This Friday on 'TR 2070' ep 14 'Astral Projections'

This was my favorite episode so far. Well, except for the pilot but at this point I don’t even think of the pilot as belonging to this series as it was so different than where they ended up going.
I thought the writing this episode was better without the drag that usually would happen during most episodes. The pacing of the story and the direction was better. On the negative side what was going on with the music this episode?
I know you all think Olivia is the perfect wife but I don’t understand either David or Olivia in their first scene together. He says he is going and she says something like it would give her time to think and he says “what did you say”. Then she says “oh nothing” and he is like “oh good nothing”. If this was a different show they would show her completely losing it and just go off on him and he would be “where is that coming from”. All the neighbors would tell the reporters she was such a nice quiet girl. Communicate people!
I think they must have gotten some kind of a budget increase for special effects. There were the burn victims (I caught up when I got home) and now the scene where Farve sees his inner robot. This show went from a 2 to a 10 in special effects fast.
I found it interesting when they said that androids were going take the stone away because they don’t have a subconscious and that is what the stone affects but it did affect Farve so they must be saying he has a subconscious.
Within the confines of this show I give it a 9 out of a 10.

So, this episode we get to know a little more of this world's geography. Now, besides the City, a few random American cities mentioned, Eastern Europe, and Mars, we have the Northwest Territories, I mean, New Territories. OK, it's like there was this nuclear war, and all geography books were destroyed in it. After that, they rediscovered Nunavut and decided to rename it "New Territories." Or something like that.

We had a story in a claustrophobic environment in a remote region of Earth that could have just as well been Mars, considering how alien that place seemed. As a result we were presented with a nice bottle episode which changed the usual pace of the show and made some dangerous underlying fantasies surface.

Even though many characters were secondary and we'll never see them again, they were fleshed out at least partially. So, Kaplan had this thing about Regicide, an obvious consequence of watching too much Game of Thrones and reading too many RR martin's books. At least that was the impression I got from "the King must die," which might as well have been complemented by "Winter is coming," and "The Whitewalkers will cross the Wall!" At least if the show were contemporary, these associations would become inevitable. Machado, on the other hand, perhaps had a "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" fixation, while Ingles had problems with authorities (the lamest fantasy of them all) and Dr. Evans was a sex maniac in disguise, of you can conclude that from an innocent kiss.

The juiciest parts, however, were reserved for the main characters. David fears his wife may cheat on him, and even sees late Kroczek as a threat, something that is compounded by the fact that Olivia wants to spend some time apart even though she says "it's really nothing," which, in wife's language means "it is really something and you'll find out what the most inconvenient way when it surfaces and wrecks our lives." And Farve, whom until the end we deemed immune to the crazy radiations of the ("alien?) stone, in fact unconsciously sees himself as a "tin man." Perhaps if he spend a little longer in Nunavut, Farve would have started singing "If I Only Had a Heart" from "The Wizard of Oz."

All in all, a good story with some moderately tense moments, particularly when David would refuse giving up his weapon and be sedated. Fortunately his strong will and training prevailed, and it all ended well with marital bliss.

An episode solid like a stone, this one gets 8 Brancusi stones, a stone which, in spite of the suggestive name, is not "branca" (white), but reddish brown instead.

Well, we have a change of locale this week. Instead of a murder in the city it’s a cargo ship going down in the frozen area of the New Territories. While that would seem to mandate some other agency to investigate, the CPB is called in for this because the initial investigators found that three people were killed after the crash! They died bloody deaths, at least one with his heart cut out. It appears two of them killed the captain, and then each other. Of the remaining three, one is in a coma, another has no memory of it and the third is psychotic and in restraints. Thrown into the mix is a female doctor named Jill Evans and a Minacon representative protecting his property’s interest. It seems part of the cargo is a large “Brancuzi stone,” which is very rare and valuable.

The mystery of the episode isn’t so much what happened. It is obvious early on that these people are living out things that they have been obsessed by. The psychotic one had just done a paper on ritualistically killing kings by cutting their hearts out, so he did that to his captain instead. (Too bad he wasn’t doing a paper on old TV sitcoms; they might have just discovered the crew doing a harmless parody of GILLIGAN’S ISLAND instead. Much less bloody.) Since the Brancuzi stone is the oddball element in the story, naturally it must be the culprit. Even toward the end, I believe Farve just comments that they’ve done something to stop the psychotropic eminations from the Brancuzi stone. They never really had a scene where they “discovered” that the stone was the cause of the hallucinations.

No, the crux of this story is that the characters are stranded in an isolated foreign environment with emanations that cause them to see their innermost feelings. That’s a way to give us background on the characters for their back stories. I’m really disturbed at what we learn about Hume. Before he leaves on the mission, Olivia says maybe some time apart will do them good. Like me, David thinks “What the heck does that mean?” She brushes it off and kisses him goodbye, but apparently it really stuck in his head. When he starts having hallucinations, he sees his wife with Kroczek the guy who burned up in a tub of ice last week. So deep down, he’s probably still suspecting that his wife was having an affair, despite evidence to the contrary presented last week. He gets too friendly with Jill the nurse and then...he kisses her! Even being under the influence of Brancuzi emanations, that is just inexcusable! Shame on you, David.

Meanwhile, Farve is the voice of reason in this madness. We get a foreshadowing early on when Hume asks him if he is affected by the cold. “I feel the cold,” explains Ian, “I just don’t suffer from it.” He is seemingly unaffected by the eminations and asks Hume to turn over his weapon for safety, then suggests sedating him and Jill for the night until help arrives. Hume resists, insisting that the other crewmen - including the dead ones – are trying to bust in. Farve finally convinces him to turn over his weapon and get sedated. Later that night, Ian is affected by the stone seeing his skin evaporate leaving the android metallic features behind. But he is able to calm himself down and reverse the delusion. My take is that Ian is starting to feel human qualities and deep down fears he is really nothing but a machine inside. Very insightful.

The rescue crew arrives. David apologizes to Ian for mistrustful things he said, and then he goes home and kisses the right woman for a change – but still looks suspicious and doubtful in secret. Their marriage may be on the skids again.

Random thoughts: The shot of the Brancuzi stone in its clear case was uncannily similar to the recent story on AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. about a black monolith also encased in a clear case. It looked like the AOS stone, just painted gold. What a hilarious co-incidence, because clearly that’s all it was.

Jill’s last words to Farve were “Lucky you didn’t have a subconscious to deal with.” Did she realize that he was an android, or was she just saying she thought he didn’t have any hidden “issues?”

I laughed when the Minacon guy accused Hume of trying to steal the precious Brancuzi stone and David replied something to the effect of: Yes I was going to put the two-ton stone in my back pocket and run with it into the ice storm!

I might have given this a seven, but because of the kiss I’m reducing it to 6 cargo ships that look like one of the ships from THUNDERBIRDS.

Another good episode,we've had a run of three goodies. At last we get out of the city and into the new territories. Calling them "new" is interesting. Madp says maybe after a nuclear war the geography books were lost. More likely is Countries/Political entities were wiped out and the rump remains of North America went on a campaign of recapturing politically "loosened" areas. Whether that is done by friendly persuasion or coercion is up for debate, we don't know anything about the type of Government that runs the City.

Like others here I worked out fairly early on that the Brancusi stone was causing the trouble ,but I must say this is not an original idea . If we ever get to watch UFO there's a similar mindbending crystal structure in a thoroughly weird episode in which the characters sit down and watch .....er UFO!!! enough said .
Actually modern Sci fi being influenced by classic stuff is not unusual, there's an interesting thread on the Blakes7 board comparing B7 and firefly ,the plot coincidences are spooky , and Babylon 5 creator J Michael Straczynski openly is a Blake7 fan with B7 references found in B5 if you're knowledgeable enough with B7 to find them.
Come to think of it "Rump America grabbing back territories" is also B7ish.
Back to this week, we see how much Hume trusts his android partner and also how insecure he feels about his marriage.
Favre in the end sort of is affected by the stone making me think he does contain some organic elements inside him ,like Kryten from Red Dwarf.
Enjoyable but not totally original so 8/10

Farvre and Hume are sent to the Northern Territories to investigate a series of murders on a cargo ship that crashed.

They first meet a Dr. Evans who is investigating and treating the wounded/dead for Minecon. It ends up that the Captain was violently killed and then his heart was taken out of his body. The other two perpetrators were also dead in a confusing murder suicide. A Mr. Machado, the staff geologist from Minecon is introduced and tells them that they have a sort of magical/expensive stone called, 131. 2 other crew members, Epps and Engels are introduced. They both seem visually and psychologically traumatized from the crash. It ends up that Engels was strangely unaware that there was even a crash. The last crew member, Kaplan was restrained in sick bay screaming "The King Should Die". Favre is skeptical that it was a botched robbery attempt.

Farvre and Hume are show the Brancusi stone which holds the element 131. Mr. Machado is certain that this was a robbery plain and simple because of the value of 131. In a move that's never explained fully, the airship leaves the crash site stranding Farvre, Hume, Machado and the rest of the surviving crew.

Farvre and Hume review the tapes and see that it was a mutiny with a bizarre blood ritual and the Captain's heart being ripped out. They go back and interview Engels who tells them about some odd recollections/visions and a blackout. The restrained Kaplan then goes on and on about some bizarre South American killing of the king ritual.

David goes back to his room and sees Olivia and the dead Krochek from the previous episode walking in the corridors. Favre starts to theorize that the crew may have suffered from delusional episodes. They suddenly startled by an alarm so the go and investigate and find Engels killing an airman and cutting out his heart. Favre does some further research and finds that Kaplan had a fascination of regicide and South American cultures and Engels had a problem with authority figures. Favre theorizes that a force is creating delusions that caused the murders.

David sees Olivia and Krochek again this time in a more sexual suggestive situation. David shots at the imaginary Krochek and ends up with a stand off with Machado, Farve settles the dispute. Some time passes and they hear Machado attacking the Doctor. Favre and Hume interrupt sedating Machado.

Favre then determines that the Brancusi Stone is causing people's sub conscious thoughts and desires to be pulled out in often paranoid and violent and terrible ways. Favre suggest that the weapons be locked and David Refuses. David talks to Dr. Evans and they embrace. Favre suggest sedation but Evans and Hume think they see Machado and Kaplan breaking into their quarters. There's a tense stand off between Farve and David at gun point but Farve is able to talk David down and convince him that what he's seeing is an illusion. Favre is able to sedate the other two as he stands guard. In a rather cool special effect Farve thinks he sees himself becoming a mechanical man but he's able to break the spell.

Farve and Hume and the rest are then rescued by Air command and Hume apologizes to Farve

This was a very good episode and it almost could have been made into a movie. It sort of reminded me of a mix between Alien and The Young Sherlock Holmes. The Young Sherlock Holmes was a very underrated movie from the mid 1980's which has some really great special effects and storyline and revolves around hallucinations which cause unintentional suicides.

This is a rare episode with almost no CPB office scenes and no Olan.

It almost feels like a Star Trek episode.

The one thing that never really made sense is why they air crew left Hume Farve and the rest of the crew.

I give it a 8 out of 10.