What would it have looked like if Patrick Troughton had played Jason King?

Like this, I suppose.

Jason King: The Stones of Venice

Jason King was the spinoff from Department S that ran from 1971-72, keeping only Peter "Klytus (I'm bored)" Wyngarde's flamboyant Jason King as the main character. The telefantasy TV detective genre was well-established by the early '70s, so Jason King attempted to stand out from the crowd by playing around with and subverting all the by now familiar formulas. This was most obviously accomplished by having the character of Jason King, a writer of James Bondesque spy novels, continually comment on the events of the stories he himself was taking part in as though he himself had written them.

While other episodes of the series would take this even further (most obviously Wanna Buy A Television Series? in which the main plot takes place within a framing device of Jason King trying to sell the idea of a TV series to a producer, and includes several instances of scenes being shown twice and changed when the producer insists to Jason they be made more exciting), one of the most enjoyable instances of this playing with the format is found in The Stones of Venice.

This episode is set, as you might guess from the title, in Venice, so it includes a load of stock footage to try and convince us it is really taking place there (and not in a TV studio somewhere in the UK), plus one scene of a Wyngarde lookalike in some dark glasses who is actually on location in a place that could even be taken for St Mark's Square.

It begins in media res, showing us the end of the story before the beginning when we have no context to know what is going on. That in itself is not a major subversion of the format (though it isn't exactly common either), but this is only the start. The police then arrive to arrest Jason King, and the police captain is played by...

Roger Delgado!

This would have originally been broadcast on ITV in March 1972, around the same time as Delgado was also starring in The Sea Devils on BBC1. No stranger to playing telefantasy rentabaddys, here his role is a bit different - although Delgado's police captain arrests Jason King and tries to interrogate him, this becomes a framing device whereby King tells the episode's story to him in the form of extended flashbacks. This is also an excuse for much comedy where the captain is in the dark about events just as much as the audience is, putting him in the position of audience surrogate, and he reacts with increasingly exaggerated incredulity to the implausible occurrences that King unfolds.

The plot is therefore given an excuse to be even more outlandish than is typical even for this series, which frequently sent up the common tropes of telefantasy detective stories. Here it includes a sidekick for Jason King called "Toby" who is a champagne-drinking dog; identical twins who are both played by the same actress (including a poor quality split-screen effect for the one scene where they appear together), one of whom pervs on Jason King when he is changing his clothes (a complete reversal of the usual situation when Jason King is involved); and a a computer that can be trained to write novels in the style of Jason King by feeding in all his 'real' (that is, real within the confines of the TV show) novels, thus anticipating modern computer 'machine learning' (a.k.a. 'Artificial Intelligence') by about 50 years.

The combination of all these different elements makes for a completely ludicrous hour of television, but it is a lot of fun and Delgado is a great comic foil for Wyngarde, once again demonstrating what a versatile and underrated actor he really was.

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: The Time Warrior Part One

The Time Warrior is the first story of season 11 of Doctor Who, starring Jon Pertwee as the Doctor, Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, and it introduces Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith.

It starts with a new title sequence for a new era. No matter how many times I watch stories from season 11, I always associate this "time tunnel" sequence with Tom Baker's Doctor, because it was used for six of his seasons and for only one of Jon Pertwee's.

The story properly starts with Irongron (David "Spiker" Daker) and his sidekick Bloodaxe having noms. Bloodaxe looks out the window and sees a rather poor bit of SFX, but it's still enough to impress him because this far back in history they didn't have CGI, and probably not even CSO! He cries out

"The stars are falling!"

Irongron says it is "Irongron's star" and wants to capture it. He takes his henchmannys and rides out on location where they find a spaceship, out of which comes "a Sontaran officer" called Lynx, which is also a type of cat (the best kind of lynx) as well as a brand of deodorant (the worst kind of lynx). In terms of quality I'd place the Sontaran Lynx somewhere in between those two. He plants some tiny flags and says

"By virtue of my authority as an officer of the army space corps, I hereby claim this planet, its moons and its satellites, for the greater glory of the Sontaran Empire."

Aliens quite often want to take over the world in Doctor Who, but this is the first time we have seen one claim it as a fait accompli.

Lynx's spaceship is damaged and he does a deal with Irongron to give him "magic" weapons "that can strike a man dead from far away" in return for his help with repairing the ship. When it turns out that Irongron and his mannys are too primitive to have anything that would help him, Lynx turns to camera and says

"Then I must take them from those who have."

It cuts to the Doctor and the Brigadier, where the Brigadier is telling the Doctor that scientists and "ultra-secret equipment" have been going missing, so the Brigadier is going to keep all his remaining scientists in "one of the most top secret security establishments in the whole country."

The Doctor meets Professor Rubeish, who is already objecting to the Brigadier's plan. He introduces the Doctor to "Miss Lavinia Smith."

Doctor: "I read your paper on the teleological response of the virus. A most impressive piece of work."

Lavinia: "Thank you."

Doctor: "Particularly when I realise you must have written it when you were five years old."

Of course she is really Sarah Jane Smith, a journalist who has demonstrated a high level of competence by penetrating "one of the most top secret security establishments in the whole country" but then thrown it away by getting busted within about 30 seconds. The Doctor immediately recognises that she has potential as a new Companion when he says

"Well, you can make yourself useful - we need somebody around here to make the coffee."

Lol, the Doctor is being a komedy sexist in order to give Sarah the chance to demonstrate that she is a komedy feminist.

Back in the past, some time has passed. Lynx has set up a room with scientific equipment, and he has made guns for Irongron. Irongron has captured one of his enemies, Eric the squire of Sir Edward, and Lynx hypno-eyeses him so that he answers Irongron's questions. For all that they are helping each other, Irongron and Lynx don't get on. Lynx says

"Did I not need their aid..."

and Irongron mirrors this when he says

"Did I not need his help, I'd..."

The Doctor and Sarah also don't get on with each other. She asks him about the equipment he is setting up, and he replies with both the technical and the simple explanation for the benefit of us watching at home:

Doctor: "That's my alarm clock."

Sarah: "Oh Doctor, kindly don't be so patronising. Now what is it really?"

Doctor: "It's a rhondium sensor. It detects delta particles. At a preset spectrum density of fifteen ams, it oscillates this little cylinder there, which promotes a vacuum in there which wakes me up. Clear?"

Sarah: "Well, why do you want to be woken up when it detects delta particles?"

Sarah's followup question helps differentiate her from Jo Grant, or at least what Jo Grant was like all the way back in her first story. The Doctor's device starts making noises, and Professor Rubeish disappears.

The Doctor uses his device to show a superimposed image of Lynx (the Lynx Effect, lol. Also mew), but it fades away after UNIT soldiers take a shot at it. The Brigadier runs in and demands the Doctor tell him what's going on.

Doctor: "Well, I thought I saw a man in armour."

Brigadier: "A man in armour? You mean, old-fashioned armour? You mean a ghost?"

Doctor: "Oh, I very much doubt it."

The Brigadier should know better than to throw around words like "ghost" in front of the Doctor, or has he forgotten the strange case of Sir Reginald Styles? The Doctor does, eventually, give the Brigadier (and us) an explanation of sorts:

"Someone's operating a matter transmitter, and the really odd thing is there's a time transference too. It's being worked from several centuries ago - past and present mixed up. Very interesting, that."

The Doctor has "a fix" on the source and plans on going there in the TARDIS. While he is still talking to the Brigadier we see Sarah sneak into the TARDIS behind their backs. The Doctor then gets inside and the TARDIS dematerialises.

The Doctor arrives outside Irongron's castle, where he says to the TARDIS

"Well done, old girl. Absolutely on target... for once."

He walks out of shot and then Sarah comes out of the TARDIS too.

Hal the Archer (Jeremy "Boba Fett" Bulloch) is about to shoot Irongron and make this a very short story indeed, when Sarah interrupts him:

"Excuse me, could you tell me where the nearest telephone..."

Hal's shot misses and he runs away, chased by Irongron's mannys. One of them captures Sarah, which the Doctor sees and he thinks out loud to himself

"How the blazes did she get here?"

which is an odd line because this is one story where there is an obvious (albeit wrong) explanation for how a character could have travelled through time without using the TARDIS.

The Doctor follows the manny who captured Sarah back into the castle, and then he hides from Lynx as he comes out. The Doctor nods, obviously recognising a Sontaran. Then, for our benefit, Lynx removes his helmet to show off the costume for his hed.

Potato face!

How typical of writer Robert Holmes to subvert the norms and conventions of an episode one cliffhanger - there was no real need for Lynx to remove his helmet, we already knew he was an alien, and his face isn't even scary after all that.

Edward the Seventh

This historical drama series was not made, as you might expect, by the BBC, but by ATV (who also made Sapphire & Steel) for showing on the ITV channel. It was first broadcast in 1975, although the copyright notice at the end of each episode implies it was made in 1973, which puts it either side of the broadcast of the BBC's Fall of Eagles.

While superficially similar series, and certainly there is a great deal of overlap in terms of the time period covered and the characters who appear, Edward the Seventh is generally lighter on dramatic incidents than Fall of Eagles - there is certainly nothing so shocking as the events of Requiem for a Crown Prince to be found here.

Edward the Seventh's strengths are to be found in showing us the functioning of international diplomacy and soft power between countries where the royal families were all related to one another by blood, marriage, or both, and also the influence the senior royals had upon the British governments throughout that period, despite supposedly being "politically neutral." It would therefore be fair to describe this series as interesting rather than thrilling, and it gives the lie to the idea that series made for commercial television are inherently more sensationalist (or lowbrow) than those made for public broadcasters.

The main character is Albert Edward, known as "Bertie" while he is the Prince of Wales (for 10 out of the 13 episodes) and Edward vii once he becomes king, and the series runs from his birth through to his death. As an adult he is played by Timothy West, although the first four parts concentrate on his childhood, where the main character is Prince Albert (Robert Hardy, once again proving that he was the prince consort king of historical dramas). Albert is shown as being an absolute cunt to his young son, and when you're watching this I expect that, like me, you'll think that his early death in 1861 (or at the end of episode four) can't come soon enough.

Queen Victoria (Annette Crosbie, if you can believe it) then dominates the series until she finally kicks the bucket at the end of part 10, and the middle of the series is about how Bertie, the heir to the throne, spends his time while he is being kept away from any real power by his mother.

The acting here is as good as in any other historical drama series I have seen (well... maybe not quite I Claudius levels) and we see various prime ministers of the era being played by distinguished actors, including Andre "Quatermass" Morell as Lord Palmerston, John Gielgud as Disraeli, Michael "Gandalf" Hordern as Gladstone, and Richard "Slartibartfast" Vernon as Lord Salisbury.

Kaiser Wilhelm (Christopher "Skagra" Neame, fresh from Colditz), is both Bertie's nephew and the closest thing the series has to an antagonist, what with the shadow of the first world war looming ever closer. However it is a storyline whose climax we never reach because the series concludes with the death of King Edward in 1910. We must therefore look to Fall of Eagles to see how Wilhelm's story ends (the clue is in the name).

The two series thus complement each other very well, with this showing the British side of some of the same events that Fall of Eagles shows from points of view on the continent. Some characters overlap, but are played with significant differences - most notably the kaiser, who Neame plays as an aloof and overbearing autocrat, because in Edward the Seventh he is an outsider and so we see only his public persona as perceived by the British royals, while Barry Foster's Wilhelm showed us the private manny.

Other characters in both series include Tsar Nicholas, here played by Michael "Paul Foster" Billington (not long after he was in UFO) in a big beard, and the kaiser's parents Fritz (Michael "not Jayston" Byrne) and Vicky (Felicity Kendall), who have a more substantial role here due to Vicky being Bertie's eldest sister.

The best episode of Edward the Seventh is part nine, Scandal, in which two scandals befall Bertie one after the other, neither of which are really his fault except through his poor choice of friends. The first concerns Colonel Gordon-Cumming (Donald "Major Grenlee in Rumours of Death" Douglas), caught cheating at cards while a guest of Bertie's (I guess some days really are better than others, mew), and then the second is Blake himself, Gareth Thomas as Lord Beresford, Bertie's former friend who threatens to beat him up, despite his status as heir apparent, for saying Avon is the best character siding against him in his own marital scandal.

(Also seen here is Peter "Saruman" Howell as Bertie's private secretary Francis Knollys.)

This episode also sees the death of Bertie's eldest son Edward, played by a very young Charles Dance. Edward dies of an illness, like several other main characters over the course of the series (eventually including the title character himself), and these deaths are inevitably accompanied by scenes of the family gathered around their loved one's bedside and waiting for them to get one last bit of acting in as they make a final speech.

Big Gay Longcat reviews Edge of Darkness

Six: Fusion

This episode has the unenviable task of following on from the magnificent ending to Northmoor. It is therefore something of a disappointment that it cheats by skipping forward an unknown amount of time, with us rejoining Ronnie when he is already away from Northmoor, with the precise means of his escape never gone into.

Fusion starts with Pendleton visiting Ronnie in hopistal. He is very sick, but he is able to tell Pendleton everything that happened in the previous episode - a clever way of giving us a recap, although it avoids telling us about Ronnie's escape because, we have to assume, Pendleton already knows about that even if we don't.

After Pendleton has gone, Ronnie sees Emma's ghost, who is for some reason in disguise as a nurse (which is a bit Singing Detective if you ask me). She gives Ronnie a black flower, although she won't explain its significance until later.

Jedburgh is in Scotland, just like he told Ronnie he would be, and is playing golf because he loves golf, although he is also sick. He goes back to the guest house he is staying at where Mrs Girvan calls him "Mr Jedburgh" to rhyme with Edinburgh, lol, which annoys him because he thinks his name rhymes with Pittsburgh.

Jedburgh puts on his colonel's uniform and goes to a conference ("the second NATO conference on directed energy weapons") where he is greeted by Colonel Lawson (David "Gan" Jackson" - only the second actor from Blakes 7 to appear in Edge of Darkness, presumably Paul Darrow was busy being in Timelash when they were making this) as a guest of honour. Bennett is also there, and he telephones Pendleton to tell him where Jedburgh is and ask what he is going to do about it.

Harcourt meets with the Minister (Jeremy Child, not to be confused with Bennett's henchmanny Childs), who tells him he knew about the secret goings-on at Northmoor all the time and is on their side, so no prizes for guessing which character in The Green Death he is the equivalent of. The only difference being that in The Green Death the Minister's allegiance is revealed early on, whereas here it is saved for a final episode twist. Pendleton interrupts them to say

"Jedburgh's at Gleneagles, and he's not playing golf."

Grogan arrives at the conference by helicopter and ends up sitting just a couple of seats along from Jedburgh, so they have to pretend to be friendly in front of all the witnesses... for now. Grogan makes a speech to the conference where he announces that he has been allowed to take over IIF, which makes him and Bennett happy, and all the other mannys too it would seem, because they give him a round of applause - although this is the kind of conference where just about anything will get applause, so maybe we can't judge too much from that?

The rest of his speech is about his company developing Fusion Power, which is pretty impressive because that's a level 6 technology in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. He says

"When we have done so we can say, for the first time in the history of the planet, Man will be in charge."

You can tell he is a baddy because obviously cats should stay in charge. Naturally this gets more applause from the audience, because they're all mannys. Only Jedburgh looks unhappy.

Ronnie is following Jedburgh to Scotland, where the action is. He stops for a conversation with Emma.

Ronnie: "I still don't understand."

Emma: "Dad, it's happened before, you know. Millions of years ago, when the Earth was cold it looked as if life on the planet would cease to exist. But black flowers began to grow, multiplying across its face until the entire landscape was covered in blooms. Slowly the blackness of the flowers sucked in the heat of the sun and life began to evolve again. That is the power of Gaia."

Ronnie: "It'll take more than a black flower to save us this time."

Emma: "This time when it comes it will melt the polar ice cap. Millions will die. The planet will protect itself, it's important to realise that. If Man is the enemy it will destroy him."

This dialogue, quietly taking place between father and daughter in the open countryside beside trees and a river, is contrasted against Grogan's grand speech in front of the assembled military mannys. Both have very different visions for the future of "Man."

A mysterious manny has also been following Jedburgh, and he arrives at the conference where he is met by Bennett. Grogan is still making his speech, and is getting still more applause from the mannys - they're really excited and it ends with him getting a standing ovation. This is then contrasted (in a different way) with Jedburgh's speech that follows, which is watched in silence at first and then, when he reveals he has some of the stolen plutonium with him, the audience starts to flee the room. Jedburgh carries on with his speech throughout the scenes of panic:

"Two bars of weapons-grade plutonium. I stole this stuff, on orders, straight out of Jerry's latest acquisition. Plenty of people have died for this stuff... including me. All I have to do is bring these bars together, we'll have a criticality..."

"400 rads, ladies and gentlemen, a lethal dose for anyone within a radius of 10 yards. Get it while it's hot!"

Grogan stands but he doesn't run away, so Jedburgh causes the criticality flash right in front of Grogan's face. Grogan staggers away, and Jedburgh finishes his speech to an empty room.

The scene changes to later on, when the Minister meets with Grogan and Bennett. They say that Jedburgh has used "20 kilos" of plutonium to make a bomb, enough "to dispose of the east coast of Scotland." Oh noes! That's where I live! Where will I keep my Blakes 7 DVDs if it gets blowed up? It seems as though Jedburgh has turned into a baddy (perhaps he is Mike Yates after all?) and they need Ronnie to stop him.

Ronnie investigates Jedburgh's golf club, where he finds a Harrods bag and a box labelled with "Mrs Girvan's Guest House," both clues left by Jedburgh for him to find.

Pendleton and Harcourt spot the mysterious manny. Pendleton recognises him as "Nallers" and says

"He's rumoured to be the state executioner."

Ronnie finds Jedburgh and they have a talk.

Ronnie: "Do you know what Harcourt told me last night? Grogan had reached the conclusion that the inquiry would stop the takeover, so he decided to get the plutonium another way, and he thought of you. Who would walk into a cave full of radiation? You would, given the right scenario. All he had to do was make a call to Washington and make sure they fed you the right orders. They didn't just betray you, they made a fool of you."

Jedburgh: "No shit, Sherlock. Think I didn't figure that out?"

Jedburgh admits to Ronnie that he turned the plutonium into a bomb capable of causing "a nuclear explosion," which we already knew, but he also admits he has decided against setting it off, which we didn't. He claims this is because he doesn't want to blow up the golf courses - finally golf is good for something, mew. He gives the "plutonium bullet" that would set the bomb off to Ronnie, who doesn't want it either.

Ronnie telephones Pendleton to tell him where Jedburgh hid the plutonium, and then he and Jedburgh get drunk and sing The Time of the Preacher together.

Just as when they first discussed it back in part two, they both recognise the parallels between the manny in the song and Ronnie. But since then Ronnie has been on an internal journey as well as the more obvious external one, and has finally made his peace with Emma, and reached acceptance of all that has happened to her, and to him. It was necessary for him to follow her path for him to see her point of view, even though it doomed him just the same. In conversation with Jedburgh, Ronnie tells him (and us) the conclusions he has reached:

"I am no longer seeking vengeance."

They discuss Gaia, and Jedburgh says that

"Man will always win against nature."

"I think you're wrong."

is Ronnie's reply, and he tells Jedburgh about Emma and the black flowers. Jedburgh claims to have seen the black flowers in Afghanistan, but he still doesn't believe they will win against "Man." Ronnie again replies

"I think you're wrong. And if there is a battle between the planet and mankind, the planet will win."

Dramatic incidental music starts as mannys descend upon the house, led by Nallers. Ronnie and Jedburgh hear them running about, and both know what they're here for. Jedburgh wants to fight back so he takes his gun and turns off the lights. This has the effect of making the ensuing fight scene a lot more atmospheric and dramatic, because we only catch glimpses of the action, and this forces our imagination to fill in the blanks.

Jedburgh shoots several of the baddys even though he is sick, before Nallers shoots him and he goes

It is pretty obvious that Jedburgh let Nallers shoot him because it was a quicker way to die than from the radiation sickness. Ronnie also wants them to shoot him, but they won't because, as Nallers tells him,

"You're on our side."

Ronnie is left alone, and he defiantly shouts out

"I am not on your side!"

The final scene shows Harcourt and Pendleton watching Grogan recovering the plutonium (now his plutonium) from the loch where Jedburgh hid it. It might look as though Grogan has won in the end, but we see signs that he is sick, thanks to Jedburgh's actions at the conference, and therefore is as doomed as Ronnie and Jedburgh.

Craven is also there, watching from a distance, and remains behind when all the others depart. He shouts

"Emma!"

and the camera jump-cuts away from him, like the ending of Blake in reverse or, given that Charles Kay played such a major role in this series, like the final scene of the Tsar in Fall of Eagles.

That would appear to be the end, except... we see a shot of the cold mountainside, where the black flowers are growing after all.

What's so good about Edge of Darkness?

Edge of Darkness begins in the style of a simple whodunnit, before blooming into an epic tale about good versus evil in which, unusually, mannys are portrayed as being on the side of evil. There are multiple layers to the storytelling - a murder-mystery, a spy drama, a political thriller, an environmental warning, and one manny's voyage of self-discovery - all of which succeed on their own terms.

There is nothing else quite like Edge of Darkness. Not even its own film remake, which is nowhere near as subtle, or as layered, or as good.

The nearest equivalent that I know of is the Doctor Who story The Green Death, which has several points of comparison with Edge of Darkness. Most obviously they both contain villainous corporations (Global Chemicals and International Irradiated Fuels - quite similar names when you think about it) whose toxic product is being stored secretly in a supposedly secure location, but which nevertheless causes the deaths of curious mannys, prompting an investigation by the protagonists.

This gives both stories a strong environmental theme, since the proximate cause of both plots is the companies putting their manny-made pollutants before the safety of the environment and other mannys, all for the sake of profit.

Another theme they share is that of the protagonist having to cope with losing a daughter. Edge of Darkness is, at its core, about Ronnie's journey to accepting that he has lost Emma - both because she has been killed and also, on a more allegorical level, because she has grown up and is no longer the kitten that his memory still wants her to be.

The Green Death likewise, being Jo Grant's final story, is about the Doctor having to come to terms with his surrogate daughter leaving him because she has outgrown (figuratively) her need of him. He struggles against this for a while - such as when he tries to sabotage her romance with Professor Jones - but in the end, like Ronnie, he reaches the point of acceptance.

This is a natural process, handled very well by both stories (ironically it is handled more naturalistically by the sci-fi series where the main character is an alien who travels in time and space), and ideally all Companion departures should be presented in this way - something the new series of Doctor Who has struggled with, perhaps because the writers never outgrew their own need for the Doctor?

This makes both Edge of Darkness and The Green Death 'coming-of-age' stories, but told from the father's point of view. The main difference between the Doctor and Ronnie Craven is that the Doctor doesn't die of radiation sickness.

Well, not in The Green Death he doesn't...

Edge of Darkness (2010)

The 2010 film starts in a similar way to the 1985 TV series, before going in a very different direction that is much less interesting and not nearly so good as the TV series. The turning point is probably when Craven* finds his daughter's gun - in the original series this instantly added layers of intrigue to what had preceded it, but here, with the swapping of the UK setting for the USA, it's a case of 'so what?' This is America - possession of a firearm is absolutely not surprising.

There are no equivalent characters to Pendleton and Harcourt (or rather, there are supposed to be equivalents, but since they never interact with Craven they might as well not be), there is no equivalent to the tense computer hacking scene (I was looking forward to seeing how Hollywood would update this most dated of all the '80s elements, expecting them to balls it up or drown it in cliché, and I ended up disappointed that they didn't even try), and, most damningly of all, no infiltration of Northmoor by Craven and Jedburgh, by far the best section of the TV series - but by this point of the film it was telling a different story completely.

Gibson is no Bob Peck, but he's not a terrible actor either. The scenes where he struggle with grief for his daughter are done well, and if I didn't have the original to compare them to I might even have been somewhat impressed. But by the second half of the film he's in a more familiar 'out for revenge' mode like this is a Death Wish film, and I was reminded of Gibson's similar roles in Ransom (1996) and Payback (1999), which make this something of a familiar archetype for him.

Ray Winstone is Jedburgh, who has to be the token Brit just as the original Jedburgh was the token Yank. He may as well not be, his character has so little in common with the original. The way in which he is killed off at the end seems to be just because that was the fate of the original Jedburgh - but this one didn't even get irradiated (or even reach Northmoor, for that matter) so it was completely unnecessary except to get one more tick on the Edge of Darkness checklist.

The same is true of the Emma-as-ghost scenes, which in the TV series are crucial from a thematic point of view, tying the spiritual and environmental sides of the production together with the gritty police thriller. Here they are just because the TV series did it, and the (absolutely vital, IMO) environmental aspect of the story is completely absent. What remains is just the Craven-out-for-justice plotline, which robs this story of everything that made Edge of Darkness unique in the first place. 

* Here needlessly renamed to 'Tom' - do they not have any Ronnies in America unless they are the president?

Big Gay Longcat reviews Edge of Darkness

Five: Northmoor

Northmoor isn't just the best episode of Edge of Darkness, it is one of the best episodes of any television drama evar, up there with the likes of Fall Out, Requiem for a Crown Prince, and even Powerplay. If you have never seen this episode then do yourself a favour and go and watch it before you read on, because this review is going to get in the ball game and spoil the ball.

As befits one of the most tense, exciting, and all-round riveting TV dramas of all time, it starts with Jedburgh having sleeps. He is at Ronnie's house along with Godbolt, and some time has clearly passed since the end of part four.

They are planning their route into Northmoor. Every previous episode has dedicated time towards establishing how dangerous this is, so the building up of the tension has started even before they set off.

As the three of them leave Ronnie's house, it cuts to a scene of Grogan warning Bennett that they are on their way, and he knows from his "contact in Washington" exactly who the three of them are. Bennett says

"They may get in, but they'll never get out."

as it cuts to show all his henchmannys in their jeeps, driving around Northmoor, already alert and on the lookout for intruders. Long scenes of Ronnie, Jedburgh and Godbolt wandering around the countryside are thus rendered incredibly tense by the knowledge of who and what they are up against.

The chief of the security henchmannys, Connors, is played by Brian "Travis" Croucher, so we know that things just got even more serious because they're bringing in the big guns now. He has been sent by Servalan Bennett to kill Ronnie, so naturally he gets to Northmoor first. 

Connors, together with Bennett's other henchmanny Childs, is setting a trap for our heroes using the water from their reactor - presumably a similar, if not exactly the same, trap as they used on the Gaia team. Ronnie, Jedburgh and Godbolt get into the old mines, where Godbolt says ominously

"Right, this is where it begins."

(A line that would be pure trailer-bait if this were a film.)

Pendleton confronts Bennett at the House of Commons, where Bennett smugly hints to him that he knows about the raid already. He then goes before the committee where he brazenly admits to deliberately drowning the Gaia team, but claims that it was the only way to prevent them from stealing his plutonium.

Tension is maintained by frequently cutting back and forth between the committee and the scenes of our heroes making their way through the mines and caves, with the former, being dialogue heavy, contrasting strongly against the latter, being almost free of dialogue but containing plenty of ambient sound effects. What dialogue there is is strong, character-building stuff - Ronnie is thinking about Emma* (who went through all of this herself on the first raid), while Jedburgh and Godbolt are conflicting personalities who don't get on with one another.

They reach a point where Godbolt turns back, leaving Ronnie and Jedburgh to go on without him. Godbolt's final words to Ronnie are to warn him about Jedburgh:

"Craven - watch that big lad."

It is not long before Ronnie and Jedburgh walk into Connors's first trap, gas, but they came prepared with gas masks. Then they get hit by the water - enough to soak them, but not enough to drown them.

We see Connors wants to pour more water in there, but Childs argues with him that it is too dangerous because "it will expose the rods" (meaning it will expose them to radiation too). This buys Ronnie and Jedburgh enough time to get out of the water, and they find themselves outside a mysterious underground building.

They go inside and discover it is a secret nuclear bunker. Jedburgh describes it as "the doomsday equivalent of Harrods," so they stay to have noms and listen to some music - a relatively quiet section of the episode, but the tension isn't lost completely because we know this can only be a temporary respite.

Jedburgh admits to Ronnie that he is here to steal the plutonium for his "superiors" in the CIA. He also has a personal reason for doing so, in that he doesn't want Grogan to get his paws on it.

Jedburgh: "He's part of the dark forces that would rule this planet."

Ronnie: "You believe in all that stuff?"

Jedburgh: "Yeah, sure. Why not? Look at yourself - you think of yourself as an English provincial detective whose daughter died in tragic circumstances, yeah? Yet where she fell, a well sprang. Flowers grow. Now what kind of power is that?"

This is the first explicit acknowledgement in the story of the supernatural "forces" and "power" that is in play here, the full significance of which will only become clear to us in the next (and final) episode.

Ronnie insists that they carry on, and soon they find the bodies of the missing members of the Gaia team. This suggests they are close to what they are looking for, and the next thing they encounter confirms this - their geiger counter suddenly starts screaming at them, which makes for a truly stunning moment of drama.

They look into the next cave and see the "hot cell" within.

"There's been a hell of an accident here. Gaia - they must have blown the whole cell."

says Jedburgh. There are ded bodies lying around, and everything and everyone is radioactive.

"I want to go on." 

says Ronnie, even though that will mean his certain death from radiation.

"You're crazy."

replies Jedburgh - but with a smile, because he too is going to go on, and with the same consequence for himself. Childs and Connors see them enter the hot cell from their security cameras, and Childs says they can only survive in there for "20 minutes."

The constantly sounding alarm inside the cell reminds me of the final scenes of Blake, and the atmosphere here is just as apocalyptic, with similar odds against our heroes. Jedburgh steals the plutonium, while Ronnie waits for Connors and his mannys to arrive, having realised they must be on their way. They are.

Connors demands Ronnie "give up before it's too late," but Ronnie didn't come all this way just to not shoot Travis Connors, so a gunfight breaks out even though he is surrounded and hugely outnumbered. Once Jedburgh has all the plutonium stashed into his Harrods bag (a small but very nice detail), they run away and escape in a lift.

Another moment that reminds me of Blake comes when Jedburgh pulls his gun on Ronnie, because Ronnie wants to know what he plans to do with the plutonium, but Jedburgh can't (or won't) tell him, and this is enough that they are no longer on the same side. Jedburgh forces Ronnie out of the lift to provide a distraction so that he can escape. By going into Northmoor with Ronnie I thought Jedburgh was the Mike Yates of this story, but he is so much cooler than that - he's the Avon.

They may no longer be partners, but that doesn't mean all traces of friendship are gone:

Jedburgh: "Craven, if we make it, I'll see you in Scotland."

Ronnie: "Where?"

Jedburgh: "You're the detective - find me."

Jedburgh smiles as the door closes between them, and that's the last we see of him in this episode. Purr.

Connors catches up with Ronnie, who pretends to give in, so it seems as though Connors has won, but then Ronnie runs away again. Lost, he finds his way to a room with lots of telephones in it. Childs tells Connors there is only one exit from that room, so they think Ronnie is trapped.

Ronnie tries all the telephones until he finds one that still rings, while Connors tries to gas him. We see a manny going to answer the telephone, but doing it really slowly for maximum dramatic effect. When she finally answers it (even answering the wrong telephone first as a fake-out), Ronnie shouts

"Get me Pendleton!"

And that is one of the greatest cliffhangers evar.

* Northmoor is such a strong episode that it is easy to forget that Emma doesn't appear at all in it, yet her presence can still be felt by the viewer because of the way his memory of her drives every action Ronnie takes.