I continue to be surprised that Space Precinct used to be shown during the early evenings when it first aired in the 90's, as this episode really leans into the horror side of sci-fi when a horrific alien creature commits brutal murders against a series of drug kingpins.
The episode opens with Officers Brogan and Haldane engaged in surveillance of a local drug dealer, Oturi Nissim. Having failed to find any evidence that Nissim is dealing in illegal black crystals during a raid, the duo are keeping an eye on his apartment to keep the pressure on the criminal. After they observe a pizza delivery being made to the apartment the mutilated body of Nissim lands on their police cruiser. When they investigate the apartment they find Nissim's body guards torn to pieces, and a young woman as the only survivor.
Investigating into the mysterious pizza delivery guy, they discover a much larger ring of black crystal smugglers, using the pizza delivery as a front. However, the thing that killed Nissim begins to take out the other dealers, before eventually appearing on the precinct house and attacking Officer Orrin.
The episode starts very strong, and the initial attack upon Nissim's apartment is done well, building up tension as Nissim discovers the remains of his men. Sadly, there were two things that distracted me slightly in these beginning moments. The first was that it seemed a little obvious that Aleesha, the pretty young woman who survived the attack, was the one responsible for the killings. The other thing was that the pizza delivery guy was played by Idris Elba. Whilst that's not distracting enough, he' been dubbed over by long time Gerry Anderson voice actor David Healy, who gives him a kind of cowboy-like accent.
After these opening moments the episode has the main duo trying to get to the bottom of the killings, which gives us a fun little police chase with amazing model work, as well as an intense shootout with a pair of drug dealers.
Despite their best efforts to try and track down the mysterious killer Brogan and Haldane struggle to make any traction, and begin to become suspects themselves as the only people to be present at both sets of killings. Whilst Captain Podly doesn't seem to believe this, it's a good world building moment when he tells them the mayor is clamouring for answers and pointing the finger at a pair of 'rogue' cops. We've not really learnt much about the workings of Demeter City outside of the police, but this throwaway line lets us know that the police don't operate in a vacuum, that they are answerable to people and the public can sway opinion.
Toward the end of the episode the characters begin to piece together the answer to the mystery, in part thanks to a sub-plot involving Brogan's son Matthew. This leads to a violent confrontation with Aleesha in her monster form that ends with the characters gunning her down. It's brutal and fast, and over before you've really had the chance to realise what's going on. I also refer to Aleesha's other form as a monster because whilst all of the other aliens we've seen in Space Precinct all seem like people, just ones that look different from us, Aleesha's other form is more of a feral beast, more akin to a wild animal than a person.
The episode also has a couple of sub-plots going on in the background. The first one, as I'd mentioned before, does tie into the main story as it helps Brogan to piece together what's happening. It involves his son Matthew and his new friend Inazy, who Brogan doesn't really like. He comes from a poorer part of the city, and is presented to be something of a tearaway, and when Brogan sees them with a strange bottle of glowing liquid he begins to suspect they're up to no good. However, it turns out that Inazy is actually a really good kid, and that the two teens have just been working on a school project together.
It's kind of nice that the episode worked this story in. Not only does it build on the Brogan family as seen in the first episode, who seemed a bit dull there, but it also adds to the message of the episode of not judging people by their first appearance. The sweet and innocent girl is actually a brutal killer, and the untrustworthy youth is a really good kid who's trying to do well at school. The two play into each other well, that even the moment when Brogan figures things out doesn't feel too corny as it's in a nice character scene.
The other sub-plot, on the other hand, seems to be something completely throw away, and feels like its in the episode to pad out the running time and to give the women something to do. It might seem a bit mean to say this, but the whole plot about the old bag lady who turns out to be a lost alien queen adds nothing to the other story, and this is the second episode in a row where both Officer Castle and Officer Took seem to be relegated to the background. I really hope that this isn't the start of a pattern where the female officers keep getting given pointless sub-plots to keep them sidelined.
'Double Duty' definitely leans into the sci-fi side of things more than the first episode did, but seems to find a really nice balance of science fiction and police procedural. It also continues to display great model work that gets utilised in brilliant chase sequences, though some of the other effects definitely haven't aged as well. A solid second episode for the series.
No comments:
Post a Comment