Terra Nova: S01 Ep12 – Resistance

What happened?

Jim is captured and interrogated by Lucas, but gives away nothing. Skye aligns herself with Lucas and grants Josh his freedom and Jim a reprieve, and so the Shannon family make their escape. Washington aids them, but her endeavour is a sacrifice when she is shot and killed.

Jim is sent through the portal in a container on a mission to release a massive bomb to destroy the portal facility and cut off Terra Nova from the future. The plan succeeds, and Jim manages to return to the now isolated prehistoric world.

Skye reveals she was working against Lucas all along and, when Taylor fights with him and looks as though he may be about to killed, she shoots Lucas. Unseen, however, he crawls away. Meanwhile Terra Nova is vacated by the military who have relocated to the Badlands, and a strange item has been recovered from there: the prow of a 19th century ship.

Thoughts

Good for Terra Nova. From shaky beginnings, and an inherent cheesy vibe and a clumsy way with dialogue and plotting, this is a show that had great potential and appeared to have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. But there was always something likable about it, despite all of the flaws and maybe even because of them. So good for this show to have managed to pull itself together to deliver a rousing finale and sow seeds of promise for future seasons – if it ever gets to have any.

The death of Washington was the episode’s coldest and most brutal moment. I knew the instant she died, however, that everyone else was bound to be safe. There was no way Terra Nova was going to deliver a massacre, but the nature of Washington’s sacrifice and death was definitely the show delivering its biggest impact moment. It’s just a shame her character hadn’t had more screentime and development previously. As it was we knew who she was but we didn’t really know anything about her. Her death was shocking in its execution, but not in generating any sense of loss. Terra Nova will go on just as well without her.

Liz got given something to do other than be doting towards Jim or do something science-y, at least. The trick with the injection showed she’s got some guile about her, too, and I’d like to see more of that from her to give her more vitality. From a promising beginning she is a character that has been somewhat pigeonholed. Even entanglements with Malcolm fizzled away into nothing and she became a one-note stock personality.

Mind, few characters really had much in the way of development. Taylor was always the most interesting, and remained so. Yet credit to Skye, as well. At first presented as an improbable object of affection for Josh, she’s developed into something more layered. Her shooting of Lucas here showed she had flourished into a character that could have more guts and courage than most other characters. She could almost blossom into a Starbuck-like figure. Well, OK, a Starbuck-lite figure. She more than anyone has definitely benefited from the last few episodes and the relationship between her and Taylor is also one that possesses plenty of mileage.

(It could be a bit like Adama and Starbuck, actually! Ha!)

The father-son showdown between Taylor and Lucas did really well to undercut the audience’s expectations. Terra Nova is guilty of going down the cheesy route all too readily, so when Lucas had a sudden about-face and pleaded for forgiveness from his father it looked farfetched and unbelievable – but that fit in with Terra Nova! To have it turn out to be a genuine ruse after all was cool. And, sure, having Lucas manage to crawl away and survive was hokey, but it does mean that the father-son relationship can take a few more twists and turns. Fact is, Lucas has promise as a deranged wildcard in the Terra Nova jungle and any second season would miss him.

I still think there will be an eventually father-son redemption bonding!

Am I supposed to figure that the Carnosaur that ran riot from the container was the equivalent of a T-Rex? I had predicted a T-Rex would make a big appearance in the finale, so to that end the Carnosaur just about fit the bill. The image of Jim running from the exploding facility with the dinosaur rampaging behind him but ahead of the blast was an eyeball-popping moment, that was for sure.

Mira will, naturally, have to assume that her reward of being reunited with her daughter was one that would have been fulfilled had the portal remained intact. As such she and the Sixer gang are sure to remain an enemy of Taylor and Terra Nova as they were the ones that destroyed the portal connection. It’s unclear if the Sixers have gone with the military, to the Badlands, but that’s the impression I got. What’s at the Badlands is, naturally, the big question mark Terra Nova presented to entice the prospect of a second season.

The recovery of the piece of ship suggests that there was/is a civilisation on Terra Nova. The most obvious idea would be that there was another rift in time back in the 19th century that people slipped through to this prehistoric world and set up life there. What became of them is a key question. Maybe they still exist. It is an entire world, after all, and not even bound by being a part of Earth’s history – so anything is possible.

It may even be that the rift is open already, and is connected to the 19th century. Perhaps the rift there is out at sea, and as such remains largely undetected except for when some ship happens to stumble into it and then runaground in the badlands. Perhaps there are rifts all over the place, connected to all different times! The possibilities are endless!

I am pleased that Terra Nova has cut itself off from the future (though, no doubt, the future is hastily resurrecting the portal should there be, say, a season 3 or 4 when they can make a re-appearance to liven things up!) so the world can be focussed as a more self-contained environment. That these remaining people may form the basis for a new civilisation is an intriguing premise. And as much as Terra Nova has been cheesy and poorly-written, and all too often clumsy in plot executions, I’d like to see it return.

In a funny way, it really grew on me. Not once did I ever think it was brilliant, and it was rarely captivating. But for a nice dose of easy, fun viewing with more than a dash of interesting potential, Terra Nova has been a good show.

What was the best part?

The moment where Lucas appeared to plead for forgiveness from his father only for it to be a fake so he could get in close and stab him was a deft reversal of Terra Nova’s usual mawkishness. Having Skye then enter the frame at the crucial moment and pump a bullet into Lucas not only showed her character has a serious edge, it also made for the best moment in the episode.

What do I think will happen next?

Terra Nova will re-build and, no doubt, be forced to investigate just what on Earth is at the Badlands. As said above, I expect there to be a rift connected to the 19th century, and perhaps signs of a former civilisation. Beyond that the show has pretty much given itself a clean slate, with the Terra Nova people left to start a new independent life for themselves.

Terra Nova: S01 Ep11 – Occupation

What happened?

The plans to stop the attack from the future on Terra Nova go awry when they send through a suicide bomber and destroy the portal. Jim is knocked unconscious for days and when he wakes he finds that Lucas and the people he is working for have taken over Terra Nova and are already making plans to mine the place of resources once they have wiped out plants and animals.

Whilst the people of Terra Nova that survived are kept as prisoners there under military rule, Taylor and a few soldiers are in the jungle staging a fightback. Jim groups with them and they manage to thwart the first assault to decimate the jungle. However, when Lucas begins beating Josh (working in the bar to try and eavesdrop for intel) Jim storms in and, though he makes a good fight, is overhwhelmed – and Lucas demands he tell him where he can find Taylor.

Thoughts

Things didn’t turn out how I, nor the people of Terra Nova, expected. And it made for the best episode yet. Cheese got to take a backseat when the show decided it was time to get serious (well, about as serious as it can be allowed to). It actually had a bit of a Battlestar Galactica season 3 feel to it, with our heroes and their homes under occupation from the enemy. And in the short space this episode allowed enough was done to make you hate the villains and want our good guys to come good.

Interesting start to the episode, beginning back with a stunning view of future Earth (apparently mostly a desert wasteland with giant pods erected in which humanity lives) it served to remind that the old world is a dying place – though it isn’t one that’s not without its own interesting angle and, if the show could find the scope for it, if Terra Nova chose to spend more time outside of Terra Nova to uncover plot machinations in the future, then that might prove fertile ground.

Another stylish choice was to have Jim taken out by the suicide bomber blast (I liked that he wasn’t a willing suicide bomber) and then awake disoriented, finding that the worst had happened and the enemy had, for the meantime, won. Of course it also meant the show didn’t have to go to the effort of showing the big battle and could cut quicker to the insurrection – but it worked well, perhaps more so here with this show than in others, because here we’re used to seeing our heroes plan's work out and them overcome the odds. To see them taken down, to see the enemy erecting flags and holding our main characters prisoner in their homes, that somehow felt more brutal because of the wholesome pedigree of the show’s previous episodes.

It’s not like Terra Nova suddenly found a mean, gritty streak, mind. The nastiest part of the episode showed the big bad corporate military guy shooting a brachiosaur in the head. Apart from giving him a cape and moustache to twirl it couldn’t really be less subtle in giving us someone to boo and hiss at. Even Lucas winced at it. As for Lucas himself, well, I did previously assert that I expected a father-son reunion to occur. Now I’m not so sure – Lucas did try hard enough to kill Taylor and he’s been something of a bastard about the place. I’m not calling off a total redemption arc here, because there is the other big bad man that could assume the role of chief villain, but it seems less likely.

Also, I did previously reckon that the Sixers would eventually come good and join in the fight with the good guys. Well, so far at least, that hasn’t panned out either. Mira I just can’t pin anything on at the moment because she wasn’t really allowed any moment to voice her own perspective. She did seem suspicious of Jim when he was pretending to be injured and delirious, but that didn’t go anywhere. I am sure that she expects her end of the deal to be fulfilled (if I remember rightly she wanted her daughter?) and if that doesn’t happen she’ll swiftly change allegiances. I don’t know if she or the Sixers actually will – but I find it hard to believe that both Lucas and Mira will remain bad to the finish. If they don’t get killed off (Mira, possibly, but Lucas surely not – but honestly I don’t expect either of them to) then I’d be very surprised if one of them didn’t stand up against the oppressors and help Taylor.

Indeed, if Lucas does manage to get the information he wants from Jim then Taylor’s going to be compromised and his people, already in a bad way, are definitely going to need a break from somewhere. Jim, meanwhile, will surely have a big part to play. Can’t exactly say the rest of the Shannon family have been showing much in the way of revolutionary spirit, and whilst Josh is well-meaning he’s also genuinely an idiot (let’s antagonise the chief bad man holding you and your people captive when he’s a had a drink!), so at least Jim has been showing some can-do attitude and is ready to bring the fight.

I liked the detail of Washington kicking her conscience around for surrendering. Not quite sure what the thinking was in having her sit in a bar all day to make a public example of her, though (particularly when she was left free to cavort with the drunken soldiers!). Still, I hope she gets her kick ass moment. And if it falls down to a girl-on-girl slug out between her and Mira then that can’t fail to be a great moment.

Terra Nova needed an episode like this; it needed to raise the stakes and give us some characters to really root for and the circumstances be dire enough to warrant proper drama. Whilst it still wasn’t what you would consider great television, it was the best episode so far and in an odd way I found it more enjoyable perhaps because of the low standards previously set through the season (particularly the first half) and because it undercut that nice, decent, cheesy vibe the show otherwise had. It wasn't great, but it was very good.

I genuinely can’t call it at the moment. Will the season end with things getting even worse and a cliffhanger at the most awful moment? Or will the current crisis get resolved, and the insurgent efforts come to fruition and take down the oppressors, Terra Nova getting reclaimed by Taylor and the slate wiped relatively clear? I lean towards the latter, but that’s because I’ve got low expectations that Terra Nova has the guts to be brutal. This episode went some way to undercutting my expectations with edgier surprises, so maybe the next and final one will really go for it. . .

What was the best part?

The boo-hiss villainy of the bad man killing the harmless brachiosaur was then followed up by the suspense driven cliché of the ‘bomb’ being diffused by cutting wires and the clock ticked down. It’s been done a stack of times before but it’s one of those staples that can’t help but generate some excitement – and this was a good example of it. I liked that it was Lucas urging the car to get out of the blast zone because he so wanted to detonate and kill his father. And when the detonation failed I especially liked how he got that cool multi-rocket launcher (not a bad shot) and tried to nail his old man that way.

What do I think will happen next?

Lucas won’t die but he will get thwarted (and perhaps either slope off into the jungle again, or return to the future to hatch another scheme). Mira will either die, or become a part of the Terra Nova camp along with the rest of her Sixers. Taylor will return to camp and reclaim Terra Nova and all of the Shannons will survive. Oh, and maybe Skye will make some kind of move on Josh or something. Because what would Terra Nova be without some pointless and saccharine scene of gooey love? (As you can see, my expectations don’t spell out terrific last episode finale – but I’m setting my hopes low so that they can be blown out of the water.) Out of the box prediction: just when all seems lost, a T-Rex will come charging into the fray. We’ve not had one of those show up yet. The season finale seems like a perfect place to make a debut appearance.

Terra Nova: S01 Ep10 – Within

What happened?

As Jim’s investigation leads him closer to revealing that Skye is the spy in camp, Skye herself is under pressure from Lucas to supply him with information he needs to complete his work on making the portal work both ways. With her mother’s life under threat, Skye gives Lucas what he needs. Jim and Taylor work out what Skye has been doing but they are unable to stop Lucas from using the portal to venture back to the future, threatening to return with an army to wipe out Terra Nova.

Skye’s mother is recovered from the Sixer camp by Taylor’s previous banished soldier, Curran, and Taylor himself addresses the entire colony to inform them they must prepare for the oncoming enemy that threatens to destroy their entire way of life.

Thoughts

The steadily-improving Terra Nova doles out another decent episode, and sets the stage for what feels like could be an almighty showdown. And you know, the optimist in me holds a candle of hope that the show has got it in it to deliver the goods, to end this first season with a stunning climax that will validate it as one that has been getting better and better with every episode.

Everyone loves an underdog story. Terra Nova feels like that underdog, and all it needs to do is come good for the finish.

I’ll tell you what I noticed and thought was good this episode that I can’t say I’ve noticed before: the music. It really seemed to stand out and grab my attention (previously I thought it sounded rather dreary – here it had a bit more edge to it). Just like the show, it’s like the music has been struggling to figure out its identity but now is on the right track and all the better for it.

This episode couldn’t help itself entirely – no episode of Terra Nova is complete without some truly terrible dialogue and/or patient-testing plotting. Here we had Maddy’s subplot where she got all stressed out because her computer “Plex” core had burned out and she needed a new one so she could read and do homework. (Again, the script tells us she’s incredibly geeky but her performance really doesn’t sell it.) And so this peripheral froth of a subplot saw her bartering with the wheelchair trader and then turning to Boylan – and just when you thought it wasn’t bad enough he then had a sudden character transplant and was jittery and fearful of Jim so much so he gave Maddy what she wanted for absolutely nothing.

Awful. It’s better to pretend that whole part of the episode didn’t happen. Along with the terrible opening shots of bad-CGI pterodactyls (or whatever they call flying dinosaurs in Terra Nova); pointless and poor and all the more maddening by being completely unnecessary.

Skye took a fair share of the limelight here and it was probably her strongest episode for it. I particularly liked the detail that her mother called her ‘Bucket’ because she used to wear a bucket on her head as a child when she had dreams of being a soldier. That detail shed more light and depth to her character than anything else I can think of, humanising her in an instant.

Whilst more could have been made of the dramatic conflict inherent in her being rumbled as the spy (Jim far too easily reached the conclusion that she was behaving as a double agent against her will and I’d have liked to think Josh’s sense of betrayal would be pretty acute) it was better that it wasn’t dragged out. But Terra Nova, soft-hearted soul that it is, wasn’t quite prepared to have Skye live with the guilt of walking away to leave her mother to die. Up she popped at the end of the episode, conveniently rescued off-camera by Taylor’s once-banished soldier.

It’s not that I begrudge convenient, happy event plotting – it’s just that sometimes it can feel altogether too unbelievable if not handled right. The rescue of Skye’s mother fell on that side of disbelief for me.

Bad dialogue of the episode fell to Taylor, when he encountered Skye and demanded she tell him something that would make him believe what she was saying about Lucas. Of course, Lucas had previously provided her with enough backstory information of a date when it all went sour between him and Taylor, and so she could use that to prove herself. Again, that’s just really too convenient; so clumsy and heavy-handed it lands with a clunk.

Further criticism for Lucas, too. His character here came off worse than it has before. Instead of sounding like some righteous genius with a genuine viewpoint that runs contrary to his father’s he just came across as a petulant little brat that was prepared to cut off his nose to spite his face just so long as he could get one over on his dad. For someone so smart those daddy issues are provoking him towards a mass murder and destruction of a new world – and he doesn’t even seem to particularly care if it’s right or wrong.

If his hatred for Taylor was simply colouring his judgment that would be fine – but it’s actually dictating his behaviour beyond rational morals and that, for me, needs better justification. If I thought he was going to make a proper villain I would be more in-line for rooting against him, however this being Terra Nova I still expect a father-son, feelgood reunion is on the horizon.

With all this criticism it doesn’t sound like there was anything good to report about this episode, but that’s not the case. Despite all these detractors it went about its business briskly and wasted no time in getting the plot moving towards some serious action. In its own way, it’s made me care about the Shannon family. The image of Jim at the end, holding on to his family with a grim foreboding at what was coming, of what he and everyone was being called on to do to save themselves, brought home the stakes and made me realise that I do hope for the best for these cheesy, goofy Shannons!

What was the best part?

Despite Lucas sounding like a whiney teenager, his capture of the portal – blasting the conveniently positioned all on one side soldier guards – and then his confrontation and declaration of intent to Taylor really put a line in the sand between them. His stepping into the machine with a full-blooded promise that he would be back felt like a genuine threat. I didn’t doubt for a second, after seeing and hearing him, that when he came back he was going to be bringing some serious shit back with him.

What do I think will happen next?

Camp Terra Nova is going to have to conjure some serious defence strategies to protect themselves from the imminent onslaught. I fully suspect it to be a major battle (although the question of just destroying the portal ought to be raised, surely!?). I expect the Sixers to side with Terra Nova when it counts, too. And, furthermore, I anticipate Lucas and Taylor finding some kind of resolve between them. Mostly, though, I am just hoping for something spectacular and climactic.

Misfits: S03 Ep08

What happened?

A super-powered psychic brings back ghosts from the gang’s past. Sally visits Simon, believing she is there to seek revenge for the murder of her boyfriend. However, her boyfriend arrives and tells her that she is not there for vengeance and, with their spirits having found each other, they disappear.

Whilst Simon and Alisha go through a rocky spell as a result of Sally’s actions they make up. However, another spirit, who the gang once killed after she attempted to brainwash them, believes she is there for vengeance and slashes Alisha across the throat and kills her.

Now believing Simon has found his destiny, of being in an endless loop of going back in time, saving Alisha and then dying, he acquires the power to time travel and goes to his past. The remaining gang members figure all they have left to do is see out their probation period and try to live happily ever after.

Thoughts

There’s a great temptation to wonder, with this being the series finale, if this episode doesn’t mark the end of the show. There’s a sense of a closed loop regarding the Simon and Alisha romance and timeline, and this episode practically closed out having briefly returned to the beginning. The remaining characters have mostly found resolutions but, although it might feel anticlimactic, there’s a definite vibe that if this were the very last Misfits episode it did provide closure.

I don’t think that’s the case. There’s still one or two ruffles in the plotting that hang in the balance and, with this show being the way it is, nothing can ever be considered final. This episode saw the return of characters long since dead from the first series, and far from being incidental they were instrumental in what happened.

Simon being reunited with the wonderfully distant Sally was the main drive of the episode. Sally was always good for possessing a chillier side to her crocodile smile and she effortlessly brought that back from the afterlife, too. Her ploy to destroy Simon’s life wasn’t exactly an arch-mastermind plan, and it’s arguable that it was too-easily resolved – although the old romantic in me did enjoy seeing her get back with the probation worker and then disappear after a kiss.

I did also like seeing that first probation worker return. He was barely in the first show for five minutes before he became a snarling, raging madman. So barring a few fire extinguishers to the face he fared very well. And his conversations with the others, them detailing how the other probation workers had fared, was very amusing. In hindsight, Alisha’s defiance about how they had just been trying to save their own lives and she considered they had been doing very well would turn out to be bitterly ironic.

Alisha’s death was the big shock moment. Even in this show, where anything can happen, the moment it did it felt like one of those events that was tragically permanent. Curtis could have resurrected her but only as a zombie – he no longer had the power that has previously undone the terrible. There was, indeed, bitter irony soaked through this episode.

It did make sense that Alisha had to die in order for Simon to find the will to travel back. (I can’t believe it never occurred to me that it would take something like that to make it happen, actually. Probably because he went back to save her life made me figure hers was a life that stayed saved.) Yet as Kelly romantically noted (and hasn’t she discovered her softer side thanks to Seth!?) it was a beautiful notion that Simon had plunged into an endless loop, to save her and allow their love to blossom over and over.

Yet there is a fly in the ointment, unless I have really missed something. The photo of the two of them in Las Vegas. Now, maybe I’ve missed something here, but I was under the impression that this photograph existed almost like a permanent marker of a future event and until that future event occurred then Simon would never go back. Now (again, assuming I haven’t missed anything) the photo has come to mean something else: hope.

Simon took the photograph back with him, presumably because it’s a picture of something that has yet to happen even for him. Which does suggest there is some hope, some possibility, that he can properly save Alisha and the two of them will make it to Las Vegas. If that’s the interpretation I am supposed to reach then it’s really clever writing. (If I just bloody missed the fact that they’ve already been to Las Vegas and had that picture taken then I am a complete idiot that hasn’t been watching closely enough.)

It was a fine end to the series. I wasn’t at all hopeful that there would be resolution to the Simon-Alisha timeline in this final episode so it was thrilling to see him assume the role, organise everything he needed to go back with him and become the man in the mask. Misfits was right to allow itself to get serious and let its hero have his big hero moment with the music and the direction of the sequence and it was a real treat to see.

Just like the remaining band of heroes were left on a rooftop, staring into the distance to their hero theme tune, Misfits signed off on an epic chord leaving me wanting more. As I understand it, this isn’t to be the last series. It’s a show that’s gaining in popularity and credentials and quite right, too. Hopefully they will all be back next year!

What was the best part?

Whilst I did appreciate the shock value of Alisha getting her throat cut (and I also liked the fact that it was righteous vengeance – our heroes do have blood on their hands!) the best part was what followed, with Simon becoming the man in the mask, facing up to his own future (and certain death, no less). Way to finish on a high.

What do I think will happen next?

Tough question, considering the ending to this was left more wide open than the rooftop view the series closed out with. If Simon and Alisha have now just been written out of the show then the Misfits world will certainly seem like an emptier one. At time of writing I am still scratching my head about the Las Vegas photo, though, so that being said I’ll predict: If Simon and Alisha are in the next series then Simon will develop a power that will allow everything that has happened to happen and still save the pair of them! If they are done, then there’s room for more new faces to join the gang – and that’s not something I can predict at all!

Misfits: S03 Ep07

What happened?

Using his new power to bring the dead back to life, Curtis resurrects Seth’s girlfriend, Shannon. Whilst Seth breaks up with Kelly to attempt to make things work, Curtis discovers that his power causes the dead to return as bloodthirsty zombies.

The gang are forced to band together and stop the growing number of undead to prevent an outbreak that involves killing an old lady, cheerleaders and their latest probation worker. Seth kills Shannon and both he and Kelly declare their love for one another.

Thoughts

This is more like it. Misfits firing on all cylinders, meddling in the right genre with the prerequisite dose of unpleasantness, bad language and outrageous behaviour. It was such a return to old school form they even bumped off a probation worker; a staple that has now become a signature event!

The throughline of Seth attempting to reconcile his past with Shannon almost strayed into unsubtle territory when he was once more a supplier feeding her habit, only this time instead of drugs it was blood, and this time rather than kill her off and regret it he found love. And then kill her off. It certainly warmed the heart to see Kelly find such joy; hard-faced and blunt she may be, we’ve seen that she has a heart of gold merely diminished and wearied by a life of hard knocks. She deserves happiness.

Everyone was a pleasure to watch this episode. Take Simon and Alisa – him agog at the cheerleader display only for her to suggest that she might wear such an outfit to please him, later touted as a threat after she was blood-splattered following vigorous zombie-cheerleader slaying with the pulverised remains at her feet.

It’s a credit to Misfits that it can suddenly drop in a troupe of cheerleaders purely for explicit purposes of them becoming zombies and it not be considered ludicrous. Point is, it is ludicrous, but that preposterousness is the skill of the writing and the in-built joke of the show. It inhabits a strange, off-kilter world, surreal and self-aware, whilst still keeping itself real. Same goes for the probation worker. That many missing workers would have aroused far more suspicion, but like the countless bodies the gang have buried, this is a world where such things are just about allowed to let slide so long as there's been just enough done to keep it quiet.

Curtis has managed to wrangle himself back into the thick of things when he was, above everyone, the most in danger of becoming irrelevant. Clearly his power was the key driver of events, though quite what he does now with a power that can basically create zombies is anyone’s guess. I suspect he’s going to want to trade that in (but then to do so would mean risking such a power being in someone else’s possession!). Curiously, I am finding Curtis to be the most amusing character. He doesn’t splurge outrageous remarks and wisecracks like Rudy, but he’s often the ‘straight’ character forced to deal with the most bizarre and freaky occurrences and it’s his very reactions that are the source of much humour.

All in all, this was a Misfits classic. Throwaway and indispensable, tying up longstanding plot threads whilst delivering a standalone slice of entertainment. With Seth and Kelly now established all that really remains is for the plot of Simon and Alisha to run its course – though whether that happens this series remains to be seen.

Of course, the matter of whether or not another probation worker will ever emerge should be addressed. They’ve gone through two this series, so you’d have to figure that if another one should arrive on the scene they ought to survive the series!

What was the best part?

The whole episode was on top form, but really the scenes with our heroes rushing around taking out zombie cheerleaders was absurd and gory and brilliant. From Alisha’s ruthless slaughtering, to Rudy cowering behind a door whilst blood splashed against it as cheerleaders got pulverised, it was nothing but delightfully demented entertainment.

What do I think will happen next?

The preview for next week’s episode looked like a corker, with previous characters that have died during the show’s lifespan returning to the Misfit gang. Given we’ve had the dead physically resurrected I have to assume this ‘return of the dead’ phenomena will happen via some other means (perhaps a totally psychic, mental guilt thing). The big question, since this is the last episode, is whether Simon and Alisha’s timeline turmoil will find a resolution. I find it hard to imagine it will – Simon doesn’t seem anywhere near ‘finished’ as the man in the mask to fulfil his destiny.

American Horror Story: S01 Ep01 – Pilot

What happened?

After a traumatic miscarriage, and subsequent infidelity, the Harmon family relocate across country to a new home to try and rebuild their life. The house they have moved into, however, has a history littered with death and strange goings on, and it doesn’t take long before these become manifest.

A housekeeper arrives that wife Vivien perceives as an old woman, only husband Ben perceives her as a sultry and seductive young woman. The next door neighbour, Constance, also claims to have killed her once already, whilst she seemingly wanders freely about the house to collect her daughter, Adelaide, and pilfer items. There’s ghostly apparitions of murdered twins, a figure in a gimp suit that has sex with Vivien (potentially getting her pregnant) and Ben is prone to sleepwalking and lighting fires.

Daughter Violet experiences bullies at the new school, but befriends one of her psychiatric father’s patience, Tate. The two combine to terrorise the bully but the resulting chaos and monstrous glimpses freaks Violet out enough to tell Tate to leave.

Thoughts

Whoa. I honestly can’t say I expected that! Before watching the programme the brief adverts and promos I’d seen suggested American Horror Story was going to take the well-used plot mechanic of a family moving to a new house that turns out to have spooky goings on. To that extent I got what I expected. But boy did I get a whole lot more.

The pre-credit sequence delivered enough messed up material to set its stall out, with the obnoxious twins meeting a sticky end after being attacked by something toothy and unpleasant in the basement. The introduction of young Adelaide issuing warnings of their death just added to the totally unsettling vibe. The proceeding hour just went on to throw a series of quickly-edited, fast-paced disturbing events, characters and moments with little recourse for pacing or exposition.

Where to start? The eerie housekeeper, who appears as a half-blind old-woman to Vivien and a teasing harlot to Ben? As if she wasn’t peculiar enough next door neighbour Constance then made the remark about how she had killed her once already!

Let’s just examine that for a second. First it loads the idea that the housekeeper is a ghost. Furthermore that Constance murdered her. And further to that, Constance can see her and accepts her as a ghost without a qualm! That’s a hell of a lot to digest in one quick remark.

Constance is an absolute delicious joy, though. Her introduction to Vivien was pierced with horrible sentiments and outrageous statements, yet all delivered with calming surface pleasantry. Her tale of wanting to be a Hollywood actress before “the mongoloid” showed up was truly breathtaking, and yet she’d later undercut her apparent cruel scorn of her child by threatening Vivien if she ever touched her daughter again. Like with pretty much everything shown here, all is not what it seems.

I did also like Vivian, too. Of all the family members she was the one that came across as the strongest, though she’s not without her weird qualities. There was the suggestion that she was medicated during her sexual encounter with the man in the gimp suit – though quite what he was all about, and what it may mean for her pregnancy, is literally too bonkers right now to even fathom.

Ben is certainly troubled. His sexual frustrations resulting in a cry-wank after seeing the housekeeper masturbating in horny form exhibited serious psychological issues. Not to mention that he has adopted potentially murderous pyromaniac tendencies in his waking sleep, like the creepy burns man said happened to him. And Ben’s the guy people come to with their problems! Which brings me to Tate, the teenager Ben was treating that has rejection issues.

I am struggling to recall if there was ever a scene where Tate wasn’t in the house. What I mean is, is Tate potentially a part of the supernatural fixtures and fittings of the house itself? He did catch a glimpse of what appeared to be his own form, with blood dripping from the head. And, of course, that scene in the basement where he appeared to be one with the beast that scared the life out of the bully heavily suggested he was a driving force to what occurred.

I was pleased to see that despite the deluge of ideas and rapid cutting into and away from horrific images, there was time made for actual character beats. The scene where Ben and Vivien had a row with one another, clearly an argument that had been bubbling and repressed, turning into much-needed sex was brilliantly performed. This show needs humanising more than most, just to anchor the preposterousness. Credit also to Violet, managing to come over as a likable, near-fearless yet also vulnerable teenager. The show has done great work in making three dysfunctional people into likable leads.

So I’ve been tremendously impressed by this first episode, and my only concern is that they’ve thrown everything and the kitchen sink into this pilot episode and blasted off with a momentum that cannot be sustained. It’s thrown a lot of crazy into the air in no time at all and converting all that into an engaging, long-running series looks like no mean feat. If the rest of American Horror Story can match up to the standard of this first episode then I’m set for a hell of a time watching it.

What was the best part?

Tricky thing here is that few of the scenes lasted for a particularly long time so restless was the pacing and editing. My favourite part was probably the very first scene with the ill-fated twins mooching around the house. Instantly creepy with young Adelaide, and hitting viewers with the grisly baby body parts in jars, it wasted no time in showing this show meant business and was pulling no punches. As opening scenes go, few ever grab the attention this sharply.


What do I think will happen next?

So much to speculate on! I certainly foresee Tate remaining a part of Violet’s life despite her objection to him. I expect Constance will make herself a constant visitor, too. In the long run Vivien’s pregnancy will surely turn out to be freaky, considering the gimp-father, and Ben is going to continue to be lured towards having sex with the housekeeper (with dire consequences) and potentially burning down the place and murdering his family (although this won’t actually happen otherwise it’s the end of the show!). Right now, the only thing I can predict with any great certainty is that all bets are off.

Terra Nova: S01 Ep09 – Now You See Me

What happened?

Whilst on an excursion outside of the colony looking for his son, Taylor is captured by, and then subsequently captures, Mira. The pair of them are forced to work together from a couple of territorial dinosaurs. They part on amicable terms, with the suggestion that things could have been different between them.

In Terra Nova, Skye is revealed to be the mole in the camp, though she is seemingly only acting out of a need to save her dying mother in the Sixer camp. She has to act to prevent Jim and Liz from discovering her identity by destroying her blood DNA evidence. Never-the-less, Jim now has a list of under 50 females as his list of suspects and his investigation continues.

Thoughts

Well well well, I don’t want to get enthusiastic, even giddy, at the prospect of Terra Nova actually showing signs of becoming a decent television programme, but I can at least enjoy the fact that my perseverance is being rewarded by the last couple of episodes being rather good. It’s by no means anything special, but it’s much-improved!

The little adventure of Taylor and Mira was a splendid angle to take, and unexpected. (Not sure what she was doing out on her own, mind.) There was some clarification that Mira and the rest of the Sixers are basically mercenaries, hired-help, and as like Skye would prove to be, she’s acting in the interests of protecting her loved ones.

Whilst their see-saw power struggle over who had captured who was fun, the potential legacy of what their coming together may mean is the most intriguing. I am staking a guess that the Sixers may eventually switch from being enemies to allies, with the two sides uniting against this powerful organisation back in future Earth looking to drain resources from the new world.

Taylor made a remark that Mira didn’t realise what the people she was working for were really all about, and I suspect she’ll see the error of her ways and convince her people to stand with Taylor and fight for Terra Nova. I would certainly welcome this plot line. As I’ve said previously, I kind of hope the business of this battle of the portal can get cleared up in the first season – and if that leaves the situation where Terra Nova and the Sixers are left in Terra Nova to forge a new life for themselves (and all the potential challenges and struggles that presents) then that’s fine with me.

Lucas, as well, I expect will be returned to his father’s favour and the two of them will get along. Ordinarily I wouldn’t feel so optimistic about future plot lines from a sci-fi drama, but Terra Nova has a near-perverse level of wholesome decency about it that makes me assume that there’s a level of darkness it’s not quite prepared to drop to.

Take Skye as a clear example. Here she was revealed to be the mole in the camp (fair enough, I can buy that, considering our first introduction to her was when she escorted Josh over the fence). As it turned out, however, she wasn’t a duplicitous schemer of evil intent. She was working for the Sixers to somehow aid her dying mother. In Terra Nova, no one is turning out to be a bad person – they just do occasionally bad things for what they perceive are good reasons.

Taylor mentioned that there had been some kind of disease that was responsible for more deaths than anything else they’d encountered in Terra Nova. First we’d ever heard of it, of course, though it does lend some weight behind the motivation for making Josh steal the drugs from the clinic for the Sixers. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Sixers, courtesy of Lucas, had got close to formulating a cure for this terrible sickness.

See? Even Lucas won’t turn out to be all bad!

Terra Nova can’t quite dispense with the cheese, mind. Nursing the young dinosaur and releasing it into the wild to reunite with its own kind for a sweet, feelgood finish sums up what the show won’t easily dispense with – and I’m not saying it even should. There’s room for serious drama inside a family-friendly show, it’s just a matter of finding the right balance. Terra Nova hasn’t, for me, ever really got that down to a fine art but it’s getting better at it.

The business with Jim and the young solider suitor courting his daughter verged on the absurd. The boy’s trepidation at stating his intentions to Jim didn’t completely go over for me, mainly because the person Jim states he is, the intimidating, short-tempered person that he is written as in the script, isn’t how he appears on screen. He may talk the talk but you can’t help but see him as a thoroughly decent, teddy bear of a father before the tough-talking, head-busting cop.

It was also absolutely risible that Taylor would leave him in charge of the entire camp during his absence. . . He’s only been there five minutes! But these are niggles in a show that is thankfully gaining some momentum and a sense of identity. I'd really like nothing more than for these next few episodes in the run up to the finish deliver some total zingers and, hey, if it has the guts and the gaul to go darker and meaner than it'll hit all the more harder due to the good-natured quality it has exhibited thus far. Maybe that's the point!

What was the best part?

All the parts with Taylor and Mira (and who knew she had quite the hot body tucked away!?) were enjoyable, though the pick of the bunch was the scene at their night campfire when the dinosaurs attacked. Sure, the effects looked a little bit Ray Harryhausen rather than state of the art CGI, but in an odd way that gave it more charm.

What do I think will happen next?

Big bold prediction time! Lucas will successfully get the portal to do what he wants, which will herald the arrival of the big bad corporation doing something terrible and/or reneging on their deal with the Sixers. The Sixers, and probably Lucas, will then unite with Taylor and battle to turn the portal off and oust the evil corporation to defend the world for themselves.

Misfits: S03 Ep06

What happened?

Rudy searches for the girl he slept with, that used her powers on him to cause his penis to apparently rot and drop off unless she prevents it. With Simon’s help he tracks down the girl and manages to convince her to reverse the damage and claims to be a changed man.

Curtis discovers that, as a girl, and as a consequence of masturbating as both male and female, he has managed to get himself pregnant. Ultimately he turns to Seth, asking him to get rid of his power. Seth, however, has just acquired the power to bring people back to life and requests that Curtis take the power in exchange and use it on his dead ex-girlfriend to bring her back.

Thoughts

This was perhaps my least favourite Misfits episode ever. It feels like a harsh statement because there’s nothing about it I can directly point to and say, This is why this episode sucked. But tellingly there’s nothing I can point to in this episode and say, This is why the episode worked. It was fundamentally a filler episode, and whilst Misfits has often thrown out episodes that don’t particularly further the drama they’ve never felt like they were bridging a gap.

Misfits episodes usually feel like they’re the best of a bunch of ideas; ones that made the cut, concepts that were too cool to ignore. And here we had the issue of Cutis becoming pregnant as a girl, which was a massive (and potentially powerful concept) and yet it felt like a b-plot. Trouble is, the ‘a-plot’ of Rudy trying to find the girl he slept with also had a distinctly low-rent feel to it.

The girl who used her powers on Rudy was a total unknown. Misfits generally affords its villain-of-the-week some screentime and personality exploration (or, at least, clarification) but with this girl we got nothing but a sense that she’d been treated badly in relationships before and so had inherited a power that allowed her to emasculate men in the worst possible way. Yet, by the end, all it took was a couple of clumsy sentiments from Rudy over a DJ microphone to have her reverse her rather terrible actions.

And with that all was well that ended well!

Unconvincing.

I did actually enjoy Rudy, though. If anything he carried the episode and made it entertaining, managing to crystallise what he was about. His little speech at the end where he basically admitted that his bravado and selfish actions were merely a cover for his insecurities was a nice admittance, but nothing we as an audience couldn’t see for ourselves. I still don’t feel like the two ‘halves’ of his characters have been as distinct as they could have been (the previous episode did it better) and I was actually rather annoyed that their dispute from last time, where they refused to be ‘together’, had evidently been brushed over and forgotten about. That was a promising angle, I thought, utterly squandered.

Simon and Alisha were absolutely wasted in this episode. Alisha being an amused bystander to Curtis’ plight I can understand, but Simon has his own fate to fulfil and surely wouldn’t still remain the grinning wallflower he appeared as here. It was like Simon from series 1 dropped by to tag along for Rudy’s ride.

The explanation as to how Curtis managed to get pregnant was glossed over, but it made sense since it basically came down to his best guess. As an audience we could have arrived at our own possible explanations as to how or why it happened. For a brief moment there did appear to be the chance that Curtis, as ‘Melissa’, was contemplating the magnitude of having a life inside him when s/he was looking in the mirror. As such, his decision to terminate the pregnancy by the act of having his power taken from him ought to have carried more gravitas. Effectively he was committing abortion.

As it was, the episode ended with the promising set-up that Seth, having finally obtained the power to bring people back to life (kudos to me for predicting as much a few weeks back!), was now set on getting his girlfriend back. Clearly this is going to be problematic for his and Kelly’s relationship. Kelly is at the point where she’s put herself at her most vulnerable and so means she’s not going to take it well, although I did like how she handled Seth questioning her if she was pregnant. That was the one flash of ‘old Kelly’ we got here – the rest was a bit soft and smitten (understandably so, and she’s always had that tender underbelly to her steely façade).

Ostensibly if this episode doesn’t at least mark a distinct change in Rudy’s personality as a consequence of his experiences then it’s basically just been a long-winded detour to get to the point where Curtis will resurrect Seth’s ex-girlfriend, Shannon. Filler, basically. I’ve come to expect better.

What was the best part?

Slim-pickings, but I was highly-amused by the telephone exchange between Curtis and Rudy. Curtis called Rudy to ask him if he had raped him, to which Rudy flatly denied it and then in the next breath was remarking about how he had to go because his cock was going to drop off. The look on Curtis’ face was priceless; the guy knows how to pull off a disgusted expression to a tee!

What do I think will happen next?

The preview for the next episode looked ace – zombie cheerleaders! I got the impression that the consequences of resurrecting the dead bears with it a kind of Pet Sematary vibe where the returned-dead aren’t quite the same as they were alive and harbour evil intent. I expect that Seth perhaps wants to resurrect Shannon to apologise and atone for what he did to her – though I anticipate Kelly and bitter jealousy is going to assume he wants her back properly. Whatever, it looks like it could be quite the riot.

The Walking Dead: S02 Ep07 – Pretty Much Dead Already

What happened?

Rick’s group learn about the walkers in the barn. Whilst Rick tries to appeal to Hershel to change his mind about letting his group stay, the majority of the group, and in particular Shane, seem convinced they are to stay and that to do so they must remove the threat in the barn.

Enraged when he sees Rick with Hershel wrangling walkers for captivity, Shane hands guns out to everyone and advances on the barn. It is opened and every walker that emerges – the friends and family of Hershel and his people – are shot and put down. And then, at the last, Sophia emerges from the barn; she is a walker. As everyone near-collapses in shocked despair, Rick steps up and shoots her in the head.

Thoughts

I had been accidentally spoiled before I watched this episode, having caught a line on some Twitter feed about Sophia being in the barn. I didn’t read anymore but, I figured, if Sophia was in the barn then she certainly wasn’t going to be ‘alive’. Thus the dramatic and shocking ending was somewhat diminished for me and I can’t ever really know just exactly how much of an impact not-knowing would have had on my viewing experience. I’d like to think it would have been effective and I’m a bit pissed I was deprived of that.

We have to assume that Hershel and his people discovered Sophia, rounded her up and stuck her in the barn shortly before Rick and the rest arrived. Sophia had bites on her neck, so it figures a zombie got to her but she wriggled free and perhaps roamed the woods for a while (maybe stayed the night in the house cupboard that Daryl found) before she eventually ‘turned’.

This certainly blows quite the hole in Rick and Hershel’s group relations!

On the one hand Hershel had to endure watching his friends and family shot and killed by Shane and the rest. If the scene had ended there then you can only imagine Hershel never being able to forgive or live with them. However, Rick’s group now have justification to round on Hershel and demand explanation about how he let them go off searching for Sophia when he knew she was almost certainly the little girl he had found and contained in his barn.

He’ll claim he couldn’t say anything because he was keeping the whole barn secret but, really, that’s not going to sit very well with anyone. And the issue still stands that it seems impossible that he would allow them all to live side by side. Yet, with an enraged Shane and the group carrying all the guns, and Rick desperate to stay to keep pregnant Lori and his son safe, it seems to me that if Hershel demands they leave then they’re going to feel they have no option but to take Hershel’s farm by force and claim it for themselves. And if that means killing Hershel then so be it. Shane would certainly see it that way – his survival attitude that Dale remarked he was made for definitely possesses the wherewithal to commit such an act.

Although Shane’s bluster and self-righteousness took quite the dent in the eyes of the group when he was unable to kill Sophia – so maybe a lot of his claims for leadership will evaporate.

There’s slim chance of a reconciliation, but it has to be Hershel that concedes. At least Shane did pump bullets into a walker’s vital organs to show him that it was ‘dead’ before he put it down. Hershel has, apparently, been oblivious to the true nature of these things (I struggle to properly comprehend that, I really do) but how can he deny what he saw with his own eyes? He’s been played as a bullish, old-fashioned man but not one without a sense of reason.

On saying that, however, I have to figure that The Walking Dead as a show needs to get back on the road and start moving things on. Put bluntly: the show can’t just stay at the farm indefinitely otherwise it’ll lose dramatic inertia and turn viewers off. They’ve finally laid the hunt for Sophia to rest now, and it’s in the best interests of entertainment that they get moving, so unless there’s a mass walker infestation descending on Hershel’s farm I’m intrigued how the show handles the need to provide dramatic excitement with plot logistics.

Plot logistics dictate they’d stay at the farm. Dramatic excitement demands they get moving.

Daryl and Carol took some small steps towards developing a relationship, though partly I think their conversations about hope were partly to fuel audience belief that Sophia would be found so the surprise at the end was all the more brutal. There’s no doubt it’s a bold step; having a small girl shot in the head as a zombie is a harsher occurrence than I figured The Walking Dead had the capacity to be. I’m pleased it did, mind. So long as it continues to have the audacity to do the unthinkable on television it remains vital – if the show ever goes soft it’ll be pointless.

Shane’s rapid disintegration has been brewing, and there’s no doubt that the catalyst for his rage was learning that Lori was pregnant and then have her tell him the child would never be his. I’m surprised that Rick didn’t at least address that he also knew about Lori and Shane when he delivered the news; the little look back indicated he knew there was more to be said, and he could expect more reaction from Shane, but it felt remiss that he wouldn’t have brought it out in the open.

I thought Dale was going to fare badly when Shane caught up with him in the woods, particularly when he pulled a gun on him! It turned out that Shane didn’t even see him as enough of a threat to bother killing, which is perhaps the most undignified insult Shane could have delivered. I did like Dale’s response; confounded by a man like Shane and how he could flourish under such terrible conditions. There’s a little piece of me that thinks Shane’s character has been too swiftly morphed into this ‘wild survival persona’, content to throw out logic and humanity to do what needs to be done, but as stated the catalyst and his pronounced emotional turmoil can be traced back to the news of Lori’s pregnancy so it just about scrapes past.

Lori isn’t being portrayed particularly sympathetically, really, and it’s almost as though the writers don’t want us to like her. She can be silly and unrealistic and then shrewish and fierce – she can display such range and never once does it feel like it’s the appropriate response. Indeed, I have read some critiques that suggest the treatment of women in general on the show hasn’t been great – from Lori’s difficult spikiness, to Andrea’s over-reactionary victim, to even Maggie’s flip-flopping romance with Glenn. I’d suggest if there’s a flaw in their portrayal it’s that the women have been too defined by how they react to the men rather than being defined in their own right. Personally I’m not up in arms about it, but it would help them from being generally irritating and more admirable if they were adeptly and in-depthly depicted.

Nit-picking aside it was a good episode, and presented a devastating and powerful emotional and visceral climax. Where do they go from here? That’s the question all good drama asks, and The Walking Dead has asked it under the most extreme circumstances you can think of.

What was the best part?

Easily the final scene at the barn, which it’s perhaps is fair to say has been the season’s most gruelling and powerful scene. From the look on Hershel’s face to the sense of release as the group got to fire upon the ‘walkers’ and vent some of their own demons to that final, cruel reveal of Sophia. I’m glad, in a strange sense, that Rick was the only one that had the courage to step up and do what had to be done. For all Shane’s angry bluster, Rick has more steel running through him.

What do I think will happen next?

Ain’t that the question! Well, I believe the show has to move on from the farm now. There’s a long shot that the group will feel so ruined by what they’ve done to Hershel, and having found out that Sophia is dead, they’ll want to go. Failing that circumstances will dictate that they have to leave – whether that be because the farm becomes an impossible place to stay at (zombie invasion!) or they get wind of a different destination; maybe they hear a radio broadcast or something. I appreciate the show needs them to move on, I just want the reason for that on-screen to work logically.

Terra Nova: S01 Ep08 – Vs

What happened?

Captured and interrogated, Boylan reveals the whereabouts of a body to Jim. Recovering and examining the body, it appears the person was murdered years back and indications are that Taylor did it. Taylor explains that he was sent to Terra Nova under false pretences, and killed his superior officer when his rule was to be overturned and the place was merely to be plundered for resources rather than used as a new place for humans to exist.

Taylor’s son, Lucas, had been working on a way to create a two-way portal to the future so that the old Earth could harvest resources from Terra Nova and kill the world. Taylor refused to allow that to happen, and explains to Jim that he and Terra Nova stand against the Sixers, and Lucas, who are intent on sacrificing this new world to try and save the old one.

Thoughts

Terra Nova finally gets around to showing its hand and displaying the true set-up, the meaning behind the strange calculations on the rocks and the message behind the oblique warnings about the “truth of Terra Nova”. In doing so the show has actually stepped up a notch and delivered its best episode, as well as lifting the curtain on the stage things are being played on to better determine the drama.

It was still rather predictable. I expected the truth would suggest that Taylor had gone against the initial plans for Terra Nova and, whilst for a short while there might be the impression he wasn’t to be trusted, ultimately it would transpire he was on the side of ‘right’ and the Sixers and their agenda were working for a cause that was ‘wrong’.

It’s worth taking a moment here to discuss that notion, of course. Whilst Terra Nova was quick to side with Taylor, via Jim and his assent to fight with him and for his cause once he learned the truth, and the depiction of Lucas as a scheming, angry, vengeful son, it’s worth considering the view of the Sixers and ‘future Earth’.

From Taylor’s view there’s this new world that a handful of people have been permitted access to away from the pollution and decay. And now they have it, they don’t want anyone taking it from them. Only the world they left behind presumably has millions of people that are living under a death sentence.

Fundamentally Taylor’s willing to sacrifice the vast majority of the old population for the few lucky souls that are forging a new life for themselves. There’s an extremely selfish principle at play there. I’m not saying Taylor is some monstrous despot – I just hope Terra Nova doesn’t just gloss over this crucial dynamic and expect us to accept that fresh, innocent Terra Nova is good because the old world of pollution and technology is bad.

If they can make the suggestion that Terra Nova is to be plundered of resources just for one major corporation’s gain, for example, or to benefit the few in future Earth rather than replenish and rescue the planet there’s a better argument being made. Perhaps if it’s established that even ravaging all the resources would only be a temporary fix then there’s better justification for Taylor’s strident position towards defending Terra Nova from ‘future Earth’. It needs a better explanation than it just being about Taylor liking Terra Nova and wanting to keep it for himself and the few hundred with him and to hell with the billions of others back home.

The episode title, and Terra Nova, are apparently setting out their stall for a ‘them vs us’ scenario, so I would like the battlelines and battle reasons properly marked out if I am being provoked into siding with one faction.

As stated, however, this advancement does definitely mark an improvement. It does make me wonder where else the show can go, though. I quite like the idea that the portal to old Earth gets destroyed completely by the end of the first season and so this ‘battle’ can have a line drawn under it; the people of Terra Nova left then to face their brave new world and the show can introduce an entirely different set of challenges. This is, technically, a parallel universe in the past which paves the way for anything being possible.

The plotting regarding the flying insect was rather clumsy. That it just happened to flutter around the rehearsal stage and get thwacked so they could learn that it was like a carrier pigeon was altogether too convenient. And I’m not sure why Taylor was such an ass about marking Jim out as a suspect and so leaving the real mole at large. He actually had the potential of finding out who the traitor was in his midst and he squandered it!

I am glad there is still a secret mole, though, and that it’s been made clear that this is as much a secret to us as it is to the characters. I’d still have to figure it’s the young soldier, too, although he did get ambushed and injured (though we didn’t see it directly, unlike when Washington got into a proper fight with a Sixer).

It’s rather risible how Josh has been treated rather lightly (for making pacts with the Sixers and providing them with the entire stash of lifesaving drugs, Josh is sentenced to. . . being grounded!). Whilst Boylan was eventually released he sure did have to suffer under Taylor’s hand. Interesting reveal that they used to be friends, though – Boylan has moved from being a clichéd side character into someone with depth and intrigue. Same can’t be said for Malcolm who has gone in entirely the opposite direction. There’s the odd ruffle that suggests he’s a rabble rouser against Taylor’s command but there’s scant sight of it, and even his scheming affection for Liz appears to have died down.

Lucas is a welcome addition to, I suppose, the ‘bad guys’. Mira’s one-note tough girl aggression played out more like an irritation than a credible threat. Lucas appears to be the mastermind and if the show wants to go down the route of making him a proper villain then I’m rather in favour. . . However, with how saccharine Terra Nova can be I wouldn’t for one moment write off the possibility of their being a father-son reunion before the season’s end.

What was the best part?

Taylor’s flashback was absolutely the best part, shifting the little plot details about the calculations on the stones and the body in the woods into focus, and with it pushing Terra Nova into the light as a show that was marking out exactly what it was about. At least for the foreseeable future. I don’t see how a battle over a portal gateway between a new world and an old world can support an entire show indefinitely but, for a season at least, there’s a lot of mileage in it.

What do I think will happen next?

I would expect that the emerging crisis of Lucas working out how to get the portal permanently open will be next on the agenda. I fully expect him to get to the point where he can succeed with this, and it will fall on Jim and Taylor to stop him (or convince him to stop). Potential season end? For sure. In fact, it might pull a massive cliffhanger and the season could end with the portal being opened permanently.

Misfits: S03 Ep05

What happened?

A girl in a coma manages to body swap with Kelly and attempts to get back with her boyfriend. The rest of the Misfits gang realise that ‘Kelly’ is behaving curiously and discover what has happened and manage to make the girl realise she cannot remain. However, the girl in Kelly’s body stabs the probation worker and he dies before she relents and returns Kelly back to herself.

Rudy meanwhile has a split with his ‘other half’ when he wrecks a relationship with a counsellor, with ‘Rudy B’ refusing to fuse back together with ‘Rudy A’.

Thoughts

This felt a lot more like old style, classic Misfits. Scattered, fast-paced, rude and outlandish and then, just when you’re lulled into amused entertainment, along comes a sucker punch of poignancy to hit when you least expect it. The death of the probation worker was that bombshell in this series’ most bittersweet moment.

Fusing comedy and tragedy, as the probation worker lay dying the gang revealed the secret about their powers, I liked how he practically summarised the show. Insulting them all as “dicks” and scoffing at the idea of them as superheroes. Because Misfits is the anti-superhero comic book series, presenting a group united by special powers that absolutely dodge and fail the superhero mould at every turn, even though in their own way they are often to be found thwarting evil. Only Simon exhibits anything like traditional superhero tendencies – a trait that Alisha constantly attempts to suppress.

Simon and Alisha were relatively background this episode, along with Curtis. Indeed, the three came together to basically amuse us and themselves at Curtis using his powers for the wonderful purposes of being able to masturbate as a woman. (The issue of why he does indeed choose to do this in the community centre storage room is a fair question with no clear answer provided here. Best explanation would surround Curtis revisiting fond memories of his times with Alisha, but there’s been no indication he misses her or feels any twinges of jealousy towards her and Simon.)

The real focus here was on Kelly and Seth (I did like how Rudy contemplated whether or not he was now a part of the gang and actually asked the question about what his name was – that was something I didn’t know until Simon said it!). Seth really cemented himself as a vital part of the group, and the show, with this episode. Indeed, he has the manner that might make a good leader out of him. If the Misfits were ever to be compared to X-Men then Seth would be their Professor X.

Lauren Socha just about sold her changed performance when she was inhabited by the coma girl. Since we never actually got to see what coma girl was like as a person in her own right the only gauge was in how different ‘Kelly’ was from the regular Kelly, and I was mostly convinced that she was distinct.

I thought there might have been more to explore from what the boyfriend said, when ‘Kelly’ threatened to turn the life support machine off, about how she was not the same person he knew. I liked the idea that, due to her period in a coma, a dark streak had formed in her character. You could argue it was manifest in her stabbing of the probation worker, but that came across more like a desperate act than a deliberate murder. The notion that she had been fundamentally changed and had come back with an evil element within her seemed compelling – but possibly I am channelling old memories of a b-movie I saw as a kid called Chiller.

Look it up! It's utter shit!

Rudy this episode was on good form, much better handled for straddling his irritating traits for comic effect. From launching himself at Seth to his reaction at getting an impromptu handjob off the counsellor he was good value. And it’s the best kind of antagonism that may be emerging, with the two aspects of his personality unwilling to inhabit the same body – that’s a concept with a stack of mileage in it; whether they exist in conflict or find one suffers whilst the other flourishes. Ultimately I’d imagine they’ll discover they cannot live apart but, whilst the split exists, I hope Misfits makes the most of it.

For me this was probably the best episode of this series so far. All the bits and pieces that make *Misfits* unique and enjoyable were in place – jangling interesting ideas with lowest common denominator humour. Throwing in the pathos of the probation workers death (gotta love how the burial of another dead body has become commonplace!) gave proceedings an unexpected emotional tug and, for the romantics, Kelly and Seth finally appear to be sweetly hooking up.

In all honesty, I don’t really buy him being into her but I liked the sincerity in his voice when he talked of how it might not work but they at least deserved a chance to find out.

What was the best part?

The extraction of coma girl from the hospital was the most entertaining part for me. Kind of shocking, totally outrageous (Seth directing people to grab the beeping machine, the breathing machine, etc) and then just flat out funny as they made their escape – via Rudy distracting the nurse with his “grandad’s prolapse” story to the look on Simon’s face when Seth triggered the alarm and then headed out to make a dash for it.

What do I think will happen next?

The previews curiously seemed to lay the suggestion that Curtis, in female form, may have become pregnant and is thus unable to change back. (Admittedly the editing of the preview cajoles me into making connections and speculation that might see me getting the entirely wrong end of the stick.) However, it was shown that Curtis is transforming uncontrollably and there’s suggestion that Kelly may be pregnant – so that’s the 2 + 2 I’ve put together.

I did actually raise the question a few weeks back that, since Curtis can have a period as a girl does it not follow that he could also get pregnant, so it is a possibility that has been seeded so I’m rather hopeful it’ll bear fruit. Of course, if Kelly is pregnant, it raises the question of coma girl’s boyfriend being the father!

Otherwise there surely ought to be suspicion raised about the disappearance of another probation work and, of course, there’s the intrigue of who the next probation worker will be. . . Maybe this time it’ll be someone with a superpower of their own!

Terra Nova: S01 Ep07 – Proof

What happened?

Maddy became suspicious of an explorer idol of hers when he returned to Terra Nova and yet appeared to lack memory of key things from his past. She eventually uncovered that he was really the assistant and had murdered the explorer on Earth and stolen his identity to get to Terra Nova.

Josh, having been promised reunification with his girlfriend, steals drugs on behalf of the Sixers using his mother’s passcard. Learning that lives depend on the drugs, though, he confesses what he has done and in the process outs Boylan as a mole.

Taylor tracks down the soldier he banished, helps him recover from near-fatal injuries and suggests that if he can infiltrate the Sixer camp and obtain information for him he may allow him back into Terra Nova.

Thoughts

You know, once you just accept the cheese and clunk that is Terra Nova in script and screen acting, there’s something rather likable about it. Unless there is a tremendous rug pull around the corner – the equivalent of the all the gloss and lights been yanked away to reveal a dark, twisted truth – then it would appear Terra Nova isn’t to be treated as seriously as other shows, and is perhaps geared more towards a family Doctor Who audience.

It doesn’t quite have the right tone for that, because I think it wants to cater to a family audience whilst also being considered serious dramatic sci-fi. In trying to straddle both genres it’s not a fine example of either, but it’s muddling along in an amusing, bumbling, near-inoffensive way.

Maddy’s excursion into detective work this episode, for example, was actually rather engaging. Was it serious adult drama? No. But it was an intriguing mystery that was slowly peeled away to reveal a murderous truth. Quite how Horten thought he was ever going to get away with killing Maddy after Zoe had been sent off is beyond me, mind. What did he think he was going to do? Style it out despite being the last man to see Maddy alive when her father is the sheriff and would be beyond enraged and ceaseless in his hunt for the all-too-obvious culprit?

No, that was dumb. Better would have been to play up the contradiction of a murderer with his own not insignificant intelligence and positive benevolence; like curing the apple crops. He’d have been better played as a good man taking desperate measure after doing a bad thing out of a sense of necessity. I guess Terra Nova just doesn’t have the time to get beneath the surface in that way. Another example of a good idea squandered in favour of simplistic skimming over: it’s this show’s worst trait.

There were some unintentional laughs to be had here. Jim’s fishing exploits were one. The effects on his ‘catch’ were truly awful. The people in charge ought to have seen the CG in those scenes, cut their losses and edited the scene at the point where Jim was seen getting a bite on his line. Given how inconsequential it was anyway it would have been better leaving his struggle to land the dino-fish to our imaginations.

Other unintentional laughs: Taylor hissing and yelling at the cowardly dinosaur; Jim surveying a huge broken window and remarking about how that was the point of entry for the robbery (no fucking shit, Sherlock); the Shannon family having a panic codeword “asparagus” – would have been clever if that had been seeded in a previous episode rather than feeling somewhat conveniently conjured here.

Taylor’s tracking down of the banished soldier, Curran, was an enjoyable detour, though I am somewhat confused by the pertinence of it considering Josh’s confession and ousting of Boylan as the Terra Nova link to the Sixers. I mean, for a good few episodes now I’ve been confused whether the ‘mole’ in Terra Nova is meant to be a secret from the viewers (as in a key character will be revealed as a double agent) or if Boylan is it, and has been all along, and we’ve known about it all this time.

If Boylan truly is the one and only mole then Taylor has sent the solider on a redundant mission; infiltrating the Sixers to find out something already known. Unless the soldier comes back with a revelation that there really is a double agent then it’s pointless.

It was interesting that the belief of Jim, and perhaps Taylor, that the Sixers were primitive was shown to be false. Taylor instantly figured his son Lucas was the man to have developed such communication technology and, since Terra Nova apparently doesn’t have this, it still leaves the door open for the idea that Taylor has been ruling autonomously in a way not agreed by ‘future Earth’ and is the reason why the Sixers wish to overthrow him.

I’d really love Terra Nova to be pulling that kind of surprise but it just feels too wholesome, too set on making Taylor and the Shannons as good people and everyone else. . . not necessarily bad but in conflict with their well-meaning goodness. If Taylor is disobeying the original schemes for Terra Nova then it’ll no doubt be for a ‘good’ reason, and the Sixers and Lucas will have plans that we, as an audience, are probably supposed to feel isn’t the best thing to do.

I’d be thrilled to be absolutely wrong on that last point.

What was the best part?

Really struggling to think of a standalone scene that impressed, despite this episode generating an overall good impression. For sheer dumbness, I’m going with the fishing scene. Not only did they choose to fish on a cliff edge where the dino-fish could swiftly drag them to their doom, the visual effects were so shockingly bad I couldn’t help but crack a smile at the poor quality. Uniquely, then, the best part of the episode is one that really ought to have been left on the cutting room floor!

What do I think will happen next?

Hopefully there’ll be some clarification as to why the Sixers wanted the medication. I’m not convinced there really was an epidemic in their ranks they needed curing, but I can’t imagine that other purposes they needed it for. I’d have to assume Lucas requires it, but since what he is up to is the most oblique part of the show I’m literally clutching at straws in the dark wearing boxing gloves trying to grasp any sense from it. Now there’s an image.

The Walking Dead: S02 Ep06 – Secrets

What happened?

Glenn attempts to keep it a secret that the barn houses zombies. Maggie, and Hershel, know they are kept there as friends and relatives that may one day be cured. Glenn does eventually tell Dale about it, and about Lori being pregnant. Lori sends Glenn to get morning after pills, and he goes to town with Maggie where they narrowly survive a nasty attack.

Shane takes Andrea shooting and they run into a zombie horde but survive, and have sex shortly after. Returning to camp Dale confronts Shane about what kind of man he is and suggest he leave, only to have Shane threaten him. Meanwhile Rick discovers Lori has taken the pills and finds her. She states she threw them up and also confesses that she slept with Shane.

Thoughts

This episode crunched down to a few pivotal conversations between two people to make it worthwhile but, really, it was perhaps the weakest of this season. A weak episode of The Walking Dead is still good television, mind.

Glenn’s inability to keep his mouth shut does, at times, feel slightly too stretched to believe but at least it gets the plot wheels turning. I particularly liked how Dale has been Glenn’s confidant because he, on the surface, appears to be the wise elder of the group. And whilst his handling of Lori and her pregnancy was relatively delicately done it was inconsequential. And his conversation with Hershel achieved nothing. So by the time he made the mis-step of confronting Shane it marked a triple whammy of blows to his stature.

As I suspected, the Hershel zombies are people they’ve known and people they believe may one day be cured. Having been so insulated from the outside world Hershel considers it a disease rather than the actual resurrection of a corpse. I struggle with this. One man, like Hershel, being swayed into this notion is one thing – but for someone like Maggie to share that view feels risible. I mean, they were attacked on some level consider how many are in the barn – so they must have seen the extent of what this ‘disease’ is truly about, no?

Maggie will, perhaps, be quicker to align with Rick’s group’s view considering what she saw in the well and, more pressingly, the encounter in the pharmacy. When Glenn stepped up and battered the zombie with its head hanging off Maggie ought to be under no illusions that these are just people that are ‘unwell’! Glenn’s actions here, and his care for Maggie, as well as her words to him may also mark the point where he stops being the skivvy of the group and decides to stand up and be counted more, too. He certainly isn’t leadership material, no matter what Maggie says.

Shane and Andrea’s shooting training foray was one of the less successful elements for me. I don’t particularly like Andrea’s character, for one thing (which may turn out very intentional). But the shift from absolute shooting no-hoper to stone dead zombie killing marksman was too severe a shift. There’s the scary potential now that someone as unhinged as her, learning how to detach her emotions to fluidly and effectively kill, may make her a seriously dangerous antagonist down the line. I just didn’t buy the transition. Some successful shots would have been acceptable – but standing there picking off zombies with ruthless aplomb within moments of being a gibbering wreck just didn’t not go over for me at all.

Fair play to her for being direct. Girls, want to have sex with a man? Just reach down and grope his cock and balls. And fair play to Shane for an equally charming response: park car and say, “Come on then”. They certainly do seem made for each other, for all kinds of wrong reasons, and together they may be worse then they’d have been apart – perhaps vying for Rick and Lori’s status as the king and queen of the group.

It was surely impulsive jealousy that prompted Dale to give Shane an ill-advised dressing down and suggest he leave. Dale, of course, will firmly believe he is acting in the bests interests of the group but there’s no doubt his affection for Andrea tainted his judgment. Shane’s rebuke, that if he was the man Dale painted him as then that would make him a threat to Dale, was totally predictable (in terms of his character) and a net result Dale would have foreseen had his emotions not got the better of him.

Fractures and leadership rivals are appearing in the group all over the place, and this feels like the beginning of the disturbances. The only thing that might bring some harmony and unity, and restore morale and faith in Rick, is if Sophia is finally found alive and returned to the group. It’s been so long hunting for her now. At first I thought it might remain unresolved but, after all this time, I can’t conceive the show letting this hang as a loose thread. Dead or alive, she will be found.

For what it’s worth, I’m fully expecting her to be alive. Even The Walking Dead wouldn’t be so brutal to hit the group and the audience with the despair of a dead little girl, right?

The episode abruptly ended following Rick and Lori’s conversation – the last of the big secrets finally outed. Lori confessed that she and Shane had been together when she thought Rick was dead, and Rick was surprisingly accepting of it. Indeed, he’d apparently even suspected as much. I did like that his reaction wasn’t to lose his head and go out looking for blood. Given how heated and upset he was already, finding out that Lori was pregnant and had attempted abortion without consulting him, he showed remarkable restraint in keeping his head.

I expect Lori will feel much better that the weight of her secrets will have been lifted, and might bring back more composure from her. She’ll need it. If she has, as it seems, caused no permanent harm then the pregnancy will be going ahead and she faces tough times. I expect the urgency to get some place safe, to set up as ‘home’, will become paramount. Hershel’s farm certainly isn’t it, and not just because Hershel doesn’t want them there. With the zombies in the barn and friction between the factions, not to mention the threat of zombies appearing at any time, the place feels like a powder keg waiting to explode. If and when that happens, I expect Maggie will join the group – but Hershel and the rest will be left behind.

What was the best part?

The zombie attacks were cool, although Andrea’s sudden transition from useless to marksman shattered disbelief and ruined that scene. So for me the best scene was Dale’s confrontation of Shane. The expression on his face when he saw Shane and Andrea return, fuelling his sense of righteousness, to finish up with him looking dumbstruck and slapped down after Shane issued his threat was really well-played.

A well-earned second place for best scene, though, to the part where the woman (not quite sure who she is in relation to Hershel) broke the leg of the chicken and fed it to the zombies. As if the twisted nature of feeding chickens to zombies wasn’t messed up enough, hobbling it and carting the distressed and pained bird to its horrific doom was a very unsettling concept.

What do I think will happen next?

As I understand it, the next episode marks something of a mid-season break. As such I expect there might be fireworks to come, potentially to end the Hershel’s farm tenure. One way or another the zombies in the barn are literally going to be the cats that got out of the bag and create mayhem. Hopefully Sophia will be found before the shit hits the fan, clearing the way for Rick and his group, and probably Maggie, to cut their losses and hit the road once more. Hershel, surely, will pay for his pious foolishness with his life.

Fringe: S04 Ep07 – Wallflower

What happened?

An ‘invisible man’, Eugene, a product of a genetic disorder exacerbated by work done on him by Massive Dynamic, murders people to extract their pigmentation in order for him to become visible and make a connection with a woman he has a crush on. Whilst the Fringe team come close to capturing him, warning he will die if he continues, he pursues his goal. He makes conversation with the woman in the elevator and, finally happy, he dies.

Olivia frets about her mental state at having no release for these experiences she has. Taking prescription drugs for crushing headaches, she slowly begins to form a potential romance with Lincoln Lee. However, just before setting out to meet him a gas is released into her home, she is knocked unconscious and is injected by intruders, remarking that it will leave her with a terrible headache and no memory of what happened. Nina Sharp is revealed to be conducting this attack.

Thoughts

For the most part this was shaping up to be something of a weak episode, almost playing out as nothing more than a filler, monster of the week instalment. It was like the kind of episode Fringe had managed to dispense with of late (for the better) and so felt mostly underwhelming. It was rescued only by a lovely conclusion to the ‘invisible man’ plot and, of course, that bolt out of the blue final scene.

Eugene’s story was definitely a wholly unoriginal aspect. I’ve lost count of how many troubled individuals exhibiting strange phenomenon have appeared on the show and presented a threat to ordinary people. They’re invariably lonely and emotionally volatile, too, so Eugene ticked all those boxes, and having been persecuted in some fashion by Massive Dynamic was no groundbreaking notion either. Kudos to the effects work, though – Eugene’s Predator-like cloak of invisibility was brilliantly realised.

The truth of how ruthless Massive Dynamic can be (there’s not a lot morally worse than faking the death of a newborn baby to steal it away for a life of scientific research) is echoed in Nina’s actions to Olivia at the end of the episode. Her little speech to Olivia, about how choosing to care for her and her sister fundamentally changed her life, paints her in a cold light when it’s revealed how hollow that sentiment appears to be.

I don’t yet know exactly what is being done to Olivia. It would seem that she has been having these headaches for quite some time, considering she has been getting repeat prescriptions. Since we learned (through the clumsy expositional dialogue) that the injection she received will leave her with a painful headache and no memory it’s to be concluded that these gas attacks and injections have been occurring for a while.

Has she just been waking up on the floor of her apartment thinking she just fell asleep there or something? Or do they move her to her bed, or the couch?

What’s interesting here is that she had an appointed date to meet Lincoln, which may for the first time cause her to question if something peculiar occurred. The last thing she’ll remember is getting ready to go out and meet him (and, alas, it appeared she was running late for that date; if she’d been more punctual she’d have been out when the intruders arrived!) and then a blank. Possibly, with the pain of the headaches she’d conclude she’d blanked out. It’s hard to imagine she could ever conceive of the truth – that she’s been knocked unconscious and had something done to her on a serial basis.

What’s Nina doing? Surely something linked to her Cortexiphan-enhanced capabilities. My best guess would figure that Nina is injecting Olivia with Cortexiphan, or some variant, spearheading some kind of genetically-induced project using Olivia to aid the war against Over There. It’s the kind of thing they were doing with other subjects so it would fit their M.O.

It was a great final scene, no question. Completely lifted the episode from the average fodder it looked set to be defined as. And I did like the relationship development between Olivia and Lincoln, mostly because I do like Lincoln’s character in this universe. Her being late for the date and missing it entirely adds an extra layer of misery to proceedings

Peter was used in a more limited fashion here (I thought there was going to be more overt parallels drawn with Eugene’s sense of being in a world where no one made a true connection with him and Peter’s treatment as a ‘free prisoner’) and whilst I liked his clarification that the Olivia here wasn’t his Olivia that does suggest the idea of him returning to his original timeline is on the cards. What is he up to with all those blueprints? Attempting to re-build a kind of machine like the one that blasted him out of existence first time around? I suppose it’s the most logical place to start – a machine that can reverse what the first machine kickstarted.

Peter playing Cupid felt a little bit like overkill but, OK, I can live with it. He clearly saw his old self reflected in Lincoln (guy brought in from the outside and quickly handed a Fringe division badge and thrust into the madness) and wanted to give his lovelife a boost as a thanks for treating him like a human being. Fair enough.

Trouble with Peter is that he doesn’t seem to be particularly grieving the loss of his former world. Since he’s established that this Olivia isn’t his Olivia then, really, he ought to really be coping with the thought that she and everyone else he knew has been wiped out. Now, with Lincoln correcting himself for referring to Peter’s Olivia in the past tense, it’s arguable that Peter simply has not conceded defeat. He’s just apart from his world – it’s not gone. But then why care about this world?

If his plan is to go back then surely it’s occurred to him that undoing it all will mean this alternate world, and everyone in it, will be erased. So what difference does it make that Olivia and Lincoln get together to him? It should be inconsequential. On this matter, in terms of Peter’s state of mind, I think Fringe is guilty of just skimming the surface and shying away from having Peter face up to the awful dilemma of what has happened and what could happen next.

Very keenly felt, so far, is the lack of time spent Over There. Whilst clearly the issue with Peter breaking through has been the key storyline, Walternate’s lack of appearance is the elephant in the room. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t strictly consider this a criticism. If Fringe is holding back from showing us Over There, and Walternate, to deliver some serious zinging surprises further on then I’ve got patience. It’s frustrating but, so far, it’s frustration of the good kind.

What was the best part?

Has to be the scene where Eugene finally made the connection he had been seeking all his life. Just a simple conversation where the woman acknowledged she had noticed him and was worried he had got sick; he exchanged his name with her and then sunk to the floor and silently, contentedly, passed away. . . Fringe doesn’t often deliver tender moments that make you go ‘awww’ but that was one of them.

What do I think will happen next?

The plots are pulling in different directions, at present, and we’re not entirely sure what way Over There are going. Peter aims to hit reset. Nina is priming Olivia for enhanced powers (presumably against Over There). Meanwhile Over There could be looking to make themselves the dominant universe. And, amongst all this, The Observers wait on the sidelines (and we really ought to be shown what they have made of September’s actions).

Peter’s intentions to build a new machine strike me as more season-end material. I’d hope The Observer’s intentions emerge sooner but, most pressing, I’d expect the effects of whatever Nina is doing to Olivia to start to become manifest and perhaps escalate a conflict with Over There.