Archeological Adventuress: ‘He said you shouldn’t do any
sarcastic quips for at least a month!’ Chance would be a fine thing! What
has happened to our happy go lucky adventuress who used to approach each
problem with a smile on her face and a song in her heart? For much of this
season Bernice has been depressed, angry, hurt, upset and all the rest of the
words that describe the miserable end of the emotional spectrum. Whilst Lisa
Bowerman is incapable of giving a bad performance the simple truth of the
matter is that when she is in the slums of misery Bernice is no longer a great
deal of fun to be around. With no friends to get her back and a son that drives
her potty, Benny has become an Eastenders character and exudes about as much
charisma. Somebody needs to take hold of this character and remind her (and us)
why her life is worth living to the full again. Bowerman does her best but
without any witty ripostes or funny characters for Bernice to mingle with she
has lost her sparkle. Unthinkable. It would appear that somebody has been fiddling about
Bernice’s memories which is exactly the sort of scrape that Robyn expects her
to get into. The trouble is that Bernice doesn’t remember who Robyn is and
certainly not that they used to work together in the ruins of Buenos Aires.
Does everybody know about her time ring? When Bernice starts to accept
that these adventures with Robyn were real it is Peter that starts to question when
they could have happened. They have no place in her timeline as we know it so
there has to be something suss about them. Braxiatel warns Frost about Bernice
and tells him not to kill her because she is important. Bernice thinks
it is time to go back to the Collection to sort this mess out…and I agree with
her wholeheartedly!
Angry Adolescent: Other kids get through their entire
childhoods without being kidnapped and Peter thinks they must live boring
lives! He’s sick of sharing his mother with everybody else and wants her to be
kept safe.
Standout Performance: Donna Berlin is trying her best to
make it seem as if Robyn and Benny have been friends for years but you can’t
manufacture chemistry that isn’t there…and it just isn’t there.
Great Ideas: The President of Earth (who happens to be
carved in Bernice’s image) was murdered to send a message to Benny. If you want
to hide something and you’ve got a time machine you can put it permanently,
fractionally in the future. You have to programme your time machine to travel
to the present plus one millisecond. You have to pay attention to this story
carefully as from scene to scene we leap from Bernice in the present day to
Bernice in a past that she cannot remember. The Amulet of Irony is an awesomely
powerful device that inflicts whatever pain/pleasure you are trying to dish out
back at you! If we all wore one of these it could end crime in the world!
Santos is carrying a ghost that Bernice and Robyn disturbed on their dig. It
needs bodies to exist within. Robyn isn’t from Chesterfield but an android from
the future who experiences time backwards. She was sent to help Bernice to stop
Buenos Aires from being destroyed. The Nazis were trying to obtain the secret
from the mountain to create a race of super soldiers. It turns out that
Braxiatel created Frost because he required an agent on Earth and to find
somebody to destroy Buenos Aires. In the late 25th Century a fissure
will open up in the city and it will remain open for over a century in which
time dozens of people will disappear inside. They will have fallen through to a
planet on the other side of the universe. Brax wants to make sure that that
doesn’t happen. As such he wants to make sure that Buenos Aires is a no go area
by the time the fissure opens and sets his plans in motion 500 years earlier
during the Second World War. You can’t say that he doesn’t think ahead. Bernice
has lived several lifetimes whilst she has been in her hospital bed, literally
living out these memories in her head. That’s why she has been so tired. Robyn
worked backwards getting the ending that she wanted by fixing the sequence of
events in place. The people that were flung through the time fissure died on
that unnamed planet but their but that little bit of organic matter is what
triggered off life on that planet. Billions of years later life has evolved and
they are the people who made Robyn. They saw it was coming and realised that
their timeline was screwed and sent Robyn back to prevent that. She latched
herself onto Benny at exactly the point where her people and their history
vanished completely.
Audio Landscape: Heart monitor beeping, rain falling in
noisy puddles, spacecraft descending, wildlife humming in the undergrowth, a
chunk of masonry falling, growling monster, jumping into water, walls
crumbling, train, motorcycle, Braxiatel’s TARDIS, explosion, flames crackling.
Isn’t it Odd: You don’t want to criticise something too much
when it is trying something fresh rather than relying on how things have always
been but I genuinely don’t think the Bernice Summerfield range has been as
engaging since we have left the Collection. That’s not to say that there
haven’t been some great stories (because four of the eight have received a
score of either 9 or 10) because there have but the tone of the series is far
more adult and less fun these days, the arc plotting that was so prevalent and
appetite whetting in seasons seven and eight has all but vanished and there is
a general feeling of aimlessness. When Adrian and Bev showed up in Glory Days
it was a real highlight and when I first realised that the first two stories of
season eleven would be a reunion of all the cast from the Collection I was
overjoyed – which probably wouldn’t be my reaction if this new broom feel of
the series was really working. I have a very strict idea of what the Bernice
series should be; fun, imaginative, pacy and thoughtful – the last two seasons
have touched on all of these but hasn’t consistently mixed all of them together
like the series used to. Things did need to change and the massive reboot for
the series that is just around the corner was much sought. The adventures that
Bernice recalls having with Robyn might have made an impact if they had been
injected with some laughter but its more deathly danger the sort of which we
have been drowning in for the past two seasons. Frankly it doesn’t seem like a
life that is worth trying to remember because its awfully similar to the one
she’s currently experiencing. Why he is asked why he wants to change the
destiny of the Earth Frost simply doesn’t have an answer. He just does.
When did villainy become so vague? Sticking a Swastika on the cover feels like
a cheap way of cashing in on the popularity of Just War when in fact the total
amount of time spent in during the period is a handful of minutes in a memory
that isn’t real. Rather wonderfully the Nazi that Bernice bumps heads with
sounds just like Tryst from Nightmare of Eden (he even says ‘Oh…really?’ in
exactly the same way!). This whole adventure is all about feeding us a few
crumbs of Braxiatel’s plans. Enough with the teasing already – get on and let
Bernice confront him! Wouldn’t it have made more sense to end a season on the big
two part ‘all is revealed’ spectacular rather than starting a new season with
it?
Standout Scene: Whatever I might have said about the cover
the scenes set during the Second World War are the one point in this tale when
Secret Origins feels like the Bernice Summerfield range of old, infused with
energy and delight. Perhaps we should have ditched this adventure and just
enjoyed a whole story set in that time period.
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