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Since the beginning of time mankind has existed between the
world of light and the world of darkness. The Legacy, a secret
society that has been in existence for many centuries, was
established to accumulate knowledge and artefacts to help
combat evil and protect the innocent from those creatures
that inhabit the shadows and the night. The Legacy has houses
all over the world, but this series shows the events of the
San
Francisco chapter. Dr. Derek Rayne heads up the team comprised
of psychiatrist, Rachel Corrigan; ex-Navy SEAL Nick Boyle;
researcher/psychic Alex Moreau; and priest, Philip Callaghan...
Now,
I'm going to be a little anal here and ask a very simple question.
Why is this series called Poltergeist the Legacy? The
Legacy would have been a more apt name as hardly ever
do we witness any poltergeists. Okay, the obvious answer is
that it's a cheap and easy way to cash in on the popularity
of the Poltergeist movies, but none of the characters
from the movies are used and it's not even as though The Legacy
were involved in the movies (please e-mail me and let me know
if I'm wrong on that point - but in the first movie I remember
ghost hunters turning up to the house to investigate and practically
wetting themselves when they actually saw an apparition).
In
fact the first few episodes of this series all involve demons
and ghosts - not really poltergeists. And it's only in the
fourth episode after the pilot (Man in the Mist) that
they bother to throw in a ghost story, but it's a far cry
from a poltergeist tale. The first real poltergeist story
is the b-plot to The Twelfth Cave (the fifth episode
after the pilot) where Alex investigates a haunted house -
as though someone on the writing team suddenly remembered
what the title was and hurriedly added this rather dull addition
to the main storyline.
It's
not until Sins of the Father (episode six, after the
pilot) that we get a proper poltergeist based episode. Even
the opening voice over talks about the Legacy's battle with
creatures that inhabit the shadows and the night. Poltergeists
are not really going to do much but cause your lights to blow
(unless you buy a house built on a graveyard, or ancient Indian
burial ground). The
fact is that The Legacy was established to protect mankind
from the forces of evil. The Reckoning stars Zelda
Rubinstein (who played the clairvoyant Tangina Barrons in
the Poltergeist series of films). And that's about
the only connection I can see between this series and the
Poltergeist franchise. Oh, and is it me? or is Rubinstein's
character in this episode like a rhyming, human Yoda?
The
episodes in this collection are all over the place. This is
nowhere near the running order that they were broadcast in
and I doubt that this was the production order either. This
probably helps to explain why the character of Philip keep
vanishing and reappearing throughout the series. He keeps
saying he's going to leave, only to come back and then go
again.
Now
I've got all that off my chest, I can confess that I actually
enjoyed this series. Sure, there are plenty of problems with
it (more of that later) but on the whole this is enjoyable,
if you ignore the cod philosophy and the painfully annoying
dialogue that Derek comes out with on a frequent basis.
The
pilot is pretty entertaining and opens with a young Derek
and his father in search of a mysterious ancient chest. Inside
is one of five evil spirits - the other four being trapped
in similar chests that were hidden around the world centuries
earlier. If all five are brought together and opened, then
all five demons will bring around the end of the world as
we know it... or something - you know how it goes. Skip forward
30+ years and Derek is now the head of the San Francisco house
of The Legacy. This episode sees William Sadler (Star Trek
DS9's Sloan; Grim Reaper in Bill & Ted's Bogus
Journey; Sheriff Jim Valenti in Roswell) give a
pretty passable Irish impersonation in the role of Shamus
Bloom.
The
pilot episode, like Stargate: SG-1's pilot,
has some pointless nude scenes which don't really add anything
to the actual show, and made all the more odd by the fact
it's a wrinkly that gets her assets out for the camera. I'm
sorry, but Helen
Shaver was in her mid-40s when this series was shown and as
well as her nude scene she has a habit of wearing short skirts
that should only be worn by someone half her age.
Notable
episodes include:
Substitute,
in which a small group of school boys use black magic to bring
back to life a mysterious dead man. The man was once the head
of a magic club at the school, but was banished from practising
what the parents believed was evil magic. And now he wants
his revenge.
The
Crystal Scarab, which co-stars Nicole de Boer (Dax in
the seventh
season
of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) as Samantha, a terminally
ill girl whose father has employed the black arts to give
her a longer life. This episode is quite touching, as originally
her father only wanted to offer his own life to save his daughter,
but as he didn't have enough life in him he accidentally,
at first, manages to find other victims. This episode also
features Brian George who Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fans
may remember as Richard Bashir, Julian's father from Season
Five.
In
The Bell of Giradius, we discover the folly of resurrecting
the dead. It may seem like a good idea while you are wallowing
in grief, but should your loved one come back smelling of
decay with a slimy green face, then you know you won't be
attending those dinner parties again in the near future.
The
Bones of St Anthony, has a clever twist in the tale. This
episode revolves around DNA cloning and is concerned with
a labs attempts at "regrowing" a saint. Fragments
of the bones of St Anthony, a brave and noble demon slayer
in his day, have been held for centuries by his followers.
Now one of those fragments has been cloned and the resulting
creation is running amok. In good old fashioned sci-fi tradition
the creation is not revealed until the final moments of this
episode. But when it is shown it looks rather rubber - which
is a bit of a disappointment. This episode's conclusion sees
Derek enter a room in The Legacy house that seems to contain
past artefacts from previous adventures (a bit like Mr Ben's
mantelpiece in the '70s kids animated show Mr Ben -
where he'd always keep a memento... "just to remind him").
The
Thirteenth Generation opens with a flashback to 1696 with
the trail of a woman who is accused of witchcraft. Before
she is drowned, she puts a curse on her accuser which will
be passed down his bloodline for 13 generations. Skip forward
to the present day and a woman, who looks very similar to
the accused witch (mainly because it's the same actress) has
a few experiences that she can't explain. When she develops
photographs that she's taken with her camera the photos show
the crime scenes of murders that have recently been committed.
All of the victims are decedents of the witch's killer, but
who is killing them and why does this woman have photos of
the murders? Again, this episode is cleverly written to keep
you guessing throughout. Although, I did have one issue. Why
did the girl confide in Derek so quickly and so openly? She
didn't know that Derek was anything other than a guest lecturer.
The
final episode, A Traitor Among Us, is surprisingly
a clips show. I say surprisingly, because it's not very common
to have a clips show in a series' first season. But thankfully
the clips are kept to a minimum. This episode sees one of
the Legacy members having serious concerns with the way Derek
handles the running of his house. These concern have been
brought to head office, who have to sit in judgement over
Derek's track record. If guilty he will be out of the organisation.
All the members of his team have had issues with him, but
who has reported him?
Extras
are, as far as I could make out, none existent. I say "as
far as I can tell" because MGM have employed their annoying
hieroglyphs on the menus instead of actual words. Can someone
please explain this to me? I can't work out what they are
supposed to mean (as only MGM seem to insist on using them)
until I click on them. Are they worried that we might not
understand the words "audio set-up" or "subtitles"?
Ah, I hear you cry "They are there so that people of
all languages can read them". Wrong, I'm afraid, as the
first screen we get asks us our language, so that the menus
can be displayed for us in whatever tongue we speak. Although,
it seems an awful lot of trouble to go to just for the episode
titles.
The
picture quality is also pretty poor - being incredibly grainy.
But I
was impressed that the DVD producers didn't attempt to rip
fans off by stretching the episodes over more discs and charging
a higher retail price. Each disc (apart from the first, which
just houses the double length pilot) contains five episodes.
One
other point I wanted to make was that it seemed a little odd
that so many of the episodes revolve around friends and relatives
of the main characters. Not only that, but we also discover
that a lot of the character have connections that they were
not previously aware of. I couldn't really see the point in
most of these connections. There is a particularly surprising
one at the end of The Inheritance. But I can see that
it will be swept under the carpet and never mentioned again
- it was probably only introduced to give one of the characters
a possible motive for reported Derek in A Traitor Among
Us.
Poltergeist:
The Legacy's first season is not without its merits. The
episode are mostly enjoyable, if you switch off your nit-picking
radar for the duration. But there's very little here to make
you sit back and applaud the writing. There's very little
in the way of humour either, which is a shame. One for those
wishing pure escapist fantasy that won't tax the old grey
matter too much.
Ray
Thompson
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