We resumed watching Sky, planning to run through the final three parts tonight and tomorrow. Truthfully, our son is not enjoying this story anywhere nearly as much as I am. I think this is just fantastic, inventive and full of ideas. He’s gone from finding it “creepy” to “scary” to “crazy.”
One problem is that while we’re meant to sympathize with Sky and his teenager friends, they sure aren’t making it easy on the audience. Sky is not really able to answer questions, and he’s haughty and superior. The goal is to get him to the Juganet, whatever that is, so he can leave. Absolutely nobody will be sorry to see him go. Because Goodchild is willing to destroy anything that protects Sky, he’s putting lots of people in danger while everyone puzzles out what the Juganet is.
In part five, they finally get enough clues to reason out that the Juganet may have something to do with sacred sites, and there is an ancient burial mound nearby. Sky meets up with a pair of dropouts who live in an old graffiti-covered caravan with their baby. The girl doesn’t seem like she’s having a good life with her fellow dressing in rags and beads and reading Thomas Malory. The hippie thinks that Sky might be an obscure figure called Evalake, who is apparently mentioned briefly in Le Morte d’Arthur. (I confess I know extremely little about Arthurian lore, and this story seems to just glance off Malory before going its own way, but “Evalake” may be a mistranslation or a corruption of the name “Avallach,” if you’re curious what this serial’s writers, Bob Baker and Dave Martin, may have been reading among their influences.)
Anyway, Goodchild makes another attack, and this one’s a beauty. The young couple’s trailer is surrounded and enveloped by vines which smash the windows and try to kill everyone inside. While modern eyes may need to suspend a little disbelief in what was clearly a massive drain on HTV’s modest resources, it really is a remarkably frightening moment. You know that Sky’s going to get out, but these innocent bystanders might not.
This is great, great stuff, but, in deference to our son, we’ll finish it up in one go tomorrow instead of stretching it out further. Well, he came around to “Revenge of the Cybermen” in a big and unexpected way after hating the first three parts. Maybe Baker and Martin will pull out a win in the end?
Fire Breathing Dimetrodon Time 