Timeslip 2: The Time of the Ice Box

Peter Fairley is back, explaining to us about Time Bubbles – not very well if truth be told, and a minute and a half of this tosh is more than enough. Mrs. Skinner, still telepathically linked with Liz, seems to be freezing to death, for the kids have landed up in a future ice age. Ah, the two of them are rescued by someone in a very late 60s sci fi survival suit! This is what I wanted to see. He takes them back to base, where everyone is dressed in a very late 60s idea of what future clothes would be like – all miniskirts and bacofoil for the ladies, and flares and bacofoil for the gents. Simon and liz are placed on inflatable ribbed bubble couches, and put into what appear to be Perspex coffins to be resuscitated. Oooh, I’m already far more excited than by anything I saw in the first six epsodes, and we haven’t even reached the ad break yet. Deveraux, an old geezer, who is the director of the base,  is seemingly connected up to a computer by electrodes in his head. When he extracts himself it turns out he is played by John Barron – who played Reggie Perrin’s boss CJ in the classic sitcom “The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin”. I shouted , “I didn’t get where I am today by having electrodes stuck to my forehead!” I shouted. (Ask your parents – or if they’re young, your grandparent.) He climbs down from his pod, and gives the lead singer of Mungo Jerry (well it looked like him) a telling off for human error , “the last thing we can accept in a ‘technicalogical’ world”. Yes, I’ve watched it twice and he definitely says this instead of technological. We learn that the base is the International Institute for Biological Research, which is nicknamed the Ice Box, and the year is 1990. Which begs the question why they’re still sing a massive computer with reel to reel magnetic tapes – the rest of us were on Commodore amigas with floppy discs round about the same time. In a rather long scene with an ancient battleaxe called Doctor Joynton the kids learn where they are – quite close to the South Pole as it turns out. She thinks that the two of them are volunteers for an experiment of some kind. The first episode gives us no hint what this might involve until at the end we’re told it involves HA57, a longevity drug. When they learn that it’s 1990 they sneak off to take a couple of survival suits to get back to the barrier. However Liz catches sight of her own mother just as they’re about to leave.

In episode 2 the kids actually complete their escape and find themselves back in 1970. There’s a touching scene where Liz thanks Simon for always being so kind to her, and he totally rejects her. They are debriefed by Traynor, who starts angling for them to go back through the barrier, but Frank puts his foot down to reject the idea. Traynor, though, doesn’t give up easily. Even after they’ve left St. Oswald he turns up at the house, and even though Mrs. S. isn’t listening, he buttonholes Simon. For Simon has told him the name of the director of the Ice Box – Morgan C. Deveraux – a personal friend of Traynor’s. Who has apparently already died by 1970 – Traynor attended his funeral. That’s enough to persuade Simon to accompany him back to the barrier. Traynor, it turns out, has a nice line in 1970s misogyny. In fact this episode is more about Traynor than anyone else as he starts to reveal himself more and more as a ruthless man who would probably sacrifice both kids to gain information. Dennis Quilley is rather good in this. Simon going changes the equation, and even Frank agrees to sending Liz back in after him. Back in the Ice Box Simon is being told off by Deveraux, and when Simon mentions Traynor, firstly he gets very evasive, and then angry. Liz, at the same time, finds her Mum’s room, where there is a photograph of the two if them. When mum comes back into her room she is shocked to see Liz, and then we get the best moment of the series so far. Beth, who we met in the previous episode, is a younger member of the base personnel who has conceived a dislike for Liz and Simon. She comes into mummy’s room, and Mummy explains that Beth and Liz are one and the same person. Great.

In episode 3, with the reprise of the ending of episode 2, I was struck by the oddness of Beth calling what turns out to be her own mother ‘Jean’. Also it begs the question why she is surprised at Liz appearing. Surely she should have remembered doing it? Actually the episode does use this as a plot point. Beth, it turns out, had something traumatic happen in 1980 which decided her to change her name and reject her life up to that point. She is, not to put too fine a point on it, a first class bitch. Jean, her mother seems more sympathetic, but even she cocks a deaf ‘un to Liz’s questions about what has happened to her father. When she meets up with Simon and tells him that she will become Beth this upsets him, meanwhile Beth questions Deveraux whether Simon and Liz really are the volunteers that the computer has promised them. This becomes rather a filling in time episode, with various bits of information fed to us via Bukov the scientist talking to Simon. The two kids are given the longevity drug HA57, although we don’t see them take it. Simon goes snooping in the Director’s office to find his ‘testament’ – the notes on the AB experiment which he has so far refused to share with anyone else on the base. Caught just as he is about to enter the Director’s secret room, the Director starts to strangle him, then seemingly seizes up completely, then, when Bukov enters, he seems normal for a moment, before going tonto again. Outside, Bukov drops his bombshell – Deveraux is not a normal human being, he is, quote, “A man of the future”.

The 4th episode of the story (episode 10 overall) sees Bukov continue his revelation, that Deveraux is actually a clone. Beth tells Liz she is going to lock her up for her own good, to which Liz observes that she is a ‘rotten old cow’ – believe me for children’s TV in 1970 that is pretty shocking. Jean, her Mum, comes into the room, and finally she starts answering some of Liz’s questions. Apparently Liz undertook to have her intelligence enhanced, I much the way that Bukov had talked about with Simon in the previous episode. This seemingly caused the change in her personality. Jean baulks at saying what happened to Liz’ father, though. All she will say is that he’s not dead. In what starts off as quite an innocuous scene, Beth reveals what the purpose of the AB experiment is – to remove Simon and Liz’ organs and replace them with machine parts. Later on Liz reveals to her mum what is going to happen to them, and still her mum won’t speak out against what is going on. The Director gives Simon another telling off, but again seizes up when he does so. Finally another great cliffhanger ending. Dr. Joynton is plugged into the computer, being fed images of her home in New Zealand, when she collapses in agony, pushing the panic button as she does so. When the others come running they find that she has aged suddenly and drastically and died.  

In episode 5/11 the increasingly unstable Deveraux decides that Joynton’s death is down to human error, and is therefore a case of murder, and it is Mungo Jerry he blames. Beth reveals that Liz and Simon have been in Deveraux’s office again, and Liz reveals that he keeps a second computer hidden in his secret room. He orders the two kids to be locked up in an electronic shield. The computer reveals that Larry did nothing wrong, and Deveraux’s behaviour becomes even more erratic – he starts talking about the computer almost as a person that sets tricks to catch him out. He tells Beth that she does not know what the inner computer is for, but he may well reveal it to her if she can show herself loyal enough. He says it has something to do with the way that Liz and Simon were selected as the volunteers. Back in the electronic shield, Simon expounds his theory that they are not going to have their limbs replaced, because by 1990 Liz will be Beth, who doesn’t have any. This actually introduces an important question about whether the future they have come to is unchangeable or not. Jean arrives, and even though she does not know how to lower the shield she says that the kids have to go back through the time barrier. Simon works out that none of this actually has to happen if they can just get back. After the break Bukov tells Larry that both he and Joynton were responsible for keeping an eye on the Director. Beth’s depth check reveals that there was an error and that the subjects for the experiment were never sent, therefore Liz and Simon are not the volunteers. She goes into the secret room to tell Deveraux, who is hooked up to the second computer and in a hell of a state – not quite the full cluck cluck gibber, but getting n that way. He loses his rag completely, and she runs out. When he emerges, he tells Beth that the brain link with the computer has told him that Liz and Simon committed Joynton’s murder. Larry goes to see the two kids, and Liz seems to persuade him to blow a fuse which will set them free. Beth is trying to reconcile the fact that the Director has said that the error message is a forgery, while she knows for certain that it wasn’t. Simon and Liz go to get the suits on to go back into the cold and find the barrier. Yet it’s only the 5^th episode – there’s another to go. What will happen? Well, Simon decides he still wants to find out more about the longevity drug. He sends Liz to go to the barrier. On the way she finds a couple of ice encased bodies. Guess who the first one is? Daddy!

12 episodes into the series, and finally we’re in living colour! Originally the whole series was recorded and broadcast in colour, with the exception of episodes 23 and 24, which were affected by industrial action. Only black and white recordings of the first 11 episodes exist. Back to the story, Bukov tells Larry and Beth his concerns over Deveraux, but Beth will have none of it. Liz tries to wake Frank up, but it doesn’t work. Liz obviously goes back to the base for help, and the two bodies are brought in. It turns out Frank has been in hibernation. The only way that Jean would be allowed to come to the Ice Box with Beth, so it transpires, was by Frank, for whom there was no use in the Ice Box, agreeing to take part in the hibernation experiment. He was supposed to stay under the ice for at least 10 years. Spunky Liz at last seems to start to get through to Beth about the Director. We end part one with Bukov about to show the Director the report he is about to send to their bosses. The temperature begins dropping, while Simon goes back snooping into Deveraux’s secret room again. As Beth and Liz join him he explains about Deveraux being a clone. The testament with the secret of the longevity drug is, he has worked out, that it exists in Deveraux’s head, and thus passes from clone to clone. Bukv relieves Deveraux of command. The scene switches back to Liz and Simon, and it’s rather lovely since the both of them are standing still, and then start ‘acting’ being cold a second or two later. Lovely. Bukov and Larry appear on the scene, restraining the Director then putting him into an electronic shield. He is then forced to confront the fact that his blackouts caused Joynton’s death and all the other problems with the Ice Box. Temperature keeps dropping, and they tell him to fix his mistakes. He refuses, and runs out onto the ice. Nothing will save the Ice Box, so Simon suggests that the others take the anti freeze hibernation drug that Bukov showed him a few episodes ago, and then wait for rescue. Liz gives her parents the anti freeze, and promises Jean that she will prevent all of this from happening. As they leave for the barrier, Liz and Simon walk past the frozen Deveraux.

Verdict

Comparing this story with the previous, for me this is much of an improvement, and I tend to think that the show owes its good reputation far more to this story than that one. Let’s get the negatives out of the way first, though. It’s still a little slow moving. There’s a lot of info dumping talk. Not only that, but if we take episode 12, then in the last 5 minutes we spend 30 odd seconds pulling in to a close up of an emergency light . . . which never comes on anyway. I don’t think that the pace is quite as leisurely as the first story, but there are times when it does seem to be consciously dragging its feet.

On the positive side, though, this does move forward to a conclusion, the confrontation with Deveraux. I find John Barron to be a very interesting actor – not necessarily a great actor, for example, there’s quite a bit of what we will come to see as CJ from “The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin” here. But he is fairly compelling. We never really got a proper ending to the first story, but this one does wrap everything up with the demise of Deveraux and the Ice Box in general. Not only that, but there’s the sub-plot of Liz/Beth and what will happen to her family, and the question of just how much she will be able to change this potential future. The way that the overarching narrative is being linked in with the fates of Liz and her family is a definite strength of the developing series.

In many ways this had a harder job to do in visual terms than the first story, and for me it does it rather well. The story has to look like it is the future. Note I say ‘the future’ and not ‘1990’. For this does not look one little bit like I remember 1990. However, it DOES very much look like what we imagined the future would look like in 1970. This is something recognisable as the future according to 1970 – and looking at the colour episode, it does it pretty much as well as contemporary Doctor Who did. Where the budget does show is in the lack of personnel on the base – we only ever see a handful.

People have made the observation in the past that “Timeslip” was like a children’s TV “Doomwatch”. For the benefit of the uninitiated, “Doomwatch” was an adult BBC sci fi drama show running from 1970 - 72 in which a present day team investigated and fought against technological and ecological threats to the Earth. I can see what they mean. Mind you, you can also draw a comparison with contemporary Doctor Who – during this period the Doctor had been exiled to Earth, and with a very few exceptions the stories between 1970-73 concerned threats to contemporary Earth. Coming back to “Timeslip”, one of the great strengths of this story is the number of hard sci fi concepts which feature in it – climate change – over-reliance on computers and technology – cloning – increased life span – even virtual reality all feature to a greater or lesser extent in this narrative.