Space Precinct – 5. The Snake

Sometimes, it really doesn’t have to be that complicated. One tried and tested story formula. One memorable villain. One surprise twist. A core group of main characters that we have a reason to root for. High stakes that translate easily for the audience. Television viewers like what they like, and today’s episode of Space Precinct, The Snake, sets itself the simple task of delivering exactly that.

I was apprehensive to see J. Larry Carroll and David Bennett Carren delivering another script for the series after the monumentally average Double Duty. My big issue with Double Duty was how formulaic it was – three subplots, barely interwoven, all plainly borrowing tropes of police work and family life without grounding any of it in inspired character development or realistic dialogue. But, I’ll say this, at least it made sense. There’s value in keeping it simple. My initial assessment of the script for The Snake is that it’s also kept pretty straightforward, but a lot more refinement has gone into smoothing over those sharp, jagged edges of the individual subplots to form a cohesive, well-paced, tonally consistent whole. It’s not perfect – there’s one downright annoying moment later that we’ll get to, but there can be no doubt that Carroll & Carren have improved.

But the real MVP of The Snake has to be John Glen. The script might be better than normal, but the direction is what elevates this episode to greatness. We’re about to go through the whole episode piece by piece, so I don’t think I need to say much more than that for the moment, except that what he fosters so well in The Snake is a shared vision between the entire cast and crew. There’s finally a sense that the Space Precinct team all understand what show they’re making, and feel confident to go above and beyond to achieve it.

Plenty of bangs and crashes in the “This Episode” montage. I can’t imagine it was too difficult to choose exciting moments to include this week.

The opening scene of this episode is so effective I can’t believe it’s from the same series that we’ve been watching for the past few weeks. Usually, we start with some banter between our heroes, Brogan and Haldane, while they wait for the story to come to them. This week, we get straight into it. A seriously impressive spaceship flies by. Demeter City is shrouded in darkness and thunderstorms. A concealed, reptilian figure sits in a waiting car. Mystery! Intrigue! Good lighting!

There’s a special noise I make when model shots look this good, and I just made it.

In another car, these two chaps are having an important-sounding conversation, but we jump in halfway through so we’re not sure exactly what they’re discussing. One of my complaints about last week’s episode, Flash, was that the script spent far too long having characters chat about things the audience already knew – therefore eliminating any mystery. Instead, this scene presents us with two characters we don’t know, talking about something we don’t understand… and that’s good! The precise details of what they’re saying aren’t important. What we need to extract from this scene is not what they’re saying but the way that they’re saying it. It’s about the relationship, the mood, and the stakes. And, because it’s a crime drama, the audience is supposed to form their own opinions and ask questions. Why is one man so relaxed and the other so on-edge? Why is one in a chauffeur-driven car late at night and the other in an office? We can infer that they’re business partners, and that they disagree on how an important matter is being treated. Beyond that, we don’t need to know anything else yet. There’s 43 minutes of episode to get through, and it’s small elements of tension like this that help to keep us watching.

We’d be here all week if I call out every single effects shot that I liked in this episode, but this one definitely deserves some love. This is the first time in the series that we’ve had a proper view of a street in Demeter City from the air that actually feels populated and interesting. We’ve got the red car flying in from above, and the camera following down past the dizzying heights of the skyscrapers. There are multiple vehicles in the street, lights on in the buildings, and rain pouring. It feels alive and it feels big – a real city rather than some models on a set…

… Aaand then the live action set design lets it down all over again. It looks like an IKEA showroom. The good news is that this is the last episode set designer Tony Curtis worked on. He’s credited on the rest of the series for designing the standing sets like the station house and Brogan apartment, but next week he hands over to Bill Alexander. Whether Curtis quit or was fired I don’t know, but since I’ve done nothing but complain about the sets for the last five weeks, it doesn’t take a genius to guess why it was time for a change one way or the other. Hopefully, it’s a change for the better.

The character who says an abrupt goodnight to his security computer here is Stephen Dallas, played by Paul Humpoletz. I recognised the actor immediately from The Brittas Empire as the man who threatened the leisure centre staff with a gun after repeated run-ins with a broken vending machine. For that reason, I’m stuck with the impression that his character in this episode of Space Precinct is also a little bit unstable.

Another glorious model building to represent Dallas’ apartment building.

Our first proper look at the eponymous Snake. It’s no wonder they made an action figure of this one. The prosthetic make-up gets a 10 out of 10. The sharp teeth and the contact lenses really sell it. The costume maybe doesn’t hold up so well to close scrutiny but it definitely says “snake”. The tongue… well at least he doesn’t talk much.

For maximum creepiness, the Snake cuts his finger and bleeds fizzing acid, and uses that to cut through the front door. Now, I’m told that this is one of the many elements that this episode borrows straight from the movie Alien (1979). I’m ashamed to say I haven’t seen Alien, but I’m familiar enough with it to say it’s exactly the type of thing Space Precinct needed to aspire to. Sure, ripping off a popular movie doesn’t give the series any points for originality. However, one of the most glaring issues with the early episodes of Space Precinct is that the disparate production team were lacking a common language to work from. Episodes like Double Duty demonstrate that everyone had a different interpretation of the tone and style needed for the series. For The Snake, it’s clear that Alien gave the entire crew a template, and the episode is a lot better for it.

Without any clunky exposition whatsoever, the last few minutes’ worth of plot catches up with us. The Snake leaves a ransom note on the wall, burned in acid. Stephen Dallas has been his target – hence following him in the car. The line, “Business is business,” tells us everything we need to know about The Snake’s motivation. We know Dallas has money and does business because we just saw him in a chauffeur-driven car having a business-like video call on the way to his penthouse apartment. None of it needed to be outright told to us – the audience is trusted to piece it together. I say all this as if it’s glorious praise. It’s really just the basics of screenwriting which a number of previous Space Precinct episodes have chosen to ignore.

The penthouse explodes… twice. Maybe there was more than one bomb? Maybe the special effects department just overdid it again…

The briefing scene that follows is concise and gets straight to the point. We’re given no more information on Stephen Dallas than we need – he’s a CEO that got blown up. The recap of the known events is kept to a minimum. Everything is swift and efficient.

Officer Haldane gets in a quip about the handwriting of Fredo’s ex-wife. The joke doesn’t feel laboured. It’s just short and sharp enough to give us a breath of fresh air in amongst all the murder and bomb talk. And more importantly, a quick cutaway establishes that Officer Castle is in a good mood as she laughs along with everyone else.

Castle’s mood noticeably shifts as soon as Brogan explains that Dallas and his business partner John Kane were targets of the serial extortionist, the Snake.

A stranger, seemingly an expert on the Snake’s history, enters the scene and Castle’s mood worsens. The man is Sgt. Bill Gray, and he’s come to aid the task force that will save Altor from the Snake’s acts of extortion. Gray is played by David Baxt – by no means a star, but he did have small parts to play in movies like Batman (1989), The Shining (1980) and Superman (1978). He was tanned and American, so as far as a British producer like Gerry Anderson was concerned, he was right for the part.

Podly makes the priority of the assignment clear to all, announcing that the officers should drop all other case work or transfer it to the 86th precinct. Everyone looks serious and focused, except for our troubled Officer Castle.

Introducing Lou Hirsch as Officer Silas Romek! Last week, Beezle actor Tom Watt departed the series when he learned that his performance was being revoiced by another actor. In Richard James’ book, Space Precinct Unmasked, Hirsch recalls that the original job he had received had been to re-voice Tom Watt. That responsibility ultimately fell to Slomo voice artist, Gary Martin. When Watt quit the show, Lou Hirsch was asked by a producer (not Gerry Anderson) if he would be willing to step in to the mask and play the part of Beezle on-screen. Hirsch writes, “After I stopped laughing, I told him I didn’t think that would work, as Tom is 6 feet tall and skinny, and I am 5 feet 6 inches and a little pudgy. I told him I thought the viewers might notice the difference.”

That unnamed producer was clearly quite desperate if they even considered performing a straight swap between Tom Watt and Lou Hirsch. Beezle could have easily been recast, I don’t doubt that, but picking an actor with a vaguely similar body shape to Tom Watt should have been a priority in that case. Fortunately, everyone saw sense and they invented a whole new character, specifically for Lou Hirsch, to be Officer Orrin’s partner. Romek was born. Lou Hirsch is refreshingly honest about his experience on Space Precinct, citing that the money for revoicing a character was good, but the money for getting in a mask and acting on-set was better. To cut a long story short, Hirsch didn’t enjoy being in the mask, and ultimately wished he’d just been a voice after all. Sad, but completely understandable!

Back to the scene and Castle has been asked to head up the task force, because of her “background.” We don’t know what that “background” might be, but again, that’s good because it builds some juicy tension when she bluntly refuses and storms out of the briefing. Look! Character development! A character with hidden depth behaving in an unexpected way! Pinch me – I must be dreaming!

Officer Orrin strokes his luscious locks to indicate that this head of hair is new to him – an ingenious little detail, almost certainly unscripted.

John Kane is brought in for questioning. The name, John Kane, will be familiar to Gerry Anderson fans who’ve seen the movie Doppelgänger (1969). The actor playing Kane, Joseph Mydell, will be familiar to Space Precinct fans as Officer Lionel Carson – a regular character seen later in the series!

Needless to say, the character of Romek is exactly the same as Beezle on paper because… well… he probably was. I’m assuming the part in this episode was written for Beezle and the lines were simply transferred over to Lou Hirsch’s new character at the last minute without modification. That said, Lou Hirsch immediately makes the part of Romek his own. As previously observed, Hirsch is physically very different from Tom Watt, but also his authentic New York accent makes Romek feel more down to earth than Beezle ever was with Gary Martin’s more polished tones. The physical difference between Orrin and Romek also works a treat. Romek fits right in, and I’m almost glad that an awkward excuse wasn’t written in for why Beezle has suddenly disappeared. At this early stage in the series, it was better for them all to move on and let curious audience members come up with their own answers. Of course, in broadcast order, the swap from Beezle to Romek becomes very confusing since the episodes featuring Beezle were shown 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 19th in the US, while in the UK they were 1st, 6th, 11th, and 16th. How fun to have Orrin’s partner change at random from week to week!

Kane is agitated, and with very little dialogue the audience can infer that his motivation is simple – pay the Snake’s ransom to avoid the same fate as his business partner, Dallas. Easy. I’m actually blown away by how easy this all feels. There’s been more plot in the first five minutes of The Snake than we got in the entirety of Flash.

Took and Castle share an equally efficient moment together. Took convinces Castle that she should open up to Brogan, the task force leader, about whatever’s bothering her. It’s even called out that it doesn’t take Took’s psychic abilities to realise that’s the obvious thing she should be doing right now. Again, it’s brilliantly simple. As an audience member, I don’t feel frustrated by characters acting dumb because the script requires that they stay three steps behind me in the plot. These are all people who know what they want and act accordingly – sometimes it’s unexpected, and sometimes it’s satisfying in its predictability – either way it works effortlessly.

Brogan’s stuck talking to his daughter and her pet toilet brush. Nothing’s perfect, I suppose.

Castle, slightly embarrassed, suggests they go and get coffee. The actors are being trusted to play the subtext of the dialogue. Heck, the dialogue actually has subtext. And it rescues us from getting sucked into whatever Brogan family drama is brewing for this week, so I’m all for it!

Okay, the next scene is a bit of an info-dump, but it still feels natural and relatively swift. Castle explains that she and Sgt. Gray worked together at the ECPF (we’re not told what that stands for, but I’m guessing it’s not the East Croydon Piano Festival). They had a good run defusing three of the Snake’s bombs in one day, but then they misjudged the next one and lost an entire bomb disposal team. I like this scene because it doesn’t linger on explaining Castle’s feelings around sending her squad to their deaths. Any intelligent audience member would know that she’s full of regret and therefore hesitant to sign up for another Snake case. We don’t need her breaking down in tears, or mournfully going into detail about the people that were lost. Brogan doesn’t need to hear it either – he’s an experienced police officer too, and he’s probably felt exactly what she’s feeling at some point in his own career. Not to mention, the dialogue in the script doesn’t need to outright tell us that this is a sad scene because the director and director of photography are perfectly capable of reflecting that for us. The normally stark station house lighting has been dimmed just a little bit. Chatter in the break room is quiet. Close-ups allow us to focus on the actor’s expressions as well as the words they’re saying. Ted Shackelford and Simone Bendix clearly understand the subtext and play it perfectly. Nothing out-stays its welcome.

Speaking of things out-staying their welcome, let’s go see the Brogan family…

Actually, it’s not too bad this week. Matt is once again disappearing somewhere – visiting his friend Inazy who charmed us so in the first episode, Double Duty. Meanwhile, Liz is visiting her friend Sharla, last mentioned in Protect and Survive. Yep. Both kids make minimal appearances this week. Sure, it’s not a long term solution for the poor writers who have been burdened with these irritating characters for the rest of the series, but for this episode at least they’re out of the way and donating all their valuable screen time to the main plot.

They’ve bolted a CD to Matt’s backpack in an attempt to make it look futuristic… yeah, it has the opposite effect. So, why are the kids being shoved out of the picture, no questions asked?

Sally’s made dinner. She does that a lot. But this is a special dinner. You can tell because she’s brought out your granny’s pink tablecloth.

Yes, Sally preparing a surprise romantic dinner is a cheesy cliché, but it’s done with a sense of humour. “Champagne,” remarks Patrick. “Sort of,” remarks Sally. She isn’t taking it too seriously and I like that. These little moments make Sally a more well-rounded character – rather than the nagging mum-robot that we’ve seen glued to the kitchen floor in previous episodes constantly making dinner. She’s doing the whole “good wife” thing, but with a wry twist that feels human and fun – and it’s a moment for Sally to enjoy for herself, as well as for her husband. It’s a relateable set of priorities that she has on display.

Smooching with her husband seems to be top of Sally’s priorities most of the time. Poor Nancy Paul wasn’t given a lot to work with, but I do believe in her chemistry with Ted Shackelford – they genuinely do seem to like each other.

So, when the phone inevitably rings, and Lt. Brogan inevitably has to interrupt the evening to deal with something inevitably work-related, Sally just wryly sips on her inevitably fake champagne. Everyone watching at home has seen this scenario play out a thousand times in other media, and so has Sally. There’s no need for a big fuss. We all know why we’re really here.

Brogan answers the call and it’s Haldane, looking like he’s presenting the 6 o’clock news. He plays in a video of a not-particularly-pixelated Snake threatening the Talon Corporation to the tune of 60 million credits – “or the Princess dies.” Now, the image of the Snake is described as “computer generated” – but it obviously isn’t. I have a feeling, given the twist that comes later, that the script suggested the Snake be more heavily disguised by computer effects – still recognisable, but not quite so obviously just the Snake himself with a few pixels thrown over the top.

Brogan asks exactly the right questions to get us all up to speed without burning through all the tension:

Mystery 1 – why is the Snake threatening both the Talon Corporation and John Kane’s Brett Interplanetary at the same time? Don’t know, but it is noteworthy that he’s double dipping.

Mystery 2 – why the “computer generated image” of the Snake? Don’t know, but Sgt. Gray is asserting that it’s genuine (a relevant clue for later).

Mystery 3 – who exactly is the Princess? That one we do have an answer to – it’s actually the name of an Omega class tanker carrying 200 million gallons of deliciously explosive liquified hydrogen to Altor. I would qualify that as information we needed to know, and I’m glad we didn’t go on a wild goose chase with Brogan bothering some non-existent member of alien royalty or some such nonsense.

All in all, three great setups. With Brogan’s fourth question we learn that the Talon Corporation didn’t share the threat with the police for six darn hours. This is probably set up to establish that Talon is unreliable, and could therefore make bad choices later on. We probably didn’t need that foreshadowed for us here, but I think I can allow one flabby bit of dialogue when everything else has been so tight and precise up until now.

Lt. Brogan’s off to work. Sally’s already blowing out the candles. Before Patrick can say anything, Sally simply states, “I know.” Thank heavens for that. This could have easily turned into Sally nagging at Patrick for ruining their plans and being a terrible workaholic. That was certainly her whole schtick in the last four episodes. But we simply don’t need to have that spelled out for us. Sally’s not stupid, and trusts that her husband wouldn’t abandon their dinner date without a good reason. And Patrick isn’t so stupid or heartless to disappear without at least attempting to offer an explanation first. We don’t need to hear them bickering to prove they really love each other. In fact, it’s because they don’t bicker that their relationship becomes cemented. And, because Sally accepts defeat so graciously, we finally have a reason to admire her. We can actually be hopeful that maybe, just maybe, Patrick will come through for her before the end of the episode. Thus – tension! It’s there again! Real tension! Tension in the subtext! Subtext I tell you! I’m so happy I could cry!

Crispin Merrell unleashes some absolute magnificence on the soundtrack for this episode and the sting during this establishing shot is a right corker.

Podly lays out the intended role of the police in this operation as strictly secondary to the army. The cops are purely there to establish that the bomb threat isn’t a hoax while the military handles the disarmament. Brogan begins to protest, and Podly snaps him back in line. Textbook.

Took and Fredo watch with some uncertainty as Sgt. Gray makes a modification to Slomo – a gatling gun type thing which looks like it means business!

Gray is delighted when Officer Castle comes to back him up. They reunite with a lingering handshake and Gray using the slightly stomach-churning pet name “No-Hassle-Castle.” Haldane is positioned in just the right spot to play the all-important subtext to the scene.

Oh yes. I like this. Nothing wrong with trying to set up a jealous love triangle for good measure. Haldane and Castle’s will-they-won’t-they relationship has sat pretty much unchallenged for the last few weeks, so introducing someone to shake it up – however slightly – is quite welcome. It’s not a big part of the episode by any means, nor should it be, but it would have been a missed opportunity if the script had ignored it entirely.

Haldane has a quiet moment with Slomo, carrying his extra kit, patting him on the head, and chatting away happily. Lovely stuff.

Orrin and Romek come to Podly’s office and plead for Slomo’s safety, sharing Took and Fredo’s concern that he’s not a bomb disposal robot. Episodes like Double Duty and Protect and Survive firmly established Orrin and Beezle’s fond relationship with Slomo, so Romek is expected to carry that torch too.

It’s played for laughs when Podly throws Orrin and Romek out of the office for being overly sentimental, but it’s actually a clever setup. By joking around about Slomo’s inexperience, we spend the rest of the episode rooting for him as a bit of an underdog while also fairly safe in the knowledge that he’s a robot and will probably be fine. Plus, establishing that the team has a lot of affection for Slomo, however illogically placed it may be, does wonders for the dramatic twist that the story takes later.

Podly and Brogan restore some of the serious tension by quietly observing Castle, agreeing it’s best that she sit this one out. Brogan is warned to “watch himself,” just in case the audience needed an extra reminder that there’s quite a lot at stake here.

Set to some more Merrell musical magnificence, the police cruiser whooshes past camera towards the Talon Princess. With our characters established, the stakes set, and our plot threads dangling in a tantalizing fashion, the episode is now perfectly equipped to propel the audience into the next part of the story.

Brogan and Haldane are suitably impressed by the sheer size of the spaceship. Slomo mistakenly refers to the ship as the “Princess Talon” rather than the “Talon Princess.” I can’t blame him – he’s probably distracted by the fact his head is detached from his body. I’m not really sure why. Apparently that’s a transportation necessity. In practice, I would guess that the Slomo prop was too heavy to lift into the cruiser set, so they had to make do with just the head.

The cruiser slots snugly into Airlock 3. Satisfying. Very satisfying. Nonsense though, because why would a tanker have an airlock made to perfectly fit a police cruiser? But still, very satisfying.

If you ever wanted to build your own 1:1 replica of a Talon Princess Omega Class Tanker, now you can with these incredibly vague schematics.

Lovely atmospheric lighting, and as a result the set for the bridge doesn’t look too bad. No time is wasted establishing who the crew are – we’ll pick that up as we go. We get straight down to business, establishing whether there really is a bomb hidden on the Princess.

Just like that, Slomo’s found something worth investigating. Not a second is being wasted here by the characters or the director.

Here’s an aspect of the episode which doesn’t work for me. It makes sense that a ship the size of the Princess would need a transport system for ferrying personnel around quickly. So we watch Brogan, Captain Tecopa, and Azusa stand on a platform which carries them down a corridor to reach Airlock 1. The problem is… it looks rubbish, and it all happens far too quickly. The travel tubes on Moonbase Alpha from Space: 1999 should have been the obvious template for this system – having the actors walk through a door and using model shots to show the vast distance traveled by a capsule. Instead, John Glen is forced to make do with a few yards of under-dressed corridor set, and some crafty camera work to make it appear as though the characters are traveling miles at high speed when they’re obviously not. It’s naff, the actors do nothing to convince us it’s real, and it was probably a huge headache to do in the studio. A baffling choice overall. Simply having them run down the corridor would have been more effective.

The gang take a moment to weigh things up. Slomo’s detected “semtel” around the junction box – not to be confused with the real-world plastic explosive, semtex. Semtel is both the Snake’s favourite explosive and a material used in plasma welding. The Captain explains that the ship is less than two months out of dry dock – just to really spell out the real-life ocean tanker analogy for us nice and crystal clear.

Azusa is played by Ken Drury. He was first pick to play Sgt. Fredo for the series, but declined the role because of the claustrophobic mask. He’s right at home playing the hardened first officer, even if his hat does look a bit silly.

The “schematics” look suspiciously like continuity polaroids, but they serve their purpose. It becomes apparent that the junction box Slomo has analysed is not supposed to be there…

This is confirmed by the fake conduits that Haldane and Azusa yank away without too much thought. They look extra fake because the wall of the set is clearly made of wood and the pipes are clearly bits of plastic from the local DIY shop.

Ted Shackelford immediately shifts the tone of the scene, lowering his voice and plastering his face with dread.

A screen is unconvincingly superimposed on top of the junction box, with a video message from “the Snake” confirming that there are indeed four bombs rigged to blow if any of the airlocks open. Rob Thirtle provides the s-s-s-slithery voice of the Snake, while Ken Whitfield is in the costume. Of course, all this is supposed to be a “computer generated image” of the Snake that we’re looking at right now, but I’m afraid the pixels still don’t fool me.

“This guy’s really starting to tick me off.” Ha-ha-ha. Get it? Ticked off? Because of the bomb? Yeah, this script definitely isn’t perfect. Still, it’s a good enough cliffhanger for us to head into a commercial break with.

That is one ruddy good spaceship. Bill Pearson and co. really knocked it out of the park with this one.

Tecopa, Azusa, and Haldane immediately establish that there are indeed bombs at all four airlocks. To spare some budget, each airlock is the same set redressed with a different number above the door and the walls flipped around. That’s common sense really, I wouldn’t expect the designer to do anything else.

Brogan updates Gray and Podly, just to solidify the rules of the episode. Our five heroes can’t escape the Princess because using the airlocks will trigger the bombs, so they have to be the ones to defuse them, not the military.

Podly is uncharacteristically sheepish when questioned by Brogan. Fredo asserts some dominance in the scene, which is nice to see. He’s definitely a character that’s been confined to the background of previous episodes and could do with more time in the spotlight. That said, I don’t think Jerome Willis plays Podly’s nervousness quite right – it’s just not a mood that suits the character. I suppose that’s the point, but it comes across a little bit too… well… human.

Podly fumbles with the paperwork and Haldane quite rightly calls out the sheer awkwardness of the situation as they wait for the boss to get his act together.

To the irritation of everyone, the Talon Corporation have issued a communiqué refusing to pay the Snake’s ransom. Azusa is quite cross that his employer values his life at somewhere less than 60 million credits. That’s capitalism for ya.

Then the question of navigation is brought up. Whatever happens, they don’t want the tanker’s explosive cargo to go up anywhere close to Demeter City. Captain Tecopa does a thing involving a circle and a star map to assure us they can hopefully dodge going into orbit around Altor. Officer Haldane gets a quick lesson in outer space stopping distances when it’s revealed the Princess has already been slowing down for the past 13 days. It’s quite a lot of exposition but, again, it all moves quickly and the audience doesn’t actually need to take in the finer details because the overall tone of the scene is stated in abundance – things aren’t looking good and clever people are trying to do clever things to prevent a disaster.

Next steps are planned quickly and decisively. Brogan makes an excellent commander. Slomo, Brogan, Haldane, and Tecopa will each tackle a bomb. Slomo, and the airlock he’ll be working in, are immediately written off as expendable – just to sprinkle in the idea that this could all go wrong without immediately ending the episode.

Yeah, why not? Let’s enjoy another elaborate beauty pass of the ship. Yummy.

Everyone gets into position. Slomo denies Brogan the satisfaction of wishing him well because he’s a robot and it won’t make any difference. Classic Slomo. He’s quite irritating, but he’s also quite likeable somehow.

Doors across the ship are sealed shut and we transition from noisy commotion to eerie isolation as the tension begins to ramp up…

One person is left to take their place – Officer Castle steps forward at the last minute to run the remote operation instead of Gray. He hands over control, but not with a huge amount of warmth it must be said.

As with every bomb defusing scene in the history of TV and cinema, the tiniest of actions plays out extremely slowly. The breakneck pacing of the episode so far has all been to serve this sequence and deliver a necessary contrast. Time slows down as Castle calmly instructs Slomo to remove the first screw. The lighting is very low and shadows become menacing because perfect vision is essential to success, and this is a sequence all about the eyes being deceived. The heavy Slomo prop is operated effectively so that its motions are fairly precise, rather than slightly clumsy as we’ve seen in previous episodes.

The second screw is loosened, and Orrin can’t help but get to his feet. Not a word of extraneous dialogue – just subtle moments played totally straight.

Gray’s face is unreadable – but not so unreadable that we’re distracted.

Castle instructs Brogan to whip out his tool and start screwing… sorry… for one thing he’s technically unscrewing, and for another this isn’t the time or place.

An establishing shot of the station house is all we need to cover a slight passage of time while everyone else unscrews their panels. Took’s handing out coffee, Castle’s loosened a top button, Gray’s removed his jacket. All classic “stress” tropes put to great use here. The bomb looks suitably, well, bomb-like. Gray enforces the notion that it’s “classic Snake architecture,” but Castle remains suitably open-minded without giving away the episode’s twist.

Everyone is hanging on Castle’s next instructions. She explains the situation. Her task is to decipher what is a genuine part of the device, and what is window-dressing. Then, she needs to choose between disarming the primary trigger or pulling the plug on the main power source. Nobody else says a word. The mistake is Castle’s to make. Because we know enough about her history, we feel the weight of Castle’s responsibility without it needing to be restated.

Castle makes a firm judgement. She instructs Slomo to identify an innocent-looking box in the corner. Close-ups of Slomo’s equipment make the moment feel suitably important as he scans the component.

Brogan and Haldane are forced to wait patiently while Slomo inspects the little box. It seems harmless. Castle remains cautious. The cover is removed very, very, very slowly to reveal a pink flashing light.

Podly gets on his feet as Gray announces that this is the power pack. We’re all on the edge of our seats, hopeful that the end is near.

Castle gives the order to disconnect the power pack. Everything. Slows. Down. Through the mask, Mary Woodvine beautifully expresses Took’s bubbling anxiety – the animatronic eyes successfully conveying so much emotion. Frankly, the shaking coffee cup is a bit much – it’s not needed when Took’s face is doing everything it needs to be doing to display her feelings.

The tension builds up and builds up and builds up as Slomo inches his instrument towards the connection. And then, exquisitely, nothing happens.

A moment of relief.

“Uh-oh.” It’s a moment made more heartbreaking by Gary Martin’s deadpan delivery as Slomo, but also sold completely by Simone Bendix’s crestfallen expression.

The tension cracks deliciously. The effects team provide their best explosions while the actors and camera crew throw themselves around the sets.

Slomo, visibly intact, is thrown out of the airlock into the vacuum of space. His fate is left ambiguous for the moment but it doesn’t look good for the poor little fella. It’s a ruddy dramatic cliffhanger as well as a great effects shot.

A couple of space rocks float past the Princess, presumably to help indicate its forward trajectory on camera. They could also just be there to look nice.

The gang in the station house are panicking a bit. John Glen’s effective direction means that a lot of frantic energy is generated without a lot of unnecessary hysterics.

Brogan and Tecopa try really hard to make the travel system look like it’s moving somewhere fast. It still doesn’t work, but I see them trying. The light panel indicates that Airlock 1 is out of action.

Bypassing the transporter, Officer Haldane takes the sensible route and runs down the corridor at a brisk pace. He deftly avoids tripping over the tracks with the grace and poise that one might expect of him.

Everyone pushes buttons and breaks out their walking-around-a-spaceship-that’s-just-half-exploded acting while the camera leans at a jaunty angle. It’s really quite good.

Brogan breaks the news that Slomo is gone. It hits Orrin. I love that every character is getting some emotional time in the spotlight this week with little moments like this.

Jane asks about Jack, just to keep that romantic tension bubbling under the surface.

The man looks good with a fire extinguisher.

Castle loses a little of her composure and… well… I don’t really buy it. Simone Bendix is doing all the things to indicate that her character is irritated, but something’s lacking in the performance that would make me actually believe it. Part of the problem is the clunky dialogue she has to deliver, conveniently reminding us all about the 60 million credit ransom the Talon Corporation are refusing to pay. Another problem is that the moment is filmed in a lingering wide shot, meaning any intensity that might be there in her performance gets lost. Sgt. Gray standing next to her looking bored doesn’t help either. Captain Podly sitting down in profile so we can’t see his reaction to Jane’s outburst is also a missed opportunity. Simone Bendix doesn’t seem to know what to do with herself physically – probably wanting to move around a bit but glued to the spot because of the awkward blocking. For a brief moment it feels like I’m watching a play on stage, which is odd considering so much of this episode has been directed with cinematic flair.

Castle immediately retracts her frustration with an apology and… well… I don’t buy that either. That just comes down to bad writing though. The writers clearly thinks we need a reminder of Castle’s past defeat, when really we don’t. That tension has been in the air the whole time, with Simone Bendix keeping her character’s nervousness and dread in the background of her performance while also commanding the operation. As a result, I don’t feel any need for her to remind me so directly about why she’s anxious. And, since all of our other characters are intelligent individuals, I don’t think they need to hear it either. It’s all just a bit weird because the episode has done such a good job up to this point of being tight and forward-moving, while this moment feels like we’re filling time.

Fortunately, the pace picks up again for a short, sharp exchange with John Kane. He’s decided to pay the Snake’s ransom for fear of getting splatted.

Podly seems keen on the idea. But I will say that it does feel odd for the episode to now take a long break from the main plot with the Talon Princess. I think we can all agree that that’s the portion of the story we’re most invested in. But I suppose it’s good to pull away and leave us wanting more.

Here’s a fairly uninspiring model shot of a car arriving at a generic building while another hovers nearby. They can’t all be winners.

The Snake drops in. The effect of the acid dripping on the floor and burning through the ceiling is pretty darn good. It’d be even more impressive if the sets looked a bit less like cardboard. Ken Whitfield, playing the Snake, understands the brief perfectly, and menaces the camera for a few seconds to sell the idea he’s a nasty piece of work.

Boring set is boring, although that city painting on the wall looks like the opening of Space Police: Star Laws so I guess that’s neat. The interior of the Talon Princess probably took up most of the budget and studio space for this episode, so the offices of Brett Interplanetary had to take a back seat. That’s not an excuse – a better production designer would have found a way around that.

Why are the bomb straps bright green? Is that supposed to make them more… snakey? But hang on a minute – the Snake says, “You shouldn’t have refused to pay.” I thought we’d just established that Kane was going to pay up. Maybe he gets a bomb anyway just because it took him so long?

Yes – Orrin is here to save the day!

He dodges the Snake’s snot attack… sorry, acid attack… you must admit it looks a bit nasal-fluid-adjacent though.

Before dashing off in pursuit, Orrin picks up the bomb from Kane. I can’t say Orrin handles it with much care after that. One assumes it hasn’t been armed yet. Either that or Orrin just likes to live dangerously.

Now this is a surprisingly good digital effect. Romek blasts the Snake with a big orange net which wraps itself around and immobilises the assailant. Yes, it looks a bit silly, but I would argue that’s part of the point – humiliating the Snake.

That smile on Orrin’s face is pure gold, even if that “one Snake to go” quip is pure dog dirt.

Podly’s feeling better now that the Snake’s been dragged in for interrogation. Someone’s turned the lights back up on the station house set, reflecting the lightened mood. Back on the Princess things seem relatively stable, though Brogan’s quite anxious to get the main plot moving again.

Before that though, a comedy bit. Azusa digs into the medical kit and celebrates the Snake’s capture with a bottle of brandy. Officer Haldane partakes but doesn’t enjoy it… and that seems to be the only purpose of that bit. I suppose moments of light relief are good for managing the pace of the overall story, but like Castle’s outburst earlier, it just feels like a distraction rather than a genuine contribution to the plot or character development. Azusa and Haldane sharing a cheeky drink could have been a nice moment for the two macho men to show some vulnerability during the crisis – to generate a little more fear and tension in an unexpected, realistic way. Instead we can only really glean from this that Azusa is a bit desperate, and Haldane finds the brandy quite yucky.

Then there’s a noise, or rather, a lack of noise. The Talon Princess has shut down. Time to start building that tension again.

Meanwhile, Gray steps into the Snake’s holding cell. Nothing is said, but with a lovely, long hiss we get the feeling something bad is about to happen.

And just like that, Podly and Castle stumble upon the Snake wandering out into the corridor. That door at the end of the corridor looks suspiciously like unfinished plywood.

“GUN,” yells Gray, clutching his arm. Does that mean the Snake’s pinched Gray’s gun, or the Snake’s got a gun of his own and used it to wound him? It’s a moment that probably should have been given more emphasis because it is quite important to what happens later.

Castle protests, but Gray pulls out a gun (or possibly that should be another gun) and shoots the Snake dead.

In a puddle of his own acidic blood, our villain writhes around in the throes of death. It’s grim, but not too grim because the blood is bright greenish-yellow – just far enough into the realms of make-believe to not be unsettling for a family audience.

Castle immediately realises the knock-on effect that huge quantities of corrosive acid can have on a space station.

Gray, on the other hand, doesn’t look too bothered. Hmmm.

Again, it’s a shame the station house set looks like it’s made of paper and sticky-backed plastic, because it would make these acid effects all the more threatening.

Took and a paperwork-laden human officer observe the leak in the ceiling with suitable caution.

I’m 99.9% certain that’s a stand-in, and not the real David Baxt playing Sgt. Bill Gray for this particular shot. Either that or Gray gained a few pounds during the elevator ride. Stress can do that to you.

Podly and Castle dash down the corridor. Podly tells Gray to stay put in the elevator for fear of us seeing too much of the body double.

The ceiling situation isn’t looking good.

Oh come on, paperwork-laden human officer, you had one job.

The collapse of the ceiling is dramatic but definitely doesn’t hold up to close inspection if we’re supposed to believe this is a real space station made of actual metal.

The shriveled corpse of the Snake tumbling through the floor really is delightfully gruesome. Top marks for that.

It turns out the paperwork-laden human officer dropped all of those files in order to demonstrate the effects of decompression. The Snake, and all that paperwork, is sucked out into the vacuum of space. Again, Crispin Merrell’s music does a lot of the heavy lifting to sell us on this epic moment.

The gang gathers at the window for the inevitable.

You’ve got to admire the attention to detail that went into making sure the Snake’s explosive demise was the same colour as his blood.

Castle reminds us why the bad guy blowing up is actually not a good thing for us. He could have explained how to disarm the bombs aboard the Princess. Good to have those stakes laid out to us in crystal clear terms, even if the scripted dialogue sounds unnecessarily wooden.

Podly turns and yells at everyone to clear the room because it’s a restricted area… I’m not actually sure who’s in there that shouldn’t be… but it makes him sound important so I suppose that’s fine.

Back on the Princess, things are quiet – too quiet. The ship drifts through space lifelessly.

The three-hour window they had to disarm the explosive devices has been cut down because the destruction of Airlock 1 cut out the ship’s engine and brakes. They’re on a collision course with Altor, still carrying their particularly volatile liquified hydrogen cargo.

Gray clutches his wounded arm and quietly asks for Brogan’s plan. I’ve got to hand it to David Baxt – he understands the brief and knows how to keep his character’s intentions unreadable without arousing suspicion.

Fully in command of the situation, Brogan announces that they have 40 minutes left to disarm the bombs, and orders that at 10 o’clock, the Princess should be blown out of the sky by the military to protect Altor – whether or not they’re still on board. By thunder he’s a brave chap! It’s pure heroic goodness and Ted Shackelford plays it with such gravitas.

Brogan uses his DCPD-issue digital wristwatch to set an alarm. What a shame it looks so much like a Casio DBC from the mid-1980s.

Fredo pops the timer up on the screen, just to really hammer it home. The poor guy has to do something of use around here.

We fade to black for a commercial break, and by the time we come back over 8 minutes have already passed on the countdown clock! Blimey! At this rate the episode will be over in no time at all. Podly confers with a very intense-looking military general, and the Princess will indeed be automatically blown up by long-range lasers at 10 o’clock. No mucking about. No arguments. Just getting on with it. I like it.

Ugh, time is short – do we really have to do this?

Matt’s being a twerp. Liz is whining about it. Sally’s grumpy. Oh I’m so flippin’ glad we’re doing this.

Patrick calls his family from Airlock 2 for potentially the last time. Look, I don’t give Brogan family drama much credit, but it’s well used here. Reminding us of what Lt. Brogan personally has to lose in all of this is effective. It’s a big fat trope, but it works. And it works particularly because Sally is being so darn likeable in this episode. While Patrick fumbles with his words, struggling to be emotionally vulnerable, Sally cracks well-meaning jokes about marrying a plumber instead of a police officer. For once, I get the feeling that she loves him – no matter what. You could argue that she’s rolling over and accepting that her husband is always going to be a distant figure in their marriage. I disagree. I think what she’s accepting is her husband’s dignified, old-fashioned, heroic stoicism – a quality integral to the Brogan character ever since the Space Police: Star Laws pilot. It’s a quality which she loves, but can also find frustrating at times – just like the audience at home. Brogan’s a watchable character because he doesn’t always make the right choices, but his heart is always in the right place. So it makes sense that his wife would feel the same way, and appreciate that better than anybody else.

Then this brat comes in to literally ruin the whole episode.

The extent to which she ruins the whole episode will be revealed later. From out of nowhere – less than nowhere – with no ceremony, lead-up, foreshadowing, or gosh-darn reason whatsoever, she steps into the scene to share with her father that, “a deceiver unmasked is still a deceiver. Isn’t that neat?” A nugget of unsolicited wisdom to be flippin’ sure. She repeats it, just to make sure we all heard. She doesn’t know what it means, but she labours it for us anyway. “A deceiver unmasked is still a deceiver.” YES, THANK YOU, LIZ. NO NEED TO BE QUITE SO BLATANT ABOUT THE SETUP, THANK YOU, LIZZZZ.

Mercifully, Haldane is ready to drag us back to the action. An ever-so-slightly-tearful Brogan squeezes the words “I love you” out of his emotionally repressed lips, and Sally feels the weight of those words. It works. Don’t ask me why it works, but it does.

Back to business. Castle, with no visuals to help, guides Brogan through investigating the explosive device further. It’s slow and thorough, ramping up that tension all over again. Everyone is methodical and professional and it’s mighty satisfying to watch. The laser trap which caught out Slomo is revealed, and through energy readings, Castle eliminates the right-hand circuit board as a dummy.

We remember that Brogan isn’t perfect when his hand slips while handling the dummy circuit board – just to remind us all that one false move could be the end of it. It appears that the main trigger has been located. It’s a shiny gold thing so it certainly looks impressive.

We cut away to Haldane from time-to-time, emphasising that there are other people counting on Brogan to get this right.

And it ends up being the teeniest, tiniest detail that makes Castle question everything. Wire connectors instead of micro-welding – a small part of the prop most of us wouldn’t even spot. We’re impressed by Brogan noticing it, and even more impressed by Castle taking it as seriously as she does.

We’re suddenly in the station house medical bay, interrupting the action. Gray is getting his arm looked at – we saw Orrin nursing it earlier but I guess he did a rubbish job.

Castle becomes cold and calculating as she lists the inconsistencies. Why use wire connectors when the Snake always liked to show off micro-welding with his seemingly limitless supply of acidic blood? Why would the Snake try to extort two victims at the same time? And how did the Snake get a gun into the station which nobody else saw – except Gray? They’re all questions which have been hiding in the background of the story so far. Nobody’s had to literally sit there with a quizzical look on their face going “hmmm” the whole time. The points have just been raised and allowed to hang while the plot unfolded naturally. Then, with enough of the pieces in place, our smartest character, Castle, is able to tie the loose threads together. That’s exactly how you marry a plot twist with a satisfying climax. Again, it’s basic stuff when it comes to engineering crime fiction, but it’s not something Space Precinct has even come close to doing up until now, so I have to give it due praise.

The penny drops. Castle concludes that only Gray would have the background knowledge on the Snake to engineer a credible bomb threat, and produce the “computer generated image” used to taunt the Talon Corporation. He freed the Snake from interrogation himself, shot his arm with his own weapon to avoid suspicion, and took the opportunity to kill the Snake before he could say too much. It’s a little convoluted, sure, but it’s fairly clever.

Gray’s motivation? Money. Pure and simple. After 25 years of service, he felt he deserved it. Perfect. I can’t fault that. The best villains are the ones with deliciously straightforward motives. Meanwhile, the audience can be trusted to do the psycho-analysis in their own time. I love the idea that Gray spent so much time in his career stewing over the Snake’s methods that he fancied a taste of the action himself. Gray’s downfall – those pesky wire connectors – a detail that only Officer Castle could have picked up on. He’s spent the episode being as nice to Jane as possible, probably because he knew she would notice the glaring inconsistencies. So, if he couldn’t fix the details, he had to place himself above suspicion using charm and good humour. It didn’t work because our Officer Castle is smarter than that.

Cuffed and sitting at the mercy of the DCPD, Gray is left to answer the bomb’s final puzzle – should Brogan disconnect the power pack or the trigger?

It’s probably not the time or place to say this, but you’ve got to admire a man who can manage a receding hairline like that. It’s just bald, bald, bald, then BOOP, a thick head of hair. I’m not saying it looks good, but you’ve got to admit it’s an engineering marvel… Anyway, what were we talking about? There was something important going on, wasn’t there? Oh yeah – Gray says it’s the power pack. Glad we cleared that up.

Took tries to read his mind, just to make sure. Very sensible, but far too convenient for the plot, so she rattles off an excuse about him being too well guarded to tell.

Time’s running out and only Brogan can make the right call. Sweaty brows and dark, moody close-ups all around.

“A deceiver unmasked is still a deceiver…”

Don’t you dare.

Come on, episode. You were doing so, so, so well.

Please don’t let the mindless witterings of a 10-year-old be the thing that makes or breaks this whole story.

Oh for flip’s sake.

I hope everyone dies.

They don’t. Gray was lying. That completely random line of dialogue which spewed out of Liz’s mouth earlier was apparently so stirring that Brogan needed to defy the odds and pull out the trigger – thus saving the day. I’m fuming. I’m fuming for a very specific reason. It’s not that I begrudge the shocking last second twist – that’s how you create a good climax and a pay-off for the tension which has been skillfully crafted throughout the story. It’s not that Gray deceived everyone right up to the last moment – he’s clearly evil and irredeemable and I would be more annoyed if he showed some remorse at the last minute. What specifically annoys me about this is how the “a deceiver unmasked is still a deceiver” motif could and should have been carefully planted throughout the episode. It would have been so, so, so much more satisfying if that seed had been allowed to germinate in Brogan’s mind naturally over the course of the episode, rather than getting jammed into his brain at the last minute by his idiot kid spouting it out of nowhere. Heck, they don’t even go into where exactly Liz heard the phrase from in the first place – even that would have been something. It just makes the release of tension here feel thoroughly unearned. The writers, J. Larry Carroll & David Bennett Carren tried the same dirty trick in Double Duty and I can’t believe everyone on the production let them get away with it again – particularly in a story as good as this. Having characters – especially annoying little kids – just outright say the line, unprompted, that unlocks the answer to the whole plot is bad, bad, bad writing.

Right, well, I suppose we just need to finish this now. Brogan gives us a quick “I love this job” before Haldane reminds him that the whole ship is about to be blown out of the stars. The last few seconds tick away on the countdown and all the DCPD can do is wait. Our trusty bomb squad reverse out of their snug parking space at Airlock 3 and try to clear the area. All fine. All textbook. Oh god I’m depressed about that “deceiver unmasked” rubbish.

Everyone’s acting their socks off but I just feel dead inside.

We get our big kaboom. That’s nice.

Okay, maybe Jane and Jack being sweet to each other can cheer me up a little bit.

And I’ll take the satisfying celebration as Gray is packed off into a prison cell.

Podly asks Brogan how he figured it out. He doesn’t have a good answer. Too right he doesn’t.

Jack’s the only one who suspects his partner of pulling the whole resolution right out of his backside. He keeps quiet because he’s a super swell guy.

Some time passes and the episode begins to wind down. Slomo’s back! He was recovered off-screen by a space tug. Want to see more of that adventure? Now you can – go and watch Little Lost Robot on the Space Precinct Blu-ray boxset. It’s an absolute hoot.

Yeah, it’s pretty cute that Slomo invites the officers to “give me two.” That lovely smile from Orrin really sells it. It’s nice to have some fun after such a dramatic episode.

I adore this scene. Jack invites Jane out to dinner at the Royal Straker (UFO reference much). He appreciates her playing a big part in saving his life. She appreciates him just being alive. After all of Haldane’s misjudged or ill-timed advances in the past, it feels right that this is the one that lands. The timing is just right. They both earned it.

At the Brogan household, Captain Tecopa is on the news. It’s the same reporter that we saw in Protect and Survive, just wearing a different hideous outfit.

Brogan gets attacked by an untamed hedge.

The episode ends with Sally and Patrick smooching while the whole of Demeter watches from above… or below… depends how you look at it. Classy.

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I’m not going to dwell on this episode’s one big problem. “A deceiver unmasked is still a deceiver” is unforgiveable but at least it only mars the final moment of the story. Everything else up to that point is exceptional. There are a few waffly bits of dialogue here and there but for the most part the script is tight and intelligently crafted. The beats of the story are familiar but not tired. The Snake is a memorable villain, thanks to Neill Gorton’s prosthetics, but the episode is wise enough not to overstretch the character’s potential and reserves him for simple dirty work like planting bombs, hissing at people, and bleeding acid all over the shop. Sgt. Gray’s turn from trustworthy stranger to lying traitor is pitched just right and doesn’t contradict or discredit anything in the early parts of the episode. The relationship between Patrick and Sally Brogan advances quietly in the background, never overshadowing the main plot but supporting it sufficiently. The special effects are a triumph, of course – the Talon Princess basically serves as Bill Pearson and Steven Begg’s opportunity to show off. Everything about this production from the lighting to the sound design feels carefully measured and precisely pitched – a far cry from the inconsistent tone of episodes like Double Duty.

The Snake is great entertainment all around. If you’re new to Space Precinct, I think this is a good episode to start with. It makes a big, bold impression with the scale of its story, the characters are well-defined and thoroughly likeable, and the production values are steady. It’s not perfect, but it’s a huge step above what we’ve seen before. Here’s hoping that the quality is maintained.