Friday 25 September 2015

The Tripods (1984) Episode 9



It is now September and the Tripods are still following the teenagers, then one traps them inside an old tunnel. The decision is made to remove the disc from Will's side, an extremely painful procedure, but a necessary one if they are to survive.
 

JL - France, September 2089. Wow, such imaginative episode titles.
 

JL - The interior of the tunnel looks like someone's garage.
 

IB - 'I'll be free too in a way' Will sadly muses.
 

JL - Does that mean he's contemplating suicide? Will, don't do it! I love you! Despite everything.
 

IB - No, I think he means when he's capped and won't be able to think for hismelf.
 

JL - Oh. That's deep.

 
JL - Henry is a fucking coward and welches out of helping Will during his ad hoc operation. All he had to do was hold him steady. Pussy! What a mate.
 

JL - 'Find something to bite on. But not my cock.'
 

The operation proves successful, and the device is placed on Will's stolen horse before it is run off, with the Tripod following.

 

 
IB - Mmmm, blood on Beanpole's hands. If this was New Who, it would have been symbolic. Here it's just gruesome. This is the equivalent of Frodo getting the point of a knife stuck in his side in The Fellowship of the Ring.
 

JL - Will doesn't look too well. In fact he's so convincing here I bet the actor had a mahoosive hangover.

 
JL - The CSO is shit when they're looking out of the tunnel at the smoke. And then again when they're looking out the other end of the tunnel at the handily placed vineyard. Some of the sequences in the ruined Paris had poor green screen work too.
 

JL - Aw, Will hugs his horse goodbye. Eloise did say he put it before her. The horse is obviously eating something off Will's shoulder or else it wouldn't give a shit.
 

IB - I could have fashioned a more convincing effigy of Will.
 

JL - Helen Keller could have.
 

With the danger gone, Beanpole and Henry must figure out a way to heal Will's side. Finding a vineyard they hide in an old building but a child sees them and screams. Soon the whole Vichot family arrives, including a man and wife and their six daughters.
 

JL - Why is it I get turned on whenever Will is hurt? Which is often.
 

JL - The girls are scary as fuck, like Stepford wives. These are my daughters, the children of the corn!

 
IB - Just when you think there might be some plot development, the excitement never begins!
 

 
Madame Vichot invites the boys to stay as extra help, and admits that she wouldn't mind some eligible bachelors around for her many unwed but pretty daughters. The boys are suspicious, but since the Vichots are prepared to take care of Will, they stay while Henry and Beanpole earn their keep working in the fields.

 
IB - Sheila, Kirsty, Fiona, Jeannie, Lucy, Helen... and the list goes on.

 
JL - Lucy fancies Will, who isn't up for it, with having lost so much blood and having lost his fiancée to the Tripods. Henry fancies Kirsty.
 

IB - The Vichots sneakily take the boys' things and examine them, nodding meaningfully to each other. But they're only doing it so they can wash and iron the clothes! Bless!

 
JL - It's a good thing they didn't mess with that grenade.

 
IB - 'Yes Grandma!' 'I see nothing of amusement.' Me neither.
 

JL - 'I don't wear a dress!' Why? It would go with his girly hair.
 
 


Their stay has been pleasant, and no Tripods ever appearing the boys consider staying longer. Or at least they do until the eldest daughter's boyfriend arrives for supper, and they discover he is a Black Guard.

 
JL - They need a cliffhanger to end the episode so Hitler Youth boyfriend arrives. He's beautiful as well. All these frigging pretty boys. Who did the casting for this? Elton John?


IB - Apparently John Nathan Turner was furious that the Tripods got a vastly superior budget to Doctor Who.
 

JL - It was probably more to do with all the hot male youths in the cast while he was stuck with Peri.


IB - How come wherever they go, there's at least one Black Guard turns up to spoil things. Also everywhere the boys go, the French characters have some dubious reason for announcing that everyone will now speak English. Apart from the obvious, why? Beanpole can translate surely. 

 

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