Just caught this one again on CITV...
It was one I remember not being too impressed with first time around, and up until the ad break I couldn't really remember why, because the first half was really good. Nice mystery, nice visuals. Liked.
Then the second half started, and suddenly it all came flooding back. Scarlet and Destiny...to quote a certain big-voiced bot "I hope they end up together...at the bottom of a well, torn apart by animals." Yes, all the good characters get put to sleep, and Destiny gets to save the day. Argh.
I don't mind Scarlet as a character, but keep him away from Destiny, and spare us all the cow's relentless whining. Argh....
Other negatives...Magenta, a good character, introduced here and then left silent for the rest of the series. Though I guess that's not really this episode's fault...
Scarlet suddenly decides that a computer virus that kills has been uploaded from Fernandez's home. "I've not used the computer since I got back to Skybase!" he cries - ignoring the fact that he used a computer to check Fernandez's security tapes...
Colonel White's plan - knock out all the potentially infected people - everyone on Skybase bar Destiny and Scarlet. Clearly, no-one knew about it - presumably if they did, that might trigger the suicidal tendencies early. But Symphony had a cup of hot tea or coffee in her hands when she passed out. Magenta was on a treadmill. Presumably there were people somewhere on the base doing far more dangerous things than that, and no one thought to warn them? Not even a simple "Would everyone please stop what they're doing and sit down on the floor?" announcement? What if an engineer had passed out and flicked the switch that keeps Skybase in the air? Big problem, that would have been.
The virus shows people humanity's worst qualities and gets them so depressed that they want to kill themselves. Fine...but everyone affected seemed remarkable calm about it. "Oh well, time to die. Off I go...". Why weren't they shouting and screaming about how crap humanity is?
The deletion of the virus..yeah. Press a few buttons and say some sciency-sounding words, that'll fix it. And what about the people it affected? Oh, not to worry - let's just have Destiny mumble something about "Some sort of auto-hypnotic something or other seems to do the trick." and then get to the snogging.
Sorry for the rant, I know a lot of people like this episode...