Six: Fusion
This episode has the unenviable task of following on from the magnificent ending to Northmoor. It is therefore something of a disappointment that it cheats by skipping forward an unknown amount of time, with us rejoining Ronnie when he is already away from Northmoor, with the precise means of his escape never gone into.
Fusion starts with Pendleton visiting Ronnie in hopistal. He is very sick, but he is able to tell Pendleton everything that happened in the previous episode - a clever way of giving us a recap, although it avoids telling us about Ronnie's escape because, we have to assume, Pendleton already knows about that even if we don't.
After Pendleton has gone, Ronnie sees Emma's ghost, who is for some reason in disguise as a nurse (which is a bit Singing Detective if you ask me). She gives Ronnie a black flower, although she won't explain its significance until later.
Jedburgh is in Scotland, just like he told Ronnie he would be, and is playing golf because he loves golf, although he is also sick. He goes back to the guest house he is staying at where Mrs Girvan calls him "Mr Jedburgh" to rhyme with Edinburgh, lol, which annoys him because he thinks his name rhymes with Pittsburgh.
Jedburgh puts on his colonel's uniform and goes to a conference ("the second NATO conference on directed energy weapons") where he is greeted by Colonel Lawson (David "Gan" Jackson" - only the second actor from Blakes 7 to appear in Edge of Darkness, presumably Paul Darrow was busy being in Timelash when they were making this) as a guest of honour. Bennett is also there, and he telephones Pendleton to tell him where Jedburgh is and ask what he is going to do about it.
Harcourt meets with the Minister (Jeremy Child, not to be confused with Bennett's henchmanny Childs), who tells him he knew about the secret goings-on at Northmoor all the time and is on their side, so no prizes for guessing which character in The Green Death he is the equivalent of. The only difference being that in The Green Death the Minister's allegiance is revealed early on, whereas here it is saved for a final episode twist. Pendleton interrupts them to say
"Jedburgh's at Gleneagles, and he's not playing golf."
Grogan arrives at the conference by helicopter and ends up sitting just a couple of seats along from Jedburgh, so they have to pretend to be friendly in front of all the witnesses... for now. Grogan makes a speech to the conference where he announces that he has been allowed to take over IIF, which makes him and Bennett happy, and all the other mannys too it would seem, because they give him a round of applause - although this is the kind of conference where just about anything will get applause, so maybe we can't judge too much from that?
The rest of his speech is about his company developing Fusion Power, which is pretty impressive because that's a level 6 technology in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. He says
"When we have done so we can say, for the first time in the history of the planet, Man will be in charge."
You can tell he is a baddy because obviously cats should stay in charge. Naturally this gets more applause from the audience, because they're all mannys. Only Jedburgh looks unhappy.
Ronnie is following Jedburgh to Scotland, where the action is. He stops for a conversation with Emma.
Ronnie: "I still don't understand."Emma: "Dad, it's happened before, you know. Millions of years ago, when the Earth was cold it looked as if life on the planet would cease to exist. But black flowers began to grow, multiplying across its face until the entire landscape was covered in blooms. Slowly the blackness of the flowers sucked in the heat of the sun and life began to evolve again. That is the power of Gaia."Ronnie: "It'll take more than a black flower to save us this time."Emma: "This time when it comes it will melt the polar ice cap. Millions will die. The planet will protect itself, it's important to realise that. If Man is the enemy it will destroy him."
This dialogue, quietly taking place between father and daughter in the open countryside beside trees and a river, is contrasted against Grogan's grand speech in front of the assembled military mannys. Both have very different visions for the future of "Man."
A mysterious manny has also been following Jedburgh, and he arrives at the conference where he is met by Bennett. Grogan is still making his speech, and is getting still more applause from the mannys - they're really excited and it ends with him getting a standing ovation. This is then contrasted (in a different way) with Jedburgh's speech that follows, which is watched in silence at first and then, when he reveals he has some of the stolen plutonium with him, the audience starts to flee the room. Jedburgh carries on with his speech throughout the scenes of panic:
"Two bars of weapons-grade plutonium. I stole this stuff, on orders, straight out of Jerry's latest acquisition. Plenty of people have died for this stuff... including me. All I have to do is bring these bars together, we'll have a criticality..."
"400 rads, ladies and gentlemen, a lethal dose for anyone within a radius of 10 yards. Get it while it's hot!"
Grogan stands but he doesn't run away, so Jedburgh causes the criticality flash right in front of Grogan's face. Grogan staggers away, and Jedburgh finishes his speech to an empty room.
The scene changes to later on, when the Minister meets with Grogan and Bennett. They say that Jedburgh has used "20 kilos" of plutonium to make a bomb, enough "to dispose of the east coast of Scotland." Oh noes! That's where I live! Where will I keep my Blakes 7 DVDs if it gets blowed up? It seems as though Jedburgh has turned into a baddy (perhaps he is Mike Yates after all?) and they need Ronnie to stop him.
Ronnie investigates Jedburgh's golf club, where he finds a Harrods bag and a box labelled with "Mrs Girvan's Guest House," both clues left by Jedburgh for him to find.
Pendleton and Harcourt spot the mysterious manny. Pendleton recognises him as "Nallers" and says
"He's rumoured to be the state executioner."
Ronnie finds Jedburgh and they have a talk.
Ronnie: "Do you know what Harcourt told me last night? Grogan had reached the conclusion that the inquiry would stop the takeover, so he decided to get the plutonium another way, and he thought of you. Who would walk into a cave full of radiation? You would, given the right scenario. All he had to do was make a call to Washington and make sure they fed you the right orders. They didn't just betray you, they made a fool of you."Jedburgh: "No shit, Sherlock. Think I didn't figure that out?"
Jedburgh admits to Ronnie that he turned the plutonium into a bomb capable of causing "a nuclear explosion," which we already knew, but he also admits he has decided against setting it off, which we didn't. He claims this is because he doesn't want to blow up the golf courses - finally golf is good for something, mew. He gives the "plutonium bullet" that would set the bomb off to Ronnie, who doesn't want it either.
Ronnie telephones Pendleton to tell him where Jedburgh hid the plutonium, and then he and Jedburgh get drunk and sing The Time of the Preacher together.
Just as when they first discussed it back in part two, they both recognise the parallels between the manny in the song and Ronnie. But since then Ronnie has been on an internal journey as well as the more obvious external one, and has finally made his peace with Emma, and reached acceptance of all that has happened to her, and to him. It was necessary for him to follow her path for him to see her point of view, even though it doomed him just the same. In conversation with Jedburgh, Ronnie tells him (and us) the conclusions he has reached:
"I am no longer seeking vengeance."
They discuss Gaia, and Jedburgh says that
"Man will always win against nature.""I think you're wrong."
is Ronnie's reply, and he tells Jedburgh about Emma and the black flowers. Jedburgh claims to have seen the black flowers in Afghanistan, but he still doesn't believe they will win against "Man." Ronnie again replies
"I think you're wrong. And if there is a battle between the planet and mankind, the planet will win."
Dramatic incidental music starts as mannys descend upon the house, led by Nallers. Ronnie and Jedburgh hear them running about, and both know what they're here for. Jedburgh wants to fight back so he takes his gun and turns off the lights. This has the effect of making the ensuing fight scene a lot more atmospheric and dramatic, because we only catch glimpses of the action, and this forces our imagination to fill in the blanks.
Jedburgh shoots several of the baddys even though he is sick, before Nallers shoots him and he goes
It is pretty obvious that Jedburgh let Nallers shoot him because it was a quicker way to die than from the radiation sickness. Ronnie also wants them to shoot him, but they won't because, as Nallers tells him,
"You're on our side."
Ronnie is left alone, and he defiantly shouts out
"I am not on your side!"
The final scene shows Harcourt and Pendleton watching Grogan recovering the plutonium (now his plutonium) from the loch where Jedburgh hid it. It might look as though Grogan has won in the end, but we see signs that he is sick, thanks to Jedburgh's actions at the conference, and therefore is as doomed as Ronnie and Jedburgh.
Craven is also there, watching from a distance, and remains behind when all the others depart. He shouts
"Emma!"
and the camera jump-cuts away from him, like the ending of Blake in reverse or, given that Charles Kay played such a major role in this series, like the final scene of the Tsar in Fall of Eagles.
That would appear to be the end, except... we see a shot of the cold mountainside, where the black flowers are growing after all.
What's so good about Edge of Darkness?
Edge of Darkness begins in the style of a simple whodunnit, before blooming into an epic tale about good versus evil in which, unusually, mannys are portrayed as being on the side of evil. There are multiple layers to the storytelling - a murder-mystery, a spy drama, a political thriller, an environmental warning, and one manny's voyage of self-discovery - all of which succeed on their own terms.
There is nothing else quite like Edge of Darkness. Not even its own film remake, which is nowhere near as subtle, or as layered, or as good.
The nearest equivalent that I know of is the Doctor Who story The Green Death, which has several points of comparison with Edge of Darkness. Most obviously they both contain villainous corporations (Global Chemicals and International Irradiated Fuels - quite similar names when you think about it) whose toxic product is being stored secretly in a supposedly secure location, but which nevertheless causes the deaths of curious mannys, prompting an investigation by the protagonists.
This gives both stories a strong environmental theme, since the proximate cause of both plots is the companies putting their manny-made pollutants before the safety of the environment and other mannys, all for the sake of profit.
Another theme they share is that of the protagonist having to cope with losing a daughter. Edge of Darkness is, at its core, about Ronnie's journey to accepting that he has lost Emma - both because she has been killed and also, on a more allegorical level, because she has grown up and is no longer the kitten that his memory still wants her to be.
The Green Death likewise, being Jo Grant's final story, is about the Doctor having to come to terms with his surrogate daughter leaving him because she has outgrown (figuratively) her need of him. He struggles against this for a while - such as when he tries to sabotage her romance with Professor Jones - but in the end, like Ronnie, he reaches the point of acceptance.
This is a natural process, handled very well by both stories (ironically it is handled more naturalistically by the sci-fi series where the main character is an alien who travels in time and space), and ideally all Companion departures should be presented in this way - something the new series of Doctor Who has struggled with, perhaps because the writers never outgrew their own need for the Doctor?
This makes both Edge of Darkness and The Green Death 'coming-of-age' stories, but told from the father's point of view. The main difference between the Doctor and Ronnie Craven is that the Doctor doesn't die of radiation sickness.
Well, not in The Green Death he doesn't...
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