The Deadly Toys Affair
For a show that was once a worldwide phenomena, it is odd how this has been forgotten. Thrush plot with gas. Solo and Illya safeguard the urban intellectual world and pampered modern sensibilities. Illya looks cute. There is bad music and Illya’s obvious stunt double rides a motorbike. The interaction between Solo and Illya could be read in a sex way.
There is an assassination via model plane. Hard looking dude Solo has to save a boy genius, has women falling into him and he has no classy restraint. Illya pretends to be a hairdresser with a billowing open shirt. A mad actress (Angela Lansbury) runs around. Women prefer the oddly robotic and formal Illya to Solo. Thrush carry around a little photo of Solo. There is an annoying child actor, Solo sniffing underwear and there are moist moments. This was good. Illya is in peril and does some impressive acrobatics.
Best Lines:
“Is he with us now?”
“My breakfast diamonds.”
“Oh marvy.”
“Just when you were supposed to be giving me a finger wave.”
“I’ll make them very sorry.”
The Cherry Blossom Affair
Solo is inept and not brutally efficient. Thrush has found a way to set off volcanoes. The innocent du jour is named Cricket and she obsesses over a missing roll of film. Illya is in peril again but he maintains a level of calm. This ep has a strange emptiness. Characters need to complain less. Why don’t the bad guys just shoot them instead of thinking up elaborate death traps? Illya is cerebral and Solo is openly mocking. This was not a powerhouse display. It’s frankly astonishing how terrible this ep is. Illya wears a red tie.
Best Line:
“Yes Napoleon. Tell us about your javelin throwing days.”
~
Blood Ties
This show gets worse and the core conceit of this show doesn’t work. Why didn’t Rip Hunter hire Golden Glider? 1700BC looks unconvincing. This has no emergent strengths. I’m already tired of Savage’s back story and Rip Hunter’s scowling. They are still in 1975 and ugly props are on display.
Ray wants to re-enact ‘Fantastic Voyage’. There is fighting, slow-motion, Sara has a cold functional process and Ray annoys. Rip Hunter is full of miniscule irritations and likes to callously imply insults. Snart, Mick and Jax bore. Mick has a room temperature IQ. This was facile and has a much depth as a compostible toothbrush. The characters are now all troubled introspective versions of themselves.
People call Rip the Gareeb. This was unnecessary and leaves one absent of emotion. Snart tries to change history. There is mumbling about a vessel. Not very 70s attire is worn. Vandal Savage has cult followers who group and amalgamate around him. Hawkgirl wails. Rip Hunter is crazily angry. Hawkman is still dead.
Best Lines:
“I’ve seen Men Of Steel die and Dark Knights fall.”
“You’re not nearly as thick as most people say.”
“When I get bored I make bad decisions.”
“Initiation burns.”
“If I were you, I’d run.”
“Good luck with that.”
“I didn’t have you pegged as the ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ type.”
~
The Overlords
Charles Dance and Colm Meaney star in this Arthur C Clarke adaptation about a maybe benevolent alien arrival. An annoying unobservant farmer named Ricky blabs. A handicapped boy named Milo likes sci-fi. Weirdness happens and a newspaper magnate (Meaney) rabble rouses. Aliens bring peace on Earth after creepy communications. There is a bad Irish accent and Meaney has a bad US accent. Ricky for reasons left obscure is made a conduit between humanity and the aliens. There is only some constant inquiry into the aliens sinful potential. There is no rictus terror at the arrival of aliens.
Ricky is not unsettled by his role. There are no real cultural fits from the arrival of aliens. Ricky has no self-abnegation and the newsman has lurking distrust. There is no substantive debate caused by the aliens actions. There is amoral pouting and absurdist existentialism as we wait for something to happen as self-defeating localism takes place. There are anti-alien ads, atavistic instincts and infuriatingly disordered new world order making. No one has carnivorous menace.
There is no febrile talent at work here. This was not a cohesive whole. Ricky is unnecessarily appalling. Problematic female characters have no role. This had promise but was just tedious and seems as if it was written in the cocaine years. The Overlords are creepy and unsettling and the Freedom League spews wholly phantom imaginary wrongs or do they? This was terminally witless.
Milo knows stuff and the polished of tooth characters have no emotional honesty. This was deathly dull and full of uncharismatic performances. Milo is raised from the dead, Ricky is in peril and why is he so utterly beloved? 15 years pass and the aliens true, horrifying appearance is revealed as one clomps down the arrival ramp to the child greeters.
Best Lines:
“We’re not conquerors.”
“Both sides are praying together under a flying saucer.”
“Like in ‘Signs’ where that little girl killed them with a glass of water.”
“Why come all this way just to blow us up?”
“Because they’re aliens.”
“You’ve been a godsend to this town.”
“You were on the verge of discovering interstellar travel. But the stars are not for man.”
“Decent men can be manipulated.”
“Be firmly stopped.”
“A stonewashed hick from a flyover state.”
“I had hoped the world has had enough of angry mobs.”
“We don’t look like humans.”
“Here comes Dr X.”
“You selling my mom drugs again?”
“The Overlords have destroyed god.”
“The blue collar prophet.”
“Evil can disguise itself as truth.”