Rate and Discuss: The Leisure Hive

[Jon Masters]

Part 4

The cliffhanger resolution seems deliberately cheesy - all those reaction shots reminds you of 70s TV when they made special effects cheap by never showing them. There are a few nice ideas and images buried in what seems a very rushed episode, but too much of it seems to have been filmed to get from A to B without anyone saying 'Err - why does this happen again ?' (the worst example being Mena's attendants - to get her to the point of death, she has to be on her own - so her attendants go wandering off after the Foamasi out of the boardroom !!).
Technobabble leaps from everywhere, and the decision to make the Generator a cupboard comes back to bite them big time. And, sorry Si, but the last 5 minutes or so are just painful to watch - worse even than the 'we're all friends' of the Awakening. Perhaps shortening Ep 3 and moving the cliffhanger would have been worthwhile after all.

Overall I'd go 6/10 - it looks great a lot of the time, but there's a lot of look over substance for my liking.

[Andrew Curnow]

too much of it seems to have been filmed to get from A to B without anyone saying 'Err - why does this happen again ?' (the worst example being Mena's attendants - to get her to the point of death, she has to be on her own - so her attendants go wandering off after the Foamasi out of the boardroom !!).

Having watched part 4 tonight, I see what you mean Jon... on the other hand, until you'd pointed it out I'd never noticed it before. And to be fair, a lot of TV drama seems, to me, to be about this sort of sleight of hand - so since they "got away with it" until now, I'm not sure it's a real criticism.

Mind you, I'd also not noticed until tonight that there are two helmets of Theron hanging up in the boardroom - the one in the window alcove, which Pangol takes, plus the one hanging above the table (just visible in the same shot).

Although in 1980 I wasn't a fan of this at all, I find myself warming to it more each time I watch it. That may, it's true, be nostalgia as much as anything else, but I do come away from it now with a warm glow. As it were.