The Water Margin Challenge: 26 episodes in 26 weeks

1. Nine Dozen Heroes and One Wicked Man

Kao Chiu is the "one wicked man" who is the main baddy for the series. We may be promised "nine dozen heroes" but the first episode is the origin story for maybe three of them at most, including the main character Lin Chung. Or at least it makes a start on his origin story - like Monkey, it seems it will need more than one episode to fully establish the premise of the series. Whether it then settles down into a formula, as Monkey did, remains to be seen. This makes it tough to assess the first episode in isolation, but it is certainly an intriguing and promising beginning.

The parallels with Monkey are many - made by the same Japanese TV studio, with very similar production values (although much less overtly magical than Monkey) that scream "1970s" at you, a broadly similar Ancient China setting, actor overlap, the English adaptations/translations both done by David Weir in his eccentric, pseudo-Oriental style, and, of course, considerable voice actor overlap. Burt Kwouk is the narrator. Peter "Pigsy" Woodthorpe's distinctive voice is also instantly recognisable as one of Kao Chiu's henchmannys.

The theme music is nowhere near as memorable as the incomparable Monkey theme, despite sounding like a weird mix of James Bond (but threatening to go Austin Powers at times) and Eurovision, with the Japanese lyrics giving it the feel of an anime series theme on top.

2. None Ever Escape Alive

Monkey had a few characters, not least Pigsy, chasing the ladies in a strictly pre-watershed way, but this show isn't Monkey, as can be seen here, in only the second episode, where the main character's wife is raped by the villain - in a non-explicit, fade-to-black kind of a way, but the meaning is clear. And the one other recurring female character, the swordswoman Hu Sanniang, is threatened with rape when captured by, er... some of the other 'heroes.' When they find out she is also an ally of Lin Chung they almost instantly befriend her, their earlier menace immediately glossed over.

At the end of the first episode the main character was on his way to an inescapable prison. But enough about Blakes 7...

At the end of the first episode the main character was on his way to an inescapable prison. Lin Chung almost immediately befriends the prison governor, a comedically egotistical character voiced by Peter Woodthorpe, and who may yet turn out to be the closest thing to Pigsy in this series.

Villainous Kao Chiu sends assassins to silence Lin Chung, but they make the mistake of telling him about Kao Chiu raping his wife, which causes him to flip out and kill the assassins and escape the prison really easily. Dramatically it's a great scene, but the action is almost comically inept, with the result of two of the assassins getting decapitated being the fakest-looking severed heads I've seen in something that's not a deliberate parody.

The episode ends with Lin Chung still separate from the other 'heroes' so I don't think we're quite done with the origin story yet.

3. Both At Last Will Reach the Sea

Still introducing new characters, including Dai Zong, voiced by David "Monkey" Collings, and Yang Zhi (a.k.a. Blue Face, thank the Hoff, because character nicknames are so much easier for me to remember). The latter begins as an honourable government official, just as Lin Chung did. Sent to capture Lin Chung, they fight a duel which is a highlight of the series so far, owing more to the sort of classic Japanese samurai duel (of the sort seen in Seven Samurai) than a Chinese-style kung fu fight - after staring at each other for two days and two nights with their swords poised in readiness, the duel is over with a single stroke.

Blue Face survives the duel, and comes to side with and assist Lin Chung by the end of the episode, becoming another outlaw in the process, though too late to save Lin Chung's wife, who kills herself to save Lin Chung from falling into a trap. Still, she lasted about two episodes longer than it looked like she would when first introduced.

The episode ends with Lin Chung on his way at last to the Liang Shan marsh, the "water margin" of the title, so maybe it will start to settle down into a more episodic form from next time? We shall see...

4. Ever Busy are the Gods of Love

This has the feel of being our first stand alone episode, although the choice to have another regular character's love interest get kidnapped, raped and then killed by the villain so soon after Lin Chung's wife suffered the same fate is either a poor decision on the part of whoever put them in this order, or else it bodes ill for any other love interests of main characters...

We now have a substantial cast of regular heroes, and it is already getting hard to remember all of their names, so I'm remembering them all by their most significant physical feature or character trait: manny who runs fast (Dai Zong, who we met in episode 3), strong manny who has a tigerskin costume (Wu Sung), tattooed manny (Shih Chin), and tattooed manny's bandit friend (Chu Wu). It was tattooed manny's turn to be the main character this week.

There was also a B-plot involving Hu Sanniang, who I can't call "the girl one" any more because we're introduced to her sister, who is also a kung fu swordswoman. Their plot sort of fizzles out once Hu Sanniang is required to help out the other heroes with their plot, which could mean that it will be continued in a future episode, but you can't tell with this series - for all I know it might never be referred to again.

5. A Treasure of Gold and Jade

By now the series is really growing on me. This episode starts with a recap of the story so far, provided to us by narrator Burt Kwouk, although I'm not sure it was needed as this is pretty much a standalone story.

Two groups of heroes separately plan to steal a shipment of treasure headed for main baddy Kao Chiu and guarded by Blue Face, returning from episode 3. One group is led by Lin Chung , of course, while the other is a mixture of Lu Ta (a.k.a. "the Flower Priest" who is the Pigsy-esque, Peter Woodthorpe-voiced character we first met in episode 2), Hu Sanniang, and some new characters.

Lin Chung's direct approach ends up foiling the other group's plan by accident, and the episode ends in another duel with Blue Face before the two groups of heroes have to decide between themselves what to do with the treasure.

6. Bandits Who Steal Are Executed

I think the episode titles are all said verbatim by Burt Kwouk as part of his introductory narration. Certainly that has happened in all six parts so far.

This episode follows on directly from the end of the previous one. The new characters introduced there get more screentime here, and seem likely to be regular, possibly even major, characters. The character known as "the Good Judge" has been recurring ever since he sentenced Lin Chung to prison (instead of execution) in the first episode, but is now definitely established as the outlaws' manny on the inside of the corrupt establishment.

A major turn in the series plot is taken when the chief of the outlaws is corrupted by Kao Chiu to betray his own group. The three brothers we met last week assisting with the treasure heist discover his duplicity and warn the other outlaws, leading to the chief's death in a fight against Lin Chung. His replacement is to be Chao Kai, an "honest squire" who was also introduced in part 5 as part of the heist, but only after Lin Chung is offered the position and declines it.

I think this might be the first episode not to bring any new significant characters into the series.

7. How Easy To Die, How Hard To Live

Here we are at the midpoint of the first season and oh noes, more new characters! I know there are supposed to be 108 heroes, but even so there are a lot of them to keep track of for a TV show (and I say this as someone who sat through 94 episodes of Mahabharat). This episode has superimposed captions appear on screen the first time we see certain characters, which I think is supposed to help remind us of who's who, but they're in Japanese so they don't.

We're introduced to the Good Judge's good friend Lord Chai Chin, as well as Li Kwei "the Black Whirlwind." Also, on the baddys' side, this episode brings back the chief of police and his two henchmannys, and so confirms them as recurring characters - the chief of police seems to fill the same role in the story as the Sheriff of Nottingham does in Robin Hood, which I suppose makes his henchmannys the equivalents of Gary and Graham. They're certainly just as lazy, cowardly and incompetent.

The fight scenes in this episode were filmed in an eccentric way. I'm pretty sure they were meant to be different locations each time, but there were three fight scenes all filmed in shallow, ankle-deep water. And the fight scenes all used slow-motion for close-ups, but sped up when in long shot (accompanied by comedic, almost Benny Hill-like sound effects). This proved unfortunate when one of the bad guys got killed, and the face he made was hilarious in slo-mo.

Lin Chung is hardly in this episode. He has a scene where he eats some berries that give him a dream sequence/flashback to when he was a prisoner in the first couple of episodes, and then he turns up to save the day at the end, like some kind of simius ex machina.

8. A Man's Only Happiness

This was one of the weaker episodes so far, being insufficiently different from plots we've seen already and so feeling quite like filler as a result. Once again the focus is on the Good Judge Sun Chiang, still on the run, and we are introduced to yet another new character, Sun Chiang's friend Hua Yung. On the other hand, a character I previously thought likely to be a regular was killed off in this episode (I won't say which one for the benefit of any readers who may decide to give the series a go) so the number of characters isn't simply growing and growing unchecked.

The ending saw the group of heroes standing around laughing at one of their number embarrassing himself, which felt a bit Star Trek-y.

9. A Dutiful Son and the Love of a Brother

The Good Judge Sun Chiang is definitely the Tripitaka of this series, as he gets himself captured yet again, this time by falling for the old 'your dad's dying, come and visit him quick' ruse. He's then sent to the same prison Lin Chung was sent to back in part two.

The episode then gets a lot more fun, when Dai Zong (the manny who can run fast, voiced by David Collings) and Wu Sung (the strong manny who fights tigers off-screen) turn up to rescue him, and they both get involved in wacky hijinks. This inevitably includes at least one fight where they make friends with their opponent at the end. This might not be to everyone's liking, but it works for me here because Dai Zong and Wu Sung are two of the more unpredictable heroes, being a bit less straight-laced and serious than Lin Chung.

The episode ends on a cliffhanger when Sun Chiang is framed for the attempted murder of the governor, meaning he will need to be rescued (again) next time.

10. Escape is not Freedom

This is a great episode, a definite step in the right direction after three so-so ones, even if the basic plot is all too familiar to anyone who has seen a Robin Hood adaptation where the Merry Mannys have to rescue prisoners about to be executed by the Sheriff of Nottingham, which is really a trap to catch Robin, or in this case Lin Chung.

Most (though by no means all) of the regular characters are brought together for the rescue attempt, a sign that this is the series really coming together. The stakes get raised further when evil Kao Chiu attends the execution in person, and things look bleak for our heroes after their cunning-but-needlessly-complicated plan goes wrong almost immediately.

11. The Girl Who Loved the Flower Priest

Another good episode, largely due to the focus this week being on the chalk-and-cheese pairing of Lu Ta (the "Flower Priest"), the Pigsy of this series with his love of drinking and women, with "Blue Face" the emo swordsmanny who is now on the run from Evil Kao Chiu as well. They team up to fight some genuinely villainous bandits, not to be mistaken for the good kind of bandit that our heroes are.

With so many regular characters in the cast the series works well when, as seen here and in episode 9, it picks a few of them at a time to combine in a way we haven't seen before, rather than it being about Lin Chung or the Good Judge Sun Chiang every week. Lin Chung is again only a minor player in the plot - not for the first time he serves as the cavalry, arriving at the end to help out the other heroes when they need him most.

Lu Ta's love interest, "the girl" of the episode title, even survives to the end credits, which is a rarity for this series.

12. Kao Chiu Loses His Heart

An odd name for the episode, since it in no way reflects the events contained therein. This picks up the unresolved subplot from episode 8 between two brothers-in-law, one an outlaw, the other an officer working for Kao Chiu who has been assigned to capture his brother-in-law. They get involved with a travelling "circus" (though travelling troupe of actors would be a more accurate description) whose lead actress has sworn to kill a friend of Kao Chiu's who killed her father.

It all gets a bit "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die," when they come face-to-face, and the multiple plot strands do come together quite neatly at the climax, but other than that this is one of the lesser episodes, especially following on from a couple of good ones.

13. When Liang Shan Po Robbed the Poor

This episode, which finishes the first season, is a mixture of interesting political machinations, as Evil Kao Chiu plots the downfall of the Prime Minister of China so that he can take his place, with that most clichéd of plots, as Kao Chiu's henchmannys-of-the-week attempt to discredit our heroes by killing and robbing and then putting the blame on them. At least when Monkey did that plot it had the villains in absolutely ridiculous costumes, so that there was something to enjoy there.

Hu Sanniang's sister returns, last seen in episode four, proving once again that this is a series which does benefit from being watched in sequence, due to the way the characters come and go and you are expected to remember who's who, even if the plots of most episodes are stand-alone. That said, this episode (and therefore the season as a whole) ends on a cliffhanger.

14. A Death for Love, More Deaths from Greed

I wonder how much of an influence this '70s TV series was on Blakes 7? Not in terms of the basic premise, which is more obviously Robin Hood than it is this, but in some of the details. For example, in this episode the plots of Evil Kao Chiu from the first season finally pay off for him and he achieves elevation from Supreme Commander of China's army to Prime Minister.

This episode, continuing straight on from where the last one left off, is one of the best yet, with almost non-stop action throughout. The deaths referred to in the episode title are main characters on both heroes and villains' side. I won't say who because they are fairly major spoilers, but suffice to say that the series has decided that one main female character is plenty enough for it.

15. The Bravest Tiger is First Killed

We're back to one-off stories, and yet another instance of a main character being lured away from the safety of Liang Shan Po and into a trap by false news of a dying mother. This is at least the third time it has been used, and I hope (but don't expect) it will be the last.

Some oddly extended scenes suggest that this episode was badly in need of padding out to fill the required duration. A scene where Lu Ta's mother is being held hostage at swordpoint seemed to go on forever, and it wasn't the only one like that.

Not the best of episodes, and also not the most essential.

16. Heaven Aims the Master's Arrow

Another really good episode with several plot strands that come together neatly by the end.

I'm getting increasingly convinced that Servalan was inspired (at least in part) by Evil Kao Chiu, and here we see him attempt to steal a fortune in jade from the Emperor for himself, even though he is already the Prime Minister, which is a level of greed that I could easily believe Servalan would display.

17. The Traps of Love and Hate

It feels like the series is ramping up a gear as Lin Chung sets out to assassinate Kao Chiu to end his reign of evil. He comes pretty close by the end of the episode, having fought his way through hordes of guards, but is stopped as much by his own conscience as by Kao's minions. I'm sure they must be saving the final showdown between them for the last episode of the series.

Lin Chung is normally the one who does the rescuing of other, less competent heroes, but here he has to get rescued on no fewer than three separate occasions when he tries to take on Kao Chiu's innumerable guards. Each time he says something like "no, I must do this alone" and then as soon as he's gone the other heroes follow him ready to save him when he gets back in over his head.

The blood spatters from some of the many massacred soldiers are hilarious in this one, real Pythonesque spurts.

Some even getting on the camera at one point, lol.

18. A Foolish Sage Who Got Involved

Carrying on from the end of the previous episode, Kao Chiu has employed an evil magician from Mongolia, called simply "the Mongol," and with his black magic he is a threat to our heroes. Realising they need to fight magic with magic, they go looking for Kun Sung Sheng, the good magician who they haven't seen since season one. He has returned to his Taoist master to learn more magic, leading to a mystical plot more akin to something out of Monkey than the usual plots for The Water Margin.

Which is odd in a way, because in Monkey the Taoists were usually presented as evil magicians, with the Buddhists being the good ones. Either way, it leads on to a magic-off between good magician and evil magician, which makes for a good conclusion to the story even if it is a tad predictable.

19. Mourn the Slaughter of So Many

A character returns after having not been seen since the first episode. Fortunately this isn't Mahabharat so there is a flashback scene to remind us who he is, which is good because he ends up being the focus of this story and Lin Chung and Hu Sanniang again make only guest appearances in their own show.

The incidental music is very repetitive in this episode, for some reason. There's also a scene where horsemannys are galloping towards the camera, and the camera is also travelling in the same direction as them so they don't catch up with it, but whatever they were using to move the camera (another horse?) was incredibly shaky, so the picture was bouncing up and down like crazy. Both very odd directorial choices.

20. The War To End All Wars

What starts off looking like it's going to be another clichéd plot of 'heroes rescue the guest character from bandits and then it turns out they're actually connected to the villains somehow' takes a much more interesting turn when it is revealed that the manny Liang Shan Po have rescued is "Gunpowder" Hong, the only manny in China who knows how to use gunpowder for weapons.

Both our heroes and Evil Kao Chiu want this secret for themselves, and Hong makes bombs and even a primitive cannon for Liang Shan Po. Then the episode becomes an allegory for nuclear weapons as Lin Chung realises that, sooner or later, Evil Kao Chiu is bound to get the secret too and so it would be better if nobody had it.

This isn't the most essential episode, seeing as the status quo is restored by the end of it, and I suspect (though I could be wrong) that Gunpowder Hong and his son won't be recurring characters, but it is one of the more thought-provoking stories, with something to say beyond the usual pseudo-philosophical nonsense served up by the opening and closing narrations.

21. Death of a Great Man

Six new Mongolian villains (a father and his five sons) enter the scene with a plan to kill the leader of Liang Shan Po, Chao Kai, which yet again involves luring him back to his home village. With the whole village (and also Lin Chung, captured earlier in the episode) hostage, Chao Kai is forced to enter their trap, while several main characters look on.

This illustrates one of the weaknesses of the series (also evident in many episodes of Monkey), which is the heroes have with them their magician and strategic genius Kung Sun Sheng, but he sits back and lets the trap be sprung - seemingly he can only help them with magic powers or a brilliant plan if explicitly asked for one by one of the other characters, i.e. if the plot requires it. Like with Monkey, if he used his powers as soon as they would be useful then the stories would be over in half the time, and be pretty free of jeopardy.

Speaking of Monkey, David Collings voices one of the villainous brothers, and does an even more exaggerated faux-Chinese accent than his Monkey voice.

22. Lin Chung is Beaten

This was a really good episode. Following on directly from where the previous one left off - essentially the second half of a two-parter - it featured quite a few of our Liang Shan Po heroes (rather than concentrate only on Lin Chung plus one or two others, as is more usually the case) enacting a convoluted plan to rescue Lin Chung. This plan* gave all of them their own roles, so each had a turn in the 'spotlight,' and it was just really enjoyable to watch them turn the tables on the band of villains over the course of the plan - sort of The Water Margin does Mission: Impossible.

* Devised, eventually, by strategic genius Kung Sun Sheng - see my complaint about the previous episode.

23. A Concubines Diary (no apostrophe, just like with Blakes 7)

Four episode from the end and we are finally introduced to the Emperor of China. He's in love with the concubine of the title, and Evil Kao Chiu has an evil scheme that involves her. Our heroes - this week focusing on Shih Chin and Lu Ta (the latter of whom we haven't seen in a while) - foil the scheme, but then end up facing both the Emperor and Kao Chiu.

The episode then goes completely nuts, and I defy anyone to predict the ending. Sure, it ends in a big fight, like most of them do, but I mean the specific circumstances of the fight.

There's a B-plot that doesn't seem to add much to the story (except for maybe giving our heroes one more person to rescue at the end) involving the daughter of a "millionaire" being held hostage by Kao Chiu to secure her father's good behaviour. This may be explained by the next episode being titled Liang Shan Po and the Millionaire...

24. Liang Shan Po and the Millionaire

It seemed last time that things were escalating towards the finish, but this episode is much more like a standard second half of a two-parter. The villains-of-the-week are vanquished before the end credits roll, though not before they get in three separate bouts of maniacal laughter at their evil scheme - not quite Mordred level, but nearly.

Another scene of note is one in which a character is carrying an explosive device (a primitive - and almost certainly not true to the source material - mine intended to blow up our heroes), slips and blows herself up. It's unintentionally hilarious.

25. Knight of the Long Sword

It's the penultimate episode and we're still getting origin stories - I guess that's the problem of adapting a book with "nine dozen" heroes in it. Evil Kao Chiu has yet another plan to capture or kill Lin Chung, and it involves getting yet another of China's greatest fighters - in this case the great General Kuang Sheng - to fight Lin Chung for him.

Burt Kwouk's narration is doing most of the heavy lifting in setting this episode in the context of the story, telling us how Kao Chiu's government is now struggling against the dual threats of our heroes of Liang Shan Po and invading Mongols, and is consequently on the verge of collapse, with Kao having to impose martial law in the cities and pass laws without the approval of the Emperor. While there is some dialogue from the characters to back this up, there's little of it shown on screen and this plot could otherwise have easily come much earlier in the series without changing very much at all.

This changes somewhat at the climax of the episode, when Kao's plan inevitably backfires and Kuang Sheng ends up joining with Liang Shan Po. It's not the first time Kao has ended up in a swordfight himself, but this is the first time it feels like he is properly threatened, and so suggests that the end of the story cannot be far away.

26. The Dynasty of Kao

I'll try and include no more spoilers for this, the series finale, than the episode title itself contains.

That was a properly epic, satisfying conclusion. Unlike with Monkey, here they actually reached the end of the story. The two main plots of the second season finally come together, as our heroes of Liang Shan Po have assembled their army to take on Evil Kao Chiu, while at the same time Kao makes his move in his palace coup against the Emperor of China.

If there is a flaw it is that there are some main characters who miss out on being present at the climax, but when there are supposed to be "nine dozen" heroes (and there was obviously nothing like that many, even if they were still introducing new ones right up to the very end) I think this was inevitable.

The heroes we do see all get a fair amount of screen time, especially the magician Kung Sun Sheng, one of my favourite characters, and naturally Lin Chung is at the centre of things.

The annoyingly repetitive incidental music makes an unwelcome return, but fortunately Burt Kwouk mostly narrates pseudo-philosophy over it.

At one episode a week, this has taken me six months to watch through. It has definitely been worth it. For the most part, episodes don't tend to stand alone the way they do with the likes of Monkey, it is a continuous developing narrative (not really surprising since it is based on a famous book... but then again, so is Monkey), and as such feels quite modern.

The Evil Empire Lost to This

Still On Her Majesty's Secret Service

Big Gay Longcat and Expensive Luxury Cat review James Bond: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (part two)

When James Bond wakes up it is Christmas, as we can tell when the first thing he sees is a Christmas tree. It is Blofeld's Christmas tree, and Blofeld comes in to greet him with

"Merry Christmas, 007."

so even he is getting into the spirit of the season, it seems. Blofeld didn't actually recognise Bond, he just found out about him from Campbell, who he interrogated and killed off screen. So not that much into the spirit of the season of peace on Earth and goodwill to all mannys, then.

Blofeld has a master plan and he can't wait to tell Bond all about it:

"In a few hours the United Nations will receive my Yuletide greetings - the information that I now possess the scientific means to control or destroy the economy of the whole world. If my demands are not met I shall proceed with the systematic extinction of all species of cereals and livestock all over the world."

This is every bit as stupid as his last plan - if he does all this, what noms will be left for him to nom? Bond asks Blofeld to tell him "exactly how" and only then does Blofeld think he's said too much and shuts the conversation down with

"That will remain my secret."

He has his henchmannys lock Bond up in a room, from which Bond soon escapes so that he can stealth around the base finding out more about Blofeld's plan. This is a bit like a similar scene in Goldfinger. Bond sees Blofeld hypno-eyesing the ladies into helping him carry out his master plan, although, unlike Goldfinger, Blofeld does not then kill off the ladies for no reason.

Bond then escapes from the base by stealing some skiing gear, which is handily a different colour from all the SECTRE henchmannys who chase him, thus making it easy for us to tell them apart. The title music is used as incidental music over this chase and it is fantastic.

Blofeld is giving Number One pets when he is interrupted with the news of Bond's escape, so he is not happy. Neither is Blofeld, mew.

Blofeld joins in the chase personally, and this is where the film really starts to come into its own, with the high stakes, exciting direction, and of course the brilliant music all coming together to make this one of the best chase scenes out of any of the Bond films.

Bond escapes to the village (not to be confused with the Village) at the bottom of the mountain, where the chase takes a different form, with Bond being hunted through the crowds of mannys doing their last minute Christmas shopping. There is some resemblance to the similar crowd scene in Thunderball, but this is even more suspenseful, with us really getting the sense that Bond is up against the odds. The tension builds and builds as the henchmannys, led by Irma Bunt, get ever closer, and emphasised by way of the increasingly quick cutting between Bond and his pursuers.

Eventually the tension is broken when a mystery manny skates up to Bond, and the camera pans up to reveal it is Tracy. 

This sudden releasing of the tension when Tracy appears is one of the greatest moments to be found in any Bond film, and demonstrates why Tracy is such a great character - she rescues him.

"Stay close to me, James."

she says as they run to her car and get away in it. Even in the following car chase it is Tracy that does the driving. All Bond can do is make quips such as

"Looks like we hit the rush hour."

Mew.

They escape into a snowstorm and find a barn to hide in until it passes. 

"Sorry about the accommodation, contessa."

"We should have rung ahead and booked."

Even in the arena of quips it seems that Tracy is a match for Bond. It is here in this barn that Bond proposes to Tracy. 

"I love you. I know I'll never find another girl like you. Will you marry me?"

The scene ends with them having kiffs, then transitions to the next day where we see Blofeld and his henchmannys approaching the barn. Bond and Tracy are already skiing away from it. The music shifts from romantic to the theme tune, to signal the chase has begun again. Its a really clever bit of pacing to have the quiet, romantic scene where Bond and Tracy get engaged sandwiched between two parts of what are essentially the same extended chase - and this chase is looooong enough it makes even the one from Planet of the Piders part two seem to be over quickly by comparison.

In amongst all the drama there's still time for comedic moments, and we get one of the worst best Bond quips when one of the SECTRE henchmannys falls into a big machine clearing a path through the snow:

"He had lots of guts."

Lol. It gets serious again when Blofeld deliberately causes an avalanche to join in chasing Bond and Tracy down the mountain. It catches and buries both of them. As Blofeld says:

"A grave deep enough, I think, to prevent even 007 from walking."

He thinks Bond is ded, but he sees Tracy is alive so captures her.

In the next scene Bond is all the way back in M's office in London. M says he won't let Bond go back to Blofeld's base, so Bond telephones Draco and gets him to help instead. The film is called On Her Majesty's Secret Service, but Bond spends almost all of it not on Her Majesty's Secret Service, because he is continually going against what M tells him to do and, as a result, has to apologise to the picture of Her Majesty on the wall.

In his base, Blofeld is being very friendly to Tracy for some reason. These scenes with Tracy a prisoner are quite short, but Telly Savalas and Diana Rigg have great chemistry together - this is perhaps not surprising since the last film that both of them were in prior to this one was The Assassination Bureau, which they were in together along with Oliver Reed. And the reason that Oliver Reed isn't in this film is because he belongs to a very select category of actors who are too cool for Bond - a group that consists of him, Idris Elba, and Paul Darrow. 

One thing missing from these scenes with Blofeld and Tracy is that there is no sign of Number One. The Prisoner may have asked the question "Who is Number One?" but what I want to know right now is: Where is Number One? He's hardly been in the film, and now he's missing out on getting pets from Tracy. This would be a major strike against this film if it wasn't so good otherwise, mew. And an expensive luxury mew from Expensive Luxury Cat too.

Bond and Draco fly in on helicopters, along with some henchmannys of their own - not ninjas (this time), but some of Draco's gangsters. A big climactic fight ensues, this time with the main James Bond theme music playing, as if to symbolise how Bond is now winning.

Tracy escapes from Blofeld's main henchmanny Grunther by throwing him against some spikes but, really, it was the baddys' own fault for having the place decorated with spikes in the first place. What is this, a base on loan from Warhammer 40,000? Bond sees Blofeld and it is now Bond's turn to do the chasing and Blofeld's turn to get chased.

Draco rescues Tracy and then his mannys blow the base up. We see Blofeld and Bond get out just in time, but what about Number One? I expect he would be a very grumpy cat if he had to use up one of his lives, and so this might explain why Telly Savalas never got to play Blofeld again after this film: this organisation does not tolerate failure expensive luxury cats getting blowed up.

Bond chases Blofeld down a bobsleigh ride, which would be a completely ludicrous chase sequence in a lesser film. Yet here it succeeds beautifully, because it is directed so well, is played totally straight, and is really exciting.

It ends when Blofeld gets stuck up a tree, almost as though he's the cat rather than Number One. Serves him right. Another Blofeld might have escaped with just a jump to the left...

"He's branched off."

quips Bond. This is then immediately followed up by a comedic moment where Bond meets a doggy, the film's way of letting us know the peril is all over. But is it really?

The scene then shifts to Bond and Tracy's wedding. M, Q, and Miss Moneypenny are all there, and M seems to get on well with Draco despite Draco being a sort-of-baddy. There is a callback to earlier when Miss Moneypenny cries and M paws her a hanky with the line

"Miss Moneypenny, what would you do without me?"

Meanwhile Bond quips to Q, who hasn't had much to do in this film:

"This time I've got the gadgets, and I know how to use them."

(He's talking about his cock.) Bond is obviously expecting the film to end with him getting up to naughtiness like most of his films. But when Bond and Tracy drive off their dialogue is abruptly full of ironic foreshadowing:

"Darling, now we have all the time in the world."

and

"You have given me a wedding present, the best I could have: a future."

Uh-oh.

Suddenly Blofeld and Bunt drive past and shoot Tracy, who goes

So the film ends with Bond left being very sad. Merry Christmas everybody!

"This never happened to the other fella."

Expensive Luxury Cat's rating: Very Expensive and Very Luxury

Big Gay Longcat and Expensive Luxury Cat review James Bond: On Her Majesty's Secret Service

Two years had passed since You Only Live Twice marked the peak of Bondmania and the spy craze of the 1960s. Since then the genre had been deconstructed by The Prisoner and sent up by any number of films and TV series. But the biggest blow to the Bond series was that Sean Connery had left them behind - James Bond was without a James Bond. So for the first time the makers of the series were forced to do what would become par for the course whenever a James Bond actor left - recast the part and reboot the series.

This wasn't to be a full-on reboot in the same way as 2006's Casino Royale was, but You Only Live Twice had taken the film series the furthest it had ever been from the Bond novels, so this was a return to making a (relatively) faithful adaptation of the book of On Her Majesty's Secret Service. What could possibly go wrong with that?

The film starts with an establishing shot of "Universal Exports (London) Ltd" (thanks convenient establishing sign), world famous as the secret headquarters of MI7, where M is wondering where Bond is. This isn't a hugely important scene, but just look at how classy that opening shot is, with the Houses of Parliament appearing reflected in the sign - it's a sign (so to speak) of things to come.

James Bond, played just this once by George Lazybee, is driving his car about somewhere on location. He saves Tracy (Diana Rigg, because why bother hosting auditions for your lead actress when you can just pinch one from The Avengers whenever you like?) from getting wet, then introduces himself. 

"My name is Bond. James Bond."

This is so that we know it is him, seeing as this is the first time Bond, James Bond is not being played by Sean Connery. He then immediately gets into a fight with two henchmannys, which does seem like the sort of thing James Bond would do, so we're convinced.

After the fight Tracy drives away, leaving Bond to quip

"This never happened to the other fella."

Obviously the "other fella" he means is Sean Connery, lol. Amazingly this fourth-wall-breaking line manages to convince us that this is the same character despite seemingly saying the opposite.

Bond then runs off into the title sequence, which is accompanied by a brilliant tune that sets the tone purrfectly.

After the titles Bond goes to a hotel and casino where he meets Tracy again, finding out she is called Contessa Teresa Di Vincenzo. Bond goes to Tracy's room where, instead of the naughtiness he was expecting, he only finds another fight with a henchmanny.

Bond goes to his own room, which is where Tracy is, but now he doesn't want naughtiness because Tracy won't tell him why henchmannys keep attacking him. He soon changes his mind though, naughty Bond. And, as it turns out, naughty Tracy.

The next morning Bond finds Tracy has left, then he gets captured by two more henchmannys, along with the henchmanny from the last fight, so they are obviously all W-wording for the same manny... or cat? Or maybe even a dragon, since they are taking Bond to meet somebody called "Draco." Bond decides to have a fight with all three henchmannys and escapes from them straight to where Draco is waiting for him.

Draco isn't a dragon though. Or a cat. He offers Bond a martini

"Shaken, not stirred."

Draco is "head of one of the biggest crime syndicates in Europe," with Bond saying only SECTRE is bigger. He is also Tracy's father. He wants Bond to help Tracy. Bond says 

"She needs a psychiatrist, not me."

Draco replies

"What she needs is a man to dominate her."

which is... er, old fashioned (to say the least), even by the standards of 1969. Draco offers Bond one million dollars pounds to marry Tracy, which Bond rejects with the line

"But I don't need a million pounds."

"Stupido."

Instead he wants Draco to tell him where he can find Blofeld. At least Bond wants to get on with the plot, even if the film is in no hurry to.

The scene changes to London, where Bond enters the office to meet Miss Moneypenny, even throwing his hat onto the hatstand just like the real James Bond used to. M takes Bond off the Blofeld case, saying it has been two years since the last film and now he needs bond to do some other missions. Bond tells Miss Moneypenny he's going to resign and dictates his letter of resignation to her and asks her to "present it to that monument in there," which I think is supposed to be a cutting insult towards M, except that it doesn't make sense.

Bond then goes into a room where he reminisces about Sean Connery's his previous missions while snatches of their theme tunes play in case we in the audience miss the point of this bit, although that would be pretty difficult since this scene is about as subtle as a Roger Moore-era innuendo. Miss Moneypenny arranges for Bond to get a holiday instead of resigned, leading to both Bond and M to ask her

"What would I do without you?"

Bond meets Tracy and Draco at Draco's birthday party, where there is a bullfight going on because (as Bond seems to have forgotten) Draco is a baddy. The bull chases and scares some mannys, lol. Tracy deduces that Bond and Draco have done a deal, which she interferes with by forcing Draco to tell Bond where Blofeld is "without obligation." All Draco knows is that Blofeld has a lawyer called Gumbold who lives and W-words in Switzerland.

If this were any other Bond film, this scene would be followed by Bond going straight to Switzerland to follow up on this clue. But this isn't any other Bond film, so instead there is a montage of Bond and Tracy doing various things together, including petting a cat!

It isn't a white cat, though, so that we don't mistaik it for Number One. The montage shows us Bond and Tracy are falling in love with each other. Finally Draco and Tracy drive Bond to the building where Gumbold's office is so that Bond can at last get on with the story.

Gumbold is played by James "what a stupid fool you are" Bree, and Bond sneaks in while he is away having noms. Bond has help from Campbell, who is played by Bernard Horsfall - did the makers of this film just round up actors from The War Games to be in this bit? (They must have been made around the same time so it's a possibility.) Campbell delivers Bond a machine to crack Gumbold's safe. Bond reads a naughty mazagine while he waits for the machine to get him the combination, because he's a naughty Bond.

The machine doesn't just crack safes - it also doubles as a photocopier, which makes a piece of highly advanced technology for the time, as sci-fi as anything we saw in You Only Live Twice. Bond doesn't even need to put in 5p for each copy he wants. Bond copies Gumbold's documents until we see Gumbold is on his way back to his office. The music helps this scene to remain tense, because without it it is just a scene of Bond doing some photocopying while another manny noms his lunch. Bond sends the machine back to Campbell and sneaks out just before Gumbold gets back, making sure to take the naughty mazagine with him. He's incorrigible!

The next scene sees Bond visit M at his house - an unusual, even unprecedented occurrence. Perhaps even more unusual is what follows, as instead of M giving Bond exposition about his mission, Bond gives M the exposition about what he found out from Gumbold's papers:

"This is a photostat copy of a letter addressed to our College of Arms in the City of London, with the request that they undertake to establish de Bleuchamp's claim to the title, and Sir Hilary Bray - he's the Sable Basilisk of the college - has replied to Gumbold suggesting that he should meet de Bleuchamp in person. Now, I've already taken the liberty, sir, of working with the college on this, using an examination of my own family tree as cover. I've also been reading up on the technical side of heraldry, so that should he should consent to a meeting, I can act as a representative of the college."

Sir Hilary Bray is played by George "Tiberius" Baker, when he's not being the new Number Two in the Village. Bond and Bray look at Bond's coat of arms.

"Good motto, eh? The world is not enough."

Cla... no, wait, wrong Bond film.

We next see Bond back in Switzerland. Bond is in disguise as Bray, which mainly means wearing glasses (well, if it's good enough for Supermanny...) and getting his dialogue dubbed by George Baker. He meets Irma Bunt, Blofeld's "personal secretary" and gets taken up a mountain to Blofeld's lair, which is on, rather than in, the mountain this time.

While Bond is being taken to his room, Bunt telephones Blofeld and we get out first sight of him in this film, 52 minutes in. For now it is only a glimpse, like in his early film appearances when we never got to see his face. Of course SECTRE Number One is there too, which is how we know this must really be him.

Bond isn't taken to see Blofeld straight away. First he has to have noms with Bunt and a bevy of ladies who are also staying there, one of whom is Sapphire from Sapphire & Steel, in this film's unexpected crossover moment. She asks

"Are you here for Christmas, Sir Hilary?"

which is out first indication that this is the James Bond Christmas Special... that is if you don't count all the snow, which we probably shouldn't since this is set in the Swiss Alps where snow is for life, not just for Christmas.

The ladies can't wait to get up to naughtiness with Bond, and he slips them a few innuendos about his balls while pretending to tell them all about the College of Arms. An even bigger innuendo comes when Ruby writes her room number on Bond's leg under the table. Bond makes a face, and Bunt asks him if anything is the matter. His response:

"Just a slight stiffness coming on."

Bond is taken to see Blofeld in his laboratory. Blofeld, played by Telly "Lord Bostwick" Savalas, introduces himself as

"Balthazar, Count de Bleuchamp."

and, curiously, neither of them seem to recognise each other, despite neither of them being in disguise (unless Bond changing his voice is somehow enough to change his face as well). Bond has even come here specifically expecting to see Blofeld, which makes this even stranger. Of course both of them have changed actors since the last time they met, that must explain why they don't know each other straight away. Also there is no sign of Number One in this scene, which must have put some doubt into Bond's mind, mew.

Later on, Bond escapes from his room so that he can get up to naughtiness with Ruby. While they are having kiffs a noise starts up and lights comes on and then Blofeld's voice starts to hypno-eyes Ruby. Bond leaves her to it and returns to his room, where he finds another one of the ladies waiting for him. Lazy old Bond uses some of the exact same lines on her as he just used on Ruby, but it doesn't matter because she's as desperate for some naughtiness as he is.

Bond's friend Campbell is trying to follow Bond to the top of the mountain, but henchmannys get in his way and shout at him

"From here upwards now is forbidden! Private! Closed!"

Climbing the mountain anyway, Campbell gets shot at and captured by the henchmannys.

That night Bond, expecting more naughtiness with Ruby, is surprised to find Bunt in her bed instead. He has just enough time to try one desperate bluff...

"Fancy meeting you here Fraulein..."

before a henchmanny comes over and knocks him unconscious.

TO BE CONTINUED

Prince Regent

Prince Regent is a BBC historical drama series from 1979 about the misspent life of King George the Fourth, concentrating on his time as Prince Regent during the madness of his father, King George the Third. Consequently it takes place over the period 1785 to 1820, a much shorter span than many BBC historical dramas which took place over multiple generations. At only eight episodes, this may reflect the fact that there is less of a story to tell than in, say, I Claudius or Fall of Eagles.

The title role is played by Peter Egan, who around the time this was made seemed to specialise in playing unpleasant characters with selfish motivations who get by on their wits and charisma, such as in Big Breadwinner Hog or The Organization. This is no exception, except that here the Prince Regent doesn't have quite the wits or charisma that he thinks he does, his ego having been inflated throughout his life because he is surrounded by fawning courtiers and flatterers.

Chief among these are the leading Whigs of the period, Fox (Keith "Striker" Barron) and Sheridan (Clive "Deputy Chief Caretaker" Merrison), who are in opposition during the reign of George the Third and hope to get back into government when the prince takes the throne. They continually manipulate the prince, getting him to do what they want while always telling him what he wants to hear. We as viewers are privileged to hear what they say to the prince's face and how this contrasts with what they say behind his back. In the end it doesn't do them much good, since George the Third outlives most of them.

The Prince Regent is not a sympathetic character. As well as having an overinflated opinion of his own abilities, he is also a massive hypocrite. After his arranged marriage to Princess Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel he is outraged by the merest whiff of scandal about the possibility of his wife having an affair, even though he is shown to have many mistresses of his own. Indeed, the series kicks off with a plotline about the prince starting his affair with Maria Fitzherbert (Susannah York), who he secretly marries (or rather tries to marry, since the marriage is later discovered to not be a legally binding one) even though she is Catholic - a big no-no for a member of the royal family, and a national scandal when the rumour of it leaks out.

The prince's attitude to his wife only reflects the (double) standards of the time, with society winking at most of his affairs (except as regards Catholics) and him never expecting or receiving any significant consequences as a result of any of them. Meanwhile his wife's affairs are considered to be treason, with her and any third party potentially facing the death penalty.

In the final part George, now the king upon his father's death at the start of the episode, gets the government to put his wife on trial in the House of Lords so that he can divorce her. But her clever lawyers get the new queen off even though they know (and we see) she is guilty, by discrediting the prosecution witnesses - the government only agreed to prosecute the queen for her affairs with foreigners, so the defence preys upon the prejudices of the Lords by intimating that the foreigners are all untrustworthy.

The one time I felt sympathy for the Prince Regent was upon the death of his daughter Charlotte Augusta (Cherie Lunghi), when Egan conveyed real and profound grief, an emotion we were not used to seeing from the prince. This despite the cumbersome padded costume and facial prosthetics that increasingly hampered his acting as the series went on - they showed the prince becoming fatter and fatter as time went on (as history tells us he did), but Egan was unable to move naturalistically under the, er, weight of them.

Peter Egan may have been the nominal star, but the show is absolutely stolen by Nigel Davenport as King George the Third, playing his madness to perfection in episodes two through to seven. It appears comical at first, mere eccentricity in the aging king, but it soon develops into serious bouts of insanity, and Davenport nails the transition. His finest moments come after the king has been 'treated' by the cruel Dr Willis and son, expressing his fear when shown the straitjacket they mean to put him in.

The two Georges were very much the main characters through the whole series. Other actors that deserve calling out for giving fine performances in relatively minor roles include David "Monkey" Collings as Prime Minister Pitt the Younger, and Frances White as George the Third's wife, Queen Charlotte. Herself no stranger to BBC historical drama series, Charlotte's steadfast support of her mad husband is a very different role from Julia, daughter of Augustus in I Claudius. As in, the daughter out of

"IS THERE ANYONE IN ROME WHO HAS NOT SLEPT WITH MY DAUGHTER?!!"

I don't often notice when boom mikes make their occasional intrusions into the top of shot, but this one, albeit brief, made it further into shot than most.

It is impossible to watch this series without being reminded of Blackadder the Third, given the common setting and character of the Prince Regent. Eight years separated them, so it can hardly be claimed that this was an immediate inspiration on that series of Blackadder, nor that Blackadder the Third was a direct parody of Prince Regent. It s unlikely that the BBC would have permitted this latter scenario had there been a lot less time between them, such as the way they forbade the makers of Doctor Who from producing a vampire-themed story at the same time as the BBC was also doing an adaptation of Dracula.

But with only three channels in 1979, this must have been watched by a fair proportion of the viewing public at the time, so maybe it was recent enough to still be present at the backs of the minds of the makers and viewers of Blackadder the Third, giving an unspoken meta-context to the series setting, helping it to succeed despite being a less well-known period of history than, say, the Elizabethan period of Blackadder 2.

The Six VHS Covers

I have nothing against the Doctor Who DVD cover images for the most part, but compare them to the iconic, elegant simplicity of the early VHS covers and there's no contest really, mew.

I mean, just look at these six, as advertised on the BBC in the mid-1980s:

They've really stood the test of time.