Red Faced
Is there a governing structure for this show? Men revel in the conflict created. There is over the top staging and Hank is not so convincingly evil. Kara’s angry. Will Maxwell Lord go away? He does not lend a certain menace because he can’t act. Cat’s less lubricious mother shows up to castigate. General Lane gives cold stares. Major Lucy Lane is disrespectful and patronising. Red Tornado shows up. Inflammatory falsities are spewed. Ignorance is reinforced and contemptuous suggestions are made. Kara is treated with remarkable disrespect. Alex’s acting hasn’t improved since she was in ’Not Another Teen Movie’.
This dire ep was all dreary sameyness. Lord has obviously detectable messianic tendencies. This ep had no tension or nuance; it was just low and cheap with a lack of majestic creative vision. The antagonistic and troublemaking Lucy is completely useless. The crowd pleasing campy humour is just laziness and complacency. This ep had no fulsome, bright, shiny ideas to foster emotionally satisfying TV.
Kara does unpopular acts, Red Tornado flies off and I felt indifferent to this ep. Lucy has a shallow personality. Nobody has any conscious debate. Kara gets sufficiently aggrieved. Chequebook dictator Lord needs a scrub down and isn’t winsome, he is juts infinitely irritating. Renowned hardman General Lane makes contemptuous suggestions, furious objections and violent assertations. Cat espouses on her pet issues.
Kara’s undisguisable frustration is seen as irrational and emotive. Lucy hasn’t sufficient respect for anyone. There is really bad acting. Where is Astra? Winn gets information about Mr Danvers ‘death’ and Kara is suddenly human. This was scraggly.
Best Lines:
“I just paid this car off!”
“So much visual noise.”
“That’s not help, that’s treason.”
“Fight my robot.”
“Looks like a wet rat.”
“Amortised to reflect my earning.”
“Why are you so mean?”
“Maiden of might.”
“You cannot get angry at work.”
~
Fugitive
Kenna indulges in impropriety that in the 16th century would have seen her whipped and condemned to imprisonment as a whore. Kenna forgets she is a married woman and marriages are iron clad contracts not things easily dismissed. Francis creates a sulphurous atmosphere. Mary wears a stunned, desolate expression at the foreseeable consequences of her actions. So she makes more impulsive and self-centred decisions without guilt or regret. People need stronger integrity checks. Narcisse beds Catherine. Leith wishes to marry Greer. Lola is ruined and branded with infamy because of a sketch circulated at court and not because she bore the King’s bastard son.
Francis has vehemence. Claude is self-interested and annoying. Fact is consigned to historical oblivion. Louis is freed from constraints. Claude utters boring explosive consonants. TPTB have created a fake reality in which Narcisse speaks in a portentous voice. Leith finally proposes to Greer but is refused because she wants to keep selling women. Kenna acts like a total whore. The dour chilly Bash and Mary finally speak. Mary whines. This was okay.
Best Lines:
“That incident in Rome.”
“So easy to drive men away.”
“This is how dynasties are born. By taking what someone else has.”
“My rank is poison.”
“How unhappy your brethren are.”
~
The Iowa Scuba Affair
There is a horrendous bit at the beginning where the actors break the fourth wall to explain the concept of the show. Illya isn’t in this ep. I’ve no idea what is going on in this ep. But it involves an evil old biddy, an evil hick, hayseed accents and evil types in wetsuits. There is air force sabotage and Solo has no right gusto, just incivility. Solo is nearly killed by a shower. Solo refers to UNCLE as the UNCLE. This was okay.
Best Lines:
“I go and I do.”
“I trust you were appropriately indignant.”
“In Iowa?”
~
The Quadripartite Affair
Illya is in this. WTF is Napoleon’s badge number supposed to be? Marion (Jill Ireland) is the innocent, she really cannot act. Solo acts like a sex maniac. An evil woman (Anne Francis) lurks. There is fear gas. The duo and Marion go to Yugoslavia. A mad colonel (Richard Anderson) plots. Marion’s thick eyeliner does not get smudged. This was good. Grin owner Solo does stuff. Ireland makes embarrassingly futile attempts to act. Badness is an immediate probability whenever she is on screen. Acceptably horrible people get foiled and this was quaintly optimistic.
~
The Shark Affair
A pirate (Robert Culp) does stuff. James Doohan of ‘Star Trek’ has one scene as a crew member of a pirate menaced ship. The pirate has tyrannical rages and misuses people and exhibits no sympathy. There is clunky dialogue and Illya has stoic dignity and prettiness. There is no mournful significance or startling images just narrative strands of various thickness. A woman with blandness annoys. Solo behaves disgracefully; there is cod psychology, makeshift backstory and no cohesive direction. I detest the innocent du jour. Mr Waverly mocks Russian names.
Illya gets wet and Solo is menaced by ethically malleable types. Illya has a subdued emotional tone. The charmless jerk Solo is particularly annoying to cast himself in a heroic light. The pirate has a mad plan. Illya is described as Russian but season 2 revealed he is from Kiev. This was okay with suffocating sentimentality and crushing despair.
The soberly austere pirate plans a glorious end to human suffering. There are quietly horrifying uncaring moments and this managed to be sombre and deeply satisfying despite being fantastically silly. The duo has bromantic chemistry. The smug Solo does wildly excessive overacting. The innocent du jour gurns and screeches. This was better than the infantilised movie.
A moral stand is made to awful fascination leading to a tragic-farcical ordeal. Where did the tuxedos come from? Pent up frustrations and unresolved issues erupt. Nobody is a full well-adjusted person. The pirate has moral certainty and Solo does intimidatory tactics. The pirate does long profound looks, Solo is acerbic and unpleasant and not reflective or poignant. Still this was ruthlessly entertaining.
Best lines:
“It is used primarily to transport people to our headquarters whom we wish to have deep and soul-searching discussions with. As for example you.”
“After.”
“After what.”
“I assume your accent at least is genuine.”
~
The Deadly Games Affair
Petulant Nazis have an unfathomable plan. Illya talks about stamps. Angelique an agent of THRUSH and possessor of significant inter-personal dysfunction and odd diction shows up. She’s all pop-eyed truculent malevolence. She and Solo discuss sex and death with indifferent shrugs. Solo has self-parodic self-absorption. Illya finds Angelique strange and aberrant - he’s jealous.
Two students are annoying, self-dramatising, impulsive and self centred. Tendentious remarks are made. The college boy has an usual value system and an unusual personality. He and his galpal and their histrionic bad acting cause some particular structural problems with this ep. Bad people have catastrophic thinking and a pernicious idea about a fanatical will to survive. This was okay.
There is inattention to often terrible choices. WTF is a cold water flat? Solo is selfish and bloody minded. The plot which centres on a never named zombie Hitler does not bode well for credibility, it is not admirably batty just operatively weird.
Best Lines:
“She seems happy. Who is dead?”
“Your friend is much too grim.”
“Something that should have died a long time ago.”