Terry Nation isn't just the creator of Blakes 7 and the Daleks, he is also a great writer of telefantasy detective episodes such as The Avengers, The Persuaders! and, in this case, Department S.
The Manny in the Elegant Room sees Jason King (the real one this time), Stewart Sullivan and Annabelle Hurst investigating a mysterious, fourth wall-breaking room. Of course we all know how good Terry Nation is at writing mysteries, and this one doesn't even have the same solution as Mission to Destiny does!
The main guest star of the week is Stratford Johns, who was in an episode of I Claudius. Unusually for Department S he doesn't turn out to be the main baddy, but his character does die in a manner remarkably similar to that of Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso - killed by his wife.
As though being written by Terry Nation and having Peter Wyngarde and Stratford Johns and Joel Fabiani (purr) weren't reason enough to give this 5 out of 5, the final scene where the set is disassembled around the three main cast members is outstanding and warrants it all by itself.
The Comic Strip Presents is a TV series that has been running, irregularly, since 1982. Arguably its finest episode to date is Detectives on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown from 1993 (with close competition from 1990's GLC).
SPOILER warning
The plot sees several TV detectives from the 1970s brought back out of retirement to solve a case in the 1990s - somebody has been killing off the '90s TV detectives, but in a '70s style.
The main characters are all (affectionate) parodies of real '70s TV detectives, plus one (not so affectionate) '90s detective:
Jason Bentley, played by Peter Richardson, a take on Jason King
Shouting George, played by Jim Broadbent, a parody of Jack Regan from The Sweeney
The Bullshitters Bonehead and Foyle (Keith Allen and Peter Richardson (again)) are versions of The Professionals Bodie and Doyle returning from an earlier Comic Strip story, The Bullshitters
Dave Spanker, played by Phil Cornwell, is a send-up of Jimmy Nail's Spender
Unwillingly forced to work together to prevent the demise of TV detectives as a genre, since all the actors are too scared to play them any more for fear of the killer, they each have a go at solving the murder in their different idioms before the killer is finally unmasked and the Bullshitters finally get to have the car chase they were so desperate for.
A lot of the comedy comes from the blurring between the actors and their characters, as TV detectives hunt the killer of actors who play TV detectives. It gets pretty meta and the fourth wall takes a beating, even before we get to the song-and-dance numbers.
There's also plenty of laughs from the wordplay, and the interactions of the different detectives and their clashing styles: Spanker doesn't like George's shouting or the Bullshitters' obsession with guns; the Bullshitters think Jason's approach of going around country houses looking for a mad old colonel to arrest is "f'ing mad"; and nobody likes Spanker's '90s-style methods of detecting.
If there is one major criticism to be levelled at Detectives on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown, it is that it isn't long enough. This causes structural problems with the plotting, namely that Spanker is revealed to be the killer with time to neither properly foreshadow this twist nor establish any alternative suspects. With five main characters, this could have easily supported a longer run time.
Also, the jokes about the central locking of cars (still a novelty in the early '90s) have dated badly.
But these don't really detract from a very funny half-hour, made by a team on the top of their game.
Gamma Longcat rates this TV programme at 5 out of 5.
The Project Strigas Affair is supposed to be an episode from the first season of The Man From UNCLE TV series from 1964. But in it Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin do a Mission: Impossible plot and the guest stars they meet are played by Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner! So I can't tell what programme I have just been watching and am a confused cat.
Throughout the whole story THE SHAT seems determined to steal the entire episode. At the end, just before the credits roll, he even manages to out-sleaze Napoleon Solo - a seemingly impossible task even for Captain Kirk considering that Napoleon Solo is a sleazier manny than James Bond - and a star is born!
Tidyup woke up one fine Saturday morning. He had no idea what fate had in store for him, as several of his friends had decided to pay a visit.
"Muuuuuh!" he said
"Let's go and visit Tidyup today. You can drive," said Eat Your Greens to Comb Your Hair
"Alright then, but only if you phone The Big Bad I Said No! and have an argument with him," said Comb Your Hair to Eat Your Greens
"Right then, Eat Your Greens, we're coming down there too!" shouted The Big Bad I Said No!
"Let's see if Sleepy Old Go To Bed wants to come with us, seeing as we have no idea where Tidyup lives," said Stoppit, but it sounded like "Ee ee ee ee ee eeee."
"I have no idea where Tidyup lives either, but that's no reason not to go," said Sleepy Old Go To Bed, adding "Stoppit can use his mobile to get directions, if we get lost."
Which, of course, they did
But they got there in the end
Everyone got drunk and lived happily ever after
Except Stoppit who suffered greatly from bogvom, and later sinkvom
Sleepy Old Go To Bed and Eat Your Greens talked bollocks in the kitchen for hours, and Sleepy Old Go To Bed and Stoppit felt not-at-all-well the next day
The Last Jedi! is one of the very best Star Wars comics, with memorable characters and an exciting, intricate plot. The plot succeeds where The Third Law failed by fitting seamlessly into the Star Wars setting, even enhancing it in a way that very few other comic stories could.
It begins simply enough, with Luke, Princess Leia, C3PO and R2D2 on a mission to rescue "Prince Denid of Velmor" who has crashed his spaceship on a planet, and they hope they can make friends with him.
They meet him and Princess Leia is immediately smitten with him, as shown quickly in two small panels and a line of dialogue. Princess Leia has a happy face as she says:
...We've come a long way to find you -- and it was worth the trip!
To which Luke adds:
Humph!
However, the really interesting character they meet is Prince Denid's friend Jedidiah.
Jedidiah is dressed like a Jedi and has a stick instead of a laser blade, so Luke at first thinks he is "a JEDI KNIGHT?!" but then Denid explains Jedidiah's - or "Jedi" for short - tragic backstory where he turned down the chance to become a Jedi so he could save Denid, but "his injuries robbed him of his reason" and he began acting like he thought a Jedi should act.
Jedidiah has a unique look, and his madness is effectively conveyed by the wobbly speech bubbles and uneven text. It is easy to feel sorry for Jedidiah, but Luke takes against him and a caption reveals his thoughts and feelings on the matter.
The thing is a walking parody of Luke Skywalker's highest, most revered goal... and it makes his blood boil!
Later on, he says to C3PO:
Keep this crazy old guy away from me, will you, Threepio? I'm gonna have enough trouble without baby-sitting him!
Considering that Luke is one of the main characters and the hero of Star Wars, it is a strange and bold move that we the readers are not supposed to side with him when he thinks and says these things. He is being presented as definitely being in the wrong here.
They fly to the planet Velmor, and are just in time to interrupt the coronation of Denid's usurping brother Prince Anod.
Luke and Princess Leia are in disguise, which for her means a "gold" wig and for him a wig, a hat, an eyepatch and a moustache - Luke taking no chances that somebody from the Empire might recognise him.
Luke takes the fake name "The Bounty Hunter Korl Marcus" while Princess Leia pretends to be Denid's betrothed Loren. The real Loren is dead and does not appear in the story, but this is an excuse for Denid to spend time with Princess Leia.
The baddys of the story are introduced as Regent Zelor and his friend from the Empire, Captain Traal. So that Jedidiah does not have a monopoly on unusual speech balloons, Captain Traal's bubble drips with icicles when she says "Delighted" upon being introduced to Denid.
After Denid is confirmed to be the prince he says he is, Captain Traal wastes no time in trying to seduce Luke to her side.
I want you...
Huh?
... to kill Prince Denid and his little queen at the ceremonial games tomorrow!
They kiff and Luke pretends to go along with it. Of course as soon as he leaves it is revealed that the baddys plot to kill him too, and then Zelor goes off to plot against Traal and Anod as well. Luke goes to tell Princess Leia about the baddy's sceheme - the part he knows about at least - but he finds she is with Denid and they are also having kiffs!
I love you Leia! Marry me, and rule with me, as my queen!
Denid, I...
Hush, my love... ...Don't say another word!
Luke only gets to speak to Leia the next day, and he is sarcastic and abrupt to her even when warning about a plot to kill her.
But Luke, if you knew about this last night, why didn't you--
Because you were too busy playing spin-the-bottle with Denid, that's why! May I be the first to congratulate you?
Meanwhile, in a sub-plot that seems to have diverged completely from the main plotline, C3PO is still looking after poor Jedidiah, but cannot find a droid to repair his brain.
The storylines begin to converge as it heads for the conclusion, when Luke double-crosses Captain Traal and then they are both double-crossed by Zelor and Anod. Luke gives himself away when he calls Princess Leia "Leia" (she's still in disguise, after all) and uses his "light-saber" (as Jedidiah called the Jedi laser blade earlier on, and Captain Traal calls it now when she recognises it).
Anod shoots Princess Leia and Denid, and Luke runs away as Traal, Anod and Zelor betray and shoot at each other, and Anod is the first to go
Luke is hunted by the other two, and thinks to himself that he is in trouble.
Both Traal and Zelor know the terrain-- "I don't. "They both have blasters-- "I don't." But I have something going for me they don't... ... The best ally in the universe... "... The Force!"
A great picture representing Luke reaching out with the Force. The moment he does so Jedidiah, miles away with C3PO and R2D2, looks up and reacts, and his speech becomes lucid and normal and he leaps into action:
What? The young one -- he is in danger! I must help him!
Luke uses a clever trick to defeat Zelor, but then he is about to be shot by Captain Traal. Jedidiah races up and saves him...
... but Jedidiah is shot instead.
There is a burst from Traal's blaster, then, in a twinkling, it is over... ... and silence reigns...
Zelor and Traal have one more go each at Luke, but he defeats them both. Princess Leia and Denid wake up and meet Luke, who is grieving over the body of Jedidiah, his opinion completely turned around. Luke makes a speech:
... Somehow, this valiant old man found the strength and the wits to save my life... but lost his...
... He did that for me... though I scorned him and derided him in my heart! He lost his life, and I lost him!
After that it is all over bar the wrapping up of the Princess Leia/Prince Denid romance sub-plot, which ends as it inevitably must with Princess Leia turning Denid down to go on being a main character while Denid will not be in it again. Ever the diplomat, Princess Leia says
I'm honored, Denid... more than I can say... but my place is with the rebellion!
In the final panels Luke sends Jedidiah's body into space in a "rocket-powered coffin" as he salutes him as "the last Jedi".
What truly sets The Last Jedi! head and shoulders above other Star Wars stories is the emotional impact of Jedidiah's sacrifice. Although he has only a pawful of lines of dialogue, his distinctive appearance and unique form of speech make him stand out immediately, and his tragic backstory is conveyed quickly and simply for an instant effect.
And not just on the reader - by having the opposite effect on Luke Skywalker, the hero, than on the reader, he becomes even more sympathetic. Cleverly, Luke returns to being the hero again at the moment he recognises Jedidiah's true worth and seeks to atone for wronging him.
This story also achieves the rare accomplishment of having Jedidiah both being a Jedi and not being a Jedi. Jedi by name and nature, but not by training or title. The Star Wars setting had already set in stone that there could be no 'real' Jedi Knights beyond the characters we had already met, but Jedidiah was a clever way of working around that restriction. It is a trick that could really only ever work once, but it certainly works here.
The Third Law is a clever and tightly-written story full of political intrigue, scheming, plotting and counter-plotting, and really the only thing wrong with it is that it does not feel like a Star Wars story at all.
Princess Leia, C3PO and R2D2 are on a mission for the Rebel Alliance to a planet that is nothing but a giant space bank. They want to get money to meet Paul Darrow buy more space ships, but Darth Vader is there too.
The exposition of the space bank's three laws is delivered by way of a huge sign with them written on it.
While a space bank is not intrinsically something that does not belong in Star Wars, the idea that Darth Vader is as subject to its laws as the rebels and so it acts as neutral territory where they cannot immediately fight definitely is something that does not fit in with anything established elsewhere in Star Wars.
Darth Vader has three aliens with him, each of whom has a superpower with which he plans to cheat the laws and kill Princess Leia's friend Viscount Tardi. The aliens are in disguise, but Princess Leia displays her cleverness by recognising them.
Most of the story is taken up with the three attempts to kill Viscount Tardi, each of which is foiled by Princess Leia with the help of C3PO and R2D2. These are enjoyable scenes, let down only by the foundation of the premise upon which they are built.
When all of his alien friends have been defeated, Darth Vader deals with Viscount Tardi personally using his laser blade.
At this point the story degenerates into an overly-convoluted mess of "I knew you were going to do that" and "I knew that you knew that I was going to do that" between Princess Leia and Darth Vader. Viscount Tardi was a droid all along, and R2D2 made a recording of Darth Vader using an illegal weapon so it looks like the goodys have won.
But then Darth Vader reveals that his plan was actually to steal the crown jewels of Alderaan that Princess Leia had with her and he knew about all along, so in the end he wins... and looks fabulous when he does so.
Because so many of the twists and turns of the story are only revealed to the reader at the moment they are necessary to create a surprise twist, it has the cumulative effect of making it seem that the writer is making it up as he goes along, and as a result it feels contrived and artificial.
Princess Leia is the obvious choice of main character for the story, but it does not ring true that she could come up against Darth Vader so soon after the events of The Empire Strikes Back without reacting to them, mentioning them or being affected in any way. In fact, as I said at the start, none of the events feel like they fit in with the rest of the Star Wars universe, making this a below-average and easily missable comic.
This would have made more sense as a Blakes 7 story, with Avon, Tarrant and Vila in place of Princess Leia, R2D2 and C3PO, and Servalan instead of Darth Vader. It would even work the other way around, with Servalan as Princess Leia and Avon as Darth Vader.
