Last night's episode of P:NW was interesting, but, as far as tension goes, nowhere as intense as last week's "The Inquisition" was. Such is the power a screen writer: the trio who are writing the script for the season's finale are nowhere as hyped-up about Greenpeace as Jon Cooksey was, and as a result the script for "TSOP1" is much more coherent than the last week's episode was.
What has happened in "TSOP1"? A classic hero quest, that's what. King Polydeuces (in canon) sent Perseus for the head of Medusa; Perseus slayed the monster and then returned back home and kicked the king's butt. That's a classic quest, and that is what this episode of P:NW is about, with some variations.
The biggest variation, of course, is the reason behind the quest: Toby got stung. This isn't unlike what has happened in "Primeval" episode 1x02 (2007), when Stephen Hart got bitten by an arthropleura, and captain Ryan, Nick and Connor had to go and capture the giant invertebrate to retrieve some of its venom for the antidote. Even earlier, in "Prehistoric Park" (2006), Nigel Marvin got stung by a Pulmonoscorpius and was just fine, because there were no mammals in the Carboniferous epoch and the scorpions of that time didn't have the right sort of venom to affect mammals, such as humans. In canon, the scorpion in "TSOP1" is supposed to be a Brontoscorpio, an arthropod from an even earlier time period, the Silurian (first shown in "Walking with Monsters" [2005]), only it's not. Rather, it is a scorpion that appeared in "Clash of the Titans", when Medusa's blood was spilled onto the ground - that's the only way this creature could've appeared: it is just as unrealistic as the so-called Jurassic beetles from "Fear of Flying", so there is no real reason for listing its flaws, for it is just one big flaw, period.
Instead, let's talk about character development in "TSOP1". Ange has decided to stay and join colonel Hall's project Magnet as the civilian liaison. The script writers were probably thinking of Claudia Brown (or Christine Johnson?) when they were designing this plot twist, and on screen Ange found herself as Lt. Leeds co-worker, being in charge of a large group of people once again. I must admit that this role suits her very well - she must've been the goddess Ishtar in her previous life. More precisely, think Aphrodite, but with a generous dollop of Hera: Ange isn't afraid of making her hands dirty, even if she rather would not, as her upcoming call to colonel Hall about the 'spaghetti junction' seems to indicate: she isn't happy about this, but she's got to do what she's got to do, period.
As for Lt. Leeds, he really must think fast if he's to talk Ange out of this action. Why's he's to talk her out of this? Because otherwise this will burn any hope of him co-operating and befriending Evan Cross for good. Of course, there's also the question as to why Lt. Leeds would want to befriend Evan Cross in the first place, or even own him loyalty: ever since their first interactions, Evan was curt and unfriendly to Kenneth, clearly not a good friend material. And Lt. Leeds is interested in befriending Team Evan for some reason that goes beyond the time anomaly detection devices, so I would really love to know why.
For Ange, though, there is no choice. She has had it with Evan and his maverick approach to time anomalies and the creatures that come through them, so she's on Team Hall from now on. Considering that P:NW S1 is in the home stretch, this situation is unlikely to change, but P:NW has made plot twists its M.O., so who knows?
Speaking of plot twists and Ange, she is really doing her best to be a good friend to Toby and Mac...well, mostly for Toby. Yes, Ange is fishing for advantage for her new boss, but she also believes that she is doing the right thing, and she wants Toby to do the right thing too. When Mac confronts Ange outside of the hospital room, claiming that Toby is already full of venom, Ange promptly fires back, claiming that she had it with Evan and that he shall not cause another person to die on her watch. The battle lines have already been drawn, and Ange and Mac are staring right across them, while Toby's life hangs in the balance.
That said, Mac, for all of him being an Evan patriot, still hadn't told Evan about his and Toby's discovery about the ARC - the Anomaly Research Center in Britain (a.k.a. the original show). I wonder if this makes P:NW apocrypha - at the end of "Primeval S5", there were dinosaurs and mammoths in London streets, there's no way that Lester's people would have been able to cover it up, even if there wasn't also Burton's "New Dawn" to deal with as well. But that's besides the point.
The point itself is that the members of team Evan are starting to keep secrets from each other, and that's bad. The more secrets there are, the greater is the number of the fractions that a team can break-up into, and team Evan is already down to four, 'cause Leeds is still a member of project Magnet than otherwise.
(As an aside I should add that whoever did Crystal Lowe's/Toby's make-up in this episode did an awesome job, very realistic. Of course, Crystal's own acting had contributed a lot to the realism too.)
Speaking of Evan, he has at last arrived to ship Devan, when he didn't change his past and saved Brooke from getting eaten by the Albertosaurus from the earlier eps - instead he went to save Dylan from getting munched by the mythical scorpion in the land that time forgot. Consequently, he saved her and got the scorpion's venom - pity that that pesky rock slide trapped him on the wrong side of the cave with the scorpion. Not to worry, though: a scorpion's stinger is a part of its abdomen, so by cutting that off Evan did an action that was akin to cutting-out a large part of his own stomach and belly, an action that will result in the death of the victim very quickly.
But what of the character development of Evan and Dylan in general? Compared to the last week's episode there wasn't much of it at all: clearly Evan and Dylan have arrived where they need to be character-wise at the moment, and here they are going to stay. Plot-wise, though, Dylan has to leave Evan to bring back the scorpion's stinger and the venom sack back to the present, before entropy sets-in and all of their time travelling was in vain.
And yet, the season's finale is named fully after the famous story of Ray Bradbury, where a death of a prehistoric butterfly did cause the present to change, quite a bit. Maybe Toby is supposed to die (or maybe just lose her leg) and all of the heroic deeds by Evan and Dylan were pointless. (They had failed to save many people already.) Only next week will tell.
So: serious personality development of Ange, some development of Leeds and the ship of Moby, and a lot of actions. Plus Connor Temple is going to make another guest appearance next week. This is going to be a big one, I'm sure: let's wait and see!
No comments:
Post a Comment