Post by niecie on Aug 7, 2013 19:32:04 GMT -5
That is one exciting teaser! The man of steel, lining out to his soon-to-be victim the reasons why he's about to kill him, and then telling Jim to be prudent and walk away. Jim's surprise when he hits the guy with a karate chop only to hit steel. Jim falls, but he's quick to get back up and try again to stop the assassin, shooting him time and again, and finally shooting him in the head -- all to no avail! How do you stop an unstoppable man?
And then they go to the opening credits as Torres is advancing on Jim, reaching for Jim's neck!
So how do you stop the unstoppable man? You throw a smoke bomb at him!
There are some things about this episode that various people have pointed out to me. One is Torres' voice: either John Dehner could produce that metallic sound himself, or else his voice was put through some sort of synthesizer (which tends to make me think of the voices of the Daleks on Doctor Who!). Another is a bit of a mistake when Artie is using the telegraph on the train as they are receiving the second message: in the longer shots, he is plainly wearing a white shirt, but in the close-ups on the hand tapping on the telegraphic key, he's wearing a dark shirt instead.
(Ooo! Artie gets called Jim's partner this time!)
Nina Gilbert. Oh dear. Now, I realize the writers' object was to make a very plain difference between her normal self and her hypnotized self later on, but did they have to make her normal self so thoroughly unpleasant? When she rags on Our Heroes for not having learned in that first week about the assassination plot, I want to give her a little shake and tell her, 'Well, maybe they would have learned about the plot if you had told someone about the evidence you've been holding back, lady!'
Her 'I'm smarter than you are' attitude really annoys me. And her plan to head down to Texas to confront Torres face to face makes me want to facepalm.
(But then Artie's remark about educating women makes me want to not just facepalm, but headdesk.)
Spooky mansion, and is that Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor? Classic something-bad-is-about-to-happen music.
How do the gates close themselves? The latch even latches itself!
I do like it that, left on her own, Nina goes to the bookcase and looks over the titles there. Exactly what I would have done!
Ah, and this episode marks the first of three times Arthur Malet shows up on WWW. He's always a delight! This time he's Dr Meyer, who tells Artie about Torres' many operations and how Torres himself designed the many steel implants he now bristles with, and how the man endured those operations without pain-killers.
Whenever Torres walks, he moves as if he's stiff and in pain.
Well, at least he hypnotizes Nina instead of killing her.
Now, when Jim shows up at the fiesta and the camera pans over to the right, it took me a bit the first time I watched the episode after getting it on DVD to realize that was Artie over there, miming a conversation with the pretty señorita. On the other hand, when I heard Artie doing his Pres Grant impersonation during this scene, I did wonder if he'd be impersonating the president a bit more directly by the end of the episode.
Ah, the mask girl! Most of the time Artie's attempts at flirting just make me cringe; this is one of the few times I don't. I really like how he says 'If that smile goes with it!' and she just lights up. (I know I would have smiled my face off if that line had been directed at me.)
Then he buys the masks, and Jim calls his name, and Artie leaves the girl with both the money and the masks.
I love Artie's line to Jim about talking for himself. Apparently Artie was just gearing up to flirt with the hostess when Jim sent her away.
And now we meet Alt-Nina. The actress does, in my opinion, a very good job of portraying exactly what Torres had told Nina to become, a child in a woman's body. She wiggles in that skimpy outfit, but to me, she's not trying to be alluring, she's just being silly and having fun.
Jim picks her up and hauls her off, with her just looking happy at the fun she's having, and Artie does one of his 'Everybody, look at me!' speeches. To me, describing Jim as the girl's father is a bit stretching it -- brother might have been better, I think -- but it works and that's the important part. (Well, probably the main reason it worked is that Artie told everyone to belly up to the bar, 'cause he's buying!)
Jim goes off with the girl and gets into a fight. And what is Artie doing? Flirting again.
Great Aunt Maude sighting! She told Artie never to go anywhere with strangers.
Yikes, that needle!
Wow, Mr Torres prepared for everything, didn't he, having those tubes imbedded in the wall to spray knock-out gas on them all. When I watched this for the first time and Artie fell in the water, it scared me good! And Jim, bless him, instantly goes to his knees and holds out his hand to try to help Artie back out of the water, only to succumb to the gas himself.
I was very glad to see a certain face on that cart in the first scene of Act Four, let me tell you.
By the way, in just about every scene when Torres is in some room that he owns, if you look, there's that lamp! Does he carry it around with him wherever he goes, or does he have fourteen copies of the same lamp?
Pay attention to the speech that one guy makes. Doesn't he repeat himself?
I have trouble telling which rocket is supposed to go off first, the one headed for Jim or the one headed for Grant. I would think that if the first rocket shoots into the room, won't that alert the people on the cart, possibly causing Grant to evacuate the cart (or the cart to drive away)? Yet it really looks to me like the rocket aimed at Jim is the first one, and I think it should be second.
(You can see the wire the rocket is running on as it heads for the window.)
Strangely, no one on the cart seems to be particularly concerned that two rockets just went zipping into the window of the building opposite -- no one but the guest of honor, that is.
By the way, anyone recognize Torres' main henchie? I finally did on this viewing. The actor, Allen Jaffe, shows up again in TNOT Brain, playing Brain's main henchie, Leeto.
Torres in the end chooses to avoid a hanging. But when Artie rushes in, he explains his own survival after falling into that same waterhole by saying there's headroom (meaning air pockets) all the way down to the river. So... is it possible that the iron man might have survived as well? Plot bunny, anyone?
And then there's the tag. Real president shows up and gives his speech, and there in the background is Artie walking along, carrying that infernal lamp! I suppose you have all noticed that when Nina reverts and starts pitches things at our boys, Artie ducks in time to avoid being hit by the pillow, but in crossing to Jim's side, he actually walks into the trajectory of the book! You can see and hear it hit him! The way his hands shake, you can tell it really hurt Ross -- and yet he doesn't break character and pushes through to deliver the next line, since it's his.
And then at the very end, just as it cuts away to the train, you can see that Jim has decided to start throwing things back!
And then they go to the opening credits as Torres is advancing on Jim, reaching for Jim's neck!
So how do you stop the unstoppable man? You throw a smoke bomb at him!
There are some things about this episode that various people have pointed out to me. One is Torres' voice: either John Dehner could produce that metallic sound himself, or else his voice was put through some sort of synthesizer (which tends to make me think of the voices of the Daleks on Doctor Who!). Another is a bit of a mistake when Artie is using the telegraph on the train as they are receiving the second message: in the longer shots, he is plainly wearing a white shirt, but in the close-ups on the hand tapping on the telegraphic key, he's wearing a dark shirt instead.
(Ooo! Artie gets called Jim's partner this time!)
Nina Gilbert. Oh dear. Now, I realize the writers' object was to make a very plain difference between her normal self and her hypnotized self later on, but did they have to make her normal self so thoroughly unpleasant? When she rags on Our Heroes for not having learned in that first week about the assassination plot, I want to give her a little shake and tell her, 'Well, maybe they would have learned about the plot if you had told someone about the evidence you've been holding back, lady!'
Her 'I'm smarter than you are' attitude really annoys me. And her plan to head down to Texas to confront Torres face to face makes me want to facepalm.
(But then Artie's remark about educating women makes me want to not just facepalm, but headdesk.)
Spooky mansion, and is that Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor? Classic something-bad-is-about-to-happen music.
How do the gates close themselves? The latch even latches itself!
I do like it that, left on her own, Nina goes to the bookcase and looks over the titles there. Exactly what I would have done!
Ah, and this episode marks the first of three times Arthur Malet shows up on WWW. He's always a delight! This time he's Dr Meyer, who tells Artie about Torres' many operations and how Torres himself designed the many steel implants he now bristles with, and how the man endured those operations without pain-killers.
Whenever Torres walks, he moves as if he's stiff and in pain.
Well, at least he hypnotizes Nina instead of killing her.
Now, when Jim shows up at the fiesta and the camera pans over to the right, it took me a bit the first time I watched the episode after getting it on DVD to realize that was Artie over there, miming a conversation with the pretty señorita. On the other hand, when I heard Artie doing his Pres Grant impersonation during this scene, I did wonder if he'd be impersonating the president a bit more directly by the end of the episode.
Ah, the mask girl! Most of the time Artie's attempts at flirting just make me cringe; this is one of the few times I don't. I really like how he says 'If that smile goes with it!' and she just lights up. (I know I would have smiled my face off if that line had been directed at me.)
Then he buys the masks, and Jim calls his name, and Artie leaves the girl with both the money and the masks.
I love Artie's line to Jim about talking for himself. Apparently Artie was just gearing up to flirt with the hostess when Jim sent her away.
And now we meet Alt-Nina. The actress does, in my opinion, a very good job of portraying exactly what Torres had told Nina to become, a child in a woman's body. She wiggles in that skimpy outfit, but to me, she's not trying to be alluring, she's just being silly and having fun.
Jim picks her up and hauls her off, with her just looking happy at the fun she's having, and Artie does one of his 'Everybody, look at me!' speeches. To me, describing Jim as the girl's father is a bit stretching it -- brother might have been better, I think -- but it works and that's the important part. (Well, probably the main reason it worked is that Artie told everyone to belly up to the bar, 'cause he's buying!)
Jim goes off with the girl and gets into a fight. And what is Artie doing? Flirting again.
Great Aunt Maude sighting! She told Artie never to go anywhere with strangers.
Yikes, that needle!
Wow, Mr Torres prepared for everything, didn't he, having those tubes imbedded in the wall to spray knock-out gas on them all. When I watched this for the first time and Artie fell in the water, it scared me good! And Jim, bless him, instantly goes to his knees and holds out his hand to try to help Artie back out of the water, only to succumb to the gas himself.
I was very glad to see a certain face on that cart in the first scene of Act Four, let me tell you.
By the way, in just about every scene when Torres is in some room that he owns, if you look, there's that lamp! Does he carry it around with him wherever he goes, or does he have fourteen copies of the same lamp?
Pay attention to the speech that one guy makes. Doesn't he repeat himself?
I have trouble telling which rocket is supposed to go off first, the one headed for Jim or the one headed for Grant. I would think that if the first rocket shoots into the room, won't that alert the people on the cart, possibly causing Grant to evacuate the cart (or the cart to drive away)? Yet it really looks to me like the rocket aimed at Jim is the first one, and I think it should be second.
(You can see the wire the rocket is running on as it heads for the window.)
Strangely, no one on the cart seems to be particularly concerned that two rockets just went zipping into the window of the building opposite -- no one but the guest of honor, that is.
By the way, anyone recognize Torres' main henchie? I finally did on this viewing. The actor, Allen Jaffe, shows up again in TNOT Brain, playing Brain's main henchie, Leeto.
Torres in the end chooses to avoid a hanging. But when Artie rushes in, he explains his own survival after falling into that same waterhole by saying there's headroom (meaning air pockets) all the way down to the river. So... is it possible that the iron man might have survived as well? Plot bunny, anyone?
And then there's the tag. Real president shows up and gives his speech, and there in the background is Artie walking along, carrying that infernal lamp! I suppose you have all noticed that when Nina reverts and starts pitches things at our boys, Artie ducks in time to avoid being hit by the pillow, but in crossing to Jim's side, he actually walks into the trajectory of the book! You can see and hear it hit him! The way his hands shake, you can tell it really hurt Ross -- and yet he doesn't break character and pushes through to deliver the next line, since it's his.
And then at the very end, just as it cuts away to the train, you can see that Jim has decided to start throwing things back!