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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 261557" data-attributes="member: 23">Doomsday Is Tomorrow (Parts I and II) <img src="https://firebreathingdimetrodon.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/bionicw0214.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="width: 600px" />With both episodes produced, written and directed by series creator Kenneth Johnson, there’s a clear sense of cohesion. There’s also no mistaking Johnson as an auteur. And the project is certainly an ambitious one. As with some previous multi-parters - not least the Johnson-penned Welcome Home, Jaime - this is a story with two distinct halves. The first part introduces the threat and gets Jaime into the middle of things, before shifting focus - and raising its game - at the very end, leaving Jaime to face things head on. The threat in question is as big as it gets: the destruction of the entire world. This sounds very cliché, and almost too big to invest in, but it’s credibly presented, and Kenneth wisely makes it a story that’s about very human dreams. The idea of a doomsday device created to prevent nuclear arms from being used is a truthful one, and various arguments - pro and con - are floated out as characters’ very real views. I enjoyed that, despite the unprecedented threat level, Part I felt almost like a standard episode, with Jaime going undercover as a French scientist who has been summoned to the complex in question to confirm the threat is real. There are lots of lovely small touches in this episode. When Elijah Cooper hijacks every TV broadcast in the world like a true Bond villain, naturally, Jaime happens to have her TV set on and her show interrupted. But I thoroughly enjoyed the scene leading up to it, with Jaime following along with a programme featuring a British female cook. Who is it, I wonder? Zena Skinner? Fanny Craddock? Delia Smith, even? Whoever it is, Jaime has a hard time keeping up, even with bionics, and her frustration is reminiscent of Ria Parkinson.Later in the episode, Jaime - under the guise of Dr Marguerite Perry - is having a conversation with Elijah who is keen to discuss the research he’s read written by the real Dr Perry. And thanks to a handy intercom we get the bionic equivalent of a sitcom trope where one character puts words into the mouth of another to enable them to thrive in a certain situation. Because Rudy is one of the four eminent scientists who’s been summoned to the complex, he is able to stand outside the room and down a corridor, hear what Elijah is asking and tell Jaime how to respond. It’s very watchable. continued...</blockquote>

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