Captured vampire is getting more shirty, refusing to
drink the bag of blood Vaughan brings him and smearing it across the glass.
Father Kill-them-all-and-let-god-sort-it-out Harman shows this is proof that
vampires would never give up feeding on people. Angela, rightly, question why
they would be researching synthetic blood if that were true.
And Mike gets a recorded message from a vampire on his
car – someone called Jacob (journalist fellow of Kirsty’s) demanding to meet.
Oh and Kirsty sends her regards.
Switch to Kirsty hiding in a large building with Jacob who
tells her he’s hiding her for the sake of the story. She’s afraid because he
had a gun and he gave her a mucky look she felt Mike was going to kill her –
and is working for a group that killed Jack.
At base the gang is trying to identify who their captured
vampire is. They know he’s relatively young because he has a thyroid surgical
scar on his throat. They can’t take finger prints because vampires show up in
now recorded medium – so even their prints can’t be taken. They’re working on
an artist rendition. Harman suggests identifying the surgeon who performed the
thyroid operation, but recognising a surgeon’s “style” would require a full
autopsy. And yes, Harman does consider slicing up a vampire while he’s still
alive to be an “autopsy”.
The gang set off and Angela brings in Harman’s pills
which he doesn’t take. They banter for a bit but he tells her he needs his full
faculties and can’t take pain killers until the case is over. She accepts this
but has her own barb – pain affects judgement and, also, people who want quick
answers tend to cut corners. Oooh Angie, you’re beginning to grow on me you
are.
Mike is busy with his personal life and goes to see an
increasingly irritated Frances. She doesn’t understand Mike’s issues, Kirsty is
with Jordan, what’s the problem? Mike says she doesn’t know what he is which is nicely
cryptic so Frances decides she really needs to know what Mike does. But he
doesn’t answer, saying she’d have to see it for herself and he hopes she never
has to. Which is actually a pretty good answer.
To Jacob’s paper, where he’s now quit apparently. He uses
Frances’s technical skills to restore his files and it seems Vaughan is after
the same man – because he’s been researching thyroid cancer patients. Frances
manages to recover all of his files but Mike tells Vaughan that they didn’t get
anything and they leave.
Harman decides to banter with the vampire, asking him
about his travels in South America – whicht eh vampire responds with “go see
the rainforest before it’s gone, see who the real parasites are.” Score 1
vampire. Harman protests that he thought vampires were beyond nature, vampire responds
“we’re all part of the same ecosystem.” Score 2 vampire. Harman scoffs at the
idea of humanity making itself extinct and vampire counters that some of the
fires in Brazil have burned for years and humans talk about cutting emissions
in 20, 30 years, humans live in the now, vampire consider the next 50 years to
be “tomorrow.” Score 3 vampire. Harman questions synthetic blood and the
vampire says it’d be peace, why would they need to exterminate vampires if they
were no threat; Harman says “you exist”. Uh-huh, because that’s a good reason.
Score 4 vampire. Harman accuses the vampire of abandoning his humanity to save
himself from cancer and the vampire asks who they’re talking about – the vampire
or Harman? Score 5 vampire. Harman then flails out and clutches at religion and the vampire hits back very well, asking
what drove Harman to the priesthood – was it vampires? The expression on his
face says yes. Has he seen any other indication of god? Again, face says no. So
the vampire presents this little logic trap: Harman doesn’t understand vampires,
so they must be evil, if there is evil there must be a god. If vampires aren’t
evil… then what is Harman doing as a priest? Score 97786557658 Vampire. Priest
should leave interviews to Dr. Angela.
Mike and Vaughan continue their investigation and Vaughan
can tell there’s something up with Mike. They go to Jordan’s place to search it
(Jordan is still hiding with Kirsty and she’s making little comments like “why
don’t you ever smell, how do you find time to shower” to remind us what he is –
that and him zoning in on Kirsty’s neck. He asks Kirsty if she trust him and
the answer’s clearly no – she trusted Jack and Mike). There Mike finds Kirsty’s
dressing gown and has a sad moment. They also find a file he has on Mike (old
stuff – and Mike denies knowing what set Jordan onto Mike) and a video tape.
Back to the HQ where they watch the tape and see it is footage of forest fires, cutting and burning, Indonesia this time but there are others of Brazil. They connect them to a green conference in Rio in 92.
Kirsty is still suspicious and, with Jordan gone, checks his lap top but can’t get past the password. She goes to the empty security guard’s seat and checks the CCTV but sees the place empty – except for one person sat in a car in the garage, apparently alone. She goes to investigate – and finds Jordan sat next to the man, sucking on his neck. He jerks away when she arrives and the man he was drinking from slumps, there’s blood around his mouth. He gets out the car, she runs screaming. He chases her, catches her and everything goes black.
She wakes when a man touches her shoulder asking if she’s ok. It’s the security guard and the man who she saw Jordan feeding from. She stares at his neck but there’s not a mark on it. The security guard says Jordan is around and he doesn’t mind Jordan hiding out if he has to (the vampireness may have something to do with that) but her wandering around tripping alarms is going to cause problems. The guard leaves and Jordan appears to point out the guard is fine, he doesn’t take much and it doesn’t hurt (so he’s not going with the “you dreamed it” excuse). He also adds if she’s that terrified she can leave, he won’t stop her and she’ll never see him again. Just like Jack – which is why Michael killed him by the way. Oh that got her attention.
Kirsty asked who did it to him, but he points out
vampires consent to change. She says he can’t be the same so he says go home
then, Mike was right to kill your husband. She asks what jack would have done
and he says Jack would have invited her
to join him if she wanted but she never got the choice.
Back at HQ, Harman, sore for being beaten in rhetoric,
has the vampire restrained so they can get on with that wide-awake-and-alive autopsy.
Angela holding the knife, which gives the vampire a lot of time to point out
they accuse the vampires of losing their humanity but look at what Angela is
doing. She tries to draw blood, but only gets air.
She doesn’t cut but she takes all the readings she took to Harman and basically has nothing, but she knows he’s fading. Harman decides to go see him again ad the vampire’s request - he wants to give a full confession as a dying man, only Harman, no guards.
He goes in and the vampire informs him he was dying once
too. He asks what Harman wants to know and he asks why he crossed over to
become a vampire – simple, to save his soul, since the soul dies when the
person dies.
45 minutes later, Harman emerges, visibly shaken (I think
the Vampire hit quadruple rhetoric score and blew dear priesty out of the
water). Vaughan is furious that he dismissed the guards but Harman won’t talk
about what they discussed.
Mike goes to the meeting Jacob set up and demands to know
if Kirsty is ok. Jacob takes out his mobile phone and dials a number before
handing the phone over to Mike. Mike quickly tells Kirsty “you don’t know who
he is” oh dear, yes yes she does. Him and Jack – and people don’t stop being
people you murderer who had a gun pointed at me! Ouch that gotta hurt.
Jacob says they want Robert March, that they’re willing to kill for a “just war” as Mike’s priest would say and he adds a potshot at Mike’s group’s complete lack of ethics. He questions why Mike’s organisation would want to stop the vampires from developing synthetic blood. All they want to do is drag the war out by demonising the other side.
Mike returns to HQ, and sees Angela cutting into the
vampire’s scar – while he’s awake and aware. It seems to have been the straw
that broke the camel’s back – he goes to the vault and looks up Robert March. Meanwhile,
Vaughan ransacks Harman’s office - Harman having left to go to church. He finds
the pills and goes to see Angie, furious that he’s been kept in the dark. Angie
protests that it was Harman’s decision and it’s treatable – Vaughan counters
that Harman isn’t taking the pills. He also took a recording of those 45
minutes Harman and the vampire were alone (naturally, the vampire isn’t
recorded) and Vaughan is especially worried by the way Harman asks what he will
lose if he crosses over as well as discussing “poison”. Angela dismisses it,
but Vaughan points out that Harman is now terminally ill, he’s vulnerable
Mike takes the ashes and goes to Frances to help with the
exchange – Robert March’s ashes for Kirsty. Frances wants to know what it’s
about and when she refuses to tell him, she refuses to help. She draws the line
and says she doesn’t want to see him any more; she leaves and cries in her car.
Vaughan and Angela confront Harman and he continues to
dismiss them. He refuses to type up transcripts of his conversation with the
vampire or talk to them about it. Angela’s temper snaps and she points out the
word poison – if the vampire had thyroid cancer that’s a classic sign of
radiation poisoning and they should be checking the nuclear industry not just
hospitals. Harman’s ignorance and unwillingness to share with the scientist
Angela nearly cost them a vital clue to finding out who the vampire is.
They hit on Paul Hoyle who went to cover the Chernobyl disaster
and got thyroid cancer, he was a nuclear scientist who became an environmental
activist. And their questions turn up someone who asked the same questions –
Frances – who they drag in. But looking at Hoyle’s research they discover the
concept of nuclear winter. Suddenly they see a more sinister use for synthetic
blood – something they can live on after humanity is removed.
Questioning Frances leads them to finding out Mike took
out ash from the vault – leading them to find Robert March missing. To convince
Frances to co-operate, they show her Paul Hoyle the vampire – and kill him in
front of her, making him explode.
Mike goes to the meeting where Jordan and Kirsty are
waiting – with Vaughan and Angela watching through a sniper scope. But he can’t
see the vampire through the scope – he’s prepared to shoot Mike, but Angela
orders – orders – him not to fire.
Harman arrives at the ground to tell everyone his
paranoid scenario of a nuclear winter and Jordan grabs Kirsty. For Kirsty’s
sake he gives the ashes to Jordan. He pours them out then adds his blood to the
ash – and Vaughan shoots him, causing him to explode. But, it’s too late, in a
whirlwind of sparks and smoke, the ashes manifest into something more horiffic,
more terrifying, more nightmarish than we ever imagined
STEPHEN MOYERS’S HORRENDOUS HAIR! The horror!
Yes, it’s not Dr. March’s ashes, they’re Jack’s ashes.
Jack, seeing that there’s snipers, grabs Kirsty, kisses her, tells her to get a
life then jumps over the bridge into the water
Conclusion, Harman takes his pills, Kirsty’s not happy
with Mike, considers bringing Jack back a paternalistic way to “teach her a
lesson”. And Jack hovers to menace Mike a bit more
Ok this whole nuclear winter is based on? What, that they’re
possible? And they think an environmental activist who is driven to investigate
Chernobyl with such dedication he gives himself cancer is going to unleash
global nuclear winter? This theory is just pulled out of nowhere and presented
as an obvious goal because of Harman’s own preconceptions.
Which is a shame, because I thought this series was finally
getting good on the last 2 episodes. It finally was growing into what it could
have been
Which is the problem, this series was too short. With
more time, Vaughan could have lived up to the development he finally got in the
last 2 episodes and been more than an intimidating scary Black man – but his
development was too little too late. With more than 6 episodes Angela could
have continued her newfound determination to rebel against Harman’s “because I
said so” style of leadership and refused to allow his superstition and
arrogance trump her science. With time they could have developed the complex
character of Kirsty into something more than a woman constantly looking for the
man she loved or Frances, a woman whose ex exploits her old feelings to make
her into his servant. With more than 6 episodes we could have had more analysis
of the severely poor ethics of the team, their willingness to torture, to
kidnap, to kill, could have been more thoroughly analysed and questioned. With more
than 6 episodes we could had some more detail behind the whole “they’re evil
and want to cause a nuclear winter” that rests on evidence and investigation
rather than Father Harman just saying “because it’s so” and everyone going
along with that.
I mean, all of these things are on the show, so the
writers are aware of them. Angela, Vaughan, Kirsty and Frances were all being
developed, thinking for themselves, revealing backstory and personality. We
were getting challenges of Harman, of ethics etc etc. They were all happening –
but because there were only 6 episodes they were all only very lightly touched upon
leaving it all so very inadequate. With the development they had, I want to be
at least vaguely positive on the race and gender angles (though, again, a
series with no GBLT people at all in the genre) because there was a sorely
under-developed core to each of the characters which, along with plot and world
setting, they series didn’t advance.
Stylistically, it was low budget and it really showed
(especially Stephen Moyer’s hairdresser) and the director was awful – too much
overdramatic music, ridiculous camera angles, camera shakes and silly close ups
going on by far.
Though I still get a little bewildered when I see people like Idris Elba, Stephen Moyer, Susannah Harker and even Jack Davenport in such a minor cult series – ah what time changes!
