Demons' third episode was an endurance test, as it pushed me to my limits. This episode became a battle of wills between me and this insult to television. Who would look away first?
Also before I begin I really have to moan about ITV's Catch Up player, it is absolute crap. It gave up on the episode ten minutes in and I had to close the window and load the page from scratch. Come on ITV, swallow your pride and give some money to the BBC so you can use the iPlayer tech. Watching Demons is hard enough as it is without having to fight with the tiny, crappy video with lousy audio.
Anyway, this week Galvin gets all vengeance filled when an old enemy arrives in town. Mr. Tibbs is a rat-demon-dude-thing or half-life if you want to use the show's terminology, I think mine is snappier. Galvin rushes off to confront the rat man and almost gets beaten up by the hyena-hoody-things but manages to rescue a girl called Grace from Mr. Tibbs' clutches. But oh no! She's actually a mole planted by Tibbs to gain access to the Stacks so he can blow it up. Meanwhile Ruby moans a lot about being useless (she's totally NOT a female Xander or anything) but finds out she can be useful by saving everyone from death. Mr Tibbs escapes so that Demons has at least one recurring villain, or "Large Evil" as the show will probably call him in that totally-not-a-Buffy-rip-off way that it has.
Below are some of my snarky thoughts that I jotted down while enduring the episode.
There's crap fight choreography at the start as Luke fights the hoodies (who are called the Noisy Boys - really? Was that the best name they could come up with?) and they just dance around a bit whilst he waves his arms at them in an exaggerated and slow manner. I take back everything I've ever said about Merlin and Robin Hood's fight scenes, none of them were ever as bad as the so called combat in this show. This is what happens when you save money in the budget by not hiring a fight choreographer.
At the end of the fight Galvin fails to quote Arnie when the last remaining mook shrieks about being let go. Come on Galvin you're supposed to say "I lied" and then kill him.
When Galvin visits the evil villain hideout there's quite a bit of dramatic slo-mo, is this a tribute to Garth Marenghi's attempts to extend the running time of his episodes of Darkplace?
When Galvin frees Grace from her comedy size bird cage, how does the magic demon (sorry, half-life) killing gun blow up a lock? Isn't it designed only to kill monsters and give a nasty bruise to anyone normal. Maybe it was a demonic lock - oooooooooooo! Spooky.
Why doesn't Mina's limo driver ever speak? Shouldn't he at least make alarmed noises when a bunch of demon hoodies are trying to tear the doors off his car? Maybe he's a zombie driver. Man, I've had two great ideas for a Demons episode already, a zombie limo driver and a demonic padlock. What an episode that would make.
Galvin gripes throughout the episode about his dead wife that we've never met. Oh boo hoo hoo. There isn't even an 80s montage flashback of Galvin and Mrs. Galvin frolicking together before she died; way to give us some emotional link to Galvin's hatred for Mr. Tibbs, stupid show!
Galvin's a Smiter? Definitely not a Slayer or a Watcher then. This show reminds me of one of those cheap knock-off, made of lead toys from Asia that eventually poison and kill you.
Mina gets smashed in the face with a bookend by Grace and there's not a mark on her. I know this is an early evening Saturday show but come on, they could at least have shown a bit of a bruise or a small trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth like in a martial arts movie.
Mr. Tibbs invades the Stacks and plants a bomb with a dramatically long timer on it. There's no need for this as he seems to travel across London in about 10 minutes in order to capture and gloat at Luke and Galvin. He also shoots Grace because her character didn't have anything to do after opening the Stacks for him. I guess Mr. Tibbs didn't need an interesting sidekick to explain his evil plans to in later episodes.
Ruby threatens to leave the show but doesn't. Boooooo.
So there's a bomb about to kill Mina and destroy the Stacks and the show decides to cut to a long and boring heart to heart chat between Ruby and Luke's Mum. Nice way to kill the tension. I don't remember 24 ever showing a bomb timer and then cutting to Chloe eating a 12" sub.
Not satisfied with the chat, Ruby wanders around the sewers talking to herself. Shut up, shut up, shut up! There's so much padding in this show, it belongs on the shoulders of a Joan Collins' 80's power suit.
Ruby keeps talking to herself while she defuses the bomb by using a bomb disposal book. Sheesh.
Luke and Galvin get trapped in a cliched water trap. The water in the chamber rises rapidly, apart from when Galvin and Luke have a heart to heart because then it magically stops so water doesn't get in their mouths and reduces the conversation to a series of complex gargles. That's convenient.
Ruby then proves herself by saving Galvin and Luke (well, technically she cheated when she saved Luke and Galvin because Mina did all the hard work with her psychic powers). Ruby is the anti-Xander, female and incredibly irritating.
Mr. Tibbs escapes probably to return in one of the three remaining episodes. Or in a spare moment when he's not making another pirate movie. I can't wait.
Next Episode - Vampires! Mina is the Mina from Bram Stoker's book. Shock.
5 comments:
I don't remember Ruby probing herself in this episode, though I may have fallen asleep. Or is this one of those rare typo things?
It's a rare collector's item, an Aaron typo! It's gone now of course...
Ah, now I've found other typos. They're all fixed now and some segments have been tidied. I obviously wasn't in the writing zone last night. Gah.
Of course a library filled with books on combating the supernatural would have an old leather bound tome on bomb disposal. Of course.
Of course.
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