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I'm rather fond of this episode, although it has one of the most cringeworthy moments imaginable. It's great fun, though. It's basically fifty minutes of Dayna and Tarrant running about in corridors, playing at cops and robbers. There's no kicking doors open, as doors in this sort of show tend to open automatically, but there's plenty of barrelling through doorways with guns drawn. Not exactly meaningful drama, I'll grant you, but entertaining.
Fetching up at an apparently man-made planet, Avon wants to investigate. Unfortunately, before you can say 'teleport', something on the planet has possessed Cally. Poor woman, she's not having a nice time of it lately. She disappears down to the planet's surface, and the others go down to look for her. They find a society that might easily have inspired Alex Proyas' Dark City (1998), which is rather nice. I love that film, and I like seeing future echoes of it here, stuffed into a BBC studio. There then follows lots of chasing about in corridors, before they all go home in time for tea.
Ultraworld. It turns out to be a giant, living computer, with a huge, organic core.
There is nothing that Avon and Tarrant like more than butting heads. Inevitably, having spied the possibility of some danger, Tarrant is desperate to go and throw himself at it. Avon, even though the whole Ultraworld jaunt was his idea in the first place, would prefer to hang back - despite Cally having just teleported herself down there, and despite Tanith Lee's desperate attempt to paint them as a couple throughout the previous episode.
Down on the planet (or in it, rather), they're greeted by a trio of silver beings who maintain the place. They're very much like the Strangers in Dark City, particularly in their mannerisms.
The gang want Cally back. Just as soon as Avon has finished admiring the architecture, and theorising about computers.
Cally is busy being sucked dry, however. Her knowledge, personality, etc, are being removed and stored in a perspex tube, ready for the computer to absorb. Her body will then either be used as a mindless slave, or minced and fed to the planet. Which is nice.
Whilst Avon theorises about stuff, Tarrant decides to go and play the Lone Ranger. He has a spectacular predilection for getting into trouble, but fortunately Dayna rescues him in the nick of time with something explody.
And they go on the run together for the rest of the episode. I love these two. Seriously, they should have had their own spin-off. Dayna & Tarrant, Space Pirates. With lots of exploding, and rescuing each other in gunfights and stupid clothes.
If only they could have kicked open that door. It loses something of the drama when you have to stand there and wait for it to slide open for you.
Meanwhile, Avon is also about to have his brain drained. This scene is straight out of Dark City. Okay, so the Strangers weren't silver, they were fish-belly white, but that thing grinning and flashing its teeth, whilst trying to induce Avon to sleep, is straight out of the middle of that film. I wonder if Alex Proyas is a Blake's 7 fan?
The computer's giant, organic core.
Elsewhere, Tarrant and Dayna are being herded about by the silver creatures, who have plans for the pair of them.
Avon tries to hold out against the brain-sucking, but the machines are too powerful for him. Soon his mind is in a perspex tube as well.
Whilst the Dynamic Duo, in the midst of being herded about the complex, have found Cally's empty body, in storage waiting to be fed to the giant brain. There is fighting. Did I mention how much fun these two are having this week?!
Avon less so. Off he goes to be minced and fed to the brain.
Which is where the cringeworthy bit comes in. In a scene straight out of bad fanfic, Tarrant and Dayna are told that they have to have sex with each other, whilst the planet watches. If they do this, their friends will be allowed to live. Or actually they won't, but by the time they find that out it'll be too late. This is all for the benefit of research, naturally. It is in no way because the silver creatures and the giant brain are the most incredible perverts. And fans of bad fanfic.
The brain begins to die. Not because of the sex, but because it's tried to plug itself into Orac, who's had Vila spouting inane 'jokes' at him as a distraction. This causes the brain to liquefy. Not entirely sure why. Yes, they were very bad jokes. But still.
Having escaped from their previous plotline, Dayna and Tarrant retrieve the tubes that have Avon's and Cally's minds in them, and also retrieve Avon and Cally. They then panic over whether or not they've put the right mind back into the right body. How they even knew how to operate the machinery in the first place would have been my first question.
And then they go home. Vila claims responsibility for their victory because of the jokes, which is confirmed by Orac, to Vila's great pride. Orac does claim that Vila only won because of the huge inferiority of his mind processes, though. And yet last week, not-Cally was claiming that he was practically the greatest intellect aboard ship. I really do wish that, just once, the writers would get together and actually agree on a few things, rather than all going their own way, and making up their own minds about these things as they go along. It would help with the continuity enormously.
Fetching up at an apparently man-made planet, Avon wants to investigate. Unfortunately, before you can say 'teleport', something on the planet has possessed Cally. Poor woman, she's not having a nice time of it lately. She disappears down to the planet's surface, and the others go down to look for her. They find a society that might easily have inspired Alex Proyas' Dark City (1998), which is rather nice. I love that film, and I like seeing future echoes of it here, stuffed into a BBC studio. There then follows lots of chasing about in corridors, before they all go home in time for tea.
Ultraworld. It turns out to be a giant, living computer, with a huge, organic core.
There is nothing that Avon and Tarrant like more than butting heads. Inevitably, having spied the possibility of some danger, Tarrant is desperate to go and throw himself at it. Avon, even though the whole Ultraworld jaunt was his idea in the first place, would prefer to hang back - despite Cally having just teleported herself down there, and despite Tanith Lee's desperate attempt to paint them as a couple throughout the previous episode.
Down on the planet (or in it, rather), they're greeted by a trio of silver beings who maintain the place. They're very much like the Strangers in Dark City, particularly in their mannerisms.
The gang want Cally back. Just as soon as Avon has finished admiring the architecture, and theorising about computers.
Cally is busy being sucked dry, however. Her knowledge, personality, etc, are being removed and stored in a perspex tube, ready for the computer to absorb. Her body will then either be used as a mindless slave, or minced and fed to the planet. Which is nice.
Whilst Avon theorises about stuff, Tarrant decides to go and play the Lone Ranger. He has a spectacular predilection for getting into trouble, but fortunately Dayna rescues him in the nick of time with something explody.
And they go on the run together for the rest of the episode. I love these two. Seriously, they should have had their own spin-off. Dayna & Tarrant, Space Pirates. With lots of exploding, and rescuing each other in gunfights and stupid clothes.
If only they could have kicked open that door. It loses something of the drama when you have to stand there and wait for it to slide open for you.
Meanwhile, Avon is also about to have his brain drained. This scene is straight out of Dark City. Okay, so the Strangers weren't silver, they were fish-belly white, but that thing grinning and flashing its teeth, whilst trying to induce Avon to sleep, is straight out of the middle of that film. I wonder if Alex Proyas is a Blake's 7 fan?
The computer's giant, organic core.
Elsewhere, Tarrant and Dayna are being herded about by the silver creatures, who have plans for the pair of them.
Avon tries to hold out against the brain-sucking, but the machines are too powerful for him. Soon his mind is in a perspex tube as well.
Whilst the Dynamic Duo, in the midst of being herded about the complex, have found Cally's empty body, in storage waiting to be fed to the giant brain. There is fighting. Did I mention how much fun these two are having this week?!
Avon less so. Off he goes to be minced and fed to the brain.
Which is where the cringeworthy bit comes in. In a scene straight out of bad fanfic, Tarrant and Dayna are told that they have to have sex with each other, whilst the planet watches. If they do this, their friends will be allowed to live. Or actually they won't, but by the time they find that out it'll be too late. This is all for the benefit of research, naturally. It is in no way because the silver creatures and the giant brain are the most incredible perverts. And fans of bad fanfic.
The brain begins to die. Not because of the sex, but because it's tried to plug itself into Orac, who's had Vila spouting inane 'jokes' at him as a distraction. This causes the brain to liquefy. Not entirely sure why. Yes, they were very bad jokes. But still.
Having escaped from their previous plotline, Dayna and Tarrant retrieve the tubes that have Avon's and Cally's minds in them, and also retrieve Avon and Cally. They then panic over whether or not they've put the right mind back into the right body. How they even knew how to operate the machinery in the first place would have been my first question.
And then they go home. Vila claims responsibility for their victory because of the jokes, which is confirmed by Orac, to Vila's great pride. Orac does claim that Vila only won because of the huge inferiority of his mind processes, though. And yet last week, not-Cally was claiming that he was practically the greatest intellect aboard ship. I really do wish that, just once, the writers would get together and actually agree on a few things, rather than all going their own way, and making up their own minds about these things as they go along. It would help with the continuity enormously.