincing, and even the visitors’ unmasking isn’t too over-the-top.
As model costs for the large motherships were too prohibitive, these are all provided by detailed and convincing matte paintings that look excellent, and provide some of the most memorable scenes in the film as the craft hover into view for the fist time. The practical red uniforms and white bulkheads of the visitors are more believable than any grand, menacing design would prove, and the descent of the first shuttle to the United Nations reminded me of a line in Douglas Adams’ ‘Life, the Universe and Everything’ concerning the inherent coldness and evil of a plain white exterior. The musical score is one of the series’ less distinguished features, seeming like a mere re-tread of John Williams’ famous space symphonies of the time but less pompous, though there are a couple of quirky quotations from ‘Star Wars’ and even ‘The Flintstones’ unless I’m much mistaken, in scenes that mirror the events of those well-known series.
‘V’ is often regarded as one of the greatest miniseries of all time, and is certainly an ambitious and interesting concept, let down by the usual failings of mainstream television and cinema – a scene that particularly annoyed me was Mike Donovan stowing aboard the mothership and conveniently hearing the alien leaders discuss their plans and true identities in far more detail than strictly necessary, just so he and the audience could be brought up to speed. Fortunately, the majority of the miniseries treats viewers with a little more respect, advancing the plot at a realistic pace, and the Nazi metaphors vary in intensity. Although the action is all set in America, naturally, there are enough references to presumed resistance cells springing up across the globe for this to be permissible as merely the Los Angeles perspective of a greater whole, avoiding the irritating ‘Captain America’ tone of films like ‘Independence Day.’ It’s highly probable that the series would have gone down less prestigiously in history if Johnson had followed his original intention of a straightforward Nazi drama rather than an allegory, and it stands up well nearly twenty-five years later for its (comparative) realism and universal concerns, something that can’t be said for all science fiction of the time.
The DVD release of ‘V’ contains both parts of the original miniseries, while the second mini-series and its successor are also available, though production is apparently already underway for Johnson’s ‘true’ sequel to the original in three-hour miniseries form, currently predicted for a 2008 release. The action is split into 60 chapters of several minutes each, and the whole thing is presented in the best widescreen and Dolby stereo available at the time, with a commentary from writer-director Johnson and some brief behind-the-scenes footage, the whole package rated 12. ‘V’ may not be the most subtle sci-fi allegory ever told, nor the most riveting or action-packed, but it’s an interesting and thoughtfully crafted piece of epic television that’s still popular today, and at the very least will provide a great source of amusement if shown to a moronic follower of David Icke, who will surely point out how the whole thing is true, and that Bush, Saddam and Queen Elizabeth II were lizardmen all along. The unfolding conspiracy, subtle takeover and constant paranoia all make this original miniseries superior to its action-packed sequels, and it will be interesting to see what Kenneth Johnson brings out as a more authentic successor next year, particularly as the ending is rather sudden and unsatisfying. Don’t watch ‘Independence Day,’ watch this instead.
Advantages: Well executed science fiction concept in the classical style.
Disadvantages: Filled with Hollywood character and plot clichés.
The X-Files – Season 1
Spooky
*****
Written on 03.03.07 [2012 update]
Chris Carter’s ‘The X-Files’ was one of the definitive TV shows of the 90s, and this first season holds up surprisingly well even in light of what was to come over the following nine looooooooong years. As a debut season that was being written pretty much as it went along, the characters are a little more one-dimensional and the show’s main ‘mythology’ storyline often contradicts itself, but a commendable portion of these first twenty-four episodes continue to shine as some of the series’ very best, especially before the rapid decline in quality that came after the 1997 feature film.
Collected together on a 7 DVD set, these episodes set the tone for every season to follow: a fascinating show every once in a while that concerns the show’s main storyline of government cover-ups and alien visitations, and a bunch of mostly unconnected episodes that stand alone and often provide ‘monster-of-the-week’ cheap shocks. Considering that a first season is often a trial run, it’s remarkable that this very same structure is maintained throughout the nine looooooooong years that the show would eventually span. The best thing about this is, a large quantity of these episodes here are actually really good, the series seemingly finding its feet instantly without any of that embarrassing inconsistency and rubbishness that plagued the early seasons of every Star Trek spin-off of the same era. Well, not much of this, anyway.
Viewed in hindsight or alongside episodes from the excellent fourth or fifth seasons, these stories reflect a naïve innocence and simplicity, but of course that isn’t always a bad thing, especially when dealing with a convoluted mytharc like that of The X-Files. Die-hard fans (I believe they’re called ‘X-philes.’ You know, like bibliophiles, and that other one) will likely be disappointed by the somewhat haphazard treatment of alien abductions in episodes like the pilot and ‘Conduit,’ as these were written before the overarching storyline was conceived later in the year. Similarly, some of the more desperate attempts at supernatural beings come off looking a little silly and unoriginal, including poltergeists, werewolves and forms of telepathy, and it’s true that the ‘detective story’ plot structure is pretty formulaic throughout.
The running mytharc storyline begins with the ‘Pilot’ and ‘Deep Throat’ (ooh, Matron) and runs through ‘Fallen Angel’ and ‘E.B.E.’ to end in the intriguing finale, ‘The Erlenmeyer Flask.’ Of these, ‘Deep Throat’ and ‘E.B.E.’ are the most impressive, both concerning cover-ups and an elaborate networks of lies that leave the viewer unsure what to believe, even after seeing apparent evidence of the supernatural. Memorable stand-alone episodes include ‘Squeeze’ (which is actually granted a sequel in the later ‘Tooms’), which will most likely convince you to move all furniture away from air vents and other narrow passageways lest your liver be stolen by a genetic mutant, the tense space-worm-possession story ‘Ice’ and the heavily spiritual ‘Beyond the Sea,’ starring Brad Dourif. I remember being very unnerved by his creepy performance when these first aired in the UK and my Dad let me stay up on Thursday nights to watch them. I was twenty-eight years old. (I was nine really).
In spite of these weak points, a couple of which make for incredibly bad television and have since been all but disowned by the writers, the first season is remembered fondly for introducing FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully (the astoundingly good looking pairing of David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson… apparently) from their first meeting, towards some interesting and convincing evolution as their involvement with the paranormal consumes their entire lives. The sexual tension gambit was played for a very long time over the series, but in these early days is a lot more relaxed and comfortably platonic, replaced with a development of friendship and trust that will be vital to their survival in the looooooooong years ahead. Duchovny’s peculiar style of acting can be a little distracting at first, as despite Mulder's apparent brains and devotion he spends most of the time sounding slow and disinterested, but he’s given some great scenes in the more important episodes involving his specialist subject of alien abduction, in which the character has a personal investment. Gillian Anderson looks very young and very hot in the pilot, which I believe was filmed when she was twenty-three, but restless hairstyle changes and other unknown factors prevent her from maintaining this level of hotness throughout the rest of the episodes. Oh, of course, she’s a good actress too. Especially when she’s given more to do than simply provide the rational, scientific explanation for each case. The excellent episode ‘Beyond the Sea’ is her real chance to shine here, and one of her finest episodes along with her abduction storyline in the second season, contrived as a clever means of reducing her screen time when Anderson was heavily pregnant.
The first season also introduces the other pivotal characters in the form of the shady Cigarette-Smoking Man (William B. Davis), who hardly speaks a word but would go on to become the series’ primary antagonist, the paranoid journalists of The Lone Gunmen magazine, and Mulder and Scully’s new boss, Assistant Director Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi). While the Smoking Man appears right from the very start, acting merely as the personification of the shadowy governments Mulder is driven to expose, his presence observing Scully’s assignment to watch over Mulder would later become clear. The other characters seem to have been introduced after earlier experiments with character types; UFO buff Max Fenig from ‘Fallen Angel’ is the precursor to the Lone Gunmen, even resembling one of that hapless trio, while A. D. Skinner follows in the footsteps of a number of less interesting bosses and makes his first appearance in ‘Tooms.’ In fact, everything that was great about The X-Files can be found in this series, the only real exception being that at this stage, neither of the protagonists have become particularly involved themselves in the storyline, aside from Mulder’s sister having been abducted when he was a child. This would all change in the improved second season.
These DVD sets have been re-released recently in a slimmer, more affordable version than the originals, though the reason for this is unclear. The special features don’t add a great deal to the viewing enjoyment, although Chris Carter’s introductions to twelve of the twenty-four episodes (recycled from old VHS releases, when only these selected episodes were released) may highlight things you’ve missed. An eleven-minute documentary entitled ‘The Truth About Season One’ is a predictably throwaway feature that doesn’t even go into the detail of dedicated fan sites, and there are some fun but pointless promo ads from the original TV airings, allowing you to imagine that you’re watching TV back in 1993 again. The only feature of any real interest is the deleted scenes section, which disappointingly features only two excised scenes from the pilot episode. Both extensions of scenes from the genuine finished episode, these feature Scully’s boyfriend asking her about the case, and joking about her involvement with ‘Spooky’ Mulder. It’s very strange to watch these back and imagine if this had been allowed into the real series, as there are some scenes in early episodes ‘Squeeze’ and ‘The Jersey Devil’ in which Scully still holds on to a normal social life, but for the sake of horny fan-fiction it’s a good thing she was always kept single.
‘The X-Files’ was a great show in its prime, and while this season isn’t quite there, it’s still essential viewing for all fans of the show, and not merely because of the developing plot arc. Episodes like ‘E.B.E.’ deal with lies in a very disconcerting and deliberately dissatisfying way, causing the character and the viewer endless frustration with issues of trust that are perhaps best summed up in the on-screen motto that replaces the usual ‘the truth is out there’ for the season finale, ‘trust no one.’ Perhaps fearing cancellation after the season wrapped – a fate that awaited the later spin-offs – season one ends fairly conclusively and stands alone as a potential complete series with sharp continuity, even down to similar episode titles connecting the otherwise completely unrelated ‘Fire,’ ‘Ice’ and ‘Space.’ (This was before the writers' obsession with bizarre show-off titles, that never showed up on screen anyway).
It’s also enjoyable to see just how well the earliest episodes convey a real sense of character development, as Mulder and his controversial X-Files move from an easily dismissed side project to an all-consuming and seemingly vital part of FBI operations. Mulder, too, goes from approachable, eccentric believer to a notorious crusader for the truth all in the space of a few short episodes, before the series gets into something of a repetitive lull. The best episodes come from seasons two to five, but season one remains a perfect starting point, and can offer comfortable innocence when the weighty, expansive plot develops into something cumbersome as the years plod unceasingly on.
The X-Files – Season 6
The More Things Change...
****
Written on 06.06.04 [2013 update]
The X-Files was an almost immediate success when it hit American and British TV screens in 1994, although it took several years for the show's fan base to develop into the huge following the series had up to the end. Chris Carter's sci-fi-horror-mystery-suspense-action show is rated among the most worshipped television series of the last few decades, and although changes in cast and tone in the last couple of years made the show appear to be lasting for far longer than necessary, in my opinion the sixth season (1998-99) catches the show when it was still at its peak.
BACKGROUND
The X-Files featured a large number of episodic, stand-alone episodes throughout its run, but the ever-present storyline involving the existence of aliens, and their nefarious motives in visiting the planet, are intertwined with a mysterious shadowy group of people known as the Syndicate.
From the first season, FBI Agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) has attempted to uncover the elusive truth regarding this group and its clear link to alien abductions over the decades, including the one that took his sister from his home when they were both children. Agent Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) was assigned to work with Mulder on the X-Files, investigating supernatural occurrences with the intention of debunking Mulder's cause: unfortunately for the FBI, Scully soon found herself unable to ignore the strange events witnessed each week, and through the seasons she too realises that aliens and other paranormal activity does indeed exist.
The fourth and fifth seasons saw the alien conspiracy storyline receiving a huge amount of attention on the show, culminating in the first - and so far, only - feature film, officially titled 'The X-Files: Fight the Future.' Occurring after the fifth season, the film led into the sixth season and the show's future.
SEASON SIX: CHANGES
The major change behind the scenes of the X-Files' sixth year was the production move from Vancouver to the Hollywood area, necessitated by the increasing popularity of the show and the existence of the feature film. This results in an improved look for the sets and production values, and the show is filmed in widescreen to add a more cinematic feel. The characters undergo further developments this year, and although it often seems ludicrous to hear Scully disregarding claims of sea monsters and time phenomena, despite the incredible number of times Mulder has proved right in the past, it at least keeps the characters interesting in their differences.
Fans obsessed with the apparent sexual tension between the two leads were doubtless pleased by the kiss between Duchovny and Anderson in the episode 'Triangle' and this actually received a fair amount of media interest, despite the fact that it was simply a goodbye kiss between a delusional Mulder and a character that wasn't even technically Scully and therefore left no after-effects. Speaking of Gillian Anderson, the hair department also seem more interested in enhancing her striking appearance this season, and Mulder gets to crack the usual amount of puns.
STYLE & EPISODES
The X-Files is notoriously dark and often a little scary, and season six features all the elements that made the previous seasons so entertaining. There are monster mysteries, reality distortions and a rather high number of comedy-based episodes in the first half, and the focus on the continuing storyline has thankfully been limited this season, only really cropping up in the two-parter 'Two Fathers'/'One Son,' which packs more of a punch than the whole of the film, as well as finally answering many of the long-running questions. Notable episodes include:
DRIVE - Mulder is forced to drive westwards at gunpoint when a paranoid man believes he will explode if the speed drops for several minutes.
TRIANGLE - This award-winning episode is really interesting to watch, and I applaud the incredibly long takes, which required the actors to really know their lines. Mulder finds a long-lost ship in the Bermuda Triangle, but is held prisoner by Nazis in a distorted version of the world he is familiar with.
TERMS OF ENDEARMENT - Baby abductions from inside pregnant women's wombs points to a local man ('Evil Dead' star Bruce Campbell) being a demon.
TITHONUS - Mulder and Scully are split up in their careers, Scully being sent to investigate a man who can always be found with a camera on the scene of a murder or death.
TWO FATHERS / ONE SON - The reappearance of an abducted woman indicates that she has become the end result of a decades-long experiment to create a human-alien hybrid that may finally expose the Syndicate.
ARCADIA - Mulder and Scully pose as a married couple in an unbelievably idyllic American neighbourhood, intending to discover how their house's previous occupants met a grisly demise.
THE UNNATURAL - In this episode written and directed by David Duchovny, Mulder investigates a black baseball player from the 1940s who may have been an alien.
BIOGENESIS - The cliffhanger end to the season sees Scully uncovering an ancient UFO in Africa, with the possible indication that humans did not originate on Earth.
THE DVD
The X-Files DVD packages are quite impressive, featuring a large number of deleted and extended scenes on each disc for selected episodes and commentaries for the more memorable shows by the writers, series creator and production crew. The final disc features special effect shots, TV spots and the interesting documentary 'The Truth About Season Six,' and each disc contains three episodes in widescreen format.
VERDICT
There is much debate over the "golden era" of the X-Files and although I find the earlier years more enjoyable for the nostalgia they provide - my Dad used to let the nine-year-old me stay up to the very naughty time of 10pm on a Thursday school night, would you believe - I find season six to contain the perfect balance of mythology storylines and stand-alone episodes.
The X-Files was a classic, much-loved and very influential show, and this was the last series I consider to be truly classic TV. There is a problem with the lack of any serious character development here, leaving this feeling a little too episodic after the intense storylines of season five, but it's unlikely that the show could have continued in such a style for much longer. Mulder and Scully are still pretty much the same as when they started out: both holding different viewpoints and being incredibly professional and attractive. Not Mulder though, I never went through a phase.
As a side note, very cheap Chinese import DVDs of the series can be purchased from eBay.com: these feature high quality packaging but slightly poorer resolution, but I find the average price of £11 far better than the £55 charged for UK versions. Importing from sellers can carry a risk factor however, so I'm not sure whether or not to recommend it: I'll certainly be buying some more X-Files series from them very soon!
Despite the main plot heading down some slightly bizarre avenues over its four-and-a-bit-year run, Battlestar Galactica still stands as one of the strongest, most consistent and most thoughtful TV series I've ever had the pleasure of watching. It's really good. So good, in fact, that I couldn't bring myself to review the series proper, for fear of failing to adequately express just how good it is. So fortunately, if only for that reason, the powers-that-be commissioned this follow-up story to tie up some loose ends, give fans a little more of the BSG universe, and attempt to give a newfound coherence to some of the show mythology's more incoherent asides by taking a revisionist approach.
In satisfying the first two criteria, Battlestar Galactica - The Plan exceeds admirably. Unfortunately, it never really succeeds in trying too hard to graft the illusion of a grand scheme of things onto a series that essentially, and very understandably, tended to evolve according to the whims and changing focuses of its writers over four years. It's sort of like a full-length version of those 'webisodes' they released between the second and third seasons of Lost, attempting to fill in some of the gaps but doomed to be ultimately extraneous.
To avoid making this review even more alienating to non-fans than this TV movie already does quite well by itself, I'll give a brief overview of what it's about. The Plan is a part-nostalgic, part-revisionist, part-original retelling of the first two years of the series, beginning chronologically with the events in the original three-hour miniseries that saw the 12 colonies of humanity wiped out in an unprovoked attack by the Cylons, a race of robots and humanoid clones that were created by humans several decades earlier to be their servants, only to rebel and eventually go their separate ways following a bloody war.
Over the next two years, the surviving 50,000 or so humans wandered through the universe in a debilitated fleet of spacecraft led by the mighty Battlestar Galactica, occasionally getting into scrapes with the Cylons while also dealing with humanoid Cylons who had infiltrated the fleet, some in key positions of power.
This TV movie opens and closes with a conversation between two of the Cylon models known as Number One, played by science fiction veteran Dean Stockwell (probably best known as Al from Quantum Leap), in which they debate whether the Cylon attack on humanity was really the correct 'plan' of action. One of the major plot threads that runs through this film, which re-contextualises a number of events that happened over the first two seasons of the show from the Cylon perspective, is seeing how the two different copies of Number One are affected by their experiences of living among humans to reach such different verdicts. Unfortunately, the other sub-plots introduced for the film don't work as well, and largely feel like re-workings of old ideas from episodes.
By featuring an abundance of stock footage from relevant episodes of the series, The Plan is partly a good excuse for a money-saving clip show, though to its credit the use of old material never feels gratuitous. That's more than can be said for the several instances of full frontal female nudity, as the producers seem intent on showing off the loosened restrictions of the made-for-DVD format with juvenile abandon. If I was about 16, these wouldn't count against the film (they'd probably add a star or two to be honest), but it does feel quite pointless. And it's not as if any of the main stars get their kit off - well, no more than they usually do - so there's nothing to get excited about in a 'Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me' way.
My main problem with The Plan is that it doesn't truly satisfy any target audience. While it's nice for the fans to see the connections between some events that were previously left up in the air, some of these revelations are actually a little disappointing, and the whole thing smacks far too much of George Lucas-style revisionist TV history, even tactfully re-editing iconic scenes from the series or adding snippets of new dialogue (the television equivalent of bending jigsaw pieces so they fit any shape) to try to make sense of a story that already made adequate sense if they'd just left it alone.
New fans will be put off by the jumping around and assumptions of existing knowledge, while existing fans may be left wishing they could see more original footage of the actors, only a select few of whom appear in new material, the rest only being seen in archive footage. By taking place in season two of the show, back when the status quo was as relatively uncomplicated as it could hope to be, The Plan is at least less alienating to newcomers than it would be if set in season four, but it still makes enough references to later events in the series' continuity - including spoiling what is probably the series' biggest mystery, the identity of the Cylons - to potentially ruin things if a newcomer saw this first and then decided to track down the rest of the series.
Maybe I'm complaining too much; Battlestar Galactica finished its final season with a definitive ending, and this is a bonus chance to hang out with the characters for another couple of hours. If the unsanctioned comments of director/star Edward James Olmos are to be believed, this is likely to be the first of several TV/DVD movies expanding the Battlestar Galactica franchise, along with the new spin-off Caprica which I've yet to be interested enough to watch.
I don't know if the mediocrity of The Plan necessarily indicates that the series' achievements are all firmly lodged in the past, but I still wouldn't consider it essential viewing even for casual fans of the show. As for the four main seasons and 2003 mini-series, well, you should own those on DVD already.
Advantages: More Battlestar Galactica for fans.
Disadvantages: A lot of recycling, and not too well-suited to any audience demographic.
C
Does anyone actually like prequels?
**
Written on 05.01.11
Were prequels prominent in mainstream TV and cinema before The Phantom Menace, or am I just too young to remember? Didn't the very word 'prequel' used to have a sense of novelty about it - the way 'reboot' no longer has either? The last decade has seen a seemingly increasing number of franchises being stretched beyond breaking point by stepping back and giving us answers to questions we never knew we had - and when we think about it, don't really care about, since we already know how things end, have seen all the exciting stuff, and know who won't die.
There's probably at least one example of a good prequel out there somewhere that's succeeded in truly expanding and enhancing a successful franchise and introducing it to a new audience (maybe that Star Trek film, now I think about it), but it sure isn't Caprica.
Unless you're a sci-fi loving nerd from space, you probably haven't heard of this series, especially with TV networks' ridiculous broadcasting schedules trying their damnedest to prevent the show developing any kind of casual following. Caprica was billed as an attempt to create a science fiction family saga, sort of like Dallas with cyborgs and a less insidious theme tune, and was also a prequel to the successful 'reimagined' sci-fi series Battlestar Galactica, which concluded in early 2009. Now that Caprica has concluded too, after a grand total of 18 episodes, it would be fair to say that it failed to succeed in any of these respects - as a Galactica prequel, or as a science fiction show aimed at a more mainstream audience.
The fact that this series was cancelled before its first season finished airing is not indication alone of its low quality - after all, plenty of series have been cancelled before their time, due to low ratings or networks failing to 'get it' (Farscape springs to mind, and I'm reliably informed that Firefly was pretty good too). But it wasn't only low ratings letting Caprica down, as the series didn't even seem to be very popular with its niche market.
The mixing of genres wasn't handled very well - sci-fi fans didn't want to watch a soap opera, and soap fans are hardly likely to tune into a show featuring killer robots and holo-bands. Perhaps most tellingly of all, even die-hard Battlestar Galactica fans didn't really like it. That's putting it mildly - from some of the reactions I've seen on the internet, some consider its existence to be outright blasphemy. Which is apt, considering the prominence of religious themes in this increasingly dull show.
To use an over-used example from the sci-fi realm, the origin of the Cylons (read: robots) as shown in Caprica feels like a case of 'midichlorians.' This was the unpopular explanation given for the existence of The Force in the Star Wars prequels, which served to demystify and effectively spoil the mythology of that franchise by providing an unnecessary answer to a question no one had asked in the first place.
I can't really remember the midichlorians thing myself, not being enough of a masochist to have ever re-watched the Star Wars prequels (though enough of a masochist to have sat through the whole of Caprica, evidently). But there are further allusions that can be made between Caprica and the worst elements of the Star Wars prequels - notably the tangential and tedious plots that never feel like they're going anywhere, over-reliance on CGI, and all the bloody teen angst.
That's right, Caprica taps heavily at the I-hate-my-parents nerve from day one, and despite the writers commendably making several clear changes to the show's direction across the course of the 18-episode series, based on what seemed to be working and what didn't (and they didn't always get this right), this root never goes away. One of the teens calls her mother a 'stupid, disgusting cow' towards the end of the run, in a scene typical of the show's edgy realism and down-with-the-kidz credentials.
Caprica's failure wasn't a shame, and its cancellation was inevitable and deserved. The first five minutes of the pilot episode, featuring terrorism, tragedy and big explosions, showed great promise that was never really followed through on, and the rest of the series was largely a meandering mess of disparate plot threads - some of the least interesting of which ended up taking centre stage as things progressed. The focus on religion was particularly disappointing, considering the general fan backlash against how this was handled in the later episodes of BSG before it, and the writers also relied far, far, far too much on cliffhanger endings featuring important characters being held at gunpoint, stepping off bridges, or otherwise pretending to die prior to their certain rescue the following week. The fact that most of Caprica's core characters were really irritating only made the inevitable character-on-beeping-life-support-machine reveals all the more infuriating.
That's not to say that the performances were bad, as people like Eric Stolz and... actually, I can't think of anyone else who put in a really impressive performance. Esai Morales never had a chance to do much of anything as grieving lawyer/father turned mobster Joseph Adama, whose character arc was probably the least well executed of the lot, and watching the teen cast (okay, twentysomethings pretending to be teens) is mostly excruciating, in the way I imagine a typical scene from Roswell or Dawson's Creek to be. In other areas, the special effects were pretty good. Of course they are; it isn't 1996 any more. You can get decent CGI puppies in toilet roll adverts these days.
With the news that creator Ronald D. Moore is now working on a second BSG prequel titled Blood and Chrome, which will follow the events of the first Cylon war (and doubtless bring a whole load of continuity problems of its own), the writers have hopefully learned from their mistakes here. There should be little room for religious pondering or teen angst in a series set in the midst of a bloody (and chromy) war, and while it's almost certainly destined to fall in the shadow of the excellent Battlestar Galactica itself, at least there's some hope of a decent series that isn't ashamed to call itself science fiction. Even if it's essentially another pointless prequel.
The last five episodes of Caprica just aired on the US Sci-Fi channel in a typically disrespectful burn-off marathon. They'll probably be on Sky at some point, and you can get the whole series on DVD. I don't know why you'd do that though.
My Daddy Gone Builded a Time Masheem!
**
Written on 18.09.07
Continuing my trawl through TV time travel series that are either forgotten or deserve to be forgotten (or both), Anthony Horowitz’s ‘Crime Traveller’ was one of many quasi-sci-fi family dramas designed for the post-‘Casualty’ time slot in the decade and a half that the BBC decided to ignore the potential appeal of reviving ‘Doctor Who.’ As a time travel series with a fairly original premise and a Red Dwarf cast member it was destined to be something of a cult hit if nothing else, and that perhaps explains its eventual release on DVD a decade after 8 million regular viewers casually forgot about it and moved on.
These ambitious writer-creator projects are always worth checking out simply for the level of thought and enthusiasm that goes into them, but ‘Crime Traveller’ sadly failed in all areas to become the next ‘Jonathan Creek.’ The series is based on a similar, and fairly familiar premise: a male and female crime-solving team with professional differences and inevitable mutual attraction utilise unconventional methods to uncover the culprit. Except that while Jonathan Creek is interesting, funny and often ingeniously written, ‘Crime Traveller’ runs out of steam almost straight away by spending eight episodes insistently demonstrating Horowitz’s ‘definitive’ theory of time travel at a cost to the plot. All of the usual crime show clichés are involved and most of them are quite half-hearted, from stereotypical supporting characters and villains to convenient plot oversights and pointlessly extravagant stunts, including running across a railway line in front of a train, and driving a car through the wall of a high building and into a river, along with plenty of explosions. Each case is necessarily over-complicated just like in any Holmes or Creek mystery (bracing myself for abuse in daring to equate those two characters), and the real purpose of the show seems merely to demonstrate clever planning of each week’s time travel journey.
The two main characters are stereotypical police detective Jeff Slade, played by former ‘EastEnders’ star Michael French, and his friend the forensic scientist Holly Turner, played by Chloë Annett shortly after her role in the high profile ‘Red Dwarf VII.’ While there is a complete absence of chemistry between them as mentioned earlier, the characters are entertaining enough to watch in their own right and are written well to cooperate on the cases in different areas according to their specialties, Jeff most commonly going in for the action- or spy-oriented roles and cracking poor or tasteless jokes as Holly complains about her lousy lot in life and the demeaning tasks that she sees as beneath her, demonstrating considerable diversity from her usual roles (for those unfamiliar with Chloë’s role in Red Dwarf, this was a form of sarcasm). Michael French in particular seems poorly cast, smiling all the time and seeming quite aloof and detached rather than personally involved in the way everyone else manages, but there are some quite good supporting roles for Sue Johnston as Jeff’s bossy boss (shortly before her major role in ‘The Royle Family’) and a convincingly naïve graduate trainee played by Richard Dempsey, just one of the many child actors falsely predicted for greatness after starring roles in the BBC’ s classic ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ who went on to do little else on the stage or screen (Camilla Power was really good in them, though).
After the necessary introductory episode that sets up the time travel concept very nicely, each show forms a self-contained story in which the two crime fighters persuade each other to use their secret time machine for just one more jaunt (designed by Holly’s father, who became lost in time). It’s good to see a realistic sense of pressure on Holly’s activities with the machine, in terms of both her grave attitude towards it (compared to Jeff’s predictably carefree manner in one of many contrived contrasts between the two) and its debilitating financial toll in terms of costly equipment and electricity bills to her run-down apartment. While the machine is bound to be a bit of a visual letdown for viewers due to its basis in twentieth century styled technology, Holly’s explanation of the time travel principles is very interesting (if you’re the sort of person who finds that sort of thing interesting), and is consistent throughout the show’s brief run. The fundamental principles is that the past cannot be changed, not as a matter of Star Trek style morality but as a mere matter of physics; events that unfold for the characters during their trip in the past, which can be anything up to a day prior to the time they left but is often much shorter, have already occurred in the ‘real’ past, hence their job of investigation rather than crime prevention. This is demonstrated well in the second episode, when a number of seemingly inconsequential events occurring in the moments before the time machine’s activation are revealed to have been caused by Holly and Jeff in their frantic race back to the machine for the return trip, required to break the so-called ‘loop of infinity.’ I know, I know, I’m confusing myself and I just watched the damn thing. As a slightly less taxing example, Holly and Jeff pass two janitors whose faces are concealed in the first episode on their way to the machine, and later in that episode they end up posing as janitors and are forced to hide their faces from their past selves to prevent them being seen, thus completing the loop.... No, that was just more confusing wasn’t it?
‘Crime Traveller’ would probably work quite well as a novel, where time could be spent discussing the principles of time travel in more detail, though it would then be a lot harder to insert the nice incongruous background details without them seeming a little too uncanny on the printed page. Chloë Annett is well cast as the snooty but still irresistible scientist, even if her role is pretty much the one she played on Red Dwarf with a little more emotion, less crap jokes about cottage cheese, and a costume that isn’t made of PVC. Michael French is less impressive, his single permanent facial expression getting quite annoying as the episodes go on, but probably drew in a few mainstream fans who recognised him as whoever it was he played in EastEnders, a show far too mainstream for my eccentric/terrible tastes (delete as appropriate). There wasn’t an awful lot that could have been done if a second series had been commissioned unless the concept had been expanded dramatically, which more often than not results in these sort of shows spiralling up their own time tunnels.
I respect Horowitz’s idea and was intrigued to check out some more of his work, until I noticed that his other failed series was that really terrible ITV show ‘The Vanishing Man’ in which Neil Morrissey rode around invisible on a motorbike and did nothing else, at least that’s what I remember of it. He has done more successful things, like ‘Foyle’s War’ and many episodes of ‘Poirot,’ but he should perhaps be kept away from flimsy science fiction premises and has-been comedy actors for everyone’s sake.
One series of eight fifty-minute episodes was broadcast from 1st March to 19th April 1997 on BBC 1 (never repeated), and the complete series is now available on DVD from Amazon.co.uk priced £31.98.
Advantages: A second chance for Chloë Annett, and some interesting time travel theories.
Disadvantages: Could its basis in a weak pun title be any more obvious? Michael French is rubbish as well.
D
Doctor Who: The Tomb of the Cybermen
Oobee Doo, I Want to Be a Cyberman Too
****
Written on 10.12.07 [2013–16 DW updates]
Continuing my backwards voyage with the various incarnations of the time-travelling Time Lord, this encounter with Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor takes us back to the black-and-white era, as the Doctor once again faces his most famous, most lethal and most resoundingly popular foes. Well, out of the robotic ones, that is. Alright, at least out of the ones with handlebars coming out of the sides of their heads.
While the less distinctive Cybermen are often, in plot terms, indistinguishable from the more well-known Daleks, thirsting for seemingly endless destruction, this cyborg race features the added horrific twist of taking their living victims and transforming them into emotionless Cybermen by placing their brains into a robotic body, succinctly expressed in their leader's statement, "you will be like us." Sort of exactly the same as would later be done with the Borg in 'Star Trek: The Next Generation,' right down to the race's imaginative name. And I guess the Daleks did something similar with the Robomen in their early episodes, but this is still slightly different.
While it's clear that the Cybermen will always be a low-rent substitute for Daleks in ratings-seeking Doctor Who recurring villain terms - Van Damme to the Daleks' Schwarzenegger if you will (though still higher up than the Master's Ralf Möller), this early instalment is among their most effective appearances, even if it's appearances that present one of the biggest drawbacks. It may seem a little nit-picky (yeah, as if scrutinising Doctor Who episodes wasn't already way beyond such a lightweight term), but contrary to the iconic and immortal design of the Daleks, the Cybermen seemed to change with every single outing, advancing slowly towards the design more-or-less standardised in the eighties (but still updated for the new series).
The Cybermen look and act like homogenous, unfeeling robots, but like less glitzy zombies their movements are all a little too clumsy and slow for them to be considered a serious threat outside of hugging distance. There's no trace of humanity apart from the shape and movement of the suits, and while still looking fairly primitive and tacky by modern standards, they've come a long way since looking really stupid only a year earlier in 'The Tenth Planet.' Their voices are convincingly mechanical in a late sixties way, provided by Peter Hawkins through what sounds like the type of artificial voice box my great-granddad used to have, but occasionally end up indecipherable unless the lines are spoken very slowly. Despite the drawbacks, the Cybermen do end up feeling like a serious threat in this episode, but rather a limited one at the same time; the most famous and dramatic scene of the frozen creatures' awakening, bursting free from their plastic cocoons and climbing down to confront their resurrectors, is weakened by the slight disappointment of there only being about ten of them.
The Doctor's random involvement with this story is, as usual, purely down to a twist of fate or arbitrary chance that consistently dumps the TARDIS into pivotal events of galactic importance, but the humans he meets on Telos above the Cybermen tomb know precisely what they're doing. The Doctor's motley entourage of an eighteenth-century Scotsman and nineteenth-century Victorian girl in what would be viewed amongst her contemporaries as a truly obscene skirt (it shows a bit of lower leg and everything, nice!) joins forces with the even more diverse team of fuddy-duddy English archaeologists, spaceship officers affecting embarrassing American accents, and the project's double-crossing financers who originate from one of those non-descript foreign countries that all bad people came from in 1960s television, all united in the desire to explore the last tomb of the Cybermen and learn its valuable secrets.
Quite why the Doctor doesn't attempt to stop them from pushing levers and opening hatchways before the inevitable happens by the finale of episode two seems like a bit of an oversight, but we have to forgive him for being a mere sapling of four-hundred-and-fifty years old at this point in the series, about half the age of the BBC's current Doctor. It goes without saying that the Cybermen are awoken from their sleep, this time through the intention of a deranged madman (and woman) who foolishly believe they can command the creatures to do their bidding, and the story turns into a tale for survival from the metal men and their bulky-brained controller in the tomb below, and the Cybermen's lethal robot caterpillars in the deceptive safety above.
Although the straightforward duplicity and predictable plot twists are quite crude by today's standards, this is still a high quality episode of early Doctor Who, and one of the relatively few serials from the Patrick Troughton years to survive intact after the BBC wiped much of its archive in the early seventies to save buying some new tapes, the idiots. The focus on logic brings out the Doctor's scientific side which is always nice to see, and when the purpose of the tests is revealed, it actually makes a lot of sense and adds to the story rather than seeing like a last-minute turnaround as employed by many later episodes. As for the accuracy of all that stuff the Doctor says about integers and things, it certainly sounds genuine, but could easily be technobabble. I'm not clever enough to know these things.
The characters are a little stupid - the baddies for believing they can control the Cybermen simply through their (non-existent) generosity, and the goodies for allowing the baddies to walk freely around the complex even after revealing their true colours, free to plot further schemes and pick up the ray gun that everyone seemed to forget they left lying around an episode or so earlier, but Professor Parry at least displays some commendable intelligence when updating his earlier and clearly foreboding plan of "let's split up" with a more cautious "safety in numbers, people."
What makes this episode a little less commendable four decades later are the rather distracting undercurrents of race and sex prejudice, harmless for the most part but a bit questionable in the characters' voiced decision to leave the women on the upper level out of presumed danger, guarded by Roy Stewart as the sole black character Toberman, who provides the muscle and nothing else (but does redeem himself by the end, though in a far too simplistic sacrificial manner of the sort that would be repeated by Star Trek's first black captain in the second Star Trek feature film). Even the Doctor's companion Jamie (Frazer Hines) utters some ludicrously stereotypical Scottish exclamations at one point, and although this is easily and intentionally attributed to the character's archaic origins, you'd need to have seen previous episodes to be aware of this. Watching this in isolation, he's just an amusingly inept Scotsman in a kilt.
Deborah Watling plays the Doctor's other companion Victoria, and brings the alluring cuteness of innocence that I always find the most agreeable with Doctor Who companions (I'm revealing far too much about my psychology here), paradoxically running around with a gun and playing the same bizarre and confusing game with my hormones as later companion Sarah Jane Smith in 'Pyramids of Mars,' when she strapped a rifle to a wedding dress. The story opens with Victoria's introduction to the TARDIS following on from the previous episode, and a pleasant, character-building scene later on fills in all that viewers need to know about what happened there.
Troughton himself is great as the energetic, aloof, whimsical and occasionally angry Doctor forced to contend with the idiots surrounding him, and he's one of the Doctors I'd enjoy seeing more of - if so many of his best shows hadn't been erased, of course. The guest cast is all quite good but is prone to overacting, and the minor presence of the spaceship captain and his lieutenant is enough to cast a cringe-worthy shadow with George Roubicek's appalling American accent, but one noticeable feature is the overly relaxed attitude towards mistakes. Actors fluff and stutter their lines quite noticeably, regulars and guest cast alike, particularly in the tomb scenes of episode two which may indicate time pressure on that particular shoot, and I actually found that this added a nice sense of history to the viewing experience, in the days before home video re-watching was a consideration. There's also a slightly annoying inconsistency as everyone has their own idea of how to pronounce "Cyberman."
'Tomb of the Cybermen' is a good classic episode of Doctor Who that's forgiven for being a little primitive for coming so early in the canon. The special effects are often laughable, from the use of reversed footage to save the crew filming similar scenes twice, to the most amusing instance where Toberman's hand-to-hand combat with a Cyberman leads him off-screen, only to return two seconds later to fling an obviously empty Cyberman suit at the far wall. The cybermats (robot caterpillar things) look quite bad but are scary enough en masse, and a final note should go to the composer of the excellent theme music used for the Cybermen here and in their previous episode 'Moonbase,' though it seems that rather than being an original composition for the series, it was simply ripped off from some other source. Sort of a metaphor I suppose, for the whole cybermen assimilation, um, thing... nah, forget it.
Advantages: One of the more memorable Cybermen stories, and a rare complete serial for Troughton.
Disadvantages: Suffers from its low budget, and displays questionable attitudes in hindsight.
Doctor Who: The Curse of Peladon
The Horny Beast and the One-Eyed, Six-Armed Trouser Snake
**
Written on 03.12.07
Brian Hayles wrote several notable Doctor Who serials before his death in 1978, most famously introducing the Ice Warriors in the Patrick Troughton era. These reptilian Martians return in Hayles' 1972 story 'The Curse of Peladon,' in which they teach Jon Pertwee's Doctor a little humility as he learns not to act solely on his instincts, or to judge by appearances alone. This is a good thing, as one look at the ludicrously phallic, one-eyed hermaphrodite hexapod delegate from Alpha Centauri would surely have the scarecrow man rolling in hysterics.
This gathering of assorted odd-looking and unanimously green aliens is explained as a conference to judge the worthiness of planet Peladon to join the Galactic Federation, despite its rather primitive civilisation, and there is significant division in the royal ranks between those who support and oppose the endeavour. Arriving on Peladon by accident, and becoming stranded as the TARDIS plummets off the edge of mountain, the Doctor and his dolled-up companion Jo Grant are only to happy to play along as they are naturally mistaken for the Earth delegates, whose true arrival has been rather conveniently and mysteriously delayed.
It's another episode placing the Doctor and his companion in the centre of an important political conflict, and for the most part this slightly dull four-parter follows the familiar pattern. There's an insecure young King (played by David Troughton, son of Pertwee's predecessor) who relies on the counsel of his two opposing but collaboratively-bearded advisors, one of whom is killed to strengthen the validity of the other, slightly deranged and evil one. Peladon's conflict is based on the rising prominence of rational thought over old superstitions and beliefs, with progressive individuals such as the late King and the new King's closest friend Torbis (Henry Gilbert) pushing forward for this galactic union, and others led by Hepesh (Geoffrey Toone) fearing the destruction of their culture and values that advanced technology would bring. It's an old story and could easily have been made into a more obvious metaphor for real-world concerns, such as Native Americans opening casinos on their holy land or whatever, but Hayles prefers to keep it self-contained. It's not often that Doctor Who was written with any specific political agenda in mind, unlike Star Trek, so it's a shame this rare opportunity wasn't embraced here.
The moral crisis is played out reasonably well, particularly in the confrontation between the Doctor and Hepesh in the third episode, and it's interesting to see just how far this effective villain of the piece will go to preserve his culture. From the viewer's perspective, it's a little irritating and unbelievable that Hepesh wasn't revealed as the culprit until the start of the final part, but there are a couple of fairly satisfying twists involving the alien delegates, the highlight being the sabotage of the robotic Arcturus that brings out underlying racial tensions and nicely places the Doctor as the logical chief suspect. Outside of this, the whole thing seems a little too stretched and repetitive as a four-part story of almost two hours in length, with some plot points such as the burgeoning romance between the besotted King and Jo, and the Doctor's fight to the death with Grun feeling like pointless distractions to spice up the political drama. But this was still an early stage of Doctor Who, comparatively speaking, and although everyone involved knew exactly how to pull off episodes like this by now, they hadn't quite got the knack of how to make them really fun.
Although he's one of the faces I've always most associated with the role, I've never been particularly fond of Pertwee's Doctor in comparison to most of his predecessors and successors, but anyone who enjoys this incarnation's bizarre and slightly unconvincing mix of aloof grandfatherly compassion, gobbledygook technobabble and kung fu fighting should find plenty to satisfy them here, and thankfully in restricted and relevant doses. The Third Doctor certainly has a strong and commanding presence required of the role (and lacking in some of the later, younger incarnations), but generally gives off a stuffy and pompous air that I don't enjoy as much as the eccentricity of Patrick Troughton, the mania of Tom Baker or the jollity of Sylvester McCoy. It's enjoyable watching him feign confidence and knowledge when introduced as the Earth ambassador, bluffing his way through for the most part with only a hint of insecurity added by Pertwee through necessity before bluntly asking if he can be taken through the situation in more detail, please, but the rest of the episode sees the Doctor quite sombrely exploring tunnels, taming wild beasts and reporting back to his companion. A few lines of funny dialogue wouldn't have gone amiss, and his relationship with Jo is far from one of the most interesting the series has offered; it obviously lacks the sexual tension of the recent series (that would just be plain weird - he only gets as far as tugging on her cheek), and Katy Manning herself is distinctly average in her portrayal of another in a long line of well-spoken, pretty young women to ride chastely alongside the Doctor through time and space. An advantage of her relative naivety as an everywoman, as opposed to an alien or scientist, means that the Doctor is permitted to explain things like the Ice Warriors to her for the benefit of new viewers.
However thoughtful and historically relevant its aim, 'The Curse of Peladon' (and indeed, its eventual sequel 'The Monster of Peladon') will always be remembered best, or worst, for its alarming alien creations. The inhabitants of Peladon themselves appear essentially identical to humans, with only a brown streak along the centre of their hair denoting otherwise, but the planet is also host to a near-extinct species of horned monster passed off as the incarnation of Aggedor, represented by statues that resemble 1980s children's sitcom alien 'Alf.' The monster suit is glimpsed only briefly in the first few parts before being presented a little over-zealously in the finale, and while there's never any doubt that there's an athletic man inside the suit, it stands up well several decades later and isn't much different from monster suits still routinely used in sci-fi and fantasy productions today. Less acceptable is the ludicrous creation that is Alpha Centauri, an irritating, shrill-voiced, green phallus in a gold cape with one huge eye that doesn't blink all the way, and six arms of which only two appear to be functional... for some reason. Alpha Centauri is without a doubt one of the most ridiculous creations ever devised for the programme (particularly as the humour was clearly unintentional), and acts as a prime example of the BBC's 1970s effects and budget failing dramatically to live up to what must have been an intriguing and promising character sketch. The Arcturus delegate isn't much better, a small puppet bearing a permanently shocked expression (and a face that looks like Ren from 'Ren & Stimpy'), but the bubbling and condensing water effects are pretty good.
The Ice Warriors come off a lot better, even if I was left unsure as to whether their scaly suits were supposed to be armour or genuine hide, and their struggled, hissing breathing is distracting in a good way, helping them to seem more genuinely alien. The miniature model of Peladon's castle is only glimpsed briefly at the start, unlike the disappointing tiny TARDIS that materialises below it, but for the most part this episode is free of special effects, relying more on its Medieval setting and traditional weapons. One distraction I couldn't shake off across the episodes was the lack of any real civilisation being seen on Peladon, outside of the cramped castle and its handful of guards. This episode would have benefitted greatly from drafting in a few more background extras or even creating more significant roles to expand the credibility of this isolated fortress in the middle of nowhere, though it's possible this was due to budget limitations; it would be interesting to learn whether Gordon St. Clair, who played the King's Champion, was paid as much as the speaking cast for his comical closed-mouth mumblings as the 'mute' Grun.
This Third Doctor serial is so far unreleased on individual DVD or as part of any 'most ridiculous alien creatures' box-set, but it makes for a reasonably enjoyable stand-alone story for Pertwee, Jo Grant or Ice Warrior fans, without any alienating references to past stories or larger continuity issues to deter newcomers, aside from a brief bit of inconsequential theorising from the Doctor at the end as to the true nature of their arrival. I was glad to see some apparent inconsistencies and oversights being cleared up by the end, particularly involving the weirdly overdue Earth delegate whose arrival would have spelled trouble for the time travelling duo, but all the same this isn't an episode I'd recommend to casual viewers as either an introduction to classic Doctor Who or even an arbitrary insight into the Pertwee years, as there are substantially more representative serials out there, with or without shrieking oversized phalluses in capes.
Advantages: Thoughtful arguments of cultural preservation and judgemental attitudes.
Disadvantages: Overlong, a little dull, and some really stupid looking aliens.
Doctor Who: Pyramids of Mars
Abase Yourself, You Grovelling Insect
****
Written on 24.08.07
Originally screened from October to November 1975, Robert Holmes’ ‘Pyramids of Mars,’ based on an earlier draft by Lewis Griefer, is often regarded as one of the finest episodes in the entire long-running series. Featuring just about everything that made Doctor Who so enjoyable, with the exception of the humour, which is necessarily absent in this dark tale, this four-parter is easily the most action-packed and finely plotted that I’ve seen, intelligently crafting a link between Egyptian mythology and ancient extraterrestrials years before shows such as Stargate popularised the wacky theory, and thus allowing for great sets, ancient riddles, unstoppable robot mummies and an ultimate villain (implicitly the real-life Satan) whose lust for evil and total destruction surpasses even that of Dalek creator Davros, introduced the previous year.
As always, the opening part has the task of setting up the situation and contriving a reason for the Doctor to become involved at all, and this episode acts as a perfect example of how to do that right. After an atmospheric introduction in an Egyptian tomb, which raises questions that will be answered over the next half hour, the Doctor (Tom Baker) and his companion Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) are seen flying through space-time towards a rendezvous with UNIT on Sarah’s present-day Earth that will inevitably be delayed by the upcoming events. The TARDIS experiences unexplained turbulence and Sarah screams at a ghastly demonic apparition that she feels is ‘totally malevolent,’ causing the Doctor to trace the disturbance to its source, which turns out to be an English country estate in 1911. Snooping around the premises, the pair soon discover an imminent plot to free an ancient evil from thousands of years of entombment, threatening both the present and the future of the universe with one of the greatest dangers the Doctor has ever encountered.
Doctor Who is well remembered for its ability to scare, receiving as much criticism as it did praise for scaring children and adults alike, and this episode is among the most successful. The animated mummies are terrifyingly efficient as they walk slowly but directly towards their intended victims in broad daylight, but the major concern comes with the Doctor, whose usual jovial and care-free demeanour is replaced with one of concern and cold practicality as soon as he realises the threat posed by Sutekh. It’s interesting and refreshing to see Tom Baker play the role with such seriousness after the clowning around he is more famous for, and the character is placed in serious danger as he becomes personally involved towards the end. His response to Sarah’s criticism that he should mourn the four men who have died is a simple and logical reasoning that he has to concentrate on the bigger picture of death on a planetary or galactic scale, making this one of the more thoughtful episodes also.
Elisabeth Sladen is also excellent here, now seeming completely at ease in the role and really looking the part in a white wedding dress, armed with a rifle. It’s a curious sight that I was happy to take away from the episode. The strong supporting cast adds further weight and believability to this tale, and whatever the viewer’s personal attitude towards Gabriel Woolf’s gloating and maniacal take on Sutekh, it’s great to see an enemy who could seriously beat the Doctor, provided he wasn’t so easily distracted. His justification for evil is chilling, simply claiming to ‘find it good,’ and although the Doctor’s ultimate triumph is a little disappointing for coming right out of left-field, the story at least makes logical sense from start to finish.
As well as terrifying children, ‘Pyramids of Mars’ similarly lives up to the tradition of dodgy special effects, though for the most part these are limited in scope. The main effect of the sarcophagus time portal is simply a tunnel of flashing multi-coloured lights, its main problem being that the on-screen journey lasts for far too long and the prop work is a little shaky. The manor house and the surrounding grounds look excellent, but the scenes inside the Martian pyramid are less convincing, as are the Styrofoam Egyptian artefacts that the actors try their best to bestow the illusion of weight upon. The robot mummies look good, and satisfyingly alien, and it’s amusing to watch each actor interpret the role differently, either wobbling from side to side or making stereotypical robotic arm movements, and their presence keeps the action quotient high in the early parts as well as the dramatic ending. The final part is the most exciting, as usual for these serials, and plays out like an episode of the Crystal Maze (although the Doctor would insist that it’s Ancient Egyptian logic puzzles), rounding off this excellent romp.
‘Pyramids of Mars’ is one of the better Doctor Who serials I’ve seen, well written to remain entertaining with hardly any of the slips in quality or excitement that usually afflict these four-parters. The Doctor and Sarah make a great partnership now that she’s fully integrated into his ways and mannerisms, even taking some on herself, and it finally allowed me to see why her character is so popular among fans. Add to that the memorable performances from Michael Sheard as the grief-stricken, ill-fated Laurence Scarman, Bernard Archard as his zombified brother and Gabriel Woolf as the riotous villain, and just about everything is as good as it could be in this serial, which is a bit of a shame as it’s always enjoyable to poke fun at the dodgy old series. The DVD still bears a surprising ‘U’ certificate despite the potential nightmare-inducing scenes, and features the usual high quality special features such as an audio commentary with several cast members, a behind-the-scenes retrospective entitled ‘Osirian Gothic,’ deleted scenes and a fan parody ‘Oh Mummy’ in which Woolf was somehow convinced to reprise his villainous role. Fans of the new series who are interested in checking out the older episodes would do well to start here, or alternatively with one of the more humorous Baker stories such as ‘City of Death.’
Advantages: High adventure with robot mummies let loose in an English country manor.
Disadvantages: Slightly disappointing ending, and Sutekh's future potential lost.
Doctor Who: Horror of Fang Rock
A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers
***
Written on 30.07.07
This claustrophobic four-part story opened Tom Baker’s fourth year as the Fourth Doctor, and takes place in the gloomy environment of an early twentieth century lighthouse on the South coast of England, in the supposedly haunted area of Fang Rock. Written by Terrance Dicks, long-serving script editor and writer of the first Tom Baker episode ‘Robot,’ this is another of many episodes that place the Doctor in the role of detective hunting down an evil alien threat amidst an ensemble of clueless, antiquated and ultimately expendable humans.
The Fourth Doctor is accompanied by Leela, the attractive savage who invited herself aboard the TARDIS a number of episodes earlier and caught the attention of some viewers with her aggressive demeanour and tight leather outfits. Leela has evidently mellowed between series, still jumping at the chance to die in glorious combat with a superior enemy when it arises, but mostly content to accompany the Doctor to Brighton and don a more respectable woolly jumper, though her tribal instincts still seem to prevent her from wearing a bra (or did I imagine it?)
The self-contained story is fairly formulaic as both a Doctor Who adventure and a murder mystery, with a sinister opening carried solely by the impressive guest cast as weird and inexplicable things start to happen on Fang Rock, before the Doctor comes onto the scene by random chance and sets himself up as chief investigator (claiming that although he isn’t in charge, he is ‘full of ideas’). The reliance on cliff-hanger endings for the first three parts could be seen as a rather desperate shock tactic to maintain interest, particularly as the crashing yacht in the first comes out of nowhere, and even more so the deaths of characters one-by-one, but the majority of the supporting characters are so well developed that their deaths (that may or may not occur, I wouldn’t want to spoil things) are far more genuinely shocking than those of stuntmen or background characters in more wide-reaching episodes. The exception has to be the shrieking secretary Adelaide Lessage, whose well-spoken lady-in-distress feels fully deserving of her ultimate fate, especially when compared to the lovable, hard-working Yorkshiremen who tend to the lighthouse every day and night without being permitted a single drop of alcohol.
Every episode belongs thoroughly to the Doctor, it is his show after all, but the domineering attitude of both the character and the increasingly eccentric actor is rarely more prominent than in this serial. As always, Tom Baker’s Doctor seems to operate on a different plane to everyone around him, gleefully taunting a dangerous alien with no apparent thought for his own safety and clearly regarding the scurrying humans around him as naive and inferior, flippantly commenting on galactic situations of which they have no knowledge, and generally behaving inappropriately in pursuit of his own entertainment, such as suddenly leaping to his feet mid-conversation and emphatically declaring that he hasn’t been formally introduced to the people he is talking to. Nevertheless, Baker provides a few rare glimpses of a more human side to the Doctor when he discovers the first corpse, and when he is genuinely concerned for Leela’s safety at the conclusion.
Like Leela, whose warrior background, it is explained, has given her a relaxed attitude towards death, it’s a little disturbing to see them both sharing jokes and laughing almost immediately after an innocent person has lost their life. It’s much like the closing scenes of many old Star Trek episodes, where Kirk and McCoy would make a racist joke against Spock and the three of them would smile as their starship left orbit of the planet whose society and belief system they had decimated. Leela herself stands out well despite the Doctor’s prominence, her savage background being mentioned several times but absent from the opening part where she seems merely to be the Doctor’s latest brunette in a loose fitting jumper. She easily has the most amusing lines, instructing the squabbling survivors that they will listen to the Doctor’s instructions or else she shall rip out their hearts, and administering some satisfying face slaps to the bawling secretary. Louise Jameson carries out the whole performance in an irritated dead-pan manner that works excellently in marking her out as separate from the human characters and closer to the Doctor’s spectral level, and seems only to benefit from the allegedly aloof and intimidating behaviour of Tom Baker on set, particularly in this story. Although the character isn’t at her most impressive here, the scenes she shares with the Doctor make it clear that alien companions had a lot more to offer than humdrum humans, and her clear independence, despite a strong belief in all of the Doctor’s actions, leads to a very nice final scene.
The Victorian lighthouse setting certainly makes this episode stand out in the vast Doctor Who canon, not least in terms of appearance, as the darkly lit lighthouse interior is completely convincing, particularly the curved stairway and the sense of characters grouped above and below each other inside the structure. Even the exteriors are believable enough, and it’s only in the final shot of the TARDIS disappearing that the scene is revealed, quite clearly, to be a miniature. The special effects are much the same as always, based largely on lighting and flame effects bringing to life the not-quite-believable Rutan ship, and the final monster reveal, which occurs as early as episode two, will only be truly shocking to someone who has never seen the series before. The Rutan in its true form is really quite disgusting, aided by reflective lighting, and its ascent up the spiral staircase is equally scary and amusing (one-nil against the Daleks then, ha ha. Except that this joke doesn’t work as Daleks can climb stairs easily, despite the persistent insistence of lazy stand-ups).
‘Horror of Fang Rock’ is a relatively slow and confined Doctor Who story and is far from unique in its survival and mystery elements, but what matters is its success as a science fiction horror story. Although the Rutan is exposed far too early in the plot, the initial evidence of electrocution and missing bodies is an exciting set-up, and this focus on electricity itself fits perfectly into the historical period of the piece, following an earlier discussion between the young apprentice and the mouldier, older lighthouse keeper on the merits or drawbacks of this new power source over traditional oil lamps. It’s nice to have the human element to balance out the non-human regulars (or at least, not in the traditional sense), even if this leads to repetitive criticism of humanity’s narrow-mindedness, but most of all it’s great to see the Doctor’s skill as a technician (pronounced ‘tesh-nician’ by Leela, a quick but fallible learner) figuring largely in the plot. Tom Baker effectively conveys the Doctor’s sense of nostalgic wonder at these early days of electricity, and it’s moments like these that make his penchant for endless time travels in an unreliable craft easier to understand.
Advantages: Interesting setting, and a great supporting cast.
Disadvantages: Predictable and long-winded suspense story.
Doctor Who: The Pirate Planet
By the Blood of the Sky Demon, We Have Been Queasy Fools!
****
Written on 26.11.07
As one of the relatively few stories written by the late, great Douglas Adams outside of his own Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, this otherwise rather obscure instalment of Tom Baker's fifth year as the Doctor retrospectively acquires new importance and value, while also running the risk of being dangerously over-rated for Adams' presence alone. Adams would write for the show on two more occasions, jointly with Graham Williams for the celebrated 'City of Death' and going solo one finale time with the distinctly odd 'Shada,' which bears the unfortunate distinction of being the only episode halted half-way through filming due to a BBC strike, and was thus never completed. As the only completed episode written entirely by the young Douglas Adams, does 'The Pirate Planet' represent a true bridge between the established universe of Doctor Who and the burgeoning Whole Sort of General Mish Mash of the 'Hitchhiker's Guide?'
The answer is: no, not really. While it's noticeably more humorous, satirical and ludicrously bizarre than the average Doctor Who episode of the time, this still slots comfortably into one of the series' long-established sub-genres, that of a crazed megalomaniac hopping around the universe, destroying worlds in pursuit of personal gain. In this instance, the villain is an anonymous Captain (played by Bruce Purchase) whose vessel oddly seems grafted to a mountain above a vast mine complex on planet Zanak. As the Doctor (Tom Baker) and his companion Romana (Mary Tamm) arrive on this oddly populated world that they believed would be the uninhabited Calufrax, in search of a lost artefact forming part of the legendary Key to Time, their investigation into the apparent disappearance of Calufrax leads to the astonishing revelation that Zanak (the whole darn planet) is in fact a gigantic hollow spaceship that materialises around the outside of mineral-rich worlds and drains them of their wealth, regardless of the destruction to native life. Needless to say, the Doctor isn't too happy about this dastardly plot of planet plundering, and applies his usual skills of diplomacy, care-free carelessness and an unwavering belief in his own invincibility to stroll up the mountainside and have a gnatter with the shouty Captain.
As I'm a fan of Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide series (as is probably pretty obvious from my nerdy and alienating in-jokes), I did enjoy this serial more than a fan of Doctor Who's more sombre and serious side might do, but distinct authorial touches are very few. The aspect of this script that struck me the most (you'll notice I'm referring to the scripted dialogue itself, rather than its ultimate realisation on-screen, which is another matter entirely) is its inability to take itself seriously, something that will likely impede enjoyment for less open-minded viewers. Adams seems determined to deconstruct all of the clichés of science fiction and Doctor Who in particular, from incompetent guards to gloating arch-villains and stupid technology, to the ultimate cheesy revelation that the tyrant's next target is a heavily-populated, blue-green planet in the Sol system...
That's not to say that this is expressly written as a comedy episode, but the self-parodying undercurrent restricts it from ever being too convincingly dramatic, apart from select key scenes. The most vocal villain of the piece, the roaring captain in command of the titular 'Pirate Planet,' couldn't look more like a space-age pirate if he tried; his ridiculous get-up including a shiny plastic eye patch, a metallic 'hook' arm and even a robot weapon effectively functioning as a parrot, sitting on his shoulder. But for all this silliness, Adams' script rewards patient science fiction fans with a whole host of original and ingenious concepts that came close to blowing my mind, ideas layered around each other with such skill that it doesn't even seem to matter that the twists revealed in the fourth episode don't really line up to what we've been watching for the previous three weeks. This is partly due to Bruce Purchase's distinctly one-dimensional performance of the apparently subtle Captain, whose bawling, pig-headed performance is deduced by Romana to be a mere act to fool the real enemy of the piece, but hearing Purchase's unwavering, irritating yell persist for four episodes regardless of his mood, I couldn't help feeling that the performers weren't exactly up to speed with the plot or its intended effects. Unfortunately, the general disappointing quality of acting all-round (apart from the inimitable Baker of course, who even gets a great angry scene in episode two), highlights more of a problem than a mere instance of actors ruining a tongue-in-cheek story by playing it too straight.
With the over-arching search for the Key to Time providing a loose foundation for these 1978-79 episodes, the plot avoids the usual problem of the TARDIS arriving at these alien worlds seemingly at random, though for all Adams' valiant attempts towards the end, the larger quest doesn't really play any part in the development of the story, something that is obviously to its benefit when viewed independently like this (though the entire Key to Time season of the show has been released as a larger box-set for completists). The other distinguishing feature of this season is the presence of Mary Tamm's Romana, unfortunately doomed to be forever viewed as the more annoying but more attractive Romana after Lalla Ward took over the role for the next couple of years, but her nature as a fellow Time Lord as opposed to yet another wide-eyed, stupid human companion makes for some nice and very different banter with the Doctor as she pits her by-the-book academic training against his seasoned experience, and unexpectedly scores a small victory. Romana may be irritating, but it feels like a necessary irritation at this point, especially as this is only her second outing, though it has to be said that Mary Tamm doesn't exactly put in a stellar effort to add depth to her character beyond her overly made-up, smug exterior.
The Mentiad dissidents are one of the weakest links of the story, a home-grown resistance movement that is set up rather nicely, but ends up seeming like nothing more than a troupe of zombie goths in orange robes, whose final, pivotal scenes again border on self-parody at an inappropriately dramatic moment. The Captain's overly loyal, Smithers-like assistant Mr. Fibuli is also a very nice character, and Andrew Robertson's performance is fine if not particularly enlightening, but in the end he is a little under-used. The less said about the bland performances of the Zanak natives the better, though Adams does write a fairly substantial role along with some nice, family-friendly witticisms for the easily overlooked K-9 - it's just a shame he had to include the ridiculous face-off between the Doctor's robot dog and the Captain's robot parrot, which makes for the low point of the episode in many respects.
In visual terms, this is a pretty nice-looking episode that never comes off looking too cheap, with refreshing outdoor footage in some hills that nevertheless fails to gel with the studio 'outdoor' scenes and that also features some dodgy-looking alien technology sticking clumsily out of a hillside. Still, the Captain's ship interiors all look pretty good, and a touch of realism is added through location filming at what looks like a real mine, and what's probably a water pumping station of the kind used in every episode of 'Red Dwarf' ever. However much you may dislike the idea of the space pirate Captain, he does look undeniably cool if a tad goofy, sort of a Saxon cyborg with hints of Lego Technic, and the flying Aircars end up looking as acceptable and convincing as they were ever going to be in seventies BBC serial. The only really lousy effect is the over-zealous camera shaking as Zanak dematerialises, which may even last long enough to induce sea sickness or epilepsy.
'The Pirate Planet' is a flawed and strange episode that's a far cry from a classic, but is certainly recommended viewing for anyone who enjoys the more light-hearted side of the show. The subtle comedy and elaborate science fiction concepts balance out evenly, despite failing to really reconcile in the end, and the lack of consistency may be partially due to the re-writes and significant editing applied to Adams' original, incomprehensible script by script editor Anthony Read, a job Adams himself would take over the following year, just in time to insert more gratuitous Hitchhiker's references into random scenes. Tom Baker sports a slightly distracting cut lip throughout this episode, which the producers in their wisdom attempt to explain with a brief stumbling scene early on that's silly but fun, and Baker really lets rip with an impressive emotional range when confronted with the insanity and genius of the Captain's trophy room of compressed planets, declaring, "the concept is simply staggering. Pointless, but staggering." A little like this oddball story, which I couldn't help but enjoy immensely.
Advantages: Douglas Adams' deconstructive debut, featuring a cyborg pirate and his impossible spaceship.
Disadvantages: Distractingly lousy acting and plot inconsistency that won't stand up to repeated viewings.
Doctor Who: Destiny of the Daleks
Again With the Daleks
**
Written on 15.08.06
Tom Baker’s increasingly eccentric fourth Doctor faces the Daleks and their megalomaniacal creator again in this sequel to the classic origin story, ‘Genesis of the Daleks.’ While Davros and his race in the earlier episode were very consciously portrayed as Nazis, and the Daleks thus infinitely worse creatures of evil by extension, ‘Destiny of the Daleks’ sees the pepper pots of the present-day locked in an intergalactic Cold War with another robotic race, both delaying their attack for the time of maximum opportunity that never arrives. This was the last episode penned by Dalek creator Terry Nation.
‘Genesis’ was one of the most popular Who serials, and the next appearance of the ever-popular Daleks had a lot to live up to (especially from the type of people that would call the show ‘Who.’) At four parts, the action is less stretched than the six-part predecessor and there are some nice plot twists, but on the whole it's pretty pointless, the Tardis only arriving on Skaro in the first place due to its 'randomiser' function.
Lalla Ward is introduced as the Doctor’s regenerated assistant Romana, and despite a shaky start she would go on to become one of his most interesting companions, certainly my favourite of the ones I’ve seen, despite the commendable tendency of others to display more skin. Romana’s cosmetic regeneration scene is played for laughs, but the comic timing feels a little uncomfortably off, though it might have just been Tom Baker’s eyes having that effect on me. Ward can still play the screeching damsel-in-distress role essential to the series when required, but her shared background with the Doctor allows for more comfortable banter than was ever really possible with bumbling humans.
Following the regeneration frolics comes a brief scene that establishes the Doctor’s technical ingenuity, which will play a larger role later, and provides the rather contrived reason for K-9’s prop handlers avoiding the unpleasant rocky terrain of Skaro (the dog has some kind of cyber-laryngitis and has to stay in robo-bed). These early scenes may reflect the touch of ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ author Douglas Adams, who even slips in a brief reference to his series when the immobile Doctor reads a book by the fictional Oolon Colluphid. The first part of the serial is the least action-packed, allowing the audience to become accustomed to the new character interaction before a wall falls on Tom Baker and the plot starts to pick up.
Davros’ unveiling is saved for the cliffhanger of the second part, but the scenes that follow are all quite disappointing. David Gooderson lacks the insane delivery of his definitive predecessor Michael Wisher, and to make matters worse, Davros’ wrinkly mask looks false and rubbery, and is being visibly stretched to fit the larger actor’s face. The mothballed scientist is ridiculed and patronised right from the onset as the Doctor offers him a jelly baby; it’s hard to take the character seriously after that. The story constructs a nice parallel between the two adversaries as it draws to a conclusion, not in the league of Luke/Vader or Crichton/Scorpius (I’ve watched too much sci-fi) and sadly lacking the intensity of their first encounter in ‘Genesis,’ most memorably Davros’ enthusiastic daydream of an ultimate virus that would wipe out all life and thus make him a god. Most offensive of all is the farcical ‘robbery of Davros’ scene, overlaid with a ridiculous fun-fair style musical score that makes it seem as if the characters are riding a Davros-faced roller coaster around cheap BBC sets.
It’s disappointing to see the formerly rebellious and independent Daleks crawling back to their creator, a trend that would sadly continue for the rest of the show’s run. Far from the fallible but ruthlessly effective aliens of the earlier years, the Daleks are portrayed here like lost children, desperately seeking the help of their creator to help them win a war and backing off at the slightest hint of a threat. This leads to an enjoyable scene where the Doctor acts the part of a terrorist and straps a bomb to Davros’ wheelchair, barking commands at the Daleks to back away which they reluctantly follow.
Apart from introducing the new Romana and re-introducing Davros to the universe, this episode lacks the epic scale that viewers may have expected. As with most late Tom Baker episodes (especially the excellent ‘City of Death’), there’s a general light-heartedness brought about by the Doctor’s eccentric behaviour and general care-free attitude, almost as if he knows it’s just a TV show, and all the silver-haired extraterrestrial men and women merely players. He dares to taunt a Dalek on the level below with the legendary ‘stairs’ joke that continues to provide material for lazy stand-up comedians, and his ultimate method of escape appears brilliantly improvised, despite being the final nail in the coffin for the Daleks’ scare factor. Even Dalek plungers are seen to have a real use here, attracting metal objects and handing them to Davros. That’s right, not plumbing like Eddie Izzard so wittily imagined. Most humorous of all is a scene where three distinct Daleks voices chant ‘Obey!’ in turn, as one sounds a lot like Zippy from Rainbow.
The series’ oft-criticised special effects hold their own in this episode through their understatement, restricted to blue beams for the Dalek ray guns and some shots of the model Movellan ship landing and hardly shaking at all. The interior of the alien ship appears to be a simple re-dress of the Tardis set, while the ruined interior of the Kaled city from ‘Genesis’ provides an effective contrast to the many exterior scenes that were probably filmed in some quarry or other. The Daleks are a little more colourful than usual, although not to the extent of the earlier Peter Cushing films, and despite the Movellans’ low budget white suits, dark make-up and silver braided wigs, their appearance doesn’t lend itself to instant laughter in the way the Swampmen did two episodes earlier. The only make-up embarrassment is the afore-mentioned Davros, who looks like a melting old woman. It's probably not so bad if the viewer hasn’t seen the character before.
‘Destiny of the Daleks’ is a mediocre Dalek story that can be better appreciated in light of its highly contemporary Cold War parallels. Tim Barlow plays the role of an escaped human prisoner far better than the supporting cast of ‘Genesis of the Daleks’ managed, unhindered by the actor’s deafness. There’s also the throwaway introduction of a new, prominent alien race that would never be seen again, and Daleks who are less scary than ever, who allow Romana to live so she can shift some rocks. The ending of the episode at least invites speculation over what will happen next to the increasingly wussy Daleks.
With the possible exception of entertaining quips like the Doctor’s “if you’re supposed to be the superior creatures of the universe, why don’t you climb up after us?”, there’s nothing legendary in this episode comparable to the powerful “do I have the right?” hesitation of 'Genesis,' resulting in a sequel that is a bland let-down at worst, and a bit of Dalek fun with some funny dialogue at best. Baker's entertaining delivery even renders the Doctor's ludicrous warfare analogy of 'rock, paper, scissors' forgivable, even though it consumes more of the plot than necessary and makes no sense whatsoever.
Advantages: Good dialogue, great outdoor scenes and Tom Baker at his manic best.
Disadvantages: Too many plot holes, and a disappointing return for the series' most popular villains.
Doctor Who: The Five Doctors
Great Balls of Fire!
**
Written on 17.08.07
The BBC’s twentieth anniversary special for Doctor Who was the second in a line of occasional stories to feature multiple incarnations of the titular character as played by (for the most part) the original actors, and is certainly the most crowded. Taking place by chance in Peter Davison’s tenure as the well-mannered, cricket jersey clad Fifth Doctor, writer Terrence Dicks attempts to craft a meaningful plot to intelligently contrive a reason for five Doctors, five of their companions and a whole host of famous enemies to appear together on-screen as the BBC had decreed. Understandably, and perhaps inevitably, the result is less than cosmic.
‘The Five Doctors’ is fundamentally a guilt-free celebration of the programme’s illustrious history, which had aired uninterrupted at this point, and an opportunity for self-indulgence. Unlikely crossovers such as this are usually relegated to the realms of speculative fan fiction, so when a long-running franchise takes such a masturbatory leap, the highly anticipated result (‘Alien vs. Predator,’ Kirk and Picard in ‘Star Trek Generations’) is bound to be a let-down. To its credit, this episode, like many of the more forgettable Doctor Who stories, doesn’t take itself too seriously, despite Dicks’ revelations regarding the history of Gallifrey, the home planet of the Doctor and his race of Time Lords. There are also a couple of unavoidable casting issues that the story has to contend with, most glaringly the absence of the Fourth Doctor from the action due to actor Tom Baker declining to return so soon after leaving the show, and the necessary replacement of the late William Hartnell by another actor portraying his First Doctor, namely Richard Hurndall. Many of the Doctor’s companions from all incarnations are brought back just for the sake of it, with others (especially those unique to the Tom Baker years) being absent. This leaves Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee as the only bona fide original Doctors to play alongside Davison.
As a fan of the Baker era primarily, most episodes I’ve seen being from that period, I was understandably disappointed with the lack of the Fourth Doctor or his companions in this story, leaving me without a clear point of reference. This Doctor and his companion Romana do appear very briefly in an early scene, rowing down a river and having a natter in a sequence from the un-broadcast 1979 episode ‘Shada,’ but the weakest of explanations is provided for their absence from the main plot; the reason seems to be something along the lines of the time scoop malfunctioning for some reason, causing the shadowy figure responsible to slam his fist on the equipment in frustration, and for the Fourth Doctor’s limbo state to be squeezed desperately into a few lines of dialogue concerning the danger it poses for Doctor number five. Or something like that. More amusing is the promotional photo-shoot that saw this episode’s Four Doctors (Hurndall, Troughton, Pertwee and Davison) posing around the wax dummy of the Fourth Doctor borrowed from Tussaud’s Doctor Who exhibit.
The premise of ‘The Five Doctors’ is that someone or something has scooped (or attempted to scoop) each of the Doctor’s incarnations from different points in space and time, as well as a select few of their companions. They have all been deposited in different parts of a grim region that they all soon realise is the infamous Death Zone on Gallifrey, their only hope of returning home or getting to the bottom of all this being a treacherous journey to the fabled Tomb of Rassilon. Each of the Doctors, and those they travel with, are initially dumped in random parts of the wasteland, meeting up at different times and opting to take different routes to the imposing tower, each littered with their old enemies. The presence of bumbling Cybermen, a token Dalek and even a Yeti for the hardcore fans all seem quite arbitrary to the larger plot, and are clearly just a chance to pay homage. More interesting is Anthony Ainley as the Master, a pantomime-like villain whom the Third Doctor even describes as ‘my best enemy,’ but who is at least integral to the mission, and whose mischievous nature keeps the viewer guessing throughout. The Time Lords also feature prominently as expected, allowing for further exploration of their government and society.
The main reason this episode fails is due to the weak and almost childish plot, full of illogical holes once the final twists are over and done with, and amounting to little more than a dungeon adventure with repetitive and incompetent adversaries. The Doctors themselves hold their own, each seeming true to their era of the series from Hurndall’s imitation of Hartnell’s kindly old man to Pertwee’s action hero and Davison’s thoughtful pacifist, but none of the companions does anything other than act moronic and gullible, even those with more experience like Sarah Jane Smith. The First Doctor’s granddaughter Susan is the worst offender, inexplicably showing up nineteen years on from her last appearance and then spraining her ankle so she has to remain behind in the TARDIS for the duration. There are a few scenes that work well, particularly Pertwee and Sarah’s confrontation with a new enemy in the form of the sinister lightning-quick Raston Warrior Robot (which may look stupid, but felt like a serious threat), and the antagonistic dialogue between Pertwee and Troughton’s Doctors, who presumably crossed swords in the earlier ‘The Three Doctors’ but don’t get enough scenes here to amount to anything more than an amusing couple of insults. The rest of the banter between Doctors is truly awful and even cringe-worthy in places, the relentless gags and puns along the lines of ‘be you later’ (they don’t actually use this one, but they’re all just as bad) making for a very weak reunion scene. There’s even a use of the ‘Doctor’/’Who?’ joke.
There’s a conflict of interests here, between this story standing alone as a tribute episode and being part of the 1983 season, as the new viewer is dropped into the Fifth Doctor’s situation with no idea who his companions are, or even, as was the case when I watched it, whether the bloke sitting on the grass getting high on ions was just a random native of whichever Earth-like planet the TARDIS had landed on this time, or a regular character. Much of this story takes place outdoors, and thankfully the quality of the camerawork has improved since the Tom Baker era to the point that location shooting isn’t noticeably worse than the results achieved in a studio (think of the drop in picture quality whenever Basil Fawlty went outside his hotel). Unfortunately, the alien vistas aren’t particularly convincing as anything other than rural England, the Death Zone itself being a fairly amicable set of country lanes that even serve Jon Pertwee’s Whomobile before it’s struck dead with one of the ominous lightning bolts that prove so threatening for several minutes before never being seen again. Of course, there’s the ever-present danger of falling off a reasonably steep grassy bank. In terms of the notorious special effects, there’s very little use of such visuals apart from the floating funnel that scoops up the Doctors, which looks quite good (I believe it’s a more recent re-mastering rather than the original effect however), and a few ray gun blasts that are so small on-screen as to be acceptable.
The first Doctor Who episode to be released on DVD, ‘The Five Doctors’ is a fairly effective celebration of the series that does about as much as can be expected within the defined guidelines. If Tom Baker’s Doctor and his companion (probably his one-time-wife Romana) had been present, the plot would be even more stretched and farcical than it is already, and it wouldn’t have made for a suitable exit for the character. Long-time fans will benefit a little more from the subtle references and in-jokes that it’s obvious are being made between the lines even though I don’t fully understand them, and as an opportunity to get the different Doctors on screen at the same time, however pointless and wasted it may be, it was a nice idea. Not being familiar with the early William Hartnell episodes I can’t say whether Richard Hurndall does a fair impersonation, but the teaser of the original actor’s memorable closing monologue from ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’ is a thoughtful tribute in itself, and a great way to launch into the opening credits. After the series was cancelled in 1989, anniversary episodes and one-off specials tended to be parodies or otherwise comic interpretations of the series, which proved more entertaining. With the revised series now having completed its third year, and appearances already ticked off for Sarah Jane and her stupid robot dog, it remains to be seen whether the surviving actors will feature in a contrived ‘The Fourth to Tenth Doctors’ reunion story, with Tom Baker’s place being taken by that bloke who does his voice in whatever that impressions show is, because Tom can’t be bothered to attend.
I certainly hope not.
Advantages: Wow, characters from the past we thought we'd never see again.
Disadvantages: Lack of Tom Baker, and overall a very weak story.
Doctor Who: Resurrection of the Daleks
How Many Killings?
***
Written on 12.11.07
If this late Dalek serial were to be rated based on body count alone, it would be a damn fine episode. As it stands, Peter Davison’s solitary clash with the Doctor’s most popular foes continues right where Terry Nation signed off with his disappointing swan song ‘Destiny of the Daleks’ and forms the second entirely mediocre Dalek story of the 1980s, a trend that would only be broken with a final, surprising success in the Sylvester McCoy era, when Ben Aaronovitch made the wise decision of ignoring the stagnant continuity that was so tediously built up across these tales in the series’ twilight years (before it, too, was resurrected, of course).
With 1984’s arbitrarily titled ‘Resurrection of the Daleks,’ Eric Saward expands on the Daleks’ situation as Nation unceremoniously left it four years earlier, and once the customary layers of double-crossing are over and done with, the story only gets stupider. When we last caught up with the armour-plated mutants, they were frantically searching for their ancient creator Davros, an unshakeable presence in all Dalek episodes following his introduction in the excellent ‘Genesis of the Daleks,’ which unfortunately refused to be his departure. After Tom Baker’s Doctor succeeded in beating him a second time, the megalomaniac cyborg was sentenced to imprisonment in suspended animation – not execution of course, as that would prevent him from acquiring an inevitable means of escape at a later date and permitting the Doctor Who writers another desperate attempt to win back viewers with the ever-popular enemies.
The Daleks’ motive in ‘Resurrection,’ under the leadership of the Supreme Dalek, is more confusing and irregular. They are now losing in their galactic war against the Movellans, who have unleashed a virus fatal only to Daleks, and desire to free Davros from his ninety-year imprisonment (time moves strangely in this series) in the hope that his scientific superiority will bring about a cure. While it’s good to see the Daleks retaining their independence this time round, after being reduced to lost children in their previous episode, this story is essentially a superfluous and pointless means to get them back on TV screens after an extended absence that – I presume – was due to a lack of worthwhile story ideas, though that didn’t stop them here.
The action is once again based on contemporary Earth, 1984 in this case, though the ultimate reasoning behind this is just about the weakest and most desperate that the series ever put forward. A prison ship housing Davros comes under attack from an enemy vessel, while elsewhere the TARDIS is yanked down a time corridor and winds up near a warehouse in London, filled with strange blue canisters and swarming with British Army personnel. As it becomes clear that this is all another evil Dalek scheme, the Fifth Doctor begins to regret his predecessor’s decision not to wipe them out when he had the chance. He vows not to make the same mistake the next time he comes face-to-face with Davros, which is bound to happen sooner rather than later, as the thawed evil genius hatches a plot to duplicate the Doctor’s body and send his clone to the High Council of the Time Lords on a mission of assassination...
As may be clear from the brief synopsis, there’s a lot going on in these four episodes, and the various plots and stages of duplicity frequently clash in a way that only winds up confusing. Like many episodes of the Eighties, there’s also a strong sense that this was written more for up-to-speed fans than casual viewers interested in seeing a bit of Dalek, and while some touches are harmlessly sentimental, such as the Doctor’s brain scan that brings up visual parade of the role’s previous actors and many of the Doctor’s companions, the background of the Movellan conflict from ‘Destiny’ and in fact all of the revised Dalek mythology from ‘Genesis’ are pretty much required foreknowledge if the Daleks’ plot is going to make any kind of sense. The Doctor himself is rather disappointing in this story, too swamped by ill-fated guest stars and pointless, trouble-making companions to get much time in the spotlight, and even the more pivotal and dramatic scenes in the final part lack the resonance of Tom Baker and his predecessors due to Davison’s naturally less commanding presence. The Daleks themselves fare even worse, thankfully avoiding the stupid, hapless comedy touches that diminished their scare factor in ‘Destiny’ (though one does get shoved out of a window, repeatedly chirping “my vision is impaired, I cannot see”), but retaining their irritating tendency to procrastinate with executions until a more dramatic moment arrives. It’s hard to find them too threatening when they spend an age moving slowly forward to a victim yelling their catch-phrase “exterminate!” and appearing to be so shocked at the occurrence that they forget to actually fire their lasers. They at least get a scary musical theme though, which is quite cool.
Visual effects designer Peter Wragg (later of Red Dwarf) churns out some quite good looking battles and explosions with model spacecraft, but the rest of the effects are mediocre at best, and ludicrous at worst. While the simple tilting and shaking of a camera is a reasonable enough manner to express the effects of the time corridor on the TARDIS, the less said about the shaving foam spewed forth from infected Daleks, the better. Most distracting of all are the invisible laser blasts, which may be more in agreement with real-world physics than the garish blue beams of the Daleks, but even with a sound effect ripped straight from ‘Galaxians’ it makes it very difficult to believe that these people are actually being shot, especially when the victims fall over, after a delay, in what can only be described as a pantomime fashion. The acting in this serial is as disappointing as the script, especially among the lower ranks of cannon fodder extras who completely fail to convince as prison ship officers, despite wearing nifty Thunderbirds-style hats (or perhaps this just makes it worse). There’s one notable guest star in the form of EastEnders’ Les “Dirty Den” Grantham, who plays Davros’ zombified mechanic with a suitable degree of cockney casuality, but the other prominent guest performer Rodney Bewes leaves much to be desired from his low-rent Ian Holm. Terry Molloy becomes the third actor to don the Davros mask and shout too much, and some poor extra has to pretend to be strangled by a slimy Dalek mutant prop twice.
‘Resurrection of the Daleks’ is just another disappointing Dalek story, satisfying the need for Peter Davison’s Doctor to come up against them at least once. The plot is a mix of recycled and contradictory ideas, extending to the predictable cliffhanger endings to each of the four parts that invariably see a Dalek advance towards the Doctor yelling its battle cry – only to be conveniently thwarted within the first second of the next show, and when the eventual contrived revelations arrive, it’s best to allow the brain to switch off for a while. This story is probably most notable for its violence and high body count, as a huge number of extras are seen falling to Dalek rays and their face-mutilating gas attacks, which are actually pretty gruesome. There’s a fair degree of real danger as the Army threatens to shoot Tegan if she attempts to desert the warehouse, and however much this serial takes a dump on the Daleks, the red glow of their leader’s den of evil looks pretty menacing on screen.
The main problem with this story is how seriously it sticks to the dull Dalek mythology that Terry Nation left behind, especially as by the end, nothing has really happened apart from a load of dead, insignificant bodies. Ultimately, this reason is enough for the Doctor’s companion Tegan (Janet Fielding) to call it a day, and her voiced reason for abandoning the Doctor and his adventures can easily be interpreted as the voice of the general public switching off in these declining years: “it stopped being fun.”
Advantages: Again, again with the Daleks. You may be a fan.
Disadvantages: General poor quality across the board, a disappointing confrontation for Davison's Doctor.
Doctor Who: Vengeance on Varos
Let's See What This Purple Passage Has to Offer...
****
Written on 05.11.07
Prior to watching this late episode of the BBC’s long-running sci-fi series, Colin Baker’s chirpy, garishly costumed incarnation of the Doctor was one that had thus far passed me by, entirely by choice. I had nothing against the actor (how could I if I’d avoided his episodes like the Cybermen plague?), but wasn’t too keen on seeing yet another actor struggling to work his way through increasingly disappointing scripts and being forced to wear a ridiculous multi-coloured jacket complete with sickening corporate branding of the question mark motif, that I would guess didn’t help significantly to shift Colin Baker action figures or curly wigs.
The good news is that 1985’s ‘Vengeance on Varos’ is an enjoyable two-parter that stands out in these later years, containing the right mix of tense drama, daft special effects and, perhaps most importantly, smatterings of humour that actually come off as funny, rather than just embarrassing. The episode is based, predictably, on Varos – a former prison colony housed inside a series of domes on an otherwise inhospitable rock, where the hard-working populace is kept in line through threat of executions, doubling up as the principal form of televised entertainment. It’s an interesting Orwellian dystopia that provides a great background for the episode without bogging the viewer down in unnecessary details, but even more impressive are the tale’s parallels to contemporary real-world concerns, as a greedy alien race attempts to monopolise trafficking of the planet’s precious mineral at an unreasonably low cost. As usual the Doctor arrives to sort this dastardly situation out, along with his well-endowed companion Peri, as his time-travelling TARDIS stalls in space and requires Varos’ unique product.
This era of the series was broadcast as extended forty-five minute episodes, similar to American shows, and this two-parter works much better in this format than as a more traditional four-parter that would have severely stretched the concept and spoiled the pace by adding an extra half-hour. The various nefarious technologies of Varos are well conceived enough to hold the viewer’s attention for the duration, most evident in their creative forms of execution such as through genetic manipulation in the ‘transmogrifier,’ and although the essentially human guest cast is fairly average on the whole, it does have one very notable exception in the form of the really commendably unpleasant Sil, an ostensibly aquatic creature who seems like a sort of cross between a tiny Jabba the Hut slug and those fish enemies from ‘Stingray,’ with a tendency to waggle his tongue in a laugh that is quite physically sickening. Nabil Shaban really immerses himself into the role which is great to see, though he does occasionally shout his lines with such vigour that it’s hard to decipher the actual words (I didn’t mind though, I was more amused by how much he sounded like Adrian Edmondson in ‘The Young Ones’).
The planet’s Governor, played by Martin Jarvis, interestingly shifts from being the presumed figurehead of the bad guys to the story’s most sympathetic figure, once it’s revealed that the ruling position is always offered on a short-straw basis, as each decision he is forced to make for the good of society in the long-term is put to vote by the viewing masses and his fate decided by their consensus. The televised theme is the finest touch of these episodes, not only for the funny metafictional endings to each part but primarily for the marginal married couple that are occasionally shown watching the main plot unfold and providing an enjoyable running commentary from their limited domestic perspective. These brief scenes move from creepy dark humour, as the husband complains about the lack of decent executions on the airwaves nowadays, to more serious life-and-death rivalry as the couple’s ideologies clash over the escalating political situation and she threatens to turn him in for his rebellious sympathies, but being Doctor Who it all ends happily ever after. Most entertaining is their relaxed, couch potato reaction to the planet’s first alien contact in the form of the Doctor, who the wife supports because she likes his funny clothes.
The major drawback of the plot is the Doctor’s customary invincibility and reliance on phenomenal luck, even leading to a really disappointing deus ex machina ending that comes out of nowhere to sort the situation out. To their credit the bad guys are quite effective, despite an unwise tendency to leap into vats of bubbling green acid when surprised, consistently tracking and trapping the Doctor and his fellow rebels as they move about the complex. There’s one particularly silly scene that’s entirely forgivable as it works so well, as a guard dismisses the pivotal arrival of the TARDIS and its colourful occupants as a mere malfunction of his “anti-hallucination helmet” –the most humorously named alien gadget I’ve come across in a while. The traps themselves become ever more ludicrous as the episode goes on, from the illusion of a gigantic fly to the ultimate last-ditch effort of sending out the honking, cannibalistic old men in nappies. Like I said, this episode does have its drawbacks.
‘Vengeance on Varos’ is a solid ninety-minute story with good pacing, some funny scenes and some downright ludicrous ones too, but it still doesn’t stand up to the series’ much greater successes during its peak in the 1970s. There’s a fortunate lack of alienating references to other episodes that casual viewers may not have seen and certainly won’t remember, and some nice make-up as Peri changes into a bird, but its dystopian setting has been done many times before. Colin Baker is well suited to the Doctor, lacking the commanding presence his older brother had in the role (that was just a joke to momentarily tease you, there’s no relation to Tom Baker) and wearing a really crap costume, but he seems genuinely comfortable with the performance – it’s just a shame the script treats the character so inconsistently, beginning as a bumbling incompetent and suddenly becoming all-knowing. His companion Peri also does little beyond the damsel-in-distress role, but her tight catsuit and respectable cleavage will probably be enough to satisfy most fans, even if her clearly faked American accent is pretty horrible. If you plan on braving the Colin Baker era, this is a good place to start: just try not to watch Sil while you’re eating. You will vomit.
Advantages: An entertaining and darkly humorous adventure.
Disadvantages: Some weak characterisation and reliance on fortunate happenstance.
Doctor Who: Remembrance of the Daleks
Always Judge a Man by the Quality of His Enemies
****
Written on 31.08.07
The last Dalek episode to be produced for seventeen years, Ben Aaronovitch’s ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’ finally draws the long-running feud between the Doctor and the mutated killing machines to a conclusive finale, just in time for the show’s sudden cancellation a year later. The most iconic villains of Doctor Who, the Daleks first appeared as early as the second serial in 1963, although this twenty-fifth anniversary special (of sorts) opts instead to revisit the location of the very first episode ever produced, ‘An Unearthly Child.’
As an unofficial anniversary episode, this four-part serial does feel a little bit like a present for hardcore fans, but for the most part the celebratory in-jokes and references aren’t allowed to interfere with the main story, to the extent that those less familiar with the series would have to Wikipedia it to get that information. As a late Doctor Who episode, when the series was in a state of creative and popular decline, ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’ is actually a surprisingly enjoyable story, especially for managing to pull off yet another Dalek plot and make it interesting. The pepper-pot menace was effectively re-introduced in the classic Tom Baker-era story ‘Genesis of the Daleks,’ complete with less than subtle Nazi overtones and an ugly, maniacal leader in the form of Davros, but every episode produced thereafter saw the Daleks deteriorate into brainless, unthreatening and ridiculous adversaries. While such traits are still present in sections of this episode, particularly towards the end, it largely succeeds in giving the armour-clad mutants a satisfying send-off, from an extended conflict demonstrating the power of a single Dalek unit to some amusingly chilling revelations clearly targeted directly at terrorising young viewers: the Daleks can float upstairs, and their base of operations is in the school cellar!
Much has been said about Sylvester McCoy’s performance as the Seventh Doctor being below par in his first year, but as this second year episode is the earliest of his era that I’ve seen, I’m not able to comment on the change. McCoy is certainly a very distinctive Doctor, if a little less imposing than I’m used to, and he maintains an air of cool and professional practicality and detachment throughout the episode as he struggles with his own conscience. He has a great scene in a bar with Joseph Marcell, debating the consequences of noble actions, which can pass viewers by at first, but is a key scene to understanding the later developments when looking back. There are a number of such scenes well integrated into the plot that are satisfyingly played out by the end, providing a reason for characters’ treacheries and offering an implicit final, thoughtful parallel between the evil menace from Skaro and one a little closer to home. The threat of a species called... neo-Nazis.
Set in 1963, contemporary for the first William Hartnell episode but now itself a relic, this episode is a thoughtful and intelligent look at some of the changes that have occurred in the years between, when Doctor Who had broadcast uninterrupted. The most obvious is the historical oddity of the Doctor’s young companion Ace, whose punky attire and modern cassette decks are out of place in the earlier context in the same way that Rose’s mobile phone shocks people from Ace’s own era in the new series (yes, I’ve been watching that too). Left unspoken are some of the sociological advances made since the early days of the series, summed up perfectly in Ace’s visible disgust at finding a ‘No Coloureds’ sign on the residence she is occupying. Sophie Aldred isn’t the best actress Doctor Who has ever had, her feisty teenager reminding me more of a children’s drama series (the actress was twenty-six at the time), but I’m prepared to forgive this for the services she provided in teaching me how to write, as the kind-voiced presenter of ‘Words and Pictures’ among other educational shows I grew up with. The character is given some quite emotionally challenging scenes which Aldred doesn’t really pull off in a convincing way – though in her defence she isn’t given dialogue more cutting than “you toerag!” – but fortunately the rest of the cast is quite impressive, including the late George Sewell who I remember as the spoons-playing boss from ‘The Detectives’ a little later in my childhood.
The pacing of this episode is quite good, never really getting dull across the two hours and throwing up a few twists well before the final part to keep the momentum going. Once again I have a bit of a problem with the repetitive cliffhanger endings for parts one and two, both of which end with a main character (first the Doctor, and then Ace) being approached by extermination-hungry Daleks and then getting saved within the first two seconds of the next episode, and as a self-conscious grand finale to the Dalek and Davros arc that began in 1975, the Doctor is forced to indulge viewers (through Ace’s questioning) in some slightly dull back-story concerning the Daleks themselves and the Hand of Omega for which they are searching, which actually left me more confused than I’d started after their brief conversation on the stairs. It’s great to see the Doctor manipulating characters into carrying out his own intentions, even if his initial lack of guilt at bringing the Dalek threat back to Earth is a little odd (though all explained by the final part), and though there is much to debate about the finale, it’s very interesting to see first-hand that the Doctor’s views and judgements can be changed by time and experience.
On the technical side of things, by this point in the show’s ill-fated history the special effects were really starting to catch up with the writers’ imaginations, as this episode looks really great. The Dalek model has never really dated, despite being updated slightly ever so often, and the large shuttlecraft model looks really good in the school playground. The opening pull-back-and-reveal of 1960s Earth to the approaching Dalek ship is an effective homage to the opening of ‘Star Wars,’ and the Dalek effects have never been better: the extermination blasts are simplistic and to-the-point, the hovering device looks convincing, and the transmat teleportation effect is extremely nicely done, the mutated interior of the Dalek appearing to materialise slightly ahead of the armoured shell. Unfortunately, the garish eighties opening titles look extremely dated, attempting primitive CGI in place of the classic Kaleidoscope effect of the seventies, but the variation on the theme music is quite nice. Less impressive is the incidental music composed for the episodes themselves, which is often incredibly obstructive and irritating synthesised rock that feels completely out of place with the action. The creepy child character is also given a very silly and stereotypical ‘creepy child’ horror style theme that started to get on my nerves, but I was fortunately able to find it amusing at the same time.
‘Remembrance of the Daleks’ is certainly an episode designed with fans in mind, and as such may serve to put off casual viewers with its frequent references to past episodes and incidents, but for the most part a balance is maintained. It’s undoubtedly the best Dalek story since ‘Genesis of the Daleks,’ keeping them terrifying (even if they are revealed to be ridiculously bad shots when shooting stationary targets at close range) and treating the viewers with intelligence – perhaps a bit too much intelligence in my case, as I’ve only realised some of the more subtle plot points in writing this review. I’ve avoided the later Doctors of the original series before now, but found McCoy suitably intriguing and devious here that I’ll have to check out some more. Even if it means putting up with Sophie Aldred’s spunky teen in her formative years, before she ditched the baseball bat for Magic Pencil.
Advantages: Intelligent return of the series’ most popular villains.
Disadvantages: Weak moments in the final part, and over-reliance on tense cliffhangers.
Doctor Who: The Happiness Patrol
As You're Squeezing Me, Your Candy Hand Tightens Around Your Own Throat
****
Written on 29.10.07
Oh my god.
I’m guessing that was the reaction of Doctor Who’s remaining viewers when presented with this astonishing serial in the show’s penultimate year before cancellation, and it still packs a wallop almost twenty years later. Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor and his companion Ace (Sophie Aldred) arrive on a dystopian world in which sadness is outlawed on punishment of execution, carried out by the highly memorable Kandy Man: a ridiculous, high-voiced robot made of sweets, in the style of Bertie Bassett.
It’s easy to see why many fans and casual viewers dismiss this episode as the point at which the declining series lost the plot completely, with its farcical scenario, ludicrous ideas and abundance of pink. But choosing to be difficult as always (and to enforce my obviously superior opinions), I have to say that ‘The Happiness Patrol’ is one of the most entertaining and creative Doctor Who serials I’ve seen. I’m not even being sarcastic when I say that I think it’s great.
What’s not to love? At a mere three episodes the plot never feels stretched, especially in comparison to many other serials, and its melding of a traditionally bleak totalitarian scenario with loads of stuff about sweets creates something along the lines of a sinister meeting of ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ and ‘Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory,’ both visually and thematically. The Kandy Man himself, not the focal point but clearly the most memorable feature of the episodes for better or worse, is obviously completely ludicrous, spending most of his scenes screeching to his creator and co-worker Gilbert for help as he repeatedly falls for the Doctor’s traps, which commendably manage to be both inspired and stupid at the same time. He and Gilbert share some of the most laughable dialogue ever broadcast on television, and I couldn’t care less if this humour was intentional or merely a side effect of the absurdity that was somehow unforeseen, it makes me laugh either way.
Even on the more serious side, this episode works quite well in presenting a bleak and ironic colony based on shallow merriment, created by the ceaseless piping of lift muzak through speakers and compulsory distribution of sweets, even if the Doctor’s care-free, invincible attitude prevents it from ever seeming threatening. He and Ace allow themselves to be incarcerated merely to see what they’re up against on their self-proclaimed mission to sort this planet out, and throughout the three episodes we see McCoy’s Doctor strolling casually between pivotal enemy locations and conversing with key bad guys without evoking suspicion, even when discussion is carried out down the barrel of a ray rifle. Fortunately, he shows genuine concern for Ace when she seems to be in danger, and acts according to a clear moral compass that prevents him from reverting to the merely silly figure of earlier episodes. His ultimate solution to save the lives of the protesting ‘killjoys,’ as the Happiness Patrol refers to those who refuse to embrace their superficial form of contentment, is a little easy but nevertheless logical, and we should all be thankful that his brief flirtation with blues singing is cut mercifully short by the intrusion of Earl’s harmonica.
Ace is worked nicely into this episode, as Aldred continues to channel the character’s strong sense of principles displayed throughout the more serious ‘Remembrance of the Daleks,’ when immersed in this corrupt society. It’s quite a girl power episode with the nefarious Helen A making up for what she lacks in presence and intimidation by sticking rigidly to her own beliefs that what she is doing, ostensibly a way to reduce population overcrowding, is truly for the greater good, though it’s a little hard to remember who is who through all the powdered faces and pink wigs. Even the proficient puppet sniffer rat-dog Fifi keeps up the child-scaring side of things (presumably writer Graeme Curry decided that the Kandy Man wouldn’t really satisfy this requirement), and as well as providing those necessary chase scenes to keep up the action and running-about quotient, her ultimate fate makes for quite a nice and satisfying ending to the story. Despite the shorter episode count and prominence of the main plot, Curry still manages to squeeze in a number of memorable supporting roles that help to flesh out the story significantly, from the Doctor’s harmonica-playing friend Earl, a black American helping to add an exotic flavour, to the series’ more typical well-spoken, white old Englishmen, whose scenes are of little interest right up until the bizarre homo-erotic finale. A fragile story like this could be ruined significantly if any of the actors paid too much thought to some of the script’s more absurd notions, but fortunately it’s all played straight, with the right levels of fear and despair when called for – though to be honest, McCoy’s lousy attempt to pull a concerned face at the end of episode one makes for a pretty unconvincing cliffhanger.
After the liberating exterior locations of ‘Remembrance,’ the return to claustrophobic sets is a little disappointing, but this episode succeeds in putting across a distinctive look that perfectly matches its tone, from the dimly lit grey alleyways revealing its film noir influence to the brighter lair of Helen A, the customary lab/factory of the Kandy Man and the convincing pipe tunnels beneath the city. Some of the props look pretty cheap, particularly the wireframe golf carts acting as the preferred method of transportation, but the alien designs of Fifi, the Pipe People and even the Kandy Man are all a credit to the production team, working as they were with such small budgets. One distracting feature of the episode is the editing, which seems to cut away from scenes slightly too early with frustrating regularity as if the episodes were over-running and had to be trimmed by precious milliseconds at any opportunity, though watching it back two decades later, along with the bright studio lighting, it allows for a certain nostalgia over old BBC productions, something that’s also helped by the shockingly poor early computer effects used for this series’ opening titles.
Although long available on VHS video, ‘The Happiness Patrol’ has yet to feature in the BBC’s seemingly random schedule of Doctor Who DVD releases, but when that inevitable day arrives it will surely be greeted with a mixture of excitement and disgust. I may be completely wrong – this episode might just be the most offensive, steaming pat ever defecated by the British Broadcasting Corporation – but it made me laugh, cry and nod my head in ethical concurrence. Alright, it didn’t make me cry. I’m not that weird.
Picture of the Kandy Man: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/ce/Kandy_Man.jpg
Advantages: One of the most bizarre and absurd Doctor Who serials.
Disadvantages: One of the most bizarre and absurd Doctor Who serials.
F
21st Century Sci-Fi!
*****
Written on 04.09.03
Farscape is as close to post-modern sci-fi as you'll likely see for some time, and it's set right here in the 21st century... just in a very different part of the universe to what we're used to.
The decline of Star Trek in recent years, with the increasingly less creative Voyager and Enterprise, has caused newer and fresher television series to take over as the leading shows of 'modern sci-fi.' None are more original, interesting or enjoyable than Rockne S. Bannon's acclaimed "Farscape." Farscape's premise is as follows: an American astronaut, John Crichton, is on a test flight in Earth's orbit when his module becomes engulfed by a wormhole. This phenomenon sends Crichton to an undefined part of the universe, where he is taken aboard a living ship, a Leviathan called Moya, crewed by escaped prisoners in the midst of a conflict. Crichton becomes accepted by the bizarre characters and is content to remain with them aboard Moya, hoping to find another wormhole that will lead him home.
If Farscape's premise sounds like a mix of 'classic' science fiction TV shows, this is far from accidental. Often heralded as the new Buck Rogers or Blakes 7, Farscape manages to incorporate these elements of successful shows while also remaining unique and original. The alien creatures encountered over the seasons often stretch far beyond bizarre, while episodes can vary from clichés such as shrinking to groundbreaking and inventive concepts such as the show's main storyline, and even a partially animated episode. For all the programme's humour and silliness, there are also a large number of moral decision-making episodes in the style of many a classic Star Trek plot. It would be easy to call Farscape a very modern sci-fi show, or indeed one that's ahead of its time.
While providing enjoyable storylines and characters, Farscape is also aided a great deal by high quality computer effects to show planets, spacecraft and alien life forms that seem believable. And as for the puppets, so what if you can see the mould ridges; they look great!
Ben Browder manages to make the main character of Crichton believable as a man forced to live what may be the rest of his days with a load of aliens, and Crichton's sarcasm, humour and general instability over the years will no doubt be due in a large part to the actor's skills and ad-libs. The other main characters on Farscape are all aliens, but some don't show it. The Sebacean Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black) starts as someone with whom Crichton can have heated debates about the sexes, eventually becoming the astronaut's lover. D'argo (Anthony Simcoe), a big Luxan man with a huge sword, facial hair and plenty of tentacles acts as a much more likeable token Worf-style character, proud of his honour but also capable of cracking the occasional joke and losing his temper without much provocation.
The Delvian blue, bald woman Zhaan (Virginia Hey) eventually leaves the series in season three, which doesn?t help in keeping the sanity level aboard Moya particularly high, while the introduction of care-free Nebari greyish woman Chi'ana (Gigi Edgley) at the end of season one makes sure the show gets plenty of playful and sexy scenes to keep viewers alert. As the show progresses, familiar faces become less of a presence and other characters are constantly introduced, but the only major additions to Moya's crew and allies over the years are Peacekeeper bad guy-turned-ally, although by no means by choice, Bialar Crais (Lani Tupu), metal-faced slave Stark (Paul Goddard) and enemy turned enemy-in-captivity-who's-still-not-trusted, Scorpius (Wayne Pygram). The Jim Henson creature shop characters of Pilot and Rygel also integrate into every episode to the point where you often forget they?re made of rubber.
The main 'mythology' plot of Farscape begins towards the end of the first season, with the excellent "The Hidden Memory." Crichton?s nemesis Scorpius, leather clad and hell-bent on obtaining wormhole knowledge from John's mind, is introduced as the series' main villain to replace the unintimidating "insane military commander" Bialar Crais who never seemed too much of a threat in the pilot episode. Towards the end of the second season, Crichton becomes increasingly erratic and deranged as a mental clone of Scorpius, implanted when his mind was probed unsuccessfully for knowledge of wormholes, begins to take over. Even when the computer chip is removed from Crichton's brain, the clone remains behind, leading to all manner of wacky scenes taking place inside John's mind. In the final season, Scorpius is disowned by the Peacekeepers and forced to seek refuge aboard Moya.
It's a very complex plot that does not consume too many episodes in itself, but is intricately woven into the stand-alone shows in a way that makes it a constant presence, often with funny consequences. Scenes taking place in Crichton's deranged mind are always a guaranteed enjoyable experience. The only problem with continuing plot threads is that they can alienate casual viewers, which was apparently the primary reason that Farscape was not permitted to continue for a fifth season by the Sci-Fi channel.
Reasons to watch Farscape, if you've been aware of it for some time but never decided to watch, like me, are the excellent episodes, great characters and spectacular visual effects. If you're a fan of sci-fi like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine or Stargate SG-1, where a main storyline dictates the course of many episodes but also leaves room for plenty of unrelated shows, then you'll love Farscape. And don't let yourself be put off by the puppets, it's more interesting than seeing human-shaped adversaries every week. The series may be over, for now, but the franchise is far from fading away; last I heard there was talk of continuing Farscape with an animated feature, and if enough new fans start to discover the show, like I did, there's every reason it can continue in some form in the future.
Farscape will truly set the mould for future adventure sci-fi series over the next decade, and any claims that it is the new Star Trek or Star Wars are well deserved. The show's presence on Australia's Channel 9 and weekly 6.45pm Monday slot in the UK on BBC2 for four years guaranteed many viewers in both countries, and hopefully repeat runs by both channels, along with more major stations in the US, will help Farscape in getting recognised or discovered the way the original Star Trek series went from a cult following in the 60s to the most mainstream television phenomenon of the 70s through repeated showings. The show is not currently airing on BBC2, but can be seen daily on Sci-Fi channel on Sky Digital.
At present it's only been gone for a year, production-wise, so it doesn't look like the adventures of John Crichton are old news just yet...
Advantages: Excellent and inventive sci-fi, Characters and situations are very enjoyable, Looks great
Disadvantages: Not all episodes are guaranteed sci-fi classics, but this can be said of every show (unless you're a bit strange)
Farscape – Season 1, Vol. 1
Shot Through a Wormhole, Trying to Stay Alive...
****
Written on 09.04.04
Farscape is truly a post-modern sci-fi show, if such a definition exists. The basic premise of an astronaut ending up in a distant location, on a ship of escaped convicts, seems like a simple mix of Buck Rogers and Blake's 7, but ingenious storytelling, fantastic character development and a talent for both humour and incredibly dark, emotional storytelling have earned it a huge cult following internationally that led to an uproar when the Sci-Fi channel cancelled the show after its fourth year. In the tradition of classic Star Trek, the efforts of fans worldwide through the 'Save Farscape' campaign have now led to a new mini-series to tie up loose threads before deciding the future of the franchise, and production is nearing an end on this series.
Unlike episodic sci-fi series such as the popular Star Trek: The Next Generation, Farscape follows in the tradition of shows such as Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Buffy the Vampire Slayer in that its stand-alone episodes are often integrated into a number of continuing and developing plots that span the series' entire run. This first boxset, released by Contender Entertainment Group in the UK and ADV vision in America, features the first four episodes of Farscape and as such are essential viewing for any fans of the show. A show's first year is notoriously difficult to execute, and while some of Farscape's finest episodes occur later in this first year, it does take some time for the show to "find its feet" in order to continue telling interesting and emotional stories.
EPISODES
1.01 - PREMIERE
The necessary pilot episode for the show sees all-round American John Crichton (Ben Browder) accidentally creating a "wormhole" in space during the test flight of his Farscape One module in Earth's orbit. With no time to assess what has happened to Earth or why there is an intergalactic battle raging around him, John is caught in some sort of tractor beam and taken aboard a huge, brown, elegant space vessel that he describes as "big... really big."
That ship is Moya, a living Leviathan fusion of biological and technological parts on which criminals are transported. John is directed towards the command centre by the ship's small service robot DRDs, and is injected with translator microbes by these machines so he can understand the words being shouted at him by the big guy with tentacles who has hold of his throat.
As the action progresses it becomes clear that the aliens have escaped from their prison cells and are under attack from the oppressive Peacekeepers, a military race that appear human to the naked eye but who are in fact Sebacean. Moya's Pilot, a living being fused to the ship's systems, manages to execute a StarBurst manoeuvre that puts they some distance from the fighting and allows everyone to clear their heads. John is not trusted initially due to his resembling a Peacekeeper, but his experience with gravitational manoeuvres proves his worth and he slowly gains the aliens' trust, while having to come to terms with the fact that the Peacekeeper Captain Crais, a man who believes John deliberately charged his brother's ship and killed him, is after his blood.
VERDICT: This pilot episode introduces everything necessary to the show; it is full of action and discovery, and most of the regular characters are introduced. John is the everyman whose human values and outlook account for the viewer's perspective of the bizarre situations he finds himself in, while the aliens look great. The big guy with tentacles is D'argo, a young Luxan warrior who could at first be seen as a bit of a "Worf" (from Star Trek) character, but who develops as the series progresses. Zhaan is a bald, blue priest from Delvia, whose calm and spiritual nature has been self-taught following her violent past. Aeryn Sun is a Peacekeeper, stranded aboard Moya after she escapes and deemed "irreversibly contaminated" by Crais. Rygel XVI, one of the Jim Henson company's remarkable animatronic characters, is a manipulative and self-serving deposed royal, who is a far cry from Kermit but who still manages to be likeable. Finally, the ship's Pilot is a huge and very convincing animatronic character, possibly the most level-headed of the bunch and certainly the one without whom the crew would be stranded.
There are also excellent visual effects on the commerce planet and during the battles, while Subvision's mix of electronic, tribal and symphonic music is used to its full potential here. Once the series gets into full-swing the storylines that begun here start to get solved and then twisted into something far more enjoyable, but this works as a solid pilot episode that gives viewers a hint of what to expect. 7/10
1.02 - THRONE FOR A LOSS
The fourth episode to be filmed, this was moved ahead of schedule as it is more exciting. The series' main storylines are not expanded upon in this first batch of episodes, but it is interesting to see the development of character friendships and hostilities.
In this episode, Moya is orbiting a planet in order to acquire food for the crew, when a group of local Tavlek warriors march on board and steal Rygel, who they believe to the crew's leader. It seems that the Tavleks earn their pay as mercenaries and through hostage ransoms, and their weapon of choice is an armban d gauntlet device that fires energy. Having salvaged one, it becomes obvious tp the crew of Moya that these devices can damage the user's mind as D'argo becomes even more aggressive and arrogant than usual, and while Rygel isn't really worth risking their necks, the crew become concerned for their comrade when it transpires that he has stolen an essential part of Moya's systems that she needs in order to StarBurst. A gung-ho trip to the planet seems the only option, as long as the gauntlet users can keep their heads.
VERDICT: Much more fun than the first episode, this sees the beginning of the antagonistic friendship between John and D'argo, and the first hints of atrraction from John towards the stoic Aeryn. The action is fast-paced, and writer Richard manning inserts plenty of what would become token Farscape humour, while the episode never slips into the trap of being too silly or "for the sake of it." Farscape is world beyond the badly-planned sex-fest of shows such as Lexx.
1.03 - BACK & BACK & BACK TO THE FUTURE
D'argo allows a crippled ship to dock inside Moya as they are a race that the Luxans are allies with, but an encounter with the technology on board causes John to experience strange flashes of the future which progress in intensity and frequency until it is really not clear which time frame he is inhabiting.
VERDICT: More of a cerebral episode, the time traveller plot has been done to death in other sci-fi series, but the Farscape take is still original. Some hints of sexual scenes also indicate that despite the Jim Henson logo, this is not a show for children.
1.04 - I, ET
The second episode in production order, this is quite weak in terms of storyline and was moved further down the line, although the crew's distrust of one another makes more sense when viewed in the original production order. Essentially, Moya crash-lands on a swamp on a world not unlike 20th century Earth, and John finds himself in a situation in which he is the extraterrestrial being hunted by the Government.
VERDICT: Some good character scenes and fantastic special effects of Moya crashlanding do not make this a memorable episode, but it's interesting to see the curious and innocent John Crichton of this episode, compared to the much darker and hardened character he becomes through his experiences later on.
SPECIAL FEATURES
The first disc includes a documentary behind-the-scenes on all the aspects of Farscape's early days, with interviews conducted with the producers, the Creature Shop and the principal actors, however this in itself damages the special features of the later discs as their interviews form the bulk of this feature.
Farscape is the most original sci-fi series in years, and is certainly the antidote to the heaps of re-hashed Star Trek ideas currently in production. Now re-released as one of five slimline cases within the season 1 boxset, this DVD includes audio commentaries for all four episodes: 'Premiere,' with series creator and prominent writer Rockne S. O'Bannon, executive producer Brian Henson and star Ben Browder (John Crichton); 'Throne For a Loss' with stars Ben Browder and Claudia Black (Aeryn Sun); 'Back & Back & Back to the Future' with Ben Browder and director Rowan Woods; and 'I, ET' with stars Claudia Black an d Anthony Simcoe (Ka D'argo).
Farscape's first season gets off to an acceptable and enjoyable start, and the remarkable potential is clear from the outset. However, these episodes do not show Farscape at its creative, exciting, funny and original best and would not be recommended to any newcomers to the show; later episodes may prove difficult to follow at first, but display what a unique and unappreciated show Farscape can be. The series' entire run is constantly being repeated at 5pm and 11am on the UK's sci-fi channel and used to inhabit a BBC2 prime-time slot until the series ceased production. An excellent Farscape website for the latest news on the mini-series, a forum and in-depth episode reviews and guides can be found at farscapeworld.com
Advantages: Fantastic sci-fi series, despite these episodes not showing it at its very best, Excellent acting, characters, special effects, music and plot, Interesting audio commentraies and documentary
Disadvantages: The series has not become the masterpiece it would later be
I Hate When Villains Quote Shakespeare
*****
Written on 05.07.06
The second season of the Jim Henson Company’s recent science-fiction series Farscape remains one of the most impressive of the show’s four years. Striking an excellent balance between whimsical space adventure and more serious, epic tales, this batch of 22 forty-five minute episodes features some of the show’s finest, even if the quality, tone and general direction of the episodes is somewhat inconsistent.
Season opener ‘Mind the Baby’ concludes the threads left dangling from the previous year as quickly as possible before launching into a new season of developing romantic relationships, the return of long-lost sons (including that of the living ship), alien mind cleansing, epileptic pulse gun battles and a man pushed to the brink of destructive, schizophrenic insanity. Farscape is high quality sci-fi for sci-fi fans bored of flawless starships crews, transporters, technobabble solutions and shield failure percentages, and avoids the ‘reset button’ formula by featuring characters who really do grow and learn from their triumphs and mistakes.
As explained in the brief voice-over introduction on the opening credits to each episode, Farscape is essentially the story of displaced human astronaut John Crichton, roaming and struggling to survive in a hostile, unknown area of the universe aboard a living ship crewed by escaped prisoners of various alien species, some of whom are closer to human than others. The voice-over from season two remains unchanged since the first series, despite significant changes to the storyline over the final episodes of that season, but it still works. Although Crichton’s stated goal is still “just trying to get home,” this unlikely agenda is delayed in season two as Moya’s crew generally attempt to lurk out of sight of their leather-clad nemesis Scorpius, the “insane military commander” intent on obtaining the secrets to wormhole travel that lie, reluctantly, in Crichton’s subconscious.
This is undoubtedly the best year of the show for the character ensemble, as the show began to focus intensely on Crichton/Scorpius (the hunt) and Crichton/Aeryn (the love) dynamics in the following years. ‘Taking the Stone’ and ‘A Clockwork Nebari’ are the closest Chiana fans will get to an episode focussing on that particular character, and although D’argo is especially prominent in ‘Liars, Guns and Money’ during the search for his long-lost son, the only true episode dedicated to the character is the below average ‘Vitas Mortis.’ Always uninteresting, Zhaan’s time to shine comes in ‘Dream a Little Dream’ and ‘The Locket,’ and even the ship’s animatronic Pilot gets a unique exploration in ‘The Way We Weren’t,’ a powerful episode for Aeryn also, and one of the series’ finest.
The later years of the series are more focused on maintaining and escalating the show’s primary story arcs, and season two is the final year that retains the innocence of throwaway stand-alone episodes. That said, it’s usually the episodes that comment upon the series’ main plot – namely Crichton’s increasingly erratic behaviour due to a neural implant placed in his brain by Scorpius – that fare better. There are some excellent comedy episodes in the form of the fun body-swapper ‘Out of Their Minds,’ the strange ‘Crackers Don’t Matter’ and the insane ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again,’ as well as some darker and more experimental offerings in the second half. The Crichton/Scorpius plot lurks behind many episodes, but is only allowed to dominate the end of the season in the brilliant and action-packed ‘Liars, Guns and Money’ trilogy and the emotional ‘Die Me, Dichotomy.’ The season boasts another trilogy, the earlier ‘Look at the Princess,’ which is a great stand-alone piece concerning Crichton’s marriage to a Princess under some truly appalling conditions, including transformation to a statue, decapitation and an enforced spacewalk without a spacesuit.
Unlike most sci-fi series, Farscape found its feet at a surprisingly early point, arguably as early as episode seven of its first season, and by the start of season two the writers have ironed out almost everything that was awry with its predecessor: characters who were unsuccessful as villains have been usurped by meaner foes and are now allies; the character dynamic is excellent; and there are fewer shows that offer nothing but a waste of time, excluding the second and third episodes of season two which are disappointing. Farscape never sought mass popularity, but was successful at achieving the die-hard fan base typical of involved, complex TV dramas. More Star Wars than Star Trek, but with more interesting characters, more colourful sets and more swearing, Farscape offers excellent and addictive viewing, and season two is a perfect place to start. It avoids the varying quality of the still-excellent first season, but doesn’t require as much in the way of off-putting plot and character knowledge as the third and fourth years. There are lots of funny-looking aliens and stuff too.
The DVD boxsets of Farscape are a bit of a let-down, mainly in terms of price. Seasons one and two commonly retail at around 40 pounds on retailers such as Amazon.co.uk, which although still fairly expensive is still a drastic drop from the 70-80 pounds R.R.P. As well as every episode in perfect quality and original unbroadcast, uncut form (especially notable in a disturbing eyeball-removal scene and an oddly controversial head butt that pushed the UK age classification up to 18 for the set), buyers get a selection of behind-the-scenes interviews with enthusiastic cast members, and several audio commentaries. These commentaries are a bit disappointing, as they’re always so arbitrary on Farscape boxsets, tending to appear only on early episodes or, occasionally, those that are somehow notable, for example fan favourites or those written by a cast member. The commentary on episode one, ‘Mind the Baby,’ did however help me to spot one of the show’s very rare glaring bloopers in the form of a very visible stage-hand’s hand holding up a shaky prop. My other reasonable gripes with these DVD, again common to all Farscape releases, is the lack of subtitles or audio options (aside from afore-mentioned commentaries) and the sheer quantity of un-skippable company logos on insertion of each disc that becomes irritating and adds at least a full minute of corporate hypnosis to the otherwise jovial viewing time.
Season two isn’t quite Farscape at its creative and dramatic peak, but as the plot builds to the epic conclusion, it certainly shows signs of getting there. While the curious mystery plot thread is enthralling throughout the season on first viewing, as Crichton receives occasional and increasing ‘flashes’ of Scorpius that seem only to drive the enemies closer together, once the mystery is solved and the plot dealt with, it can seem like too much foreshadowing on repeated viewings, even if the excellent subtlety of early ‘neural clone’ appearances can only be fully appreciated in hindsight. There are one or two too many random episodes, but for newcomers to the series, that’s not necessarily a bad thing as these maintain the distinctive Farscape style without the excessive burden of story arcs. The principle cast is all excellent, evidenced in the body-swap episodes where Ben Browder (Crichton) does fantastic impressions of Rygel and Aeryn, and Claudia Black (Aeryn) vice-versa, and the computer generated special effects are of the highest quality that can be expected of a TV budget at the time. The DVD set only really fails on price, something that can be avoided by seeking out imports (such as Region 4 DVDs from Australia) which are often much better value, if your DVD player can play them.
In Farscape, bad guys win, and nice guys are put through hell until they become murderers and terrorists themselves. Infinitely resourceful and patient, and always one step ahead, Scorpius is the perfect villain, and as his reasoning becomes clear it becomes difficult not to sympathise with his quest. Even if Crichton’s brain must be dissected to help accomplish it. As Crichtin points out to his shipmate Chiana when she realises she won’t see her brother again, ‘since when do people like us get what we want?’
Advantages: Some of the series' strongest episodes and character development
Disadvantages: Too many unimpressive offerings in the season's first half
Farscape – Season 2, Vol. 5
A Tiny Seed... That's Been Growing in Your Brain
*****
Written on 20.09.04
The fifth DVD box set of Farscape's second season contains what I consider to be the three finest hours of the hit adventure series, and in television history on the whole. A truly epic finale to an otherwise hit-and-miss second year, the 'Liars, Guns and Money' trilogy and the concluding 'Die Me, Dichotomy' expand the series' premise beyond all expectations and provide, through tense drama, explosive action and debilitating loss, something that everyone can enjoy, irrespective of their previous feelings towards the genre.
WHAT IS FARSCAPE?
My name is John Crichton...I'm lost...an astronaut...shot through a wormhole...in a distant part of the universe...trying to stay alive...aboard this ship...this living ship...of escaped prisoners...my friends...If you can hear me...beware...If I make it back...will they follow?...If I open the door...are you ready?...Earth is unprepared...helpless...for the nightmares I've seen...Or should I stay...protect my home...not show them that you exist?...But then you'll never know...the wonders I've seen...”
Farscape is the acclaimed sci-fi adventure series filmed in Australia, cancelled by the Sci-Fi channel after four seasons but recently resurrected as a mini-series thanks to fan pressure. Farscape is noticeable different from other, more well-known science fiction series such as Star Trek: The Next Generation for a number of reasons: firstly, there is an ever-expanding storyline that consistently manages to surprise, entertain and excite viewers with growing strength each season as a credit to the writers; secondly, it is a great deal more fun. This is not a catalogue of exploration and discovery, but the struggle of an oppressed group of people in uncharted territory facing almost insurmountable odds. The Jim Henson Creature Shop provide fantastic alien creatures as well.
Comparisons to Buck Rogers and Blake's Seven are inevitable and understandable by the premise, but the series itself is something completely unique. By the second series the show had really found its feet, and able to concentrate on larger and more fascinating plots centred around the reluctant hero, and most desirable commodity, John Crichton (Ben Browder). The introduction of the flawless and clinically evil adversary Scorpius (Wayne Pygram), hell-bent on extracting wormhole equations from Crichton's subconscious, adds a new level of danger and personal tragedy to the series as it becomes clear that John has been implanted with a neural clone of Scorpius that has, over the course of the year, been growing in its ability to control his thoughts and actions.
THE EPISODES
2.19 - Liars, Guns & Money part I: A Not-So-Simple Plan
2.20 - Liars, Guns & Money part II: With Friends Like These...
2.21 - Liars, Guns & Money part III: Plan B
The opening trilogy sees the return of the character Stark (Paul Goddard), who has managed to locate D'argo's long-lost son in a slave auction. The misfits aboard Moya hatch a delicate plot to rob a nearby Shadow Depository, a shady bank for outlaws and other souls who are forced to avoid using regular channels, however the plan falls into jeapordy when it transpires that their most lethal foe Scorpius is on the planet checking up on his acquisitions. Once Scorpy learns of Crichton's presence, he shows the full extent of his malevolence by purchasing the lot of 10,000 slaves himself and killing all but D'argo's precious son: a prize he offers in exchange for Crichton. A predictable rescue plan is formulated aboard Moya, until it becomes clear that John has headed willingly into the clutches of his enemy. John is desperate to rid himself of the neural clone, even if he has to sacrifice his mind...
2.22 - Die Me, Dichotomy
In the final episode of the series (my personal favourite episode), the crew of the crippled Moya find a skilled doctor operating on a frozen world. John has learned from Scorpius' arachnid accomplice that the chip can be removed from his brain without costing him his life, but Scorpy's neural clone is now able to control his body for a limited time, leading to the death of his beloved Aeryn (Claudia Black). As John lies immobile on an operating table with his brain exposed, Scorpius promptly arrives to retrieve the gathered wormhole equations that could prove to be the ultimate power in the universe...
THE DVD
All four episodes are presented in crisp and clear quality, allowing for the award-winning special effects and colourfully exotic creatures and landscapes to be seen as was originally intended. The episodes are featured in their uncut form, retaining the sexual references and more extreme or graphic scenes that were edited for the BBC's 6pm showings, while the sound quality is perfect. Aside from the usual chapter selection there are several interesting special features on this release for more hardcore fans, including interviews with Paul Goddard and Wayne Pygram (Stark and Scorpius respectively) and behind-the-scenes information. These two DVD discs have now been re-released as part of Contender Entertainment's season two box set.
VERDICT
Farscape is an under-appreciated series, but is certainly not for everyone: the intergalactic setting and use of animatronic characters will put off as many people as it attracts, but the brilliance of the show lies in the expert storytelling and the top quality performances by the virtually unknown Australian, British and American cast. The seasons finales were always long-awaited treats for fans as they brought ongoing story threads from the year into sharp focus, always somehow managing to leave an even more distressing cliffhanger ending to lead into the next experimental and highly successful season.
For Farscape fans, I would recommend the third season on the whole as a strong and varied year, although these are the episodes I have watched the most, and which contain some of the most memorable scenes in the franchise. There is a lot of backstory and plot development to digest (the main reason that the show was cancelled, in fear of alienating casual and new viewers), but most of this can be picked up fairly easily. Ben Browder, Gigi Edgley, Claudia Black, Anthony Simcoe and Wayne Pygram are incredibly talented actors who bring life to characters that could otherwise seem a little too out of place, while Rockne S. O'Bannon and David Kemper deserve full respect for making a slightly stale and repetitive genre entertaining, funny, gripping, exhilarating, sexy, tense and emotionally charged like never before.
Farscape – Season 3, Vol. 1
One Plan at a Time
****
Written on 13.08.07
The third season of Farscape still remains my personal favourite in the prematurely cancelled epic science fiction series, as the show expands far beyond its original boundaries and weaves a finely crafted story arc across a colourful season of strongly individual episodes, before creative blunders and corporate interference weakened the series in its fourth and ultimately final year.
As always, very little time is spent in the first episode of the year resolving the cliffhanger moment of the previous season, in order that the writers can be free to start sowing the seeds that will define the forthcoming year, appropriately christened by this opening episode as the ‘Season of Death.’ The job of the season opener is not an enviable one, responsible for concluding the exciting and climactic episode that preceded it and delivering a satisfying conclusion, and although the slightly confused and rushed events of ‘Season of Death’ don’t hold up as well to those of its illustrious predecessor ‘Die Me Dichotomy’ (understandably as it’s perhaps my favourite single episode of the entire series), it scores above the disappointing opening shows of the other seasons and stands strong as an individual forty-five minutes of television.
Much effort is made, especially in these earlier stories, to keep each episode distinct and self-contained to avoid putting off newcomers, something that ultimately fails as the plot grows necessarily more complex, and this is helped by the unique sets and supporting characters used in each episode (apart from the two-parter), providing some effective contrast to the previous season which was mostly set within the brown corridors of Moya. ‘Season of Death’ picks up at the ice planet where season two left off as a web of double-crossing is exposed, before the crew takes a long-overdue (but obviously short-lived) break at a commerce station in ‘Sons and Lovers,’ instead becoming involved in a rescue operation. The two-part ‘Self-Inflicted Wounds’ re-introduces wormholes to the series at long last, after season two reduced them almost to a euphemism, and although a little long-winded and plagued by technobabble, these episodes hold key events and revelations that are vital to the ongoing plot. Finally, ‘...Different Destinations’ continues the theme of death and despair as a visit to a peace monument teleports the crew back in time and interferes with history.
I really can’t praise Farscape enough, as will probably become annoyingly evident through my reviews of this finest season, but repeated viewings often favour these earlier episodes of set-up less than the more satisfying episodes towards the end of the season, when situations escalate and the show begins to deliver on long-awaited promises. As such, these first five episodes are still very entrenched in the concerns born out of the season finale, with John and Aeryn’s mutual acknowledgement of love hindered by her decision that involvement would lead to danger, and the deteriorating health of Zhaan hanging over all the proceedings, her fate being ultimately decided before the end of the ‘Self Inflicted Wounds’ two-parter. D’argo’s original character arc is also effectively brought to a conclusion as his long-lost son, finally tracked down at the end of the previous year, betrays his trust and his heart and leaves the dynamic of Moya shattered for future repair, while other parties such as Scorpius and Crais remain out of sight somewhere in the Uncharted Territories, but never too far away to return when required by the plot.
This original DVD release, now incorporated into the complete third season box-set, features the first five episodes across two discs, each contained in a separate DVD box within a larger outer case. This waste of space is a little excessive, as is the recommended retail price for a mere five episodes (despite comparing well to older VHS releases that would have contained half as much for the same price), and it does at least make the set look impressive and attractive on the shelf, the five spines depicting a publicity shot of the season featuring all the major characters and thereby encouraging completist consumption. The special features are particularly impressive in this set, not yet featuring the commentaries that are assigned to select episodes in the complete season sets but always including detailed behind-the-scenes notes and production galleries as well as, on the second disc, the interesting and enjoyable ‘Farscape Undressed’ documentary produced by the Sci-Fi channel prior to season three’s airing to bring new viewers up to speed. It’s a great extra that’s particularly useful here, and helped me to understand things better when I foolishly decided to start watching the series from this half-way point many years ago, hosted by stars Ben Browder and Claudia Black out of character and even featuring some animatronic work for Rygel XVI.
These five episodes aren’t in the league of Farscape’s best, partly due to their early position in the season before the plot had really picked up, but also due to weak decisions in the writing that would rarely resurface in the rest of the year. ‘Sons and Lovers,’ while deliberately low-key, is perhaps the finest of the bunch, granting some serious screen time to D’argo and moving his character on significantly, as well as that of his former lover Chiana. The human John Crichton dominates the rest of the proceedings, necessary due to his status as the main star but also often a cause for resentment by fans, though his relationship difficulties with Aeryn aren’t handled in a particularly engaging or meaningful way at this point, presumably as the writers bide their time for the serious screwing around they have planned in the next box-set. My main problem is with the slightly disappointing ‘Self-Inflicted Wounds,’ which initially promises to be a mind-blowing episode but ultimately comes off as an extended and fairly uneventful story forced to rely on uncharacteristic technical vocabulary over the more human(oid) elements that carry Farscape along best. Newcomers don’t have too much to contend with at this early point, as the Scorpius/wormholes plot has faded into the background for the time-being, but at the same time there’s a noticeable lack of the energy that drove season two towards its dramatic conclusion. Things can only get better.
Advantages: Sets the tone for the upcoming year, with Farscape's usual high quality writing.
Disadvantages: A couple of mis-steps.
I'm Your Daddy
*****
Written on 20.08.07
The sadistic writers behind the Jim Henson Company’s Farscape always enjoyed putting the characters through hell, from John Crichton’s first tumble down a wormhole dumping him in a distant corner of the universe to his increasingly problematic relationship with Aeryn Sun. It’s with the sixth episode of season three, a deceptively simple zombie horror adventure entitled ‘Eat Me,’ that this relationship takes a very drastic fork, while the separation of Moya’s crew in ‘Thanks for Sharing’ is a bold decision that keeps the show fresh, and keeps viewers guessing, for a significant portion of the season.
Farscape was never comfortable inside the boundaries of predictable television, simultaneously a reason for its creative genius and its ultimate cancellation for encouraging its own obscurity, and the splitting (‘twinning’) of protagonist John Crichton, without a convenient death before the end credits to return the status quo, is one of the iconic moments of the entire series. Even without this perfect ending, the episode itself would remain a clear Farscape classic, incorporating effective horror elements alongside all its usual strengths and featuring a memorable guest star performance from Hammer Horror veteran Shane Briant as the smooth-talking lunatic Kaarvok. ‘Thanks for Sharing’ is less riveting, forced to balance a self-contained plot of family government (itself a little too reminiscent of the previous year’s ‘Look at the Princess’) with the repurcussions of the previous episode, which saw the discovery of a wounded Crais aboard Moya’s son Talyn (yeah, the ship had a baby in season one. It’s alive and stuff, and Talyn’s all young and juvenile. I warned you that this series was heavy on backstory). The unforseen splitting of the crew into Moya and Talyn parties is an exciting move, and carried out at the right time, with the series’ most overcrowded main cast list yet, even taking into account the absence of Zhaan. The following episodes for some considerable time alternate between stories set on each ship, providing greater screen time and development for the supporting characters despite the constant presence of a Crichton on both, each with a mental clone of Scorpius bouncing around inside his brain. It’s clear that by this point, the series has become rather confusing.
Thankfully, each episode remains strongly individual, and despite occasional references to ‘the other Crichton’ or the threat posed by the distant Scorpius, each episode could conceivably be enjoyed in isolation from the rest. ‘Green Eyed Monster,’ an expert writing job from lead cast member Ben Browder who would write a second episode in season four, is another fairly perfect example of a Farscape episode, combining a paranoid tale of jealousy with the escape from the stomach of a massive space monster. Led by the fantastic dynamic of an irate Crichton, his former nemesis Crais and the intermediary Aeryn, the reduction of my favourite character Stark to a comedy character elsewhere in the story is even forgivable at this point in the run. The first of the Moya stories, ‘Losing Time’ is a fairly standard possession episode that also plays on paranoia, and dumps some unexpected and frankly unwanted character changes on Chiana, but also allows the male bonding of John and D’argo to begin in full force, one of my favourite aspects of the show and certainly the strong point of these Moya-based episodes. The final episode ‘Relativity’ seemingly brings a close to the short-lived story arc of the Peacekeeper Retrieval Squad led by Aeryn’s bitter mother, the reason the crews were forced to separate three episodes earlier, and is essentially an action-packed survival story in an unconvincing jungle set, enjoyable but spoiled by some more silly comic relief from the Stark/Rygel double act.
This set of episodes really launches season three into its individual and fascinating plot arc, with two John Crichtons faced with different concerns: one is free to embrace his love for Aeryn, while the other must contend with the inevitable conflict with the seemingly indestructible Scorpius, who now has the dangerous wormhole knowledge from his mind. Although the larger screen time for characters was a wise and noble move, it is ultimately rendered less successful than promised by the increased focus on John’s relationships with his true love and his enemy, as both dominate the proceedings even when absent, leading to less advancement for old favourites D’argo, Chiana, Rygel and Pilot, as well as lesser seen newcomers to the main cast in the form of Crais, Stark and the ultimately pointless Jool. Chiana’s gift of a special power of foresight in ‘Losing Time’ borders on offensive, as if the end of her relationship with D’argo had proved her to be a one-dimensional, selfish character after all, and the writers’ obvious shying away from the Nebari Resistance arc of season two that promised so much for the character has led to this pointless and drastic super-power as a sort of consolation. Nevertheless, season three remains my favourite in Farscape’s illustrious run, and this is a strong collection of some of the finest episodes and more mediocre material, moving forward in exciting and very satisfying ways.
The DVD extras are identical to those of the first set, with behind-the-scenes information and galleries complimenting each episode, but without the benefit of a documentary this time. Limited edition deluxe box-sets came with additional artwork and a miniature prop replica in an inconveniently sized collector’s box, but the scaled down box-set is also available as part of the complete third season, rendering these older releases less cost-effective, despite their impressive appearance on the shelf.
Advantages: Immediate launch into the show's finest plot arcs, successfully experimenting with genres.
Disadvantages: Division of the cast has inevitable repercussions.
The Half-Blind Leading the Blind
****
Written on 27.08.07
Farscape’s more bizarre and creative side comes to the fore in the middle of the third season, with each episode taking a slightly different slant on the regular style. From the revelatory Scorpius origin story that reverses the established dynamic by having Scorpius communicate with a neural clone of John Crichton, to the acid trip that is ‘Scratch N Sniff,’ this batch of mostly excellent shows continues to prove why this science fiction series was a modern television classic, and its third year the finest of the lot. And this is before we’ve even reached the animated episode.
By this central point, the story arc of season three is in full swing, as Scorpius’ experiments with wormholes, gleaned from the secrets he ripped from Crichton’s brain, are shown to be developing at a disturbing rate, and with ominous outside pressure. It’s chilling just how casually Scorpius reveals that the Scarrans are a major force to be reckoned with, setting up the inevitable bloodbath that will dominate the following year, while the human heart of the series (used in the loosest possible sense) is once again put through the grinder as one of the Crichtons is separated from his lover, and his duplicate forced to put himself in extreme danger. The dividing of episodes between stories set on the living ship Moya and her juvenile son Talyn continues to be an effective way to explore these alternate stories, and although the constant presence of John Crichton and even Scorpius in both tends to overshadow the supporting characters, the male bonding between John and D’argo has never been more enjoyable than during this period of isolation, culminating in ‘Scratch N Sniff.’
Special attention deserves to be granted to this unique episode, which divides fans and was moved to an odd late night slot on its BBC 2 airing, as the style is apparently based on the rapid editing of a music video. It’s certainly entirely strange and pushes the weird-for-the-sake-of-weird barrier to the limits, but it’s the knowing absurdity of it all, presented as John’s account of events in order to explain how he and D’argo were kicked off a planet and lost all of their money (and is therefore not entirely trustworthy, and prone to significant embellishment). Ben Browder’s wife Francesca Buller is a memorable if annoying presence as the cockney alien Raxil, while Gigi Edgley (Chiana) is given a rare opportunity to demonstrate her fire juggling ability. Compared to this lunacy, the other episodes seem fairly tame and ordinary, though it’s only the Talyn-based episode ‘Meltdown’ that has the unfortunate distinction of being the weak link, and certainly the low point of the entire season, rehashing an aliens-messing-with-our-emotions plot and destroying Starks’ credibility as a character forever, for which I truly resent it. ‘Incubator’ is better, and an interesting overview of Scorpius’ history as an engineered Scarran-Sebacean half-breed, but also an episode I feel ambivalent about for moving that character on from Darth Vader-esque villain of evil to a shade of grey. Farscape handles shades of grey expertly, and thankfully the culmination of these events in the later episode ‘Into the Lion’s Den’ is the perfect and only way this could have been satisfyingly concluded.
The remaining episode on this shortened set (sets one and two featured five episodes each, while the remaining three feature four episodes) is one of my very favourites, and the strongest point of the Talyn arc. Revisiting plot threads from way back in the first season, one of which I wasn’t even aware had been dangling before its return here, ‘Infinite Possibilities Part 1: Daedalus Demands’ closes the box-set on the most exciting cliff-hanger since the end of season two, which was itself the most exciting since Riker’s order to ‘fire!’ half-way through Star Trek: The Next Generation (I’ve lost you now, I’m sorry. Well done for wading through this far). The return of Furlowe and the Ancients are handled excellently, and it was a stroke of genius to combine them, while also allowing for the first real altercation with the full force of the evil Scarrans. With the regrettable exception of Stark as usual, all the characters are excellent here, from Crais’ blindness to Rygel’s uncharacteristic murderous demeanour, and the desert setting makes a nice change from the ship-board shows of late, making up for the Talyn crew’s last excursion into a jungle that was all too obviously a plant-filled soundstage. The guest cast is excellent, and the cliffhanger ending holds particular significance for me as it took an awfully long time for me to see the second instalment after buying this.
Viewers who found the transition between the two living spaceships seamless when it began may begin to find the shifts jarring at this point, but I still enjoy the change of atmosphere provided by the claustrophobic Talyn episodes compared with the vast and empty, and ultimately more depressing Moya shows. Both ships feature some excellent dynamics and a couple of weak ones at the same time, the squabbling rivalry between Chiana and Jool acting much the same as the daft Rygel and Stark scenes on the other vessel, but each camp has much to offer in terms of progressing the plot, even if the original Retrieval Squad threat has now been dealt with. Wayne Pygram puts in a fine performance in ‘Incubator’ as the tortured Scorpius growing up as a Scarran slave, and it’s both interesting and intelligent how the series all begins to come together. With the strong exception of ‘Meltdown,’ which can easily be avoided (though is annoyingly referenced later in the excellent episode ‘Bad Timing,’ meaning that it can’t simply be erased from the archives) this batch of episodes shows the series at its freshest and most uncompromising, building the anticipation of where the myriad plot threads are heading, and where they (and the estranged crews) shall meet in the end. The more important question is, which Crichton will survive? The next box-set provided the answer in typical Farscape fashion.
Advantages: Superb expansion of the series' scope, with some of the finest looking episodes.
Disadvantages: 'Meltdown' is really terrible.
Making the Hynerian with Two Backs
*****
Written on 03.09.07
Earlier in the third season of the Jim Henson Company’s epic sci-fi series Farscape, the hero John Crichton was split into two equal and original versions of himself, one of whom completely failed to die and thus press the handy ‘reset button’ before the end of the credits, leaving the crew (or rather, the man himself(s)) with a problem, one that was answered all too soon by the division of Moya’s crew onto two ships forced to retain radio silence with each other. The Crichton aboard Moya discovered the plans of his enemy Scorpius to harness the devastating power of wormholes with knowledge stolen from his brain, and became determined to stop him at all costs as soon as the opportunity presented itself (probably as the season draws to a dramatic climax, if we’re being honest). The other Crichton flew away on an action-packed love cruise on Talyn with his lover Aeryn Sun, and finally received the full knowledge of the Ancients that would allow him, and all his persecuted alien friends, to go home. Then one of them died.
As this review covers four episodes beginning with ‘Infinite Dreams Part 2: Icarus Abides,’ it’s entirely necessary to reveal that the Crichton aboard Talyn is forced to sacrifice his life to prevent the Scarrans acquiring wormhole technology, a truly tragic moment but one that explodes the potential of the John-Aeryn relationship. Even as Aeryn struggles to understand her loss in the moving episode ‘The Choice,’ she must be aware of the uniquely difficult experience that awaits her when the two crews are finally reunited in the final episode of the box-set, appropriately titled ‘Fractures;’ Aeryn’s simple response to his presence makes for one of the most memorable lines in the entire series. I personally adore this decision to kill the Crichton who underwent the greatest character development, and his posthumous message to his ‘twin’ recorded by Stark prior to his departure cements the fact that they remain the same individual even after their different experiences. It sets up an incredible dynamic full of questions for the remainder of the season and far beyond, but one that is momentarily forced to wait due to more pressing galactic concerns.
‘Infinite Possibilities Part 2’ is a wholly satisfying conclusion to the first part that finally shows the destructive potential of wormholes in a very literal sense after the discussions that have dominated the show for so long, and along with its companion is easily the finest of the Talyn episodes. ‘The Choice’ also features the remaining Talyn crew, but in an extremely fractured capacity on a Blade Runner-esque planet (in terms of its hulking, neon appearance) and is one of the most emotionally intense and disturbing of the series’ entire run, centred entirely around Aeryn with the dead Crichton relegated to the background for once. In complete contrast, ‘Revenging Angel’ is one of the funniest and zaniest episodes (I swore never to use that word in a review, but I think it’s the most appropriate here) that the Farscape writers ever came up with, combining extended animated sequences in the style of ‘Road Runner’ with ridiculous props for the live action sequences inside Crichton’s unconscious mind. Farscape has always done comedy superbly, with only a couple of glaring exceptions, and ‘Revenging Angel’ remains one of the most popular experimental episodes of the run, and the perfect counterpoint to the harrowing nature of the episodes surrounding it. Finally, ‘Fractures’ is a fairly enjoyable story based once again around paranoia and suspicion, but one in which the primary plot is of far less concern than the more pressing issues of the Moya and Talyn crews’ reunion, and the consequences that brings. Those initial scenes are what the episode will be remembered for most of all, as well as the disturbing mental images of Hynerian sex.
Farscape takes a noticeably darker turn as season three approaches a conclusion, with ‘Revenging Angel’ providing the only release from some seriously depressing and emotionally draining television. It’s fair to say that by this point, the desire to weave the larger plots of the series carefully behind stand-alone stories has failed to some extent, as unrelated events such as those of ‘Fractures’ simply seem to be at odds with advancement of the main story arc, but ‘The Choice’ stands out as a great example of a story that is entirely self-contained, while also providing an epilogue of sorts to the Talyn story arc that ends once Crais picks up Moya’s transmission and location. The visuals of that episode are excellent even for Farscape standards, with suitably disturbing and mutated alien creations of the Jim Henson Creature Shop perfectly suiting the drab cyberpunk setting. Interesting aliens continue to appear to a smaller degree in ‘Fractures,’ notable for featuring the first female Hynerian (Rygel’s species, the animatronic character who is often described in terms reminiscent of a slug or a toad), an androgynous Nebari (Chiana’s pale-skinned race) and a friendly Scarran.
Notably absent from these episodes is Scorpius, or at least the real Scorpius (neural clones in Crichton’s animated mindscape don’t count), making John’s final announcement that he intends to go aboard the leather-clad cadaver’s Command Carrier and destroy his wormhole research a thrilling finale to the set that promises big things for the finale episodes, with which Farscape never disappoints.
Advantages: Bold and surprising plot twists, while continuing to craft excellent individual shows.
Disadvantages: Becomes fairly impenetrable for newcomers at this point.
One Evil at a Time, That’s the Best I Can Do
*****
Written on 10.09.07
Like many plot-based series, each season of Farscape builds upon the last, but also concentrates largely on a self-contained sequence of events that build to a climax at the end of the year, leaving the writers to start afresh with the next. An awful lot has happened in season three even by this point, the crisis of the Peacekeeper Retrieval Squad, the division of the crews and the duplication of John Crichton all having drawn to natural conclusions, leaving the leather-clad spine of the season as Scorpius’ nefarious wormhole research, which he hopes will provide the Peacekeepers with the ultimate source of power. At the end of the previous box-set, Crichton vowed to get aboard Scorpius’ ship and stop him at all costs, leading viewers to anticipate another multi-part epic storyline to land on their doorsteps with the release of this fifth and final box-set.
It’s such a shame that the first episode is so entirely disappointing, particularly as it steals some of the thunder from the truly incredible things to be found in those that follow. Rather than offering a trilogy, as was the case with the end of season two, the writers instead opt for a ‘near-trilogy,’ by writing an entire episode as a prelude to ‘Into the Lion’s Den.’ Unfortunately, it’s almost entirely unnecessary, the relevant scenes of the meeting between Scorpius and representatives of the Moya crew being included in the next episode’s ‘previously on Farscape...’, but viewed without this hostility as a single stand-alone episode with its own merits, there are a few excellent scenes that should not be overlooked. These mostly do not concern the primary plot, which sees the afore-mentioned meeting turned into a hostage situation by some disappointing and very annoying guest villain ape creatures, though the interaction and team-work of Scorpius and Rygel presents an excellent dynamic that would never be seen again. Rather, the main strength of ‘I-Yensch, You-Yensch’ concerns the scenes aboard Moya, which see the young and aggressive gunship Talyn becoming increasingly unruly and destructive to the point that the crew consider euthanasia. It’s incredible just how touching these scenes can be, concerning a living ship which communicates simply by lights and through its oversized cannon, but it’s no less engaging than the death of the alternate Crichton several episodes previously.
After this forty-five-minute-long interruption of sorts, ‘Into the Lion’s Den’ finally arrives and delivers the most incredible two-parter in the series’ entire run, beating the previous season finale storylines which steadily improved, and proving greater than anything season four or the later mini-series would achieve, despite their high quality. The first episode is largely concerned with setting up the galactic situation in a definitive manner, and aside from a very silly rocket pack action scene that perhaps should have been cut, its analysis of the shades of grey involved in politics is the finest plot twist the show has ever crafted, as Crichton starts to wonder whether he should allow Scorpius to develop the wormhole technology after all. The second episode is the real classic, and features many of my most favourite moments in the entire history of television as it moves towards its climactic and devastating finale. The production values are incredible for these shows, featuring huge sets and some incredible visuals (the shot of Scorpius standing defiant on a staircase as water breaks through the wall behind him and cascades down the steps may be over-the-top, but it’s also the very definition of dramatic). This episode sees the departure of main characters as well as the introduction of others, truly begging the question of what will happen next. It’s astounding that this wasn’t the season finale, but evidently the writers had other plans.
Thus we get the true conclusion to season three, and it’s time to focus on the characters, namely John Crichton and Aeryn. Recent events have allowed them to avoid the issue of how she is going to let him back into her life, and ‘Dog With Two Bones’ does not shy away from answering it from every angle imaginable. Even more fascinating is the series’ first real analysis of the consequences that lie ahead if Crichton gets his wish and returns home to Earth, as a mysterious Old Woman allows him to ‘see through the lies’ of his delusions towards the real truth. At first this episode disappointed me slightly, but viewing it in the correct context, or even looking back after the significant events of the fourth season, it’s one of the most incredibly powerful that Farscape has ever produced, and deals with some vital concerns that have been left unsaid since Crichton first fell out of the wormhole three years earlier. This final episode compliments the preceding two-parter perfectly, the only drawback being a partial focus on a comparatively uninteresting plot concerning an irate rogue Leviathan.
As the events of the season come to a head, independent and unrelated hostage situations and angry spaceships only serve to get in the way of a powerful and satisfying conclusion, which is fortunately delivered here in spades. ‘Into the Lion’s Den’ is among the finest of Farscape’s episodes, while ‘Dog With Two Bones’ is a more seasoned and acquired taste, but one that is nevertheless worthy as an ending to the season, even if the specific cliffhanger moment proves a little disappointing by erupting out of nowhere, quite literally. ‘I-Yensch, You-Yensch’ is the low point of the set, still redeemed by the scenes with Talyn and some great interaction of lesser-seen character dynamics, but largely serving as an interruption. It’s clear that whatever budget was allocated for this episode was transferred to the fantastic looking two-parter where it was put to much better use, though unfortunately leaves the earlier episode looking comparatively rubbish with its thin blue make-up (under which a pinker tone can very clearly be seen) and uninspired stale cafe set. Season three of Farscape remains the strongest and most unique, and these episodes provide perfect conclusions to the major story threads, both plot- and character-based. The major drawback is that the admittedly excellent scenes between John Crichton and Aeryn Sun in the finale condemn all of the supporting characters into even smaller roles for the upcoming season than they were restricted to in this, as season four becomes effectively ‘The John-Aeryn Show.’
These five individual box-sets, each containing two DVDs, were eventually compiled into the complete season three box-set, retaining the behind-the-scenes text and images and deleted scenes, and adding commentaries to select episodes. A limited edition collector’s box was also released for each of the five sets several years ago, and this fifth box-set came with a rather unimpressive replica of a Peacekeeper ident chip, as seen in several episodes earlier in the season to contain a message from Aeryn’s mother. The final ‘E’ on the spine of this release forces all who compulsively collected the DVDs to spell out ‘FARSCAP’ to complete their collection, but essentially there is no way those viewers could do without this, one of the most vital of the Farscape box-sets ever to be released. Along with all the others from season three.
Advantages: Epic!
Disadvantages: First episode feels like filler.
I Wore a Nuclear Bomb in a Field of Flowers
****
Written on 21.05.06
From its original premise, an everyman astronaut's struggle to find his way back to Earth, the Jim Henson Company's 'Farscape' quickly evolved and continued to expand into something far more complex, novel and entertaining.
While run-of-the-mill shows such as 'Star Trek: Voyager' base themselves in a homecoming plot that tediously and predictably sees a fanfare return in the final episode, Farscape again defies all expectation by featuring a purely accidental return home in the middle of its fourth year [SPOILERS!], and the sombre but profound message that you can't settle down and go backwards when there's more at stake than your own selfish happiness.
Disc 1: Crichton Kicks / What Was Lost part 1: Sacrifice / What Was Lost part 2: Resurrection
Disc 2: Lava's a Many Splendoured Thing / Promises
Disc 3: Natural Election / John Quixote / I Shrink Therefore I Am
Disc 4: A Prefect Murder / Coup By Clam
Disc 5: Unrealized Reality / Kansas
Disc 6: Terra Firma / Twice Shy
Disc 7: Mental as Anything / Bringing Home the Beacon
Disc 8: A Constellation of Doubt / Prayer
Disc 9: We're So Screwed part 1: Fetal Attraction / We're So Screwed part 2: Hot to Katratzi
Disc 10: We're So Screwed part 3: La Bomba / Bad Timing
Starring Ben Browder, Claudia Black, Anthony Simcoe, Gigi Edgley, Raelee Hill and Wayne Pygram.
Despite featuring one of the show's finest moments in the trilogy of episodes centred on John Crichton's return to Earth, the fourth season is viewed by many fans as a decline from the spectacular heights of season 3. A combination of pressure from the Sci-Fi channel and the writers' own wishes to take the series in a darker direction results in a season that's weaker on the whole, with many more throwaway episodes than any season before. Despite the wishes of all involved to avoid the epic over-arching storyline present in every episode of season 3, a style that was judged to alienate casual viewers (perhaps justly so), season 4 fails to find any kind of middle ground: there are several unconnected episodes scattered throughout, but the focus is still on the grander scheme of things.
This wouldn't present a problem if the story arcs here weren't frankly much duller than anything the show has attempted before, as well as overly extended after the epic and conclusive end to the previous year. The early two-parter is perhaps the low point of the whole series, but things slowly pick up as the year progresses, and as usual the build-up whets appetities for an action-packed finale.
Farscape was frequently lauded as the most exciting sci-fi series on TV, and its appeal certainly deserves a wider audience, although it may take some time to get past the strange looking aliens, quirky humour and quasi-Muppets. The story of John Crichton, astronaut of increasing importance to intergalactic powers for his unique knowledge of wormhole travel through space, the other equally fascinating characters continue to be eclipsed by the major storyline in the fourth season. While season 3 dealt with the overcrowded cast by splitting the crew in two for half of the year, season 4 has less excuse for reverting to one-dimensional mode every so often.
Irritated fans began labelling Farscape "The John and Aeryn Show," and nowhere is this more true than in the second half of season 4, where John's obsessive, destructive search for his stolen fiancée encompasses all. Newcomer Sikozu fills the role of sexy alien newcomer and does little else, and although the shifting allegiance of erstwhile arch nemesis Scorpius is carried out expertly, it nevertheless leaves the series lacking an impressive main adversary 'Darth Vader' figure, settling instead for the now-dull Peacekeepers and corny but scary Scarrans.
One of Farscape's strengths has always been its willingness to try something new and inventive, and this continues somewhat in season 4. One of the best episodes is 'A Constellation of Doubt,' which superbly integrates a television interview and documentary format into the show's standard style, although the silly 'John Quixote' does little more than provide some psychedelic strangeness for 44 minutes, despite some ingeniously subtle foreshadowing of later events that should be enjoyed by fans. There's also a nice use of disjointed continuity in 'A Prefect Murder,' an impressive stand-alone episode that can be equally enjoyed by newcomers and long-time viewers, and the powerful finality of the closing episode 'Bad Timing' that ends the season, and for a time the entire series, on a typically explosive note.
Farscape was cancelled after its fourth season, as the problems the network had with season 3 had evidently not been successfully sorted out, but a campaign by the fans (ala the original 'Star Trek') led to the short and fairly satisfying mini-series 'The Peacekeeper Wars' in late 2004. Season 4 is perhaps the show's weak point, but this is contestable: the overall story arc is at times painfully dark and extremely convincing, but the occasional lapses into simplicity (mostly present in the first half of the season) hinder that maturity.
This DVD set features all 22 episodes from season 4, as well as all the bonus material included on the individual boxsets released two years earlier. The sound and picture quality is perfect as usual for these sets, the series' distinctive colourful look and modern sharp focus enhanced even further by the show's shift from full frame to widescreen format for the fourth season.
As usual there are fairly arbitrary DVD commentaries on a few scattered episodes from cast and crew, interesting and nicely geeky guides to terminology used in the show and background information on characters, as well as an infuriating and pointless "video game" based on the first episode, which requires the player to select the left, right, up or down buttons on the DVD player's remote control to guide the movement of the characters or else get eaten by a big CGI space hound. Fans of the equally annoying but addictive arcade classics 'Dragon's Lair' and 'Space Ace' should appreciate this novelty.
The fourth season of Farscape is still an essential quarter of this excellent series for fans, but newcomers should avoid and start elsewhere. The DVD boxset itself is ridiculously overpriced, not contributing enough "previously unreleased" material to justify a £70 or £80 price tag. I would recommend buying the five individual boxsets, although these are similarly extortionate at the moment on websites such as Amazon.co.uk and Play.com. I imported the Region 4 set from Australia, which is where Farscape was filmed, and thus my boxset has added patriotism... and I saved over £50.
L
Sex, Guts and Cowardice
***
Written on 31.03.04
A fan of a lot of modern science fiction, I was introduced to Lexx by one of my friends when it was shown on Channel 5 several years ago. At the time it seemed to be a programme with some good ideas, but which was trying to be a little too innovative or genre-mixing to be successful. I recently decided to give Lexx another try, primarily as there was a 10 pre-owned videos for £15 offer at the local Cash Converters where the strange man sometimes shouts approval at my Manowar clothes. [Takes one to know one.]
Lexx is essentially a late 90s - early 00s sci-fi show set in a dark and oppressive future with innocent, good-willed fugitives flying around in a giant dragonfly-esque spaceship, the Lexx, which we are often reminded is "the most powerful destructive force in the universe." Unlike some genre shows such as Star Trek, I could go into detail with the comparisons but overall it's clear that Star Trek is more appealing to the masses and has much higher production values, the cast is limited to only a few crew members:
CHARACTERS
Stanley Tweedle is a middle-aged, insecure security guard who winds up on the Lexx after failing to report to have several of his organs removed after failing to follow procedures. He is granted the 'key' to the Lexx, meaning he puts his hand in a certain spot on the ship and it recognises only him, and this is likely the only reason he is kept aboard. Stanley has sexual feelings towards Zev, however he's not really in love with her; he's just a single man who's not blind.
Brian Downey plays Stanley and although he can be annoying and a little badly acted at times it's enjoyable to once again see the lowest guy on the social ladder being thrust into a command situation. Not exactly original, you only have to watch Red
Dwarf, Dark Star, etc., but it's the main clue that this show is intended to be taken 'with a pinch of salt' as some fools would say. Not me though, I would never stoop to using that in a review.
Zev clearly and unashamedly forms most of the show's appeal. Originally played by 19-year-old German actress Eva Habermann, Zev was an unattractive housewife who failed to please her child husband and was put into a machine to change her into a love slave. This fortunately happened while the area she was being transformed in was under attack and as such she managed to keep her mind intact and have a noticeable bodily upgrade. A 'cluster lizard' head was also involved in the process which has made her tendencies occasionall animalistic- Niice.
When the show became a regular series, Eva was replaced by Xenia Seeberg with a character name change to 'Xev.' While not quite as alluring an actress, she still managed to give the show some ratings by occasionally removing her clothing. Eva Habermann was not completely up to scratch as an actress, although her nude scenes did the trick a little better.
-Kai is the last of the Brunnen-Gi, am ancient race with a proud cultural heritage who were wiped out by the nasties. Kai's body was reanimated after his death so he could serve as an undead assassin, and needless to say he conveniently becomes friendly and vengeful again when in the company of the other main cast members. The most interesting character in terms of his plot and background, and in more terms if you're a lady, Kai allows the show to retain its credibility and intrigue a little more, despite a few too many jokes about him being dead. "The dead do not have fantasies" and lines like that start to become a little grating, and will never reach the success of the classic "Goddammit Jim, I'm a Doctor not a bricklayer!" Rest in peace, DeForrest Kelley.
Kai is played by Michael McManus, a quite artistic individual whose lack of acting experience doesn't hinder his portrayal of the 'nice zombie.' Kai always reminds me of Edward Scissorhands in terms of his appearance, but at least he's an impressive male character as opposed to the ant-hero Stanley.
Robothead 790 is the Jar Jar Binks/Wesley Crusher/annoying and embarrassing character of the show and although there may be a lot of people who like him, I certainly don't. The severed head of a robot guard, 790 was annoyingly injected with the love slave thing that was meant for Zev and as such is attracted to her. Right from the very first "access is denied precious. All access denied except to the chambers of my heart" I knew I hated him, and his voice is fairly annoying as well. The head is plastic, with video recordings of eyes and a mouth inserted; the voice and mouth are those of Jeffrey Hirschfield, one of the writers.
LEXX: THE MOVIES
The beginning of Lexx is actually very impressive, and I would recommend the first feature-length episode, "I Worship His Shadow," to any fan of action-packed, religion-inspired, character-led science fiction such as Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Babylon 5 or even Farscape, however the following episodes certainly contain a large amount of disappointment.
Lexx was originally one of the sci-fi channel mini-series that come along every so often and are usually god-awful, although there are some which are worth watching such as the recent adaptations of Frank Herbert's novel Dune. The first Lexx episode introduces everything that is necessary to know about the show and the fourth and final episode of the mini-series comes back to this plot, however the second and third episodes are attempts at unrelated stories which don't work too well, especially with the long winded 90-minute time slots.
The world of Lexx in the first episode is very well presented, with a dystopian and oppressed populace similar to Orwell's "1984" or Zamyatin's "We." That's right, I know more dystopia novels than you. Stanley's job is tedious and if there is one classic scene in Lexx, aside from Eva Habermann's shower in episode 2, it's this introduction of Stanley refusing a shuttle captain entry into a gate because she fails to provide a code. "Nobody asks for code anymore!" Stanley is adamant in his request, the tedium of his job showing itself when he aims screwed up paper balls at a hole leading to an incinerator just to see the nice purple flash of fire. Stanley is overruled by a higher ranking security guard, no difficult task as Stanley is already a lowly class 4, and told to report to the authorities for punishment.
The enemy of the Lexx crew in series one is "His Shadow", the powerful being similar to a 'Big Brother' character who is revered among the subjects and used in their greetings, and whose mind contains the knowledge of all the other "His Shadow"s who have come before him. The series would have been a real hit, and a member of my DVD collection, if this story had dominated the mini-series, however it was not meant to be. An advantage of the mini-series over the later series is the surprisingly prestigious guest star list; episode 2 features Tim Curry (unfortunately I only know he's in Muppet Treasure Island but he is in other stuff), episode 3 stars Rutger Hauer (Blade Runner, he played the baddie) and the final episode stars Malcom McDowell (Clockwork Orange, Star Trek Generations).
The original mini-series of Lexx has a lot of potential, but often fails when it tries to become more episodic. Episode 2's plot regards strange hormone changing conditions, which is basically an excuse for some stramy scenes, while episode 3 is all about a garbage planet where peoples' organs and limbs are used to make the 'pattern,' the only food source.
LEXX: THE SERIES
Following the mini-series, Lexx was commissioned as a weekly serial and would go on for four seasons. The sets changed and the overall tone was much different as a regular series, and while there were plenty of mediocre or terrible episodes it still provided enjoyable hours of TV. Series 2 continued the exploration of the Dark Zone, mostly trying to find protoplasm or something to keep Kai alive, and this series even featured a musical episode: "Brigadoom." Unfortunately, according to a lot of fans on the internet, this was not a wise or enjoyable forty-five minutes. A trait I respect Lexx for is its creativity and daring, as the third series featured all thirteen episodes in a long story arc all revolving around the planets Fire and Water and the evil enemy of Fire, called Prince. Such steps always make it difficult to recall specific episodes, as any fans of Buffy's layer years will agree, but are really good 'for the fans.'
Lexx may have been cancelled forcibly after its fourth year, this remains unknown to me, however the writers managed to end the story quite nicely. Although I haven't seen many episodes of Lexx after the mini-series I have followed the plot and characters, and their very deliberate lack of development.
TONE & STYLE
"Makes Star Trek look like Noggin the Nog" was a sticker that graced the cover of Lexx volume 2 when it came out on video, and as a Star Trek fan I found this a little silly. After all, Star Trek's aim has always been to present the viewer with a positive outlook on the future of mankind, while also highlighting some of the inherent dangers and decisions which we may have to make. Someone who only catches the occasional Voyager may not have noticed this and I wouldn't blame them, as this is most present in the original series, the Next Generation and Deep Space Nine - the latter of which probed deeper into the 'perfect' future and gave such great lines as "it's easy to be a saint in paradise" and "paradise has never ben so well-armed." Hail the Sisko.
The writers of Lexx have clearly intended to make the show 'zany' and 'wacky,' to use very unoriginal and non-descriptive terms, and the first episode shows us plenty of sexuality, gore, guts, brains, weapons, insecurity and death. As a long-time fan of all of these things equally, the first episode is a dead winner, however a lot of the later humour seems a little contrived and deliberately 'zany.'
OVERALL
Due to its slight diversity of style, Lexx might as well just be classed as a sci-fi show. An adult sci-fi show in any case. There's comedy but it's not a comedy show like Red Dwarf. My favourite episode of Lexx, and the only one I will watch on a regular basis when I feel like it, is "I Worship His Shadow," the first one, as it's got everything that makes the show quite good. Malfunctioning technology and all. The show doesn't work well as a series and it wouldn't be one of my regular viewings even if it was on TV at all over here. My basic opinion of Lexx is that it will appeal to some people a lot, but it could have been so much more.
Oh and by the way, the Lexx itself gets food from eating some matter off planets and is capable of destroying planets very quickly with its Death Star-style ray. The soundtrack to the series is also quite alluring, being the "Brunnen-Gi" war song from the first scene of the first episode.
Advantages: Some interesting ideas, Upbeat style, Some good effects
Disadvantages: Nothing to distinguish it from better series, Plots are often wafer thin and unimpressive
Live Together / Die Alone
****
Written on 09.07.07
Yes, I have defected to the mainstream and become addicted to ‘Lost.’ I’m not proud of it.
This premature DVD set contains the first twelve episodes of the first season, released in the UK shortly after Channel 4 hit the half-way point on its late screening of the series. A more concise and worthwhile complete season boxset would inevitably follow, but for new fans of the show, eager to acquire for the Christmas market, this DVD set seemed to be the perfect purchase, despite boasting an unreasonable price tag that has dropped significantly since. With a handful of special features that can be found on the complete season boxset, these half-season DVDs are rendered obsolete in a fairly short space of time, to the extent that it appears the third season has been held off until the complete set is released in the autumn, presumably something to do with the UK broadcasts being taken over by Sky.
‘Lost’ is a series that came along at just the right time, applying an old plane crash survival cliché that has new relevance to American viewers after September 2001, yet long enough after to avoid being too directly related. Stylistically, the series continues the trend of TV that thinks it’s a novel, telling one expansive story slowly and carefully over the course of twenty or so episodes per year in the style of ‘Twin Peaks’ and ‘Babylon 5.’ Previous hit shows largely relied on a contrast between heavy plot arcs and stand-alone episodes with self-contained stories for fear of alienating casual viewers, for example ‘The X-Files’ or ‘Buffy,’ but Lost makes no such concessions. The gambit appears to have been successful, as millions of loyal viewers watch the show religiously as each page is turned, but for others the bigger picture is too painstaking and infuriating to wait for.
This really is no fault of the show, but more of peoples’ expectations. In the early 1990s, David Lynch’s ‘Twin Peaks’ was never intended to be about solving the murder of Laura Palmer, and indeed it may never have been answered if the writers had had their way. Unfortunately, most viewers became so invested in the ‘plot’ that the series had to cater for them, rather than continue as a parodic soap opera of strange characters. This would ultimately prove to be the show’s downfall, and something that more recent trends of ‘Lost’ have been forced to emulate, placing plot advancement in the foreground to satisfy those viewers desperate for answers on their own time scale, rather than that of the writers. ‘Lost’ is a show that has to be viewed as character-based as much as a show with a mysterious and slowly unfolding story arc, and as the introduction, season one is granted a little more space in balancing these elements, while also occurring before the writers admittedly run out of such character ideas.
After the two-part pilot episode, which really should be viewed as a feature length episode to get the most out of it, the familiar ‘Lost’ format is set up: events on the island, focusing on a core group of survivors across one or two days, interspersed with flashbacks directly relating to one specific character. There are no subversions of the format at this point, and the flashback scenes are mostly relevant to each character’s current situation, and to fill the audience in (or not, in some cases) on their ‘past life.’ The characters are all excellently performed and despite representing a humorously PC group of individuals (but where’s the gay couple and the cyber-nerd?), they are almost always worth watching. Viewing in hindsight, it’s tempting to try and catch the actors out in their limited knowledge of characters we now know so much more about, but at this early stage they mostly act one-dimensionally enough to avoid such inconsistency. The primary ensemble is set up within the first several episodes, as it becomes evident that the series will be dominated by the conflicting personalities of Jack (the doctor), Kate (the ex-criminal), Locke (the hunter) and Sawyer (the con-man) foremost, though the initial episodes favour Charlie and Sayid more than the series will ultimately choose to. The flashback cycle starts again at episode eleven, with Jack and then Kate receiving a second outing before many of the supporting characters have been given a chance, but it’s obvious in some cases, particularly Hurley and Walt, that their histories will be very revealing, and are being saved for a reason. Others like the dispensable Shannon and Boone will eventually be granted out of mere fairness.
As someone who has enjoyed watching Lost with patience for the development of the characters and plot, my primary concern is always that the writers are consistent with their evolving concepts, and these early episodes set things up excellently. It’s obvious after only a couple of flashback episodes that the majority of the characters, if not all of them, are struggling to overcome something from their past, even if the persistent use of ‘daddy issues’ becomes grating over time. The island has given them a chance to start over and repent, the spiritual dimension being characterised by Locke, whose apparently insane devotion to the environment is granted a basis in episode four. The tension set up around this point between some characters’ passive faith in their rescue, also seen as denial, and others’ practical ‘embrace’ of the island by moving from the beach to the sustaining environment of the caves is one of the strongest messages the show has transmitted, and is one of the reasons I prefer watching these early episodes to those that came after.
With a cast of dominating personalities, the series has permission to tackle serious political and moral issues on many occasions, and is partial to using tried-and-tested symbolism to achieve those ends. From the obvious Biblical imagery of the caves as the Garden of Eden, highlighted by Locke name-dropping Adam and Eve and furthered by the use of Sawyer as Kate’s carnal temptation, there’s a lot that literary or film analysts have seen before, but that’s not to say that the allusions are merely to show off. The series constructs its own mythology right from the start as the more inexplicable aspects of the island become apparent, particularly through the visions of characters and the experiences of Locke, and small mysteries such as the black and white stones and the French maps. Depending on the personal style of each episode’s writer, the metaphors are occasionally less subtle, pandering to the lowest common denominator by beating viewers around the head with symbolism (particularly the episode ‘The Moth’).
As popular, by-the-numbers television, the plot advances at the expected rate. This means that by the mid-point of each season, initial introductions and set-up will be out of the way, with new elements being introduced to ultimately lead to a conclusion over several episodes. As the first half of the first season, anyone looking for answers is going to be a little disappointed, but the series has fulfilled its plot-thickening duty admirably and memorably by the final episode of the set. By this half-way point, the native inhabitants of the island have made their presence felt to the newcomers, the French transmission from the pilot episode has been traced to its surprising source, and Locke and Boone have stumbled across a mysterious steel object buried in the foliage, all of which form the basis for the rest of the season.
As for the special features, this set is fairly generous, though as explained earlier these would eventually find their way onto the complete season one boxset along with those from its ‘Season One - Part Two’ brother. Most episodes feature an ‘audio commentary,’ though not in a traditional manner, as the episode plays without interruption until the scene jumps suddenly to a piece of behind-the-scenes filming inserted. The scenes are always relevant, but I had to abandon this option after the first one as it’s really interrupting and I found myself waiting tensely for the next one to appear. The set also contains a long documentary on the filming of the pilot episode, which will be enjoyable for those who enjoy these behind-the-scenes things, and interviews with the cast on landing the roles.
Lost has perhaps been so successful due to the creators’ apparent attempt to be a show to end all shows, incorporating elements from most of the television genres imaginable (within reason: there’s no animated episode or game show), the flashbacks allowing for deviations from the essential survival/mystery plot to the realms of medical drama and romantic tragedy. As the show continues, it almost seems like the writers are trying to tick off all the clichés imaginable from a checklist (was anyone really surprised when Ana-Lucia turned out to be a cop in the second season? Not to mention disappointing trends for pompous arch villains in the most recent series), but again this selection of episodes benefits from being fresh and, admittedly, not really having the time to run ideas into the ground. While many watching these episodes back will be irritated with the comparatively slow progress of ‘answers,’ this stage is more concerned with the introduction to the characters through the interaction of their flashback memories and concurrent actions on the island, which work much better and more relevantly than the tedious and often arbitrary flashbacks of the following seasons, which have increasingly served only to impede progress of the island arc. At this stage, interest is divided equally, flashbacks allowing some relief from the samey tropical landscape and survival situation.
That’s not to say that these are the best episodes of Lost, although in my opinion, many of them are (‘Walkabout,’ for instance, is much stronger than any of the subsequent episodes based around Locke), but on the whole they are much more watchable than a similar batch would be from the second or third season. It also obviously helps that the series doesn’t demand substantial foreknowledge at this point, and it would be far less alienating to newcomers who won’t have to struggle through jargon about Dharma, time travel or those goddamned numbers. Despite being rushed into production, the series finds its feet incredibly quickly, and although the focus of the series has changed substantially with each season, it’s only really the two-part pilot episode that ‘feels’ a little different, for trying to tackle a much larger situation with less intimacy than the usual episodes.
One of the most irritating aspects of these early episodes is the creators’ penchant for ending on a pointless musical montage, which doesn’t only spoil the illusion of an isolated existence (the premise that Hurley is listening to the songs on his personal stereo is a bit of a weak excuse, I’m glad his batteries seemed to run out after a while), but also means that the writers avoid ending the episodes on a strong note. This is the case for about half of the episodes on this set. Otherwise, the direction and style of the series are impressively cinematic, like much American television drama today, although there’s perhaps a little too much reliance on hand-held camera when it isn’t really necessary. From the modest, personalised reveal of the plane wreckage in the first episode to the twist of Locke’s wheelchair in the fourth, this series impressed me from the start with its careful execution, and avoidance of cheap shock value. Even so, viewers after such cheap thrills are still catered for with several episodes featuring scenes of Kate or Sawyer (depending on your orientation) wearing mostly water.
The mysteries have always been central to Lost, and even within twelve episodes there’s plenty of speculation to be had: Where does Ethan come from? What happened to the French woman’s child? Who will Kate sleep with first? What the hell did Locke see? The dangling threads have always been so open to interpretation, and that’s got to be one of the main attractions of Lost, even for stupid viewers who insist on voicing their poorly thought-out ‘solutions.’ For at least one and a half seasons, I was fairly convinced that Walt’s dog Vincent and the island’s smoke monster were the same thing, but the writers don’t seem to be backing up my obviously wrong theory any longer. What do they know?
Advantages: Excellent start to the intriguing series.
Disadvantages: Initially over-priced, and later irrelevant once the first season boxset was released.
You Like Games, John?
Written on 16.07.07
*****
The second half of the first season of ‘Lost.’
Although the only reason for these split sets was clearly to release some of the episodes ahead of time of the complete box-set, conveniently in time for the Christmas rush of around October, the nature of the series’ traditional plot arc structure means that the two halves do compliment each other in very different ways. While the first third or so of each season set up the premise and prominent characters of the show, the middle section began to introduce mysteries and plot developments that would, traditionally, be resolved by the end of the year. The second half of season one takes a slightly different tone right from the onset, with a greater sense of mystery added to the character flashbacks to compliment what’s happening on the island, and a more active role by many in either adapting to or escaping the new environment, as it becomes increasingly obvious that no one is coming to rescue them.
As the seasons of Lost continued, viewers who evidently watched only to receive fast and direct answers to the mysteries found their patience severely tested, to the point that the writers caved in to demand in the last half of season three. Although it can be a little annoying to see threads deliberately stretched, as they were in the disappointing second season, the pace of these earlier episodes is near perfect, each episode containing enough plot progression to keep things moving steadily along as several days pass on the island each time. Still, they would probably offer very little to those same viewers who already know most of what’s going on, and thus have no reason to watch.
The advancement of the plot isn’t the only reason to watch Lost, as I explained in my review of the first box-set, as there would be little point in spending forty-five minutes waiting patiently for revelations that could be more practically read on the internet (and if anyone really does ‘watch’ Lost in that way because they find the episodes themselves a bit dull, they’re kind of missing the point). The story is driven by the large ensemble cast of characters, whose stories don’t always advance the ‘main’ plots, but are interesting and enigmatic enough in their own way. Somewhat disappointingly, the flashback cycle had already begun again by episode eleven, as Jack and then Kate received a second offering that thankfully added more shading to the picture of their past life than later re-treads would manage, but the second half of the season still strives to fill in all the blanks by covering the more minor characters as well as providing a second helping for Locke, Sawyer, Sayid and Charlie. The flashback for Jin is especially interesting, as it provides the contrasting perspective to his wife Sun’s flashback earlier in the year and explains his nefarious actions, perhaps annoying viewers a little with its reliance on sub-titles to translate the Korean (it always amuses me how the Iraqis in Sayid’s flashback speak perfect English in comparison), but proving that the writers are capable of very interesting and unusual characterisation, particularly with this pair.
For a viewer watching the episodes back, who already knows all the basics, these later flashbacks are actually a lot more interesting than the earlier ones, which did little more than set up the one-dimensional foundations of the leading players (Jack likes to fix people; Kate was born to run; Locke doesn’t like being told what he can’t do; Sawyer is a bastard but he’s tortured so that’s okay, etc.). Right from the first episode of the set (technically episode thirteen), Boone’s flashback features a cameo from Sawyer as he is dragged through a police station, while Sawyer’s subsequent episode sees him drowning his sorrows with Jack’s late father. While some of these crossovers are nothing more than fun but insignificant ‘Easter eggs’ for the viewers to spot, such as Hurley appearing on Korean TV, there’s a very clear degrees-of-separation element being introduced that sets up a lot of intrigue for the show’s future development, which in hindsight it has perhaps failed to really live up to. Of course, viewers muct remember the fact that pretty much all of the characters were in the same city for at least a day before their flight out from Sydney, which significantly narrows the improbability of such meetings! It’s still a very nice touch, and with the disturbing and foreboding histories of Walt and Hurley finally revealed there are only greater mysteries to be solved.
Lost’s first season is the strongest opening season I’ve seen in a series for some time, but for all its adventurous nature, it often remains disappointingly shallow and predictable. After introducing the conflict between Locke and Michael as rival father figures for Michael’s son Walt in the first half of the season, which initially threatened to be quite disturbing as Locke took quite an interest in the boy and promised to show him ‘a secret,’ the conflict is finally dealt with in quite an unsatisfying and soppy way, as both men work together to save Walt’s life from a polar bear, and in the process find the usual respect for each other, blah etc etc. Even Sawyer’s quite silly vengeance against a boar that he partially believes may be the reincarnation of the man he killed wimps out at the end, almost as if all of these island creatures and monsters are conspiring to create a heart-warming tale of brotherhood and love. It’s amusing to hear Hurley letting out his suppressed rage in his focus episode that there are monsters and murderers around, but no one seems to be doing anything about it; similarly, Locke’s speech about the threat of the so-called ‘Others,’ and the rafts built by Michael to escape the dangerous island, provide the necessary reality check to the seemingly blissful ignorance the characters manage to express as they go about their daily lives. The story requires real threats to be present all the time in order to be really successful and riveting, and the two-part epic finale accomplishes the drama perfectly, making it the finest episode of the lot.
Despite being a serialised television series, Lost endeavours to be both a novel and a major motion picture, and achieves both of these goals to an extent, particularly in the cliffhanger finale. The cast is completely excellent and mostly convincing, amusingly PC but also intelligently multi-racial, demanding a lot of American-born Daniel Dae Kim who is forced to act entirely through face and body language and snippets of a Korean language that the actor doesn’t even understand. Some of the supporting cast, primarily those in the flashbacks, belong much more to the world of traditional and more low-budget television, and it shows in comparison to the experience of the leads. The cinematography is as excellent and cinematic as can be expected of television these days, as are the understated special effects (mostly explosions), while it goes without saying that the genuine and amazing tropical location keeps the series looking fantastic and believable, and not boring as I originally worried it might after watching the first episode.
It’s great to see the series evolving in response to what may have been audience reaction also, as the annoying music montage endings are now gone (it could also have had something to do with Hurley’s discman batteries running out), and the drama is heightened. The season ends on two incredibly exciting scenes, one out at sea and one above the hatch, promising more than any inevitably disappointing conclusion could satisfy. Season two may have been incredibly slow with the answers, but imagine if the series had been cancelled right there, as many great (and really terrible) series have before it. It must have been an interesting summer of speculation for American viewers, while the UK schedule was struggling to catch up.
The special features on this DVD are fairly impressive, but once again they would all appear on the complete season one set, offering nothing exclusive here. ‘Lost: On Location’ delves behind the scenes on a few selected episodes from across the year, there’s a documentary explaining the idea of the flashbacks for viewers who somehow haven’t understood it (basically an excuse for a small clip show), and some fairly enjoyable bloopers and deleted scenes. The set still retails at £15 to £20, which means no one will buy it when the complete season one costs only £10 more. Still, it’s a not-entirely-meaningless method of dividing the first season between its initial set-up phase and its more exciting plod towards conclusion. Usually with shows such as this, and the later seasons of this show especially, the conclusion proves far more satisfying than the teasing and frustrating messing around at the start of the year, but Lost’s surprisingly strong beginning makes both parts of this season equal halves.
Advantages: Plot develops in interesting and satisfying ways, at an acceptable pace.
Disadvantages: Too light-hearted and heart-warming at times. (I know, I have no soul).
4 8 15 16 23 42
***
Written on 27.07.07
The second season of 'Lost' had a lot to live up to after the strong first season, and the general heaps of criticism it received indicate that it did not do an adequate job. It seemed that the main criticism of critics and viewers alike was the lack of definitive answers provided by the writers for the increasing number of mysteries they introduced, and in particular the excruciatingly drawn-out phallus-teasing that saw a fairly limited number of events spread across twenty-four episodes of television. This lack of patience in the general public for the grand scheme of Lost's creative staff is understandable when viewing the series on a weekly basis rather than at each individual's leisure with a DVD set, with the frequent interruptions to the schedule leaving audiences waiting on a cliffhanger 'to be continued' style finale for an uncomfortable duration. Season two is guilty of failing to respond well to audience feedback in this regard, particularly as viewing figures dropped for this exact reason as early as the first half of season one.
The second season isn't big on answers. It is successful in expanding the show's mythology and background considerably and setting up a large bank of material to draw on for future seasons, but does nothing to win back those impatient viewers who switched off as soon as it became clear that the monster/dinosaur/pissed-off giraffe out in the jungle was not going to be satisfyingly explained within the first five episodes of the series. Watching Lost back in hindsight as an extended novel-for-television, a novel that is now over half complete, season two both builds upon the introduction offered in season one as well as introducing entirely new elements presumably as the writing team realised that this hugely successful show had a few more years left in it. This DVD set contains the first twelve episodes of season two, the set-up to the set-up, and is very big on introductions. As well as explaining the mysteries behind, or rather beneath the 'hatch' that dominated the latter half of season one, a selection of new major characters are introduced with whole new backstories to be explored through the series' flashback format, and further encounters occur between the plane crash survivors and the island's native inhabitants, the mysterious 'Others,' although almost nothing is revealed in that area until later in the season and well into year three. The same goes for the mysterious visions of the absent Walt, which are dragged out far beyond breaking point.
Even as a veteran of similar extensively plotted TV series, Lost really does test my patience, here more than anywhere else. Even within the first two episodes of season two, it's clear that the path ahead is going to be very long and very tedious, as both episodes end on the very same scene, reached from two different forty-five-minute-long angles, and are finally concluded in episode three by the presumed man with the answers (in the form of Desmond) running off, not to be seen until the season finale. It's clear that the writers approached season two with the bigger picture in mind, and were content to spread it evenly across an entire year of television, but even that doesn't account for the contradictions that start to creep in, even between Desmond's appearances at the beginning and the end. The introduction of new characters was a wise move, even if it was ultimately all but negated, and implies a recognition that some of the existing ensemble have outlived their usefulness in terms of having episodes devoted to their backstories.
The flashbacks are my main issue with season two of Lost, as episodes focused on the leads Jack and Kate particularly had started to get repetitive even by the end of season one, and even with the addition of new blood and changes to the format (the interesting episode 'The Other 48 Days' is presented entirely as a flashback, covering the timeline of the first season from the perspective of the tail section survivors), very little is revealed from characters the second, third or fourth time around that hasn't already been hammered home. Even worse, the flashback format has seemingly become arbitrary, with some flashbacks inserted simply to tell us a little bit more about what happened in the years before the crash in a way that influences neither the concurrent plot, nor even the attitude or actions of the central character on the island as they 'remember.' This is all but verified in the second episode 'Adrift,' an episode originally planned to explain more about Sawyer as he and Michael drift back to the island on their destroyed raft, which was changed at the last minute to waste time showing once again that Michael missed his son's early childhood. Sitting through the flashbacks really becomes a chore, and something that perhaps should have been left to the first year.
Now that I've let off all the steam that comes with discussing season two, there's the matter of explaining how, if it's so annoying, it managed to earn those three stars. Still in terms of the show's writing, the development of the Dharma Initiative and those creepy training videos are the strong point that differentiates the episodes starkly from the first season, not least in a visual manner. With access to a structure complete with a record player, an ancient computer and shower facilities, as well as limited supplies of packaged food, the island and flashback scenes begin to merge to the point that a greater measure of identification is required in discerning whether the story being told is past or present. Right from the memorable opening scene of the season, the writers jump at the chance to play with the audience's heads in this way – after all, they dumbfounded us with Locke's wheelchair right at the end of 'Walkabout' – and the retro time capsule of the Swan 'hatch,' as the characters still refer to it, is an excellent backdrop for the new stories being told, even if the significance of the numbers that must be typed into the computer every 108 minutes is absent from this half of the season. A few dangling plot threads from the first season are very satisfyingly solved, particularly that of the crashed Nigerian drug plane and the radio transmission picked up by the ill-fated Boone within it that we learn was answered by someone from the tail section, but as the season progresses it relies increasingly on shock endings that come right out of nowhere and occasionally, particularly regarding Jack's talk of raising an army at the end of 'The Hunting Party,' lead right back to nowhere.
Even if the characters are becoming a little boring, the excellent performances of the cast keep them watchable, especially as this is the major season of conflict between rival 'camps' of the survivors, in the loosest and most metaphorical sense. Matthew Fox and Terry O'Quinn continue the great rivalry they developed in the season one finale as the two major male leads, as Josh Holloway and Dominic Monaghan fade into the background a little more to set up their darker streaks in the second half of the season, and Evangeline Lilly keeps Kate convincing, especially as we finally learn 'What Kate Did' in the episode of the same name, despite the really annoying material written for her. The new cast are a mixed bag, and far more prominent here in their introductions than they were presumably ever intended to be in the series proper, the main problem being with their leader in Michelle Rodriguez, an actress who it would be fair to say has a very singular manner of delivery. On the other hand, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (known to some fans as 'Triple-A') has a very commanding and enigmatic presence as the religious Mr. Eko, the actor's penchant for method acting (allegedly by arriving on set two hours early and never speaking out of character, something that can be glimpsed in the bloopers) enhances his convincing performance, even when he imposes a forty day vow of silence on himself for killing one of the Others in self-defense. Continuing his excellent performance from the first season, Korean-American Daniel Dae Kim continues to out-perform his co-stars by speaking a language he has no real knowledge of, and is granted a great scene of comic relief in Hurley's dream in 'Everybody Hates Hugo' where Kim is finally allowed to speak in American English, although in the dream he insists that it's Hurley who is speaking Korean.
Lost lends itself perfectly to DVD release, capturing the feature film quality of the picture and sound and also making room for helpful extras to build upon the series for dedicated fans. The special features on this truncated set would eventually form a section of the complete 'Extended Experience' season two set, and just like the season one part one and two DVDs there is nothing exclusive to be found here, so it makes much more sense to buy the complete second season which works out much cheaper than the individuals – and as always, the second half of the season is more enjoyable. The extras are along the same lines as season one, with behind-the-scenes featurettes on half of the episodes, deleted scenes from flashbacks that aren't exactly riveting (answering many viewers' rhetorical question, or perhaps just mine, of, 'if this pointless, waste of time flashback made it into the final episode, what on earth did they leave out?'), selected audio commentaries, and quite nicely the surreal promo advertisement directed by David LaChapelle exclusively for Channel 4, which UK viewers may remember from 2005. Showing the cast waltzing in a slow motion daze amongst the burning plane wreckage on the beach and proclaiming their stereotypical professions in a chaotic, echoed voice-over ('one of us is a doctor, one of us is a criminal'), it serves to completely confuse and mislead viewers as to what the show is about, but it's still very interesting to watch, especially knowing it was filmed after the first season finished and the characters shown as paired dancing partners will hold some symbolic significance. This is the sort of forgotten thing that DVDs (well, and YouTube) are great at preserving.
There is no way that newcomers to Lost should start here, at perhaps its weakest point (though I personally have a greater dislike for the first half of season three, before the show turned around and became compulsive viewing again). There is also no reason to buy this specific set any longer, as it was rendered obsolete as soon as 'The Extended Experience' came out some months later, although it is always useful and revealing to examine each season in this bisected manner to pit set-up against pay-off and determine their combined success. It isn't a real triumph for season two, which accomplishes very little in these first twelve episodes and even admits to stretching a single day's worth of action across several episodes of narrative unlike the faster first season, but it's great to see the show get a very visual turnaround with the new setting of the Swan station to break up the repetitive, if admittedly incredible Hawaiian scenery. It's a shame that some of the mysteries don't go anywhere within the TV series and are instead consigned to the extracurricular 'Lost: The Experience' interactive game across the internet, something that must have been a lot of fun for investigative fans in learning the history of Dharma that is nevertheless inconsequential to the events happening on the show, and as viewers the largest mystery looming over these episodes that still hasn't been answered is whether Geronimo Jackson was ever a real band, or whether the creators are playing even more mind-games with viewers in insisting that it's genuine.
Namasté.
Advantages: New setting of 'the Swan' and the introduction of Dharma make things more intriguing.
Disadvantages: The season takes far too long to get going, arriving at nowhere by the half-way point.
Smells Like Carrots
***
Written on 07.09.07
The second half of Lost’s disappointing second year has the natural advantage of being licensed to provide answers to hungry fans, rather than the introductions of plot threads and new characters that necessarily dominated the first part. Ultimately, season two would reveal very little at a tediously slow pace, but the developments in key episodes of the run-up towards the season finale expand the scope of the series’ mythology nicely and, most importantly for the ABC television network, kept viewers guessing and eager through last summer. Watching the show back on DVD with the hindsight of another year, the deliberate red herrings and ultimately pointless distractions of short-lived characters detract from the enjoyment, as do the repetitive and equally pointless flashback scenes that comprise much of the screen time. An interesting finale clearly isn’t enough justification for what is fundamentally a very trying year of the disproportionately popular show.
Despite suffering from most of the same problems as the first half of season two, these episodes succeed in introducing bold new twists to the established format, just as patience with the normal order of things reaches breaking point. For the first time, the character flashbacks are used to directly address events that have transpired on the island, either during the forty-odd days since the characters crash-landed there, or even further into the past. New mother Claire (Emilie de Ravin) is the first to receive this treatment, finally recalling her drugged ordeal as a prisoner of the hostile ‘Others’ in their medical station on the island, in an episode that essentially revises that enemy threat entirely. Following his shocking return and change of heart towards the end of the year, Michael (Harold Perrineau) enlightens the viewers with memories of his experiences during his week-long absence and dealings with the Others, while the season finale grants a sizeable chunk of its feature-length running time to popular newcomer Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) to better explain the more recent history of the island, the DHARMA initiative and, most importantly of all for patient viewers, the reason behind the crash of Oceanic Airlines Flight 815 back on day one.
Tampering with the flashback format was probably the wisest move the writers could have pulled off at this point in the show’s development, yet these brief excursions in a new direction only serves to draw attention to the redundancy of the regular flashbacks in every other forty-five minute episode. There are a couple that aren’t entirely unwelcome, specifically the unexpected spotlight on background characters Rose and Bernard and the revelation of Hurley’s (Jorge Garcia) time in a mental hospital, but the rest essentially provide nothing but tedious distraction from the island events, which are proceeding with glacial haste as it is. The main problem with these flashbacks is their repetitive nature, reminding the viewer of the main characters’ one-dimensional traits that we already knew, dressed up in an ever-so-slightly different clichéd scenario from last time.
This consequently affects the development of these characters in the main island plot, as they are required by stylistic convention to act in a manner that reminds them of past indiscretions. Thus, we see ex-Republican Guard Iraqi Sayid (Naveen Andrews) forced to torture someone yet again, and another flashback reminding the viewer that he’s actually a nice guy who regrets his actions – but, y’know, sometimes you just gotta torture the information out of uncooperative people when the stakes are higher than your own conscience. Perhaps worst of all is the backwards progression of Sawyer (Josh Holloway), the financial con-man who seems locked in a Wall Street cycle of boom and slump as the writers make him loveable, then despicable, then loveable, and now despicable again for the remainder of this season. Elsewhere, the Korean couple Jin and Sun are given some prominent developments, but their formulaic flashback episodes have now completely lost the charm that made them some of the highlights of season one, while Charlie’s turnaround to ‘the dark side’ is dealt with in a bland and uninteresting way after his actions with Claire’s baby and the heroin stash earlier in the year.
Not every character is treated as poorly as the above examples, as the writers’ obvious favourites are given plenty to work with. Hurley, initially a sizeable piece of scenery who was promoted to a main character during the first season, is given a cute love interest and interesting psychological profile to make up for his binge eating earlier on. Michael’s progression is truly shocking, but permissible and enjoyable as it is essentially completely true to his established character. The curious Mr. Eko (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) takes on a serious role as the foil for John Locke (Terry O’Quinn), whose own sudden turnaround from believer to resentful victim of a supposed practical joke is an interesting focus of the latter episodes, being resolved climactically in the finale. The departure of Michelle Rodriguez’s Ana-Lucia is a wise move that the writers had apparently planned all along, making her flashback episode with Jack’s father seem like an unforgivable waste of everyone’s time, but it’s a shame that her unpopularity led to her fate being shared with fellow newcomer Libby (Cynthia Watros), whose character had a lot of potential and was just getting interesting. But then, whoever credited the Lost writers with making sound decisions?
In terms of the island plot, the second half of season two primarily concerns itself with turning established ideas on their head, and succeeds rather well. Locke’s crisis of faith emerges when he and Eko find a second DHARMA station thanks to the extremely eerie ultraviolet map discovered in ‘Lockdown,’ which implies that the necessity of pushing the button in the Swan station every 108 minutes ‘to save the world’ is nothing more than a psychological experiment. The season finale reveals the truth through trial and significant error, and the tying-up of ancient plot threads (particularly those concerning electro-magnetism) is satisfyingly done, even if it does urinate on the chips of everyone who held out for a larger theological reason for the plane crash. Less riveting is the evolution of the island’s presumed native inhabitants, colloquially referred to as ‘the Others,’ who are revealed to possess a greater degree of technological sophistication than they originally made clear (what was the reason for the convoluted cover-up and fake beards? It makes no real sense, other than as a revision by the writers between seasons).
Rousseau’s capture of a man claiming to be stranded balloonist Henry Gale forms a significant part of the island storyline that spans several episodes, as the characters, scarred by experience and presuming guilty until proven innocent, lock him up as a potential Other. The mystery is handled quite well, with enough signs pointing to each conclusion, but all of these plot threads are quite obviously and irritatingly stretched out as effectively a lead-in to the final episode. The purported time scale of the series helps to explain matters, with each episode taking place over a single day or even less, but can’t excuse the dull writing which is also annoyingly plagued by jarring inconsistencies, particularly evident between Desmond’s first appearance at the start of the year and his subsequent return in ‘Live Together, Die Alone.’ The larger plans may be in place to guide the writers along each season, but many details are clearly last-minute amendments; on the positive side, this means that the series responds enthusiastically to feedback and criticism, allowing for the departure of unpopular characters and increased prominence for fan favourites.
The special features of this set are identical to those found on the complete season two set, which also includes everything from the first half of the season and further bonuses as part of its ‘Extended Experience.’ The glimpses behind-the-scenes are more focused on the development of characters and plot this time around rather than the creation of sets and introductions of new faces in ‘Season 2 – Part 1,’ and although it’s interesting, it seems like fairly standard offerings for a DVD these days. Season two continues to hobble along in a significant slump from which it wouldn’t emerge until half-way through the next season, when things finally started looking up and the series began to push forward at an enjoyable pace into exciting territory again, and although season two features some vital revelations and unique characters, its significance does not match up to its entertainment value, which is frequently below-par. Still, the finale’s good, so it doesn’t matter if the other twenty episodes are dull – right?
Advantages: Satisfying season finale with long-overdue answers.
Disadvantages: Poor writing spoils the majority of characters, and extends the plot to breaking point.
S
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 1
Command and Compassion is a Fool's Mixture
***
Written on 09.11.07
As the exhausted Star Trek franchise tactfully slumbers in anticipation of a second big-screen re-birth with the imaginatively titled ‘Star Trek’ at Christmas 2008, a delicate re-make of the original series featuring such notable alumni as J. J. Abrams and Simon Pegg, what better time to return to that classic and incredibly influential series with an in-depth look at its more notable episodes? Well, some time in late 2008 would probably make more sense, but there are a lot of DVDs and even I have a limit on how much Trek I can handle in a week.
Star Trek: The Original Series, as it’s officially titled on merchandise nowadays to distinguish it from its successors, was the first series of the long-running franchise to be released on DVD in the form of simplistic individual releases containing two episodes each, without any notable special features (unless you count ‘interactive menu’ as a special feature, which they did in those days). Later years saw Paramount release more attractive box-sets of complete seasons for the various Trek series, The Original Series coming late in line, though aside from an unnecessary shuffling of episode order to reflect the original airdates (a less satisfying manner of watching the series than the more accepted production order that these original releases followed), there was little to differentiate the newer releases from the originals apart from flashy boxes and a limited number of entirely disappointing extras in the Star Trek DVD tradition. In its endless greed, Paramount has since tagged the odd episode into themed boxsets representing all of the television series, usually the same three episodes again and again, while the re-mastered versions of the episodes with a long-overdue polished print and distracting new special effects are due to be released on High Definition DVD some time very soon.
The good thing to come out of all of this corporate abuse of fan loyalty is that DVDs of the series are incredible easy to come by, and often very cheap as a result, and these original, individual releases allow buyers to select their personal favourite episodes or ones they might have missed. It takes me back to the days before complete series box-sets became the norm, and people willingly shelled out unreasonable sums of cash for inferior quality VHS videos containing up to ninety minutes of telly.
The first two episodes released on DVD format are, as expected, the first two voyages of the U.S.S. Enterprise under Captain James Kirk, titled ‘Where No Man Has Gone Before’ and ‘The Corbomite Maneuver.’ While this accurately reflects the production order of the original series, and imitates the identical VHS releases from over a decade earlier, creator Gene Roddenberry had previously recorded an earlier pilot episode titled ‘The Menagerie,’ starring Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike and featuring an entirely different crew with the sole exception of Leonard Nimoy’s iconic Mr. Spock; the first pilot did not prove successful with the NBC producers, but Roddenberry was given a second shot to sell his innovative sci-fi series, leading to the first episode of this set. Although ‘The Menagerie’ was never aired in the original run, the majority of its footage was incorporated into a later two-parter that took its name, causing the original to revert to an earlier title of ‘The Cage’ when eventually released on VHS. This original pilot in its unedited form was ultimately tagged on to the final volume of these two-part DVD releases (volume 40), though personally I feel it would sit more comfortably alongside its immediate successor ‘Where No Man Has Gone Before,’ as both are fine examples of a series starting out with little idea of its destination, littered with cute inconsistencies from the series as it would ultimately transpire.
On to the episodes themselves, these are both memorable early voyages of the Enterprise but are nowhere near the series’ best, which would largely occur towards the end of its first successful year and into its second, before the slump of its mediocre final season. Learning where his first pilot faltered in the “wise” eyes of TV executives (my use of inverted commas there indicates sarcasm, in case you were unaware or simply enjoy your intelligence being insulted by patronising comments in brackets), Roddenberry turned out a more tolerable second attempt with ‘Where No Man Has Gone Before,’ which in essence amounted to less philosophising and more fist-fighting. While this tendency to bow to commercial pressures makes it weaker than the excellent unaired pilot, there’s still much for fans to enjoy in this first show beyond spotting the oddities of one-time crew members, familiar characters wearing the wrong colours and working in the wrong division, and the ludicrously tall eyebrows of Mr. Spock. It’s actually quite a creepy and tense episode with (allegedly) the highest body count of the original series, as Kirk’s First Officer and closest friend Gary Mitchell is affected by an energy wave as the Enterprise passes through an energy barrier at the edge of the galaxy, evolving into a dangerous superhuman with glowing eyes and a lust for destruction.
A large number of early Trek episodes feature similar ‘man becomes god’ plots as Roddenberry tries to force his humanist morals down the viewers’ throats, and although many later episodes pull it off better and more meaningfully, this has the advantage of Gary Lockwood’s memorable performance as Kirk’s old buddy, sadly never to be seen again, though I wouldn’t want to spoil the fairly predictable plot. I haven’t seen Lockwood in anything outside of his most famous role as the-astronaut-who-wasn’t-Dave in ‘2001: A Space Odyssey,’ but his performance here is surely among the more memorable of the whole series, while other one-time co-star Sally Kellerman performs similarly adequately as Mitchell’s she-god accomplice (though obviously weaker and more prone to emotional outbursts, being a woman in a sixties TV show). The best scenes are Kirk’s bedside chats with Mitchell in sickbay as he becomes increasingly sinister and threatening, and their close connection means that the absence of DeForrest Kelley’s Doctor McCoy until his debut in the following episode is hardly felt at all. On the downside, the one-time Dr. Piper (Paul Fix) does nothing interesting whatsoever, Spock smiles a little too much for a Vulcan, and the physics are more than a little dodgy even for early Star Trek (an antiquated twenty-first century Earth ship reached the edge of the galaxy? Riiight...), but otherwise it has most of the ingredients of a classic Trek episode. Characters scream and tumble over the shaking bridge, pink lights are passed off as special effects, Scotty jabbers on about damaged engines, there’s a cracking matte painting of alien terrain, and Kirk gets his shirt ripped in a fight on some unconvincing rocks. It was enough to earn the series a weekly spot in the schedule at least, and Roddenberry and numerous other writers could set about expanding the horizons of the twenty-third century in ever more interesting ways.
‘The Corbomite Maneuver’ is a little disappointing as the next in line, but it’s still an enjoyable, if entirely average episode, and suffers for taking place entirely onboard claustrophobic starships after the alien settings of the two pilots. This is another episode based around danger, though a more general threat of destruction to the Enterprise than the emotional and spiritual conflict of the previous instalment, as a mysterious spinning cube blocks the vessel’s path and delivers a threatening message, proceeding to emit radiation and require destruction like those tapes in ‘Mission: Impossible.’ The Enterprise’s defensive attack is not greeted fondly by the mysterious First Federation, which sends a gigantic spherical ship piloted by a ridiculous looking alien named Balok to deal with this threat posed by the puny Earthmen and their Vulcan. While it’s mostly remembered for its whimsical turnaround in the final couple of minutes, this is an episode otherwise entirely based on the threat of imminent destruction, something viewers are reminded of with irritating regularity by Sulu’s ceaseless countdown (that even gets on the nerves of Scotty, causing the helmsman to limit his updates from then on), and as such it pales in comparison to other episodes that once again perform the same function, only better. It’s forgivable for coming so early on in the series, before any of the major alien races had been presented or even imagined yet, and there’s still quite a lot going for it. There’s once again a large role granted to a one-time character in the form of Anthony Call’s Lieutenant Bailey (that’s what I like best about these early episodes), while other major faces are introduced for the first time: Nichelle Nichols’ Uhura, the aforementioned McCoy, and Grace Lee Whitney’s huge-haired Yeoman Janice Rand, who gets some nice (if a bit typically sexist) scenes with Kirk setting up the romance that may have blossomed if Whitney hadn’t been fired part way through the first season. The drama is also maintained quite sufficiently, and Kirk’s analogy of poker isn’t as stretched as allegories tend to be on television series such as this.
These two early episodes don’t present the series anywhere near its peak, but are nevertheless entertaining in their own right, and further forgivable as prototypes of a developing television series that no one, including Gene Roddenberry, would really get to grips with for some time. ‘Where No Man Has Gone Before’ will always seem slightly better and more fascinating than it actually is due to its legendary status as episode one, and though ‘The Corbomite Maneuver’ feels far more run-of-the-mill, it still grants some great scenes of Kirk under pressure, including his first banter with Bones (who also utters an early version of his famous “I’m a doctor, not a...” catch-phrase). The first episode is the one most affected by the shuffling of more recent DVD releases into airdate order, as its unique uniforms, Enterprise model, personnel and other inconsistencies jar considerably when watched as the third episode of the run, so that’s another reason I prefer these earlier releases. Like the Narnia books and Star Wars, the original creation order is really the only sensible way to enjoy these things no matter what crazy schedules the producers try to insist on further down the line; it may seem a pointless and trivial nitpick to dwell on, but this is Trek after all, and surely that’s what it’s all about?
Advantages: A fairly strong start with the templates for many classic episodes, with fun inconsistencies to spot
Disadvantages: Disappointing after the magnificence of the earlier, unscreened pilot.
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 2
I Have to Take Him Back... Inside Myself
Written on 16.11.07
The early episodes of Star Trek are particularly entertaining to watch in light of the programme’s later years and its successive spin-offs, as the series struggles to shake off distinctly twentieth century attitudes to find its feet in Gene Roddenberry’s futuristic and brightly coloured humanist Utopia. The late Roddenberry himself admitted experiencing a learning curve over the course of the series’ production, and in the decades that followed, citing his attitude towards women as one key element that was perhaps ever so slightly questionable in the early days. Nowhere is this more evident than in the fun but rather embarrassing ‘Mudd’s Women,’ one of the few episodes written by Roddenberry himself, featuring a bizarre melding of mythology, a highly modern theme of drug dependence, and an attitude towards women that’s more than a little dodgy. The other story on this slim collection is the far superior ‘The Enemy Within,’ written by acclaimed science fiction author Richard Matheson (probably most famous for ‘I Am Legend’), that introduces the cliché of the transporter failure in what remains its most memorable and outlandish malfunction even forty years later, and provides the egocentric William Shatner with an opportunity to play against his favourite actor: himself.
‘Mudd’s Women’ is among the weaker offerings from the original series, and its main interest for fans is likely its continued display of slight inconsistencies and oversights compared to the series as it would soon be established. Spock smiles too much, the crew’s velour uniforms have quite clearly shrunk in the wash, the warp engines are powered by lithium (as opposed to the more suitably fictional dilithium) and Uhura wears yellow, but otherwise this plays out in a similar manner to many episodes, including a climactic run-around on a rocky sound stage and the enhancement of female beauty through a warbling saxophone theme and Jerry Finnerman’s soft focus photography.
The episode opens with the Enterprise in pursuit of an unidentified craft that seems eager to shake them off, so eager that the fool piloting it (automatically and correctly assumed to be a ‘he’ by the Enterprise officers in a teaser of the male-dominated forty-five minutes to follow) accidentally pushes his engines to overload and destroys his own ship. Fortunately, miracle worker engineer Scott (James Doohan) was able to beam the life-forms aboard the Enterprise before they met an untimely end, and the full-blooded Scotsman is struck by the irresistible beauty of the arrivals, as is anyone else who happens to come across them apart from their sleazy companion and owner, an unconvincingly Irish space pimp named Harry Mudd (Roger C. Carmel) who describes the women as his ‘cargo.’
Much of the episode is based around the male crew members smiling giddily and trying to peer down the flimsy costumes of the travellers, the first of many examples of the ‘Theiss Theory of Titillation’ (by which costume designer William Ware Theiss calculated the sexiness of an outfit according to the likelihood that the actress would fall out of it), and there’s plenty of material on the trafficking of women for French feminists to have a field day with, but it’s not all outdated, pre-equality sleaziness. It is mainly that, but not only that. It becomes increasingly clear that the women’s beauty, appealing though it is, is being enhanced by some form of drug referred to at first in ambiguous terms, which Mudd provides and regulates, and the ultimate moral of the episode is a bit of a shock that verges into fantasy rather than the show’s usual science fiction.
Along with the literary analyses that can be made if you’re really bored, ranging from the crone/maiden dichotomy to the elemental nature of the women’s backgrounds in water, air and earth based colonies, this episode does largely forsake the series’ usual genre in place of something that seems more suited to the past; Harry Mudd certainly doesn’t belong in the twenty-third century, and neither do the miners of Rigel XII whose costumes, attitudes and technology reveal them to be one of the series’ less subtle examples of taking twentieth century elements and simply dumping them into space unaltered. It’s still a fun episode, and has some more great scenes with the main characters (particularly DeForrest Kelley’s Dr. McCoy), but it would have been an enormous miscalculation if this story, one of three submitted by Roddenberry to be the series’ pilot, had been the first episode produced, defining a much different series.
From one of the weakest episodes to one of the best, at least in the early period of the series, ‘The Enemy Within’ is the classic Jekyll and Hyde division of Captain Kirk (Shatner) into his ‘good’ and ‘evil’ halves, again continuing to explore slightly fantastical themes that perhaps wouldn’t have been permitted as the show became more grounded in its own pseudo-science. Like the episodes of the previous DVD, this is another exciting and tense survival story, as a landing party led by Mr. Sulu (George Takei) is stranded on a rapidly freezing planet while Scott and his engineers frantically work to fix the ever-unreliable transporter. This being an early episode before some concepts were properly introduced, let’s pretend there was some problem with the ship’s unmentioned set of shuttlecraft that prevented them from flying down to the rescue instead. Although it’s essentially the B-story to bulk out the episode and add the danger element, the scenes on the freezing planet are some of the episode’s best, and the use of low-level phaser fire to heat rocks is another ingenious use of technology from Matheson.
William Shatner’s performance as good and evil Kirk is rooted towards the more famously ludicrous end of his acting spectrum, and while it’s a little hard to take their fights seriously even beyond the obvious stunt double due to the exaggerated staggering of ‘good’ Kirk and the daft yelling of his ‘evil’ counterpart (bizarrely wearing eye shadow; another subtle hint of Roddenberry’s attitudes?), it all makes for one of the most entertaining and intelligent episodes of the early run. The script is so good that it’s perhaps a rare example of a story that works better on the page than on the screen, mainly due to Shatner’s indulgence, as Matheson writes some incredibly revealing dialogue for Spock concerning his own inner conflict between his human and Vulcan halves, opposing elements that would be played against each other in several notable episodes of the next three years. While the overall message is pretty much exactly the same as it was in Robert Louis Stevenson’s original novella, that we need both halves to live, the episode features some commendably dark scenes as ‘evil’ Kirk overloads on Saurian brandy and practically rapes Yeoman Rand (Grace Lee Whitney) in scenes that must have been difficult to get past the strict censors of the time. To top it all off, the vast engineering set is seen for the first time, and there’s a really stupid-looking alien Chihuahua with spikes stuck all over it.
The series continues to explore new areas and define its own sub-genres even at this early point, while continuing to expand on the lead characters with varying degrees of subtlety. The first episode lets this release down significantly and doesn’t stand up well four decades later, but ‘The Enemy Within’ is a classic re-telling of a favourite plot that easily beats the many, increasingly desperate transporter malfunction episodes of ‘Star Trek: Voyager.’ This episode is the one to watch for anyone interested in seeing William Shatner at his most ridiculous and easily mocked, or for anyone interested in compiling an edited audio version that implies Kirk and Spock are gay lovers: there’s a lot to work with.
Advantages: Interesting concepts explored as the series starts to recruit legitimate sci-fi writers.
Disadvantages: Dodgy view of women in the former, and ludicrous overacting from Shatner in the latter.
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 3
I Cannae Change the Laws of Physics
Written on 30.11.07
The early episodes of the original Star Trek, despite demonstrating the occasional glitch with later continuity, also contain some of the finest plots the series would ever produce, before it started to re-tread old ground and resorted to increasingly desperate ideas in its later seasons. Fortune favours the fans with this third DVD collection of episodes presented in their original production order, as both happen to be superior examples of what the series was capable of even at this early stage. For containing two episodes of such high quality without one being below par, this release is among the most essential of these budget DVDs - unless you have the larger season box-sets of course, but you know you'd never get round to watching them all.
Fans should find everything that was enjoyable about the original series across these two very different episodes, from the tense horror-thriller 'The Man Trap' to the wackier and truly uninhibited antics of 'The Naked Time,' with little in the way of lousy, repetitive dialogue or pointless fist-fight scenes that tend to creep in to lesser offerings. This being a 1966 vision of the future, the shows are still plagued by cheap effects, unconvincing alien landscapes and occasional lapses into scientific implausibility, but anyone who watches this forty-year-old show with such a degree of humourless criticism should be led swiftly and silently from their parents' cellar into their customised Galileo shuttlecraft styled caravan and administered a single merciful phaser blast. They give honest nerds like me a bad name.
These episodes are both completely brilliant, and I'd plead that they be made compulsory viewing for fans of Trek and television sci-fi in general if it wasn't already so obvious and well-documented. The basic plots are fairly straightforward, and can each be summarised in a very short sentence:
The Man Trap: An old lover of Dr. McCoy's turns out to be a scary salt vampire.
The Naked Time: The Enterprise crew get drunk on an alien virus and wacky things happen.
Nevertheless, there's still an awful lot to appreciate beneath the surface, particularly in the way of character development that would remain all but unsurpassed for the rest of the series. The removal of inhibitions in 'The Naked Time' allows for an intimate analysis of major and minor crew members, resulting in some unforgettable scenes as Spock loses control and pounds a monitor to a pulp while bawling about love, while Sulu strips to the waist and terrorises all who stand in his way with a sword. Even 'The Man Trap' is high on character drama, as Spock frantically tries to persuade McCoy into firing on the salt-sucking creature that's taken the form of his beloved Nancy. DeForrest Kelley gets more to do in this episode than he would in many others over the next three years, which was presumably the reasoning behind the fairly silly title originally proposed as 'The Unreal McCoy,' before existing temporarily as 'Damsel with a Dulcimer.' Even today, many remember the show as 'The Incredible Salt Vampire,' as jokingly suggested by David Gerrold, and the name has stuck for the otherwise anonymous creature.
The salt vampire is one of the more outlandish alien creatures to appear in the original series, seeming more like something from 'Doctor Who' than Trek, and one of several monster suits (including Balok from the an earlier episode and the Gorn from 'Arena') to be designed by Wah Chang. It's certainly a refreshing change to see something so truly alien and monstrous in a series that otherwise relied mainly on painting actors green or dressing them up as Romans, and there's something of an endangered species moral tucked away beneath the high-adrenaline hunt. The 'ancient ruins' of Planet M-113 have dated considerably less well, the small soundstage with its red walls acting as an alien sky appearing in one of its less convincing guises, but however claustrophobic these sets are, it's refreshing to get away from the Enterprise so often in these early shows. The special effects are still being sorted out and experimented with, most notably the phaser that fires a stream of blue waves that actually looks pretty cool but will doubtless have been spoiled in the current re-masters, and a stun blast has the strange effect of slowing down actor Alfred Ryder's speech. These slip-ups are just the kind of thing I love in embryonic TV series, but they become less frequent from this point on as everything settles down.
Another of my favourite aspects of these early first season voyages is the focus given to constructing a sense of community on board the Enterprise, something that would vanish all too soon as the developers established what the show was about, and found no place for minor small-talk. Primarily, this gives Nichelle Nichols some dialogue outside of her usual restrictive "hailing frequencies open, sir," something the character even openly laments in her attempt to befriend Spock. 'The Naked Time' pursues this 'lower decks' focus even further, granting an unprecedented major role for Bruce Hyde as Kevin Riley as he succumbs to the water-based virus and proceeds to hijack the ship from Engineering, ordering ice cream for the crew and singing ditties from his Irish heritage. Gene Roddenberry's future wife Majel Barrett, commonly known as the First Lady of Star Trek due to her significant influence and multiple characters across all series (mostly as the voice of the Enterprise computer), makes her first appearance as McCoy's assistant Nurse Chapel and gets to go all mushy over Spock, attracted to his silent and mysterious inner conflict as I'm sure many girls were in the sixties until Leonard Nimoy released his Bilbo Baggins single and destroyed any credibility he had as a viable sex object.
With a couple of exceptions that no doubt focused solely on Kirk, the series never produced a more insightful character episode than this, as inhibitions are stripped away and viewers get to peek into the private thoughts and desires of an insecure Kirk, a sorrowful Spock and a positively psychedelic Sulu. This is unsurprisingly George Takei's favourite episode, and the scenes of Sulu prancing topless through the wooden corridor sets armed with a lethal fencing foil (changed from a katana in the original draft due to quite right fears of racial stereotyping) are some of the most memorable the series would ever produce. This episode is also notable for being the first instance of time travel in Star Trek, through an entirely pointless ending that sees Spock develop an intermix formula that hurtles the Enterprise back in time several days and would have acted as a cliffhanger into the episode that later became 'Tomorrow is Yesterday,' but as it stands this is merely a weird and quite distracting conclusion to an unhinged episode.
There remain a couple of quite major plot errors in this episode, chiefly the terrible Starfleet environmental suits made from bright orange shower curtains that merely flap over the characters and leave huge gaps for viruses and vacuums to easily penetrate, as clearly demonstrated when Lieutenant Tormolen scratches his nose through the bottom of the hood, but for its humour (both funny and really awful) and unique penetration into the characters' inner conflicts and true natures, this remains one of the most popular episodes of the original run. It also has the distinction of being the most integral instalment for those bizarre fans who insist on Kirk and Spock's relationship being based on far more than friendship or respect, if you see what I'm getting at there. I mean that they are gay. It's almost plausible if you mute the dialogue and edit shots together in a different way and are mad.
These two episodes present the original series at its very best, from the genuinely chilling corpses with sucker-stained faces in the first to Leonard Nimoy getting a rare chance to act out of character, in-character, in the second. The Next Generation made an offensively terrible sequel twenty years later that should be avoided entirely.
Advantages: Two of the best episodes, featuring a salt vampire and Sulu going crazy ape bonkers with a sword.
Disadvantages: The young series is still finding its feet, leading to some odd scenes.
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 4
You Smell Like a Girl
Written on 07.12.07
The fourth (now-)budget DVD twin-pack of classic Star Trek episodes again provides an entertaining clash of polar opposites, pitting the whimsical, adolescent coming-of-age tale 'Charlie X' against the merciless 'Balance of Terror,' the latter providing the introduction of the Romulans and the nastiest space-submarine face-off until 'Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.' Despite taking substantial liberties from the series' norm as it was coming to be established, to the annoyance of creator Gene Roddenberry as well as a minority of fans, the latter episode is widely regarded among the finest offerings of the original series, though opinion would seem to be divided on the merits and embarrassments of the former.
'Charlie X' represents the peak of the original series as a space-bound soap opera, expanding on the sense of community and familiarity that added a pleasing touch of humanity to this often coldly scientific future in these early episodes, and its basis in a distinctly 1960s character drama will either make or break it with fans. The story remains rooted in science fiction as ever, as Captain Ramart of the U.S.S. Antares hands over a young human male to Captain Kirk's care, for delivery to his surviving family on a starbase that lies on the Enterprise's flight path. The Antares seems strangely eager to get rid of the boy, identified as Charles Evans (Robert Walker, Jr.) who has apparently spent the last fourteen years being raised in isolation from human contact by a race of alien beings, and accordingly experiences a little trouble adjusting to life on a shipful of his own kind. Bombarded with the desires and strong emotions a young man must contend with during this difficult stage of adolescence, especially aboard a ship where miniskirts are compulsory uniform for attractive female officers, Charlie expectedly has a little trouble fitting in, to the point that he innocently mimics a couple's friendly butt-slapping when bidding farewell to Yeoman Rand (Grace Lee Whitney) and magicks away the face of a laughing crewman.
It becomes obvious that Charlie is more than your average hormonal seventeen-year-old, and not only for the actor clearly being about ten years older. His dangerous, mysterious powers seem to have no limits, as crew members vanish according to his will and the departing Antares explodes after Charlie causes one of its engine components to "go away," and even Kirk's resourceful crew seems unable to stop him as he personally takes command of the Enterprise towards its densely-populated destination. There's no doubt that this is a fun episode despite the danger, disappearances and deaths, and even if Roddenberry's stretched adolescence metaphor gets on your nerves a little, some of Charlie's parlour tricks are quite enjoyable, from making Spock quote deadpan poetry amidst his sensor reports to removing a woman's face, which is actually pretty spooky.
Scenes in the recreation room are always enjoyable, partly for being so rare in the series as it would soon be defined, and however much you may enjoy or loathe it, Nichelle Nichols' song to Charlie remains its most memorable appearance. As well as being one of the major episodes for soon-to-depart Whitney, this is a good episode for William Shatner as Kirk is placed outside his comfort zone of commanding nameless, red-shirted security officers to their deaths and must instead struggle to explain the facts of life to a teenager. It's surprisingly amusing, especially given the poor quality of jokes on the original series in general, and you can't help but feel a little sorry for Kirk. That is, until he dons the really horrible Starfleet-issue gym shorts and gets down to some homo-erotic wrestling, then it just gets awkward. For its distinctly Sixties outlook that quite clearly places women as the second, weaker sex, this is one of the episodes more likely to fade from the archives in centuries to come, but its character focus was enough to attract the attention of a young Ira Stephen Behr, who later wrote extensively for the spin-off series 'The Next Generation' and 'Deep Space Nine' before taking over that latter series half-way through and instantly turning it into a more character-centric series, apparently in the 'Charlie X' tradition.
'Balance of Terror,' on the other hand, is classic Star Trek at its most aggressive and warlike, as writer Paul Schneider presents a far more militaristic view of the Federation than would otherwise be seen outside of the feature films. Never seeking to hide the fact that the whole story is essentially ripped off the 1957 submarine film 'The Enemy Below,' Schneider's story is most memorable for introducing the Romulans as the first major alien race in the Star Trek universe, second to the Vulcans of course, a species with whom they seem to share a common ancestry. Their visual resemblance of the enemy Romulans - essentially the America-based Earth's cold war opponents in this turbulent political time - is enough to elicit unprecedented racial hostility in the Enterprise's weapons officer Lieutenant Stiles (Paul Comi), and although he is justly reprimanded by Kirk, his attitude does seem to be out of sync with the twenty-third century Utopia as Roddenberry imagined it, adding to the oddness of this instalment.
Contradictions aside, this is a brilliant episode and among the very best of the original run, the tense 'submarine battle' with the Romulan ship (equipped with a cloaking device that advantageously works both ways, meaning the Romulans can't see what the crafty Enterprise is doing either) still remaining exciting for today's viewers, and not even let down significantly through inferior visual effects. Although it was chosen as the first outing of the recent re-mastered series with brand spanking new computer-generated effects of the Enterprise, the Romulan ship, their weapons and assorted explosions, the original effects still do the trick nicely; the cloaking device is represented by a simple fade-out against the starry background, the Enterprise's phaser bursts shoot out from the right place, and the Romulans' distinctive energy weapon appears as an adequately menacing great ball of fire, unleashing quite horrific, flesh-burning destruction on the Earth outposts it assaults. The tiny model Romulan ship, decorated with a painted bird of prey motif, looks a little silly and basic by the series' later standards as it moved into higher budget feature films, but the cramped bridge set and familiar pointed ear make-up make a nice change from the series' usual human 'aliens,' even if the Roman allegories are ludicrously overdone, and the impractical helmets of enemy extras clearly only present to save the make-up budget from moulding a few more ears.
One of the most impressive features of this episode is Mark Lenard's memorable role as the unnamed Romulan commander, whose character duels in a stalemate with his equal opponent until Kirk gets the better of him and the two can finally communicate their respective admiration before the Romulan executes his final command. Lenard would don the pointed ears again a year later to play his most famous role as Spock's father, before swapping them for a dented forehead to play the first fully made-up Klingon in the opening scenes of the first Trek feature film, but this early role remains his finest performance. The tragic bookending of the episode with an ill-fated marriage ceremony is another very nice touch, whether Schneider stole that from 'The Enemy Below' or not, and most of all this episode serves to highlight that the future may not be all that peachy after all.
While the second episode alone would be reason enough for a Trek fan to own this DVD, 'Charlie X' is a great deal more expandable, whimsical and entertaining though it is. The popularity of 'Balance of Terror' guarantees it a place among every other Star Trek DVD anthology from here to eternity right next to the other popular episodes 'The City on the Edge of Forever' and 'The Trouble With Tribbles,' so it will remain readily available in a number of formats for a long time to come. More serious and ardent Trek fans - who are clearly way less cool and with-it than me - will likely find unreasonable fault with this forty-one-year-old episode due to inconsistencies it may raise with the recent prequel series 'Enterprise,' but the easy solution to this temporal paradox is to simply never watch an episode of that terrible series, which was justly cancelled before it could drag the franchise even deeper into obscurity. You're much better off sticking with the silly ancient series, which was also cancelled for being rubbish, but which knocked out a fair few corkers along the way.
Advantages: Nice balance of episodes - a light-hearted character piece and a gripping war drama.
Disadvantages: Subject to sexism and really bad costume decisions.
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 5
Written on 24.12.07
****
As Star Trek proceeded through its first classic, season, its writers continued to check off archetypal science fiction themes, as well as expanding the show's premise to deal with more inherently human matters. Both episodes featuring on the fifth DVD pit the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise against dangerous technology in control of dangerous men, while also raising intriguing questions of human identity and psychology that would continue to permeate the franchise through its later incarnations.
As the series finally settles down and gets its space legs, traits of earlier episodes are abandoned for better or worse in favour of establishing a repeatable format, but the show still impresses with novel concepts and ideas introduced on a weekly basis. So while viewers may be a little irked by the cheap re-use of an earlier matte painting for the Tantalus Penal Colony and Kirk's love for his vessel once again allowing him to keep his head when all around are losing theirs, we're treated to Star Trek's first android life forms; the first Vulcan mind-meld; some great new musical themes that would be repeated ad infinitum over the following three years; and the first disconcerting signals that beaming down to a shady location in a bright red shirt may not be the wisest career decision.
The two episodes on this volume are 'What are Little Girls Made Of?' and 'Dagger of the Mind,' both united in their dealings with new technology, as well as a particularly dark and chilling atmosphere for the customarily bright and colourful series. The first episode marks the second appearance of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry's future wife Majel Barrett in her role as the Enterprise's Nurse Christine Chapel, and she puts in a highly memorable performance even if it is marred slightly by once again being rooted primarily in her relationship with a man; previously it was her unrequited love for Mr. Spock, and here the reunion with her estranged fiancée of five years, the elusive Dr. Roger Korby (Michael Strong). Korby's archaeological expedition to the ancient planet Exo III has been strangely silent in that time, and only with the Enterprise's cautious visit does Chapel's old flame confirm his continued survival.
The Doctor makes a mysterious request that Kirk beam down to his research station alone due to the sensitive nature of his discoveries, though he extends the invitation to his beloved Christine once she introduces herself, and Kirk stretches hospitality further by bringing along a couple of red-shirted security officers just to be on the safe side. You know, just in case there's a huge, monstrously strong android living in the underground tunnels, intent on throwing trespassers into its bottomless chasm. Korby reveals that his assistants are advanced, ageless androids, manufactured with the technology left behind by the long-extinct civilisation of Exo III; only Ruk (Ted Cassidy) is an original creation, and by the time he explains the fate met by his creators, it's already too late. Understandably curious, Kirk is introduced to the android manufacturing machine a little more intimately than he perhaps wished, as Korby intends to send the Captain's android clone back to the Enterprise with a sinister mission of his own...
The plot may be a little straightforward in retrospect, but even after seemingly endless TV plots of evil clones and robot duplicates, the duplication of Kirk remains effective and very sinister, particularly during its covert escape discussion with Chapel over dinner that the writers pull-back-and-reveal as the original Kirk is escorted into the room. The ludicrously tall Ted Cassidy does look effectively alien in his mottled, skull-like make-up and unusual proportions, but perhaps of even greater note is Sherry Jackon's character of the female android Andrea. It's creepy enough that Korby has clad her in such a legendarily tantalising costume (another great, sexist piece from William Ware Theiss!), and there's more than a little hinting from Nurse Chapel's disgruntled attitude that he has enjoyed the obedient machine's company during his years of isolation, but the emergence of emotions as she develops feelings for Kirk makes for some powerful and horrible scenes as the Captain uses this human 'glitch' against her.
One of the strongest aspects of Robert Bloch's script is Kirk's use of brains to outwit his opponents rather than falling back on the cliché of a melodramatic fist-fight in a torn shirt, and his solution to making his android duplicate suspicious further cements the developing trust between Kirk and his First Officer Spock. I really like this episode, despite its final message being a little confused and inconclusive, but there would be plenty of opportunities to explore the human/machine dilemma in the decades to come, as 'The Next Generation' and 'Voyager' series incorporated artificial intelligence characters into their main casts.
Far from providing some light relief in contrast, as previous pairings have done, the subsequent 'Dagger of the Mind' is an even more ghastly story that doesn't even have the excuse of ancient aliens or advanced androids to cover up idealistic malpractice. Set during a routine cargo drop at the remote penal colony on Tantalus V, this is fundamentally an episode about psychology, as Kirk and ship's psychiatrist Dr. Helen Noel (Marianna Hill) investigate the mysterious circumstances that led to a former worker at the colony (Morgan Woodward) becoming clinically insane and stowing away aboard the orbiting Enterprise before being detained. The colony's administrator Dr. Tristan Adams (James Gregory) explains that the deranged Van Gelder accidentally exposed himself to the experimental neural neutraliser device, but Spock's unorthodox investigation into the madman's own mind using risky Vulcan methods uncover the real, sinister truth behind the neutraliser's application.
While it drags on slightly and the confined sets feel a little claustrophobic and cheap (the neural neutraliser consists of a big chair and a smoke detector on the ceiling above), 'Dagger of the Mind' remains a memorable and significant episode of the early run, with a spectacularly energised performance from Morgan Woodward that allegedly left him emotionally fragile for weeks afterward. As this is the original series, the presence of a female officer in the landing party, no matter how accomplished in her field, inevitably descends into a form of Kirk attraction at some point, but the experiment with implanting false memories of their relationship works as a chilling analysis of just how effective the neural neutraliser can be - sadly, a revelation that arrives too late.
While Dr. Adams feels a little like the next in a developing line of misguided or misled human antagonists, especially coming so soon after Dr. Korby in the previous episode, the situation down on the high-security colony is believable and terrestrial enough to remain suspenseful, and balanced out nicely with the Vulcan mumbo jumbo going on in the skies above. In another 'allegedly,' it's reputed that the mind-meld was conceived as a result of a re-write, after the original plan to have Spock hypnotise Van Gelder was deemed inappropriate for audiences due to his lack of medical qualifications; it would only have been acceptable for Doctor McCoy to perform the operation in his place.
It's clear that someone was paying attention to continuity and background details at this point in the series, something that more pedantic fans should be thankful for, meaning that the isolated archaeologists of 'What Are Little Girls Made Of?' are still equipped with old-style Starfleet equipment as seen in the pilot episodes, while an Earth-bound cargo container in 'Dagger of the Mind' bears the intriguing destination of 'Eurasia NE,' dropping hints concerning Earth's united world government that would never really be confirmed, at least not in this series.
The character of Helen Noel in this latter episode would never appear again, and was originally scripted to be Grace Lee Whitney's recurring character of Yeoman Janice Rand, a decision that was altered as it became apparent that the show would be continuing for some time yet, and the threat of a serious love interest for Kirk was something the producers wished to avoid - it makes her presence on the DVD cover a little odd though, until you look at some of the others and realise just how arbitrary these cover shots are. This absence of Rand is a bit of a shame, but makes sense as the character would inexplicably vanish completely in a few episodes' time due to Whitney's departure from the series. Come to mention it, where are Scotty and Sulu in these two episodes?
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 6
**
Written on 26.12.07
After the thought-provoking science fiction concepts of the previous DVD volume, this pair of episodes follows a decidedly different course, abandoning notions of the alien in favour of human concerns and even, in the second episode, failing to resemble sci-fi at all. While opinion may be divided on the merits of the episode 'The Conscience of the King,' an effective mystery and revenge tragedy set against the ever-reliable gimmick of a Shakespeare production, it would be fair to dismiss the preceding episode 'Miri' as one of the poorest, most irritating and problematic the series ever churned out, even compared to its significantly low points in the final season.
The plot of this first episode is as well-known and well-parodied as many from the classic series, but however intriguing it may be in concept, the final product is a considerable disappointment, and the first episode of the series that I would deem unwatchable, even for fans, who would be the most disappointed of all. Continuing its exploration into the depths of uncharted space, the U.S.S. Enterprise picks up an archaic S.O.S. distress signal from a strange new world that astonishingly appears to be an exact duplicate of Earth. Wow, I can't wait to see how they explain that, this ought to be great!
Beaming down to find the source of the broadcast (predictably in the 'North American' continent) and offer their assistance, Captain Kirk and his landing party find the town apparently deserted, before being attacked by a sickening, rampaging humanoid creature that shortly expires. Eventually locating a helpful native in the form of the young girl Miri (Kim Darby), Kirk and his crew learn that the majority of the planet's population wiped itself out centuries before, in an accident with a life prolongation experiment. The only survivors were children, who now live as a juvenile, playful gang calling themselves 'the Onlies,' and bearing a hostile attitude towards this invasion by Kirk and his party of 'grups' (a slang corruption of 'grown-ups').
As Kirk starts to exhibit signs of contracting the disease himself, Spock and Dr. McCoy deduce that it is still running rampant on this world, and only affects humans as they enter puberty; the children, though apparently ageless, are slowly falling victim to the disease as they mature, and Miri herself only has a short time to live. Quarantined on the planet and with an estimated lifespan of a week, can Spock and McCoy devise an antidote? Can Kirk calm the children down before he is bonked on the head one too many times? Could the children's dialogue be any more appalling?
This is one of my least favourite episodes for a variety of reasons, each of which would hinder the quality of even the finest episode in isolation, but when these lousy forces are combined, it makes for a powerfully bad show (sort of like Captain Planet). The child actors - excluding Kim Darby of course, who is quite obviously nineteen rather than twelve, and Michael J. Pollard who is an even more absurd twenty-seven - are terrible, and their scripted dialogue and spontaneous games are beyond cringe-worthy, entering into the realm of vomitisation. As one of many obvious signs that this episode was significantly rushed, the young cast was merely drafted in from the families of the actors and studio crew (William Shatner's daughters are there, alongside Grace Lee Whitney's twin sons), and their lack of professionalism shows. Another glaring oversight concerns the opening mystery of this Earth duplicate's creation, which is soon forgotten and goes completely unexplained! Further bad touches come with the disappearance of the red-shirted security officers after the early scenes, and the pointless shock revelation dropped into one of Kirk's log entries that the children will run out of food within a few months: as if we weren't already facing the more serious threat of a one-week deadline for the development of the vaccine.
While it's true that the current media climate has ludicrously exaggerated audiences' attention to suggestive paedophilia (as 'Brass Eye' so memorably demonstrated), it's still a little uncomfortable watching William Shatner abuse a prepubescent teen's crush on him, and linger a little too long in his adoring glances. The only positive thing to come out of these weird scenes is the opportunity presented for Grace Lee Whitney to get some substantial, emotive scenes in her final performance as Kirk's lusty, stupid-haired Yeoman Janice Rand, a regular character up to this point who would suddenly vanish hereafter due to alleged sexual abuse suffered on the set, according to Whitney's autobiography, or alcohol according to others.
In addition to this memorable swan song from Rand, the episode also makes up a little (but just a little) for all the embarrassing dialogue with a couple of great scenes between the three major characters Kirk, Spock and McCoy (William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley), cementing their strong friendship under crisis. Kirk's command that the two officers will have to isolate the virus and develop a vaccine is met with deadpan sarcasm from McCoy, who asks, "is that all, Captain? We have five days, you know." These three core performers are all very good in this episode, particularly Kelley, and it's a shame Nimoy is forced to contend with some of the overly melodramatic exclamations placed before the commercial breaks, as he expresses concern that the virus they have created may equally be "a beaker full of death!" It's also a refreshing change to have some proper outdoor filming on the Paramount lot after the claustrophobic starships and unconvincing alien vistas of previous weeks, even if the unaltered street set from 'The Andy Griffith Show' is weakly and apologetically explained by Spock's further unexplained analysis that the planet resembles Earth "circa 1960." Oh dear.
The second episode on this set is fortunately much better, though is slightly odd for abandoning science fiction entirely in place of a surprisingly dark murder mystery plot. With its lofty Shakespearean overtones, compassionate allegory of the vengeful search for Nazi war criminals and a depiction of Kirk as a ruthless manipulator capable of abusing affection, this is far from the standard Star Trek fare but is an interesting instalment capable of reaching a wider audience, even if its uniqueness serves to alienate some of the regular viewers. The episode opens with the Enterprise lured to Planet Q by an old friend of Kirk's, under the false pretence of a scientific breakthrough; for once, this deceit is well-intentioned, as Leighton informs Kirk of his suspicions concerning the lead actor in a travelling Shakespearean troupe currently passing through the sector. He believes that the elderly Anton Karidian is in fact the infamous Kodos the Executioner, the butcher of Tarsus IV who ordered four thousand men, women and children to their deaths twenty years earlier and was presumed dead. Only Kirk, Leighton and a handful of others would recognise him, but Kirk has his doubts - until his old friend ends up dead, and a series of mysterious coincidences leaves the Karidian Players stranded on Planet Q with only the Enterprise to ferry them to their next destination, and a hypothetical checklist of old witnesses to eliminate.
'The Conscience of the King' is an intriguing mystery that's slow to play out, but features some very memorable scenes. Kirk's seduction of Karidian's daughter Lenore in an attempt to covertly learn about her father is a little disturbing as well as amusingly raunchy ("all this power, surging and throbbing yet under control... are you like that, Captain?"), and the second appearance of the ill-fated engineer Kevin Riley after his memorable role several episodes earlier is one of the most effectively horrific of the series, particularly as his previous appearance was so light-hearted. Nichelle Nichols gets to sing him a pleasant song in one of Uhura's few substantial appearances outside of her customary constraints of opening the hailing frequencies, and there's a bizarre moment early on when the lounge band on Planet Q performs a rendition of Alexander Courage's Star Trek theme music within the show itself, which was never particularly suited to outer space. It's also worth noting that McCoy's mention of eugenic experiments being carried out on Tarsus IV, and "not for the first time," offers exciting foreshadowing for fans of one of the series' most memorable episodes, but that's a long way away yet.
With 'Miri' letting this package down substantially, and 'The Conscience of the King' not being a fair representation of the series as a whole, this is the first point in the series that the quality really slips. This original DVD release also adds nothing of interest for fans beyond its low price, presenting the episodes in the same "remastered" form as the late nineties VHS releases that hardly seems to have cleared the print up at all. There are no special features (unless you count an interactive menu) (which you shouldn't), and most ridiculous of all, really demonstrating the half-hearted production job of these sets, the cover features a character who doesn't even appear in either of these episodes! Two stars only because the second episode provides a little compensation for the embarrassment of the first.
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 10
**
Written on 15.01.07
"An incredible fortune in stones, yet I would trade them all for a hand phaser, or a good, solid club."
'Arena' has become about as legendary as any individual Star Trek episode could hope to achieve, its simple tale of one-on-one combat between equal adversaries having inspired numerous similar plots (though it has precedent) as well as direct parodies, and some of its unique features have taken on a disproportionately strong presence in Trek fandom, most notably the reptilian Gorn race that would never be seen in the series again. This was the first episode written by producer Gene L. Coon, one of the series' most consistently inspiring writers whose stories frequently concerned the reconciliation of opposing forces, triumphing over prejudice in some of Star Trek's finest hours. While this isn't one of his finest offerings despite its popularity, it's still a very strong episode and one of the most prominent for William Shatner as the central figure of Captain Kirk, transported to a distant planet and isolated from his ship and crew, forced to contend in brutal life-or-death combat with the captain of the alien ship the Enterprise was pursuing.
The conflict is orchestrated by the powerful Metrons, yet another advanced race of godlike aliens who consider it their prerogative to interfere in the affairs of primitive species (that's you and me) and criticise our barbarous ways. Coon's moral statement is diluted by his presentation of the adversarial Gorn as a stereotypically violent creature relying on brute strength in contrast to Kirk's intellect, but Kirk's ponderous soliloquies do an effective job of summing up twenty-third century morals, even if it contributes to the image of Starfleet captains as arrogant lecturers that would be more fully realised in Jean-Luc Picard. Of course, aside from all the talking, this is likely such a popular entry for featuring so many explosions, proximity to which (here, as well as in other episodes) caused Shatner and co-stars such as Leonard Nimoy and DeForrest Kelley to suffer from incurable tinnitus in later life. However ardently pacifistic the viewer may be, it's hard not to get caught up in the frantic race for survival as Kirk scrambles across Vazquez Rocks with the hisses of the pursuing Gorn echoing all around, and even the opening scenes provide the first glimpse of space combat for some time, introducing photon torpedoes to the starship's arsenal in accompaniment to more traditional phasers.
However immortal this instalment of the franchise may be, it ends up seeming to me like a fairly average forty-eight minutes. Wah Chang's Gorn costume may look rather fake but it's undeniably great to watch lumbering about on screen, and its return to the franchise was eagerly awaited across four decades until the prequel series 'Enterprise' finally caved in and gave the creature a cameo return in one of its final episodes. On a more personal note, Kirk's entanglements with the creature were already familiar to me years before I even saw this series, for featuring in 'Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey' (my favourite film when I was six). There are a number of flaws that keep this episode from being truly great, from its over-emphasised morals to the uselessness of the Enterprise and its thumb-twiddling personnel, which although vital to the plot, makes for some particularly un-riveting scenes as the setting switches back and forth. Gene L. Coon ironed out these sorts of problems for his later contributions which were among the best the series had to offer, but ironically 'Arena' remains his most recognised.
Of course, these DVD releases contain two episodes, but there's a good reason I neglected to mention 'The Alternative Factor' until strictly necessary, and the reason is that it's absolutely terrible. Undoubtedly the worst episode by this point in the series (there are some in season three that may take the biscuit, but I'll see those in due course), this episode fails to impress on a number of levels, and gives the distinct impression of a production crew, unimpressed by a weak script, that was past caring about the quality of that particular week's instalment. As tends to be the case, there were a couple of unforeseen drawbacks that ended up making this episode slightly more abominable than it would have been: first was the failure of conscripted actor John Drew Barrymore to bother showing up for the key role of Lazarus, leading Robert Brown to be drafted in as an less suitable last-minute replacement, while a scripted and filmed romantic sub-plot between his character and the Enterprise's Lieutenant Charlene Masters was excised in post-production after networks in Southern states objected to the interracial entanglement. This bigoted decision caused the missing minutes to be filled with pointlessly repetitive shots of Lazarus stumbling over rocks in the lousy-looking bizarro sequence that was already significantly over-used.
The plot seems relatively straightforward, but it becomes increasingly difficult to follow precisely what's going on as it develops, though it's equally possible that was merely my attention wandering. Freaky stuff is going on in the universe: the fabric of space-time seems to have been interfered with in a manner even Mr. Spock is at a loss to explain, but the Enterprise is able to track the disturbance to a barren, rocky planet nearby. An unconvincingly-bearded human calling himself Lazarus seeks the Enterprise's help in escaping an unseen foe, but even as he recovers in sickbay, his assailant appears to catch up with him and inflict further damage. It becomes (fairly) evident that there are two versions of Lazarus, both locked in an endless struggle for some unexplained reason or compulsion, each crossing over between our universe of matter and a parallel universe of antimatter, represented on screen by a blank, glowing region printed as a negative. If the fight continues it will jeopardise both universes, or something, or perhaps not, but for whatever reason it's up to Kirk to sort things out in the manner Starfleet Academy taught him: tumbling combat over rocky terrain. Did he learn nothing from 'Arena?'
This is an incredibly tedious episode to watch, particularly due to the over-use of the matter/antimatter fight sequences accompanied by a "spinning newspaper" style effect and a meaningless photo of the Trifid nebula superimposed, that I presume is representative of "the universe." Adding insult to injury, Lazarus' one-man vessel is the most ridiculous ever to feature in the series, looking like a carriage from a theme park's flying saucer ride, and the character's wispy beard becomes distractingly fuller, thinner, longer and shorter with each scene, disappearing almost entirely on one occasion. 'The Alternative Factor' is a disappointing episode that is easily ignored in the canon, but unfortunately serves to drag down what could otherwise have been a fairly decent DVD, though one thankfully lacking in special features so completist fans aren't compelled to buy it. It's unfortunate that the fairly good 'Arena' couldn't be twinned with something more impressive, but that's the risk that comes with releasing episodes in strict production order: sometimes you get lucky and sometimes it stinks.
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 11
*****
Written on 17.01.08
At its very best, Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek envisaged an optimistic future in which the idealism of John F. Kennedy's America was provided a fully-realised outcome in the United Federation of Planets, and it's the series' firm belief in these utopian principles that makes some of its more significant instalments all the more historically fascinating and uplifting to watch.
Glimpsing some of the cheap special effects and corny aliens afforded by the series' modest budget provides an understandable source of humour for many casual viewers, often pigeonholing the original series within a retro reputation isolated from the more recent spin-offs. Yet, in their ceaseless desire to rob fans of their money, Paramount have recently sought to rectify this by repackaging the series with all-new computer generated effects that look just as unconvincing as the original models, and will appear just as dated within a decade or so, but are at least partially successful in tricking fickle viewers into thinking they're watching a worthwhile modern television show, as opposed to a dusty relic. This is the main reason I think the remastered episodes are a complete waste of time and an insult to the series, preventing its historically significant optimism for looking as dated, clunky and washed-out as it deserves.
There's a reason for this ranting (aside from the fact that it felt pretty good!), summed up by the excellent episode 'Tomorrow is Yesterday.' Written by one of the series' finest, D. C. Fontana, this is the first Star Trek episode to forsake the stretched alien analogies that would increasingly allow the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise to interact with alien civilisations whose cultures closely parallel Earth at various points in its history (especially in the show's second season), and instead sends the starship directly back in time to the USA in the twentieth century, before that destination became a cliché among later time tourists. While this episode includes many of the usual gags and moral crises that would be expected - the Enterprise being reported as a U.F.O. (which of course it is), accidental interaction with humans from the past who learn too much about the future, and wide-eyed wonder at the marvels of twenty-third century technology such as portable communication devices (um... wow), the episode is particularly noteworthy for correctly anticipating the success of NASA's Apollo program.
The oft-cited line from this episode sees Lieutenant Uhura receive a radio transmission concerning "the first manned moon shot" launching from Cape Kennedy on the coming Wednesday, allowing the Enterprise crew to date their arrival to the late 1960s and for viewers of all repeat runs and video releases to more accurately place it in 1969. It isn't the lucky guess of Apollo 11's Wednesday launch that stands out, but rather Fontana's faith in an endeavour that was only beginning to come together as the episode was produced. As unfortunate coincidence would have it, the first Apollo mission ended disastrously on the day following this episode's first broadcast, but American perseverance would eventually see it come to fruition before Star Trek's decade was out. Curiously, the episode this does have a tenuous relation to is the radically different and much earlier 'The Naked Time,' the climax of which saw the Enterprise accidentally launched into a time warp for the first time. The twentieth-century Earth episode was originally outlined as a follow-up to that story before the idea was postponed and the original ending modified, which was probably a good thing as it allowed the cast and crew to be fully settled into the series before this ambitious story was tackled in due course.
The Enterprise has ended up in this unfortunate situation through an encounter with a "black star" - another nice instance of dating the episode, as the more common term "black hole" would not be coined until later that year. Of all the places it could have ended up, the ship had the rotten luck to materialise above a US air base, from whence fighter pilot Captain John Christopher is sent to investigate. Accidentally tearing apart his flimsy vessel with a tractor beam, Kirk orders the pilot beamed aboard where he must be detained in order to prevent contamination to the timeline. Unfortunately, in an episode that continues to pile unfortunate events on top of each other with amusing regularity, Spock learns that Christopher must be sent back for the sake of his as-yet-unborn son, whose contributions will be vital for humanity's future. The next problem is how to sneak into a secure military installation and delete evidence of this unwanted first contact so that the pilot's outlandish story will never be believed...
While "future people visit now and laugh at how backwards we are" is a much overused device in science fiction, even within the Star Trek franchise itself (most notably the fourth feature film), this episode, as an early example, feels fresh and avoids some of the usual dumb jokes and embarrassments. The story is much more about trying to repair damage through covert means than strolling downtown for frolics and making Spock hang around with hippies for a laugh, as the series would find embarrassing ways to cover such ground later on. Captain Christopher (Roger Perry) is an interesting character for being so unfairly treated by the Enterprise crew, at least compared to past figures they encounter in their other cute time excursions, and it's also interesting to see Spock being pushed to invent novel time travel theories on the spot, outside of his usual comfort zones. This is an episode that works excellently on both a superficial and meaningful level, and its time travel concepts, methods and morals form the basis of all that come hereafter. As a bonus, there's even a minor sub-plot about the Enterprise's refitted computer flirting with the crew that provides some cheap laughs.
The accompanying episode on this DVD is another classic, 'The Return of the Archons,' which introduces further Star Trek firsts: Kirk flagrantly breaking the Prime Directive of non-interference, and discussing a computer to death. Written by series creator Roddenberry, the larger themes concern his customary humanist principles of the importance of freedom and individual thought outside of an oppressive doctrine, in this case the enforced "will of Landru" that renders the citizens of Beta III zombie-like in the daytime before launching into a debauched night of "Festival" as an outlet for their repressed emotions, but Roddenberry might as well be talking about all forms of organised religion, particularly his personal grievances with the Catholic church. The Lawgivers' enforcement of absorption into the Body is more than a little reminiscent of how conformist regimes would later be personified by the Borg in 'Star Trek: The Next Generation.' A quite major and distracting contradiction crops up despite this story's commendable intentions, the theme of conformity being undermined somewhat by Kirk's voiced decision that this civilisation be remodelled "in a human form." Hmm...
This latter episode's unusual costumes and filming on an exterior soundstage lend it a distinctive look within the series that is particularly welcome after the previous ship-board show, while the unfolding mystery plays out at a satisfying pace, though it does fall back on tried-and-tested territory once undercover investigation becomes melee combat in a cave set. It's a lot of fun to see Spock reminding his Captain (and the viewer) of the Federation's primary principle of non-interference in the affairs of less developed civilisations, only for Kirk to disregard the regulations as inconvenient; it's surprising he lasted the full five-year mission. Of all the individual DVDs, this is among the very best for containing two episodes of such high quality, and they're both satisfyingly different. 'Tomorrow is Yesterday' is one of the series' finest, and offers 1960s viewers the unique perspective of the Enterprise through the eyes of a 1960s man. Y'know, with that domed saucer and cylindrical protrusions, it does look like a flying saucer...
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 12
****
Written on 19.01.08
The second half of Star Trek's first classic year was the most consistent period in the show's brief history (brief if discounting the gargantuan proportions the franchise would later take on through its various spin-offs), and its episodes consistently dealt with dark and relevant social issues in inspired ways. This collection is preoccupied with war, first presenting a bizarre alien conflict fought entirely with computers that nevertheless results in all-too-human casualties (well, humanoids with big hats at least), a creative take on the threat of Mutually Assured Destruction featuring many highly relevant parallels to the Cold War being "fought" at the time of broadcast.
The second episode, the famous 'Space Seed,' indulges in more speculative science fiction and dooms our own immediate future to a cataclysmic Third World War of eugenics in the early 1990s. No, I don't remember it either. While it thankfully overestimates twentieth century humanity's appetite for destruction and level of genetic breakthroughs, Carey Wilber's sole writing contribution to the series remains one of its most popular, to the point that it received a high-profile sequel in the second Star Trek feature film.
The first offering 'A Taste of Armageddon' is a little odd for being the second episode in a row that Captain Kirk beams down to an alien world, observes its strange and dangerous culture, and decides that it just has to go. The situation written by Robert Hamner is so extreme that it may require a certain suspension of disbelief to entertain at first, until the reflections of America's Cold War and War in Vietnam hit home and it becomes that little more plausible. The conflict is fought between two neighbouring planets, the unseen Vendikar and the focal Eminiar VII, which is treated to another superb matte painting I'd love to have on my wall.
As is always the case with these civilisations until Kirk pays a visit, an amicable but clearly insane status quo has been maintained between the two warring states for centuries, which allows them to fight without the use of costly weapons or damage to property. The entire war is fought with computers in a high-stakes game of Battleships, and anyone unlucky enough to be in an area designated as a hit must voluntarily step into one of many conveniently located disintegration chambers. The premise alone would surely provide Kirk with enough vitriol to smash this crazy system, but when the visiting Enterprise is itself declared a target, and its crew politely commanded to beam down within twenty-four hours for their own disintegrations - well, that really pushes Jim over the edge. It would still be a few episodes yet before Kirk was forced to confront his own contradictory feelings about war in 'Errand of Mercy.'
Despite deteriorating into standard jailbreak fare by the half-way point, this is another high quality episode of the series with a great eerie atmosphere as the initial bombardment is declared but Spock fails to detect any traces of damage, before the shocking truth is revealed. The Cold War parallels are a little heavy-handed but perhaps necessary, as casting the Romulans and Klingons in the roles of Soviets elsewhere in the series seemed a little too oblique for some viewers; the casualty reports are another novel feature that are easily overlooked today, but at the time may have reflected such reports being part of televised news broadcasts from Vietnam. Another feature that makes this episode quite special is the significant role afforded to Chief Engineer Scott in commanding the Enterprise while Kirk and Spock are trapped on the planet, after James Doohan's absence for much of the first season. Scotty gets to prove himself as much more than a one-joke character as he confidently takes to the captain's chair and handles the turbulent political situation with aplomb, but for those who enjoyed the one-joke aspect there's still plenty of that to go round, with convincingly Scottish lines such as, "aye, the haggis in the fire for sure."
'Space Seed' is a more perfected offering, introducing a guest villain that works on all levels. Khan's artificially advanced strength, intelligence and ambition make him a perfect match for Kirk even though he is out of time; Ricardo Montalban ('Fantasy Island') is brilliant in the role; he eloquently quotes Milton and has the arrogance to compare himself to Lucifer, and he proves his dastardliness by smacking Nichelle Nichols across the face. Khan's takeover of the Enterprise is even more tragic for the innocence and pacifistic style that the episode starts out, the Enterprise coming across a derelict spaceship from Earth's past, launched in the days before the warp drive afforded convenient interstellar travel, and the survivors of its hibernating crew are revived for another chance at life. Details are sketchy of the ship's time period due to the global turmoil, but it's assumed that these highly-toned figures must be refugees escaping the tyrannical rule of the genetically-engineered supermen. This is a very incorrect assumption.
'Space Seed' is a fantastic drama that involves the entire main cast rather than the more limited Kirk v. Khan focus of 'Star Trek II' (not to give away whether Khan survives this episode or anything), and if its has any flaws it's primarily in the series' repeatedly dubious presentation of women; Marla McGivers is one of the most fickle of the fickle female Lieutenants introduced over the course of the series, easily seduced by Khan because she has a thing for powerful tyrants. Others may find fault with the repeated references to a Third World War occurring in the 1990s laughable in a '2001: A Space Odyssey' way, but it only ever presented a minor problem for the series once the unthinkable happened and the franchise lasted that far into the future. The risk of a stupid person being confused and offended that a programme made in the sixties made an inaccurate observation of events three decades down the line is worth it for the episode's intriguing commentary on genetic engineering that may still rear its ugly, malformed head at some point in the real future of the 2030s, by which time we'll all definitely have Jetsons-style flying cars and robot maids. Definitely.
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 13
****
Written on 22.01.08
Volume thirteen collects two more memorable episodes from the first season of Star Trek, both being products of what was perhaps the most consistently high quality creative period in the show's history. The writing standard didn't necessarily slip as the show moved into its second season, but many of the plot styles introduced and expanded on so memorably here would see much re-use in the years to come, even beyond the original series' end. The photo of the late James "Scotty" Doohan on this basic DVD is as arbitrary and misleading as the rest of them, as the character hardly features at all in these predominantly Kirk/Spock entanglements.
'This Side of Paradise' offers some pleasant location filming to break up the often stuffy atmosphere of starship sets, and is the series' most detailed observation of twenty-third century pastoral living. The colonists of Omicron Ceti III sought a 'Good Life'-style escape from technological dependency, and now work fields for a living in an idyllic garden paradise: at least, until their unfortunate extermination from deadly berthold rays. The U.S.S. Enterprise is given the sombre duty of visiting the planet to catalogue the details of the colonists' demise, and Captain Kirk and crew are surprised to see the farmers still contentedly alive and well... perhaps a little too well. Sulu's question of whether they may actually be dead is dismissed as unhelpful and silly, but it's clear that something mysterious is going on, revitalising the colonists and even healing up old scars. Kirk instigates an investigation, allowing Spock to renew his acquaintance with Leila Kalomi, a former scientist who is now contented with agricultural life and wants to share her secret with her old flame. Leila leads Spock to a wobbling flower that abruptly sprays him with spores and causes the half-Vulcan's years of mental conditioning and emotional repression to break down.
This episode is one of the finest for Spock, and consequently for Leonard Nimoy who is offered the rare (but recurring) opportunity to put in an emphatic emotional performance. While this had already been accomplished with his tears and guilt in 'The Naked Time,' here Spock gets to let his hair down, hanging from a tree and laughing at his flummoxed Captain before sneaking off to some tall grass to have his lusty way with Leila, now that he can finally return her affections. Kirk himself receives equal limelight but is cast in a very different glow, struggling to retain control over his mind even after the entire crew of the immobilised starship has beamed down to the planet, leaving him alone in its vast, empty hulk. With a reputation for flamboyancy that's well earned, William Shatner nevertheless portrays this more timid, fearful and isolated depiction of Kirk excellently, making the later scenes aboard the empty Enterprise sufficiently eerie.
However impressive they may be in isolation, the episode's finest moments come when Kirk and Spock face off, first with words and later by throwing objects. It's unusual for Kirk to be the voice of reason needing to restrain his Science Officer, and although D. C. Fontana's script is already noteworthy for containing such eloquent observations on humanity's timeless incompatibility with paradise, its crowning moment comes in Kirk's deliberate antagonising of Spock, launching into a tirade on his questionable parentage and unsuitability for Leila. "Does she know what she's getting, Spock?" he inquires, before providing his own provocative answer: "A carcass full of memory banks who should be squatting on a mushroom instead of passing himself off as a man! You belong in a circus Spock, not a starship," he concludes, "right next to the dog-faced boy!" The pacing of this episode is a little slow, though the attractive location keeps this from being a real problem, and although the guest cast is impressive as always, it's amusing to see some of the regular performers a little out of their depth in being forced to act spaced-out and trippy, particularly George Takei.
'The Devil in the Dark' is reputed as one of Star Trek's most successfully moralistic episodes, and is another gem from producer Gene L. Coon, who was apparently so impressed with the Horta suit created prior to this episode's conception that he set about writing this tale to guarantee its immediate use. I had only seen still photos of this episode for many years before finally having the opportunity to view it properly, and although I've always found the creature's suitably ugly and distinctly "alien" design impressive, I was a little disappointed to see it on screen, mainly as it's so obviously just a lumpy sheet placed over a scurrying actor. This limitations aside, this is another great episode that provides one of the series' most fitting examples of seeking out new life and new civilisations; the Horta, a silicon-based life form that can burrow effortlessly through solid rock and dissolve men and machinery in its acidic wake, is one of the most outlandish creatures seen since the salt vampire in 'The Man Trap.' While both creatures share the common trait of being the last of their kind, this episode deals with the issue in a far more enlightened manner, owing to the series' firmly established moral ground under Geen L. Coon's supervision.
Suffering from the same issues of drawn-out pacing as its predecessor, this episode still provides an exciting hunt for the creature that's been murdering miners and red-shirted security officers before the predictable but still effective conclusion as it runs into the telepathic Spock and an opportunity for communication presents itself. The tense relationship between Kirk and Spock crops up once again, as the Captain must have faith in his friend, and there's similarly an opportunity for McCoy to prove his medical expertise in the field. An odd issue with this episode is the complete lack of female characters taking part (there is one exception, but that would be telling...), presumably as the idea of a female security officer or miner even by the twenty-third century was never even considered a possibility in 1967, and even Jill Ireland in the previous episode only really exists as a vehicle to vent Spock's newfound emotions. If this lapse in progressive sexual representation is a cause for offence I'd advise that viewers steer clear of these episodes (and the majority of the series in general, come to mention it), but do you really want to miss out on the sights of Spock swinging upside-down from a tree and attacking Kirk with a chair?
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 14
*****
Written on 22.05.08
Most notable for introducing Star Trek's most famous enemies the Klingons at a surprisingly late point in the first season, 'Errand of Mercy' is particularly interesting for its presentation of a militaristic Starfleet of the sort previously seen in 'Balance of Terror,' and rarely again due to Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry's pacifistic view of his utopia.
Fundamentally a cheaper equivalent of the previously-introduced Romulans, the Klingons here are much different from those in the later Trek canon, being more stereotypically villainous and their alien make-up consisting only of shiny vests. Despite these visual limitations, the performance of John Colicos as Commander Kor makes for one of the most satisfying adversaries for Kirk in the original series, second only to Ricardo Montalban's Khan in the earlier 'Space Seed.' With its effective use of location filming, memorable final twist and heavy-duty analysis of war, the episode being created when the Cold War was still at its height, this is one of the finer statements on war that the series would ever make, especially in light of its inconsistent treatment further down the line.
The other episode on this collection, 'The City on the Edge of Forever' is commonly cited as the best episode the series ever produced, a plaudit I can't really disagree with. Despite the oft-repeated gimmick of accidental time travel back to the twentieth century (the second time this had happened thus far in the series, and by no means the last), this episode is able to take a considerate and fascinating look at genuine Earth history without the flimsy camouflage of metaphor usually used for 'Earth-like' civilisations. Joan Collins' memorable performance as Edith Keeler makes for one of the few Kirk love interests that actually works rather than repulses (she isn't green for a start), and the interaction between the lead characters Kirk, Spock and McCoy has never been better, the only disappointment being the relative scarcity of the latter. Not to mention that the creepy Guardian of Forever is surely the most intriguing form of the time travel the crew would ever encounter, much more visually interesting than that sling-shot-round-the-sun nonsense.
With two classic episodes, this is one of the strongest individual DVD releases of the original series.
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 15
***
Written on 22.05.08
The final episode of the first year of the original Star Trek, 'Operation: Annihilate!' is a slight anticlimax after the high quality of the previous stories, forgoing debates over the nature of war, slavery and the human condition in favour of a story about zapping alien jellyfish. Fortunately, the writing standard at this point in the series prevents the idea from ever seeming too ludicrous, despite the resemblance of the neural parasites to cheese on toast, and with some family tragedy for Captain Kirk and a (seemingly) bold sacrifice by Mr. Spock, the emotional connection is as compelling as the scenes of Starfleet officers running around a park, shooting squeaking flying alien things that want their brainwaves.
This two-episode DVD crosses over into the show's second season, and this time it isn't quite so easy to take things seriously. 'Catspaw' is notable as the series' deliberately-conceived Halloween episode, the only time it would attempt to cash in on a holiday event. The alien cultures of Star Trek frequently demanded a severe suspension of disbelief, but here the sorcerers, ghostly witches straight from Macbeth and badly-matted giant black cat stretch credibility too far, meaning that anyone watching the episode should loosen up, enjoy the humour (both intentional and not), and ignore any nagging doubts as to how exactly this fits into the series' established canon.
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 16
***
Written on 22.05.08
A well-conceived exploration of the exotic possibilities of love, 'Metamorphosis' is penned by one of the original Star Trek's most consistently impressive writers Gene L. Coon, whose scripts universally focused on those themes of acceptance and racial prejudice that helped raise Star Trek above a mere space adventure series. Rather than a case of black or white skin, the example here is so far-fetched that the script feels the need to hammer its ideas home in a manner that may be insulting to viewers who could already see where it was going, but that nevertheless presents an idealistic view of the future by contrasting the easy acceptance of Starfleet officers with the more twentieth-century perspective of Cochrane, a human living alone on a planet with only a sparkling gas entity for company.
'Friday's Child' sees the return of the Klingons for a disappointing conflict over mining rights on a tribal planet, a rather weak follow-up to the previous year's 'Errand of Mercy' that established the race as a force to be reckoned with. With plenty of location filming, this at least avoids the claustrophobic feeling that can sometimes prove an issue with ship-bound tales or those set on alien vistas that are very obviously a studio (as in the previous episode), but ideological contradictions, inappropriate light-hearted moments and the least impressive Klingon commander of the series prevent this from being a classic.
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 22
On Vulcan, the Teddy Bears Are Alive and Have Six-Inch Fangs
***
Written on 22.05.08
'Bread and Circuses' sees the second season of Star Trek enter a problematic period, as increasingly desperate attempts are made to visit various iconic points of human history (allowing for the borrowing of sets, props and costumes from Paramount period dramas), and pass them off as alien civilisations. To their credit, writers Gene Roddenberry and Gene L. Coon develop a truly definitive excuse within the script, as Captain Kirk deems the Roman civilisation of the alien planet, blessed with equally human technology from the mid-twentieth century, to be 'an amazing example of Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planet Development.' A sound theory indeed, but one that would become increasingly stretched as the show visited planets of Nazis, Chicago gangsters and Native Americans in subsequent weeks.
The episode itself is rather enjoyable, if you can look past the Roman contrivance. It makes some interesting points about the rise of Christianity without becoming overly preachy as the series tended to when faced with the issue of religion, and of course there's some low-budget gladiatorial combat if the fight scenes of 'Amok Time' weren't enough for you. The second episode of the DVD, 'Journey to Babel' is a more thoughtful and considered affair, even if it's mostly memorable for introducing Spock's parents - the Vulcan Sarek and the human Amanda - and some of the original series' iconic alien races, the blue-tinted, antennae-clad Andorians and pig-faced Tellarites, all delegates to a Federation conference.
This episode's plot and pacing make it less compelling than its predecessor, but as a murder mystery it's more accomplished than 'Wolf in the Fold' earlier in the season, and is another chance to explore Spock's psychology after 'Amok Time.'
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 24
Here We Are, Antibodies In Our Own Galaxy
**
Written on 22.05.08
The two episodes collected on its twenty-fourth DVD volume see the original Star Trek series becoming curiously complex in its choice of alien adversaries, with episodes based around a vampire cloud creature and an immense space amoeba that consumes starships.
'Obsession' is particularly interesting as an exploration of Captain Kirk's psychology, as he is forced to confront the creature that he first encountered as a younger man, with all the inevitable vengeance that enlightened Starfleet officers are supposed to pretend they never experience. The cloud creature itself is disappointing, both in its on-screen form and its essential similarity to the much more memorable salt vampire of one of the series' earliest episodes, and despite its noble intentions, the episode doesn't stand out in the canon.
By contrast, the image of the U.S.S. Enterprise being sucked into an 11,000 mile long space amoeba is one of the more striking visual effects of the original series, and something that could only have been produced in the sixties. It's a little difficult to take either of these episodes entirely seriously, partly due to the insubstantial villains, but the danger level is high in both, and all actors involved almost convince you that they're performing in a worthwhile show.
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 25
As a Taxi Driver, You Leave Much to Be Desired
***
Written on 22.05.08
Following the earlier 'Bread and Circuses,' 'A Piece of the Action' sees the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise encountering another alien civilisation with remarkable parallels to a specific period of Earth's history, but this time with a more convincing explanation. In this manner, the episode is an interesting exploration of cultural contamination, depicting the effects that a single book can have on an easily influenced culture - in this case, a copy of 'Chicago Mobs of the Twenties' left behind a century earlier by a negligent Earth captain - but on the other hand, this is merely a feeble excuse to dress Kirk and Spock in pinstripe suits and get them to play gangsters.
Although one of the more throwaway episodes, this is a lot of fun, and never takes itself seriously enough for the obvious flaws to present a major problem. Anyone who enjoys gangster films should enjoy this TV-friendly, sci-fi take on all of the clichés, and there are plenty of great lines for Spock as he performs out-of-character and attempts to get to grips with twentieth-century slang and technology in a manner that would be furthered in the fourth Star Trek film.
'By Any Other Name' is more serious but less interesting, once again seeing the Enterprise hijacked by superior life forms who, it turns out, have a fatal flaw that the crew can exploit. There are some genuinely creepy scenes as almost the entire Enterprise crew is reduced to miniature blocks of powder, and some curious references to earlier episodes mentioning the galactic barrier ('Where No Man Has Gone Before') and Eminiar VII ('A Taste of Armageddon'), all of which point towards a series that has now settled firmly into its stride, perhaps at a cost to its creativity from this point on.
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 26
Risk Is Our Business
**
Written on 22.05.08
'Return to Tomorrow' introduces another Star Trek plot that would be re-used within the science fiction genre, as characters are forced to share their bodies with alien consciousnesses that have no physical forms of their own. The episode makes some valid and interesting points, even though the series has made them before, as the argument between a fragile human body and comparatively immortal android form lead crew members into making difficult decisions, while the possessed Captain Kirk must submit to the ordeal of having to embrace women he hardly even knows. Oh, wait.
'Patterns of Force' is a particularly unwelcome addition to the Star Trek canon that really isn't entertaining enough to justify its existence. Hot on the heels of the previous DVD's gangster episode, here we see an alien culture that has been mirrored on Nazi Germany by a mad Starfleet defector, just one of the episode's many uncomfortable gimmicks. Despite its convincing appearance, the costumes and decor clearly being on loan from some Paramount period drama or other set in the same era, this episode feels like an arbitrary and very cheap attempt to engage with a period of history that viewers will be familiar with, making obvious observations about how bad the Nazis were before bringing things to a predictable conclusion.
The original series doesn't really get much worse or throwaway than this, and due to its presentation of the Nazis, the episode was banned in Germany for a number of years. This seems unreasonably harsh, unless the debate was one of quality. Star Trek was usually much better than this.
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 28
The Last Gunfight
**
Written on 22.05.08 [2016 updates for TOS season 3]
At the end of its second long year, Star Trek was facing cancellation, a fate it was eventually saved from due to a persistent letter-writing campaign from fans. In a practical and ambitious move, series creator Gene Roddenberry opted to make the final episode crossover as a pilot episode for a new series to take Star Trek's place, involving a secret agent and his shape-shifting feline companion. One of these series was picked up for the following year; the other was not.
'Assignment: Earth' is coloured throughout by the sleazy sense of being a failed advertisement, and if feels distinctly out of place in the series, even down to the U.S.S. Enterprise's very presence in the twentieth century for the purpose of 'historical research,' which is pretty ridiculous considering the enormous risks usually associated with time travel in the series. Several elements feel like re-treads of the previous year's excellent 'Tomorrow is Yesterday,' ironically set a year later in 1969, while the rest feels like a sort of rubbish version of 'Mission: Impossible.' Even the colon in the title is the same, for goodness' sake. Guest star Robert Lansing as acceptable as Gary Seven, but the whole thing feels like a big mistake, and a severe anticlimax for a season finale.
Beginning the third season in fine form (at least in terms of production order - the original airdates were fairly random), 'Spectre of the Gun' once again takes a scene from Earth history and revises it in an outer space setting, but this time with a satisfyingly surreal twist. In a creative budget-saving manoeuvre, the gunfight at the OK Corral is re-enacted as historically bizarre punishment for Kirk and his crew after they flagrantly disregard warnings not to enter Melkotian space, but the town is only half-complete. It's strange, it's predictable and in the end it's rather pointless, but it's still a fun instalment of the series, even if non-American viewers won't be as impressed.
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 29
Behold the God Who Bleeds
***
Written on 22.05.08
No one ever claimed the original Star Trek series to be particularly cryptic in its metaphors, and the episode 'Elaan of Troyius,' a clear take on the story of Helen of Troy, is one of many examples of how to make these conventions insultingly obvious to the standard TV audience. France Nuyen guest stars as Elaan, the Dohlman of Elas, who the Enterprise is transporting to an arranged marriage on the conveniently named Troyius, a planet near to Klingon space. This episode is significant for introducing the famous Klingon starship model for the first time, in place of the awful animated blips that had previously passed for ships in the distance, but the recycled plot itself is far from enthralling. Elaan's magical tears that cause any man to fall in love with her border too much on cheesy fantasy for this to be taken seriously as a Star Trek episode, a fate that befalls many instalments of the third season.
Much better is the subsequent episode, 'The Paradise Syndrome.' In some ways reminiscent of '2001: A Space Odyssey' released the same year, with its huge obelisk and notion of primitive humans 'seeded' throughout the universe, this is one of the best episodes the third season would produce, and one of the finest character episodes for Captain Kirk as he loses his memory and joins a tribal society as his crewmates attempt to find him. This episode makes for an excellent debate, as Kirk the space-age commander is given a more simple life and the choice must be made whether to enforce a return, and even aside from William Shatner's performance, the scenes aboard the Enterprise between Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy are comparatively rare treats, as the two bicker and share mutual concerns without Kirk's overbearing middle-man interference. The series would rarely be this good again.
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 31
His Brain Is Gone!
**
Written on 22.05.08
A contender for worst episode ever made, 'Spock's Brain' is at least laughably bad, as opposed to the several episodes that are merely tediously awful. In a similar manner to 'Snakes on a Plane,' the title doesn't try to do anything clever with metaphors or Shakespeare quotations as other tend to, but merely states the facts: an alien woman steals Spock's brain, and Kirk and McCoy must get it back.
It really is a particularly silly episode even for old Star Trek, from the dodgy cavemen and terrible acting of guest actress Marj Dusay to the ridiculous props designed to turn McCoy into a miracle healer, and to allow Spock to walk without a brain. I guess it's one of those episodes that has to be seen to be truly believed, and there are many less entertaining episodes out there. Writer Gene L. Coon was allegedly so embarrassed about the way the show turned out, he resorted to the pseudonym Lee Cronin.
'Is There In Truth No Beauty?' is a more serious episode, but one that's ultimately less enjoyable, and one of many ship-bound episodes in this lower budget season that tends to blur together with the rest. The notion of a race of beings whose thoughts are sublime, but their formless appearance unbearably ugly is quite interesting, if once again entering the realm of the fairy tale, and even less satisfying is the attempt at portraying this with a visual effect of multicoloured flashing lights. Another episode for Spock, brain intact this time, it's also the series' only real treatment of blindness before The Next Generation introduced a blind pilot.
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 32
I'm a Doctor, Not a Coal Miner
****
Written on 22.05.08
Some of the last great episodes the series would ever make, both 'The Empath' and 'The Tholian Web' are memorable dramatic instalments that made a substantial impact, the first being omitted from the original airing by the BBC due to its allegedly 'sadistic' content, and the latter winning an Emmy award for special effects. Both are also great character pieces for the triumvirate of Kirk, Spock and McCoy, once again put through their paces and relying on their mutual trust.
'The Empath' concerns the plight of an empathic alien whose species is mute and can only communicate through telepathy. The Enterprise landing party is exploring an abandoned planet when they are abducted and taken below ground by a pair of malicious alien scientists identifying themselves as the Vians, who proceed to experiment on the officers and torture them. It really is quite a mean episode, if a little dull and distinctly lacking in visual flair - the Vians seem like essential recreations of the Talosians from the first Star Trek pilot episode, and the set is merely a black room - but it's still one of the more overlooked offerings of the original series, and one of the few episodes to focus primarily on DeForest Kelley's McCoy.
'The Tholian Web' is deservedly more well-known, even if its action-adventure premise is again an essential re-use of earlier plots such as 'The Doomsday Machine.' Investigating the deaths of an entire crew aboard the U.S.S. Defiant, the Enterprise soon becomes ensnared by the same threat in the form of the Tholians, who employ a unique trap similar to a vast, three-dimensional spider's web that surrounds the Enterprise as it searches for the missing Captain Kirk. This is a mysterious and visually exciting episode that's up there with the best space adventure of the series, and the stunningly exotic Tholians are a welcome addition to the Trek universe that would sadly never be seen again. Well, except in the disappointing prequel series 'Enterprise,' but that doesn't count.
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 33
Again With the Klingons
***
Written on 22.05.08
'For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky,' as well as featuring an ungainly title, is also a fairly interesting episode that sadly would have worked much better on paper than in a low budget 1960s television series.
The notion of a generational asteroid containing an entire population with no idea as to the nature of their environment is science fiction at its best, reminiscent of something Arthur C. Clarke might have written if Robert Goddard hadn't got there first in 1918. Sadly, the effect is never really convincing, leaving me wondering just how long it would take the population of Yonada to walk to one of those all-too-near studio walls masquerading as false alien sky. The episode has another serious side in the form of Dr. McCoy's fatal illness and his decision to leave the Enterprise and live out his short time as he wishes, making for an unprecedented second focal episode for the character in a short period, after the previous DVD's 'The Empath.'
'Day of the Dove' is yet another Klingon episode, but fortunately not one that seems forced as season two's instalments tended to. Michael Ansara is convincing as Kang, even through the shoddy blackface make-up he's forced to endure, and this episode really helps to bring back the Klingons' villainous side in a way that hadn't really been achieved since their introduction back in season one. Sadly, the episode is largely let down by reliance on yet another cloud creature as the mute villain of the piece, looking exactly the same as the other energy beings of the series around this point as budget presumably dictated, but the ultimate resolution to the conflict, along with the Klingon takeover of the Enterprise, are both cool enough to make this a worthwhile watch.
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 35
Change is the Essential Process of All Existence
**
Written on 22.05.08
'That Which Survives' isn't a particularly bad Star Trek episode, but it's certainly one of the least memorable of the original series' run. The Enterprise landing party is stranded on a rocky planet, yet again, and haunted by the image of Losira, a woman whose touch can kill. Lee Meriwether is suitable as the villain of the piece, and would probably give me nightmares if I'd seen it as a child, but otherwise this feels much like a re-tread of the early episode 'The Galileo Seven,' with the landing party forced into a survival situation and the Enterprise out of reach.
By contrast, 'Let That Be Your Last Battlefield' is strikingly memorable, featuring Gene L. Coon's adversaries Bele and Lokai, the two survivors of a long-extinct alien race whose racial hatred led to their destruction, and is still fuelling their conflict across the universe. Bele and Lokai appear physically identical to the Enterprise crew despite their mutual accusations of repulsion, respective halves of their bodies being tinted stark black and white, and it becomes clear that the racial hatred is dependent on which side these colours are arranged. Bele's people are black on the right-hand side; Lokai's on the left. If it sounds pedantically familiar, it was at least an inventive way to address serious racial issues in a metaphorical manner to avoid annoying feeble TV executives.
This episode makes some valid arguments against racial hated that are ultimately little more than platitudes, but it's interesting to note just how long, far and irrepressible the mutual hatred seems to be. Another fine piece of work from Gene L. Coon, his last contribution to the series.
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 36
Can't I Blow Off Just One of His Ears?
**
Written on 22.05.08
Continuing to re-tread old ideas through its final season, Star Trek offers another exploration of insanity that's significantly less accomplished than the earlier 'Dagger of the Mind,' and even re-uses the same prop in the form of the neural neutraliser chair, here re-imagined as Garth of Izar's torture chair. The insane former Fleet Captain fulfils the same role as every other villain of the week in the original series, but the character's madness at least allows actor Steve Ihnat to make him quite enjoyable on-screen, as well as shockingly cruel at times in his treatment of his Starfleet 'guests' and fellow escaped inmates, most notably the green-skinned Orion slave girl Marta, one of the more alluring alien females from the original series. Not that there's anything funny about me or anything. Alright, green girls are hot.
The episode's plot is rather predictable and much the same as others, and its main delight comes in the array of aliens on display, not seen in this magnitude since season two with the reappearance of Andorians and Tellarites among others. The other episode on this DVD, 'The Mark of Gideon' is a more serious commentary on a sociological problem, in this case dealing with a planet's overpopulation crisis. The gimmick of a full, planet-bound reconstruction of the Enterprise is difficult to swallow as anything other than a cheap budget-saving device, but the reveal of hooded green aliens silently staring in through the windows is one of the creepier moments of the series, and its statements are well considered. It may not be one of the most memorable episodes of the series' run, but Trek was always at its best when confronting important social issues of the time, and while this episode is ultimately a little disappointing, it at least deserves recognition for its boldness.
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 38
Attack of the Space Hippies
*
Written on 22.05.08
'The Way to Eden' is unquestionably one of the worst episodes of Star Trek. The very notion of space hippies hijacking the Enterprise to travel to Eden is insulting to anyone who enjoys the series, and even worse are the scenes of interaction between the 'hijackers' and the strangely docile crew, who never seem particularly threatened by the scantily clad terrorists. Everything about this episode is awful, from the attempts once again to imagine what space-age hip language would be like to the blatant re-use of the Tholian ship and a pointless musical performance between Spock and one of the hippies. Guest star Charles Napier wrote the terrible songs himself, serving to date the episode in a less satisfying way than others, and if there's one episode of the original Star Trek series you must avoid, it has to be this one.
'Requiem for Methuselah' is inevitably better (in fairness, the bar was set incredibly low), but it's not good enough to save this DVD. The Enterprise crew is suddenly struck by an outburst of Rigelian fever and travels to a seemingly abandoned planet to obtain the cure, only to be apprehended by a man calling himself Flint, who possesses a collection of art that seems to substantiate his claims to having been an immortal Earth man living under various famous guises. It's a common idea also seen in 'Doctor Who' (such as the episode 'City of Death') that works in theory but is a little hard to swallow on screen, but there are at least some nice emotional scenes towards the end that prove Kirk to be a little more than a frivolous womaniser. A little more.
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 39
She Turned Me Into a Newt... I Got Better
***
Written on 22.05.08
The penultimate release of the original Star Trek DVD sets (yep, nearly there) is more entertaining than others towards the end of the largely disappointing third season, featuring the series' last decent episode in the form of 'All Our Yesterdays' and a fairly dull but slightly amusing conflict romp in 'The Savage Curtain.'
'The Savage Curtain' is much the same as the popular first season episode 'Arena,' with Enterprise officers forced into armed conflict by a race of superior beings merely for the sake of it, with the threat of the Enterprise's destruction if they don't prevail. Except this time Kirk and Spock are joined by the historical figures Abraham Lincoln and Surak of Vulcan to make up a side of 'good' forces, forced to fight against a team consisting of Genghis Khan, the Klingon Kahless the Unforgettable, Zora of Tiburon and the fictional twenty-first century human Colonel Green. And the superior beings are talking rock men. It's a throwaway episode that's only really memorable for its more outlandish scenes, most notably Abraham Lincoln floating in space in a quite comfortable chair, but at the end of the day it's harmless fun, though 'Arena' is a lot better.
'All Our Yesterdays' comes to the rescue with the only truly classic episode of the late run, as the Enterprise attempts to rescue the inhabitants of a doomed world whose sun is about to explode, only to be informed that they've all taken refuge in the planet's past through a complex time portal managed by a librarian whose name is amusingly Mr. Atoz ('A to Z,' you see). As Spock and McCoy travel back to the planet's ice age, Spock curiously begins to regress to a more primeval state before his people learned to control their emotions, with uncomfortable consequences. Fortunately for McCoy, there's an attractive woman with them to avoid their professional relationship crossing any sort of line.
Meanwhile, Kirk is accused of being a witch in a different period of history, with more uncomfortable consequences, this time based less around ice and more around fire. It's a very good time travel episode with some well-conceived gadgets, and perhaps indication that a fourth season wouldn't have been so bad after all.
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 40
She Has an Illusion and You Have Reality
***
Written on 22.05.08
True to form for a season finale, the final episode of the original Star Trek series is pretty weak. It's a run-of-the-mill possession story at best, and an insulting display of 1960s sexism at worst, as Captain Kirk's old flame Dr. Janice Lester becomes obsessed with switching bodies with the commander and stealing his life, out of nothing more than feminine jealousy. You almost expect McCoy to chip in with a comment about it being her time of the month or something.
This episode is fairly lousy, and quite derivative of earlier, better episodes - the body swap machine is reminiscent of the android maker in 'What Are Little Girls Made Of?', and the possession thing was done more successfully in 'Return to Tomorrow.' Still, it's a last chance to hang with the original crew before they reverted to an animated form in the seventies cartoon series, and promptly aged in time for their big-screen debut, and for that reason alone... and it really is that reason alone... it will always be memorable in the Star Trek canon.
Fortunately, not even the sleazy DVD producers at Paramount would get away with releasing a single forty-five minute episode to DVD, and the set is bulked out very substantially with the classic unaired (at the time) pilot episode 'The Cage' from five years earlier. Starring Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike, 'The Cage' remains one of my very favourite of all the Star Trek episodes, and it's interesting to see how the series could have turned out in a significantly different fashion, with only Leonard Nimoy's Spock character remaining when the series was revised in 1965 and took the form we know today.
'The Cage' is an excellent tale of the human condition that was previously re-used to form much of the season one two-parter 'The Menagerie' (DVD volume 8), and with its high budget appearance, memorable performances and dark subject matter, it's comparable to a TV movie more than a standard episode, and certainly better than anything the series would produce in its final year. Five stars for 'The Cage,' one star for the other thing.
Star Trek: The Animated Series
Illogical? A Little
***
Written on 09.10.03 [2013 update in slightly more detail]
It's very easy to forget that the animated Star Trek existed, and many people would rather it stay forgotten.
In a bizarre inverse-proportionality anomaly that could seem reminiscent of a Star Trek plot, the more you collect and read about the other Star Treks, the less you recall this 1970s spin-off. The reason for this is that Gene Roddenberry and the guys were not too pleased with this series, the first reincarnation of the phenomenal 1960s sci-fi show which only really achieved success in the early 70s re-runs. All of the official encyclopedias and magazines deliberately fail to recognise this series, but the unofficial guides are always better, funnier and cheaper anyway, so buy them instead.
The basic premise of this show was that it continued the Enterprise's "five year mission" to explore strange new worlds, constantly break the Prime Directive, and generally have sex with green women. The most impressive facet of this show, and the only thing that will likely cause fans to go out and buy it, is the presence of almost all the original actors doing voice-over roles for their characters.
William Shatner returns as Captain Kirk, with his distinctive voice that many bad impressionists think they can do, Leonard Nimoy still plays the enjoyable character of Mr. Spock, the late DeForrest Kelley spouts out more "I'm a doctor, not an X" lines as McCoy, Nichelle Nicholls is Uhura, unfortunately less appealing in drawn form, George Takei is helmsman Sulu, and meanwhile James Doohan is still trying out that Scotty accent. The only main character that did not reappear was Walter Koenig's Chekov, the young Russian navigator who was introduced part way through the original series' run, only to be replaced by a four-armed alien man called Arex. Crazy.
Being a 70s cartoon, the animated series was obviously shorter in length than the 48-minute live action episodes, and was drawn in a style that seems reminiscent of Scooby Doo. Block colours, pupils for eyes and crazy running legs show its age but that's alright because the 60s show still looks old. With the cartoon licence, Gene and the writers were able to experiment with concepts that would have proved impossible to do, or would have just looked stupid on the live action show. In a medium where it's cheaper to blow up a planet than to hire a voice actor, the Enterprise crew became fitted with 'life support belts ' that allowed them to breathe in space, while the aliens and locations only got weirder.
Something in favour of the animated series is the quality of the writing. From memory, I can recall episodes seeming a little below standard, but there were also some written by established sci-fi writers. I can't quite recall now, but I think D.C. Fontana, a female writer for the 60s show, returned along with other "giants" of the day, making sure that it wasn't just a cash-in sequel to Star Trek. Many of the plots were actually quite good, although they often seemed to be trying to exploit the freedom of the drawn world.
There were problems however, inevitably leading to the series blasted out of the "official" Star Trek canon. I tried a play on words there. With all its variety, it gets very annoying to see the same head shot of actors talking to each other again and again. Many of the plots were also not as true to the characters and established universe as they should have been, especially in comparsion to the later films and series of the 90s. And above all, it was a cartoon! Many people prefer to watch cartoons to live action shows, I personally find American cartoon comedy "Family Guy" one of the funniest shows on television, but it doesn't really work. It's reasonable to assume that the fact contemporary encyclopedias and Fact Files would present the reader with colour photos of Captain Picard, Deep Space Nine, Andorians, and then something that is obviously a drawn person would seem confusing to the reader. I agree with their decision.
Following the lack of real success with The Animated Adventures, or whatever this series was officially known as, the new live-action "Star Trek: Phase II" was planned and developed but ultimately never filmed. Instead, the success of Star Wars led to the first Star Trek film being brought out in 1979, and this was the start of Trek's rebirth. I occasionally like to download an animated episode, as the only place I've ever seen them on TV was on CBBC when I was little, as it's basically like reading one of the often-interesting Star Trek comic books, but I can appreciate how much this series might have meant to those convention-going Trekkies of the 70s. In days before Star Trek was severely overused (i.e., the series Enterprise and Voyager), this must have been a real gem. Shame about the drawing.
Star Trek: The Next Generation – Season 1
Let's See What's Out There...
**
Written on 21.02.07
The first season of most long-running shows will end up looking a little naïve and discordant in hindsight, and the freshman year of Star Trek’s first television sequel offends more than most in this regard. The new series would take roughly three years to become fully embraced by fans of the original series, and watching these first twenty-six episodes it’s fairly obvious why. Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the 24th century is noble and exciting, and sets the scene perfectly for infinite exploration of the human and alien condition, yet this opportunity is somehow wasted almost entirely.
At its worst, The Next Generation sees a crew of wooden caricatures in spandex pyjamas visiting unconvincing alien cave sets and solving a boring ecological problem over the course of forty-five tedious minutes, and it often feels like season one couldn’t escape this formula. The new U.S.S. Enterprise and its crew had been thoroughly detailed and evolved over the course of more than a decade, based in part on the aborted ‘Star Trek: Phase II’ series that eventually became the first Star Trek film in 1979. It seems ridiculous that, will all this preparation, things could meander along so fruitlessly for so long before the series started getting anywhere.
The series is set in the tranquil political climate of the mid-24th century (okay, 2364 if you want the specifics. No point pretending I don’t know these things). The Federation, which still seems to consist primarily of humans as it did in the Original Series despite the series’ claims otherwise, is engaged in a period of galactic exploration and diplomacy that will all too soon be shattered as new and old alien forces threaten its safety over the course of the next seven long years. Old enemies the Klingons are now content to sit behind their borders thanks to a peace treaty, and the new Enterprise under command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) even has a Klingon serving on its bridge. Picard’s crew fits the bill for a late-80s TV show, led by white American actors with a couple of notable exceptions. Owing to the sensibilities of the time, the Captain is now accompanied by his psychiatrist on the bridge, and the security officer is – wait for it – a woman!
The show’s updated tagline, ‘to boldly go where no one has gone before,’ self-consciously removes the masculine pronoun with something more fitting to the universal message the show always intended to express, even if it often floundered along the way. None of the characters are particularly interesting in this first series, perhaps owing to Roddenberry’s specific instruction of ‘no conflict’ that seriously weakened the show, apart from Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner), the android who wishes to be human. The characters would all receive more generous development and storylines in the future, but series one is content with shallowness. This isn’t a criticism of the cast, who are mostly excellent apart from Marina Sirtis as Counsellor Troi and Wil Wheaton’s ever unpopular boy wonder Wesley Crusher, but lies entirely in weak writing.
This DVD set, released several years ago, collects the entire first season in its original grainy late-80s print, with an extra disc of passable special features, mainly interviews recorded in 1987, 1988 and 2001. The packaging is unusual and quite interesting, and seems to be modelled on some aspect of 24th century technology, perhaps a storage case of some kind. Whatever it is, it fits in perfectly with the look of the series, even if the weak plastic case is in constant danger of snapping. Each DVD contains four episodes, which come with subtitles, audio options and the customary scene selections. Beginning with ‘Encounter at Farpoint,’ the feature length (90 minute) series opener, we are introduced to the cast, to a new on-off enemy, and to the rushed writing that would pervade the series as a whole, as it’s obvious even before being informed on the special features that this was a 45-minute story that had to be padded out to two parts.
There are some classic shows collected here, but far less when compared to seasons three to six, for example. Especially notable are ‘Datalore,’ where the android is given an evil twin, the confusingly titled ‘11001001’ in which the Enterprise is half-inched and Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes) falls in love with a hologram, and my favourite, the X-Filesesque ‘Conspiracy,’ a surprisingly effective and gory conclusion to a plot thread introduced several shows earlier. Unfortunately at this point, for every strong episode there’s at least two horrendous ones. This can be seen right from the first disc, which is rounded out after the pilot with the embarrassing remake of an Original Series episode in ‘The Naked Now,’ and the questionably racist presentation of a tribal African-style culture in ‘Code of Honor,’ which led to the writer being sacked.
Star Trek: The Next Generation was a staple of 1987-1994 TV, and remained prominent for some time after, amidst the ever-growing spin-off series it spawned and inspired. The first season presents the show at its very worst, and even by its very average conclusion hasn’t managed to drag itself into a truly distinctive style. The characters are inconsistent and frankly pretty boring, and many wouldn’t be treated with any depth for years later (some never at all). This series is enjoyable to watch partly from a purely nostalgic viewpoint, as the naïve presentation of technology and designs that change every week before becoming standardised forever after is quite a fun thing to spot. It’s also interesting to watch Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby), the security officer who was eventually fired from the series twenty episodes in after old Playboy photos came to light. Yar was one of the most interesting characters in the few scenes she was given to truly shine, and though her meaningless death is quite cool and bold, it represents a loss for the series. The only benefit is that her position can then be taken over by the Klingon Worf (Michael Dorn), whose character was a last-minute addition to the show and therefore seemed to just hang around the corners of the bridge without any obvious task to perform.
In failing to set up any kind of consistent universe or political scenario, The Next Generation was free to warp into its second, equally disappointing season burden-free, and directionless. It’s hard to look at these mediocre, often childish early episodes as anything other than wasted opportunities and a waste of everyone’s time. This wasn’t going to win over any die-hard fans just yet. It doesn't help that these sets are completely overpriced.
Who Needs a Starship?
*****
Written on 20.07.00 [2012 update in slightly more detail]
While not always the most popular of the (presently four) Star Trek series because of its dark storylines and military aspect, I find Deep Space Nine the most varied and exciting of the shows. The early few seasons got off to a rough start and were regularly failures, but in the third series and beyond we have witnessed some of the most complex and twisting plots and story arcs in any television show. What with the always-dubious Cardassian, Garak, originally known little about and considered a spy, only to end up being found out as the son of one of Cardassia's most prominent figures. The arc with the evil Gul Dukat and the Dominion War were also very clever, and the religious and action aspects of the show have added some excellent storylines and mind-blowing special effects.
My favourite episodes are prominent ones that twist the whole story of the series and make everything appear in a different light. The two-parter "In Purgatory's Shadow"/"By Inferno's Light" in seris five which saw Cardassia join the Dominion and in which we find out that the Doctor Bashir who's been on the series during the last few episodes has been a changeling (evil shapeshifter) imposter, and "Tears of the Prophets", the finale of series six, in which a main character (Dax) is killed, the wormhole is destroyed (a holy gateway through space which has been a vital object for the station's storyline), a huge space battle is seen with incredible special effects, and we see how these things can affect the crew.
Deep Space Nine is sorely-misjudged show that has received a lot of bad press, but once you start watching it you realize just how good it is. It deals with probably every social and cultural issue that presents a problem, and proves once and for all that you don't need to have a starship to have a story.
Advantages: Great storylines and special effects worthy of films.
Disadvantages: Some of the early shows were a bit poor.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Season 1
The Unknown that Defines Our Existence
***
Written on 17.09.07
The third and often most overlooked Star Trek series, ‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’ (DS9) was essentially a spin-off of the popular ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation,’ and first aired during its sister show’s sixth year in 1993. The first series to be produced without the oversight of Gene Roddenberry, DS9 was intentionally designed to be a very different counterpart to the other series, which was most evident in its setting on a relatively static space station rather than a mobile starship and its increasing reliance on complex plot arcs and character development as opposed to anomaly-of-the-week episodes. The series was devised and created by Roddenberry’s hand-picked successor Rick Berman and the late Michael Piller, the latter often credited with introducing a more “human” character-based approach to storytelling in his earlier tenure on The Next Generation as opposed to the earlier seasons that focused more on technology. This is particularly evident in the concept of DS9, which introduces a strong ensemble of officers and civilians alike, many of whom are disreputable or untrustworthy in stark contrast to The Next Generation’s clean-cut Starfleet. DS9 is often billed as ‘the darker Trek,’ a statement grounded in both its fondness for uncomfortable or controversial themes, and the sinister alien architecture of the alien space station itself.
For all the praise I tend to heap on DS9, particularly in contrast to the other Star Trek series, the early seasons present something of a disappointment, at least for viewers fond of the series’ later tendencies under the supervision of the great Ira Stephen Behr. The Deep Space Nine concept introduced effectively in the feature-length pilot episode ‘Emissary,’ that of Starfleet arriving to oversee the redevelopment of the planet Bajor following its long-awaited victory over the oppressive Cardassians, strongly hints toward a more serialised direction for this new series, yet the first season in particular favours unconnected stand-alone episodes that often demonstrate very little of what this series is capable of achieving. As well as the usual recycled plots based on anomalies and malfunctions (the station breaks down more than the Enterprise holodeck), many of the opportunities to explore the resident alien cultures are wasted in favour of bland humanoid-aliens-of-the-week distractions that really could have taken place in any series, with any crew, as the staff writers attempt to find their feet and break away from the singular style of what was previously considered ‘Trek.’ The benefit of running concurrently with The Next Generation at least means that the writers know vaguely what they’re doing, even if this leads to a less distinctive series at the beginning, and however shaky the first season of DS9 may be, it’s light years beyond the embarrassing early years of that other show.
There are, fortunately, a fair few notable episodes scattered amongst the mediocrity here in this slightly shorter season (debuting as it did one-third of the way through the American TV year), some of which are still considered among the best that the show ever produced, although the hit count is lower than for all the later seasons. ‘Emissary’ is an excellent introduction, which does the perfect job of introducing the hulking, mysterious space station through the eyes of the Starfleet officers audiences have grown accustomed to over the years, before moving in to meet the semi-hospitable locals. There’s some great tension evident between the crew members at this early stage, particularly between Starfleet’s Commander Sisko and his First Officer Major Kira, a Bajoran ex-terrorist who initially considers the Federation’s presence a danger, so soon after the Cardassian withdrawal. An additional plot thread explodes out of nowhere as Sisko and his science officer Dax discover a stable wormhole to the other side of the galaxy that both opens up the station as a major interstellar port, and helps to fulfil a Bajoran prophecy in the franchise’s first real exploration of religion, something Roddenberry always objected to during his lifetime.
Other stand-out episodes that touch on the series’ larger themes include ‘Duet,’ an excellently written character piece between Major Kira and a Cardassian war criminal that sees her make peace with her violent past and start to move on, and the thoughtful finale ‘In the Hands of the Prophets’ that exposes the corrupt and fragile nature of the Bajoran Provisional Government, while also addressing relevant issues of religious tolerance illustrated through Bajoran parents’ complaints over Keiko O’Brien’s scientific approach towards teaching about the wormhole, which to them is a Celestial Temple for their gods. Earlier Bajoran stories such as ‘Progress’ and ‘The Storyteller’ don’t really hit the marks correctly, which is forgivable at this early stage, and it’s commendable that the series also starts to focus extensively on resident species such as the Ferengi and Cardassians with a depth that was previously offered only to Klingon culture. One of this season’s few outright blunders is the episode ‘Q-Less,’ which brings the popular Next Generation trickster Q to the station for the usual shenanigans, but only serves to prove how incompatible these two series’ ideologies are. Other crossovers are treated with more consideration and integrate more successfully, notably Captain Picard’s brief cameos in the pilot episode and later appearances by Lwaxana Troi and the Klingon Duras sisters, as well as some cool but gratuitous fan-pleasing use of the Borg in flashbacks, but the weaker episodes on the whole tend to suffer from the transference of a ship-bound premise to the DS9 format, which restricts its potential and stretches credibility.
The series defines itself straight away as a slightly chaotic and fairly dismal situation, explored through the plights of officers whose families have to endure the new living conditions after being used to the five-star luxury of brightly lit space hotels such as the U.S.S. Enteprise, and special credit needs to be given to the sets. The station interiors are truly amazing, apparently the largest permanent sets in Hollywood during the series’ run, from the bustling two-level Promenade and its various establishments, particularly Quark’s bar (which feels a lot more authentic and lively than the Enterprise’s Ten Forward ever did), to the eerily lit corridors and rolling cog-like airlocks (I always loved those!) Many of the non-Starfleet inhabitants are also seedy and nefarious, Quark himself clearly being a criminal as well as a bartender and effective holo-brothel owner (that’s right, DS9 admitted what everybody’s really using those holosuites for), and even if the Starfleet regulars are a little disappointingly moral in comparison, they at least get drunk and make mistakes. As a fan, it’s also interesting to see the officers actually doing some work in these early seasons, before the series seemed to abandon this notion as an inconvenience.
Avery Brooks’ black captain has always been another major talking point of the show as the franchise moved into the politically correct nineties, additionally granting Commander Sisko the role of male single parent (what a forward-looking series), and his relationship with his teenage son Jake is one of the highlights of the early years. Cirroc Lofton plays the young Sisko with the appropriate mixture of cheeky enthusiasm and bored loneliness, and his complete lack of interest in becoming a Starfleet officer or boy genius entirely avoids the earlier series’ Wesley Crusher syndrome. Brooks takes to the role well, evolving into a more hard-edged and militaristic commander in later years as the show goes that way, but it’s particularly nice to see him arriving in the pilot episode as an unwelcome and threatening stranger, before suddenly being revered as the reluctant religious icon of Bajoran prophecies when he discovers the wormhole. Nana Visitor essentially takes over the existing role of The Next Generation’s Ro Laren character, as Michelle Forbes wasn’t interested in becoming a regular on the new series, and she’s given some great sexy-feisty scenes and shouting in the character’s key episodes. The only other female lead is Lieutenant Jadzia Dax played by the towering and tantalising Terry Farrell, though her character is noticeably stilted in this first year as a more stoic, Spock-like figure than the outgoing party animal she suddenly becomes in season two onward. Although a little dull for the most part as the necessary explainer of weird goings-on, the character is given some nice exposition and some touching scenes in her titular episode ‘Dax.’
The remainder of the human/Starfleet cast consists of the inspired pairing of Doctor Julian Bashir and Chief Miles O’Brien, the latter transferring from many thankless years as the Enterprise’s transporter chief to unleash Colm Meaney’s full potential in realising Starfleet’s everyman, as well as one of my all-time favourite characters in the franchise. O’Brien’s endless task of maintaining and fixing the unreliable station is enjoyable to watch, although his friendship with Bashir wouldn’t develop for some time yet, Siddig El Fadil’s character largely being an annoying starry-eyed optimist in these early shows. The other double act is, of course, Odo and Quark, who effectively play the roles of cop and petty criminal in a number of entertaining B-plots and will clearly never get along, although the same probably isn’t true of Rene Auberjonois (‘M*A*S*H’) and Armin Shimerman (‘Buffy’), the talented and patient actors who spend hours in make-up to bring the series’ most recognisable faces to life. The station’s harbour-like nature leads to a reliable, regular guest cast forming over time, but in this first season their appearances and roles are extremely limited.
Produced concurrently with the last two years of The Next Generation, and then its immediate successor ‘Star Trek: Voyager,’ Deep Space Nine was always kept a little in the shadows during its original run, something quite fitting to its reclusive and dark nature but ultimately damaging for its viewing figures, which were nevertheless always quite high, particularly in these early years before the worst excesses of Voyager made viewers bored of the franchise. It’s my hope that the future will rediscover this brilliant and unique series, particularly once the repetitive Voyager and ‘Enterprise’ have faded from public consciousness, as it’s always been a favourite of mine. This year, in a move both generous and greedy at the same time, Paramount have re-released all of the earlier DS9 DVD season box-sets in a more streamlined and cheaper form, which must be a bummer for those who shelled out £70 or more to buy the original bulky cases released in 2003. Despite less stunning artwork, the interior of each set is exactly the same, featuring four episodes per DVD and an acceptable, if fairly limited selection of special features on the final disc, mainly focused on the creation of the show through interviews with the cast and crew. It’s nice that these sets have been made more affordable for fans, and although season one is the weakest of the lot, it still includes a couple of great memorable shows as well as the invaluable pilot to make every DS9 collection complete.
It would get a lot better after this, but like the tedious opening titles it takes its frelling time.
Advantages: Great pilot episode, and an interesting change of direction for the franchise.
Disadvantages: Far too many weak re-treads of Star Trek clichés stunt the series’ development.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Season 2
It's Easy to be a Saint in Paradise
****
Written on 24.09.07
Deep Space Nine’s second year is an improvement over the first, but progress towards the distinctive and classic series it would become is slow. As in the first season, the individual plots of this longer second year are mainly determined by characters, opportunities or threats passing through the station and interacting with its crew, the opposite of other Star Trek series which headed out to the unknown. On the other hand, the reliance of many episodes on visiting the newly discovered Gamma Quadrant through the nearby stable wormhole keeps DS9 from being as distinctive as it would sometimes like to be, though there is a marked improvement in character-centric episodes and longer story arcs that distance the show further from The Next Generation, which was at the time screening its seventh and final year.
In a bold attempt to out-do its previous achievements and prove its independence, DS9’s second year opens with an unprecedented three-parter that continues to explore local Bajoran politics. Although it would ultimately be outdone by the six-parter that opens season six, and the mammoth ten-part finale of the series, these first three episodes remained the longest extended story in the franchise for several years, themselves only one piece of the larger Bajoran continuity that resurfaces in other memorable episodes this season. Although the actions of ‘The Homecoming,’ ’The Circle’ and ‘The Siege’ are instigated by the station’s Bajoran first officer Major Kira, the plot ultimately expands to provide something for all of the regular cast members and is the perfect way to open the series; it’s a shame more DS9 stories weren’t told in this manner, which really benefits the extensive primary and recurring guest cast, a diverse group to rival even that of the Simpsons. After this epic, it’s back to familiar single episode storylines for the majority of the season with the exception of ‘The Maquis,’ an ultimately disappointing but well-meaning prelude of sorts for ‘Star Trek: Voyager,’ but unlike the first season, most episodes are based on characters rather than random happenings, something that better suits the series’ style.
In terms of relationships, much is achieved here that perhaps should have occurred in season one, had the first year granted the characters the appropriate development time. Commander Sisko’s single parenting of a teenage son forms several B-plots as their close relationship continues to provide a warmth to the show that was lacking in earlier Star Trek series, while most characters experience some form of romance, even providing a serious long-term lover for Kira. Bashir and O’Brien develop their famous friendship after getting off to an antagonistic start, the beginning of what would ultimately become Ira Behr’s obsession with male bonding as seen in the later seasons, and Odo and Quark continue their timeless bickering and rivalry. Although the series is still primarily concerned with telling individual stories at this stage, the more memorable episodes and scenes are those that relate to the larger scheme of things, or set important events in motion. Not only is this the season that introduces the powerful Dominion threat from the other side of the wormhole, name-checked several times through dealings with Gamma Quadrant races before their introduction in the finale ‘The Jem’Hadar,’ but exploration continues in the search for Odo’s race in the episode ‘The Alternate,’ before it was shockingly revealed at the start of season three. Add to this the series’ first real Klingon episode, which brings back the three major Klingons from the original series played by their original actors in an enjoyable revenge tale, as well as the first visit to the so-called Mirror Universe since the classic Star Trek episode ‘Mirror, Mirror.’
Although largely transitory, and even introductory in a way the uneven first season couldn’t quite achieve, season two is a strong year for DS9, and although the style of the later years is more to my liking, many of their elements can be found here, not least in terms of episodes that would have direct sequels or eventually form a larger story arc. The strained relationship between the Bajorans and the Cardassians, their former oppressors, isn’t given quite the attention it would seem to deserve despite several noteworthy episodes, and by the following year’s peace treaty it all seems too long ago to really matter. Episodes like ‘Necessary Evil’ tackle such matters head-on, taking us on a trip down memory lane into Kira’s earlier years that allows for a fascinating exploration of the space station as it was under Cardassian rule, complete with ghetto fencing and smoke machines in every crevice. ‘The Collaborator’ is the perfect and long-awaited follow-up to the first season finale, and the great episode ‘The Wire’ re-introduces the long-forgotten and mysterious Garak from way back in episode two, one of my favourite characters from the series who would feature in increasing prominence from this point on. Furthermore, this season throws out a couple of obligatory Ferengi comedy episodes that are usually hit or miss, the best being ‘Rules of Acquisition’ which manages to be funny and make a relevant social point. Last but not least, season two grants fans of actor Colm Meaney and his everyman Chief of Operations their first of many torturous treats as ‘Tribunal’ unknowingly spawns an entirely new DS9 sub-genre, affectionately nick-named ‘O’Brien Must Suffer’ by the writing staff.
Easily overlooked in comparison with the more striking later seasons, or perhaps too easily skimmed over as merely ‘the year that introduced the Dominion,’ I found a new fondness for season two after a few years spent solely at the other end of the spectrum, and in terms of its character focus and introduction of key recurring themes and plot threads I think it beats season three, leaving the first season far behind in its wake. Recently re-released on DVD with the same special feature interviews as the original release, this series continues to look great: the mid-90s video effect looks slightly fuzzy even on the DVD transfer, but the vast station and its fascinating background alien extras designed by Michael Westmore’s team make this more believable and for me, far more enjoyable than the ship-board Treks. It’s great to see the characters really settled in to their initially horrific surroundings by this point, spending more time in the bar than they apparently do on duty (but still wearing their Starfleet uniforms, in a rather silly oversight that no one ever bothered to address), and it’s obvious that isolated, worthless stories are being slowly phased out in favour of the bigger picture. The series’ original premise continues to yield the strongest episodes as the Bajorans rebuild their devastated civilisation and struggle with politics, and the finale introduces a new threat to rival even the Borg.
At the end, Sisko is warned by a scaly, drug-controlled, genetically engineered alien warrior, whose people have just destroyed a powerful Enterprise-type ship, to cease exploring the Gamma Quadrant and stick to his own side of the wormhole – or else there’ll be trouble. But then, Sisko never was the most cool-headed of the Star Trek captains...
Advantages: Great character-driven stories, and many seeds sown for future developments.
Disadvantages: Weaker individual episodes continue.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Season 3
Tough Little Ship
****
Written on 01.10.07
The third season of Deep Space Nine is where everything changed, and the series finally found its feet. Some series, such as its predecessor ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation,’ took several years to develop to their full potential. With DS9, the change was immediate, and occurred as soon as major writer Ira Stephen Behr took over as Executive Producer twenty-one episodes in, taking DS9 in the direction he had always envisaged. Season three does indeed get better as it goes along, peaking at the end thanks to Behr’s newfound freedom in granting increased focus to characterisation, conflict and space battles, but there are some excellent episodes earlier in the run. Unfortunately, this series suffers somewhat from network insistence that changes had to be made to keep up with the new series Voyager, which would premiere part-way through the year, leading to the introduction of a regular starship and a subsequent backwards step after the progress that was made defining the show’s individuality in season two.
The introduction of the U.S.S. Defiant is an important event for the series, and grants greater freedom for drama and conflict than the puny runabout shuttles ever did, but despite its cramped and spartan battleship interiors, episodes centred around the Defiant’s exploration of the Gamma Quadrant do little to disassociate the series from The Next Generation and Voyager. DS9 always worked best when using its space station setting to its advantage, dealing with a regular cast of characters or just those passing through, and in particular the focus on the local Bajoran culture is significantly diminished. Even the new threat of the Dominion, which initially promises to become the centre of the series, is largely abandoned in favour of unconnected stories in the manner of the earlier seasons, leading to a number of frankly forgettable shows that lack the DS9 touch and could conceivably occur in any of the five Trek series. On the positive side, some of these stand-alone episodes are works of genius, and the series continues to push the boundaries of what was formerly acceptable in a Star Trek show. Character focus is less intense than last year, which is slightly disappointing but also a natural slump as the viewers and performers are now fully aware of their nuances.
The two-parter ‘The Search’ opens this season, and intentionally sets out to shock, though fails to attain the same level of excellence as the first pilot episode or season four’s excellent ‘The Way of the Warrior.’ The natural sequel to last season’s finale, Sisko returns to the station after an absence to investigate the Dominion threat in his cool armoured spaceship that can turn invisible but, as this is DS9, is a little untested and prone to malfunction. The cliffhanger ending to part one is one of the series’ most memorable, as Odo finally reunites with his people, but the second part has a disappointing “it was only a holodeck” style conclusion that serves to spoil things. The Dominion is explored soon after in an interesting manner with the revealing episode ‘The Abandoned,’ but would not resurface again until near the end of the season with the incredible two-parter ‘Improbable Cause’/’The Die is Cast,’ still among my favourite DS9 stories and a terrible demonstration of the Dominion’s evil will and abilities. Other excellent episodes include the earlier two-parter ‘Past Tense,’ a time travel story that, for once, shows the viewers their future of Star Trek’s mid-21st century, where the homeless are forced off the streets into poorly maintained ‘Sanctuary Districts.’ Similar to the later film ‘Star Trek: First Contact,’ this episode sees Starfleet officers accidentally interfering with a significant historical event that all goes awry when the leader of the revolution is killed. It’s certainly one of Star Trek’s most thoughtful and well-executed time travel stories, and only ruined very slightly by the unnecessary comic relief of the Defiant’s crew beaming to various time periods in their search for Sisko, Bashir and Dax, and confronting several silly stereotypes such as hippies.
Although the count of character-based stories is less than in season two, each main cast member is granted at least one excellent show in season three. Sisko confronts his reluctant role of Emissary for the first time since the pilot in the intriguing ‘Destiny’ (the first episode I ever saw, though obviously that isn’t important) and spends some quality time with his son in the touching ‘Explorers.’ Dax’s fascinating Trill physiology is explored extensively in the creepy ‘Equilibrium,’ and Odo’s love for Kira is revealed in the otherwise slow ‘Heart of Stone.’ O’Brien is put through hell yet again in ‘Visionary,’ which features a great scene of the station exploding, and although Bashir’s rapid-ageing offering of ‘Distant Voices’ is a little derivative of The Original Series, the British pair get a fantastic B-plot in ‘Explorers’ that includes a drunken rendition of ‘Jerusalem’ and demonstrates Ira Behr’s fondness for male bonding better than any other scene so far. Even the Ferengi episodes manage to remain above-par rather than merely silly, seeing the return of Wallace Shawn’s hilarious Grand Nagus Zek in the deceptively spiritual ‘Prophet Motive’ and the completion of Quark’s nuclear family with the introduction of his rebellious mother in ‘Family Business.’ Less notable is the episode ‘Defiant,’ an action-packed excuse to feature Jonathan “Riker” Frakes in the show to boost ratings.
DS9 continues to grow slowly but surely in the third season before the sudden revamp by Behr towards its conclusion, and would never be the same again. Although plot threads developed and introduced here would continue to define the show’s development, the bland sci-fi plot of something like ‘Meridian’ or the messing-with-our-emotions formulaicness of ‘Fascination’ would only surface on rare occasions of writer’s block from the experienced creative team. Looking back, it’s a little disappointing that the Dominion wasn’t dealt with in any major way, particularly as even greater network interference for season four demanded a departure from that story for an entire year to focus instead on re-introducing the Klingon threat and introducing The Next Generation’s Worf to the cast, but it’s forgivable for the excellent stories being told between the larger arcs. Bajor and Cardassia get a definitive peace treaty almost off-screen, which effectively ends the Bajoran arc of the earlier years, and a new, speedier title sequence and explosive season premiere would see the series move on from its roots and take on an entirely new life the following year. All seasons have been available on DVD since 2003, and have recently been re-released in slimmer, more cost-effective forms that contain the same mediocre special features of interviews on the final disc.
Season three is still preoccupied with the sort of transition that should have been left behind in season two, but it finds its way by the end as Sisko is finally promoted to captain, grows a beard, and shaves his head to celebrate.
Advantages: Finally finds its way.
Disadvantages: Disappointing ratings-grabbing attempts to compete with ‘Voyager.’
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Season 4
Damn Dirty Klingons
*****
Written on 27.10.05
The fourth season of Deep Space Nine, the ambitious and exciting companion to the less involved Star Trek: Next Generation and Voyager, manages to be one of the strongest and most consistent of the series' entire seven-year run. This is despite network limitations, the rather forced introduction of a favourite character to boost ratings and increasing deviation from the series' original style.
Fortunately, in the hands of new big cheeses Ira Stephen Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe (Behr and Wolfe? Interesting), replacing the series' less ambitious creators Rick Berman and Michael Piller, all of these dubious developments are turned into virtues. DS9 is much more than "the dark Trek" or "the series set on a space station," it's also the series with the most heart, the most rewarding story arcs and the most guns. Take your pick.
DS9 ON DVD
Paramount's DVD package of season 4 is, as usual, very nice to look at and very extortionate. At least it was when first released: now approaching two years old, the seven season boxsets have been reduced to half price at around £25.99 on major websites such as Play.com and Amazon.co.uk
The special features continue to be nothing extraordinary, but the interviews with cast and crew, along with the pretty collector's booklet, compliment the season package and give a sense of value for money. But of course, the main feature is the 26 episodes of season 4, from 'The Way of the Warrior' to 'Broken Link,' spread as usual across the seven discs with four episodes per disc, and the final two on the special features disc.
The boxset is a little bulkier than necessary for the aesthetics of the hard plastic case, an improvement over the flimsier Next Generation sets, but really it's only the width of about three regular DVD cases, when Paramount could have released these discs separately (and probably will, the greedy...)
DISC 1
1 & 2. The Way of the Warrior
3. The Visitor
4. Hippocratic Oath
The series opens in grand style with a feature-length (or two part) episode, 'The Way of the Warrior.' As expected, this is an action-packed, heavily storyline-based episode but not to the degree that would put off newcomers. In fact, this episode showcases pretty much everything that makes DS9 great, exempting the religious angle that would become more prominent later in the run. The dialogue is at its very best here, with some excellent scenes between the alien characters (that's where these series usually go wrong: Starfleet's cream-of-the-crop officers are only interesting for so many minutes) and an excellent blend of computer animation and motion control model footage, one of the last times models would be used prominently in the series before everything was controlled by computer.
Michael Dorn is re-introduced as Lieutenant Worf, Starfleet's only Klingon officer and one of the most popular characters from The Next Generation, a series that came to an end over a year earlier. This necessitates the introduction of a Klingon plot that, while distracting in the large scheme of things, makes for a nicely different episode to kick off the season.
Thanks to some great writing over the course of this season, Worf integrates perfectly (he was definitely the best choice of character to fit in on the station: I can't imagine Wesley Crusher or Captain Picard being very popular), and by season 5 feels like he's been there all along. And best of all, because he's already an established character, we get to avoid all those tedious and embarrassing introductory episodes!
QUARK: "First it was the Cardassians, then it was the Dominion, now it's the Klingons! How's a Ferengi supposed to make a decent living in a place like this?"
DISC 2
5. Indiscretion
6. Rejoined
7. Little Green Men
8. Starship Down
'Rejoined' was a bold move, but in hindsight an episode that shouldn't have provoked much controversy: Star Trek's "lesbian kiss" episode. The show expertly avoids treating a relationship between two same sex characters as unusual (despite there never having been any sightings in the series before) by focusing instead on the taboo that in Trill culture, two new hosts who used to carry the symbionts (it's a long story: more simply they re-incarnate somewhat, but in different bodies) cannot be involved if they have already been together in a previous life. This is a great metaphor for the whole issue, and the discussion between Bashir and Kira over whether Jadzia should be allowed to pursue her relationship runs along the lines of "it's a stupid taboo, but their culture's not ready for it yet." A perfect view of why many less liberal viewers turned off this show in disgust and wrote letters of complaint.
DISC 3
9. The Sword of Kahless
10. Our Man Bashir
11. Homefront
12. Paradise Lost
'Homefront' and 'Paradise Lost' could have been something spectacular, and perhaps would have been if not for the very skimpy budget and rushed writing deadlines. Some fans were unhappy that the series seemed to be heading in an X-Files conspiracy direction - the Founders, shape-shifting leaders of the Dominion (that's the big bad guys from the other side of the galaxy) have infiltrated Starfleet Headquarters on Earth by mimicking some of its admiralcy. The end message is still powerful, "they're everywhere," but looking back this is a two-parter that promises much but doesn't have much of a bearing on the series as a whole. Still, there's a pretty space battle between Federation ships seen from above.
DISC 4
13. Crossfire
14. Return to Grace
15. The Sons of Mogh
16. Bar Association
Ah, Dukat. The biggest mistake of DS9's first four years was allowing its greatest enemy to be, well, not really an enemy or a threat at all. The power-crazed Cardassian becomes sick of his crippled Government's tolerance of Klingon attacks in 'Return to Grace' and turns renegade. This is a great show for Kira, as well as the astonishingly low-profile introduction of Dukat's second-in-command Damar, whose role in the series would be heightened to the point where he was leader of Cardassia, but the writers still don't pin down the character's wicknedness. They did a good job in the earlier 'Indiscretion,' when he tracks down his illegitimate daughter in a slave camp and almost kills her to preserve his reputation, but here he's having bloody dinner with Kira Nerys. Never mind, things will change soon enough.
DISC 5
17. Accession
18. Rules of Engagement
19. Hard Time
20. Shattered Mirror
One of the highlights of every season, when done well, is what the writers call the "torture O'Brien" episode. Or in this case, the excellent 'Hard Time.' One of Trek's darkest and most emotional episodes, this sees the always excellent Colm Meaney portray Chief O'Brien at his most psychologically scarred. Due to accidentally committing some petty crime on an alien world, O'Brien is forced to spend twenty years in imprisonment - inside his own mind. A much faster and more efficient form of punishment, according to the aliens, but one that has a devastating effect on the Chief: he hasn't seen his wife or daughter for what feels like twenty years, and his closest friend during his "incarceration" never really existed. Then why does he keep seeing him now he's back on the station?
Ending with a gripping scene where Bashir finds O'Brien clutching a phaser to his neck, this is one of my favourite episodes of the series and definitely not the light-hearted "everything's going wrong with the controls, oh no" situation that Colm Meaney is sadly mostly used for.
DISC 6
21. The Muse
22. For the Cause
23. To the Death
24. The Quickening
The Maquis were never very interesting. In fact, the only real reason that DS9 devoted a two-part episode to their introduction back in season 2, and that the final episodes of The Next Generation did a little to further this, is that they would be one of the features (oddly almost completely ignored after the first episode) of then-new spin-off 'Star Trek: Voyager.' A band of Federation citizens who have betrayed their oath of allegiance due to their hatred of the oppressive Cardassians, whose space their worlds now inhabit, the Maquis are most often used when the writers want an excuse to show 'the Badlands,' a swirling, crackling part of the Cardassian/Federation demilitarised zone that looks quite cool on screen. 'For the Cause' isn't much different, but does have the advantage of finally providing a good character episode for Eddington, the head of Starfleet security on DS9, and turning Sisko's relationship with Kasidy Yates on its (bald) head.
DISC 7
25. Body Parts
26. Broken Link
The season could have ended on a stronger note, but 'Broken Link' is a memorable episode. The ending is two-fold: firstly, and most importantly for viewers, Odo is robbed off his shape-shifting powers by the Founders as penance for him reluctantly killing one of his kind a year before. Yeah, Odo's a good guy but his race are the enemy, confusing I know - but this is half-way through the series' run. Secondly, it appears that Gowron, the crazy-eyed leader of the Klingon Empire, and the one who went to war with the Federation, is himself a shape-shifter. 'Broken Link' suffers for having to lead to the shock revelation that will keep fans talking over the summer (on the internet, obviously. We don't experience human contact or emotions) and looks quite cheap, but it's a great character piece for Odo, one of the more interesting characters aboard the station.
VERDICT
Season 4 is, surprisingly, a good place to start for newcomers to the series. There are a few dodgy episodes ('The Muse' in particular - two stories that don't connect in any way at all, and are also both rubbish), but far less than in the previous seasons. The tone is still relatively dark, but the war-torn depression is still far away and the characters generally get along heart-warmingly well.
DS9 is an ensemble show in the style of The Next Generation and Voyager, as opposed to the original series and the most recent shoddy follow-up 'Enterprise' which concentrate on the principal select characters, and this seasons really does provide screen time for everyone in equal measure. There's not an incredible amount in overall storyline development, but this makes for a strong set of (mostly-)stand-alone shows that can be switched on and enjoyed by people regardless of their Trek education.
Plus, this was the series that made the Klingons nasty again, and the joke about the Enterprise flying around Uranus and wiping them out became slightly more relevant than it had been since 1987. Except that DS9 is set far off in the Bajoran system, nowhere near any of the risqué named planets in out own solar system. And if I'm going to be that pedantic, the joke about Kirk having three ears was never that accurate either. Spock was the one with the funny ears, and he only had two. Kirk was the one with the hilarious wig.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Season 5
The Darkest Trek's Finest 19 Hours
*****
Written on 07.05.04
"Look, a gay Star Trek club. You could join that, you like Star Trek."
"I don?t like Deep Space Nine though!"
(Misquote from Little Britain, © 2003 Matt Lucas and David Walliams)
The name 'Star Trek' means different things to different people. To some children it can mean fast spaceships and people shooting Borg, while older fans often associate it with fond memories of William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and DeForrest Kelley visiting planets of Romans and things, and for a great many people it means glasses-wearing nerds who are thirty years old, live with their parents and often have a voice like a bad John Major impersonation.
To me, Star Trek means Deep Space Nine; of the five Star Trek series produced between 1964 and the present day it is likely the least well-known and least-liked, and there are several reasons for this; for a start, the show's stationary setting, literally on a space station, is very different from the alien-of-the-week format of the other series, and while there are a great many stand-alone episodes there are even more ongoing plots that run throughout the series and would put off many casual fans. But as is usually the case with plot-heavy science fiction adventure series, such as the excellent Farscape and the quite appalling Lexx, the people who like it, REALLY like it.
DS9: BACKGROUND
Deep Space Nine is a space station orbiting the planet Bajor, now run by the Federation (that's the good guys). The station was previously run by the oppressive Cardassians, who occupied Bajor for over sixty years before finally being driven out by the Bajoran Resistance, and the Federation were immediately se nt in to help the planet get back on its feet.
This was the plan anyway, but the discovery of the first stable wormhole in close proximity to Bajor by the station's commander, Benjamin Sisko, increases the importance of both Bajor and the station. The wormhole is a practical means for vessels to travel to a point in the distant Gamma Quadrant, while its religious significance as the Bajoran Celestial Temple has repercussions for Sisko and his crew.
CHARACTERS
The personnel of the DS9 station, its three runabout shuttles and the warship the U.S.S. Defiant are the focus of the series, although in a break with tradition they are not all the clean-cut Starfleet officers viewers had come to expect from the franchise. But none of them seem to do any real work anyway.
CAPTAIN BENJAMIN SISKO (Avery Brooks) - This African-descended man's discovery of the wormhole led to him being hailed as the Bajorans' "emissary," a religious significance he did his best to shun in the early years, but which he finds himself increasingly believing in as the series progresses. His wife was killed several years earlier, and he is raising his son JAKE SISKO (Cirroc Lofton) alone. The fifth season sees Sisko firmly accepting his emissary role as he experiences visions that spell doom for Bajor.
MAJOR KIRA NERYS (Nana Visitor) - Former terrorist and member of the victorious Bajoran Resistance, Kira is the station's first officer and Bajoran liaison. Originally a little feisty, her faith in the Prophets is strong, and this season sees her give birth to the O'Briens' baby. (A long story, created to explain the actress' pregnancy).
CHIEF MILES O'BRIEN (Colm Meaney) - Originally from the Next Generation, O'Brien has a family aboard the station and regularly finds himself in increasingly bad situations. The writers opt for at least one 'torture O'Brien' episode each year, as his everyman persona makes this both exciting and disturbing. The torture O'Brien in season 5 sees him committing sabotage on the station to avoid an alien presence from killing his wife.
LT. COMMANDER WORF (Michael Dorn) - The Klingon security officer from the Next Generation was transferred to the station when hostilities began once again with the Klingon Empire. He commands the Defiant, and in this series begins his ultimately tragic relationship with Dax.
LT. COMMANDER JADZIA DAX (Terry Farrell) - The station's sultry Trill science officer, she has a huge slug-like symbiont in her gut, but was still voted the sexiest woman in sci-fi.
DOCTOR JULIAN BASHIR (Alexander Siddig) - Quite naïve and annoying when the series began, Julian's experiences have changed him, and there are dark revelations uncovered in season 5 regarding his genetically engineered past.
QUARK (Armin Shimerman) - The local Ferengi barkeep, Quark's shady dealings can be forgiven for the amount of light comedy he brings to the episodes. His family problems become even more complicated in season 5, but at least he gets his licence back.
ODO (Rene Auberjonois) - The station's unusual security chief, Odo's people are the braisn behind the evil Dominion, but they removed his shape-shifting abilities when he betrayed them. This season sees major changes for Odo, and his long-running feud with Quark comes to a head when they are marooned on an inhospitable world.
THEMES & ISSUES
Deep Space Nine is much more of a character show than the other Trek series, and the constant political tensions and wars in the vicinity make for a much darker show, a tone helped by the Cardassian architecture of the sets. This is one of the few television series that tackles religion in a very understandable and sensitive way, while also having a strong focus on family, the effects of war and conflict, suspense and very welcome comedy episodes.
EPISODES & STYLE
The fifth season holds several major turning points for the series, and as such is the most important and also most exciting year. Tensions with the Klingons are put on hold, and the balance of power goes through an unexpected shift when the treacherous Gul Dukat forges an alliance between the powerful force of the Gamma Quadrant's Dominion, and the crippled Cardassia. This invites a Dominion presence through the wormhole, and as the series approaches an end it is clear to all that a Federation-Dominion war is imminent. The final episode of this season ends dramatically with Sisko and his crew being forced to abandon DS9 and Bajor, turning it over to Dominion and Cardassian hands, which leads into the war-driven series that follow.
The tone of the fifth season begins similar to what has come before, with some light-hearted character episodes, before taking a dark turn. Anyone who is a fan of 4;he Next Generation, Voyager or Enterprise will not necessarily like Deep Space Nine as it is essentially a completely different show in the Star Trek canon.
NOTABLE EPISODES
'TRIALS AND TRIBBLE-ATIONS' - this show was created to celebrate Star Trek's 30th anniversary, and sees the Deep Space Nine crew sent back in time to a series from the original Star Trek. This leads to some excellent and highly believable 'Forrest Gump'-style visual effects as actors from the recent series are inserted into the older episode to interact with Kirk and his crew. Eight years on, these effects still look incredible, and this makes this enjoyable romp one of the most popular DS9 episodes, if atypical.
'THE ASCENT' - The ultimate episode for fans of the antagonistic relationship between Quark and Odo, as the duo are stranded on a frozen planet and must climb a series of mountains in order to set up a rescue beacon. Odo's newfound status as a "solid" is also shown to a great extent here.
'IN PURGATORY'S SHADOW'/'BY INFERNO'S LIGHT' - This two-parter in the middle of the series is my favourite piece of Star Trek, and it rewards long-time fans by completely changing the focus of the series. Great effects, an outstanding plot and an atmosphere that you could cut with a Bat'leth, it's often painful to watch as the characters are faced with the situations. A testament to the actors.
'EMPOK NOR' - As close as Star Trek gets to making a horror film, this is very tastefully and expertly done, as O'Brien and an engineering crew are sent into Cardassian/Dominion territory to recover parts from an abandoned station, and one of the series' regular characters suddenly embarks on a murderous rampage. Gripping, and very different from the norm.
'A CALL TO ARMS' - The epic season cliffhanger, with some of the best special effects of the entire series.
WILL I LIKE THIS?
Deep Space Nine started out quite similar to other Star Trek series, but it quite soon developed its own character, especially when control was handed from the rather unimaginative Rick Berman and Michael Piller to the genius of Ira Stephen Behr and the writing staff in the third season. The name 'Star Trek' in the title will doubtless have gained this series more viewers than it would have had otherwise, and was the reason I was able to watch it on BBC2 during the mid-90s, but although it shares the same universe, principles and film techniques of other Star Trek series, it will not necessarily be enjoyed by the same fans.
Obviously if you dislike the science fiction genre as a whole, you will not like this series, and feel free to leave all manner of abusive comments to this review. I would suggest though, that fans of such series as Farscape, Stargate SG-1, Andromeda and even perhaps Buffy the Vampire Slayer will enjoy this more than those who swear by The Next Generation, Voyager and Enterprise, as the level of character development and focus on expansive storylines is much more an issue here than in other incarnations.
Deep Space Nine's entire run was shown by the BBC in evening time slots when the episodes were first sh own in the UK, so if you tended to watch those kind of programmes, there's a fair chance you saw this, and this is the programme at its creative and enjoyable peak, without a sub-standard episode.
THE DVDS
The entire run of Deep Space Nine was released in 2003, following 2002's Next Generation releases and preceding this year's releases of Voyager. The DVDs have been very neatly designed, in hard plastic cases that look great either as stand-alone seasons or the complete set, and the picture and sound quality is perfect.
There are four episodes on each of the first six discs, the final two on a seventh disc along with the special features. These interviews with the actors and production staff are worth watching for fans of the series, but essentially don't reveal anything new that people who followed the series' production don't already know. They feel a little tagged on in order to bulk the sets out, as it's primarily the episodes themselves that the viewer is buying.
My only problem with the DVDs, aside from the fairly disappointing extras, is that they are very expensive. The cheapest they retail on the internet is around £50, with £58.99 being the usual price on Play.com and elsewhere. Furthermore, anyone who buys them from high street retailers end up paying around £85, and people do.
One way around this that will not be to everyone's tastes is to import the sets from elsewhere, but the DVDs are never as impressive as the UK versions. The American Region 1 releases feature basic plastic covers, and my Asian import is very badly designed. The discs still work however, and it only cost me £13 from an eBay seller. Due to some of the complications involved in this however, I cannot recommend it to everyone, but Deep Space 8;ine was one of the most involving and creative space adventure series of recent years.
The disappointment of the recent Star Trek films seems to hint that a new approach is required, but Berman's Star Trek staff would never make a DS9 film. They are idiots.
Advantages: Original and very enjoyable episodes, Excellent atmosphere throughout, unmatched by other series, Great effects, actors, plotlines and humour
Disadvantages: Not to everyone's tastes, Price of the DVD will put many people off
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Season 6
"Coloured People on the Moon?"
*****
Written on 12.06.04
You hate Star Trek.
I can accept that; I dislike some Star Trek myself.
You hate Star Trek because it is boring, unrealistic, repetitive, not exciting and too clean cut.
If you enjoy action films, war stories, espionage, soap operas, romance and shows of a truly epic proportion, your immediate judgement of the show that was Deep Space Nine should not be tarnished by your bad experiences of other Trek. It still has Klingons though.
Originally in the shadow of The Next Generation and then, when it finished, Star Trek: Voyager, DS9 was often seen as the underdog of the Star Trek world, its very different style and focus on more important themes and long-running storylines putting off some people who wanted some cheap sci-fi thrills. But like long-running adventure series and even programmes such as the Sopranos and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, DS9 consistently rewarded and surprised the long-time viewer.
Season six of DS9 is arguably one of the finest seasons of any sci-fi series ever made. Without a trace of the things that make other incarnations of Star Trek often dull and with much more focus on the effects of war and character interaction, this contains some of the most memorable and exciting episodes of any science fiction series as well as plenty of explosions and some blood and Iggy Pop.
STYLE & CONTENT
Speaking as on obvious fan of this show, season six is probably its high point. The original writing team were long gone and ideas that had been a long time in suspense and development had now been thrown in full whack. The Federation that had seemed so immaculate and Utopian with Picard's crew was now in a full-scale galactic war with the brutal group of races known as the Dominion, whose foothold into the vicinity through their new Cardassian members meant that even with Klingon help it was becoming a losing battle.
The war dominates many of the episodes and gives the show a darker tone but there is still time for all the things that proved successful in the show's past. There are tastefully executed comedy episodes, intense character dramas and a fair amount of snogging thrown into the mix, while some episodes pushed the Star Trek envelope even further than had been attempted before:
FAR BEYOND THE STARS
The most inspired episode of this season remains most of the cast and crew's very favourite and is the very sensitive 'Far Beyond the Stars.' This episode takes the idea that Deep Space Nine has all been the creative imaginings of a Benny Russell, a black science fiction writer living in New York in the 1950s, played by Avery Brooks (the series' lead role as Captain Sisko). Benny is respected by his peers at 'Incredible Tales' magazine but is sadly required to "sleep late" on days when photography would be required. Armin Shimerman's character sarcastically exclaims:
"If the world's not ready for a woman writer, imagine what would happen if they learned about a Negro with a typewriter. Run for the hills, it's the end of civilisation."
Benny is suddenly inspired to write the story of Deep Space Nine, with a black captain in command of a space station. To show the differences over fifty years (after all, in 1992 Paramount had no trouble commissioning this very same show), Benny is told politely by the leading editor that he must make the captain Caucasian or the public won't accept it. Benny refuses and continues writing Deep Space Nine until the editor (Rene Auberjonois) agrees to give it a try... and the entire run of magazines is pulped by the publishers.
"According to the publishers this issue did not live up to our usual high standards."
Benny is unable to accept the society and collapses into a fit. Once he is allowed to leave the hospital he sees one of his friends shot for breaking into a car (Cirroc Lofton, who usually plays Jake Sisko the captain's grown son). It's clear that he was shot for his race, but when he intervenes, Benny is beaten into a coma by the police officers.
Once he awakens from his vision, Sisko is uncertain whether his reality is real. It was clear that the Prophets sent him the vision for a purpose, that we must remember the mistakes of the past.
THE DOMINION WAR
The sixth season begins with a six part story arc, something previously unattempted in the franchise. These six shows focused on Sisko and the crew of the U.S.S. Defiant fighting off the Dominion and attempting to retake the Deep Space Nine station that had been occupied by their enemies. Meanwhile, on board the station the non-Federation members of the crew have to endure life with the Dominion which, while not particularly dangerous due to the organisation's attempts at maintaining balance and peace in the sector, certainly does not bode well for the future. The episode 'Sacrifice of Angels' is a fantastic conclusion to this story arc and one of the most satisfying episodes ever.
THE EPISODES
Following is a brief summary of all twenty-six episodes. There is no real excuse for this behaviour apart from insomnia and a genuine love of this series: to lose the shred of respect I was previously clinging on to, I have also rated each episode out of five stars (those things that usually censor swear words such as sh**) according to its content and impact. As William Shatner famously asked an actor playing a Trekkie on Saturday Night Live, "have you ever kissed a girl?" I'm afraid it's hard to find one at 3am.
Disc 1
A TIME TO STAND ****
Sisko and his crew take a Jem'Hadar ship on an undercover mission in Dominion territory
ROCKS AND SHOALS ****
The Defiant's crew are stranded on a deserted planet along with an opposing force of Jem'Hadar warriors suffering withdrawal
SONS AND DAUGHTERS ***
Worf's son Alexander signs up for duty and is posted to Worf's ship, while Dukat's daughter returns to DS9
BEHIND THE LINES **
The Female Changeling arrives on DS9 and links with Odo, causing him to lose interest in the safety of his friends
Disc 2
FAVOUR THE BOLD ***
Kira's new Resistance on DS9 is exposed and Rom is sentenced to death, while Sisko unveils a plan to retake the station
SACRIFICE OF ANGELS *****
In this epic instalment, Starfleet and the Klingons fight through to DS9 but are too late to prevent the minefield from being eradicated
YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED... ****
With the Dominion temporarily pushed back, Worf and Dax plan their wedding ceremony, including the gruelling bachelor party
RESURRECTION **
An alternate version of Kira's old flame arrives from a parallel universe, working for the evil Intendant
Disc 3
STATISTICAL PROBABILITIES ***
A group of unstable genetically enhanced patients are brought to DS9 to benefit from Bashir's company
THE MAGNIFICENT FERENGI ****
The Dominion have kidnapped Quark's mother, so in an uncharacteristic display of chivalry he forms a band of warriors
WALTZ ****
In this chilling and disturbing episode, Sisko is stranded on a planet with the unstable Dukat
WHO MOURNS FOR MORN? ***
Morn is reported dead, and this brings some of his old business associates to the station and specifically to Quark
Disc 4
ONE LITTLE SHIP ***
A runabout investigates a strange shrinking anomaly when the Dominion interrupt and seize the Defiant
FAR BEYOND THE STARS *****
This classic episode sees Sisko experience a vision where he is a struggling black writer in the 1950s
HONOUR AMONG THIEVES *****
O'Brien has been sent undercover to expose the mysterious Orion Syndicate, but he becomes attached to the leading man
CHANGE OF HEART ***
When his new wife is badly injured on a vital mission, Worf must decide whether to place his duty or his feelings first
Disc 5
WRONGS DARKER THAN DEATH OR NIGHT ***
A transmission from Dukat leads Kira to use the Orb of Time to investigate whether her mother was ever his lover
INQUISITION ****
A mysterious, shifty organisation at the very heart of the Federation is introduced and they desire Julian Bashir
IN THE PALE MOONLIGHT *****
Sisko must turn his back on his principles when the need to bring the Romulans into the war becomes vital
HIS WAY ***
Julian's new holo-program of 1950s Las Vegas offers Odo the chance to finally express his feelings for Kira
Disc 6
THE RECKONING ****
The penance for Sisko's favour from the Prophets is finally exacted and he must choose whether to risk his son's life
VALIANT ***
Jake and Nog are attacked in a runabout but rescued by a crew of cadets whose experiences have left them over-confident
PROFIT AND LACE **
Female rights on the Ferengi homeworld are reaching new heights, and Quark must undergo a sex change operation
TIME'S ORPHAN ***
Miles O'Brien's daughter falls through a portal and spends eighteen years fending for herself, alone
Disc 7
THE SOUND OF HER VOICE **
The Defiant picks up transmissions from a dying woman who helps the distanced crew explore their own feelings
TEARS OF THE PROPHETS *****
The huge cliffhanger ending sees the death of a regular character, an epic battle and the destruction of the wormhole
THE DVDS
As usual the DVDs are presented in a stylish hard plastic case and the special features are interesting, if brief. Discussions with the cast and crew on specific episodes and the changes made are insightful but still feel a little tagged on to bulk out the set. With the price at a hefty £58.99 (or around £85 if you're foolish enough to buy it from HMV or Virgin), this is only a set for the collector however inferior but much more affordable Chinese imports can be bought from eBay international over at eBay.com. That, as you can probably tell, is what I have done, paying around £12 for the several seasons of the show that I bought.
VERDICT
An excellent season of Deep Space Nine and science fiction in general. Dark, emotional, exciting and tense, this is TV at its greatest and features the perfect balance of large-scale epic storylines and smaller, more contained outings for the casual viewer. Anyone interested in DS9 could manage adequately even from starting at this late point, however my preference is to start at the fourth season, the first truly great year, and work my way forwards.
No Vulcans, no human-versus-machine debates, only one space anomaly and plenty of action and excitement. Star Trek at its very best.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Season 7
Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges
*****
Written on 04.06.04
'In Times of War, the Laws Fall Silent'
The final year of a long-running television show, especially one with continuing storylines and a loyal fan following, needs to provide a satisfying conclusion to a large number of plot threads. The final year of Star Trek's boldest and darkest incarnation did not disappoint those who had followed its characters and developments since 1993, as the writing staff took some interesting decisions: the first half was surprisingly low key in providing stand-alone episodes and foreshadowing later developments, before the series plunged straight into a ten-part epic, tying up loose ends and leaving even more open for possible future developments.
BACKGROUND
Over the seven years, Star Trek's space station-bound third incarnation came a long way, aided mainly by the change in writing staff after the third season. While the original notion of a station out in the far reaches of known space, providing aid to a recently occupied planet while having to balance out the changing political situations in the area, was a little bland for some people's tastes, the introduction of a powerful and immense enemy force from the distant Gamma Quadrant by the name of 'The Dominion' changed everything: immediately the show became more about protecting the Federation from this threat, but it was only at the end of the fifth season that the Dominion carried out its all-out invasion of the Federation, leading to the outbreak of war.
Seasons six and seven are primarily led by the idea of a large-scale war, and while this deterred those who watched Star Trek for its messages of peace and its superhuman characters, others found the examination of the human condition under stress the most interesting development in the franchise's history. Captain Benjamin Sisko and his crew of less than perfect Starfleet officers and Bajoran militia firmly established himself as a much different commander than Kirk or Picard, and the increasing focus on the show's huge assortment of regular and recurring characters meant that the final season had a lot of work on its hands.
STYLE & THEMES
The seventh season begins surprisingly low-key after the devastation and death at the end of season six, but this is all part of the writers' plan to continue as normal and then surprise viewers towards the end. The first six episodes are fairly standard 'space opera' that the show does so well, focusing on the characters and their problems rather than the space phenomena common to the more popular Next Generation.
This series continues its focus on the themes that made DS9 unique among sci-fi shows: its in-depth exploration of religion through the Bajoran's beliefs, the devastation and personal effects of war and loss, and the importance of family and friendship. If you've been put off by the bland and dull nature of some Star Trek shows in the past, there is very little by this point in Deep Space Nine, aside from the appearance of familiar races such as the Cardassians and the Cornish pasty-headed Klingons, so this should not form the basis of your opinion.
NOTABLE EPISODES
This season is one of DS9's best, and there are many character pieces of note. 'Field of Fire' sees new crewmember Ezri Dax having to face the violent past of one of her previous hosts when solving a series of murders on the station, 'Take Me Out to the Holosuite' is a fun baseball romp with the ultimate morals of "it's taking part that counts" and "Vulcans can be smug," while 'It's Only a Paper Moon' is a very sombre look at the debilitating effects of personal injury.
The darker side of the show is not lost in the first half, with the ultimate gritty war episode 'The Siege of AR-558' presenting the most violent and grim Star Trek episode in history, while 'Covenant' examines suicide cults and confirms that Sisko's ultimate nemesis, the Cardassian Dukat, is completely insane and undeniably evil.
The ten-part story arc at the end is the highlight of the season however, with its focus on every character and their importance (or lack of) to the overall scheme of things. This is Deep Space Nine at its very best, remaining unpredictable, tragic, enjoyable, funny and full of impressive special effects. Penumbra / 'Til Death Do Us Part / Strange Bedfellows / The Changing Face of Evil / When it Rains... / Tacking into the Wind / Extreme Measures / The Dogs of War / What You Leave Behind parts I & II.
THE DVD
All 26 episodes are very clear and crisp, despite the soft lens the series is filmed in, although the show slightly predated the modern convention of making every sci-fi show in a widescreen format. As usual with the DS9 releases there is a final disc of special features, all of which provide an interesting look behind the scenes, focusing especially on the end of the series and the cast and crew's reactions to their seven year commitments coming to fruition, but they still feel a little tagged on for the sake of it. Still, the DVDs are presented in an excellent sturdy plastic case, and small extras such as a collector's booklet complete the effect. There are plenty of language and subtitle options as well.
VERDICT
Season seven is not DS9 at its absolute best, and as is always the way with the end of a popular series, there are some conclusions that were not made as satisfactory as they could have been. The writers still deserve credit however, especially for allowing focus on some great stand-alone episodes amidst the frantic rush to meet the series' end.
As stated earlier, this is not Star Trek at its most traditional, and has more in common with shows such as Farscape, Stargate SG-1 and Buffy the Vampire Slayer in terms of its exploration of characters and important themes over time rather than using the "reset button" format of many shows. Anyone interested in Deep Space Nine would certainly not find this season the most inviting due to amount of knowledge that can be required at times, and it's my opinion that season four is the best starting point; the first three years were important, but far less impressive.
The drawback with these DVDs, apart from the lack of extensive special features, is the rather extortionate price: Play.com and other websites often charge £58.99 as the lowest price. I have found that importing from eBay.com can provide a bargain - the equivalent of £12.00 for a Chinese import of inferior but still watchable quality - but I can't recommend this to everyone. Deep Space Nine was always overshadowed by the end of the Next Generation and the beginning of Voyager, and it's my hope that subsequent re-runs could inspire more science fiction fans to re-discover what an excellent show it was.
Star Trek: Voyager 6.9
***
Written on 17.07.00
THE NEW VOYAGER VIDEO- READ THIS BEFORE YOU BUY IT!
This month's newest release, Star Trek: Voyager 6.9, is a good watch but shadowed by the previous release, volume 6.8.
In "Spirit Folk", the holographic Irish town, Fair Haven (last seen in the episode "Fair Haven" earlier this year) comes back on-line. For Janeway, this is a chance to again see her "perfect man", in the form of Michael Sullivan, a holographic Irishman. In this episode, the holograms begin fearing the Voyager crew as spirits, and it all makes up for a fairly enjoyable yet overall poor episode.
"Ashes to Ashes" is better, and features yet another doomed romance for Harry Kim (a hologram, a Borg, the wrong twin, a member of a xenophobic race, and now a corpse), in the form of a crew member who died years ago and has now been ressurrected as an alien . Overall, a story that gets quite dull and has an obvious conclusion.
Thanks for reading and if you're a fan, please look here every time you see a new video on the shelves, as I'll buy it and review it as soon as I can. [This was never updated again.] If I say they're good, they will generally be to your liking, but don't take my opinions as solid. If the occurrences of an episode sound good to you even though I've given it a thumbs-down, don't be put off, but everyone has different views. Please let me know what you think with a comment, or e-mail me at [Gives his family's Freeserve email address].
Advantages: Interesting, thought-provoking stories.
Disadvantages: The episodes aren't as good as usual.
"He Was a Nerd Sir ... He Sneezed a Lot."
*****
Written on 08.03.03
I saw, and enjoyed, the Stargate film when it was rented out by my family in about 1995, but was never too interested in watching the series once I heard it had begun, even though the videos were always in my face as I bought unwise quantities of Deep Space Nine and Voyager off the shelves whenever my pocket money cleared. It could have been the fact that it was shown on Channel 4 that put me off, or that the only guy who I ever heard talking about it wasn't particularly one of my closest friends. (I later discovered that the Tok'ra Martouf bears an uncanny resemblance to this fool).
I only started watching Stargate SG-1 at my friend's house around autumn of last year (2002), and was almost immediately hooked. Sky One seemed to anticipate this, and very soon began showing episodes daily right from the start. Episodes like 'The Nox' increased my appreciation even further, possibly due to the appearance of DS9's Armin "Quark" Shimerman, or just the aceness of episode. Needless to say, soon my eBaying turned towards Stargate DVDs.
Compared to other sci-fi programmes I like, notably the later Star Trek series, Stargate is certainly very original and not afraid to act a little silly for the sake of entertainment. This is also I quality I've always admired of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, one of the reasons it's my favourite Star Trek by a long way, as well as the ongoing plots and reappearance of a large number of guest characters. There's also a perfect balance between characters, with the two scientists and two action men, including the token stoic, formal alien and nice young lady.
A quick overview of the plot is that the US military send small teams through the 'Stargate' alien device, unearthed in Egypt, to other Stargates throughout the galaxy, with the intention of exploration and the possibility of recovering advanced alien technology for humanity. (Opinions on the film would be useful in understanding the initial Stargate concept). The Stargates were built by the Ancients, who remain an unknown and mysterious race until the end of the sixth season. Only problem is... well, the major problem anyway aside from numerous malfunctions, is the Goa'uld, an alien worm-like species who take humans as hosts, taken from Earth and scattered over hundreds of worlds centuries ago.
SG-1 consists of Colonel Jack O'Neill, Doctor Daniel Jackson (both of these were in the film, but played by different actors who are the only thing that cause me to watch the movie far less than I would otherwise), Captain Samantha Carter, and Teal'c. As basically explained as possible, Teal'c's a nice Goa'uld. Over the years, the team avoid death (nearly always), thwarting the Goa'uld and making Earth seem increasingly vital and advanced, with aid from the Asgard and the Tok'ra. For more information, see my reviews on the DVD volumes. Or other peoples', just mine are better... well, I get miles.
I?d basically recommend Stargate (SG-1) to anyone who likes enjoyable, funny (O'Neill banter mainly), often epic sci-fi; possibly also those who are a little annoyed with countless spatial distortions and quantum singularities causing inevitably-safe catastrophes to invincible starships. Or maybe you're tired of utopian futures and want to see a bit of contemporary machine gunning. There are also a disturbing amount of apostrophes used, which isn't helped by the Egyptian pronunciations of all the Goa'uld enemies.
Notable episodes, all of which can probably be downloaded at rather small file size off the internet... not that anyone would want to use such programmes, one from each season, would be:
'Children of the Gods'- still one of my favourites, and the first episode so it's a little integral to your initial understanding of the plotlines. Also offers a nice distraction if you find yourself longing for the simpler days of season one, when Apophis was the bad guy and space travel was limited.
'The Serpent's Lair'- first episode of season 2, continuing from the cliffhanger from season 1. Some great, high-budget space action that still remains in the "simpler" days of the show. Nice visuals, and plenty of peril.
'Legacy'- won't be anyone else's favourite of the third series ( I don't suppose), but I like it. Daniel's going a bit mad and starts seeing demons and Goa'uld everywhere, and some nice Carter/ Dr. Frasier action at the end. (Not that kind of action).
'Window of Opportunity'- a great example of how the show deals with more average human beings than the well-rounded future characters soften portrayed in other shows, while also dealing with a sci-fi concept. A time loop causes O'Neill and Teal'c to live the same day again and again, and they are forced to learn Latin in order to communicate the knowledge to Daniel after every loop. Too many funny moments to mention, but I'm always cracked up by O'Neill playing golf through the Stargate, and the unbelievable bad luck of Teal'c as he is hit in the face by a door every time the loop starts again!
'Summit'- Daniel is sent undercover to investigate the Goa'uld. This is part one of a two-parter, but some nice reds and enjoyable storyline. There's also some stuff with the others down on a Tok'ra planet.
'Redemption'- the two-part starter of season 6 sees new SG-1 member Jonas helping with the development of Earth's first interstellar craft, while Teal'c returns to his son Rya'c after hearing of his wife's illness. New enemy Anubis is also introduced, and he's ace. (What? This is my opinion, I can have views).
Season seven is due to start on Sci-Fi in the US, and Sky One in the UK in a few months. Channel 4's currently showing season 5 on its first terrestrial run, and I'm not sure what Sky's doing right now; they just reached the end of season 5 in their incredibly useful daily run. If anyone's interested in more info on new episodes or synopses, I've found Gateworld.net to be the best source.
Stargate SG-1 – Vol. 6
"Teal'c, you are not going to shave my head!"
***
Written on 09.03.03
Still entrenched in the simpler, early days of the TV show, Stargate's Volume 6 DVD offers a mixture of plot-furthering and random, fun shows for both the devoted and passive fans. As usual with the older releases, the picture quality is not so great for a DVD and there's nothing in the way of extras apart from scene selections, animated menus and several audio/subtitle options, but four episodes and nearly three hours makes it value for money when commonly found quite cheap on the internet. As for the episodes:
SERPENT'S SONG
An episode that would require some degree of background knowledge to the series ot fully appreciate, "Serpent's Song" deals with a dying Apophis, the Goa'uld who would have destroyed or enslaved the human race if not for the intervention of SG-1 at the start of season 2, and explores the ethical and realistic notions of whether he should be allowed to die. Meanwhile, a mysterious and extremely powerful ancient Goa'uld Sokar, who takes his name from the Egyptian god of death, is slowly pushing through the iris that keeps the Stargate sealed.
The teaser (pre-episode titles) to this episode certainly start the DVD off with a bang, with some shots of Apophis' ship being shot down from space into a desert, however the action dwindles after this. Aside from the interesting and mysterious idea of Sokar, the storyline seems to drag on and not properly develop, and I certainly would only recommend the episode to a dedicated fan of the series. If not for the finale to season 2, I suspect MGM might have converted this into some form of clip show.
HOLIDAY
Meeting a frail old man called Machello in an advanced laboratory, apparently a notable hero in the battle against the Goa'uld, the team return to Earth unaware that the old man has swapped his presence with Daniel Jackson's. While Daniel lies comatose, Machello explores the local neighbourhood, intent on living life as a free man after being hunted f or so long. Meanwhile, attempting to discover how the body swap machine works, Jack and Teal'c become involved in an identity crisis of their own.
An enjoyable episode, added to by the hilarity of Christopher Judge portraying Richard Dean Anderson's character. I'm not sure how they are able to get away with Michael Shanks playing both Daniel and Machello, as I find it rather obvious, but on the whole an easy to grasp episode and funny romp. Reminds me of the Red Dwarf episode "Body Swap."
ONE FALSE STEP
Exploring a primitive alien world, SG-1 find they may be causing the inhabitants to fall ill. However, once Jack begins to experience the same symptoms, eyes fall towards the local plant life. A nice random episode, not particularly great but watchable. I always like it when some outdoor action is included in episodes rather than simply the SGC all the time- the alien species are interesting as well.
SHOW AND TELL
A young, dying boy speaks of invisible aliens who wish to destroy his people. Jack is particularly sympathetic to the boy's cause as he reminds him of his dead son. Not a strong episode, the only real high points are the battles with the invisible (nice money-saving technique there) aliens, and the shock value of the boy's alien mother being killed in front of him. One of the weaker episodes of the season, although the child actor is good.
Overall, a good DVD but no fantastic episodes- only "Holiday" would be a possibility to call a 'classic.' As I said, the extras aren't too great and even the cover simply features Richard Dean Anderson in a scene not really relevant to any of the plots.
V
Dirty Scientist Kids
****
Written on 21.09.07
Simply titled ‘V,’ Kenneth Johnson’s two-part miniseries spawned an immediate sequel and a subsequent television series, all of which were handled by different writers and deviated ever further from Johnson’s original vision. Grounded more in political thriller and historical allegory than its science fiction premise, which was allegedly only added late in development to cash in on the box office success of Star Wars, ‘V’ documents the arrival of a fleet of flying saucers to the Earth, and the events that transpire in the subsequent months.
The miniseries is dedicated ‘to resistance fighters everywhere’ and ensures that the parallels between the alien visitors and oppressive regimes of the past and present are made expressly clear rather than a hidden sub-text, with a particular focus on Nazi Germany of the late 1930s. The visitors employ sickening propaganda, their emblem resembles a swastika, and they encourage impressionable youths to join ‘The Visitors’ Friends,’ an organisation comparable to the Hitler-Jugend that encourages them to turn in their own families if they suspect them of conspiracy. The elderly Jew Abraham Bernstein recognises the danger from the start even as his family are awed by the visitors’ generosity and ‘snazzy uniforms,’ and he ensures the protection of doctors and scientists, the groups being targeted and implicated in conspiracy by the visitors in order to remove the potential threat they pose in discovering their weaknesses and the true nature that lurks beneath their grinning human exteriors.
‘V’ is a mammoth project, boasting a comparably large budget and an extensive main cast covering all walks of life. This politically correct effort is amusing, particularly as all of the characters are fairly stereotypical and in many cases entirely one-dimensional, but it does succeed in demonstrating the various consequences of life under a fascist regime, and the need for diverse groups to put aside their differences when working together towards a common goal (though their explicit targeting of the visitors’ alien appearance as a means to incite hatred is oddly contradictory to this attitude). One of the film’s strengths lies in its dedication to realism, and this extends to nearly all of the characters. The glaring exception is reporter-turned-action-hero Mike Donovan (Marc Singer), who spends the majority of the film leaping nimbly between explosions and gun fire, but the rest of the characters are often significantly flawed, in some cases losing loved ones through their own treachery or bad decisions. People are also realistically mortal here: although the open ending invites and encourages future sequels, its nature as a two-part miniseries means that viewers can never be entirely confident that the main characters are going to survive to the end.
The characters come together, for the most part, in the second part of the miniseries once the resistance movement begins in earnest, and spend the first hour and a half in entirely separate storylines. The group’s reluctant leader is the scientist Robin Maxwell (Blair Tefkin, after original actress Dominique Dunne was strangled by her abusive boyfriend), and despite being put down with some tedious macho retorts from Marc Singer’s character, she carries it off well. The child actors are all a little annoying and unconvincing in their emotional scenes, which is to be expected really, but there are no other major areas in which performances are sub-standard, despite their B-movie roots. There’s so much going on, and so many different domestic plots to follow, that it’s hard to empathise directly with one group over the other in these three hours, but some characters intentionally stand out more than others. Less admirable are the stereotyped roles of urban black man and Mexican smuggler granted to Michael Wright and Rafael Campos respectively, especially as they are given dialogue and clothing more suited to cartoon caricatures.
The realism of the miniseries is explicitly highlighted by news broadcasts documenting the first meetings with the visitors, in which a reporter suggests that those accustomed to science fiction ideas such as ‘Darth Vader’s Star Destroyer’ will be ‘disappointed’ by the relatively mundane practicality of the mothership interiors. A memorable shuttle chase scene towards the end of the film is its only real nod towards that sort of action sci-fi, with most of the explosions, air strikes and hand laser stand-offs essentially being hi-tech equivalents of action film staples, as seen in the opening scene of a more traditional conflict in El Salvador. The special effects are of a high standard despite being kept to a modest minimum, and although the superimposed model shots all reveal a tell-tale black matte line around the edges, the props are convincing, and even the visitors’ unmasking isn’t too over-the-top.
As model costs for the large motherships were too prohibitive, these are all provided by detailed and convincing matte paintings that look excellent, and provide some of the most memorable scenes in the film as the craft hover into view for the fist time. The practical red uniforms and white bulkheads of the visitors are more believable than any grand, menacing design would prove, and the descent of the first shuttle to the United Nations reminded me of a line in Douglas Adams’ ‘Life, the Universe and Everything’ concerning the inherent coldness and evil of a plain white exterior. The musical score is one of the series’ less distinguished features, seeming like a mere re-tread of John Williams’ famous space symphonies of the time but less pompous, though there are a couple of quirky quotations from ‘Star Wars’ and even ‘The Flintstones’ unless I’m much mistaken, in scenes that mirror the events of those well-known series.
‘V’ is often regarded as one of the greatest miniseries of all time, and is certainly an ambitious and interesting concept, let down by the usual failings of mainstream television and cinema – a scene that particularly annoyed me was Mike Donovan stowing aboard the mothership and conveniently hearing the alien leaders discuss their plans and true identities in far more detail than strictly necessary, just so he and the audience could be brought up to speed. Fortunately, the majority of the miniseries treats viewers with a little more respect, advancing the plot at a realistic pace, and the Nazi metaphors vary in intensity. Although the action is all set in America, naturally, there are enough references to presumed resistance cells springing up across the globe for this to be permissible as merely the Los Angeles perspective of a greater whole, avoiding the irritating ‘Captain America’ tone of films like ‘Independence Day.’ It’s highly probable that the series would have gone down less prestigiously in history if Johnson had followed his original intention of a straightforward Nazi drama rather than an allegory, and it stands up well nearly twenty-five years later for its (comparative) realism and universal concerns, something that can’t be said for all science fiction of the time.
The DVD release of ‘V’ contains both parts of the original miniseries, while the second mini-series and its successor are also available, though production is apparently already underway for Johnson’s ‘true’ sequel to the original in three-hour miniseries form, currently predicted for a 2008 release. The action is split into 60 chapters of several minutes each, and the whole thing is presented in the best widescreen and Dolby stereo available at the time, with a commentary from writer-director Johnson and some brief behind-the-scenes footage, the whole package rated 12. ‘V’ may not be the most subtle sci-fi allegory ever told, nor the most riveting or action-packed, but it’s an interesting and thoughtfully crafted piece of epic television that’s still popular today, and at the very least will provide a great source of amusement if shown to a moronic follower of David Icke, who will surely point out how the whole thing is true, and that Bush, Saddam and Queen Elizabeth II were lizardmen all along. The unfolding conspiracy, subtle takeover and constant paranoia all make this original miniseries superior to its action-packed sequels, and it will be interesting to see what Kenneth Johnson brings out as a more authentic successor next year, particularly as the ending is rather sudden and unsatisfying. Don’t watch ‘Independence Day,’ watch this instead.
Advantages: Well executed science fiction concept in the classical style.
Disadvantages: Filled with Hollywood character and plot clichés.
X
Spooky
*****
Written on 03.03.07 [2012 update]
Chris Carter’s ‘The X-Files’ was one of the definitive TV shows of the 90s, and this first season holds up surprisingly well even in light of what was to come over the following nine looooooooong years. As a debut season that was being written pretty much as it went along, the characters are a little more one-dimensional and the show’s main ‘mythology’ storyline often contradicts itself, but a commendable portion of these first twenty-four episodes continue to shine as some of the series’ very best, especially before the rapid decline in quality that came after the 1997 feature film.
Collected together on a 7 DVD set, these episodes set the tone for every season to follow: a fascinating show every once in a while that concerns the show’s main storyline of government cover-ups and alien visitations, and a bunch of mostly unconnected episodes that stand alone and often provide ‘monster-of-the-week’ cheap shocks. Considering that a first season is often a trial run, it’s remarkable that this very same structure is maintained throughout the nine looooooooong years that the show would eventually span. The best thing about this is, a large quantity of these episodes here are actually really good, the series seemingly finding its feet instantly without any of that embarrassing inconsistency and rubbishness that plagued the early seasons of every Star Trek spin-off of the same era. Well, not much of this, anyway.
Viewed in hindsight or alongside episodes from the excellent fourth or fifth seasons, these stories reflect a naïve innocence and simplicity, but of course that isn’t always a bad thing, especially when dealing with a convoluted mytharc like that of The X-Files. Die-hard fans (I believe they’re called ‘X-philes.’ You know, like bibliophiles, and that other one) will likely be disappointed by the somewhat haphazard treatment of alien abductions in episodes like the pilot and ‘Conduit,’ as these were written before the overarching storyline was conceived later in the year. Similarly, some of the more desperate attempts at supernatural beings come off looking a little silly and unoriginal, including poltergeists, werewolves and forms of telepathy, and it’s true that the ‘detective story’ plot structure is pretty formulaic throughout.
The running mytharc storyline begins with the ‘Pilot’ and ‘Deep Throat’ (ooh, Matron) and runs through ‘Fallen Angel’ and ‘E.B.E.’ to end in the intriguing finale, ‘The Erlenmeyer Flask.’ Of these, ‘Deep Throat’ and ‘E.B.E.’ are the most impressive, both concerning cover-ups and an elaborate networks of lies that leave the viewer unsure what to believe, even after seeing apparent evidence of the supernatural. Memorable stand-alone episodes include ‘Squeeze’ (which is actually granted a sequel in the later ‘Tooms’), which will most likely convince you to move all furniture away from air vents and other narrow passageways lest your liver be stolen by a genetic mutant, the tense space-worm-possession story ‘Ice’ and the heavily spiritual ‘Beyond the Sea,’ starring Brad Dourif. I remember being very unnerved by his creepy performance when these first aired in the UK and my Dad let me stay up on Thursday nights to watch them. I was twenty-eight years old. (I was nine really).
In spite of these weak points, a couple of which make for incredibly bad television and have since been all but disowned by the writers, the first season is remembered fondly for introducing FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully (the astoundingly good looking pairing of David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson… apparently) from their first meeting, towards some interesting and convincing evolution as their involvement with the paranormal consumes their entire lives. The sexual tension gambit was played for a very long time over the series, but in these early days is a lot more relaxed and comfortably platonic, replaced with a development of friendship and trust that will be vital to their survival in the looooooooong years ahead. Duchovny’s peculiar style of acting can be a little distracting at first, as despite Mulder's apparent brains and devotion he spends most of the time sounding slow and disinterested, but he’s given some great scenes in the more important episodes involving his specialist subject of alien abduction, in which the character has a personal investment. Gillian Anderson looks very young and very hot in the pilot, which I believe was filmed when she was twenty-three, but restless hairstyle changes and other unknown factors prevent her from maintaining this level of hotness throughout the rest of the episodes. Oh, of course, she’s a good actress too. Especially when she’s given more to do than simply provide the rational, scientific explanation for each case. The excellent episode ‘Beyond the Sea’ is her real chance to shine here, and one of her finest episodes along with her abduction storyline in the second season, contrived as a clever means of reducing her screen time when Anderson was heavily pregnant.
The first season also introduces the other pivotal characters in the form of the shady Cigarette-Smoking Man (William B. Davis), who hardly speaks a word but would go on to become the series’ primary antagonist, the paranoid journalists of The Lone Gunmen magazine, and Mulder and Scully’s new boss, Assistant Director Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi). While the Smoking Man appears right from the very start, acting merely as the personification of the shadowy governments Mulder is driven to expose, his presence observing Scully’s assignment to watch over Mulder would later become clear. The other characters seem to have been introduced after earlier experiments with character types; UFO buff Max Fenig from ‘Fallen Angel’ is the precursor to the Lone Gunmen, even resembling one of that hapless trio, while A. D. Skinner follows in the footsteps of a number of less interesting bosses and makes his first appearance in ‘Tooms.’ In fact, everything that was great about The X-Files can be found in this series, the only real exception being that at this stage, neither of the protagonists have become particularly involved themselves in the storyline, aside from Mulder’s sister having been abducted when he was a child. This would all change in the improved second season.
These DVD sets have been re-released recently in a slimmer, more affordable version than the originals, though the reason for this is unclear. The special features don’t add a great deal to the viewing enjoyment, although Chris Carter’s introductions to twelve of the twenty-four episodes (recycled from old VHS releases, when only these selected episodes were released) may highlight things you’ve missed. An eleven-minute documentary entitled ‘The Truth About Season One’ is a predictably throwaway feature that doesn’t even go into the detail of dedicated fan sites, and there are some fun but pointless promo ads from the original TV airings, allowing you to imagine that you’re watching TV back in 1993 again. The only feature of any real interest is the deleted scenes section, which disappointingly features only two excised scenes from the pilot episode. Both extensions of scenes from the genuine finished episode, these feature Scully’s boyfriend asking her about the case, and joking about her involvement with ‘Spooky’ Mulder. It’s very strange to watch these back and imagine if this had been allowed into the real series, as there are some scenes in early episodes ‘Squeeze’ and ‘The Jersey Devil’ in which Scully still holds on to a normal social life, but for the sake of horny fan-fiction it’s a good thing she was always kept single.
‘The X-Files’ was a great show in its prime, and while this season isn’t quite there, it’s still essential viewing for all fans of the show, and not merely because of the developing plot arc. Episodes like ‘E.B.E.’ deal with lies in a very disconcerting and deliberately dissatisfying way, causing the character and the viewer endless frustration with issues of trust that are perhaps best summed up in the on-screen motto that replaces the usual ‘the truth is out there’ for the season finale, ‘trust no one.’ Perhaps fearing cancellation after the season wrapped – a fate that awaited the later spin-offs – season one ends fairly conclusively and stands alone as a potential complete series with sharp continuity, even down to similar episode titles connecting the otherwise completely unrelated ‘Fire,’ ‘Ice’ and ‘Space.’ (This was before the writers' obsession with bizarre show-off titles, that never showed up on screen anyway).
It’s also enjoyable to see just how well the earliest episodes convey a real sense of character development, as Mulder and his controversial X-Files move from an easily dismissed side project to an all-consuming and seemingly vital part of FBI operations. Mulder, too, goes from approachable, eccentric believer to a notorious crusader for the truth all in the space of a few short episodes, before the series gets into something of a repetitive lull. The best episodes come from seasons two to five, but season one remains a perfect starting point, and can offer comfortable innocence when the weighty, expansive plot develops into something cumbersome as the years plod unceasingly on.
The More Things Change...
****
Written on 06.06.04 [2013 update]
The X-Files was an almost immediate success when it hit American and British TV screens in 1994, although it took several years for the show's fan base to develop into the huge following the series had up to the end. Chris Carter's sci-fi-horror-mystery-suspense-action show is rated among the most worshipped television series of the last few decades, and although changes in cast and tone in the last couple of years made the show appear to be lasting for far longer than necessary, in my opinion the sixth season (1998-99) catches the show when it was still at its peak.
BACKGROUND
The X-Files featured a large number of episodic, stand-alone episodes throughout its run, but the ever-present storyline involving the existence of aliens, and their nefarious motives in visiting the planet, are intertwined with a mysterious shadowy group of people known as the Syndicate.
From the first season, FBI Agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) has attempted to uncover the elusive truth regarding this group and its clear link to alien abductions over the decades, including the one that took his sister from his home when they were both children. Agent Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) was assigned to work with Mulder on the X-Files, investigating supernatural occurrences with the intention of debunking Mulder's cause: unfortunately for the FBI, Scully soon found herself unable to ignore the strange events witnessed each week, and through the seasons she too realises that aliens and other paranormal activity does indeed exist.
The fourth and fifth seasons saw the alien conspiracy storyline receiving a huge amount of attention on the show, culminating in the first - and so far, only - feature film, officially titled 'The X-Files: Fight the Future.' Occurring after the fifth season, the film led into the sixth season and the show's future.
SEASON SIX: CHANGES
The major change behind the scenes of the X-Files' sixth year was the production move from Vancouver to the Hollywood area, necessitated by the increasing popularity of the show and the existence of the feature film. This results in an improved look for the sets and production values, and the show is filmed in widescreen to add a more cinematic feel. The characters undergo further developments this year, and although it often seems ludicrous to hear Scully disregarding claims of sea monsters and time phenomena, despite the incredible number of times Mulder has proved right in the past, it at least keeps the characters interesting in their differences.
Fans obsessed with the apparent sexual tension between the two leads were doubtless pleased by the kiss between Duchovny and Anderson in the episode 'Triangle' and this actually received a fair amount of media interest, despite the fact that it was simply a goodbye kiss between a delusional Mulder and a character that wasn't even technically Scully and therefore left no after-effects. Speaking of Gillian Anderson, the hair department also seem more interested in enhancing her striking appearance this season, and Mulder gets to crack the usual amount of puns.
STYLE & EPISODES
The X-Files is notoriously dark and often a little scary, and season six features all the elements that made the previous seasons so entertaining. There are monster mysteries, reality distortions and a rather high number of comedy-based episodes in the first half, and the focus on the continuing storyline has thankfully been limited this season, only really cropping up in the two-parter 'Two Fathers'/'One Son,' which packs more of a punch than the whole of the film, as well as finally answering many of the long-running questions. Notable episodes include:
DRIVE - Mulder is forced to drive westwards at gunpoint when a paranoid man believes he will explode if the speed drops for several minutes.
TRIANGLE - This award-winning episode is really interesting to watch, and I applaud the incredibly long takes, which required the actors to really know their lines. Mulder finds a long-lost ship in the Bermuda Triangle, but is held prisoner by Nazis in a distorted version of the world he is familiar with.
TERMS OF ENDEARMENT - Baby abductions from inside pregnant women's wombs points to a local man ('Evil Dead' star Bruce Campbell) being a demon.
TITHONUS - Mulder and Scully are split up in their careers, Scully being sent to investigate a man who can always be found with a camera on the scene of a murder or death.
TWO FATHERS / ONE SON - The reappearance of an abducted woman indicates that she has become the end result of a decades-long experiment to create a human-alien hybrid that may finally expose the Syndicate.
ARCADIA - Mulder and Scully pose as a married couple in an unbelievably idyllic American neighbourhood, intending to discover how their house's previous occupants met a grisly demise.
THE UNNATURAL - In this episode written and directed by David Duchovny, Mulder investigates a black baseball player from the 1940s who may have been an alien.
BIOGENESIS - The cliffhanger end to the season sees Scully uncovering an ancient UFO in Africa, with the possible indication that humans did not originate on Earth.
THE DVD
The X-Files DVD packages are quite impressive, featuring a large number of deleted and extended scenes on each disc for selected episodes and commentaries for the more memorable shows by the writers, series creator and production crew. The final disc features special effect shots, TV spots and the interesting documentary 'The Truth About Season Six,' and each disc contains three episodes in widescreen format.
VERDICT
There is much debate over the "golden era" of the X-Files and although I find the earlier years more enjoyable for the nostalgia they provide - my Dad used to let the nine-year-old me stay up to the very naughty time of 10pm on a Thursday school night, would you believe - I find season six to contain the perfect balance of mythology storylines and stand-alone episodes.
The X-Files was a classic, much-loved and very influential show, and this was the last series I consider to be truly classic TV. There is a problem with the lack of any serious character development here, leaving this feeling a little too episodic after the intense storylines of season five, but it's unlikely that the show could have continued in such a style for much longer. Mulder and Scully are still pretty much the same as when they started out: both holding different viewpoints and being incredibly professional and attractive. Not Mulder though, I never went through a phase.
As a side note, very cheap Chinese import DVDs of the series can be purchased from eBay.com: these feature high quality packaging but slightly poorer resolution, but I find the average price of £11 far better than the £55 charged for UK versions. Importing from sellers can carry a risk factor however, so I'm not sure whether or not to recommend it: I'll certainly be buying some more X-Files series from them very soon!
Buffy the Vampire Slayer – Season 2 ****
Farscape – Season 3 *****
Star Trek: The Original Series *****
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 7
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 8
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 9
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 17 ****
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 18 ***
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 19 **
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 20 ****
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 21 ****
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 23 ***
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 27 ****
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 30 ***
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 34 **
Star Trek: The Original Series – Vol. 37 **
Stargate SG-1 – Vol. 3 ****
Stargate SG-1 – Vol. 7 ***
