March 07, 2011

A Blind Eye (2004)

I had high hopes for this final story of the first series of Gallifrey, the series so far. Written by Alan Barnes ‘A Blind Eye’ had a lot to live up to, tell a good story but compliment the other stories from the first series. When listening to the trailer at the end of ‘The Inquiry’ I thought that the story would feature Charley but instead we get Cecilia Pollard who is Charley’s sister who is a fascist sympathiser. The story is the first (and to date only) story to be set on Earth and it’s an interesting tale which for some reason doesn’t quite fit in with the other stories. It’s about (as the title suggests) turning a blind eye. At the beginning, Romana is asked to turn a Blind eye to what Arkadian is planning on doing. There is also a mention of the events of ‘Neverland’ (2003) where Romana turns a Blind Eye and this theme carries on.

The story is set largely on a train and is a different type of my favourite story setting. The isolated setting is always a fantastic way of telling a story because it gives that theatre play feel which means that the focus can be put on the acting and what’s going on instead of remembering where people are and wasting time in journeys toeing and froing.

This episode does a great job of dealing with the Andred disappearance story-arc. It wasn’t what I was expecting but oddly it was believable and I think that it enabled Louise Jameson to put in some of her finest acting in this series so far. I also thought that Lalla Ward put in a good performance but was in this case outshone by Louise Jameson. The supporting cast do a great job with India Fisher being the biggest name. At the time she was putting in strong performances as Charley and as Cecilia Pollard she is also very good but it is hard to like her as much due to her views on the Nazi’s. Hugo Myatt is for me a massive name because I am massive fan of the Children’s show Knightmare that aired on ITV1 from 1987 to 1994 (he played Treguard). I thought as Arkadian he was very good and the character was funny and entertaining. Susan Engel (Ms Joy) was another character that was livened up the story. The ‘regulars’ such as Narvin (Sean Carlsen) and Braxiatel (Miles Richardson) also work well in this story. In fact there isn’t a dud performance at all.

The final scene is very sad. Cecelia is writing a letter to a sister that we know is travelling in time and will never read it. The last sound that we hear is a gun which signals that Cecelia has killed herself like we are told earlier. This story isn’t the final story that I was hoping for but that’s not to say it’s a bad story. I think that all the performances are all very good and it’s a nice end to this first series. I think that so far the Gallifrey series has been everything that I would expect with strong performances in every single story. Now onwards with series two.

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