The Bill: All Fall Down

Broadcast from the 17th to 31st October 2000, this was a run of five consecutive episodes telling a single extended narrative that could have been the final end of The Bill, since it is a truly climactic storyline that brings to an end plotlines that had been literally years in the making, as well as containing the final apperances of serveral main characters.

DS Claire Stanton had been getting increasingly close to exposing the corruption of Don Beech, and now in desperation he turns to DS John Boulton, trying to get him to join Beech in corruption so that together they can cover up his involvement in taking bribes from and doing favours for a drug smuggler. After Boulton turns out to be a lot more incorruptible than Beech anticipated, they have a fight in which Boulton is accidentally killed - making him the first regular to depart over the course of this story.

The subsequent murder investigation starts to unravel Beech's years of double-dealing. Two parallel plotlines ensue - in the first Stanton hunts for Beech as he tries to get out of the country under a false identity, after double-crossing his drug-dealing mates to steal their money to help him live abroad (they were, of course, trying to double-cross him at the same time). This is exceptionally well plotted, as intricate as the best TV dramas, and is carried by actor Billy Murray's charisma that sees you rooting for Beech even as his list of despicable crimes mounts up.

The second is the internal investigation of the rest of the CID team, led by guest actor Paul Joe Mark McGann, to see if any of them were also corrupt. This ensures that the regulars are excluded from the other plot since they are all locked down in the Sun Hill station, and we get to see how each of them reacts (there is a notable exception in that Bob Cryer is absent from these episodes, and his presence is much missed when we see how the uniformed PCs and sergeants react to events). Nobody else is guilty, but the fact that Beech got away with it for so long means that they want to get rid of those who should have known better, so DS Daly and DI Chris Deakin get transferred.

Brownlow's nemesis Borough Commander Guy Mannion - a panto baddy who has wandered into The Bill by mistaik - finally has his chance and demands Brownlow's resignation for letting this happen under his nose - let's not forget that Brownlow has been the Chief Superintendent of Sun Hill, and therefore the boss of The Bill, since the very first season. This would therefore be the end of an era for this reason if no other.

But the story of The Bill is in many ways the story of PACE (i.e. the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984) which came in around the time of The Bill's first season, in the wake of the police corruption scandals that we know by proxy from all the violent policemannys of sketch shows and drama serials of the 1970s and '80s. With tighter recording of procedures, taped interviews, legal rights for suspects, etc. the police suddenly had to try a lot harder to catch and obtain convictions against criminals, thanks to the actions of their corrupt brethren before them.

Gradually some officers learned how to W-word around these restrictions and where and when they could cut corners, and over the course of The Bill through the '80s and '90s we saw this happen in basically real time. From old-school coppers such as Ted Roach who resented these new ways to the likes of young Jim Carver (not so young by 2000) who lived their whole careers with PACE as the status quo, and finally to the likes of Don Beech and Sgt Boyden who knew exactly how to manipulate the system to their advantage. The crucial difference between Beech and Boyden was that Boyden only bent the rules to make his job a bit easier and to keep the Act from proving too much of a hindrance to getting the right result - so-called 'noble cause corruption.'

Beech started off that way too, but then he found he was on a slippery slope. First he bent the rules to help out some mates. Then he bent them to get himself out of a fix or two. Then it was to make himself a bit of extra money. Then the criminals he helped out wanted him to help them again - and how could he say no? Then he was having to break the rules just to cover up his previous rule-breaking, and so on.

In the real world, by the late 1990s the police were once again having trouble with corruption (assuming that it ever really went away, which I somehow doubt, mew) and this led to the formation of an undercover 'Ghost Squad' which spied on the police from the inside. DS Claire Stanton is revealed (to viewers long before any of her colleagues) to be such a mole planted inside Sun Hill CID over a year before this story (Stanton had been a regular since September 1999), and who is ultimately responsible for outing Beech, but at the cost of dealing enormous collateral damage to the rest of the Sun Hill team - not merely the loss of seven regular characters (including Stanton herself) in the space of five episodes, but also the loss of trust between CID oficers, between the uniformed and CID teams, between the frontline officers and senior management, between Sun Hill and other stations, and - it is implied - further loss of trust from the public... though that can't have been high to begin with given the number of scandals in Sun Hill since Richard Handford took over as producer at the start of 1998.

That brings me to the biggest weakness of this story, which is that in an earlier era of The Bill it would have been nothing short of astonishing. The seeds for Beech's gradual corruption and eventual downfall were planted over two years before (the turning point being his taking bribes from a gangster played by Leslie "Dirty Den" Grantham, in episodes broadcast in March '98), and this amount of setup and payoff should have been outstanding.

But by the year 2000 it was barely visible above the noise (to mix my metaphors) because in the Handford era, every other new regular was dodgy or bent in some way - such as PC Eddie Santini, who started off gaslighting and bullying his female colleagues before escalating to murdering a woman - and every other story saw regulars at each other's throats over their love lives (the Garfield/Quinnan/Nurse Jenny love triangle being one such unwelcome arc across much of 1999), being held hostage at gunpoint, knocked out and kidnapped, stabbed followed by a race against time for their colleagues to save their lives, or being framed for committing the crimes they were supposed to be investigating.

In such an environment of outrageous sensationalism, this storyline loses a lot of its power. It is sensational because it has earned it through careful setup over a long period of time, not just because it is yet another station fire or bomb exploding, killing off a few regulars to grab some headlines and the cover of a TV listings magazine. The unique position of The Bill as an ongoing police drama means it has the chance to examine the subsequent implications of the events and the meaningful consequences to the characters, but this is lessened by the production team's need to move on to a new story the next week. And the way that the real-world issue of police corruption and internal investigations, and the eternal dilemma of quis custodiet ipsos custodes, has been brilliantly conveyed in a stunning piece of TV drama is lost in a landscape where every week's storyline has to top the one before it... which inevitably results in only diminishing returns.

In conclusion - there was no way back for The Bill after this. If it had ended here it could have gone out on a high note. These five episodes are amazing, but they are surrounded by rubbish.

Ladyhawke (1985)

A pseudo-historical fantasy film set in that strangely nonspecific period of European medieval history so beloved by American filmmakers - other movies of this type include The Court Jester (1956), The Princess Bride (1987) and The 13th Warrior (1999).

At the beginning of the film it appears that Matthew "Ferris Bueller" Broderick is the star, playing thief-on-the-run Phillipe Gaston, but after he meets up with Rutger "tears in the rain" Hauer's former-captain-of-the-guard-now-on-the-run Etienne Navarre it becomes clear that Hauer is the hero and Broderick merely the sidekick. A bit like when Blake meets Avon in Space Fall.

At two hours long the film is annoyingly paced - when there's action it is good, but it could hardly be described as being tightly edited since it felt to me like nearly every scene goes on for just a bit longer than it needed to, with the result that the middle hour drags.

Leo McKern (taking time off from being Rumpole in between seasons three and four) turns up partway through as a disgraced priest/monk who knows Navarre's backstory, and McKern has hefty chunks of the purest exposition to deliver to Gaston, and via him to us viewers.

The film has by this point cleverly shown Gaston (and us) enough of what is going on to get partially ahead of the explanation - that Navarre is cursed to be a manny by day and a wolf by night, while his lover Isabeau is a hawk by day and Michelle Pfeiffer by night - so the exposition is just filling in any blank spaces (or allowing anyone having missed bits due to important cat sleeps to catch up), as well as giving the backstory of how they got cursed.

The rest of the film is just Navarre getting his revenge and lifting the curse, and the final half hour is some genuinely good '80s action. The ending sees the blonde, blue-eyed couple reunited - a proper Hollywood happy ending of the old school.

The soundtrack is a mix of vaguely period-appropriate musical cues and properly mid-80s synthesizer prog rock cheese. Somehow it succeeds in spite of that combination.

Verdict: It's better than Hawk the Slayer, but not as good as Krull.

Quo Vadis (1951)

A Roman epic that tends to get shown on BBC2 every few years, which is where I must have first encountered it. It is principally of interest for Peter Ustinov's magnificently OTT performance as Emperor Nero, prefiguring John Hurt's Caligula by 25 years.

It tells the story of Nero's burning of Rome, blaming the nascent Christian sect for it, his martyring of many Christians in the arena, and then the uprising which brings his reign of terror to an end. All seen from the point of view of a Roman general (played by Robert "I can't believe it's not Tony Curtis" Taylor) who falls in love with a Christian (Deborah Kerr) and has to choose between his conflicting loyalties.

The Christian message in the film is so heavy-pawed that it becomes quite unobjectionable, with St Paul and St Peter both making appearances, and St Peter's crucifixion forms part of the plot.

Other actors we reognised include Rosalie "Checkmate" Crutchley in a small but significant role as Acte, the manny who helps the cowardly Nero to kill himself at the end (sorry if that's a spoiler). There's also an actor called Peter Miles in it playing Peter's young assistant Nazarius, but Wikipedia says it's not the same Peter Miles as famously played a certain other character beginning with N.

The technicolour helps the film not feel as old as it is, and could easily have come from the 1960s and not the very early '50s. It doesn't contain as much outright spectacle as later epics such as Ben Hur or Cleopatra, though it does contain some massive sets and enormous crowd scenes, that would only look small if you had recently had your expectations distorted by watching the Soviet Union's War and Peace. Mew.

The burning of Rome scenes are possibly the most epic set piece, although let down somewhat by some dodgy back projection, or perhaps an early attempt at CSO, for scenes trying to convince us that the main characters are in amongst it. Only Barry Letts would have been impressed by that.

Me and my friends enjoyed the climactic scenes with lions in them, noming some of the Christians, and then our heroes are faced with a mad bull (giving them a bit more of a sporting chance than against the lions). I was also impressed by the continual ingenuity in the direction, never showing anything more than a hint of gore in these scenes while, at the same time, conveying the horror of the arena through reaction shots and sound effects, in accordance with the standards of the times.

A Prisoner for All Seasons

The second and final season of the BBC's Wolf Hall was the best thing I saw on television last year - yes, even better than the new Gladiators - and it reminded me that the novel Wolf Hall (the first book of the trilogy that the TV series was based upon) was written as a counterpoint to the play A Manny for All Seasons.

The play and the novel cover the same events, which lead up to the execution of Thomas More (all the books in the Wolf Hall trilogy end upon an execution). Where they differ is in the perspective - the play is written from More's point of view; it very much takes his side, and his main opponent Thomas Cromwell is the play's antagonist. Wolf Hall reverses this, and while it is not written as though Cromwell is speaking to the reader in the first person, it does everything short of this to show us events entirely from his point of view - this explains why, in the TV adaptation, Mark Rylance appears in virtually every scene.

In 1966 the play A Manny for All Seasons was turned into a film starring Phillip Paul Scofield as Thomas More and Robert "red wine with fish" Shaw as king Henry viii, and it featured Orson "Unicron" Welles as Cardinal Wolsey in a couple of scenes, and was a very early role for John "Caligula" Hurt as Richard Rich.

But the actor who most interests me in this is Leo McKern as Thomas Cromwell, particularly given that a certain TV series was also in production in 1966, although it would not be broadcast until the following year - by which time the film would have become immensely successful in both the UK and USA, winning six Oscars* at the awards in early 1967.

Now I'm not suggesting that McKern was cast as a Number Two on the basis of his portrayal of Cromwell in the film, since he would presumably have already been cast and may even have filmed some or even all of his scenes for The Chimes of Big Ben by the time of the film's release. However he had previosuly played the same part in the play, as early as 1961, so the makers of The Prisoner could easily have seen his interpretation of Cromwell on stage.

The Thomas Cromwell of A Manny for All Seasons is not at all like the Thomas Cromwell of Wolf Hall. As the antagonist we are not privy to his private moments and motivations, and we view him only through his interactions with Thomas More. Scenes in which we see Cromwell without More are scenes in which he plots against More with other characters, such as Richard Rich or the Duke of Norfolk.

McKern plays Cromwell as cloaking his deviousness behind a facade of friendliness and superficial joviality, right up until the moment comes to strike at his opponent. I don't think it is a coincidence that McKern's Number Two possessed these traits as well - particularly in his first appearance, but there are moments of it in Once Upon A Time and Fall Out as well (though in the latter his opponent is not Number Six). One could even detect shades of his lawyerly manner from the trial scenes in the way McKern would later play Rumpole - at least in the early years before he became cuddly Rumpole, when the character was still ruthless in his cross-examinations.

From the casting of McKern as the most memorable of the Number Twos and the parallel we can draw between how he played him and how he played Cromwell, we can perhaps infer that Patrick McGoohan saw something of Thomas More in Number Six. Both mannys firm for what they believed in, and stood alone, against the pressure from authority to confirm. And both expressed their defiance by keeping silent: More by refusing to take an oath of loyalty to Henry viii; the Prisoner by refusing to explain why he resigned.

* I know that Oscar success is not a guarantee of quality - for instance, Braveheart won five Oscars in 1996, including Best Picture, and is shit - but it does indicate a certain level of popularity and cultural penetration at a moment in time.

Five More Ridiculous or Ridiculously Awesome moments from Mahabharat (1988)

1. Drona makes Eklavya cut off his own thumb [Episode 23]

We rejoin the story as Sage Drona is teaching the young Pandavas (the five sons of the late King Pandu) and Kauravas (the 100 sons of King Dhritirashtra, not that we ever see anything like all 100 of them) the art of war.

Drona favours Arjun, the third son of Pandu, and swears to make him the greatest archer in the world. Almost immediately this turns out to be yet another unwise oath, for they meet the young manny Eklavya who claims to have learned from Drona without Drona's knowing about it. And Eklavya's skill at archery is, if anything, even more impressive than Arjun's.

To avoid an oathbreaking - even an unintentional one - Drona insists that he be paid for having taught Eklavya, which Eklavya agrees to before knowing what the price will be. Drona asks for Eklavya's thumb, which he uses in archery, and so will forever prevent him from competing with Arjun, as well as interfering with his ability to open doors for cats.

2. Krishna forgives 100 insults [Episodes 27-28 and 41-43]

The marriage of Prince Shishupal of Chedi and Princess Rukmini of Vidarbha was arranged by their fathers as part of their political alliance, overriding what should have been Rukmini's right to choose her husband. So before the formal betrothal took place, Rukmini arranged for her true love Krishna to "kidnap" (rescue) her.

13 episodes later, Shishupal returns and we learn his backstory - that he was born with four arms and three eyes until the extra arms and eyes over and above the amount mannys normally have disappeared the first time Krishna touched him, signifying that Krishna would be the one to cause his death. Knowing of this prophecy, Krishna promised Shishupal's mother that he would forgive Shishupal 100 crimes.

Many years later, they met again at the court of the newly crowned Emperor Yudhishthir, the eldest of the Pandavas. When Yudhishthir and his brothers offered their first respect to Krishna, Shishupal interrupted them and denounced Krishna as unworthy. He then let loose a stream of invective against Krishna, and over the objections of the Pandavas and Krishna's own brother Balram, Krishna just stood there, smiling. When Shishupal widened the targets of his insults to include Bhishma and everyone else there present who respected Krishna, Krishna calmed them and insisted that they were not the targets, only he himself was being insulted. Balram asked him why he was smiling, to which Krishna replied

Warning Shishupal that he had only three insults left, Shishupal kept going. After the 100th insult Krishna again tried to warn him, saying that the limit had been reached. Then, after the 101st insult, Krishna summoned his divine weapon and, without another word, in front of the whole court, cut off Shishupal's head. Shishupal had just enough time to realise he'd made a big mistaik and make an "oh noes!" face, but too late to do anything about it.

3. Arjun wins a wife [Episodes 34-35]

The contest arranged by her father to win Princess Draupadi's paw in marriage involves lifting a sacred bow and then using it to shoot a revolving fish's eye that you can only see from its reflection in a pool - and that assuming a cat hasn't nomed the fish first! Most of the princes who enter the competition can't even lift the bow - leading to a lot of komedy gurning as they act it being too difficult for them - never mind do the rest of it. After evil Duryodhan and various other minor baddys have had their turn and blown it, it is Arjun who finally succeeds - not really very surprising, since this was a contest designed so that only Arjun could win it.

What is more surprising is what happens when Arjun takes Draupadi to meet his mother and tells her what has happened. He and Bhim decide to tell Kunti that they have "brought back alms" for the lols.

Without looking, Kunti says "share it amongst yourselves." While she is horrified at the implication when she realises what this would mean (because the hypocrisy of their society permits husbands to marry multiple wives, but not normally the reverse), for some reason Kunti is unable to take back her words. It takes Krishna to turn up and explain that this was karmically preordained by the actions of Draupadi in her previous life. As he puts it:

"She asked for a husband who was an epitome of truth, had the strength of Hanuman, who was an ace archer, exceptionally beautiful and very patient. Did you not ask for all this? Did not Lord Shiva say one person cannot have all these qualities. Before asking you should have thought about whether your request was reasonable. You asked for a boon and the Lord has granted it. Yudhishthir is the epitome of truth. That's the first boon. None is stronger than Bhim. That's the second boon. Arjun is today's ace archer. That's the third boon. Nakul is the most handsome man alive. The fourth boon. Sahadev is the most patient. The fifth boon."

4. Bhim duels evil king Jarasandh to the deaths [Episodes 41-42]

Evil king Jarasandh wants to sacrifice 100 kings to the god Shiva to obtain immortality, and has so far captured 86 kings. In order to stop this, Krishna challenges Jarasandh to choose one of him, Arjun or Bhim to duel to the death, and Jarasandh picks Bhim thinking he would be the only one capable of posing him any kind of challenge.

Only when Bhim defeats him does he discover that Jarasandh already has a form of immortality, since when Bhim kills him - by ripping him in two - the two halves rejoin, and Jarasandh comes back to life and does an evil lol.

When the duel resumes Bhim tears Jarasandh in half again, and the same thing happens. Then Krishna shows Bhim the solution, so that when he rips Jarasandh in half for the third time, he throws the two parts in opposite directions (the right half to the left and the left half to the right), and this is enough to confuse the magic and prevent his reforming once more.

5. Yuddhishthir gambles everything away [Episodes 46-49]

This turning point in the story is so central to the narrative that it occupies four whole episodes at the midpoint of the series. Duryodhan, by now heir to the throne of Hastinapur, challenges his cousin Emperor Yudhishthir to play "the game of dice" (which may or may not have been Chaupar or Pachisi, both ancient variations of the same game, the ancestors of present-day Ludo), although it is his evil uncle Shakuni who rolls the loaded dice on Duryodhan's behalf, ensuring that they always win.

Oblivious to Shakuni's cheating and convinced his bad luck must change at some time, Yudhishthir gambles away his fortune, his lands, all his possessions, and eventually his brothers, himself, and their wife Draupadi, who are all to become slaves to the Kauravas. Duryodhan's victory seems complete, but then he makes a mistaik when he tries to humiliate his defeated enemies still further.

Draupadi is dragged in by her hair to meet her new owners, and then Duryodhan orders his brother Dushasan to strip Draupadi in front of her husbands and the entire court of Hastinapur. Dushasan cannot do it because, though he tries, Krishna appears at Draupadi's prayer and he intercedes by making her gown endlessly long, so Dushasan can never reach the end of it. Long dress is long!

Realising the outrage that has only been averted by a divine miracle, the Hastinapur elders come to their senses and King Dhritirashtra tries to make amends by returning to them all that the Pandavas have lost. But there is no going back to the way things were before the game - the Pandavas could forgive all of Shakuni's earlier plots, which were merely attempts to kill one or more of them, but  they cannot forgive the humiliation of Draupadi. Oaths of vengeance are sworn by Bhim that will hang over him until the end of the story.

Even after all that has happened the game is not over yet. You would think that Yudhisthir would have learned his lesson by now, but no... gambling is his one weakness, and Duryodhan inists they play once more, though for different stakes. Obviously Yudhisthir loses yet again, and this sets them on course for the next stage of the story: the Pandavas must spend 13 years in exile...

Happy new year 2025

Here is the winner of the 2024 Calendar Doggy of the Year competition to wish you all a happy new year for 2025.

And a happy new year to you from all of us cats and doggys at home. Here is my new friend Kitkat joining in too.

Big Gay Longcat reviews He-Man and She-Ra: A Christmas Special

Christmas is the most commercialised of all the manny holy days, and has been since long before we cats were made from socks. When this started being the case is unknown, but the blame is often placed on the USA in the 1980s, back in the time when President Reagan was president.

Let's look at one of the all time classic TV Christmas Specials to see this coming to pass in real time, as the materialistic and spiritual sides of Christmas fight for screentime in 1985's He-Man and She-Ra: A Christmas Special.

It starts with a pre-titles sequence in which Adam and Adora are about to celebrate their birthday, conveniently timed at Christmas (which I think is getting the messianic metaphor in a bit too early and blatantly). All of She-Ra's friends have come with her to visit her parents, and luckily they are the king and queen so that means their house is big enough.

The decorations they are putting up are suspiciously Christmas-like, and the queen remarks on how they remind her of Christmas.

"Christmas? What's that, an Earth holiday?"

asks the king, implying that even though they have been married long enough to have adult children, either she has never mentioned Christmas before now or he has never asked her what she means by it before.

The queen knows about Christmas because she is a manny who originally came from Earth. This means that, just like Jesus (and Spock, and the eighth Doctor Who), He-Man and She-Ra are half-manny on their mother's side. Although their origin story is otherwise more akin to Krishna's than that of Jesus, what with all the fighting monsters and possessing of magic weapons.

International espionage doesn't take a break for the holidays, and Man-At-Arms is still W-wording on building a spaceship with which to spy on Skeletor. But who spies on the spies?

Why, it is the handsome, charming and cat-like Orko, who investigates the "Sky Spy" and accidentally launches it while he is still inside, lol. It flies straight into the title sequence.

After the titles, Skeletor and his henchmannys see the Sky Spy and chase after it in their own spaceship. Spying on the Sky Spy from back in their own base, Prince Adam and Man-At-Arms see this happening, so Adam says

"Then He-Man's going after Skeletor. BY THE POWER OF GREYSKULL!"

This leads into the first of the transformation sequences we see in this episode, and it may be 40 years old but it is still as cool as all fuck.

He-Man flies on some kind of rocket cycle and then uses his magic sword to chop the grabby claws off of Skeletor's ship.

"There we are: claws to paws."

he quips. The ship then manifests some grabby rope belt thingys which overwhelm and capture He-Man, for a few seconds until She-Ra flies in (on her magic flying unicorn Swift Wind, he of the deep, forty-cigarettes-a-day voice which ill-becomes such a majestic animal) and rescues him, because this is an equal opportunities Christmas special.

To show that his organisation only partially tolerates failure, Skeletor gives his henchmannys a single parachute between them and then ejects them from his ship, lol.

The Sky Spy flies away across space, and soon He-Man and She-Ra have to give up their pursuit of it. It flies all the way to Earth and deposits Orko in a snowy, mountainous location. He rescues two small mannys from an avalanche (although not explicitly stated on-screen, this was almost certainly caused by the Sky Spy's crash landing) and befriends them. They seem unfazed to have been rescued by an alien with magic powers, perhaps because this sort of thing was a fairly common occurrence in the 1980s.

They explain to Orko about Christmas, starting with the most materialistic part:

"When you get lots of presents!"

Again, it was the 1980s. These are the children of Ronald Reagan. Metaphorically, I hope. Mew.

"But it's also a time when everybody thinks about peace and goodwill toward men."

They decide to tell Orko about the birth of Jesus, although to save time they will do almost all of this off-screen between scenes. Orko also finds out the mannys' names off-screen, which may very well save on vital seconds of screen time but it does also make the story more confusing for the viewers.

Back on Eternia, the others deduce that Orko must have been on board the Sky Spy. They trace the ship to Earth, but the only way they can get Orko back from that distance away is to teleport him using the Liberator Man-At-Arms's teleporter. But he says "it needs a carium water crystal" (I think that's how it's spelled, although it could just as easily be spelt 'MacGuffin') to power it over interstellar range. Adora thinks these may be found on Etheria, so it is a job for She-Ra to go and look for one.

The She-Ra transformation sequence has always lived in the shadow of He-Man's iconic original version, but it makes up for this by the accompanying music being, if anything, even better than the famous He-Man theme.

Mermista, one of She-Ra's friends, tells her where to look for the crystal, but warns that it is "guarded by the Beast-Monster" (which as a name sounds like the beast/monster equivalent of 'He-Man'). She-Ra flies there and says

"Doesn't look as though anyone's home."

Immediately after she says this, a beast/monster rises up out of the wet and rars at her. She-Ra and Swift Wind distract the Beast-Monster while Mermista looks for the crystal they need. This takes less than a minute, because action sequences are tricky to animate and this isn't even the main plot.

Just as She-Ra and Swift Wind are about to leave with the crystal, a giant robot rises out of the ground, and this is soon followed by the arrival of two more.

Swift Wind tries to fly away, but they get pewpewpewed and captured in a bubble. The robots then transform

into a rocket, a tank, and a hovering robot that doesn't really look much different. Swift Wind says

"They're changing into other forms! What evil robots!"

Is this some kind of not-very-subtle dig at The Transfomers? Did the two franchises have a vendetta with each other or something?

She-Ra knows they are called "the Monstroids" which is a great name and sounds like something Terry Nation would have come up with. She-Ra escapes from the bubble using her magic sword and they take the crystal back for Man-At-Arms's teleporter.

The Sky Spy and Orko get teleported to Eternia, but the children get teleported there as well. Wasn't an accidental teleporter kidnapping a major plot point in The Care Bears Movie too? Oh well, if you're going to steal, steal from the best...

We finally get told that the children are named Kim and Jason Alisha and Miguel.

On his evil asteroid in space, Evil Horde Prime says

"There is a great disturbance in the force a new spirit of goodness has arrived on Eternia. The power of Horde Prime may be threatened."

He orders Skeletor and Hordak to team up and "crush" the spirit of Christmas, but they immediately start arguing.

Hordak: "Have no fear, great master, I will eliminate this... this Christmas spirit before another day is past."

Skeletor: "You? You can't even handle that muscle-bound female She-Ra!"

Hordak: "Just a minute, what about the way He-Man handles you, Bone Brain!"

Skeletor: "Bone Brain? Why you miserable excuse for a villain..."

LOL! These two trying to team up is as much fun to watch as when the different Doctors get together.

As we approach the halfway point of the episode, the main plot is finally in danger of getting started. Unfortunately here comes She-Ra's friends Perfuma and Bow to waste our time with an appallingly twee musical number.

This is mercifully cut short when Hordak attacks, and captures Alisha, Miguel and Orko - presumably Orko now knows too much about Christmas to be allowed to go free? There is a brief appearance by one of the best She-Ra characters, Catra, piloting Hordak's spaceship.

The Monstroids reappear and attack Hordak's ship, forcing it to land. The Monstroid leader (we don't yet know his name but it's probably something like Megaton or Magatron) demands the prisoners be pawed over to them, and Hordak and his henchmannys run away - their legs going like in Scooby-Doo to make this into a komedy moment.

The Monstroids call their leader "Number One" which is an unexpected Christmas crossover with James Bond. Either that or they're now having a go at the GoBots.

She-Ra's friend Peekablue uses her psychic power to see what the next part of the plot will be, and tells She-Ra and He-Man where to find Orko and the mannys, as well as warning them about the Monstroids.

Orko, Alisha and Miguel are in a stereotypical prison cell, with bars on the windows and everything, when they are rescued by "Cutter" of "the Manchines." He cuts through the bards of the cell, saying

"They don't call me Cutter for nothing."

Another Manchine called "Zipper" helps them escape until they get surrounded by all the Monstroids.

"You're pretty good at giving orders, Metal Mouth, now let's see how good you are at taking them - move away from my friends!"

He-Man and She-Ra come to rescue in the nick of time, and defeat the Monstroids one by one, accompanying each with a Bond-like quip. I expect they know this is the best way to annoy Number One. The Manchines do their best to help, but given how quickly He-Man and She-Ra were going through their Monstroid opponents, I don't think they needed it.

Meanwhile Orko, Alisha and Miguel meet "a Manchine puppy" who is there to be cute. Skeletor flies in on a rocket cycle and captures Alisha and Miguel (and the puppy, who is called Relay) while shouting

"Ha! Got you at last, you troublesome tots!"

He flies off leaving Orko behind to tell He-Man and She-Ra, but by then Skeletor has enough of a head start to get away from them. Though not from Hordak.

Skeletor: "Now nothing can stop me from delivering them to Horde Prime."

Hordak: "Don't be so sure, Bonehead."

The two baddys pewpewpew each other. Hordak has to break off his pursuit, but Skeletor's rocket cycle crashes (after flying blind for a little while). Skeletor tries to make the mannys travel on foot, but they are too cold.

Miguel: "Please, mister, be nice. It's Christmas time."

Skeletor: "Christmas time? What's that?"

Miguel: "It's a season of love, and joy."

Alisha: "And caring."

Skeletor: "Is that what Christmas is? No wonder Horde Prime wants to get rid of it."

Despite claiming to be unimpressed, even disgusted, by the concept of Christmas, Skeletor does magic up some extra warm coats for the two mannys so that they can survive in the cold.

Miguel: "Thank you Mr Skeletor, you are very kind."

Skeletor: "Kind? Never use that word around me!"

At first Skeletor wants to leave the puppy behind, but eventually he relents and goes back for it, saying

"Oh blast it! I don't know what's coming over me... but whatever it is I don't like it!"

LOL, he's getting Christmassed.

Alisha: "It was nice of you to save Relay, Mr Skeletor."

Skeletor: "I am not nice!"

In case it isn't obvious enough by now, these scenes are tremendous fun and are easily the best bit of the whole episode. Miguel and Alisha start telling "Mr Skeletor" about Christmas.

Miguel: "Well, it's a wonderful time of the year. Everyone has lots of fun."

Skeletor: "You mean they get in fights?"

Miguel: "No, no! They have fun!"

Skeletor: "Fights are fun! I like fights!"

Miguel: "And you give each other presents..."

Skeletor: "And when you open them they explode, right?"

As happy as we cats would be for this scene to continue, it is interrupted by "a Snow Beast" which has decided to attack them. Skeletor protects the mannys and uses his magic to defeat the beast, which slides away on the ice (and is presumably unharmed). Skeletor, who hasn't He-Man's mastery of the universe post-battle quip, says

"So much for the Snow Beast."

We're building up to the big climax, as He-Man and She-Ra and Hordak and his disposable robo-henchmannys all catch up with Skeletor and his friends prisoners. Skeletor and Hordak pew at each other for a bit, until Horde Prime himself arrives in a giant spaceship to try to capture the mannys personally. He-Man and She-Ra are kept busy fighting the seemingly endless horde (hence the name) of robots, so it is up to Mr Skeletor to save the mannys from Horde Prime, which he does by pewing the spaceship with a single pew that both destroys its grabby claw thingy and then makes it crash. Must have knocked out the main rivet or something, mew.

Even He-Man is surprised that Skeletor saved the mannys, but concludes

"I think you're feeling the Christmas spirit, Skeletor. It makes you feel... good."

"Well I don't like to feel good. I like to feel... evil."

LOL.

This Christmas truce brings the main plot to an end, and all that is left is the epilogue where we see the birthday party that was being prepared for back at the beginning. Alisha and Miguel are teleported home to parents who, despite claiming they "were so worried," don't seem to require any explanation for how their missing children suddenly turned up in the house.

In a final scene with Prince Adam and Orko, Adam gives a hasty disclaimer that "not everyone celebrates Christmas" before asserting Christian supremacy with "but the spirit of the Christmas season is within us all."

Orko gets the last word when he trumps the prince's Christmas message by reminding us that, in addition to "peace and caring and happiness," above all else Christmas is a time for

"Presents."

As a joint He-Man and She-Ra special, the episode takes a different approach to how it divides its time between the two series, with She-Ra meeting as many of her friends as possible, albeit each one appearing only for a very brief time, scarcely more than a cameo. He-Man, on the other paw, only spends time with a couple of his friends - Man-At-Arms and Orko - but they are more heavily involved in the plot, at the expense of his other friends not getting a look in. Even Teela barely appears.

This results in the single worst thing about this otherwise fun adventure - the non-appearance of the best He-Man character, Cringer (a.k.a. Battle Cat). Cringer is even missing from his usual place in He-Man's transformation sequence, so thoroughly is he excluded. No cat worth his rainbow stripes would forgive them for this, Christmas spirit or no Christmas spirit.