Archaeological Adventuress: If you have been missing the chemistry
and repartee between Lisa Bowerman and Miles Richardson then sit back and enjoy
the ride because for the most part Everybody Loves Irving is the equivalent of
one of those US sitcoms with the two characters in one set bouncing witty
dialogue back and forth. It is nice to see Bernice get a little down time after
her hectic exploits of late and Bowerman sounds as though she is having a blast
relaxing into Richardson's quirky script. Bernice is suspicious of Brax wanting
to take her shopping, especially when she barely has two coins to rub together.
They haven't sat down and discussed the subject of hr salary and as far as
Bernice is concerned real archaeology doesn't come cheap. She wont sit by
whilst Brax makes negotiations with a sexist Ikerian who considers Bernice to
be his 'pet'. Her dad always used to say if you come up against anything
intractable then give it a good thump. Irving has brought Benny to his newly
purchased base of operations because she has a habit of sniffing out trouble.
She makes some token objections to being treated like a skiv but I think she
rather likes the idea of working with Irving again. Either that or she wants to
keep a good eye on him, starting with his base.
Mysterious Girl: Ruth considers Bernice her best friend and
is grateful that she looked her on the road to Legion. She feels affection
towards Peter too and tries to reach out to him, trying to see the situation
from his skewered point of view.
Dog Boy: Brax found Peter when he had given up home and gave
him a life on Legion. He has stood by him and Antonio ever since, looked out
for him. Ruth tries to explain that everything that Bernice has done since she
met her on Atlantis was with the aim of finding her way back to her son. Irving
found Peter in a slave pit on Bastion, where he had to fight in the arena and
learn to take care of himself.
Super Villain: Clearly Richardson has been waiting for the
day that his character regained dominance in Bernice's life considering he put
pen to paper and wrote the most Brax heavy script in an age. And why not? He's
a fantastic character that has been surprising and thrilling me for the past
fifteen years of my life. After behaving so abominably to Benny and
manipulating her life in so many appalling ways I never thought we would see
the day when we could relax into a comedy atmosphere with the two characters
again. Russell and Handcock have created the perfect way of giving the
character a second chance, wiping the slate clean and starting all over again.
It would appear that Braxiatel is comfortable financially no matter what guise
or period of his life we visit him in. He's an extremely resourceful man. There
are a lot of Braxiatel's about and this version of him only understands the
half of it (what hope do the rest of us have then?). He knows there is a
purpose to having so many iterations of himself at large and that one of
Braxiatel's is privy to the master plan and he is working towards finding the
answers. He's just hoping that it wont lead towards anything that he is going
to regret. Gallot had dealings with another Brax, the one that Benny spent ten
years with and nearly screwed up her life for good. The one who murdered
Benny's husband. Wherever this version of Irving goes he is learning more and
more about Benny's one and he likes the sound of him less and less. Is this a
ploy? Is this Benny's Brax play a long con? I guess we will just have to wait
and find out. There are certainly hints that the old, devilish Brax has been to
the silo before. When Irving talks about home and Bernice asks where he means
by that he gets cagey and insists that some things are private.
Musical Cues: A shame that they don't release the
soundtracks to the audios anymore because the Legion box set features some
excellent music courtesy of Daniel Brett. He is working his ass off to make the
insubstantial material in Everybody Loves Irving as enjoyable as possible.
Check out the sequence where the plumbers arrive and reveal who they are to see
what I mean. It's not a great gag but you'll be halfway convinced that it was
because the music is so damn fun.
Isn't it Odd: Richardson creates a sense of urgency with the
two unknown visitors to Legion rushing towards to Irving's new base of
operations...only for them to turn out to be space plumbers there to make sure
that the hot water is running. Did I miss something? Was this supposed to be an
operatic gag that left me heaving on the floor because it falls way short of
the mark. It's worth a smirk, if anything but not the substantial build up it
is afforded. Although I did like the jokes about not having the parts and 'you
wont even know we're here.' What
the hell is going on with Peter and his imaginary boyfriend that nobody else
can see? I couldn't work out if it was supposed to be dramatic or
amusing...it's just pretty weird.
Standout Scene: Nothing could have prepared me for the
moment when Bernice asked for the music to be a little funkier and 'Adventure
is my Game' started piping out of the speakers. I thought we had long forgotten
that abomination and to see it return only to have the piss ripped out of
it...well I was cracking up.
Result: Perhaps they should have included a laughter track.
Everybody Loves Irving is pure sitcom Benny and very hard to take seriously.
Everything is a comically exaggerated; the midget salesmen, the
banter between Bernice and Braxiatel and the fact that they share a bed,
Peter's imaginary lover, the Al Capone-style businessman to the plumbers that
are presented as the new big bad. It's a strange place to leave the Legion box
set, far more concerned with setting up a bolt hole for Brax and his new
companions to settle into than pulling together any narrative threads that have been started in this box set. Having three stories doesn't really
give the writers the opportunity to tell a larger story unless you are going to
tell one long serial and so instead the choice was made to tell three
completely diverse standalone tales. Everybody Loves Irving is far more
interested in asking questions rather than answering them, whetting peoples
appetites for Missing Persons. There isn't really a narrative to speak of, not a great deal seems to happen throughout and I was left waiting for a punchline that never came. The real saving grace was the chemistry between Bowerman and Richardson which is a continuing delight. It does
feel a bit of a waste of an hour given the juicy threads that have been left
dangling. I would rather invest my time in the continuing domestic drama
between Peter and Benny or the mystery surrounding Ruth, Jack and Irving than
wasting my time listening the to sitcom exploits of space plumbers. Given there is only eight more stories from this creative team left to be told it seems strange to waste any of the valuable spots in the schedule on something quite this vacuous. An odd
release, one that defies justification and climaxes the Legion set (which has
otherwise been dense and thrilling) on a strangely unfulfilling note: 5/10
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