Star Cops - Conversations With the Dead (S1E2)

The introductory ep of Star Cops had a cast of characters who treated death in a rather chilly fashion.  In this second  ep, loss of life is more keenly felt, especially by Nathan Spring.  Lee Jones, Nathan's girlfriend, is murdered.  Meanwhile, his officer David Theroux is looking into an accident that has set a spacebound couple on a trajectory which will see them run out of oxygen with no recovery possible.  The crew at the moonbase react in their individual ways, but all are devastated by the inevitable deaths of their colleagues.  The episode is all about grief, a welcome and stark contrast to the insouciance of 'An Instinct for Murder'.  As a newcomer to the show, it's a relief to see that 'Star Cops' does have a heart after all.

I think my initial guess was right, though, that the coldness of the first episode was a deliberate part of this fictional landscape.  Nathan, being a cop, damn well wants to find Lee's murderer himself but is bluntly told to butt out by the cop (Devis) who's actually assigned to the case.  Devis is one of those TV police who is pigheaded, incurious, unimaginative, uncaring, rude, and wouldn't bat an eye if the case  was closed without a solution - less work for him to bother with.  That's all Lee's death is to him, work.  He's not much like Nathan except in that one crucial regard: a life lost is not felt personally, it's just an academic puzzle to solve.  Karmically speaking, Nathan has has met himself and it's a slap in the face.  Butt out?  Someone he loves has just been brutally murdered and he's supposed to just whistle  his  way back to the moon?  It isn't just indifference, either, Devis tips his hand with a snide remark about leaving the job to "real policemen", revealing his contempt for the 'star cops'. Later Devis will show a more sympathetic side but admit that he finds Spring "a bit sentimental for my taste".

Lee's murder is a small masterpiece of budget-conscious staging.  She returns home to find that a message from Nathan awaits her, laden with security  encoding that takes forever to get through.  That it's from Nathan makes us more urgent than it does her, we know it must be important.  We get more anxious the further the scene progresses, the more we want to hear that message.  When it comes, it's a dire warning that Lee's life is in danger...and it just sits there  with Lee in another room not seeing it.  The lights go out. A stranger has broken in.   Hitchcock would be proud of the manipulation of both Lee and us.  The message was a ruse to keep Lee in place so that her killer could be sure of her location.

I felt this death too.  Time was devoted to establishing the bond between Nathan and Lee in the first episode, which served as character development for Nathan.  I thought it might lead somewhere, but not here.  Had Lee been introduced in this episode, we wouldn't have shared that loss with Nathan.  Another innovative scene transpires with a grieving Spring at the restaurant at which we saw them before, reliving their last conversation together.  At first it looks like a flashback until we see that Nathan's lips aren't mouthing the words we hear from him.   It's disorienting.   Anyone  who has lost someone dearly loved will have had similar moments of dislocation.  On a personal note, I've just been through that recently, so I know.  It's a poignant scene expertly intuited by director Christopher Baker.

On the moon, personnel are dealing with the unavoidable but still pending deaths of a couple (Mike and Laura) who were shepherding a supply shuttle to Mars.  The shuttle's engine has fired early, forcing them into a trajectory that has sent them on a death course.  They are as good as dead but still alive to know it.  The base personnel are  crushed and try to deal with their grief in their own ways, including arguing about how to take the news and what to do next.  What will Mike and Laura do?  Blow out the airlocks and die quickly?   Play out their time?  Theroux wants to discover whether the engine failure was intentional but finds that his questions are an intrusion on  the attempt to cope with devastating loss.

We never see Mike and Laura, we only hear their transmissions.  At first this bothered me a little.  But I think it helps us to identify with the moonbase personnel. We know the couple are going to die but are too removed from them to do anything about it.  Think of it as  Voight-Kampff empathy test.  We knew Lee already, but we feel even more for Spring...Mike and Lura we don't know at all but we can feel for them, and for the  ones they left behind. Loss is loss.  I wanted to know who the executed Russian girl was in Instinct for Murder but no one gave a damn.

Productionwise, Star Cops is still finding it's feet, just like Nathan in zero-G.  One effective weightless scene involving a  sleeping harness is followed by another unconvincing one of Nathan trying to seat himself at a  console.  In his acrobatics to appear weightless you can see that he is  actually struggling against gravity.  He gets all the moves just right but the illusion is broken by the effort itself.  Ironically, it made me better appreciate the work that went into it from the actor (David Calder) to whoever choreographed the scene.  Incidental music was more on target this time, two pieces of scoring suited  Lee's murder and a sequence luring Spring to a park  for info on the killer.  That theme song has become a lot more on-message now. I like the look of the moonbase and the moonbuggy that gets people  there.  Looks very proto-UFO.

There's another nice touch in Spring's meeting in the park at night.  He is approached by a shady but possibly innocent character who happens to be on roller skates.  You don't often see physical assaults that involve skates.  It's just unusual enough to provide a bit of off-kilter flavor.

Like the previous ep, there are two cases that are unrelated.  One is transparent, the culprit obvious the moment we are introduced.  The other story is far more clever.  I didn't catch it, because like Nathan I kept tuning out the newscasts as so much unwanted distraction.  Both cases bring us back to that same coldbloodedness, a blind eye to the value of other's lives in the face of our own goals.  The people responsible for Lee's death do indeed understand grief and the human psychology that drives it - they understand but don't care except that it is a tool to their own ends.  In neither case will justice be  served.  It's a cold world after all that warm-blooded nobodies like Laura, Mike, and Spring live and die.  The eps finale took me by surprise for Nathan's solution and his unresolved desire for revenge clashing with his self-loathing at having been personally responsible for three deaths now.

9 pairs of rollerskates in the dark. 

My favorite line came when Spring, trying to wrestle down his anger, barks "DEVIS!!  ...d'ya wanna  drink??"

Star Cops - An Instinct for Murder (S1E1)

Let me say right up front that I like Star Cops. I want that right up front because I'm having a serious problem reviewing it.  I've seen the first episode twice and have no idea what to say about it.  It kinda puts my brain on hold, and I haven't been able to pin down why.

The name had me expecting something quite different.  Didn't Gerry Anderson do something about a space precinct?  Rather Star Warsy (think cantina scene), I saw a few minutes of it.  Sounds like an action show.  Could be drama, could be humorous.

What I got instead:  Chief Superintendent Nathan Spring is comfortable in his job and would like to remain so.  Where he's at is conducive to the family he's planning to start.  His superiors, on the other hand, have zero interest in his plans or what he finds comfortable.  He's being forced to take over another department, a move that means personal upheaval.  Nathan is a man old enough and secure enough in his position that he likes to wear sweats to work while the younger officers under his command dress chic.  He's not yet retirement age, but he's not young anymore.  Nathan is soft-spoken, a man of consideration, and given to a dry ironic humor.  His manner is amiable but slightly put-upon.  He's not world weary...just weary.  No go-getter, in his estimation he's already gone and got.   Keeping in mind that this is a production for British television, this plays very much like any number of police mysteries (I'm especially fond of Inspector Morse).  It's all played with understatement, not histrionics.  So far so good.

So, "Star Cops"?  Yes.  The year is 2027 and the setting is the burgeoning world of space exploration in the hands of the international corporations funding it.  We can expect stories of politics, corporate espionage, and the like.  "Star Cops"' innovation is the invention of a  special police force detailed to cover this effort: badges in space.  Spring has been hand-picked to head this agency, the International Space Police Force.  Some wag in the media dubbed them 'Space Cops', and it stuck.  There's nothing flashy here or overtly futuristic, opting for verisimilitude.  Again, I'm on board.  It's a great idea from the show's creator, Chris Boucher of Doctor Who and Blake's 7 fame.  Boucher wrote and directed this introductory episode. 

Two murders have taken place.  We ave two floaters, one in a lake and one in orbit.  We all float up here.  Or would that be 'out here'?  We the audience know they were murders, we saw them happen.  Nathan Spring thinks they might have been and would like to know more.  Various police authorities have decided that no crimes have taken place not on the strength of  the evidence but because a computer analysis has concluded that it's unlikely.  Spring wants the lake death investigated.  On the space station Charles de Gaulle space cop David Theroux finds the number of supposed EVA suit malfunctions (resulting in deaths) suspicious.  Spring is ordered off the Earthbound case and into orbit.  No one really cares, I think, it's just a gambit to secure Spring as the new Space Police Commander. 

On Earth or in space, Spring disdains computer analysis at the expense of human intellect.  He asks of his people that they utilize their own instincts, their capacity for reasoning, curiosity, and observation.  In fact, when the solution to the death in space is revealed it turns out to be one Theroux might have caught were he more fully in the habit of using his own faculties.   He's halfway there, having pressed for the deaths to be questioned instead of taking  the computers assessment as everyone wanted him to.  He will be appointed Spring's second in command. 

Star Cops aired in 1987.  I remember there was a streak of distrust of analysis in police fiction, if not in real life.  Screen heroes with badges universally rolled their eyes at words like"profile" and treated experts with open hostility and ridicule.  Often the analysts were portrayed as incompetent and full of airs .  Today those analysts are glamorized by pop entertainment, from Clarice Starling to NCIS and many other shows.  Spring may be a badge in 2027, but he's pure '80s old school.  This is one of the major conflicts of the episode and I expect it to be a thread throughout the series.  Spring has a technological personal assistant, a boxy device called Box (foreseeing real-life devices like Alexa).  He constantly has to argue with it, cajole it, and rebuke it as if it were alive.  Spring has a measure of reliance on Box he finds annoying.

The kind of story the pilot promises is one of clever manipulation of the rules this fictional realm works on by highly placed instigators we never meet and who may never really be brought to justice.  Spring is a low-level servant, arresting the low-level servants who carry out the crimes.  Very non-Hollywood.

So I do like this show.  Why am In not more enthusiastic yet?  I'm not sure the hybrid works smoothly yet - it's hard to imagine Inspector Morse defending himself with a medical laser.  Space Cops gives us astronaut training instead of an exciting space flight - this is good, sure it saves on the budget but it also stresses a character moment over action.  OTOH we're expected to accept that more sci-fi flavored action does take place even though we're not allowed to see it.  Some of the predicted technology hasn't aged well and I'm doubtful they would have played well even in 1987, if for no other reason than that they clash with the usual contemporary detective fiction.  I've seen Outland, I thought that dd it better.  On the up side, the tech of the spacecraft, stations, etc. are based on current real-world designs, That's crucial to the show's credibility.

It might be the dialog, which is entertaining but hard to follow for the accents and rapid pace of banter.  I like clever dialog, I like it even more when it's not so clever as to obscure its import.  This is not Joss Whedon.  I eventually had to resort to headphones to catch more of the words, that helped.  Dialog often overlaps in Robert Altman style, which suits the verisimilitude but hinders clear presentation of information. 

It's definitely the production.  I'm used to seeing unconvincing sets on Doctor Who, but I don't see why a police station set only a few years in the future should look so little like what you would see in real life when realism is a goal.  They're worse given that the space station locales are more convincing by comparison. The FX of weightlessness are better than expected, lending weight and credibility to the space-borne scenes.  I like the costume design, aside from one Miami Vie escape who rolls up the sleeves of his business jacket.  It's recognizably of our world instead of campy spandex, glitter, and outrageous collars and hats. 

I do have a problem with the theme song and incidental music.  I think the score was meant to be hiply ironic but the choices jar as inappropriate. I can take that if the choices are good, these aren't.  Maybe I'll get used to the theme song (it's by Justin Hayward!) but I doubt it will ever feel like it belongs.

I think what blunted the episode most for me was an emotional disconnect - which I hasten to add may well be a deliberate choice reflecting the theme of humanity surrendered to technology.  People die in this story at an alarming rate yet no one ever seems to care except Spring and Theroux, and I'm not sure it was more than an academic exercise from Spring.  Theroux tries to recruit the help of someone who's more concerned with her recreation.  So what if people are dying, the computer says it's statistically acceptable!  Another innocent is put to death by her government when she was not at fault.  That life lost is no more than a cynical aide, we never meet her nor does anyone express remorse.   There are no grieving friends or relatives.  What drove Morse (sorry, I keep bringing him up but its true for all the others, the best of them) expressed moral outrage and an appreciation of loss. 

Torn between  a 6.5 and a 7.  It's a refreshing premise with a protagonist well-played by David Calder, has an interesting scheme but is hampered by some poor production choices.  Okay, let's give it room to go up...6.5 restaurant TV trolleys.