“I think they picked me. They’re talking to me. I want to hear them.”
(SPOILER WARNING!)
It was a much more character-driven, intrigue filled episode of Alien: Earth this week, with barely a terrifying beastie in sight most of the time. That’s definitely a good thing, as (besides advancing the plot) a breather in the action allows us to get to know these characters, and the world they inhabit, rather better.
Continue reading “Alien: Earth Season 1, Episode 4 – Observation”“Trillions of dollars of research and development just landed in our laps!”
(SPOILER WARNING!)
Looks like my initial impression of what Alien: Earth was going to be was wrong. I’d assumed, based on the first two episodes, that what we were going to get was one of those stories that takes place over a short timeline, entirely set around the “search and rescue” operation of the crashed spaceship and the apartment block it had crashed into. Instead, it became clear this week that the story is wider and more ambitious than that, moving to new settings and later days.
Continue reading “Alien: Earth Season 1, Episode 3 – Metamorphosis”“I’ve seen and fought prejudice of one kind or another all my life, and I intend to keep on fighting it.”
The one where…
Doyle infiltrates a white supremacist group bringing the Ku Klux Klan’s brutal methods to Britain. But all is not what it seems…
Uh oh – it’s the racism one. Or the ‘racist’ one, depending on your point of view. In 1977, with race riots and the National Front very much on the rise, this was a very sensitive topic for an action-oriented thriller series to take on. Too sensitive, as it turned out, for ITV to feel comfortable showing the episode, which remained unbroadcast in the UK until satellite TV reruns of the show in the late 80s.
Continue reading “The Professionals: Series 1, Episode 10 – Klansmen”“The Myer Helmut group. Anarchists, fanatics, they’ve bombed, killed and maimed at least a hundred people in the last two years. Now they’re here, in Britain – and I want them.”
The one where…
Bodie, on medical leave with a broken hand and a girlfriend, stumbles over the leader of a German terrorist gang while out rowing.
It’s back to the countryside this week for a tense siege thriller (you’ll read that phrase a lot) which puts the focus squarely on hardman Bodie. It is, in fact, almost a Bodie solo episode; there are occasional cuts to Doyle and Cowley searching for him, but for the most part, Lewis Collins carries this one by himself.
Continue reading “The Professionals: Series 1, Episode 9 – Close Quarters”“You used to be food, you know. Humanity. Your lives were short. Then your brains grew. You built tools and used them to conquer nature. Built impossible machines. Went to space. You stopped being food. Or, I should say, you told yourself you weren’t food anymore.”
(SPOILER WARNING!)
It was inevitable, really. Once Disney got its hands on the Alien franchise, it was only a matter of time before we got a TV show from it. That’s how Disney work with successful film franchises – they milk them to death by overproducing content, both film and TV until nobody wants to watch them anymore. They’ve done it with Star Wars, they’ve done it with Marvel – is this the first step to doing it with Alien?
Continue reading “Alien: Earth Season 1, Episode 1 – Neverland / Episode 2 – Mr October”“Would you push a girl out of a window for two million?”
The one where…
The deathbed confession of a corrupt lawyer prompts the reopening of a murder case from 1953 – but 24 years later, all the witnesses are being killed.
Murder. Corrupt police. Corporate subversion of government. Flashbacks to 1953. On the face of it, Everest Was Also Conquered has all the makings of a very good Professionals episode. But in fact, it’s a surprisingly simple plot, far more linear than the usual twists and turns that lead the CI5 boys to a solution.
Continue reading “The Professionals: Series 1, Episode 8 – Everest Was Also Conquered”“A hooker is a woman too!”
The one where…
Doyle’s emotional involvement in the death of a former informant leads CI5 to a prostitute-based blackmail ring, and ultimately, to the KGB.
What with this show basically half-wanting to be The Sweeney, it was only a matter of time before the boys of CI5 would find themselves immersed in the seedy world of prostitution. This being The Professionals, though, we’re not talking about the kind of chainsmoking, tired looking tarts whose witness testimony Jack Regan’s superiors found it so hard to swallow. Oh no, these are high class call girls with perfect skin, who only blackmail the richest of clients and never smoke. Well, they do cocaine, but isn’t that classier than Rothmans?
Continue reading “The Professionals: Series 1, Episode 7 – The Female Factor”“Some nutty idealist. He’ll make his point more than once unless we nail him!”
The one where…
An idealistic scientist threatens to poison the country’s water supplies with a powerful hallucinogen unless the government publicly renounces biological warfare.
Due to the totally random broadcast order of the episodes, this sixth one was actually the one that was shown first – it benefits from Gordon Jackson’s opening credits voiceover to explain the premise of the show, in lieu of any other kind of introduction.
Continue reading “The Professionals: Series 1, Episode 6 – Private Madness, Public Danger”“Now don’t be heroes, any of you!”
The one where…
A group of motorists in a traffic jam witness a political assassination, and CI5 must stop the killers hunting them down.
Remember when I mentioned last time that CI5 doesn’t always succeed in saving everyone? Well, this one has the assassination plot (of an unpleasant US senator) succeed in the first five minutes. More pertinently, though, CI5 singularly fail to save all the unfortunate witnesses who are targeted as a result.
Continue reading “The Professionals: Series 1, Episode 5 – Heroes”“What kind of gun is that?”
The one where…
Another top international assassin arrives in Britain with an unknown target – and a special gun.
It may seem a bit repetitive for The Professionals to have another plot featuring a top hitman after Ramos in Long Shot only two eps ago – but with the seemingly random order of the original broadcast, this one was actually shown seven weeks before that. Besides, top international hitmen were very much a formula in the show, and we’re seeing that established early on here.
Continue reading “The Professionals: Series 1, Episode 4 – Killer With a Long Arm”
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