Space Precinct – 4. Flash

And we’re back to the hot mess. I was hoping that the production may have immediately learned some lessons from Enforcer about balancing the series’ tone, action, and characterisation. Flash demonstrates that a show can’t change overnight. It’s not surprising that Flash was one of the earlier episodes buried at the end of the Space Precinct broadcast run so it wouldn’t be noticed. It’s not exactly a flagship episode.

Like Paul Mayhew-Archer (writer of Protect and Survive) before him, James Hendrie came to Space Precinct with a rich tapestry of comedy writing under his belt that seems totally at odds with the requirements of Space Precinct. He’d provided jokes and sketches for the likes of Lenny Henry, Russ Abbott and Spitting Image, and would go on to write for sitcoms like My Hero, My Family, and After You’ve Gone. I doubt Hendrie’s past credits, or the Space Precinct production office, gave him much of a lesson on how to write for a 45-minute action-adventure space drama series for a broad family audience. Space Precinct as a format was still pretty poorly defined at this stage, and like Mayhew-Archer, I suspect James Hendrie was commissioned because he could be depended upon to produce a good-enough script in a hurry. In television production, particularly when a series is still starting up, that’s an incredibly valuable skill.

Meanwhile, Alan Birkinshaw continues the train of veteran directors hired for Space Precinct. Birkinshaw had started his career in television in the camera department at ATV in 1964, but really made a name for himself as a bonafide filmmaker, directing extraordinary commercials, documentaries and feature films. The director’s ambition is evident throughout the episode, but the script spends so much time retreading familiar territory that very little of Birkinshaw’s unique flair manages to shine through. In short, I can tell that he’s doing his best with what he’s got.

First up this week – a noteworthy change to the opening titles. The alien from the 1991 Space Police Reloaded pitch trailer has been swapped for our old friend Armand Loyster from Protect and Survive. That’s right, everyone’s favourite talking blue kidney stone now has a starring role. I like the guy, but I do wonder why they bothered making the switch. The footage from Space Police Reloaded sat quite comfortably alongside the show itself, and I’d hardly say that Loyster is a more impressive alien design than the creep from Reloaded. Maybe they wanted something more comical and less scary? I suppose that depends on your definition of what’s comical and what’s scary, because Loyster probably qualifies as both and neither of those things.

Everything about the “This Episode” sequence for this week is fine and dandy except I couldn’t help but notice a couple of instances of Brogan’s daughter, Liz, just sitting in the station house wearing a police cap… You don’t have to be a Tarn to guess my opinions on that particular subplot.

Hopefully Flash isn’t an episode about indecent exposure.

We’re on a random street in Demeter City during the day. On the model set, no pedestrians are about, but there’s one car which was previously used by Gersham to kill Slik in Protect and Survive. On the live action set, somebody got my note from last week about the human background artists looking too normal. To address this problem, they’ve painted one woman silver, asked another to shove her head in the Vidphone so it can’t be seen, and hired a very tall man so his head gets cut off at the top of frame before we get a good look at him. Progress?

Brogan and Haldane are hanging out at Carole’s Diner. The uncredited Graphics Artist on Space Precinct was Carol Kupisz so no prizes for guessing where that name came from. Just like the opening scenes of Double Duty and Protect and Survive, we’re spending some time getting to know Officer Haldane. We’ve heard all about his dating misadventures, and his fondness for hot dogs… today it’s country music. We’re really building up a paint-by-numbers picture of Jack as a swell all-American guy. As usual, Brogan is just there to scoff.

Careful camera work disguises the gull-wing door of the cruiser being opened by a stagehand. UFO fans will be familiar with such practices whenever Ed Straker climbed in and out of his car too.

What a lovely little critter. It looks like me when I’ve been shaved and left out in the sun all day.

Meanwhile, it’s time for something resembling the plot to get started. This Tarn chap is exceeding the speed limit. We know this because his car tells him as much. The Tarn then says, “Ooh, that sounds really dangerous.” Genuinely. He says that. He says it to no-one in particular. The script is telling us that speeding is dangerous just in case the special effects, the music, the direction, the acting or the editing can’t get the inherent hazard across. Maybe there’s a subtext to the line that I’m missing. We learn later that it’s unusual for this particular character to do anything dangerous at all. But right here, and right now, it’s just a ruddy stupid thing to say, and Rob Thirtle must have looked at his script and wondered what the heck he was supposed to do with that line.

Our “really dangerous” Tarn does a spot of reckless driving just to prove the point. He narrowly dodges an orange and yellow truck which was previously seen in Double Duty but painted completely orange. Once again, the flying car just looks like a VW Beetle with its wheels taken off and thrusters glued to the back. I happen to like this particular design, but I doubt the model crew wanted the Beetle aspect to be so obvious.

The lads are getting buckled up for the inevitable car chase that they don’t even know is coming yet, but we all do because it’s a Space Precinct episode. Haldane desperately wants to play some country music, and even has his grandfather’s old disc player -the most basic prop you’ve ever seen. Brogan finally loses his patience and reminds his partner that they’re on duty. Not sure if throwing his hands up in despair was strictly necessary, but it’s giving stressed out dad vibes and I’m here for it.

The flying car hits one of those pesky mid-air signs. Check that one off your Space Precinct bingo cards everyone. Brogan immediately makes a gag about Haldane doing the paperwork on this one. Yeah, check that horrible old trope off too.

Haldane chucks his “disc player” in the back seat. Since it’s one of – those – episodes, I somehow doubt that’s the last we’ll see of it.

We get a mighty good cruiser blast off, complete with weird rat thing getting swept away. One shot is recycled from Double Duty but I think we can forgive that.

Oh it’s a MiniDisc player. I guess it is supposed to be an antique from Haldane’s grandfather. Whether that was the intention of the props department at the time, I’m not so sure, but it sure looks like an antique today.

Really good mix of live action and model shot here as we look through the cruiser windscreen. What’s not so good is Haldane declaring the reckless driver is “whacked out of orbit.” Ouch, this script is just handing out all the dreadful lines today isn’t it?

Anyway, the chase goes on, set to some very generic country music from Haldane’s MiniDisc player. It’s all much like the high-speed, mid-air chases we’ve seen in previous episodes but little details, like the aforementioned mix of live action and model, are done slightly better.

The driver pauses to spray some blue liquid on to his particularly veiny arm and laugh maniacally. Yeah, it’s a drug thing. Of course it’s a drug thing. Double Duty was a drug plot, so just three episodes later it’s apparently time to do another drug plot. Perhaps the startling similarities between this episode and the previous ones is part of the reason why it was pushed to later in the broadcast run.

The interior of the car is rubbish by the way. That’s a given at this point though isn’t it? Fortunately, the driver agrees with me and decides to destroy part of the set by punching his hand through the dashboard, silencing the nagging speed warning.

Brogan broadcasts to the driver over the PA system, but the driver only picks up on the “weird music” before turning his car around. He clicks his fingers in time to a beat that isn’t there because obviously the music was put on afterwards. Can any country music fans out there identify the track in question? It’s probably just generic library tosh, and certainly wasn’t composed specially for the sequence by Crispin Merrell.

The driver decides he likes the music so much he’s going to ram straight into the police cruiser. We all marvel at Brogan’s lightning reflexes. It’s easy to write this stuff off as the usual sort of car chase business we’ve seen for the past couple of weeks, but there are definitely signs of improved coordination between the live action stage and the special effects stage because it does all work pretty well.

Haldane’s going to name his first ulcer after this guy. Probably a good time to say that the driver’s name is Marcus Droon. So Marcus the Ulcer… Marculcer?

With no fanfare at all, the chase sequence just ends. And, as usual, it ends with an oversized explosion, a confused driver gurning at the camera, and the model car being thrown across the set until it stops. Note the greenery that’s suddenly appeared on the model set. There’s a reason for that.

The shot of the cruiser landing is a daylight version of the same landing shot seen in Double Duty.

And all of a sudden, it is extremely noticeable that we are outside the studio. The effects team tried their best to build a model set to ease the transition, but it’s painfully obvious that this is just a bit of wasteland round the back of Pinewood. It doesn’t help that Ted Shackelford and Rob Youngblood just walk into shot with no sense of urgency or continuity whatsoever. The mix between exterior sets shot inside the studio, and real exteriors just does not work. Zero attempt has been made to light or dress the location up to look like Demeter City. While the exterior sets shot indoors aren’t exactly convincing, you can at least accept them because everything has a consistent look.

Then, Marcus Droon’s head starts to go weird. It’s actually quite an impressive effect. The head just distorts and bubbles away under the skin while Rob Thirtle gawps and tilts his face to suggest discomfort. Brogan and Haldane are thinking exactly what we’re thinking – is this guy’s head about to explode?

Nope. Not even a little bit. In a disappointing turn of events, Droon just turns into a digital effect. I understand why showing an alien’s head exploding on prime time television might have been a bit gory, so fair enough, but this ghostly puff of steam effect is hardly an adequate substitution.

Haldane just can’t resist getting a joke in about dodging speeding tickets. All this falls quite flat because of the uninteresting special effect, and the fact Ted and Rob clearly weren’t properly briefed on how dramatic the Tarn’s death was going to be. As a setup to the mystery of the week, this is all so mind-numbingly average.

After a commercial break, we fade back in and the country music is still playing. More accurately, it’s exactly the same song that’s still playing. Who knows how much time has passed, but probably enough time for Brogan to reach into the back of the cruiser and throw the MiniDisc player out of the window if he wanted to.

Castle’s not a fan of the tunes either, but takes the bait and gets mixed up in a bit of classic Haldane flirting. Alas, the scripted dialogue is so flat this week that Castle doesn’t seem that bothered one way or the other.

Having determined that Marcus Droon was a goody-goody librarian with no criminal history whatsoever, Officer Castle gives Brogan a quick guide to the street drug known as “Flash,” and how it detonates its users as soon as they overdose. As a fully paid up member of the DCPD, Brogan probably should have known all that stuff already. Also, Castle immediately solving the mystery of Droon’s demise doesn’t exactly build much tension. Then again, the audience isn’t stupid and saw exactly what happened anyway, so there wasn’t much of a mystery to begin with.

The point is, everything here just feels like we’re going through the motions. Characters who should already know stuff need that stuff explained to them so the audience at home can understand the stuff too, except its stuff the audience has either just watched happen or will learn from what’s about to happen. It’s all just stuff.

Brogan and Haldane fly over to Droon’s apartment to speak with his landlady… which sounds like the least exciting route for this story to take. I like the apartment building though, the view of it from the street, looking up at the cruiser. Nice of the special effects team to give us something interesting to look at while we’re trudging through this episode.

No surprises here. The apartment set is atrocious, of course – we could be in a room at the Crossroads motel. The landlady is a Creon with rollers in her hair which would be funny if she had any other discernible comedy character traits whatsoever, but instead she’s written and played completely flat. Brogan and Haldane vaguely search the place without any sense of urgency or intrigue whatsoever. There’s nothing for the audience to get invested in because Castle basically already explained Droon’s actions to us. The landlady also confirms that Droon was an upstanding citizen and a loner, which is neither a surprise nor particularly relevant.

Haldane finds a case of the HE-11 spray we saw Droon using earlier. They talk about it as if they have no idea what it could possibly be. It’s Flash, you dummies. Castle just told us in the last scene that it was probably Flash. Why go to the effort of having that previous exposition scene at all if you’re not going to use any of that information? Have the characters given up on paying attention to the episode too? Am I asleep right now?

Then Brogan switches from paying absolutely no attention to the information he’s been given to plucking new clues from random places. He decides that some money with the word “PERU” written on it is somehow interesting. The note wasn’t even pulled out of the HE-11 case… it was just on the table and Brogan decided it was significant at that moment. At least if the note was kept with the drugs, the audience would get some mystery about how the two are connected. I’m not a crime writer but I’m pretty confident there’s bog all tension to be found in the detectives just pulling clues out of thin air.

Meanwhile, up at the station house, Orrin and Beezle receive a visit from a particularly impatient honey-baked ham.

This is Morgo. He got his own Space Precinct action figure, but is generally considered one of the less successful guest alien animatronics from the series. Now, to his credit, I’d say he looks okay later on when he’s confined to standing in the background looking imposing. But the mechanism for the mouth and eyes doesn’t sit well inside the massive head, so any time he speaks it’s painfully obvious that something isn’t working right. And unfortunately this first scene requires the character to speak quite a lot of dialogue and convey quite a mixture of emotions. The bigness of Gary Martin’s vocal performance just can’t be matched by the struggling servo motors inside the mask. There’s a reason why Creons and Tarns utilise the human actor’s mouths to speak – it’s a heck of a lot more effective.

So, here comes some more plot. Morgo reports that his girlfriend, Pola Vad Moonacki, is dealing Flash but he doesn’t know where she is after they got in a fight. He presents a photo of Pola which was taken outside the administration block of L & M stages at Pinewood. He then asks that the officers convey his apologies if they happen to find her.

Gary Martin’s performance doesn’t exactly pitch Morgo as a compassionate lover gripped by guilt. The animatronic head makes him look like a dog chewing a golf ball. Everything feels off. Maybe that’s intentional since he’s lying through his teeth anyway. I think the audience is supposed to view him with suspicion. We’re supposed to look at this giant meathead and scoff at the idea of him as anything other than a bad guy. He’s supposed to stick out like a sore thumb. They just didn’t have to go quite so over the top with it, and construct a creature so utterly unbelievable and unwieldy.

Beezle fumbles about with trying to feed the photo of Pola into a narrow slot in Slomo’s head for an ID scan. Poor Tom Watt clearly can’t see a thing. Don’t worry Tom, not long left now.

Before they can get Morgo’s name, he’s gone. How a giant slab of steak can wander out of a police station unnoticed I don’t know, but there you are.

Here’s a rare opportunity to see Orrin and Beezle out on the beat together. Slomo’s tracked Pola to a “flophouse in the wharf district.” Well that was quick and easy. Another case of a potential mystery being totally rejected in favour of keeping the plot moving. Fortunately we do get a little bit of intrigue when a van starts following the police cruiser. Also, the eerie wash of deep pink twilight coupled with Crispin Merrell’s mysterious music helps to sell us on the tension.

The cruiser lands, with the van touching down nearby. Demeter City at night really is quite impressive. There’s some great depth in the way the lights and all the buildings are placed.

The interior of the apartment building does nothing to reflect the dark, moodiness outside. It’s just another corridor. The grim unpleasantness that Orrin and Beezle suggested earlier isn’t reflected at all in the very neutral set.

Sure enough, the room itself is perfectly fine. Not especially nice, nor especially grotty. It’s just a set, like any other set with boring walls and boring furniture and boring hotel artwork.

And as we all guessed from how thoroughly suspicious Morgo was being, Pola isn’t his girlfriend at all, and knows nothing about dealing Flash whatsoever.

Did someone order beefcake?

Orrin looks like he’s just heard some gossip about the greengrocer’s mistress.

But boy does Richard James sell that punch! It really looks like he gets a proper good whack.

It’s definitely Tom Watt that lunges for Morgo, but I’m pretty sure that’s a stunt person getting thrown over the chair and hitting the wall since that’s the sort of stunt that really requires precision and expertise.

Morgo roars at Pola but boy does that animatronic face of his struggle to keep up. Pola is visibly terrified so the roaring probably wasn’t necessary anyway.

The real awkwardness of Morgo’s giant head becomes apparent as he reaches over to grab Pola in a very laboured motion. Inside the costume, actor Anthony Venditti probably can’t see where he’s going, so navigating the tiny set looks like a challenge and not conducive to a scene involving dragging someone away against their will.

Beezle takes a nap on the floor and Orrin checks for injuries incurred by the soft mattress he was lucky enough to land on. Morgo carries Pola away over his shoulder and the character definitely looks much more imposing doing grunt work like this. The exterior set is basically Skall Street from last week’s episode, Enforcer. Morgo flies off in his little yellow hover van and I think we can all agree that was a thing that happened. Perhaps not the greatest action sequence in all of Space Precinct, but certainly not the worst.

Beezle and Orrin aren’t feeling so smart. They clearly walked into a trap. But then again, they were just doing their jobs and investigating a report like any other. And there’s a sliver of intrigue in the air now. Why did Morgo go to the extreme tactic of having the police track down Pola just so he could kidnap her? What makes her so special?

But let’s put that very real mystery aside for a moment and instead spend yet another scene going over stuff we already know. Podly announces to the rest of the regular cast that the vials from Droon’s apartment are indeed Flash, aka HE-11. He says it like they’ve made a spectacular new discovery, or like there was a massive degree of doubt in Castle’s initial theory about Droon. That would be fine if anyone else had bothered to chip in with other ideas, but we as an audience just accepted Castle’s first assessment because, well, we like Castle and there was no reason to question it – especially since we literally watched Droon using the spray in the first place.

Podly suggests that the tiny little bottle of bright blue liquid might not look like much. I mean, I don’t know about you at home, but if it’s blue and kept in a vial I’d assume it’s definitely a chemical not fit for human consumption. So I think it looks like exactly what it is. I don’t think anyone is arguing that a case of blue chemicals is going to be completely harmless. If they are, they probably shouldn’t be a police officer.

Now it’s time for a very drawn out sequence with Podly and Sgt. Fredo demonstrating the effects of Flash for the benefit of the officers, using security footage of a sweet little granny in the cells who’s tragically hooked on the stuff.

Fredo explains that this lady, Amelia Sitruc, was arrested for robbing a jewellery store with a heavy machine gun. Haldane, Brogan, Castle, and Took are apparently gripped by the story, even though they all know how it’s about to end. Fun fact – Sitruc is Curtis spelled backwards, so she’s either named after the Space Precinct live action set designer Tony Curtis or literally anyone else with the name Curtis… anyway, back to the not very exciting thing we all know is coming.

Haldane even comments, “This is where we came in.” He knows! We know! Everyone knows! Everyone gets it! Ordinary people take Flash, act out, and turn into dust! We’ve seen it! Why is all this being explained again?! Why won’t this ruddy episode get started?!

Podly orders his officers to do what they have to do to get the Flash trade shut down. Oh good. I thought we were all going to sit down and have tea and talk about it for a bit longer. Jerome Willis is good, but even his impassioned speech does little to stir my interest in any of this. A few weeks ago, in Double Duty, it was Black Crystal – today it’s Flash. Drugs are bad. We get it. It would be nice, given Space Precinct has a unique position as a science fiction series, if the writers had something new to say about the scourge of drugs. But, instead, they sit us down for scenes like this – literally pulling up examples on a screen to explain to professional police officers why drugs are indeed bad.

Still, at least we finally have a mystery to figure out – who manufactures such a dangerous drug?

Oh no, wait, Castle has immediately narrowed it down to two possibilities and written them down on pieces of paper…

Fortunately, this disappointing scene is lifted by Rob Youngblood bringing us some more of Jack playing dumb to irritate/endear Jane. If the camera could have actually shown us his silly grin that would have been nice. However, his tone of voice is so childish I just had to laugh. I’m well aware that it’s not to everyone’s tastes, but I find Rob Youngblood’s commitment to Haldane’s goofy side very admirable. If the actor didn’t go all-in on being so brash and annoying in all these flirty moments, the whole thing would be dry as a bone. There’s an element of self-awareness there that’s crucial. Haldane knows he’s being a twerp, but he thinks that’s all he has in his arsenal to hold Castle’s attention. Dare I be so bold as to say that it’s a sign of vulnerability? A sign of depth? Something more interesting than the war on space drugs at any rate…

And the home of space drugs is apparently Interchem. Sorry, one of two potential homes. Gotta keep a little bit of intrigue going I guess.

Yellow and brown – the colour palette of champions… champion toilet botherers.

At the very, very, very top of the scene Dr. Henry Jansen of Interchem confirms that they were indeed the original manufacturers of Flash. Well blow me, this police lark is easy! Just walk into a room with a question and you’ll get the answer immediately. And hey, while we’re at it, let’s have another history lesson on Flash. Jansen explains that the drug, known by the more scientific name of HE-11, was originally developed as a mood enhancer. Then he throws phrases like “chain reaction” and “trioxyglycozone” (Haldane returns with the equally made up “zimta”). Long story short, Jansen claims that Interchem lost over 3 million credits when they discovered HE-11 could blow people up and discontinued the research. He also claims to only have one theory about how Flash got on the streets – his former chief chemist Pola Vad Moonacki taking the formula with her when she left. Oh good, a plot is starting to form. At least, I hope this one sticks around.

Michael J. Shannon plays Dr. Jansen, and does so with that fantastic voice which made him a firm favourite of casting directors looking for people to play American politicians. Red Dwarf fans will know him as President John F. Kennedy in the episode Tikka To Ride. He’s got the voice and he’s got the look, but given all the scientific nonsense and weird alien names in the dialogue of this scene, it’s apparent that he’s not 100% confident on remembering his lines. You’ll notice that Dr. Jansen pauses dramatically or looks at his paperwork whenever he has something complicated to say. It’s not too bad, and you’d barely notice if you weren’t looking for – it’s basically just a professional actor using the tips and tricks at his disposal to get through a rather clunky bit of script.

And just like that, Demeter City’s finest are off to follow another lead! Thank goodness there are spaceships zipping around for us to enjoy in between these turgid scenes.

A quick scene to get Brogan and Haldane up to speed on what we, the audience, already know – the fact that Pola was kidnapped during Orrin and Beezle’s earlier misadventure. No special easter eggs in her criminal records I’m afraid – you know I stop to read every bit of data that turns up on a screen in this show, otherwise what’s the point?

The lads agree that Pola doesn’t seem like a typical Flash dealer… except, of course, Brogan didn’t even know what Flash was 24 hours ago, so how he can form opinions of a typical Flash dealer I don’t know. Maybe he’s referring to drug dealers in general… but more likely the script just got a bit sloppy. Apparently “PERU” is still a valid lead in Brogan’s mind because… well, he found it written down somewhere… so it must be a clue. Ugh.

Meanwhile, in a particularly shady part of town (at least I assume it’s a shady part of town), Pola is stuck in a laboratory and has some visitors. I’m fairly sure the set is Skeevan’s workshop from Enforcer slightly reconfigured.

We have another villain to contend with – Carmel Matthews. We know she’s a villain because of her vaguely European accent and over the top fashion tastes. She claims that the door is soundproof because it’s made of “isolinium.” Needless to say, the door sounds suspiciously like cheap wood when she knocks on it. Surely, surely, surely the sound designer would have thought to put a heavy metallic sound effect over the top of that. Isn’t that just a no-brainer?

Pippa Guard plays Carmel Matthews exactly as one might expect. When the hair and make-up department give you that look, and the costume department gives you that outfit, utter campness and purring every line is bound to be the end result. Pola condemns Carmel for “perverting her research” (whatever that means), and for selling HE-11 on the street… which wraps up that little mystery for us as well. However, it turns out they agree that Flash-users exploding is a bit of a problem. Carmel has brought Pola back to research ways of modifying HE-11 to eliminate that nasty side effect. Sounds fair enough, really. Not blowing people up sounds better than blowing people up. Of course, Pola still objects to the circumstances a little bit, which I guess is also fair enough. It’s not exactly the most thought provoking moral dilemma I’ve ever come across. Then comes the clincher – Morgo will dismember (such an ugly word) Pola’s family if she refuses to do the work. Morgo grumbles enthusiastically. Now that’s what you hire a giant pork chop on legs for.

Pola pops on a lab coat to signify her compliance. No dismembering for Morgo yet, unfortunately. As you can see, that giant unwieldy head is much more effective when standing in the background grunting, rather than speaking actual words. The tone is ominous as we fade to black. Eliminating the deadly side effect of Flash sounds like a good thing in theory, so I’m anxious to learn what kind of thrilling twists and turns the rest of the episode will take to ramp up the tension… or indeed just to find even a crumb of tension would be nice.

After the commercial break we head over to the suburbs and, to be honest, I’m not too upset about it. At least some Brogan family drama would make a nice change from the barely-there drama going on in the actual plot. Of course, I’ll probably live to regret that sentiment.

Matt’s on rollerblades and off to do something sporty downtown. Patrick being Patrick means there’s some hesitation at first but we’re not going through all that this week – Sally just says it’s fine and so off he goes. And that’s all we get from Matt for this week. So that’s one Brogan kid immediately bumped off within a matter of seconds – things are looking up.

Next up, Liz and Zil arrive to… wait a minute… how has it taken me this long to figure out that Zil is Liz’s name spelled backwards? Oh my goodness. Have I been so disinterested in these characters that I didn’t see the bleeding obvious?

Anyway, Liz has a school project and bla bla bla, she wants to go to the police station and watch her dad work. Frankly, I’m amazed it’s taken us four whole episodes to get to this point. The writers must have had such a struggle to keep the Brogan family involved in these stories and “bring your daughter to work day” is such an obvious trope for them to use. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not impressed. This is barrel scraping stuff. I’m just surprised they didn’t start scraping that barrel sooner. And there’s still twenty episodes to go after this one.

Because we need some kind of tension in the episode, Patrick Brogan does what Patrick Brogan does best and disappoints his kid by saying no. He’s of the opinion that a police station isn’t a great setting for a 10-year-old… sorry, nearly 11-year-old. And I think that’s a perfectly reasonable thing to say. Consider that last week, in Enforcer, a crazy guy hi-jacked the station and nearly sent it crashing out of orbit. Or the week before that when Officer Took contracted deadly Xyron fever while at work. Or the week before that when a shapeshifting alien butcher went on a rampage and almost mauled Officer Orrin to death. I think there are valid safety concerns there.

But no, because his tone is a little bit abrupt and dismissive, Patrick becomes the bad guy. I had to laugh at Liz angrily dismissing the suggestion from her dad that she should shadow her mother’s work day instead. It isn’t said, but let’s be honest, Sally is boring at home so I can’t imagine she’s going to be more interesting at work.

Having once again sabotaged his relationship with one of his children, Brogan turns on the TV. Top notch parenting there. He’s greeted with exactly the commercial he needed to see. Not because he has ugly Creon feet (we assume), but because the phone number advertised spells out a four-letter word.

Apparently Lieutenant Brogan, a highly trained police officer with 20 years of experience, needs a moment to check that “PERU” is also a four-letter word. My eyes rolled so far into my skull you’ll find them on the back seat of the police cruiser next to Haldane’s MiniDisc player.

Apparently Brogan and Haldane need to use Podly’s private office just to verify a phone number. We get to enjoy a little bit of politics as Podly waxes on about how great planetary government is on Altor, and how primitive the existence of individual nations appears by comparison. I like that. It’s a nice little bit of humour. Nothing fancy, just adds some colour.

Anyway, “PERU” is no longer a mystery because it’s actually just the phone extension of Dr. Henry Jansen at Interchem. So does that mean Marcus Droon was buying Flash directly from Jansen? Well that seems like a bit of a stretch but fine, I guess that’s a development.

Back at the lab, Carmel is talking to her watch, finishing up a sales call with someone who’s looking for more confidence. What a business-like approach to a drug deal – I’m impressed. Luckily, Pola’s just finished cooking up a new formula of HE-11 which theoretically won’t kill anyone this time. Morgo presents one of those rat things that we saw by Carole’s Diner right at the beginning of the episode.

The rat gets a liberal spray of the formula and seems stable for a few seconds before burning up like all the other Flash victims. Sorry everyone, but we’re not even halfway through the episode yet, so we’ve gotta keep this thing going somehow.

Carmel gives Pola 26 hours (one Altor day) to fix the formula, or else Morgo will get to tear some limbs off of Pola’s parents. That certainly sounds more interesting to watch than another chemistry experiment.

When Carmel’s out of the room, Pola throws some HE-11 at Morgo – presumably in the hope that he’ll puff out of existence. His reaction is unintentionally camp.

But he’s okay. Morgo reveals that Flash doesn’t work on him. Why? Because the plot says so. And if you’re hoping this is a setup for something later, it isn’t.

Carmel wanders through a door into an office. I actually don’t hate the design of this office. The round window and that slightly unusual but tasteful desk just elevates it above the norm. It turns out Jansen is indeed the villain behind the operation and wants to make a run for it before the cops get too close to the truth. He says that they’re leaving whether Pola finds a solution to the blowing-people-up problem or not… which means Pola’s part in all of this is pretty pointless. Nevertheless, they’re keeping her around to try and fix it anyway because… nope, really not sure on that one. Jansen and Carmel don’t seem that bothered about killing people. I guess as a long-term business venture it would make for better marketing if their drug didn’t kill people but, well, drug addicts tend not to worry about that sort of thing anyway.

So even though they’re leaving one way or the other, and the cops are hot on their tail, Jansen still wants to give Pola the time she needs… because the episode still has over twenty minutes to go. Their plan is to eventually take the Flash trade to Earth because apparently we could all do with some cheering up. On that point, I can’t disagree.

Jansen instructs that Pola be left in Morgo’s capable hands when she’s finished her work. You know, for a bit of murder. That’s certainly what the ridiculous expression on Carmel’s face is implying anyway.

Just like that, Brogan and Haldane arrive at Interchem to search the premises, while Dr. Jansen is in the middle of burning every document they have. I hope Officer Haldane enjoys reading all those big words.

This is a flopped version of an establishing shot first seen in Double Duty.

Just like that (again), the DCPD lab has gone over every piece of scientific equipment recovered from Interchem and found nothing. That was quick.

Podly’s ticked off, but because we just need to keep bouncing from plot point to plot point, Castle and Took conveniently arrive with a vial of Flash recovered from one of Jansen’s drug dealing contacts. Brogan and Haldane congratulate one another on their “timing.” Lads, I wouldn’t be too proud of the sheer number of conveniences laid throughout this tedious episode.

Some use is made of the two-tier station house set as Fredo, Podly, Haldane, and Brogan peer down to look at Carmel visiting the detained Dr. Jansen. Of course, the scene unfolds underneath them so they can’t actually see anything, but the magic of television tricks our brains into thinking they can. Well, it tricks my brain anyway. My brain is easily tricked. I was tricked into reviewing this episode, after all.

There’s more ham in Jansen and Carmel’s performances than a butcher’s shop window. Carmel plays at being a cheated lover so she has an excuse to furiously bang on the flimsy grating and pass some Flash to Jansen.

Haldane’s the only one watching the ludicrous performance, and he’s therefore stupid enough to believe it.

Jansen’s thrown in a cell and, well, he’s going full pantomime villain now.

Back at the Brogan residence, Liz is watching her favourite show – Demeter City Blues – a title that was originally considered for Space Precinct. The clips we see are lifted straight out of the Space Police: Star Laws pilot. Patrick isn’t prepared to watch a cop show after a long day doing the real thing, so he gets a bit short with Liz again. Yes – there’s actual tension which has sustained from the last time we saw these characters until now. It’s a miracle.

Things are still frosty between Patrick and Sally too. She needles him on the issue of not letting Liz shadow his day at the DCPD, listing various parents making similar efforts for Liz’s classmates. Patrick once again pushes for Liz to shadow Sally at the hospital instead. That doesn’t work because, as we’ve established, Sally Brogan is fundamentally boring. He then insists that Captain Podly won’t allow Liz to visit the station. Sally wisely chooses a different approach to get to the root of her husband’s concerns. Instead of freezing him out, she softens her attitude with a big smile.

It works. Patrick admits he doesn’t want his kid aspiring to being a cop, exposing the low opinion he has of his own job. Within seconds, Sally is all over her husband. Gentlemen, emotional vulnerability is sexy.

I’m still more invested in the Brogan family drama for this week than the main police plot. I haven’t decided yet whether that’s a good thing or not.

Here’s a lovely little scene. Brogan hops on a call with Podly to arrange Liz’s visit to the station. Podly shares that he did the same thing for his daughter and she ended up becoming a detective at the 38th.

This makes Brogan a sad panda. Emotional conflict! Stakes! Something that actually matters to one of our characters! However mixed up his concerns are, it’s a treat for this episode to give us a meaningful arc to latch on to.

Lt. Brogan arrives at work with his daughter. I should have a bad feeling about this, but frankly I’m relieved something interesting is happening. Orrin reliably quips about Liz being a tough enough partner for Brogan. Poor Officer Haldane.

Jansen wakes up in his cell. That’s it. That’s the scene. His suit matches the wall. I don’t have anything else to add.

Here’s an attempt at something different – a shot through the station house window from the outside. Okay, the live action set design team have put the minimum amount of effort into recreating a greenish yellow panel from the station’s exterior model, but at least they did something.

What’s more effective is the reflection of the stars outside as Liz looks out in awe. It has the potential to be a cinematic moment. Trouble is, Liz can see similar views every day just looking out of the window from her home in the suburbs. But I get what they’re going for – she’s impressed – that’s the key takeaway.

Castle repeats the same joke that Orrin made about Liz becoming Brogan’s new partner – to Brogan’s irritation/amusement. It’s a clever bit of comedy – well done to all concerned.

Remarkably, the script finds an excuse to recycle that whole levitating police hat trick from Protect and Survive (and by extension Space Police Reloaded). It’s cute. It’s not original, but it’s cute. I wouldn’t mind seeing Took’s powers put to more practical use though. She’s definitely a character that hasn’t found her groove in the series yet.

Brogan is horrified when Castle and Took start glamorising police work, admittedly in a tongue in cheek manner. It’s a very basic exploration of Patrick’s established insecurities, and nobody in this scene is going to win an acting award for a nuanced performance, but it’s a bit of fun and that’s probably all it needs to be.

Oh yeah, Pola’s still alive. Remember, she’s supposed to be finding a cure for Flash’s nasty side effects. Morgo is asleep, so she sneakily mixes a red liquid with the blue liquid. Carmel interrupts, still sorting out all of Interchem’s ruddy paperwork. The threat to Pola’s parents hangs over her, but none of it feels significant because Jansen already gave instructions to have Morgo kill Pola at the end of all this anyway – regardless of whether she eliminates the side effects from the drug or not. We’re just hanging around waiting for something to develop in this plot that actually means something.

Why is Officer Castle staring at the wall? Have they really run out of things for her to do already?

Oh it’s a coffee dispenser. Thank heavens for that.

Haldane’s late for work – as usual. We finally get something resembling an explanation about Altor’s 26-hour days as Jack fumbles to excuse his tardiness. It’s a very on-brand moment for Haldane, and you’ve got to admire a bit of consistency in the writing of these characters. While many other aspects of the scripts falter, the writers do tend to get the regular characters right most of the time. Simone Bendix has chosen to make Jane slightly harsher this week. In past episodes she might call out Jack’s nonsense with condescending words and a knowing smile. Today shes seems genuinely annoyed for no particular reason and the chemistry feels lacking.

Luckily, Liz is around to remind Jack (and the audience) that Jane really does like him. Liz goes on to tease Officer Haldane about replacing him as Brogan’s partner. Obviously it’s just a bit of fun, but it works because Haldane’s been so pathetic this week that there’s a small, small, small chance he could really be in trouble.

Podly calling Haldane upstairs to dress him down for arriving late again plays into this tiny shred of doubt nicely. It’s all for laughs – nobody seriously expects Haldane will be replaced – but enough seeds have been planted in the episode so far for us to at least appreciate why the joke is funny. That, right there, is why James Hendrie is a good sitcom writer.

Things are finally getting interesting with Jansen. He persaudes his guard – a Creon officer we’ve never seen before – to come over. The officer gets a quick spray of Flash and the effects are immediate. Jansen musters up some charisma and convinces the guard to let him escape, with the Creon officer promising an instant recapture thanks to his drug-induced confidence boost. Nothing about this is particularly clever, but it does build some much-needed tension in the main plot. Jansen now has some actual power and is committing to being a bad guy.

M’kay. See, now that something has started happening in the main plot, I’m immediately finding this business with Liz less endearing. She chats with Slomo and convinces the simple-minded robot that she’s Brogan’s new partner – officially stretching the initial joke from the other officers beyond its limits.

Then, Liz sincerely pulls a quote straight out of her favourite cop show when she hears Haldane’s been disciplined by Captain Podly. I enjoy Haldane quietly chuckling while Brogan looks on in bewilderment. They’re toeing a very careful line between taking Liz too seriously, outright mocking her, and making the whole conceit too sickly sweet. The subplot probably doesn’t have long left before it becomes irritating, but so far I’m tolerating it.

Jansen’s escape plan isn’t going so well. He can’t get into the docking bay. It really wasn’t a very good plan, was it?

Beezle comes through the door at exactly the wrong moment, but Jansen’s all out of Flash to spray him with.

So, it’s time for a fight. I’d say we’re over due for a bit of action.

Liz just so happens to be watching that particular security camera at the time. Cor blimey, what a stroke of luck. She may be almost 11 years old, but she can’t separate fantasy from reality and enthuses about the new cop show that’s appeared on the screen. Okay, I’m losing patience with her now.

Brogan calls a code 913. Haldane whips his weapon out. Alarms start blaring. Everyone starts running. And Slomo… spins around pointlessly in the background.

Jansen drags Beezle over to the door and scans his handprint successfully. “Thanks friend,” he utters menacingly – just in case we needed a reminder that he’s the bad guy now.

“Massive!” declares Liz Brogan. Yeah, done with her now.

Also, Fredo, Castle, and Took remain at their desks in the background, barely reacting at all to the chaos unfolding around them. Well, someone’s got to get the paperwork done, I guess.

After the commercial break, it feels like things are happening at last as we enter the final act. Jansen takes a police cruiser while singing Wagner’s Ride of The Valkyries to himself… well, someone has a high opinion of themselves, don’t they?

Tom Watt takes his final bow as Officer Beezle in this scene. Upon learning that his performance was being revoiced by Gary Martin, the actor decided that his time on Space Precinct was over after four episodes. Watt had yet to sign his contract, so simply worked his notice on Flash and left the production, amicably by all accounts. The Beezle character disappears without a trace. I can’t blame Tom Watt for choosing to leave the series. In my opinion, the fault surely lay in the initial casting process. If the producers weren’t happy with an actor’s voice, they shouldn’t have cast them in the first place – it’s not like they were being cast for their faces. Why hire two actors to play one part when you could just find the right fit in terms of voice and… I was going to say appearance but that doesn’t seem especially relevant here, does it? It points to the chaos of the early days of Space Precinct – where nobody at the top of the production had any idea what they wanted. Some probably liked Tom Watt’s voice when he was cast. Others didn’t, and made their own plans to change things retroactively. If there’s any justice, I’d like to think that the latter group were left to eat humble pie when Tom Watt quit. How did they solve the problem? Well, that’s a story for next week…

Carmel and Jansen make saucy looks at each other as they get ready to escape the planet together.

“Hey Simone, we’re going to start this shot with the camera tracked in for an extreme close-up, but we need to make sure the audience knows you’re using that communicator prop. Could you hold it as close to your face as possible so we get it all in the frame? Nah, I’m sure no-one will notice you’re going cross-eyed. It’s not like anyone will be watching anyway.”

The doors close on Brogan and Haldane’s cruiser. The camera on the live action set moves slightly before abruptly cutting to the model shot, giving the impression of the ship blasting off. I’ll let you decide how convincing that editing trick is. Haldane finds his MiniDisc player in the front of the cruiser… even though it was still on the back seat the last time we saw it. Anyway, he throws it back there again. Subtle setup. Super subtle.

In the middle of all this thrilling action, Slomo has brought some juice for Liz. But Fredo doesn’t know where she is. Uh-oh! Wah-wah! Duh-doy! *bangs head furiously against the wall*

The kid got in the cruiser. We all knew that this is where Liz’s subplot was headed. It doesn’t make it right, but it also means I have no reason to be angry. And hey, at least it adds some tension. But it’s the humour that I’d like to call into question here. We’re meant to laugh at Liz being totally desensitised to all this life-threatening danger thanks to a combination of TV and blind faith in her heroic father. While there might be a morsel of this based on real life, these scenes are stretching the theme beyond credibility because no kid should be so chipper about flying around in police car chasing a drug lord through an alien city. It makes Liz hard to relate to, even for the kids watching who are probably supposed to engage with her the most. On the whole, children can be well-placed as protagonists in sci-fi and fantasy fiction because they accept things more easily than adults, but also have increased vulnerability and unease in unfamiliar surroundings. Children aren’t stupid – they can be excited by and wary of danger at the same time. Liz, so far, hasn’t displayed that capacity for both – so, I’m sorry to say, she just looks a bit thick. I believe that’s the reason why cocky kids in film and TV are particularly grating.

Liz starts giving her father flight tips – adding back seat driving to her annoying kid accolades. We get a very clear look at the top of the blue sky backdrop on the special effects stage, but we also get two live action characters seamlessly mixed in to the model set. Pretty neat, right?

Jansen actually looks pleased that the police are following him. He’s probably cracked, but I’m not really sure exactly when he flipped his lid. He seemed like a fairly calculated, cautious villain at the start of the episode. Now he’s reckless and thoroughly enjoying the risk. Maybe it’s a Flash thing? Nah, spoiler alert but that comes later.

As they zip their way through the city, Haldane and Brogan quickly weigh up dropping off Liz alone in the city, or keeping her in the cruiser. Yeah, we all know she’s going to be staying with us until the end. Get used to it.

Get this – Jansen is taking them over the “magnetite refinery.” At first I though Haldane said “magnet tire fire arena.” Y’know, an arena for some kind of space age tire fire event? Yeah magnetite refinery makes much more sense. What doesn’t make sense is Haldane’s MiniDisc player starting up all by itself again… and Liz once again describing something as “massive.”

Oh, apparently it was Liz who turned the player on in the first place. Well, that’s annoying. I guess it’s a further joke about her desensitisation to all this. Hah hah.

Fire and fury aplenty as Jansen and the cops navigate the refinery. Liz calls it “massive” again and I’m convinced there’s something wrong with her.

Yup, we’re supposed to still care about this. Pola has a fresh composition of Flash to test on a rat. There’s a pause. Things seem hopeful. Then it explodes off-screen. Right, good, glad we’re still achieving nothing over here. Thanks for checking in.

Jansen gets lost in the smog. Liz chides her father for saying “damn”… which is a bit bloody rude. They give up the chase, notify immigration, and plan to take Liz home. I guess it was too much to hope that this episode would just finish early.

Awaiting Jansen’s arrival, Carmel finally gives Morgo permission to do some violence and dispose of Pola. But our clever scientist has other ideas that involve Morgo holding on to specific cylinder very carefully at arm’s length…

Did someone order steamed hams?

Our fleshy, big-headed, good-for-standing-in-a-corner-and-not-much-else tough guy gets blasted in the face.

Jansen arrives outside, while Pola uses Morgo’s wrist communicator (a digital watch) to call the police to her location at 423 W 53rd Street. Wait a minute… if she was kidnapped, why did Morgo or Carmel give her any opportunity to figure out what address she was being taken to? Did nobody think to invest in a blindfold? Anyway, with Morgo’s weapon in hand Pola looks ready for anything.

Took and Castle are en route to Pola’s location. Glad they finally have something useful to do in this episode.

With no ceremony whatsoever, Carmel and Dr. Jansen just wander into the room and find Pola pointing a gun at them. Apparently the writer couldn’t be bothered with a tense standoff and just immediately has Pola try to shoot them and fail because the gun’s not loaded. But Carmel knew the gun wasn’t loaded, which begs two stupid questions – how did she know, and why was Morgo carrying an empty gun in the first place? The answer to both questions is a matter of plot convenience, but surely it would make more sense to just write a scene where Pola, seemingly a nice character, holds the two villains at gunpoint without actually wanting to kill them?

Castle and Took land on the roof and get to do some cool cop stuff with their guns out, running up to a door and vaguely kicking it open. Meanwhile, Jansen decides to leave Pola alive for… some reason. Carmel says, “thanks for everything.” Correct me if I’m wrong, but if the last test we saw is anything to go by then Pola ultimately failed to eliminate the Flash side effects, so I’m not sure what there is to be thankful for. That whole strand of the episode was for absolutely nothing except to get all the characters to one location for this next bit.

Took and Castle idly search the office, worried that they’ve been taken for a ride, when Jansen bursts in.

When Officer Castle shoots, Dr. Jansen uses Carmel as a human shield. Well that’s their will-they-won’t-they relationship over and done with.

And I really liked that desk too.

Castle calls for back-up. Brogan and Haldane are the only cops in the area.

Oh, and don’t forget Officer Liz. Yeah she’s still there. I don’t know what you were expecting.

This composition of live action and model work isn’t quite so successful because the chap on the left gets his head cut off by the matte line. I appreciate the attempt to make Demeter City look vaguely populated though.

The cruiser lands, and Liz is given the very specific instruction to stay in the car… so specific that you really don’t need me to tell you what happens later.

In the meantime, Liz cranks up the MiniDisc player. Terrific. Glad it has some purpose.

The officers gather in the corridor. I like seeing these four working together – something about the dynamic just works.

A quick bit of dialogue confirms that Carmel isn’t dead – just stunned. Her god-awful hairdresser will be relieved.

Ah, so Jansen kept Pola alive just on the off-chance his escape plan failed and he needed someone to point a gun at in a standoff situation… how convenient.

Shots are fired, a tank of HE-11 is hit, and Jansen holds his face still in one position just long enough to get doused in blue liquid.

Michael Shannon plays the sudden boost in confidence with remarkable restraint. The one time in this episode where he has permission to overact he avoids it.

The gang can only watch in horror as the effects of Flash start to take hold.

Holy moly that’s unpleasnt to look at. I hope that head was immediately burned as soon as filming was over. I’d hate to think of that lump of rubber disintegrating on someone’s shelf thirty years later.

The characters all look at the puff of smoke as if that’s the disgusting part.

Brogan considers the case closed and suggests a mop be brought to the scene. Oh how ruddy witty. I’m convinced that the production’s original plan was for the Flash victims to explode in a flurry of blood and guts, but someone – quite rightly – decided that would be too horrific… funny, but horrific.

Ugh, did you have to wake up?

This isn’t a bad twist. Not exactly clever or well-deserved, but not bad. Carmel gets ready to kill one or more of the police officers on their way back to the cruisers. Why they left Carmel unattended in the first place I don’t know – they knew she wasn’t dead. If she snuck out without them noticing, someone probably would have mentioned it too.

Castle yells to take cover. A shot is fired.

Brogan and Haldane’s cruiser is toast. The mix of effects and live action works because we don’t linger on the shots for too long.

The focus is mostly kept on Brogan’s reaction. Ted Shackelford gives it as much as he possibly can. The shock and pain of losing Liz is clear. The brash intensity of the explosion probably doesn’t quite match the raw emotion of the scene. I don’t think it’s very likely, but I can imagine a very small chunk of the audience might believe that Liz has actually been killed off. Heck, that’d give Brogan an awful lot of motivation for cleaning up the streets in future episodes. We saw in UFO with A Question of Priorities that Gerry Anderson personally wasn’t beyond going there.

Nah, she’s fine. Liz was never going to do as she was told and stay in the cruiser. Extra dialogue has clearly been dubbed on to the scene to explain that Liz went looking for her dad. The slow motion hug is a bit much. Like so much of this episode, we’re barely given time to process the tension and drama of what’s just happened before it’s immediately resolved. A slow motion hug would be warranted if more time had been allowed to pass. But it’s a family show so watching Brogan grieve the apparent death of his kid for an extended period of time would be absolutely awful to watch, so maybe it was better the way it was. To the script’s credit, this is a much more dramatic, interesting way to wrap up the “Liz goes to work with her dad” subplot than I would have expected. Brogan’s fears being validated and Liz presumably learning that real police work has real life-threatening consequences are all important things to have happen.

Carmel gets her butt kicked by Castle and Took so all is well there. Someone should probably check that Morgo is actually dead after that explosion. And where exactly did Pola end up?

Of course, we have to end on a light note, so we can rely on Officer Haldane for that. He’s mortified that his MiniDisc player and all those country tunes were still in the cruiser. We actually heard them playing for the last time at the beginning of the scene.

Rob Youngblood milks it and I can’t say I blame him. Yes, the switch from extreme drama to extreme comedy is quite jarring, but when the script says something along the lines of, “grown man gets upset about losing his country music collection,” there’s only one way to play that and it’s big.

Back home, Patrick serves his daughter a brown mess called the Brogan swirl. It’s chocolate syrup mixed with ice cream. We’ve all done it. It’s a bribe to keep Liz quiet about the life-and-death experience she had today. It’s really quite sweet that he takes full responsibility for Liz getting in danger, when he really did absolutely everything he could to prevent it – including suggesting she didn’t come along in the first place. If anything, Patrick should be proud to tell Sally that their daughter nearly died today – it would prove his original point.

Sally comes home, highly aware of her husband’s guilt. Liz declares that she learned an important lesson today. Cop work is boring and she wants to be a country and western singer. Oh ha ha ha ha ha. How FUNNY. She heard five seconds of country music and now she wants to be a singer. THAT’S SO FUNNY. Someone please put that kid on Ritalin.

Ted Shackelford gives us the full spectrum of emotions throughout the scene and nails every single one. As a leading man, I really can’t fault him. As an ending to a ridiculously underwhelming episode, I probably can.

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I doubt Flash is an episode of Space Precinct I’ll revisit in the future. It’s boring – something a Gerry Anderson production should never be. The script is the problem – pure and simple. The whole point of a crime story is keeping a bit of mystery hanging over proceedings. Who is the killer? Will they pull off the heist? How many lives are at risk? Raising those kinds of questions keeps the audience engaged, and keeps the protagonists struggling constantly to find answers against all odds. Flash has none of that. We’re presented with a drug and immediately hear about the effects, the manufacturing history, the company behind it, and their plan to export it for profit. None of this is learned through careful police work or risk-taking. We’re just told it in a series of dull, inconsequential scenes. The cops apprehend the culprit, and then the episode actually gets started when Jansen escapes. The one ticking clock across the episode is whether Pola can stop the deadly side effects of Flash before Jansen and Carmel take it off-world… but we’re outright told it doesn’t matter either way. Baffling.

The subplot with Liz starts with some promise but degenerates into annoying TV kid stuff where she’s permanently cheerful and making quips no matter what fazes her. She doesn’t learn a lesson of any value. Brogan doesn’t seem any closer to Liz at the end of the episode than the beginning – even after watching her nearly die. Having Liz along for the ride has potential to introduce some real stakes to the episode, and I like Brogan grappling with the responsibility of taking his daughter to work. Unfortunately, it doesn’t pay off in meaningful character development or an interesting story.

Sorry Flash, you just weren’t good. Whatever comes next week needs to be quite a lot better…