Long whinge post lost to posterity; you didn't miss much.

Long whinge post about SODA and ICDE deadlines, and their relative placement around US National holidays has been accidentally deleted by virtue of closing a window that shouldn't have been; don't worry, you didn't miss anything special. Instead, I'll just pick up with the whinge about the disappointment that was MacGyver: Trail to Doomsday. While the other Straight-To-TV MacGyver movie from the same year, the previous Movie of the Week "MacGyver and the Treasure of Atlantis", was a chirpy, riproaring Boy's Own style caper, Trail To Doomsday is, well, just a dark, miserable mess. The plot doesn't really make any sense, there are too many characters who don't make any impression, there are several jumps that are incoherent, but still the plot twists are obvious from a mile off. There isn't much scope for MacG's famous swiss-army-knife style innovation (appart from disarming a nuclear device with a conveniently placed tennis racket:



), and he even breaks his cardinal rule by firing a gun. Admittedly, he fires it over a bad guy's head, but that's not the point. This movie, like Atlantis, was filmed mostly in England (presumably the two were made as adouble header), but this time it is actually set there, although it doesn't really benefit from it. One exception: a cute chase scene where the mostly wasted Alun Armstrong looks for MacG in a mocked up Kensington tube station, and MacGyver finds a clever place to hide on the platform:



Lastly, interesting to note that MacGyver's love interest was played by Beatie Edney, who only one year later was one of the leads in Dressing for Breakfast, which I categorically don't remember. While, the innocent child in the middle of all of this was played by Lena Headey, who I happened to see again on Saturday in The Parole Officer. It's all connected, you see. TPO, by the way, is quite passable, entirely what you'd expect, and only mildly amusing, which is a shame. It's a good thing that Henry Normal was on scriptwriting duties though, because it means that he was able to slip in one or two beautiful lines that probably escaped most people's notice. Paraphrasing dramatically: "I'm going to give you a blank piece of paper. You can either wipe your arse with it, or write yourself a new future" "I'm prepared to get my hands dirty for you." Class.

I may or may not remember to update you on two untelevised pilots later, if I can be bothered.