10.00 It Takes A Thief
11.30 Ben 10
12.30 The Avengers
It Takes A Thief. Episode 2. “It Takes One to Know One” Everything I liked about the pilot is back for this second episode. Even Susan Saint James returns (despite the fact that her character in the pilot was murdered!). Once again the pacing at the very start is fast. Before the opening credits roll we have several short scenes telling us the story and Al’s part in it. His mission: prevent the theft of some diamonds in a foreign Principality. Al quickly spots the thieves, outwits them, joins them and has time to romance a beautiful princess before the closing credits roll.
It’s a lot of fun. The appeal of the show is in watching Robert Wagner do his thing. He’s debonair and charming and handsome. In some scenes he’s sincere, and in others he’s hilariously insincere and busy manipulating the people around him. It’s great. The first half of the episode involves lots of fun and games in a casino. Al lies and cheats and fools people left, right and centre. Wagner and Saint James have fantastic chemistry. She’s very different here to her normal on-screen kooky persona. Still sexy, though, with her alluring accent.
The second half of the episode is where the show really delivers. It’s a heist and most of it is Al and the Princess suspended above the floor of the showroom and trying to get to the diamonds while the bad guys hold a gun on them. The story manages to pull off a nice twist that I did not see coming and the director makes great use of camera angles while our hero dangles upside down and bickers with his lady. It’s actually quite simple when you describe it, but – on screen – it looks great.
Ben 10. Episode 1. “And Then There Were 10” Enjoyable origin tale with little to recommend it beyond the fact that it is an origin tale, and it sets up the premise of the series. Ben is ten years old and he’s about to spend his Summer travelling with his grandfather and a (female) cousin that he doesn’t like. On the first day of their journey, Ben is standing in the woods when a meteor crashes beside him. From it comes an alien device which bonds itself to Ben and grants him the power to turn into ten alien beings/handy. Handy. Since, some evil robots arrive shortly afterward and they want the alien device back, and they don’t care what innocent bystanders get hurt in the search.
The episodes packs a whole lot of origin into one episode and we get to know a bit about Ben in the process. He’s a likable kid. Open to trying just about anything, even if his abilities don’t quite match his ambitions. His relationship with his cousin is too much of a TV cliche to interest me very much. She’s a badly sketched out character in this episode. Not much airtime is given to the grandfather, either, but he comes across as quite the cool guy: willing to let Ben take the lead with these new super-powers of his.
The four aliens that do appear in the episode (Heat Blast, Diamond Head, XLR8 and Wildmutt) are all very cool and a definite reason to want to see more of the show.
The Avengers. Episode 129. “Invasion of the Earthmen” The first episode for Linda Thorson and it’s a lot of fun. The set-up for the story is fast: an agent dies, Steed & Tara search his things, finds clues to an unusual academy and go there. They spend the next 20 minutes undercover and searching the grounds of the place, and the final 20 minutes separated, underground, and fighting for their lives against the academy’s dangerous students. Nothing more to it, really.
Thorson makes a great first impression. Tara is very much the novice agent and Steed (the most deadly agent of them all) is constantly telling her things and teaching her as they work their way through the story. Tara looks great in a blonde wig (and I’m not normally into blondes at all) and the episode has a great visual style. All the uniforms have great vibrant colours, that would have been right at home on Star Trek, the academy has great wide hallways and a stylish colour scheme, and the underground tunnel (used for the climax of the episode) looks fantastic on-screen.
The bad guy is completely nuts and his daft scheme actually makes some kind of sense. In an odd way. He wants to train killer astronauts, freeze them and thaw them out when it is time to invade alien planets. Yes, he’s a complete nut-job. But he’s a dangerous one, thanks to some great acting and lots of menace from the cadets, the creatures and the setting.
One or two of the scenes have some odd choices from the director. Early on, Steed gets a shock from an electrified desk. But, as shown on screen, it’s actually hard to know what is happening for several seconds. Later, Tara is lying on the ground for ages and ages (for no apparent reason) while a menacing killer gets closer and closer. As shown on screen there is no indication whether she is hidden or not. So the viewer is more puzzled than anything else: can he see her? Why is she lying on the ground? Is there something blocking his view? Why is this taking so bloody long??!
Minor quibbles. The whole thing is great fun from start to finish. Hardcore Avengers fans don’t like this episode (or this season) but it’s my favourite season and this – to me – is a fine start to it.
Highlight? I can’t decide between Robert Wagner/Susan Saint James and Patrick Macnee/Linda Thorson…
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