NZIFF: Midnight Special

I really wasn't sure about this sci-fi movie, but this is Midnight Special.

This is a chase movie, where a man is trying to get his son to... a location. There's a lot that's left unsaid, like the exact location (which doesn't really matter), just what the hell the deal is with the son, and what the deal is with everyone else after him. Sure, I get it, but there's a lot left to audience assumption, with the unspoken assumption that it doesn't really matter. Because it doesn't. People are after X, people are trying to get X to safety... and go!

So with the plot not really that important, it's more about the characters. And while the man is well done (by Michael "Zod" Shannon), the others don't feel quite as fleshed out. Decent performances, but nothing outstanding. And the kid isn't too annoying, just mildly annoying. The effects feel very added on, and again, like the plot, don't really matter.

This movie works well enough on a basic level, but the irrelevance of the plot is against it.

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Drakula: Prince of Darkness

Dracula is back, and loving it!

Four English people are touring the countryside, being superior to everyone. However, they are unable to get to Carlsbad and instead spend the night in a nearby castle, which they've been warned away from. D'oh! Two of them don't make it, and instead we get the resurrection of Dracula! (Which takes half the movie to get to.) The other people manage to flee, but that's never enough, and they must join with a nearby brotherhood of monks to finally defeat Dracula (again).

The most notable part of the Christopher Lee's performance is... he doesn't say a word. I'm going so far as to say that even his scream at the end is dubbed on by someone else. Looking at the trivia section, this looks to be a mix of there never was any dialogue, to Lee hated to, and I'm going to make up a new one: he had laryngitis.

The main castle set looks good, and when Dracula is back it gets a lovely red colour scheme to highlight the change. I like! The other sets also look good. One other main thing I noted was the sudden introduction of Ludwig, who is a call back to the original psychotic patient from the book. Nice, although it felt a bit convenient to suddenly have him in this.

So Dracula is down again... let's see how they bring him back next time.

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First Likely Stories

Neil Gaiman has a short series of anthology stories for TV, and here's the first one: Foreign Parts.

A man wakes up one day and finds his penis is unusual, and seems to have a disease. As symptoms progress, he begins to feel that his body is not his own. Oftentime, we get a voice talking about transformation, that is not at all Neil Gaiman himself. Just so we get the point of the story.

At one point I thought it would be that the man slowly transforms into a woman, but that is too obvious? Instead we get a wee story stretched over the twenty minutes, and looking back on it this does feel a little like "set up, set up, set up... and then it ends". Yes, I get the point, but it feels rather limp (sic).

NG is a good storyteller, so I kinda hoped for better. We'll see how this progresses.

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NZIFF: New Zealand's Best 2016

It's a collection of shorts, it's New Zealand's Best 2016.

The Audience got to vote on the best. There were six films, and we ranked them. And so, rather than talk about all of them, I'll talk about my highest and lowest.

Judgment Tavern is a fantasy based story, a man and his daughter on the run, then the man gets caught and beheaded. But that doesn't stop him, and they reach the next step in their journey. This is very well produced, and the effects, although obvious, work really well. I could easily see this expanded into a full movie, and hope it does. But it works well as a short story.

Wait is the opposite. This story is about a young girl dealing her parents not getting along, and the mother falling apart. This was shot well, but the story felt like it was lacking something. I followed along fine, and got the intention of each shot, etc., however it felt incomplete. This is the problem with short films that it can feel like that, but then there are full movies that can fail as well.

A definite mix, and I recommend them all, but we are forced to rank them, so I did and now judge them against each other.

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NZIFF: Beware the Slenderman

Now, I'm not saying that some documentary makers saw the stabbing and immediately thought "movie", but they do have some suspiciously quick interviews in Beware the Slenderman.

This movie is mostly about the two girls that did the stabbing. We spend time with their families and find out about how they grew up, eventually found each other and became friends, and then decided to kill another girl (which didn't work). Because of the Slenderman. Then we follow their families and the court case. And there's also information about the history of the Slenderman, and talking with heads (including Dawkins) about the role of folklore and memes and such.

A bit of attention is paid to how the girls can't tell the difference between fact and fiction, and how one of them believed in Santa Claus until quite late... although no-one mentions that you could swap out Slenderman for Religion and could easily get to the same fate, although people would be more defensive of them. Ideology is a killer, man!

At nearly two hours, it definitely feels long. It doesn't help when the movie about the new bogeyman suddenly cuts out (because of a power surge). I was hoping for a bit more indepth discussion on the Slenderman himself, but it's mostly about the case. And considering that is still on going, we aren't getting closure in this movie.

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NZIFF: Poi E

This is an iconic song of our country, and this is the movie of the iconic song: Poi E.

We mainly follow the life of Dalvanius Prime, the man who would grow up to make the song famous. He had a big career overseas, but wasn't really Maori until he came back. He kept up the music and with Ngoi Pēwhairangi they made a song... a song we know well.

This is a lot of talking heads with people in Dalvanius' life, and we get a pretty good picture of him and Maori music culture at the time. No-one thought this would be big except him, and he proved himself right. Even going as far as performing at the Royal Gala for the Queen.

I do wonder if it would have become as popular without the background dubstep beat. It's presented as a mixture of the traditional and the modern, but that beat makes you sit up and take notice.

Good song, and a good movie to see, especially if you have memories of the eighties...

And because I now have to:

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NZIFF: Lo And Behold

It's the New Zealand International Film Festival, so there's some movies I'm seeing. First up, Lo and Behold!

This is a documentary about the internet. We start from the early days and it is largely presented as something of a joke of "oh, look at these old things". We get the current use of the internet, how it's used to attack people, making video games that consume people's lives and the radio waves physically hurts people. But it's all right because we see that in the future we will reach a point where the internet is everything, and we won't be able to cope without it.

So yes... a rather sober movie, if not depressing. The director Werner Herzog isn't a techophile himself, and so we get the internet through his lens, in which it isn't a great thing. Not a terrible thing, but something that's definitely had negative impact on people.

Not the most cheerful start to my festival, but a nice simple one.

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Ster Trak Beyonder

I'm not sure why they decided to name their movie after the rather lame Marvel being.

James Kirk is dealing with career anxiety but is called in to help with a distress call in a nearby nebula. (Like, really nearby. A panning shot goes from the nebula to the nearby star base.) However, it goes to pot because this is a movie, and there's action. And dialogue. And these scenes happen to be in the same movie.

There feels like a huge tonal problem with this movie to me. We have a few scenes of Jim being depressed, and then we cut to the exciting shot of unveiling the new star base... but we the audience has just been in this depressing moment with Jim, and now we have to switch to going "yay!"? No, that's not happening.

Also I'm not sure what the actual story they were trying for was for this movie. It felt more like they had some action beats and some character beats, and decided to put them in this script without really connecting them. Certainly I had little idea what was going on in any particular action scene (because of how it was shot) and it didn't feel like they connected to the other scenes very well. And there were a few arcs that didn't seem to close?

Because this is Star Trek I kept flashing back to other movies were some of these beats were present before. So it did feel a little like it was repeating... on the other hand, the story was original for this? It's a mixed bag that doesn't quite work.

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The Brides of Drakula

Ah, with no Dracula, they go for the female hanger-ons. Only they aren't really his brides?

A lady is travelling to a ladies school, but her journey is interrupted as she ends up at the Baron Meinster's castle, and helps him escape his trap. He turns up to be a vampire, and turns his mother, and also grabs some other young women to be his playthings. The lady, meanwhile, happens to run into Van Helsing, get to the school, become the Baron's finance, and nearly get burnt. A fun time for all. But eventually the Baron is defeated by a very convenient windmill.

The main part of the movie is quite good. Yvonne Monlaur and David Peel make for extremely attractive leads, and both have very charismatic presences. Again there are some great looking sets, and again the main feature is people running through them.

The ending... is quite disappointing. The windmill blades form a useful shape, with shorter cross beams to make the cross, and the Baron just wilts. Er, really? Presumably then vampires could be stopped by simply making a cross with your own crossed fingers, that would do. Earlier in the movie, he could still move around even in the presence of the cross, but now the Baron just sits down and done. Meh.

Good looking film, the story doesn't quite work.

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On Stranger Things (7-8)

That's it for the first season. At least, I presume there could be more, because why ever not have the potential to continue something and be forced to make something else new up?

It all comes together as the girl and the boys and the sheriff and the mother and the brother and the sister and all get together... and then split up. To be honest, the last episode kept reminding me of Silent Hill, and I'm not sure if that was an intentional influence or not. The sense that this is overpadded remains and a lot of time is taken up with not much happening. And certainly that ending is no surprise.

So, overall, it just doesn't feel that exciting. Various people have been giving the impression that this is a good series, but it's just not there for me. It could be how I watch as well (yes, at speed), but if it can't come across at that speed, I do have to question how well evocative it is (that's right, I'm never at fault).

As I've said, not terrible, but I'm not saying this is the latest best thing out of Netflix either.

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On Stranger Things (4-6)

Another batch of episodes, so another consideration.

More develops, with a bit of backstory, but... actually, there isn't a lot that really happens. Ever get the feeling that the story could be told in an hour and a half movie. In some ways, I am reminded of Super 8, with it being about a bunch of kids that encounter something strange back in the more classic period of movies.

A lot is made of the fact that this has Winona Ryder it in. In that she is the first person named in the opening titles. It took me to look up the credits to recognise that it was actually her, but it definitely is. I also quite like David Harbour as the sheriff. The kids aren't terrible, and Millie Bobby Brown gets a lot to do as the girl, although it mainly involves her being upset.

Although there is some exposition, this is feeling like padding and could have been told a lot more efficiently. At least there are only two episodes left.

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On Stranger Things (1-3)

It's the new Netflix series, but it's only eight episodes, so let's batch them up.

It's back in 1983 and it's small town Indiana. A group of boys is playing DND, but eventually have to go home. One in particular gets home, but there's something else there... because the town is right next to Evil Government Science Building, so there's something bad around. But don't worry, because instead of the boy, we have a girl turn up. The town goes all out to find the boy, and the mother goes crazy, and in another story a young girl/woman is having her first experience.

This feels incredibly 80s, and the soundtrack is definitely helping that. Oh, the songs I remember. I kept having to pause watching to I could play the full song.

Anyway, it's a slow burn series so far. We get the odd hint of something strange, but mostly it's more character drama than sci-fi. And the Evil Government is clearly Evil because... of how the characters are shot by the camera. Okay, there are a few things they do in which they are evil, but mostly they haven't done much than show up and stand around creepily.

It's watchable enough, but I'm not blown away by it.

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The Grandmaster

It's another movie about Ip Man, this time with other characters getting a focus. It's The Grandmaster.

Ip Man is brought out to show off the Southern style in front of a Northern style master. Of course, he wins, but the daughter isn't too happy about that, and then fights him. There's a certain attraction between them, but he's married and she is focused on kungfu. Oh, and the Japanese invade, so there's something else to deal with. Eventually Ip Man ends up in Hong Kong and is teaching, and the daughter takes on the other erstwhile Northern style champion. And they get together for a chat. And that's about that.

There are some amazing wire-fu sequences and well choreographed fights which a flashily shot with lots of graceful moves and speed arm movements. But there are less than you'd think in an Ip Man movie. Indeed, it settles down and gets quite more into the character detail and drama. And the ending... isn't what you'd expect.

Some nice scenes but can't say I'm entirely enthralled by it.

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Expectation vs...

Okay, let's all admit it: those Ghostbusters trailers are terrible! None of the jokes land, and it feels super cringy. I've seen various edits of the trailers to improve them, and there was one common feature: removing the jokes.

This is hardly the first time that a trailer has failed to sell the movie, but there were understandably other factors happening. This was rebooting a loved franchise. With women! We all know that women aren't funny!

Yet there were plenty of us who wanted this to do well. There's no reasons those factors should play into whether or not the movie was any good, but people kept bringing it up. But we need more female led movies, especially in the sci-fi (plus anything) genre, especially movies that aren't just 'female badass that could easily have been a gender swap male role'.

But those trailers were not doing us any favours. In an effort to show up how funny the movie is, they pile in plenty of jokes. And they don't work. And yet... they are still in the movie. Possibly but the time they came up I was inured to them because of the trailers, but the jokes weren't the emphasis of the scene, unlike the trailer, and it didn't go on to another clunky joke, it just played in the scene and we went on.

Trailers can be a problematic attempt at engaging the audience, and this one did not do its job at all.

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Ghostbusterers

It's that terrible movie that's clearly terrible because it has women in it!

Ghosts bust through, and the ghost busters stop them!

On the whole... this was actually quite a good movie! I'm not saying it was as good as the original (because my glasses are too rose tinted to allow that), but this is far superior to any impression made by the trailer... but I'll come back to those trailers later. As for the female aspect... actually, aside from one or two jokes, the gender of the busters is entirely irrelevant to the movie/plot/anything at all really. In this respect, the movie treats the cast far better than the majority of the YouTube commentors.

In many ways, this is the sort of story that works best when rebooting a series. It tells a story similar to the first, but there are enough differences to make it feel fresh and a new take on it. We get a familiar yet different version of them coming together, a different first spook capture, and so on. It feels comfortable while also being updated.

And the cast is fine. Kirsten Wiig and Melissa McCarthy get the bulk of the script and the focus. Kate McKinnon... feels more like they needed someone else in frame rather than having a proper role for her. "We need a gadget person... right, let's move on." And Leslie Jones gets some great stuff to do as well.

Very well done, and bring on more!

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Horror of Drakula

Since Al gave a great series of posts on the Hammer Horror series of Dracula movies, it inspired me to watch them myself. Although my observations will be more low brow than Al's. We start with Horror.

This is a rather abbreviated version of the Dracula story. We get a short version of Harker vs Dracula, before moving on to Van Helsing helping out against Lucy and then Mina. It seems that everyone lives within an easy horse ride between places, and Dracula only needs a night to seduce women. And then Van Helsing faces off against Dracula, and that's that.

There are some great sets in the castle, but they aren't really used considering how impressive they are. They are mainly there for the characters to run through. And Christopher Lee has great presence as Dracula, the word 'looms' comes to mind whenever he is on screen.

I was surprised as how short the film was, and thus how compressed the story was. There are still some iconic moments (such as the appearance of Dracula with bloody fangs), and the movie moves along at a good pace. But having read the story, it does feel abridged.

Oh well, with Dracula killed off at the end, there will never be another movie...

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Moonbase 3.6

What do you do when it's just you with no chance of survival?

Michael Gough turns up on the Moonbase, and is an incredibly Negative Nelly. He was an architect of the Arctus Sun project, which would heat up Antartica and produce new land. However, he now says that it will destroy the Earth, and indeed the Earth gets covered in something and all signals disappear. The Earth is dead... But the Moonbase crew are still around, but have no chance of continuing getting supplies or anything. What should they do with only the prospect of death ahead of them?

Often the story is "we are lost and will die", but in this case it's "everyone else is dead, and we are alive". It's a hell of a pressure situation, and Michael Gough goes around being incredibly gloomy to everyone. Yay?

It's a rather bleak story (although the explanation about what is happening is rather silly), but this is the sort of story that science fiction should be exploring. As with all the episodes in this series.

It's been a great season of episodes, but no chance of a second season unfortunately.

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Camera Tromp

Hey, a found footage movie about a documentating crew! That's so original I couldn't pay attention.

A crew hears tales of a wildcat in the high mountain forests of... someplace I missed in Tibet? I think. And so they decide to go up there, put up some camera traps to capture footage, and wait for it to show up. Only they slowly find evidence of something else, and then get attacked by the end of the movie.

There is absolutely nothing original here. A group of people go to a remote location, and then too much of the movie is spent building up their not-supernatural/creepy life, although we all know there's something else (because that's why we are watching). And then finally something turns up, but it kept off camera, until it picks them off. You can predict the whole script before watching, and see it unfolding as expected.

I'm not even sure why I wanted to watch it now. I guess it's just that I'm looking for the rare gem, but this isn't it.

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Titus Jones

I've said before that I like a good mashup, and one artist I've come across is Titus Jones. And one of the best things is you can easily download his entire output from his site (probably because making it free avoids certain pesky legal issues).

He tends to go for multiple songs. A lot of mashups are just the lyrics of one song to the music of another, but he layers lots of tracks together. I like that.

Here's one, for example. Easily made by collecting the various videos together, but I'm glad someone did that for me.


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Stations of the Cross

This is a German film, and... I'm going to spoil that it's really good. This is Stations of the Cross.

A girl in an overly religious family is about to undergo Confirmation. However, as her mind is caught up in the Catholic fervor, she wants to sacrifice herself for her mute younger brother. And so we follow her as she goes through the Stations as Jesus did, before the final moment when her rather domineering mother faces up to this.

This story is told very well. Each of the 14 stations is presented as one long take, usually with a fixed camera, and that gives a nice sense of intimacy as it feels like you are part of the scene (as the camera isn't popping back and forth all over the place). This gives a chance for the actors to give a solid continuing performance, and so Lea van Acken gets to shine as the main person in nearly every scene.

This movie can seem understated with quiet moments as the shot lingers. But this works so well. Definitely should watch.

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Pepper & Carrot

This is something that I nearly Kickstartered... but didn't for reasons I will get into in a moment.

Pepper is a witch, and Carrot is her companion cat. She goes through several adventures, and usually comes out all right... or, at least, not terribly. Even Carrot gets more than a few things to do that show him off as being better than the average cat. The art style is evocative of a more painting style, and it's a nice easy read...

Which makes it a shame that someone tried to take credit for it. They claimed to be responsible for publishing his book, whereas they had no connection at all with the author. I pulled out of that, and wasn't the only one. Indeed, last I saw, it got shut down.

But, hey, it's definitely worth getting, and the first thirteen episodes are available to grab in a PDF, but they are all available for free on his website. Definitely to check out.

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Chief O'Brien at Work

This was another Kickstartered comic... based on a collection of webcomics (although I believe there was a special one or two added).

This is a set of comics featuring, as you might be able to infer from the title, Chief O'Brien at work. Work, in this case, being the transporter room. And so we get lots of shots of him standing there... not doing much... and his work basically being pushing a button.

It's a nice comic about quiet desperation. One comic is just him standing there, close up on him blinking, then back to standing. That's it. There are also a fair few comics of Riker banging Keiko, so there's also that.

It's a good read, if rather bleak, but that's where the humour lies. Worth checking out.

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Caddyschlock II

Considering how much I didn't like the original... it's impressive that the sequel is indeed worse.

The place is full of upper class twits, and one boy is dating a more lower class girl (with higher aspirations). As it happens, her father is very rich, but doesn't go around being poncy about it, and is asked to join the club for her. Bam, we get a clash of views, and much hilarity ensues.

Only none of it is funny. It feels like they wanted Rodney Dangerfield back, but got Jackie Mason instead. There's Randy Quaid, and he's always a marker of a quality movie. Robert Stack gives a decent performance. Dan Aykroyd doesn't. And Chevy Chase cameos as a stupid version of himself.

This feels like "the first worked so well, clearly another one would work"... and then completely fails to do that.

While I still don't like the original, I will take that over this.

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Moonbase 3.5

It's the classic episode of a trying to retrieve a lost sailor.

Tom Hill goes out to fix a satellite, but an accident happens and he hits the satellite and goes spinning off into space, lost forever... The Moonbase crew isn't going to let him go, and arranges a shuttle, however they need to get a pilot. Fortunately Tom's friend is around, unfortunately he's under command of the Russians. The Russian commander isn't interested in letting him go, and the second in command on Moonbase 3 is against the rescue as well. Will Tom ever be saved?

This shows what can be done with limited sets and a small cast, and yet creating high tension. Will they try to save Tom? Will they get a pilot to save him? Will the pilot be able to get there in time? This is all played as dramatic beats with ups and downs, and... do you need big action pieces? No, now when you've got good character moments. And considering that a lot of this episode is reciting of numbers as if any of them matters, we need something else to focus on (so dodgy dialogue instead of dodgy effects).

So yes, it is a good episode, but a great episode is to come.

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Ole 37

In this horror movie, we are supposed to be on the side of the killers, right?

Out on a stretch of road, it's a bad patch for car accidents. Fortunately, an ambulance arrives quickly to these parts. Unfortunately, it's fill of killers who will, well, kill you. Around this time, we get a bunch of stuck up young people who are total prats, and so they eventually get killed off. And by eventually, I mean the film spends far too much time on their Jersey Shore lives and we have no interest in any of them, and can't wait for the killers to turn up.

One cited point for this movie is it stars Kane Hodder and Bill Moseley. I recognise the former, not the latter. It also features some other people... who seem vacuous and annoying, so good acting? There are some decent practical effects, but nothing that amazing.

Just not impressive. Another movie to toss on the pile.

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Centrel Intellegence

Oh, it's a classic comedy where we are supposed to believe that Kevin Hart can be a secret agent.

The best senior in high school grew up to be an accountant, and isn't happy with his life. A random facebook like joins him back up with the big fat kid who got humiliated in school (by everyone except the best senior ever), and it turns out the fat kid is now the Rock. The Rock leads Hart through various escapades in which Hart can be the "comedian" while the Rock does all the action shots. But there are many twists and turns and... while I will give the film high marks for ambiguity, I can't say I really cared about them by the end.

Kevin Hart is a comedian that works best in small doses, but here it's in large doses. The Rock works well... well, not in comedies, but he does give it a good go. You can see where a lot of this story is going, at least in terms of the jokes, because they do attempt to give it a go to make the story at least a little bit confused. That said, I would love to watch a movie that actually goes the whole hog with that premise, but here it's about amusing the audience, not making them think.

Not a terrible movie, but be ready for what you are going to get.

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Medium Cool

I'm not sure if this is a satirical take on news crews or not. Either way, it is Medium Cool.

In the lead up to the 1968 Democratic National Convention, we follow a news crew as they capture the voice of the people. Which involves going out and getting footage, and chasing away kids from their cars. Fortunately, that one kid has a mother that the news cameraman finds interesting, and slowly they form a relationship. When the kid goes missing, she looks for the cameraman to get help (after looking for the kid herself), and they get caught up in the protest outside the convention.

Are news crews divorced from reality? Are they only interested in the shot, regardless of what the shot actually is? If someone is hurt, then they are there for the shot, not there to help. That's what this movie is on about, and contrasts this with the news cameraman actually getting into a relationship. And once that happens, he moves to the other side of the camera...

I'm not sure I got the point of this. It was part document, part drama, and it wasn't entirely clear to me what it was trying for. And yet this seems popular, so clearly I'm missing something.

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Easy Buzzfeed Article

First step, go back several decades.

Second, pick some random "big thing" from that time.

Third, pick some actors from that thing, and get shots of them in their classic poses/outfits.

Fourth, get photos of them from the current day. (So it helps if they are still alive.)

Put them side by side, and set up one page per set with a billion ads from other places.

Title it "You Won't Believe What [Character name] Looks Like Now!"

Publish.

????

Profit.

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Schlock Lock

Ah, back to the basics. A shark, a lake, it writes itself!

In one movie, a bad guy is running away from the police, and dumps a shark into a lake. Five years later, it and two young are swimming around attacking people, in bad CGI effects. (There’s one absolutely terrible moment where it looks like two divers are superimposed onto a lake scene. There’s no reason for it not to be real, but it looks incredibly fake.) Eventually, the bad guy has to side with the police to take the shark out.

In another movie, a bad guy is taken away by the police, leaving his daughter who is then adopted by one of the police officers. The bad guy gets out, and the new mother wants them to have nothing to do with each other, but of course the daughter is interested, and gets back with the bad guy and gets into trouble, and the two of them have to pair up to save her.

If any of these stories happen to overlap in the same movie, it’s pure coincidence. At least these stories have Dolph Lungren in them, improperly cast as he is for some random reason. And I’ve already mentioned the bad CGI.

Another movie to easily skip.

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Caddyschlock

A wee break before I get into the next series. I've heard a lot about this great comedy movie, so let's watch it for the first time!

The caddies at this shack have bigger ambitions than just caddying for people. One in particular tries to smooze up to one of the patrons in get on his more professional program. At the same time, various patrons rub each other up the wrong way in various comedic ways. And then there's the groundskeeper who is dealing with a gopher infestation. They all come together as people decide who they really want to be in a final showdown between golfers.

This it the great classic comedy, and features Harold Ramis as one of the writers so you know it's going to be good. There was one small problem... not one of the jokes landed for me. Not once was I even amused. Bemused, yes, but that's as far as it got. Frankly, it made me yearn to rewatch Tin Cup, which was a better movie for me. Even Bill Murray couldn't raise a smile here.

And there's a sequel which is apparently worse...

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Moonbase 3.4

Ah, the pressure of scientific progress in the face of monetary justification.

This episode focuses on Pete and Stephen as they try to complete scientific experiments to help justify the presence of the Moonbase. However, Stephen's experiments aren't exactly running according to schedule, and Pete is having problems actually caring. One is successful, and the other is... less so. But face must be saved, despite whatever happens.

Another episode that doesn't cover the usual sort of topics. This is all about the thrill of scientific endeavour, and the pressures that places on people. Do they knuckle down? Or do they decide there is something better in life? This presents both views, without taking any side on which is better. This features some great acting from the two scientist characters' actors, with just holding on to them staring away or pensively. [This also features more dodgy effects, the main one here being the pouring of some kind of metal, which fills up the container... and then is left to spill all over the floor. Er, what?]

Good episode, but they can't all be perfect.

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