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All the snow is gone. It's rained almost all day again today, and now I am snowless. But on the upside, I do still have Manimal. :) And so to episode five, "High Stakes".
A while ago, I mentioned that this show had the potential to be quite a bit darker than it actually was, and this episode is the main example of this, I think. The story is about a woman who trains race horses. Her prize animal has been kidnapped, and rival horse breeders have disguised him (with the assistance of a taxidermist who specialises in stuffing and mounting rare animals) and are now using him in their own races. Their jockey is an animal-hating psychopath, who loves to beat horses; and in order to cover the switching of the two horses, the bad guys drug a skydiver, so that he won't be able to open his parachute. So in the space of fifty minutes we have a gang who are prepared to commit a truly ghastly murder (foiled only by Jonathon turning into a hawk and pulling the ripcord); a man who is apparently quite happy killing anything if he can stuff it afterwards (he sends his gang of heavies (and quite what a taxidermist is doing with a gang of heavies I don't know, but we'll overlook that) after the Jonathon Panther, because he wants to skin it); and a madwoman who loves to flog four-legged things just because she can. And is anything made of any of these plot points? No. Absolutely nothing. The gang is horribly easy to capture, and just surrender without a struggle; the taxidermist is never mentioned again after the Jonathon Panther runs away from him fairly early in the episode; and the nutjob woman, after subjecting the Jonathon Horse to all manner of brutality, is not only never mentioned again, but her actions are dismissed by a pair of daft jokes. I know this was early evening family entertainment, but sometimes... *sigh* But, yes, I do still love the show.
So - Jonathon and Ty are at the races, and get caught up in an argument between two horse breeders. One claims that the other has stolen her horse, and Jonathon takes her side even though she's played by Tracy Scoggins. Sorry. Highlander fandom probably showing there. But it dies hard. They decide to help her prove her ownership of the horse, so Ty gets a job on the bad guys' ranch, and Jonathon looks for proof that Horse A is really Horse B. Lovely scene where a panther paw opens a drawer at the taxidermist's place. :D When Ty and Tracy Scoggins (whose name in this escapes me) are captured by the bad guys, Jonathon decides that he's going to have to do things the unconventional way. Just for a change. So he changes into a horse, rescues the kidnapped horse in a lovely scene, and promptly gets attacked by the Animal-Flogging Madwoman From Hell. She totally overdoes it with the bit, beats him with a riding crop until his flanks are bleeding, and he only manages to throw her off when Brooke realises that Ty and Tracy Scoggins are about to get wasted. Needless to say they're both saved, but when Tracy Scoggins gets too grateful towards Jonathon for Brooke's liking, we get some extremely lame jokes centred around the fact that it's painful for Jonathon to sit down at the moment, and that his mouth is a bit too sensitive for kissing. Because it's funny when a horse gets treated like that... Especially, apparently, when the horse is really a bloke you're supposed to be friends with.
But I'm rambling again, and this entry is getting stupidly long. It's a good episode for all the complaints. The guest cast is good, and there's none of the corny acting that can sometimes mar these things. The scene where the Jonathon Horse chases the bad guys in their car is done well, and the scene where the Jonathon Hawk rescues the skydiver is good. It looks realistic enough, which is more than can be said for the panther paw opening drawers. :D If they'd just have the courage of their convictions, though, and actually make something out of their subplots... Why make the bad guys into such psychos if you're not going anywhere with it? Why make their jockey into an animal-flogging maniac if you're just going to wash over her despicable behaviour, and then joke about its aftereffects? Why have Brooke apparently finding it hilarious that poor Jonathon has just been beaten bloody with a riding whip?! Sometimes things have to go somewhere, otherwise you end up wondering why they're there in the first place.
I'm shutting up now. It's probably for the best. :)
Half-hand, half-claw.
Rarely seen halfway point twixt man and hawk.
Psyching-out the guard dogs.
Ty having his own bit of plot, thus making him approximately 785% more useful than Brooke.
Jonathon as a horse rescuing another horse from its kidnappers.
I love this scene. :D
A while ago, I mentioned that this show had the potential to be quite a bit darker than it actually was, and this episode is the main example of this, I think. The story is about a woman who trains race horses. Her prize animal has been kidnapped, and rival horse breeders have disguised him (with the assistance of a taxidermist who specialises in stuffing and mounting rare animals) and are now using him in their own races. Their jockey is an animal-hating psychopath, who loves to beat horses; and in order to cover the switching of the two horses, the bad guys drug a skydiver, so that he won't be able to open his parachute. So in the space of fifty minutes we have a gang who are prepared to commit a truly ghastly murder (foiled only by Jonathon turning into a hawk and pulling the ripcord); a man who is apparently quite happy killing anything if he can stuff it afterwards (he sends his gang of heavies (and quite what a taxidermist is doing with a gang of heavies I don't know, but we'll overlook that) after the Jonathon Panther, because he wants to skin it); and a madwoman who loves to flog four-legged things just because she can. And is anything made of any of these plot points? No. Absolutely nothing. The gang is horribly easy to capture, and just surrender without a struggle; the taxidermist is never mentioned again after the Jonathon Panther runs away from him fairly early in the episode; and the nutjob woman, after subjecting the Jonathon Horse to all manner of brutality, is not only never mentioned again, but her actions are dismissed by a pair of daft jokes. I know this was early evening family entertainment, but sometimes... *sigh* But, yes, I do still love the show.
So - Jonathon and Ty are at the races, and get caught up in an argument between two horse breeders. One claims that the other has stolen her horse, and Jonathon takes her side even though she's played by Tracy Scoggins. Sorry. Highlander fandom probably showing there. But it dies hard. They decide to help her prove her ownership of the horse, so Ty gets a job on the bad guys' ranch, and Jonathon looks for proof that Horse A is really Horse B. Lovely scene where a panther paw opens a drawer at the taxidermist's place. :D When Ty and Tracy Scoggins (whose name in this escapes me) are captured by the bad guys, Jonathon decides that he's going to have to do things the unconventional way. Just for a change. So he changes into a horse, rescues the kidnapped horse in a lovely scene, and promptly gets attacked by the Animal-Flogging Madwoman From Hell. She totally overdoes it with the bit, beats him with a riding crop until his flanks are bleeding, and he only manages to throw her off when Brooke realises that Ty and Tracy Scoggins are about to get wasted. Needless to say they're both saved, but when Tracy Scoggins gets too grateful towards Jonathon for Brooke's liking, we get some extremely lame jokes centred around the fact that it's painful for Jonathon to sit down at the moment, and that his mouth is a bit too sensitive for kissing. Because it's funny when a horse gets treated like that... Especially, apparently, when the horse is really a bloke you're supposed to be friends with.
But I'm rambling again, and this entry is getting stupidly long. It's a good episode for all the complaints. The guest cast is good, and there's none of the corny acting that can sometimes mar these things. The scene where the Jonathon Horse chases the bad guys in their car is done well, and the scene where the Jonathon Hawk rescues the skydiver is good. It looks realistic enough, which is more than can be said for the panther paw opening drawers. :D If they'd just have the courage of their convictions, though, and actually make something out of their subplots... Why make the bad guys into such psychos if you're not going anywhere with it? Why make their jockey into an animal-flogging maniac if you're just going to wash over her despicable behaviour, and then joke about its aftereffects? Why have Brooke apparently finding it hilarious that poor Jonathon has just been beaten bloody with a riding whip?! Sometimes things have to go somewhere, otherwise you end up wondering why they're there in the first place.
I'm shutting up now. It's probably for the best. :)
Half-hand, half-claw.
Rarely seen halfway point twixt man and hawk.
Psyching-out the guard dogs.
Ty having his own bit of plot, thus making him approximately 785% more useful than Brooke.
Jonathon as a horse rescuing another horse from its kidnappers.
I love this scene. :D
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