Funny Familiar Forgotten Faces

The return of beloved characters! Is it a good thing? Generally it doesn’t live up to your expectations, and can leave you feeling slightly disappointed. Anyway the 3 we’re looking at:

Star Trek:TNG - Relics
Doctor Who - Battlefield
Blake’s7 - Blake

Nothing is guaranteed to get the fans chomping at the bit more, than the return of a beloved old face from the programme’s past. I’m aware Star Trek has done TOS faces turning up more than once, so why Relics? Also Battlefield wasn’t the Brig’s first return, why Battlefield and not Mawdryn Undead? Gareth Thomas turned up in Terminal via a drug induced dream sequence, why not that instead of Blake? Well at the moment I’m appreciating David Bowie’s Little Wonder in my ears as I type this and all I can say is, at the moment there is method behind my choices.

The return of James Montgomery Scott, we weren’t exactly clamouring for it, but when it was announced that as well as Scotty returning we were also going to get the original bridge recreated! Well that whipped the Trekkies into a frenzy, sadly all too short lived. The bridge is only seen for an extended chat between Scotty and Picard. Also Scotty seems to have been transformed from loveable and curmudgeonly into an annoying pain in the arse, and worse still LaForge the smug banana clip wearing poker up his ass dullard that he is doesn’t seem to appreciate he is in the presence of a legend. Worry not folks it’s simply a plot device so we can have some cosy moralising about how we should appreciate the older members of our community, and look! A contrived situation designed to highlight that the ‘old people’ still have something to offer society. So what do the Beige Brigade do with this enlightened attitude? Well obvious really, kick him off the ship into deep space with only a short range shuttle as transport….Help The Aged should take notes. The main problem with Relics is it could’ve been any elderly engineer/random character hiding in that transporter buffer, and as such all the episode seems to do is serve Doohan and his beloved character a severe injustice.

Whereas with Battlefield as mentioned The Brig had made two appearances 6 years previously, so why the big fuss, well the season opener was going to be a fully fledged UNIT story, a lovingly crafted tribute to the classic stories of the past…..well as we all know that’s not what we got! Oh no what we got was a story that opens in a Garden Centre! At first we thought the Brig is undercover, there’s going to be Krynoids in this Garden Centre! Nope no Krynoids, The centre manager is another of the Master’s disguises as he attempts to bring the world to its knees via the use of mulch? No it’s just a Garden Centre and he’s buying a tree…with his wife!(In one fell swoop ten years of Slash Fiction fell to the wayside). What follows is a very tedious journey as The Brigadier takes his sweet fricking time getting to the action, granted a very nice scene when he meets the 7th Doctor for the first time, and a very quick succession of fanboy pleasing nods including Bessie follow. However at this moment we’re down to about 36 minutes of storytime remaining, and the whole point of bringing The Brig back has been fumbled, fudged and failing dismally. The Doctor and The Brigadier should’ve been together for the majority of the story, so we could see the friendship between the two, so when it looks like Alastair has croaked it, it just might actually mean something to the viewers, alas no it didn’t.And to compound the tedium of the story it finishes with our heroes doing a spot of gardening!!

Now here’s the odd thing what made Battlefield fail, is Blake’s main strength. Keeping Avon and Blake apart makes the final episode absolutely pitch perfect. The tension is drawn out, we become aware of their plans, big stuff happens and yet the main event is still to happen, Avon and Blake meet again(And properly this time, not a dream sequence with Blake and a RSC beard), all very tense. Yes yes Blake chooses his words very poorly, yet I think no matter what he said Avon was going to shoot him anyway (If only to keep the catering budget down),and as if that wasn’t enough everybody dies! The joy of Blake in this episode is, it is clearly the same character but he has changed in the intervening years and Thomas plays it just right, especially when he’s up against a full throttle Paul Darrow who by the time he reached the end of the series, was so OTT even The Shat would be saying reign it in a bit. Also unlike the previous two selections there is a clear and valid reason for the return of Blake, Avon needs him, if he ever hopes to defeat the Federation, so it’s not just tokenism.

It has to be said it is good when old characters turn up, but when they don’t behave the way they have done in the past you have to argue what is the bloody point? However let’s face it producers are going to continue to do it as it initially guarantees good ratings, ever if it’s a clunker of a episode, it generates extra interest, and that to them is always a good thing.