Space Precinct – 1. Double Duty

If there’s one thing that’s going to put you off even attempting to watch Space Precinct, it’s the fact that it doesn’t have a proper first episode to hang its police cap on. Double Duty was the first script to enter production because it was one of the least ambitious on the slate at the time, and the complex production of Space Precinct (still known as Space Police at that point!) needed time to warm up. Obviously the 1986 pilot film Space Police: Star Laws doesn’t count as a first episode because it barely shares any elements at all with the series it became. Gavin Scott’s 1992 pilot script The Max Factor evolved the concept established in Star Laws but that also went unfilmed.

In 1994, once the series’ format was more or less in place, Paul Mayhew-Archer wrote a new opening episode called Demeter City to introduce the characters and alien setting properly. It was an ambitious script which would have shown our human heroes on Earth before their transfer to the planet Altor (originally known as Alitorp). But the story goes that the series’ (generous) budget wouldn’t stretch to producing sets for New York and Demeter City at the same time (this author shrugs sarcastically). Therefore, Demeter City was pushed out to be shot later in the production schedule once things had settled down a bit. Unfortunately, it then became apparent that the schedule had zero flexibility if there was any chance of the series being ready for its American TV premiere in the fall. Therefore, Demeter City had to be dropped altogether, leaving the series without an opening episode.

So, let’s be black-crystal-clear (get it?) that Double Duty was never intended to be the first episode of Space Precinct. Heck, it wasn’t even the first episode to be broadcast – that honour fell to the similarly undeserving Protect and Survive. But I had to start these reviews somewhere and y’all know I like to work in production order, and for better or worse, Double Duty was the first episode to go before the cameras in May 1994…

Devil’s advocate time: Maybe the narration over the opening titles is all the introduction we need? Yes, Ted Shackelford earns his top billing by starting the show with a brief explanation of who Brogan is and what he’s doing in space. It’s not much, but it’s something! It’s an exciting buildup and coupled with Crispin Merrell’s music I’m already on the edge of my seat. The computer generated graphics hold up well enough, probably holding up even better than ever thanks to the AI upscaling techniques which have brought the series into high definition for this Blu-ray release. Here’s a super minor thing to point out – the standard definition version of this episode released on DVD starts with “Grove Television Enterprises Presents” rather than “GTV Presents” as seen here on Blu-ray. Aren’t you glad I pointed that out? I bet it makes a world of difference.

Okay, fine, I’ll tell you the story about the show’s title. Space Precinct was originally known by the much snappier title of Space Police. In fact, it was still called Space Police when Double Duty went into production. But the series was forced to drop the Space Police title because those rascals at LEGO had gone and trademarked the name in America for use on their range of intergalactic crimefighting brick-based kits. Now if you’re a regular Security Hazard reader, you know I don’t have a bad word to say about LEGO… but they really screwed us over in this case didn’t they? Look, Space Precinct isn’t a bad title for the show, but it doesn’t really drive home the point as well as Space Police does it? Now, in LEGO’s defence, their first wave of Space Police sets was released in 1989, and their second started in 1992 with a special logo and everything, so it’s not like Gerry Anderson and the team didn’t have ample warning that the name Space Police was no longer available by 1994.

The digital I.D. cards are a neat way of introducing the key characters. Again, the HD restoration is top notch. When artificial intelligence is handed blurry text to sharpen up, it can render out complete and utter nonsense, but either the technology has been refined or some humans have intervened because everything in this shot says exactly what it’s supposed to say. The text flicks by pretty fast but to be honest it doesn’t tell us much that we couldn’t have worked out for ourselves anyway.

How do we feel about Ted Shackelford taking the lead role as Brogan? Obviously Shane Rimmer was brilliant in the Star Laws pilot but I don’t think it was ever likely for him to be retained as the show’s star since he wasn’t a big name in America. That said, and I mean this in the nicest possible way, I don’t know if Ted Shackelford was exactly a huge name in America either – at least not in the way that he needed to be. Ted was a soap star known especially for his 14-year starring role in the Dallas spin-off Knots Landing from 1979 to 1993. Now, please don’t interpret that as me being snobby about soap acting. Actors in soap operas have an incredibly difficult job and in the right circumstances produce some of the most consistently brilliant performances on television. But would joe-public accept a soap star as their new sci-fi star? Alas, the press and by extension certain audiences, can’t always make that disconnect. Frankly, I think Ted Shackelford is perfect for the role of Brogan. He’s got the right look, the right level of cop authority mixed with fatherly authority, and the right sort of hair that only American TV stars seem to have. But to be successful on paper, Space Precinct probably needed a big name from the world of American science fiction at that time (let’s be honest, I mean Star Trek) to offer it some credibility with U.S. audiences. It might not have made any difference to the quality of the show, but it might have given Space Precinct a better shot at capturing the attention of its key audience.

Rob Youngblood is Officer Jack Haldane and oh boy yeah he is! Again, I absolutely love Rob as Haldane. I think he has a great chemistry with Ted as Brogan and fits into the role of the dashing young second lead perfectly. After guest appearances in shows like Dallas and MacGyver, Rob Youngblood’s first starring role was playing Elvis Presley in the 1993 TV Movie Elvis and the Colonel: The Untold Story. That role probably would have been considered his big break in the U.S. and if I were his big-shot Hollywood agent at the time, I probably would have advised him to stay in L.A. and soak up bigger and bigger credits off the back of playing Elvis… but instead, Rob moved to England to appear in Space Precinct. In interviews at the time Rob insisted it was the kind of work he desperately wanted, but I might argue that it lost him some momentum towards the level of stardom he was almost certainly capable of.

Simone Bendix is Officer Jane Castle! Again, Simone is brilliant in the role and she has great chemistry with the rest of the cast, but she was an unusual casting choice for a leading role since she had very few film and television credits to her name prior to Space Precinct. Then again, I can’t imagine the part was particularly inspiring on paper – playing the third lead who is specifically there to get sidelined every week by the two male leads who are off having bigger, more important crimefighting adventures. Fortunately, the writers did end up finding a place for Officer Castle later on, but for this week Double Duty definitely saddles her with the uninspired B-plot.

Ummm… this guy… well… he’s not actually in this show. This is a clip from the 1991 Space Police Reloaded trailer which was put together by Mentorn and Grove Television to sell the series by combining footage from the 1986 Star Laws pilot with newly shot material. That’s a whole big rabbit hole that I promise we’ll explore later.

Finishing the lineup of stars is Nancy Paul as Sally Brogan… yup, she’s in this as well. Frankly, based on the early episodes anyway, I think it’s a miracle the casting directors managed to interest anyone into playing the role of Sally Brogan. Nancy Paul does a decent enough job with what she was given… and that’s all I have to say on that for now. The fact that Nancy Paul received main title billing but someone like Jerome Willis as Captain Podly didn’t (at first) is perhaps the clearest indicator that the writers and producers had no idea where they were taking the show tonally… So far in this title sequence we’ve had one single alien randomly pop up in amongst all these very Hollywood-handsome friendly human looking people.

Still not really any aliens but at least we get some fairly randomly selected spaceships and special effects shots to accompany the remaining credits. Alan Hume was an enormously experienced Director of Photography and a pretty clear indicator if one was needed that Gerry Anderson was keen to get big feature film crew onboard to make his show.

Steven Begg and Harry Oakes were Anderson veterans placed in charge of bringing all the special effects model work to life, with Steven Begg previously helming effects on Terrahawks and Harry Oakes’ connection to Gerry Anderson dating all the way back to uncredited camera work on Fireball XL5. Likewise, Tom Sachs was a hugely experienced production manager on films such as Where Eagles Dare (1968) and many Hammer Horror movies – again, an odd choice for a television series requiring a rapid turnaround.

Tom Gutteridge, serving as Executive Producer for Mentorn, probably knew television in the mid 90s better than anyone on that Space Precinct production team. He joined the BBC as a journalist, moved into music and light entertainment, and then setup Mentorn Films to produce documentaries, magazine series, and entertainment shows. Robot Wars ultimately became his career-defining achievement a few years after Space Precinct, filling a very similar time slot on BBC2 to great acclaim.

With the ecclectic mix of television executives, feature film veterans, homegrown special effects experts, and a cast of out-of-their-depth stars, Gerry Anderson headed up Space Precinct as Series Creator and Producer. After a considerable downturn in his fortunes during the late 70s, and a spell of making do with lower-budget productions like Terrahawks and Dick Spanner P.I., Gerry was riding high in 1994 after the successful relaunch of his Supermarionation hits like Thunderbirds, Stingray, and Captain Scarlet on BBC2. After eight years attempting to raise the funds, Space Precinct finally went into production at the famous Pinewood Studios in 1994 with a staggering budget of £20 million. Gerry must have felt like he was finally in his element – working on a big live action production with respected industry veterans and using state-of-the-art technology to make it all happen. Terrahawks might have been his comeback to puppetry in 1983, but I’m sure Space Precinct was the comeback to filmmaking he had truly been craving…

Space Precinct continues the tradition of many Anderson shows by featuring a “This Episode” montage in its main title sequence. Composer Crispin Merrell takes it as an opportunity to go absolutely bananas and cranks up the pace of the music. There’s some tasty looking drama in there. Green-haired women! Maggots! Explosions! Aliens! Robots! Sign me up!

A few more credits as the episode begins proper on moody shots of Demeter City at night. We’ll discuss many of these names in more detail throughout these reviews, but one thing I will call out early on though is that Tony Curtis was a very experienced art director and production designer, which is… well… surprising for reasons we’ll discuss at length throughout these reviews. Let’s just say I find that the live action set design is one of the weaker elements of Space Precinct‘s overall look. Meanwhile the likes of Bill Pearson, Neill Gorton and Richard Gregory undoubtedly provide some of the most memorable design elements of the entire series with their models, prosthetics and animatronics.

As unintented opening scenes for the entire series go, this one actually does okay. An exasperated Haldane confides in Brogan that his date last night didn’t go to plan. Okay, not the most original conversation to be committed to the screen, but that’s sort of the point. It establishes that these are ordinary guys with ordinary problems.

Then Haldane uses the phrase “major lust” to demonstrate Space Precinct‘s oh so messy tonal issue. He couldn’t have just said, “Oh they were cute” or, “By thunder, I respected my date as an individual with thoughts and feelings.” Nope, Haldane is all about the lust which is hardly a suitable topic for kicking off a family programme. Brogan grins in something resembling sympathy as Haldane fails to wrap his head around the concept of a “male, female, and other” relationship. Space Precinct may have been set in the future, but there’s no escaping the fact it was written in the mid-90s.

In a way this scene does nicely suggest that Haldane and Brogan have only recently arrived on the planet Altor, which in some way makes up for the fact that we never saw the episode they were supposed to arrive in.

Breaking Bad, Fargo and The Great are just a few of the ridiculously successful television shows Colin Bucksey has directed bits of in recent years. He was and remains another industry veteran with bucketloads of experience making some extraordinary television. So why did Gerry Anderson only have him work on the one episode of Space Precinct? Maybe I’m asking that question prematurely.

Yup, I am loving all the dark moody goodness on display here so far. Steven Begg’s shots of the city are of feature film quality even at this early stage in the production – and they happen to have cleaned up a treat on this Blu-ray!

Brogan and Haldane are all charm and smarm as they hound Nissim outside his apartment, strongly suspecting him of dealing in Black Crystal… whatever that is… I’m sure we’ll get to that.

Nissim, played by Nickolas Grace, does a very good turn as the scary tough guy and plays the “I’m not a criminal, honest, and if you say I am I’ll rip your lips off” schtick with a stereotypical lack of credibility.

Brogan loves his job. Trust me, it might sound like a throwaway quip, but Brogan has a bloomin’ hard job so any indication that he actually enjoys it is worth noting.

It becomes apparent that Brogan and Haldane are going to hover around outside for a bit which makes the two Creon cronies nervous. Nissim’s apartment is… well look, I’m no interior designer, and I know it was the 90s, but the idea that a crime lord on an alien planet in the future would have those curtains and that lamp shade is absurd. Not just absurd but distracting. The city outside just doesn’t match the apartment inside. That might be okay if it weren’t for the fact you also have two incredibly realistic-looking aliens standing on the set. It’s a major clash of styles and unfortunately this particular set isn’t the only casualty.

I hope that scenery tastes better than it looks because Nickolas Grace looks ready to start chewing on it.

A green-haired lady appears from a doorway next to the sort of shelving unit you’d find in the back of a charity shop. Sadly, this is the point when viewers at home probably cringed so hard that the TV remote got sucked up into their hand and turned the show off. Not only is actor (and poet) Lana Citron dubbed really, really badly all the way through by Moir Leslie, but the writers actually dared to give Nissim the line, “Not to worry doll. You just concentrate on what you do best… being beautiful.” Oh but don’t worry, Nickolas Grace owns it completely by touching his girlfriend’s face like he’s stroking a fluffy duvet. I’m sure that won’t make anyone at home wretch.

I get there’s only 45 minutes of screen time to squeeze this story into, and sometimes that requires some extremely over the top dialogue to get a point or a certain character trait across quickly. The writers and actors needed to communicate fairly efficiently that Nissim was an undesirable creep and that Aleesha is something of a trophy for him. But that doesn’t give you a free pass to wheel out every old cliché in the book! When you’re dealing with a beautiful green-haired alien and a suspected drug dealer backed up by two ugly cronies, I think you’ve checked more than enough cliché boxes for one scene!

From clichés to the completely unexpected – here’s a badly dubbed Idris Elba delivering a space pizza. Obviously some of the ridiculousness of this whole bit is purely a result of retrospective. Nobody in 1994 could have predicted that Idris Elba would turn out to be an insanely talented, insanely recognisable, insanely respected actor… especially off the back of this appearance in Space Precinct. But from David Healy’s terrible dubbing, to the space helmet that just doesn’t fit on Idris Elba’s head, to the mere prospect of a pizza delivery boy turning up looking and sounding that handsome, everything about this is cockabonkers. And while there’s an extent to which it’s supposed to look highly suspicious for the benefit of the plot, I just have to throw up my hands and wonder what on earth they were all thinking.

On the subject of dubbing in particular, I’m keen to observe whether it gets any better as the series goes on, or whether there were just some teething troubles in the post-production sound department to begin with. So far, we’re barely three minutes into the episode and we’ve been subjected to two of the most poorly executed and badly cast re-voices I’ve ever known.

As futuristic space pizza delivery bikes go, I guess I can give this a pass. I like how yellow it is. That must mean the pizza is extra cheesy. Sorry, space cheesy.

Haldane and Brogan are suspicious… either that or Rob and Ted are already regretting leaving Hollywood for this.

Who told the man to wink for goodness sake?

Idris wants a tip. How about get a better agent?

Nissim gives the man his marching orders before taking his garish Sublight Pizza box over to your grandma’s dressing table.

Just when I think the tone of the show is going to settle down I’m confronted with maggotty pizza…

… which is suddenly not quite so maggotty when an actor gets near it. Fascinating. Underneath the dips, we have our Black Crystal. So the creep under police watch with two cronies and a trophy girlfriend was up to no good after all?! Well boil my eyes and call me a Creon.

Someone screams, so a very ordinary looking gun comes out as Nissim makes his way back through a hideously decorated hallway to the apartment. Either someone’s brought a lot of unwanted ketchup to this pizza party or…

Rather than immediately investigating the absolutely enormous pool of blood seeping under his front door, Nissim takes a moment to call out the names of his cronies just on the off-chance they aren’t very, very, very, definitely dead.

At least someone had the good taste to try and destroy that lamp shade.

If you weren’t already aware, the BBC had a horrendous time trying to fit Space Precinct into its predetermined 6:00 pm time slot because of all the gratuitous violence on display. They ordered drastic changes be made to almost every episode to cut out or in some cases even reshoot scenes featuring violence, sadism, blood, blades, or anything nasty that a child might not want to see while sitting down to a plate of fish fingers at tea-time. Personally, I’m on the side of the BBC. I don’t know why Space Precinct‘s producers allowed grim scenes like this to be pushed as far as they were. It doesn’t enhance the overall storytelling, nor can I imagine it made the series more appealing to mature audiences. Action, tension, and scariness are entirely fitting for a family programme about space cops, but the sight of a bloodied hand reaching out for mercy is just a baffling choice. Who is that for? Who does that entertain? Almost certainly, it’s not going to delight the same people who would be amused by a comedy pizza delivery driver, or chuckle at Haldane’s tales of a date gone awry, or sit in awe at a flying police cruiser zipping through space.

Nissim’s attack is kept to brief shadows and flickers of light for a slightly more excusable experience. For some reason Colin Bucksey chooses to shake the camera around in a manner which… well it just looks like someone shaking a camera around. It doesn’t impress me. Sorry.

Things in the cruiser are quiet. Ted Shackelford is drafting a letter to his agent in his head. Rob Youngblood tells the story of where he managed to get that perfect Hollywood hair. It’s all very normal.

Horrifying crash zoom. Horrified Brogan. Horrific close-up of a blood-drenched hand dropping a lump of Black Crystal on the wind screen. Okay. We get it. Demeter City is a tough beat for a regular Earth cop. Did it have to be established quite so unpleasantly?

Oh shut up, Haldane, you’re not funny.

Never mind all that ugliness for a moment because here is an absolutely gorgeous shot of Precinct 88 in all her glory! After the police cruisers, this orbiting space station is probably the most recognisable model from the whole show designed by Steve Begg and built by Bill Pearson, Steve Howarth and the model team. This effects shot, like many others seen in Space Precinct is a composition of several layers of film, video, and digital effects which seem to have polished up beautifully for this HD release. The sky above Altor is rarely portrayed as just being black with twinkly bits – they really make an effort.

The interior set of the station house is a magnificent two-tier structure – a feat which I have to praise set designer Tony Curtis for despite my snippiness about his work on Nissim’s apartment earlier. You can tell that directors loved finding interesting ways of establishing this room and finding all sorts of business for the actors to be doing across the two levels. And of course, we get to enjoy the eclectic mix of Tarn, Creon, and human officers going about their police duties.

Actor Mary Woodvine is tasked with the horrendous deed of trying to navigate her way down the spiral staircase with the extremely limited vision offered by her animatronic mask, complete with prisoner extras shouting at her. She handles it masterfully – especially considering this would have been one of her earliest days of filming in the role of Took!

Director Colin Bucksey chases after Officer Castle with the camera in a keen attempt to make the desk full of paperwork look exciting. And d’you know what? It ruddy well works.

Castle and Took are partnered up just like Brogan and Haldane, except this week they get to handle the most B-plot of all B-plots. A mysterious “Bag Lady” played by the late Matyelok Gibbs has been brought in and nobody knows what to do with her because she has a major case of amnesia. I suspect she’ll probably regain her memory just as soon as the episode needs to pick up steam again.

Before we have time to get too invested in the single piece of evidence Castle has to hand, the B-plot is interrupted by a pair of Creon critters…

Orrin and Beezle! Now. I won’t spoil it just yet, but I wouldn’t get too attached to Beezle if I were you. Playing Officer Hubble Orrin is an actor of the stage and screen called Richard James whom you might have heard of from a little thing called The Gerry Anderson Podcast. Meanwhile, Officer Beezle is played by beloved Eastenders actor Tom Watts.

Richard James is revoiced throughout the series by Kieron Jecchinis, while Tom Watts is revoiced in all of his appearances by Gary Martin. Meanwhile, Mary Woodvine’s role as Took is dubbed by Colette Hiller, but only for the first half of the series. One practical reason for the generous amount of dubbing is that the noise generated by the mechanisms inside the alien masks made the raw sound recorded on the studio floor next to useless. It’s not unusual for dialogue on films to be completely re-recorded later to improve the quality because film studios and locations are surprisingly noisy places. So re-recording is fair enough, but why were these three voices taken on by different actors entirely? In Richard James’ case at least, no official explanation was given except for the fact that they wanted him to be doing an American accent… which he was… but presumably Kieron Jecchinis (also an English actor) just had more of the sort of sound that the producers were after. Since the identity of these particular actors was hidden by the masks anyway, I imagine Gerry Anderson and others felt they could disguise their vocal performances without too much added insult to injury. As we’ll learn in a few episodes’ time, there actually was a little insult added to injury and that resulted in a bit more restraint…

“Don’t worry dear, at least you get to speak with your own voice.”

Oh look, it’s Slomo! The trouble with this not being a proper first episode is that characters just appear and disappear without a decent introduction. Other than Brogan, Slomo is the only character who was carried over from the original Space Police: Star Laws pilot in any meaningful way. Designed by David Dunsterville, built by Richard Gregory, and voiced by Gary Martin, Slomo is one of the most unique and charming characters in Space Precinct. The original exceedingly heavy prop survives to this day! As of summer 2024, Slomo resides in the collection of model builder and collector David Sisson.

Meanwhile, Ted Shackelford and Rob Youngblood seem to be genuinely loving every second of playing cops and robbers and stomp through Nissim’s apartment with their guns out happily dragging as much tension out of the scene as possible. Suddenly it all feels like a proper crime series – not necessarily a family series – but maybe a straight up drama that the parents can enjoy once the kids are in bed.

Frequently donning Creon and Tarn masks to play minor guest roles in the series were Rob Thirtle and Andy Dawson. I’m not sure you could convince me to put on a rubber mask and submerge myself in a water feature so well done to them for suffering through it!

Brogan despises the curtains so much he decides to try and shoot one of them, but not before Aleesha comes out of her hiding place. Yes, when a murderer comes knocking, the first place I’d hide myself is behind the hideous pink drapes. Frankly, on that basis alone the two officers should have been somewhat suspicious of Aleesha.

Alas, we heard at the very top of the episode that Haldane has a thing for green-haired women so they just go along with whatever she says…

This leaves Brogan with some more time to wander around the apartment like the big tough cop that he is. They really do have the “walking around the crime scene with a gun out” thing down pretty well…

Seriously, everyone’s turned up to have a go! Nissim’s apartment is clearly empty except for six cops and Aleesha. So how did the murderer escape?! Oh my, what a mystery!

Sometimes the composition of film elements on top of other effects aren’t quite so seamless. The fiddly sticky-out bits hanging from the bottom of the space station reveal something of a black outline around the model. That’s being really nit-picky though because it’s still 98% gorgeous.

Captain Rexton Podly, played magnificently by Jerome Willis (yes, he even gets to keep his own voice!), is trying to make life difficult for the poor chap running Sublight Pizza. Again, considering this isn’t actually supposed to be the first episode, this scene does a nice enough job establishing that Podly is the no-nonsense commander of the precinct, respected and feared by all who dare to step inside his office.

I know I wouldn’t mess with him.

Orrin and Beezle pop off in quite a hurry, and in comes Sgt. Thorald Fredo (David Quilter) – a Tarn officer about whom I don’t have much to say I’m afraid. At least in the early episodes I’ve actually seen before, he isn’t given much to do. Let’s hope things pick up for Fredo later on! For now, he’s just here to shift the plot along a bit by getting Podly to read a report about all the Black Crystal dealers who are getting bumped off across the quadrant by the Gemini Gang.

Speaking of which, Brogan pops in right on cue with the lump of Black Crystal dropped out of Nissim’s cold, dead hand. Apparently the rock has life-extending properties which make the substance very expensive and very illegal. After all, it was the 90s, and every cop show had a storyline about the war on drugs, so why not Space Precinct? Unfortunately, at least in my opinion anyway, a lot of these early episodes read like very cliché police procedural plots with the phrase “but in space” tacked on the end of them. The marriage between crime drama and science fiction can be quite hit and miss. In the case of Double Duty, it’s as if the writers took a script for NYPD Blue or Law & Order, and just substituted the word “opioid” for “Black Crystal”. Rather than looking at a real-world problem through a sci-fi lens to add depth of meaning, Double Duty and episodes like it are like looking at a real-world problem wearing a green rubber mask and not much else.

Took and Haldane are giving the witness a thorough grilling (more of a light toasting actually) in the interrogation room.

Aleesha tries to convince Haldane she was only interested in Nissim for his charm and polite conversation… an argument I’d find a lot more convincing if I hadn’t spent the first five minutes trying not to chuck up my dinner every time Nissim spoke. Then we switch from a bit of a flirty energy to poor Aleesha overwhelmed with emotion breaking down in tears. The voice actor, Moir Leslie, is desperately trying to match Lana Citron’s on-screen performance but for obvious reasons it just sounds even more fake than it probably did live on the sound stage. The dubbing makes it pretty much impossible to become invested in the emotion of the scene and leaves the whole thing feeling like a bit of a cheesy mess. This isn’t helped by the fact that the set looks like it was thrown together out of bits of vacuum-formed packaging in about five minutes. The three actors, one of whom is in a big bulky mask, are clearly having trouble moving around the space to keep the scene interesting, and the camera is pushed right in to avoid exposing the edges of the set. The large mirror probably doesn’t help much with hiding the camera either.

Fortunately, Rob Youngblood does manage to save the scene somewhat by digging deep into Haldane’s shallowness. Because Rob has genuine charisma and some chemistry with Lana Citron, they both just about manage to skim over making their “call me Jack” moment sound horrifically corny. Don’t get me wrong, it still sounds a little bit corny, but not to the point that I want to slide a sharp stick up my ear hole.

The security camera definitely can’t hide how ludicrously small and unfit for purpose the set is.

Brogan asks Took for some sort of analysis on Aleesha’s mental state. Again, we don’t get any exposition on it because this isn’t the proper first episode of the series, but it turns out that Took and other Tarns can read minds, as well as possessing other psychic powers whenever the plot deems it necessary.

Castle enjoys a moment to mock Haldane’s attempts to flirt with the witness. Yeah, you can bet that’s a running theme for the whole series. Of course the attractive young man and the attractive young woman have a bit of a thing going on that can’t quite be pinned down. Heck, if your actors are good enough to play it convincinly, why not go for it? And trust me, Simone Bendix and Rob Youngblood play it pretty perfectly.

Remember the thinly veiled B-plot? Yeah, me neither. Apparently at some point between running off to Nissim’s apartment and interrogating Aleesha, Took’s also had time to analyse the disc thing that the Bag Lady was left with, but has drawn a complete blank. You remember the disc thing right? Yeah, I know, pffft, whatever. Fortunately, Orrin and Beezle don’t have anything left to do with the A-plot either so they’re also helping out with cracking the Bag Lady mystery too. Beezle uses his incredible power for… well, looking at the thing, and determines that the disc might be a data disc. Phew, glad someone figured that out for us.

I guess Slomo has a special door specifically designed for making surprise appearances like this. As this is the side of the set that the cameras look at the least, it’s therefore the least interesting from a design perspective.

Orrin carefully inserts the disc in the top of Slomo’s head because any alternatives for such an insertion would probably look quite rude. Poor lil’ robot goes bananas and speaking in a language neither of our Creon Einsteins can understand…

Oh apparently hearing the language restores the memory of the lady who is in fact the Queen of Megalon Seven. Took’s dead-eyed look to the camera says it all, as does Castle’s wide-eyed bewilderment. Incidentally, it’s worth raving about the fact that the prosthetics and anamatronics haven’t put a foot wrong so far! Even though the actors are in masks and their voices are being provided by other people about 50% of the time, I totally buy all of their performances. Supermarionation veteran Christine Glanville was frequently operating the controls of the animatronics alongside assistants Tamzine Hanks and Lindsay Harris. No matter the bizarre requirements, it strikes me that Christine always rose to whatever challenge Gerry Anderson set for her – from operating the earliest puppets with electronic lip sync, to engineering puppets that were perfectly proportioned humans for Captain Scarlet, to crawling into a pit in Bray Studios and operating the Terrahawks puppets from below. In the Space Police: Star Laws pilot, she even got into costume and played the live action counterpart for Officer Tom. Like her long-time friend, collaborator, and Anderson veteran Richard Gregory, it seems Christine could turn her hand to anything!

Time for a bit of fun with Orrin & Beezle versus a babbling spinny robot thing. Remember when this show was about drugs and endless pools of blood?

Eventually, Slomo just bumps into his little door and checks out. Very dignified. The station house set definitely looks a lot less impressive from this angle.

Podley steps out of his office to give the lads a dressing down. The Queen is not amused. The man walking behind Podly has just realised he’s on the wrong set.

I think unintentionally funny Podly faces are going to become a regular feature of these reviews. You’re welcome.

Bit of dodgy continuity here. Earlier, Haldane and Took left the impossibly tiny interrogation room, telling Aleesha to stay where she was, and then entered the main station house set on the ground floor. So, why is Haldane now bringing Aleesha down those tricky spiral stairs? Okay, okay, they might have taken her somewhere else in the meantime, but I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t at least mention it.

Incidentally, Brogan couldn’t look less interested in all this pendant talk… which is quite handy for dragging out the episode’s running time.

Look, maybe subtlety and genuinely intriguing crime mysteries are too much to ask for in a show like Space Precinct. Double Duty‘s writers, J. Larry Carroll and David Bennett Carren, wrote predominantly for science fiction shows and cartoons before working on the series. None of the writers had a pedigree for crime fiction. Therefore, the police procedural and mystery elements of Space Precinct were always destined to be rather ordinary… so why did they bother making them an intrinsic part of the show’s format?

Seriosuly, look at Brogan. He would rather be anywhere else right now. Fortunately, the woman who obviously did all the murdering is set free so the conversation doesn’t have to continue for any longer than necessary.

Again, it’s up to Rob Youngblood to save the scene by brewing up some delightful chemistry with Simone Bendix. The two of them just play the moment for what it is and it’s very, very likeable in my opinion. You may not share that opinion. You may find these little frissons rather irritating. Frankly, I think they’re the only opportunities the actors get to shine in this episode. Surrounded by weird masks, wobbly sets and infuriatingly shallow plots, I think Rob and Simone benefit from having a few moments of screen-time just to do relatable human-to-human, back-and-forth, will-they-won’t-they type stuff. Now I wouldn’t want a huge chunk of the episode dedicated to all this relatable human-to-human stuff…

No, I said I wouldn’t want a huge chunk of the episode dedicated to this relatable human-to-human stuff…

Ah nuts, too late. Everybody, meet the Brogan family – the characters that we viewers don’t want to spend any time with but are forced to anyway because… well, I honestly have no idea why. They’re essentially here to prove my point that Space Precinct hasn’t got a clue what it’s doing from a tone point of view. Believe it or not, this was also the first scene filmed for the entire series.

Nic Klein plays Lt. Brogan’s 14-year-old son, Matthew. He’s perfectly cast as a young Ted Shackelford and to be honest, he plays the part well enough. Don’t get me wrong, it’s written to be as annoying as possible, but Nic doesn’t add to my annoyance so that’s something.

The story goes that Matt lost a sports game because one of his opponents was a telekinetic Tarn, as was the referee. Oh my aching sides. In comes Liz Brogan played by Megan Olive – also a perfectly adequate child actor with the material she’s given. Unfortunatetly, what she’s given is an animatronic squeaky thing called Zil which she’s absolutely ruddy obsessed with in a seriously one-dimensional way. I get it, kids are weird, but from the way Liz communicates all of her thoughts and feelings through Zil I’d say she’s not exactly adjusting well to life on Altor.

My thoughts entirely.

Matt disappears to go and answer the door. This time, it’s not badly dubbed Idris Elba, which honestly would have been something of a relief.

This is Inazy, our totally unnecessary C-plot for this week. Basically, and I hope you’ll excuse me being so bold about this, we’re supposed to interpret that Matt’s friend Inazy looks and sounds like he does a lot of drugs. Or rather, to a middle-class dad like Patrick Brogan, Inazy looks and sounds like he does a lot of drugs because he’s got a funny haircut and says “yo.” Brogan is horrified, but he’s also deeply repressed so just scowls a lot when Matt says something about a special project and exits forthwith.

I’m not sure what’s worse – the fact that Inazy’s scalp is apparently sponsored by Adidas, or the bathroom extractor fan that’s been glued to the wall to look like a piece of complicated space station equipment. The glowing liquid which is obviously supposed to look suspiciously like drugs but also obviously isn’t supposed to look suspiciously like drugs is… ummm… Sorry, I’m already so bored by this sub-plot I can’t be bothered to finish the sentence. Even dramas specifically aimed at children had more compelling drug storylines than this (Grange Hill anyone?!).

All Brogan can do is watch in disbelief as his good, clean, All-American boy is sucked into the scummy underworld of not-actually-drugs.

To be honest, I think Ted Shackelford is over-playing it. That’s an expression which says “Oh no, my son is definitely a crackhead,” rather than “hmmm, my son might be a crackhead but I should investigate further before leaping to any conclusions.”

It’s probably not helped by the fact that Nancy Paul is rather under-playing it. Oh yeah, it’s her first scene too by the way.

The script doesn’t give Sally Brogan anything interesting here except an opportunity to dump a needlessly elaborate backstory for Inazy’s family who are frying eggs in a crunchy commune or something oh my word help me please I am losing interest here someone please just unplug this episode’s life support…

Liz gets up to starts feeding her dinner to Zil, almost like a nervous tick because she’s sensing one of her dad’s “moments” coming along. Poor Brogan has quickly forgotten about his son’s rampant not-drug habit and instead suffers an existential crisis about how different Demeter City is from New York. Mark that one off on your cliché bingo card.

Oh and don’t get me started on the hideous shade of yellow that someone decided to paint the apartment. The squeaky thing does a squeak in order to call time on this insufferable family dinner scene.

The dark and moody cityscape reflects how dark and moody I’m feeling right now. Let’s see if Idris Elba delivering another pizza can cheer me up. He’s whistling arrogantly so I doubt it, but the blend of live action photography and model work is certainly impressive!

If you can shut off your ears and ignore the goofy dubbing, it looks like Idris is giving a decent performance… probably… maybe. He reacts appropriately to the rather scary Tarn warning him to keep his nose out of trouble and not ask too many questions. To be fair to Idris, at least someone is showing an interest in this plot.

Maybe it’s because the lights are turned all the way down, but this set design is much more impressive than many of the others we’ve seen so far. The junk that’s been scattered about the place, including the full-sized robot hanging from the ceiling, actually looks appropriately futuristic, grungy, and vaguely scientific. By and large, anything that’s downtown in the scummy underbelly of Demeter is bound to look better… because it’s actually supposed to look cheap and barely visible in the darkness. But all the same, this is good stuff!

It’s time for another wriggly pizza with a side order of Black Crystal. Yummy. The amount of detail in that mask and those eyeballs is insanely good. Every penny that was spent on those masks seems to show up on screen, and they look even better as a result of the HD upscaling.

Aside from the giant rubber hand looking very much like a giant rubber hand, this sequence is actually very effective and I think it strikes the right tone. It’s scary, it isn’t gratuitous and it’s over relatively swiftly while still building a good amount of tension. Well done Double Duty, you done a good scene… one which featured no dialogue and for which the main characters were entirely absent.

Alas, on close inspection the model set for the exterior of the lock-up looks like it’s just floating in mid-air in front of some background buildings. Ideally I think the surrounding skyscrapers would be looming over the alleyway, or there would be more buildings in the middle distance to make the city appear more dense. Or at the very least maybe putting a pitched roof on top of the lock-up would have helped? Anyway, Act Two closes with a fade to black as the Tarn dealer screams for his life, and I’m not in such a bad mood now… which probably says more about me than it does about Space Precinct.

Sunrise over Demeter City is absolutely gorgeous. It’s a perfect establishing shot. Simple as that. Well done Steve Begg and crew.

We haven’t had much of a chance to sit and look at a Demeter City Police Cruiser so let’s do that now. I mostly like the design. As hero vehicles for an Anderson show go it’s not necessarily too high up in the rankings but I don’t think that was ever necessarily the intended status for them. After all, it’s essentially just supposed to be a flying cop car, and the DCPD have many of them. I can see how the limitations of building a live action set of the cruiser’s interior impacted the design of the vehicle as a whole, but when the craft is in motion that isn’t too much of a problem. Only in shots like this when you’re staring at the completely blacked-out (painted-on) windows does it start to look odd.

I personally prefer this design over the one which was seen in the Space Police: Star Laws pilot – but I can understand why others may feel differently. That’s just a matter of personal taste and I can’t quite put my finger on it. I’ll try though. I honestly think I enjoy that this final cruiser design is more toy-like, in the same way that I will always prefer Thunderbird 2 over an Eagle Transporter. As a thing to look at, I favour bright colours and over-exaggerated shapes… a bit like Officer Haldane’s taste in women, amirite lads?

It’s the next morning, but for some reason Sally is still making the ruddy salad the family had for dinner yesterday. Yeah we’re back to the C-plot I’m afraid. Sally playfully refers to her husband as Officer Brogan which I must admit I enjoy purely because it gives their relationship a little something that isn’t the traditional mom and dad schtick. Anyway, Brogan is still on the warpath regarding Inazy – insisting he doesn’t hate all of Matt’s friends, just the particularly working class ones.

Sally has all the gossip. Don’t ask me how the heck she even knows this, but according to Inazy’s teacher it’s surprising that the little twerp has settled into Matt’s school so well because and I quote “the downtown kids tend to be more violent…” And with that, I think we have a new candidate for the worst line of dialogue so far. Nancy Paul tries to deliver it with the right level of humour mixed with concern mixed with foreboding, but the fact she’s paraphrasing something an actual teacher said just makes it even more cringeworthy.

Unfortunately, rather than laughing at the comical generalisation, Haldane’s reaction appears to be one of genuine concern for his colleague.

Sure enough, Brogan starts to throw a wobbly and forbids Matt from seeing Inazy again… a conclusion which I thought he’d already reached last night. Again, Ted Shackelford doesn’t seem to quite know where to pitch these moments so he just goes full authoritarian nutter rather than building up to it – although it must be said that such acting choices are more likely the result of a rapid shooting schedule and a director not quite having a handle on the script or the tone of the show as a whole.

Anyway, we then get to enjoy a classic case of Brogan’s personal life literally and figuratively getting put on hold because of his high-flying career in the Demeter City Police Department. It’s a recurring theme which you’ll smell coming when the script writers inevitably fail to keep the family drama scenes engaging. Today it’s Beezle and Orrin interrupting Sally Brogan with news concerning the A-plot…

The DCPD have caught up on the events of the night before and tracked down another pizza/Black Crystal/mutilated body combo, with the added bonus that Idris Elba’s delivery bike has been tracked heading towards Brogan and Haldane right at this moment. Needless to say, Brogan looks relieved that the pace of the episode is about to pick up again. Incidentally, these shots on the monitor were the first that Richard James filmed as Orrin for the series – made memorable by the fact the battery pack for Orrin’s eyes caught fire in Richard’s back pocket during the camera rehearsal!

A lovely bit of camera juddering, music swelling, and the sound of engines roaring as the cruiser lifts off – Destination: Crime!

With very little warning, we’re in the middle of a full-blown car chase… in the sky! Don’t get too excited though. Steve Begg himself admitted to not being terribly proud of how this sequence came out. And while it’s true that the model work looks supiciously like some toys being swung around on wires in front of the same set of buildings over and over again, there is also a wider issue with the way the live action shots are mixed in with the special effects. Now the police cruiser stuff isn’t too bad, and Ted and Rob look suitably invested in the drama to sell the idea that they’re in a chase even though the set they’re sitting in isn’t moving. But there’s another actor involved in the chase who rather lets the side down. Can you guess who it is?

Now in Idris’ defence, very little of this is his fault. For one thing, nobody decided to build a proper set for the delivery bike, so filming him in extreme close-up looking straight down the lens was pretty much the only option available. Then we have the dubbing, and David Healy (or more accruately, the dubbing editor) seems to have given up on matching the added words and noises to the movement of Idris’ lips. Plus, Idris clearly doesn’t have any script to work with – the original shooting script certainly doesn’t have any specific scenes for him to act out here – he’s just been told to improvise… errr… something?

It’s worth noting at this point that John Glen and Gerry Anderson himself were required to direct additional pick-ups for Double Duty later on in Colin Bucksey’s absence. Although I can’t confirm that any of Idris Elba’s material was a part of that, I don’t think it’s surprising that there are moments when a “that will do” attitude was taken to just getting the episode in the can. The schedule was clearly a problem, and so were the early teething troubles inherent with shooting any production involved with state-of-the-art technology. So sometimes, just sometimes, when the editor has absolutely nothing else to work with in a fast-paced action sequence, only sometimes do you have to cut to a few seconds of Idris Elba gurning handsomely into the camera while David Healy babbles nonsense over the top of it. It’s not right, but I can genuinely believe that they had no other option at the time… Although I’ll say again that the casting of David Healy to re-voice Idris Elba still feels like an inexcusable act for multiple reasons.

I feel like the writers were having a game of how many tropes and clichés they could fit onto one page. The bike veers off in another direction which apparently prompts Brogan to cry, “I hate it when they do that!” Do what? Turn left? Again, Ted delivers the dialogue with as much conviction as he can muster, but it’s still pretty laughable.

These special effects shots really are a mixed bag. I think it’s unlucky that the sequence is set at dawn instead of late at night. Had the city been in darkness, the effects crew would have been able to use light a bit more creatively to suggest a bustling, energetic scene. It’s also tricky to judge the scale of the scene because, as before, there are only one or two layers of buildings to make up the cityscape. With more time, I suspect Steve Begg would have wanted more dynamic POV shots from the vehicles ducking and diving around buildings and other bits and pieces. It would have been a really difficult feat, but seeing some traffic here and there would have helped a lot too – again, a nighttime setting would have made this achievable with collections of tiny lights rather than lots of individual models. Also, keep in mind that this is the first episode of the entire production. The effects crew didn’t have tons of spare models lying around to fill in the background. I’m confident that what you see is everything they had to hand!

Let’s look at some positives though. Rob Youngblood is clearly taking all the police jargon very seriously which really helps to sell all of this. The model buildings themselves are many and varied enough to make Demeter feel vast, albeit a bit featureless. The lighting of the model effects shots is gorgeous – Harry Oakes definitely makes it look like early morning, there’s no question about that. Alan Hume does what he can to provide a similar look on the live action police cruiser set but he probably didn’t have nearly enough time to achieve the same quality as they could manage on the special effects stage. The editing and Crispin Merrell’s score definitely do a lot of heavy lifting to get the heart thumping, which is ultimately the secret sauce to many successful Gerry Anderson action sequences. So, even if they don’t quite nail it, at least their priorities were in more or less the right places.

Idris swerves to avoid the one and only piece of traffic we’ve encountered so far. He’s quite pleased with himself. The flying truck is quite an interesting design – it’s got a very Bill Pearson look about it, that’s for sure.

Brogan and Haldane overcome the obstacle too, but not before Haldane can quip about giving that jerk a ticket. Hope you’re still marking these tropes off on your bingo cards…

Now, one thing that Steve Begg learned extremely well on the set of Terrahawks was how to blow things up. Unfortunately the size of Idris Elba’s performance doesn’t quite match the size of the explosion. To be honest, as much as I like the spectacle, I do think the bang is a bit over the top, and it’s a little hard to believe that our humble pizza delivery driver made it out of that inferno alive.

You may think that this shot looks like a model being chucked across the set by a disgruntled effects technician, but I couldn’t possibly comment.

Don’t worry Idris, I promise your career will recover from this.

The delivery bike slides along the street for what feels like an eternity but is probably closer to 10 seconds. It has a feel of the effects team not really knowing exactly what was needed to end the sequence, so they just filmed a bunch of stuff and handed it over to the editor to figure out. This was accompanied by the best “crashing” shots that the live action unit could manage with a handheld camera, no set, and Idris Elba probably just bouncing around on a chair.

So fast is the pacing of this sequence that we get this shot of the cruiser landing without the usual grandeur afforded by high-speed “slow motion” photography. Normally, model effects are filmed at a higher frame rate in order to slow down the action and give the illusion of size and weight. Here, unfortunately, the footage plays back at the standard 24 fps and makes the model look exactly like a model.

Observant viewers might notice that the lighting is quite drastically different as Brogan and Haldane help to drag Idris Elba from the wreck of his bike. That’s because we’re outside, either on the studio backlot or just outside Pinewood’s L&M stages where Space Precinct‘s live action unit was based. They’ve pumped in lots of smoke and keep the camera tightly on the three actors so that we don’t see the fact that this outdoor area looks nothing like the model set we just saw, so I have to give the crew kudos for that!

Then there’s this rather less convincing shot of the actors composited in front of a special effects model shot. Again, the size of the explosion isn’t reflected in the size of the actors’ performances, and no amount of Rob Youngblood screaming “Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go!” in post-production can really fix that. Plus, the scale is a bit off, with the three men looking about 12-foot tall compared to the sharply-focused model set behind them. Ambition was clearly overtaken by the limitations of the production. The sequence could have worked without this shot of our heroes stumbling away from the explosion behind them, but someone clearly thought they were clever enough to achieve this feature-film level of stunt on a television budget. I fear they were mistaken.

Back outside, the actors are told to get on the floor while Idris Elba (or rather, David Healy) delivers the grand punchline to the whole sequence. Alas, even this is ruined by some idiot deciding to throw a yellow plastic “pizza” tray at Rob Youngblood. They probably thought it would help to really sell the whole illusion that the guys have just escaped an explosion. Unfortunately, Rob makes the mistake of picking up the tray and drawing our attention to just how yellow, plastic, and untarnished by delivery bike explosion it is.

That sums it all up really. In principle this sequence works, and you can’t really question that it only could have been achieved using the combination of model effects with live action cutaways, and I can even forgive the quick chroma key composition to try and sell the illusion. Unfortunately where it falls down is in the polish and fine detail required to really hold a complex sequence like that together. Somebody should have given Idris Elba a better idea of what he was reacting to. Somebody should have put more traffic in the background of the city shots. Somebody should have dirtied down that piece of yellow plastic, found about ten times more bits of debris to go with it, and then chucked it at the actors on cue. Time, rather than budget, definitely worked against the production, and turned a standout action sequence into something unfortunately comical.

Back to the station house now, a model which I like more and more each time I see it.

Back on the impossibly tiny set of the interrogation room, the director is once again struggling to get multiple actors in shot at the same time. Once again, David Healy is struggling to match his pace of dialogue delivery to Idris Elba’s, making the whole thing feel awkward and clunky. Anyway, what we learn is… well, nothing much. The pizza delivery driver is basically just a pizza delivery driver with no clue that he was shipping Black Crystal and no idea who is boss, Zanoc, actually was. Yes, they suddenly start throwing the name Zanoc around like that’s supposed to mean something.

Fortunately, Took the telepathic Tarn is on hand to tell us what’s going on. Apparently he’s a creep, but an honest creep.

Ew. So ends one of Idris Elba’s less auspicious acting roles.

You can almost hear the episode’s gears clunking as we shift back to the B-plot briefly to check in with our alien queen and oh boy does Officer Castle have an update for us. Attack, capture, slavery, escape, and hitch-hiking is just the short version of ‘Er Majesty’s tale of woe. Now all she wants is a call to her home planet of Megalon Seven so someone can pick her up. But Castle has a problem… the episode is only half done and the writers need to pad this all out for a bit longer. Therefore, Castle explains that she doesn’t have the authority to make an expensive long-distance call to Megalon Seven. ‘Er Majesty stays remarkably calm considering she’s just been through four years of torture and loss, and now Officer Castle can’t be bothered to walk upstairs and ask her boss for permission to make a phone call. I don’t think they make wafers that are thin enough to illustrate the plot of this episode.

Ummm… why is lead animatronics operator Christine Glanville just standing on the edge of the set? Surely a simple camera rehearsal would have alerted the director to the fact that members of the crew would be in shot unless they were asked to move? Funnily enough, I didn’t think puppeteers would carry on making surprise appearances in the frame once I stopped reviewing Supermarionation shows.

Aside from the fact that Castle clearly doesn’t believe a word her bag lady is saying, it also seems that public services on Altor are under strain. It turns out social services can’t help out the stranded queen. I’m enjoying the comradery between the officers in scenes like this – trading tips and updating one another on their many and varied cases. It’s nice, and it makes them feel like real people in a real workplace.

Some time passes, allowing the officers an opportunity to get back to their cluttered desks and do some paperwork. From above, the station house set doesn’t look quite so impressive. It’s still the best that the show has to offer, but only from the ground floor do the desks give the illusion of a big, broken up, busy space where lots of people are doing lots of different things. At this high angle the area seems emptier and all the officers look to be working much closer together.

Now, d’you see Orrin and Beezle working away on Slomo in the background? That’s because, according to the shooting script, the scene we saw earlier of Slomo spinning around and talking gibberish was actually supposed to have happened at this later point in the episode. I think shifting things around was indeed the right move for the flow of the story.

Brogan’s son Matt has arrived. This won’t end well.

It looks like Matt has come to open up about something, and you would think that Brogan would be pleased to have the opportunity to talk to his son, given how concerned he’s been about his recent activities. But no, Brogan is highly irritated that Matt has turned up during work because gosh darn it the whole reason men go to work in an alien police force on another planet is to get away from their families.

Sure enough, Matt isn’t too pleased that he can’t see his friend Inazy anymore and tries to convince his father to reconsider. Brogan immediately gets hot-headed again, which Matt handles remarkably well. I also can’t get over how much Matt actor Nic Klein looks the spitting image of a young Ted Shackelford – bravo to USA casting director Lynn Stalmaster.

For the sake of the plot, Brogan defies expectation and decides to trust his son. Matt holds his nerve and refuses to explain why he’s been sneaking off with Inazy so much or what the weird glowing substance was that they were sharing last night. It’s quite a sweet moment really. Don’t get me wrong, the amount of screen time being dedicated to this sub-plot is infuriating, but I appreciate that the actors are trying to make it work as best as they can.

With all of that resolved for the moment, we can get back to business as Haldane summons Brogan to his desk. I’m liking this stuff. I can feel the story moving forward at last.

Haldane’s on the phone with Aleesha who reveals she can offer a positive ID on the mysterious face-changing Black Crystal ring leader, Zanoc. Brogan is dubious.

Having just lost an argument with his teenage son, Brogan decides to project a little of that energy on to Haldane and accuses him of being hormonal and only interested in working with Aleesha for one seedy little reason. Brogan loses that debate too when it becomes clear the plot of the episode won’t advance any further unless they take Aleesha into the field.

Night has fallen, and the police cruiser touches down in yet another non-descript backstreet of Demeter City.

Conveniently, an ordinary-looking hover car touches down not too far away just a few seconds after the police cruiser lands. Not exactly a lengthy stake-out, especially as Aleesha immediately fingers the Creon in green as none other than the illusive Zanoc!

Aleesha yells for “Jack!” as the handsome young officer dashes off to catch a crim. Brogan gives her a stern telling-off for being on such chummy, first-name terms with Officer Haldane. Clearly, no situtation is so urgent for Brogan to let a simple slip of protocol go unchecked… a character trait I’m sure his wife adores…

Brogan and Haldane uncover the pizzeria in a scene which is shot just like your standard issue police raid of a meth lab. Dark, moody lighting and lots of close-up camera work on the ugly details of it all. All very nicely done.

Wow! Suddenly, the pizzeria erupts into a spectacular shootout. They really go for it. Huge bangs, characters ducking and diving, ingredients thrown everywhere. The digital effects for the gunfire look amazing, especially considering you’re not supposed to slow the sequence right down and take screengrabs like I have. The story goes that poor Ted Shackelford was actually injured during filming when a stray sliver of wood was accidentally blasted into his cheek, resulting in further scheduling issues for the over-stretched production while he was being treated – although we’ll address an alternative version of that anecdote in next week’s episode.

On-screen, Brogan and Haldane are back on their feet in no time at all and pursue the villains through the pizzeria, only to be stopped by the sounds of extreme violence. Ted and Rob are once again having the time of their lives running around with guns and playing the drama of the scene to the fullest.

With a single brave blast (possibly by a stunt double), Brogan punctures the door to access the next room.

The bloody corpses of the two Creons are a gruesome sight. Again, I don’t think they needed to go quite that far. Remarkably, Haldane restrains himself from making another quip about pizza and dead Creons. There’s even a pause for breath where Brogan clearly expects his colleague to say something like, “I’m never eating pizza again” or “I guess someone ordered extra tomato” or “someone enjoys their Creons like they enjoy leftover pizza… cold.” Y’know, something like that. But he doesn’t say anything of the sort, which I think we can all agree was the right call given how horrific the murders were.

According to Rob Thirtle, who played one of the dead villains in this scene alongside Andy Dawson, there was so much stage blood used on the Creon masks that it started to leak through the creature’s eyes into their real eyes. That probably should have been an indication to the production team that they needed to ease up on the gore.

Later, it seems like the entire DCPD has shown up for a slice of the action… sorry, that wasn’t meant to be another pizza pun. Even Podly has decided to appear just in time for the bodies to be carried out.

These night-time shots look great. Many of the interior day-time shots have suffered from stark, blanket lighting but here Alan Hume is able to use darkness and spots of colour in amongst the city smog to create a moody atmosphere. Let’s be honest, it also has the benefit of hiding Tony Curtis’ sparse set. Plus, Aleesha’s green hair and shiny make-up looks much more natural in low lighting.

Podly confronts the two officers and the serious tone and moody atmosphere sync up perfectly as the three actors play out the more subdued scene.

There are rumours floating about that Brogan and Haldane are the ones killing off these Black Crystal dealers since they’re always present at the scene of the crime but can never produce a perpetrator. It isn’t overplayed or overwritten. Nobody gets too riled up or upset, nor do they laugh it off. Jerome Willis, despite wearing a rubber mask, seems to naturally command respect through his voice and his stance.

Back at the 88th, we get a brief update on the C-plot which even Brogan barely gives a hoot about. Sally’s still in the kitchen where she’s been for the past 24 hours or so at this point. The scriptwriters were actually bold enough to give her the line “all will be revealed” which is a clear indicator that not a single soul expects you to be genuinely invested in what Matt and Inazy are up to.

Meanwhile, Orrin and Beezle are inspecting Slomo’s innards… which are considerably less disgusting than all those Creon inners we saw splattered on the floor earlier.

The director makes very clever use of the two-level set as Fredo reveals the length of receipts that Beezle has supposedly generated from costly “interstellar dispatches” billed to the department. It’s a bit of a cliché, but I enjoy Fredo as a no-nonsense desk sergeant chasing up the other officers for the various annoyances they cause. It’s a much more subtle and fitting way of introducing some light relief to the show.

Apparently it’s all Orrin’s fault… which I’m guessing won’t be the last time I use that phrase. Because Orrin loaded the datadisk into Slomo, the little robot has been making calls to Megalon Seven using Beezle’s account at a cost of 62,000 credits. Well I’ll be darned – I guess Officer Castle was right about the cost of those calls after all. Of course, Slomo makes cute robot noises to avoid taking any of the blame.

Haldane and Aleesha can’t help themselves and wander into the main office merrily chatting about places on Altor they should visit together like the “First Settler’s Fortress,” and the “Fabulous Cave Mountains.” Sounds dull to me.

Within a few seconds of screentime, apparently Orrin has gotten Slomo up and running and ready to work on the Black Crystal killer case. I guess it’s pretty convenient that Slomo has been out of action for as long as he has. Anyway, with his foot hard down on the accelerator of the plot, Orrin explains that Slomo has turned up some images of a perp from a similar case on Xania two months ago… but they have to wait until the end of the shift before the images are enhanced and ready to view. Which is lucky for Aleesha because she needs time to work on a facial expression that isn’t quite so suspicious…

She agrees to wait around to look at Orrin’s pictures. The re-voiced dialogue makes Aleesha sound thoroughly uninterested, but I think Lana Citron is trying to play the scene with a certain amount of nervousness which would be appropriate given the ending we’re inevitably hurtling towards. The shot fades out quickly, almost as if the editor doesn’t want to give away anything just yet.

There’s no shortage of nice establishing shots of the 88th, but sadly this isn’t one of them. For some reason something’s gone wrong upscaling this particular shot, which has caused some interlacing issues to flare up and create jagged lines across the image. It’s unfortunate but it’s not a deal breaker by any means.

At the end of the day, AI upscaling from the digibeta tape was the only feasible way to make an HD Blu-ray release of Space Precinct. While the series was shot on film, the finished episodes were mastered on videotape which is a standard definition format. So, outside of AI-upscaling, the only other way to achieve a true HD release would have been to re-scan all of the original film rushes that came out of the camera (which are thought to be lost anyway), and re-edit every episode from scratch, somehow re-creating all of the digital and video effects too. Needless to say, we’ll have to make do with what we have – a release which is almost flawless. The restoration process was discussed at length by Jamie Anderson, Scott Tempest-Mitchell, and Scott Evans from ITV Content Services in episode 261 of The Gerry Anderson Podcast and I recommend that folks give that a listen!

On a very similar topic, Orrin and Slomo take a breather in the break room before having another look at restoring images of the suspected killer. The set for the breakroom isn’t all that different from the set for the interrogation room in that it’s grey, small, and includes some uncomfortable furniture. It sure doesn’t look like a particularly relaxing place to be.

The director attempts to do something a bit different by filming this exchange between Podly and Castle from underneath the gantry. And yes, I can confirm it certainly is a bit different…

Haldane just has to try and get his own back on Castle. He suggests she’s letting her personal feelings colour her judgement, using just the same tone that she used to accuse him earlier. I guess in Jack’s mind, a police officer trying to help a stranded, amnesia-stricken old lady comes to exactly the same level of personal involvement as flirting with a perfectly healthy young girl and dragging her along to an active crime scene for seemingly no reason.

Ah well, at least she seems to find it cute.

Back in the break room, Orrin and Slomo are using the best AI-upscaling technology that the near-future apparently has to offer. Of course, the “Enhance Button” trope is all too common in police procedurals, so at least Space Precinct can offer up a reasonably sci-fi explanation for it in the form of Slomo’s capabilities. And by thunder I think I recognise that hideously over-sized pendant from somewhere…

Oh fiddle.

Look, it’s not the most convincing transformation in the world, but it’s not the worst either. The fact the blue screen lighting doesn’t match the backdrop is a problem, but the way the grizzly prosthetic on Aleesha’s back morphs into the grizzly head of the monster is quite effective. Obviously we all knew it was coming, but I don’t think I would have predicted exactly how the change would actually be done. That said, I’m pretty sure The Thing (1982) was a big influence on this. In fact, you’ll find that a lot of Space Precinct episodes beg, steal or borrow imagery from famous movies. (Unfortunately, I won’t always spot them because I’m woefully uneducated about movie history. I’ve essentially spent the past 30 years watching nothing but cheap and cheerful telly, so forgive me if a reference to a pinnacle piece of cinematic history passes me by.)

Aleesha, now in her “not-so-good” form sets about butchering Orrin before turning on Slomo, who dutifully sounds the alarm just in time before she rips his head off. Literally. The monster wrenches Slomo’s head from his body and leaves behind a spout of flame. Yet again, I think this sequence is far too grizzly for a family show and the amount of blood is ridiculously over the top – especially considering we’re looking at a beloved main character here. The amount of gore is more distracting than it is realistic – taking me out of the action and making me wonder why on earth someone felt this was appropriate for the tone of Space Precinct.

Fortunately, the viewer only has to wait the duration of one commercial break before Brogan and Castle discover that Orrin is alive and well… okay he doesn’t look very well, but he is alive at least.

On Podly’s order, Brogan and Haldane are doing that thing again of cautiously holding their guns out and searching the corridors for the perp. These are some darn cool shots as Alan Hume has some fun with the lighting. Of course, Brogan can’t hold back a little bit of snark when Podly points out that the killer is extremely dangerous, but otherwise the officers seem to be taking things very seriously.

With not so much as a hair out of place, Aleesha saunters down the corridor. Again, I feel like some of the emotion behind Lana Citron’s performance has been stripped out by the way Moir Leslie revoices her. Haldane has no trouble accepting that Aleesha was just worried about him and orders her to the main office. Of course, one does wonder why Haldane was allowed to leave her wandering around the station on her own during that flirty scene he just had with Officer Castle.

Meanwhile, Orrin is in a coma but apparently it would have been a lot worse if Slomo hadn’t gotten between him and the killer. Quite handy that a police station of all places has an intensive care unit isn’t it?

Beezle contemplates the seven years he’s spent serving alongside Orrin. Seven years. Just remember that. Beezle and Orrin have been friends for seven years. So it would be odd if, oh I don’t know, Beezle disappeared one day, never to be seen again, and Orrin suddenly had a whole new friend and partner with no explanation whatsoever…

Aleesha watches menacingly from the shadows. Oof, I’ve got chills.

Oh. Oh, apparently that’s the end of that bit for now. The efforts to capture Orrin’s attacker, whoever they were, just stopped at that point, I guess. Instead, Brogan’s on his way home in his rubbish little green hopper (sorry, but it is rubbish).

Oh of COURSE we’ve stopped the action at a critical point to go and resolve the Brogan family C-plot. OF COURSE THAT’S WHAT WE’RE DOING RIGHT NOW.

Okay. I knew the pay-off would be bad. But this? THIS?!

Excuse me while I ungrit my teeth and explain this to you. Matt and Inazy have been sneaking around but they haven’t been doing drugs OH NO NO NO, they haven’t been doing drugs. Nope, they’ve been working on a school project about… wait for it… Ancient Greek theatre! Well ain’t that convenient?!! Yes, Inazy isn’t the scumbag thug that Brogan made him out to be, but some sort of ruddy thespian with a penchant for making masks. Oh and the cute part is that the masks glow in the dark. That’s right. It wasn’t a hazardous narcotic but a glow in the dark solution for making masks! Gosh, I’m so relieved I might just vomit all over the floor in sheer delight.

Brogan has just had one of the toughest days of his career. He’s been accused of multiple counts of murder by his own boss, and one of his colleagues is in a coma. But yes please Sally, pull that smug face why don’t you? Play the “I told you so” card why don’t you? And the worst part is that this isn’t even the end of it – poor Brogan still has to suffer through a presentation at Matt’s school on Friday night! Parenting suuuuucks.

Oh but wait everyone. The C-plot has one more kick to the crotch primed and ready to deliver as Liz innocently backs away playing with the happy and sad faces… happy and sad faces… happy… sad… happy… sad…

Please don’t do this.

Oh they’re doing it.

Come on Ted, you’re a better actor than that. Please don’t pin the entire twist of the episode on that particular facial expression. Yup. Here we are. Lieutenant Brogan and his band of wise-cracking intergalactic police officers were almost stumped by an alien shape changer, but thanks to HIS KID’S SCHOOL PROJECT ON ANCIENT GREECE, Brogan stumbled upon the one clue that was under his nose the whole time!

You’d better shut that window before the plot blows away on the breeze…

So yeah, that was the only reason the writers had Brogan go home in the first place – just so he could see Matt and Inazy’s mask and make that horrendously simplistic revelation. Now he’s rushing back to work because there’s a killer to catch. As you do.

So I’m guessing it’s been at least half an hour or something since Orrin’s attack – if we’re being generous. It’s more likely that it’s a few hours later. And you’re seriously telling me that nobody has noticed Aleesha strolling around the station house on her own despite Haldane specifically asking her to go back to the main office earlier?

Now she needs to silence Orrin before he wakes up and blabs about the pedant he spotted in the surveillance footage…

I do like a dramatic whip-pan. And who better to whip-pan to but Jack Haldane looking thoroughly cheesed off?

Aleesha does her best to try and sweet talk her way around Jack and he almost looks like he’s falling for it because gosh darn it he’s such a romantic.

You might think that getting teary-eyed is a bit much considering Haldane barely knows this woman. But frankly that’s more of a fault with the script than Rob Youngblood’s performance. He’s committed to the utter nonsense he’s been given to perform and you’ve got to admire him for that. Likewise, Lana Citron is working hard too, albeit it’s much harder to tell because of the dubbing. The effect of the pulsing alien veins on her hands is really nicely done I must say.

Brogan rushes in, gun drawn, ready to save the day. This is an alternative take of the shot we see of Brogan from the opening titles.

Officer Haldane quickly has his gun out too in case there was any doubt about his lack of commitment to Aleesha. In a way I’m glad. It would have really sucked if we’d had to go through a “but Brogan, I love her!” type of scenario.

Transformation number 2 is pretty much on parr with the quality of transformation number 1 earlier in the episode. As you can see, I’ve paused it at just the right moment when Lana Citron flips her hair forward so you can see that she’s clearly wearing a green wig… in case that wasn’t rampantly obvious already.

With the utmost care and professionalism, Brogan and Haldane blast the ever-lasting flip out of Aleesha, and we get to enjoy her writhing around in all her glory. Good stuff.

So just in case any of you still hadn’t grasped it yet, Aleesha was the shapeshifting alien monster. We just needed to have a soppy moment for Haldane to make that unfathomably clear. Crispin Merrell even does a bit of a music to make sure you know it’s a sad moment.

A dejected Haldane takes a mopey walk, followed by an exhausted Brogan. Aleesha is left on the floor. I mean, she’s already in the medical bay so it’s not like they could have brought her body somewhere more useful, could they?

So, by my reckoning that’s the A-plot and the C-plot wrapped up. Now what about a certain Queen of Megalon Seven?

With as much ceremony as possible, Orrin is back at work. Plus, someone managed to screw Slomo’s head back on which I’m sure you’ll agree is a bit of a bonus. And it looks like Beezle and Orrin are the best of friends again… forever… never to be seperated… Orrin and Beezle… that classic duo…

Ah, here she is. Come on, get on with it so we can end the episode.

Officer Castle voices her suspicions that ‘Er Majesty is not in fact ‘Er Majesty after all, but a delusional old lady best looked after in a homeless shelter. I can’t deny, Jane makes a compelling case. Simone Bendix is really doing her best here with a thoroughly uninteresting sub-plot.

Oh good, something’s happening now…

Something bloomin’ massive as it happens! Of course, the effects team could never have constructed and operated a ship that huge to dwarf the existing 3-foot tall station house model – in reality they’ve composited two shots together to make the alien ship model look massive. And to be honest it’s pretty convincing!

Podly and Fredo chat casually about the ship’s identity like it was just a bus with an oddly coloured number plate on the back.

Two identical weirdos arrive. There’s a whiff of Star Trek about ’em. I don’t trust ’em.

One of the weirdos is played by Richard Ashton, one of those actors you probably recognise from that thing but you’re not quite sure what it was.

So it’s confirmed. She is indeed the long lost Queen of Megalon Seven. Thank goodness for that. The Queen of Megalon Six probably stepped in to be the Acting Queen of Megalon Seven but she just wasn’t as good.

Beezle’s going to be reimbursed for all those long-distance phone calls that Slomo made on her behalf. That’s a relief. I was worried about the lengths Beezle might go to in order to raise 62,000 credits. Especially as he’ll be unemployed in a few weeks time…

Meanwhile, the second weirdo has a gift for Officer Castle which is awarded to her by the Queen with a reminder that “the universe is a vast and amazing place full of limitless possibilities.” Okay, it’s really, really, really cliché but it’s rather sweet and probably a lesson that Castle needed… probably. I mean she didn’t need it that badly, but it can’t do any harm. The illumination of Jane’s face indicates that the gift is a massive gemstone… but apparently not big enough for Jane to retire on as she sticks around with the DPCD for the rest of the series.

And after a swiftly executed U-turn, the alien ship zips off into space. Yes, it’s that spaceship from the opening titles. Well done.

That’s a nice shot. I like these characters. Don’t ask me why because that episode was not a strong contender, but I reckon I’ll stick around to watch some more of their adventures.

The episode ends with Haldane taking a quiet moment alone to examine Aleesha’s pendant one last time before dropping it into an evidence bag. The editor chooses to cut away to a totally unrelated shot of Castle, recycled from earlier in the scene. It’s been slipped in just to hint at the fact she’s quietly observing Jack and feeling something for him. I know, cynical of me to spoil the magic, but you can just tell the two shots weren’t supposed to go together.

It’s a nice moment to end the episode on. I don’t necessarily buy that Jack was in love with Aleesha, but they were clearly friends and shooting your friends can’t be easy even if they do turn out to be a lying, evil, shapeshifting, killer monster trying to corner the market in Black Crystal by brutally slaughtering dealers. Wait, was that the reason she killed them? Sorry, hang on, why was she killing all those Crystal dealers, exactly? I’m confused. All I remember is happy… sad… happy… sad…

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I feel like I’ve been on a deeply unplesant roller coaster ride. Still a thrill and everything, but certainly one that you’re pleased to see the back of. Double Duty is flawed. It’s a horrendously generic script which lurches from being fairly unremarkable to being downright insulting at times with its levels of signposting. At best I can say that the story is competent. There are three plots and they all vaguely interweave and add up to 45 minutes of television with a beginning, a middle, and an ending. Unfortunately, the episode can’t decide if it wants to be aimed squarely at kids or exclusively for adults, and bounces from one tone to the other with an irresponsible, cavalier approach that risks being off-putting to all ages.

While some of the production’s shortcomings are little more than teething troubles, others stem from outright dreadful decisions. The key areas for improvement that I’ll be looking out for moving forward are the set design, action set-pieces, and the post-production sound. In the case of set design, I want to see some of that £20 million budget appearing on-screen. For the action set-pieces I want to see more cohesion between the live action unit and the model shots. And for post-production sound, I just hope that nobody is as badly dubbed as Idris Elba ever again.

That said, there is also a lot that works remarkably well in Space Precinct‘s first episode straight out of the gate. The lead actors have instant chemistry and right now they only look about 10% bewildered by the type of television series they’ve stumbled into, while the other 90% is committed to the drama. Of course, the prosthetics and animatronics are nothing short of incredible and were clearly treated with a level of importance during pre-production that perhaps wasn’t afforded to other departments. I’m on the fence about the lighting and photography because there were some brilliant, moody, impactful scenes and there were some bland, uninspired, flat scenes.

Does Double Duty work as an opening episode? It depends. I quite like that we jump in to the series with Brogan at the heart of the action but still not fully acclimatised to the alien world of Altor. It saves a lot of clunky exposition for the sake of getting on with the story. Of course, there are questions left hanging about how or why Brogan transferred from the NYPD in the first place, but it’s not a mystery that fundamentally breaks the series. The main reason that Double Duty doesn’t work as an opening episode is that it doesn’t represent the best of the show’s format, presenting a generic piece of television with a few glossy special effects added to keep things interesting. Let’s hope the writers of Space Precinct get to grips with the mad show they’re making soon enough, and realise the potential locked within…