With 'King's Gambit' having established the format of Counterstrike, the second episode 'Joker One' thus sees Simon King foiling this week's plot by the Centaurans, with his new ally Mary to help him. It's a marked improvement on the previous episode, partly because it boasts memorable villains.
'Joker One' opens with Observer West - one of Simon's fellow agents on Earth - sending a distress signal to Simon just before he's murdered. Control tells Simon to investigate - but warns him that it may be a trap. Simon agrees, but promptly heads off - with Mary in tow - to spring it, resulting in a game of cat and mouse between him and this episode's villain, Pinot. Pinot's plan is to cull Earth's population by triggering a carefully controlled nuclear war, which off course taps into then topical paranoia about nuclear weapons.
The bulk of the story is set in New York, which is a bit risky on a 1969 BBC budget, although since most of the story takes place indoors and the sets are pretty good, it turns out not to be a problem. The foreign setting also suggests that the Counterstrike production team wants to avoid exclusively featuring alien invasions of the Home Counties, thus presenting the Centaurans as a truly global threat. The episode's main strength however is the guest cast, which includes Robert Beatty and Bruce Boa, both Canadians who regularly played Americans in British television programs and who provide authentic-sounding accents. They both give brilliantly OTT performances as megalomaniacs Pinot and the General, respectively. Beatty gets some great lines during his entertaining scenes with Simon, in which they engage in verbal sparring and he makes a great, memorable villain. On the other hand, Tim Seely adopts a less convincing American accent and hams things up as Pinot's drunken doctor Flemyng, who gets a seemingly extraneous romantic subplot with Pinot's human wife Elaine, which turns out to be relevant when Flemyng shoots Pinot dead in a doomed attempt to save Elaine from the alien's sonic weapon at the end.
Regulars Jon Finch and Sarah Brackett fair less well than Beatty does, although they give decent enough performances (and Finch makes Simon's identical fellow Observer Martin notably distinct, largely through his posture and facial expressions). Mary is horrified that Simon wants to walk into a trap, prompting a conversation between them about emotions and dreams that is presumably meant to develop their relationship and highlight the differences between them, but results in some appalling stilted dialogue from writer Ray Jenkins. Mary is clearly smitten with Simon and spends most of the episode following him into danger (he seems to have no qualms about risking her life by letting her tag along) and asking questions so that Simon can explain the plot to the audience. Incidentally, Simon's claim in the previous episode that he can't kill seems to be nonsense here, as he tells Mary to run over a soldier and fellow Observer Martin seems more than happy to use a gun.
Henri Safran does quite a good job as director, especially during the scene in which Simon - posing as a member of the group - joins a debate, in which five characters sit in transparent booths and are largely filmed in silhouette, which makes for a very striking visual. He also makes good use of stock footage when the Centaurans are planning to crash the plane carrying nuclear warheads. Overall, 'Joker One' shows Counterstrike heading in a promising direction, and whilst it still isn't exactly the high point of BBC television science fiction, it certainly manages to be entertaining.
'Joker One' opens with Observer West - one of Simon's fellow agents on Earth - sending a distress signal to Simon just before he's murdered. Control tells Simon to investigate - but warns him that it may be a trap. Simon agrees, but promptly heads off - with Mary in tow - to spring it, resulting in a game of cat and mouse between him and this episode's villain, Pinot. Pinot's plan is to cull Earth's population by triggering a carefully controlled nuclear war, which off course taps into then topical paranoia about nuclear weapons.
The bulk of the story is set in New York, which is a bit risky on a 1969 BBC budget, although since most of the story takes place indoors and the sets are pretty good, it turns out not to be a problem. The foreign setting also suggests that the Counterstrike production team wants to avoid exclusively featuring alien invasions of the Home Counties, thus presenting the Centaurans as a truly global threat. The episode's main strength however is the guest cast, which includes Robert Beatty and Bruce Boa, both Canadians who regularly played Americans in British television programs and who provide authentic-sounding accents. They both give brilliantly OTT performances as megalomaniacs Pinot and the General, respectively. Beatty gets some great lines during his entertaining scenes with Simon, in which they engage in verbal sparring and he makes a great, memorable villain. On the other hand, Tim Seely adopts a less convincing American accent and hams things up as Pinot's drunken doctor Flemyng, who gets a seemingly extraneous romantic subplot with Pinot's human wife Elaine, which turns out to be relevant when Flemyng shoots Pinot dead in a doomed attempt to save Elaine from the alien's sonic weapon at the end.
Regulars Jon Finch and Sarah Brackett fair less well than Beatty does, although they give decent enough performances (and Finch makes Simon's identical fellow Observer Martin notably distinct, largely through his posture and facial expressions). Mary is horrified that Simon wants to walk into a trap, prompting a conversation between them about emotions and dreams that is presumably meant to develop their relationship and highlight the differences between them, but results in some appalling stilted dialogue from writer Ray Jenkins. Mary is clearly smitten with Simon and spends most of the episode following him into danger (he seems to have no qualms about risking her life by letting her tag along) and asking questions so that Simon can explain the plot to the audience. Incidentally, Simon's claim in the previous episode that he can't kill seems to be nonsense here, as he tells Mary to run over a soldier and fellow Observer Martin seems more than happy to use a gun.
Henri Safran does quite a good job as director, especially during the scene in which Simon - posing as a member of the group - joins a debate, in which five characters sit in transparent booths and are largely filmed in silhouette, which makes for a very striking visual. He also makes good use of stock footage when the Centaurans are planning to crash the plane carrying nuclear warheads. Overall, 'Joker One' shows Counterstrike heading in a promising direction, and whilst it still isn't exactly the high point of BBC television science fiction, it certainly manages to be entertaining.