If you agree with me that McCallum is an amazingly bland, dull, nepotistic beta male, wait till you find out how he changes in this episode...
He steps out of the "accelerated evolution" machine, covering his face, which makes sense because McCallum SHOULD be ashamed of his appearance, but in terms of the story it is illogical because he has no mirror in the machine. Hence how can he know that his forehead had increased, making him look like yet another B-movietard - complete with a dumb evil smirk which McCallum (or the director) must have considered wickedly effective. But he's just a sneering nerd, hence forget about the sense of menace the director was going for... The episode definitely suffers for casting this dullard, though the writing isn't much better.
Once McCallum becomes the stereotypically big-headed genius, the plot moves in very predictable, generic ways. Hence boredom sets in quickly.
And nonsense too. Such as the miner with the vaguely Irish accent playing a harmonica in a pub (because the Irish are always cheerful, even after they'd just had a hard shift at the mine), yet again with an unwashed face. So miners never wash up after mining? And what a dumb series of conversations in that pub... Third-rate dialogue.
The only good things about this episode are the good performance of the guy playing the scientist, the OK ending, and the solid looks of the lead actress, who unfortunately plays a one-dimensional character. The story is horribly cliched, quasi-philosophical (pulp level mostly), and the make-up laughable. McCallum ends up looking like a bloated Petr Korda, while blathering like a New Age hippy. The guy in the monkey suit could at least hide, I suppose... Nobody can prove he was in this episode.
Very typically, this very mediocre episode got one of the highest ratings... because human evolution has stopped hence audiences are mostly mindless zombies? So ironic, considering the central theme is evolution.
Plenty of padding too. This should have been no longer than 30 minutes.
Amusing end-scene narration, paraphrasing: "Can't we hope to develop a method to turn the entire human race intelligent? Beyond the desire for power, revenge, beyond hatred... Is that not after all the ultimate goal of evolution?"
Since when does evolution have a "goal"?! The only goal of evolution, if there were one to choose, would be to get us smart enough so that nobody votes for Democrats and socialists anymore. That's all the evolution we basically need. Can we have a machine for that? Instead, McCallum first turns arrogant, then eventually decides he'd prefer to be just a spirit not reliant on a physical body. The usual sci-fi hogwash...
Check out my TOL list, with reviews of all the episodes.
He steps out of the "accelerated evolution" machine, covering his face, which makes sense because McCallum SHOULD be ashamed of his appearance, but in terms of the story it is illogical because he has no mirror in the machine. Hence how can he know that his forehead had increased, making him look like yet another B-movietard - complete with a dumb evil smirk which McCallum (or the director) must have considered wickedly effective. But he's just a sneering nerd, hence forget about the sense of menace the director was going for... The episode definitely suffers for casting this dullard, though the writing isn't much better.
Once McCallum becomes the stereotypically big-headed genius, the plot moves in very predictable, generic ways. Hence boredom sets in quickly.
And nonsense too. Such as the miner with the vaguely Irish accent playing a harmonica in a pub (because the Irish are always cheerful, even after they'd just had a hard shift at the mine), yet again with an unwashed face. So miners never wash up after mining? And what a dumb series of conversations in that pub... Third-rate dialogue.
The only good things about this episode are the good performance of the guy playing the scientist, the OK ending, and the solid looks of the lead actress, who unfortunately plays a one-dimensional character. The story is horribly cliched, quasi-philosophical (pulp level mostly), and the make-up laughable. McCallum ends up looking like a bloated Petr Korda, while blathering like a New Age hippy. The guy in the monkey suit could at least hide, I suppose... Nobody can prove he was in this episode.
Very typically, this very mediocre episode got one of the highest ratings... because human evolution has stopped hence audiences are mostly mindless zombies? So ironic, considering the central theme is evolution.
Plenty of padding too. This should have been no longer than 30 minutes.
Amusing end-scene narration, paraphrasing: "Can't we hope to develop a method to turn the entire human race intelligent? Beyond the desire for power, revenge, beyond hatred... Is that not after all the ultimate goal of evolution?"
Since when does evolution have a "goal"?! The only goal of evolution, if there were one to choose, would be to get us smart enough so that nobody votes for Democrats and socialists anymore. That's all the evolution we basically need. Can we have a machine for that? Instead, McCallum first turns arrogant, then eventually decides he'd prefer to be just a spirit not reliant on a physical body. The usual sci-fi hogwash...
Check out my TOL list, with reviews of all the episodes.