Skin Deep

[Serena Lewis]

This episode was difficult. I don't like it, I don't unlike, and I'm not exactly undecided. If that doesn't make sense, remember, I'm...freaky...

Pros

1. This may surprise you, but I quite liked the ending. It was just the look of bliss on Scarlets face that clinched it. I still wish Destiny had snuffed it though.
2. Destiny tied to the radiator. It just looked so...good. She was sitting all ungainly on the floor, and looked put out (understandable, really). Was I the only one who wasn't to taken with Blacks 'Salt? Pepper?' line? It just never really amused me or anything, and apparently I do have a good sense of humour...
3. Blacks car. Wow! I want one!
4. Window cutter 'jelly' thing. I want one of them too!!
5. Gina doing her fancy breaking into a top security building routine. All that kicking and...well...twirling around impressed me. But this also falls under...

Cons

1...the Cons category. All that kicking and twirling annoyed me as well.
2. TOO MUCH DESTINY!! The general public can only handle so much at one time, you know.
3. Destinys reaction to the overtake. Okay, he almost ran her off the road, maybe, but come on, cripes girl, it was just an overtake!!
4. Destiny clothes at the beginning. Good lord, that track suit or whatever it was supposed to be, it looked dreadful.
5. Scarlets, 'Yep, looks good enough to me!' line while looking at Destiny. Eww, Paul, that's just gross. Shame on you.
6. I found Blacks Mysteron slave thing disturbing. It sounds so...well, there’s gotta be a word missing anyway.

Little Things (Brace yourself...)

1. The deer, in the driving scene. The one that hopped over a log when Destiny approached.
2. Greens weird jerky head movement after she’s finished talking to Destiny on the Cheetahs mini-link thing. What was that in aid of?
3. Cracks in building. Is that safe? There were so many.
4. Gina had hair clips in her hair. I know its so she can wear a wig, but nice.
5. 'Smoking kills and that's that'. I love that sign. Seen when Scarlet pulls up on the Raid Bike outside a shop. I'm not gonna talk about it further or fear of getting flamed by the smokers (That sounds like I just made a joke...) on this forum, but the sign really is excellent anyway.
6. The street were Destiny is held captive is the same one used in Duel, where the guy with sunglasses escapes on a bike.
7. Where did Scarlet get the Swift from? I didn't think they were hidden around like Cheetahs and Rhinos.

Bloopers

1. Whenever you get a back shot of Destiny, there seems to be a little hole in her ponytail where it connects to her head.
2. Scarlets Raid Bike has blue paint on it. Shouldn't it be red?

Rating: 6/10

xx

[Father Unwin]

The basic plot for Skin Deep is simply a kidnapping with Scarlet having to choose between saving Destiny or Skybase. With this in mind, the episode is contrived, to say the least. The “artist and genius” who invented the face transforming device was just so much ‘froth’ as were those fabulous gymnastics!

I think that the star of this show is the Cheetah RRV and there are a number of beautiful close-ups throughout the episode. As far as action scenes are concerned I really like the moonlit car chase through the forest. I enjoyed seeing the silvery headlights playing on the trees and undergrowth and the deer running into the woods was a nice touch. Gina flying the RRV over the security barriers when the alarms were sounded was also a terrific piece of television.

As you know, I like to look for ‘plot accelerators’ and when Scarlet went back to the car crash site where Destiny was kidnapped he immediately saw the transformed (but human) Gina hanging around the Cheetah. Having said that, she had to be there so that she could draw Scarlet back to the artist and genius’s laboratory where Destiny was held captive. Maybe it would have been easier just to phone!

Incidentally, I noticed that Gina’s eyes were slightly lighter in colour than Destiny’s and I guess that says something about me because this is how my small brain detected who was Gina and who was Destiny in spite of one wearing black (bad) and one wearing white (good) which was kindly pointed out by ROBE in a previous post.

The now-Mysteronised Gina is effectively a walking tv camera who can transmit signals to Black’s computer screen. The weakness of the plot was further underlined by Conrad watching the ‘highlights’ of Gina’s picture transmission on the computer and then having to explain to Destiny (and us) what exactly was going on.

Another contrivance is that, in order to shoot Gina at the last moment, Scarlet needs to be able to point the gun at, or near, her without arousing Conrad’s suspicions. This is made possible because Gina is standing in the same line of sight as the fuel storage technicians being held at gunpoint. Scarlet has effectively choreographed this situation by his somewhat theatrical demonstration that he has activated the mine, almost like a conjuror performing a trick.

I notice that Conrad is predominantly left-handed in this episode. I am left-handed myself but I have not observed whether or not this trait is maintained in other episodes. Having said that, Serena pointed out last week that Scarlet got shot in the right arm by a drone but that the injury had transferred to the left arm by the time he got into the Rhino - so maybe I am expecting too much!

[Skybase Girl]

Yes, a few icky factors about this one, although It's probably the first one where we see Black getting into full pantomime villain mode. I definitely think there is a word missing between "Mysteron" and "slave", but I suppose it wouldn't have been suitable for the tweenies at 11am on a Saturday morning.

I like Destiny's over ambitious, overly competitive stuff, I think that's exactly what she's like. Let's face it, she's not the most patient of characters, so I think road rage is typical !

What were Scarlet and the Colonel thinking of when they looked at the film of the alleged Destiny breaking in ? Didn't they realise that she may be a brilliant fighter pilot, but Olympic-standard gymnast wasn't in her CV ? You would have thought that should have given them a clue that it wasn't her......

Strangely enough, this episode reminded me strongly of OCS. Maybe because it was mainly ground-based, it reminded me of all those episodes where SPVs whizzed round corners in deserted streets. That's another thing that hasn't changed - back in Anderson Land in 1968, the sreets were pretty much deserted ( even in London) and they still are !

[Serena Lewis]

Actually, although I didn't touch on it much in my review, I was thinking about the gymnast stuff too.
I just got a feel that it wasn't Destiny, before we knew it wasn't, if you get what I mean.
I can't really imagine any Spectrum lady doing that, to be honest. I know that Destiny is a great pilot, Ochre is superb at hand to hand combat and Green had her fair share of @ss kicking in 'Contact', but I couldn't imagine any of them being as good a gymnast as that.
I hope this is understandable. I never get my points across well in posts...

xx

[Skybase Girl]

It's totally understandable Serena, and I think you're right. Destiny seems big on the hiking and climbing stuff and she's quite lithe, so I imagine her doing ballet, yoga or gymnastics as a get-fit hobby ( as opposed to weight-lifting, say ), but not to that standard.

[shadokp]

The Story - I actually don't understand this one. This is perhaps the 3rd or 4th time I have seen it and this time I began to disect the story and it is very possible that I have since read a review online (here even) that picked up on the issues with this story.

Black has the ability (using the doctor and that machine) to transform Gina's face to make her look like Destiny. Gina steals the launch codes... for what purpose? Destiny is already captured. Why not kill the transformed Gina and send the Mysteron to Skybase to destroy it herself? How can Black believe Scarlet would do this and how did any Mysteron get on board Skybase in the first place? Are there not detectors? They even suspect Destiny to be under the Mysteron power and they still let her in.

The over complex plot to lure Scarlet to the secret place and go from there has too many holes where things could go wrong and I had toruble buying all this for the story. NCS will occasionally have this problem where they are trying to show something that isn't quite what it appears.

To sell the fact that Scarlet and Destiny are in danger in The Achilles Messenger they are tortured beyond what any real training complex would realistically go. This tricks the audience into thinking they are in danger and the twist is they are not. The same thing here with the traick that Destiny is breaking into the complex when it really is not. Sometimes when the show does this, it loses some of its logic.

The Animation - Incredible stuff, especially the night time car scenes

Other - The shooting of Gina is pretty violent and has been already discussed quite a bit 2 years ago. The scene works though as it is pretty shocking.

Destiny's road rage is kind of nice. Adds a personality trait we do not normally see in characters like this. Maybe she got it from Blue.

I would think that the fact that she spends most of the time with tape on her mouth will be a favorite among most of you Destiny haters out there.

Colonel White seems to be pretty negative, always thinking that once anyone starts acting a bit odd that they must now be a Mysteron. This happens quite often in the series. All Captains must be careful. You wake up on the wrong side of bed and White may suspect you are a Mysteron agent and throw you out an airlock.

On screen Death Count - We have a guard at the complex that 'may not recover' and we have Gina.


KP

[gojohnniegogo]

I quite liked this episode, after the first watch through it was one that stuck in mind. Despite the 'Double Destiny' that's not enough to put you off an episode you really enjoy. Highlight moments definitely breaking into the building with the lasers, and the scene where Black blows Gina's head off. The deer running off as the speeding cars passed was a great bit of attention to detail. Scarlet's face as he's looking at those snaps was kind of creepy though. Wonder what Col. White thought when he flashed up seeing Scarlets face in that pose!? Black's "Salt, Pepper?" line didn't really put me off, at all. Thought it was slightly amusing. Although, I do agree with you Serena about the overtake thing, that bugged me too. She just has to doesn't she? Also liked the fact Scarlet uses his brain with the Camera for shooting Gena. I think Black's dialogue at that part is just to rub it in at Destiny, rather than having the viewer talked to like they're stupid, so I'm going to stick up for that piece of the script.

[Serena Lewis]

LOL, yes, I never mentioned the looking at photos!
Scarlet did look incredibly...simple, and several other things
Wonder what White did think?

xx

[Skybase Girl]

Um, yes, Scarlet's photo-ogling expression.....

What's that lyric by The Feeling ? "People in love look stupid/ do stupid things" ( something like that, anyway).....

Colonel White's probably used to it. Probably saw much the same expression on Black's face before he got bumped off and found that he didn't need affection to fuel his Mysteronised libido.

[MMK]

Blooper time!


I'd advise you to re-watch the episode afterwards so you know what I mean...

Once Gina is mysteronised, Black uses a screen to show what Gina sees - this is the cause of the blooper.
This is all one big blooper, but I've split it up into two parts.

1. When Black starts turning the screen away from himself and tells Gina to watch Scarlet's every move. The screen shows a mirror image of Black (the screen is in his right hand, the image of him shows it in his left hand).

2. When Black is walking towards Scarlet, Scarlet's head is on the right hand side of the screen, the rest of his 'points' to the left, and Black is on the left. But on the screen, it shows Scarlet like we see him and Black is on the left of the screen. The screen should be showing them the opposite way round - a mirror image. (Gina's left is our right, her right is our left).



Does my explanation make sense? As I have said, you may have to re-watch it (if you want to). Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about any of it.

[Serena Lewis]

Hmm, I think I get what you mean. You're even more picky about details than me!
Oh well, more for Capt. Indy's episode guides!

xx

[Captain Indigo]

I'll certainly have a look at that when I'm able to.

*sob* laptop's still being mended...

[Sweeps]

Re-watched this episode last night and it's definitly in my top five of series 1 episodes, I just love the storyline and it sort of brings Scarlet and Destiny closer because at the end Scarlet doesn't know if she is a mysteron or not. Thing is though when Destiny says something like "everytime you're near a mysteron you feel lousy" well I don't think this is referred to or even explained enough in NCS to gain any proper understanding of the concept and it's one of those things where you have to see OCS to understand what they are really talking about, just a thought hope I explained that okay

And the scene where Scarlet goes to the lab and finds the "bad" Destiny and then Conrad and "good" Destiny come in, I just love Scarlet's WTF expression


And the way Scarlet killed the bad Destiny and even got Black to believe that he had was just so cleverly done, and the fact that he waited till those last few seconds to pull the trigger nicely done

I definitely think there is a word missing between "Mysteron" and "slave", but I suppose it wouldn't have been suitable for the tweenies at 11am on a Saturday morning.

I agree, we all know that's what Black wanted but he could hardly say it

Strangely enough, this episode reminded me strongly of OCS.

When Gina knocks out that guard and then he struggles to get up to press an emergency button on his uniform before passing out again, that reminded me of OCS "Manhunt" when Black knocks out that guard at the atomic centre, the guard there does exactly the same thing

All in all an extremely enjoyable episode, can't really find fault with it but nobody's perfect so I'll give it a 9/10

[Skybase Girl]

Sweeps, I agree with your point about Scarlet's extra-sensory perception of nearby Mysterons. Destiny's remark is the first time anyone comments on this.

It was mentioned in "Circles of Doom", but no one explained why Scarlet was feeling ill. Even in "Instrument of Destruction, part 2", where Colonel White declares that Scarlet has some telepathic affinity with Black, no evidence is offered.

I hadn't really thought about it till now, but yes, if you hadn't seen the original series, you might be puzzled by all that.

[Sweeps]

Maybe it was "dropped in" as a reference to OCS.

I think in OCS, Scarlet only gets that "lousy" feeling in two eps, once in Winged Assassin and twice in Point 783, no real evidence is given even then so I'd say that unless you've seen OCS AND read up on it, you would definitly be puzzled by him feeling lousy in NCS