12.00 Roughnecks
12.30 The Famous Five
Roughnecks. Episode 4. "Basic Training" Higgins, the reporter, trains to defend himself in battle.
The weakest episode so far actually starts out quite strong, with Higgins (the camera-wielding reporter) proving to be a liability to the team and forcing Razak to order that he be sent home. It's a good story idea but the promise is squandered and it degenerates into cliché after cliché. Some of them quite awful.
Although Razak and Rico are the main heroes of the show, Higgins can also be seen as the most important character. We see the action through his eyes, and his narrations opens and closes each episode. He's a mild-tempered guy and - in the opening scenes - it's easy to see how he could get overwhelmed by the warfare around him. Razak's decision to send him away makes sense and it's a good character moment when Rico steps up and offers to help the guy train to be a soldier.
Things start to go to hell in the last half of the story. A new type of enemy bug (the flying hopper) is causing major problems and... Higgins figures out a way to use his camera to save the day. That's bad enough, but thing's get completely stomach churning when Higgins saves Razak's life and turns into a gung-ho warrior who loves shooting and killing.
This is utter rubbish and certainly doesn't fit in with the realistic, sombre tone of the first three episodes. Things are put right, somewhat, in the closing seconds, when the heroes are completely overrun by more bugs and have to run for their lives once again, but this is an embarrasing episode to watch.
The Famous Five. Episode 1. "Five Go To Kirren Island, Part One" Three children meet their cousin, her dog and her father - a famous scientist working on a top secret project under watchful eyes - for first time in many years.
Hugely enjoyable opening episode. The kids in this aren't much like real kids, and they're not much like other kids on TV either, but they are a nice polite group and work very well as heroes within the adventrue genre. This is the story where the Famous Five meet up for the first time, so it does suffer from ailments common to many pilots (the team doesn't get on, at first, and it takes a while before they team up) but not so much that it mars enjoyment. The regular cast are great and the characters are distinct, interesting and likable. George makes a big impression because she's surly and secretive and stands outside the group for much of the story, Dick stands out because he seems impetuouos and - in the episode's most amusing scene - blurts out some secret information under the disapproving eyes of George and Anne.
The pace is fast and the story is well told. The three visiting children are quickly established (arriving on bicycles), while their cousin's grumpy personality is established early on, too. These early scenes show a mysterious man watching the Kirrin house so we know, right from the get-go that something is up. Soon, the kids have found a secret tunnel and been questioned by the mysterious watching man. Next: they meet the scientist and the episode concludes as night falls.
The guest cast is great. James Villiers adds a touch a real class as the mysterious man from the Ministry, while Oscar Quitak is wonderfully sneaky as the foreign spy. They occupy many short scenes throughout the opening episode and this adds a layer of tension that would be missing if the story stayed with the children all of the time. This way, we get to see the children meeting and forming their group for the first time, but we also get to see a plot unfolding very close to them.
Also very enjoyable is the music on the soundtrack. I'm not sure what the origins of it actually are. My guess is that a lot of it is library music because I've heard it on other shows (Return Of The Saint, for example). But, whatever it's actual origins, it's wonderfully suited to the world of the Famous Five and it envokes (for me) those years of the late 1970s in a way a few other things can.
In general, though, the show has a timeless quality. Not just "summer of 1978" but something more elusive: a summer of a bygone era. An era that may, or may not, have existed.
Highlight? Famous Five (mysterious goings on)
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