This is the review of 'Girl In The Window' I wrote for May's 'Venturer' Magazine :-
Perhaps it's the anticipation of such a
pivotal storyline, the desire to see the departures of Sarah Miatt's
Lizzie and Ryan Brady's Stephen Brown given due deference, but my
expectations were set rather high. After watching the story via the
wonders of You Tube I must ask myself they were unrealistically so.
Chris Wilkes' storyline follows on from
the previously developed arcs in the 'specials' series of 2011. The
severely injured Stephen Brown instructs sister Lizzie to take him
back to Rubart, with the clone Melastone 'liberated' from the
laboratory of Donatien (Monster of Lacoste). Unfortunately for Lizzie
and Stephen, President Vo has well and truly taken a walk on the dark
side, deciding that the rise of his new dictatorship must be built on
the destruction of Stephen's reputation (and hopeful death).
Threat, danger, political intrigue,
sacrifice, betrayal, an old friend turned enemy, an old enemy
returned... all the ingredients you'd need to deliver a fantastic
season finale and swansong for both Miatt and Brady.
A once again delayed upload gave chance
for any issues discovered in the premier to be tweaked, and polished.
It's one level of embarrassment to show off half finished work to the
hard working members of the Beacon fraternity, all together another
to then share it with the rest of the world. Though why you would
want to do either, beats me.
So, with such an important story (like
others in the series' history), there's a real chance to showcase
just exactly what Beacon is capable of. And demonstrate it certainly
does.
Normally I work through my notes in a
chronological format, and write my review logically working through
the episodes as they appear online. This time, I thought I would try
something different and focus on the separate elements of the show.
The writing, Chris has written more
scripts for Stephen Brown than the Salvation Army dishes out hot
dinners. Despite the (I think intended) groan-worthy nature of some
of the jokes, and using the first lines spoken by Colin Baker as The
Doctor after regenerating from Peter Davison, (twice as it happens) I
have to take my hat off to him. There's lots going on, but not
confusingly so from a scripting perspective. I'll also forgive the
clunky use of the word 'PDA', which was just as clunky a word in 1990
when they were all the rage amongst the uber organised super geeks as
the devices themselves.
He again 'borrows' from that famous
time-travelling scifi show with a scene where Vo taps rhythmically on
a desk and then gasses his cabinet. The script is so important in
this scene, Ian's highlighted copy is actually centre of the shot at
one point.
The sound in this story has a very
annoying habit of changing levels and quality when flicking back and
forth between President Vo (Ian Hamer) and Number One (Kathryn
Cairns). When Vo tries to bully Death, he stands up and promptly
loses synchronisation between image and sound. That isn't the
soundman's fault though, that one lays squarely in the hands of the
editor.
It is also the editor that is to blame
for the downright disruptive an at times, inappropriate background
music.
The fist thing you notice when watching
this episode is that the image isn't formatted properly into the
frame on the website. This leaves us with a solid black border all
the way around the screen. The picture, when it's live action is
normally treated to an artsy shaky feel. This can be very effective,
and give an 'on the fly' edge to the action. It works well when done
consistently and when not overused. Sadly we're left with a fair bit
of footage that appears was shot by Michael J Fox. It's an effect not
always applied either, so confuses the eye as to what the
significance is of its use. It may have been nothing more than a
conversation of... 'oh, they do this in Battlestar Galactica, and it
looks really cool.. I think we should do that...and while we're at
it, let's have their music too...'
The initial shots onboard the Venturer
appear to have been put through the instagram app on an iphone. It's
quiet a nice rosy-glow effect, I just cannot see what it adds or why
it is used.
The computer graphics in this story
leap from utterly fantastic to, the other end of the spectrum. The
establishing shot of the Presidential Offices is overused, and in
exactly the same way too. It's a very nice image, we just see it too
much. The green-screen shots are very effective and well used, but
are let down when the background image is not that inspiring. The
Venturer external shots give the ship a plasticky shine, when it
comes into land it actually looks a little like it was a toy.
The postproduction visual effects
suffer from the same inconsistency, fantastic holographic control
screen images, that are well designed and well laid out, that are not
in every shot of the same scene. Missing forcefields and control
panels spoil Stephen's rescue of Lizzie as there's nothing preventing
her from just walking out anyway. When Vo is trapped behind another
invisible forcefield and firing his gun at Lizze, there is no effect
of the shots and the footage does not tell the story of how or why
Lizzie is left in an area of the ship where she is exposed to space
when the escape pod departs with the bemused Stephen Brown in the
clone body (Stewart James). The image of receding escape pod appears
cartoon-like. I would invite you to take a look at some of the
'cutting edge' special effects used in Blakes 7 in 1979 and compare.
The numerous sets and locations are
both good and not so good. The cabinet meeting for example makes no
attempt to dress the set at all. It does have to be said that the
setting fire of the Venturer set was especially effective.
The effect of these failings is to
seriously detract from Lizzie's death scene. A series of shots that
fail to tell the story is nothing new, and is either down to a gap in
planning by the director or some sort of checking and review of work
by the editor.
If the delayed uploaded version has
resolved previous premier night issues, I cannot imagine what that
must have looked like. After my really high expectations I am left
feeling very bad for the underplayed passing of Sarah and Ryan's
roles after so many fantastic performances, not as much for the
actors themselves, but also from the disappointment of the rather
missed opportunity to take a brilliant story idea and 'knock it out
of the park'. You don't get a second chance to make a last impression
after all.
