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Eighteen months after her confrontation with Iago, Blayes
awakes to find Kaldor City in quarantine and herself on board
a Storm Mine in the Blind Heart Desert. Her companions are
some strangely familiar crewmembers, a vengeful spirit and
a robot with a dangerous secret. Trapped in a claustrophobic,
dreamlike environment, the former terrorist must undertake
a journey that may end in the destruction of her world - or
its beginning...
WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS!
Whatever
plans the Magic Bullet production team had for their sixth
and (to date) final Kaldor City release, they almost
certainly had to be revised when Uvanov actor Russell Hunter
sadly passed away in February 2004. Step up another Russell,
Tracy Russell as Blayes, who shares the limelight with Paul
Darrow as one of the main characters - arguably the
main character - of this instalment.
Whatever
plans the production team had for the apparently time-travelling
Iago (Darrow) at the end of Checkmate,
writer Daniel O'Mahony puts his own, characteristically mind-bending,
spin on the proceedings, which prompts us to re-evaluate certain
assumptions. Rather than having travelled back in time to
be seemingly confronted by the psychostrategist Carnell (Scott
Fredericks), could it be that these events did not in fact
take place on a physical level at all? Rather, could they
be the delirious imaginings of a dying brain, or some kind
of fantasy realm conjured up by the Fendahl/Justina (Patricia
Merrick)? Both explanations are offered to Blayes as she tries
to make sense of her new surroundings and the strange characters
that occupy it, though the latter interpretation is never
explicitly spelt out.
Significantly, the inhabitants of the Storm Mine pay effective
tribute to the serial that started this whole thing off: the
Doctor Who story The Robots of Death. There's
a nameless Commander (Philip Madoc), whose eccentricity (though
of a more laidback variety) and liking for sweet wine are
reminiscent of Russell Hunter's Uvanov. There's a nameless
and shifty Chief Mover, played by John Leeson, who reminds
me even more of David Collings' Poul - but then, I have always
found Leeson's vocal qualities to be remarkably similar to
those of Collings. Blayes finds herself in the quarters and
clothes of a deceased Pilot, a role previously fulfilled by
Pamela Salem's Toos. And Gregory de Polnay, who so memorably
and endearingly voiced D84 in Robots, returns here
as V23.
Like Fall Out, the final episode of The
Prisoner, a series revered by the Magic Bullet
team, Storm Mine doesn't give its audience any simple
answers on a plate. In terms of the type of story it tells,
it also deviates significantly from what has gone before.
As such, it may annoy some listeners, just as Fall Out
irritated many Prisoner fans. However, the implicit
messages contained within this production remain true to the
core philosophies of Kaldor City: don't take everything
you are told on face value; don't believe everything you hear;
read between the lines to find the truth.
You
will almost certainly need to listen to this drama more than
once in order to get the full effect, but it's worth the extra
effort.
Richard
McGinlay
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