The Nightmare Man: Parts Three and Four

Part Three

“I blame television. Some people see The Sound of Music once too often, and something snaps.”

It’s a bit odd watching episodes two at a time and reviewing them two at a time, especially when it comes to reviewing Part Three while trying to pretend you haven’t also just watched Part Four. So I find myself being quite unable to write up the parts of my notes theorising about the Colonel and secret military cover-ups of aliens. It’s a nice part of the developing plot, though. We’re also constantly reminded of a mysterious soldier with a parachute.

And the plot’s coming on nicely. Things have taken on a regular pattern by now: each episode is a new day; the police are nice, normal people; Tom gets the best lines; the characters are getting to like and trust one another more and more. It’s nice that we have none of that tiresome nonsense where characters suspect each other of nefarious deeds for no good reason. But the undercurrent of horror starts to move into the foreground, and we get actual glimpses of the creature. Fiona’s impressive multimedia set-up lays the groundwork most effectively for the inevitable deaths of the coastguards. After all, for characters like this, living in an isolated place that might as well be a lighthouse, to get killed is pretty much a trope in itself. It raises the stakes, though…

Part Four

“A policeman’s lot is not a happy one.”

So, it wasn’t an alien, it was a Russian cyborg thingy. Well, of course. And the colonel and his mates, who’ve put the island under martial law, are also all Russians. I wasn’t expecting that. The Cold War: how very quaint.

I love the characters’ reactions, though. Inskip suspects something’s up with the colonel, and has his suspicions confirmed. Tom is as witty as ever. Fiona is deeply upset that all this horror has come to her beloved island. And Mike, with his military background, is the one who finally draws out the truth, and, I suppose, gets to be the hero.

I don’t know the original novel at all, but the twist fell a little flat to me. The plot, and especially the warmly drawn characters, are beautifully handled by Holmes, but this is a fairly standard thriller plot until the final twenty minutes, and the big revelation is not sufficiently related to anything we’ve seen earlier to have any real resonance or power.

Still, it’s possible that this fault may lie in the source material. Certainly, Holmes handles the nuts and bolts of the plot, and the characterisation, with consummate ease. But it’s a shame that this should be his only “original” drama. RTD once compared him to Dennis Potter; this script is good, but doesn’t back that claim up.

Incidentally, it's an instructive experience watching a BBC drama from 1981 just after a Joss Whedon series from 2001. Everything seems so much... slower. And I'm sure  it probably means I've failed to properly appreciate Camfield's direction here.

The Nightmare Man: Parts One and Two

Part One

“There’s been a murder.”

I’ve never seen this before but, as a rather full-on Doctor Who fan of twenty-four years standing, I can’t resist a thriller, from 1981, scripted by Robert Holmes and directed by Douglas Camfield. These two are pretty much the dream team.

Camfield directed Terror of the Zygons, of course, and it’s not just the Scottish setting that echoes this. The shots from the POV of the killer, or creature, or whatever it is, deeply echo the similar shots of the Skarasen. But here they are very effective, with their whole blood-red look contrasting with the realism we see elsewhere.

Otherwise, we spend the thirty minutes until the murder of Symonds exploring the frenzied murder of a Mars Anderson, and being rather effectively introduced to our cast of characters. It’s a rather unstarry cast; Celia Imrie and Maurice Roeves are the only two I’ve ever heard of. But then, this being a thriller, that’s probably a good idea. I can’t rely on relative levels of fame to predict who’s going to get killed.

I assume this was filmed on location on a proper island up in the Highlands; it certainly looks like it. And this closed little community, where Inspector Inskip has just four police officers at his disposal, feels simultaneously large and claustrophobic in the fog. The characters are interesting, and it’s interesting to speculate what will happen to them. Mike proposes to Fiona, so I assume at least one of them (him?) is not going to survive. The policemen are all likeable but realistic and human, as they should be from the pen of an ex-copper. It’s a nice touch to see Tom swearing in Gaelic! Roeves is excellent as Inskip- reassuringly normal and believable for a TV cop.

Part Two

“No creature on this Earth has a bite like that.”

This episode does something very refreshing; it slowly and plausibly gets our main characters to accept that they’re dealing with an alien without resorting to the tired and frustrating spectacle of characters refusing to believe anything which seems far fetched. With the cliffhanger, the final piece slots into place as even Inskip accepts that “Nothing human did that.”

We’re given various pieces of the puzzle one by one; the creature’s teeth, the fact that it seems to be radioactive, and finally what appears to be its spacecraft. But there’s one other mystery here: Colonel Howard. At first I assumed he was just a red herring- he clearly isn’t the killer- but could he be more than he seems? Do the military have some connection with what’s going on? Is the military parachute a clue? Or is he a double red herring?

I really like Inskip; he may be a newcomer and a Glaswegian, but he’s part of this community and he cares for it (“Ah, Jamie’s a good loony, Tom. He’s not a killer.”). He’s clever, too; he sees that the killer’s moving in a straight line and follows it. We’ve also established that Mike, Fiona and Dr. Goudry are all decent sorts. They can’t all survive…