New posts

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 259718" data-attributes="member: 23">The Return Of Bigfoot (Parts I and II) (continued)The Universal Studios backlot is used once again with the entrance to the aliens’ home being the Ice Tunnel from the Doomed Glacier Exhibition ride. I found it fascinating to watch the Steve/Jaime scenes after the conversation in this thread of the conflict over salaries and Lee’s insistence that the series were separate entities. It’s probably coincidence, but it felt fitting that the initial scenes between the two focussed on a distance between them and Steve harbouring secrets. I also noted that the dynamic from the earlier two-parters has shifted. This time it’s Steve whose sanity and memory are under a cloud while Jaime is the person out to try and fix things. I like that Jaime’s own history was referenced organically during discussion of Steve’s faulty memory. Along these lines, I thought it interesting that when Steve went flying out of OSI, Oscar went to pick up the phone to report it, while Rudy forcefully ordered Oscar to trust Steve. The dynamic between Rudy and Oscar intrigues me, because both are quite difficult to read. But here there’s no doubt that Rudy is advocating for Steve while Oscar is all about his responsibilities. The episodes themselves are, for me, a curate’s egg. The very human stuff with the doubts around his sanity and OSI ordering his bionics to be tuned down. Steve going off on his own. Steve’s damaged nuclear legs resulting in him getting radiation poisoning is strong stuff, and taps nicely into the series’ “reality” of living with bionics. Jaime going the extra mile because it’s to save Steve’s life. These are all elements that are exactly why I tune in. On the other hand, I’ve never been fond of the Bigfoot episodes. Even as a child, one of the few episodes I watched was a Bigfoot story and I found it dull because it was so obviously a man in a furry skin running round the woods. Yes, Ted Cassidy looks suitably creepy when well-filmed (his contact lenses remind me of The Incredible Hulk, another Kenneth Johnson series for which Cassidy would become the voice of the series through narration and Hulk growls) but most of the time he's in broad daylight and the effect is completely diminished. By its nature, the clashes with Bigfoot are action-heavy, and these endless slow motion bionics are the most dated and tedious elements of the series for me. And there’s all the business of an alien race. It’s the kind of puerile stuff that looks incredibly cheesy. It would be a different matter were I watching Star Trek, but with the bionic series I find this stuff a turn off and far prefer the series to be grounded in its own reality. works for me when there’s some mystery or question around it. Which is why, for me, The Ghosthunter was a far superior example of a high sci-fi heavy episode. </blockquote>

Verification: 6 + 4 =