Fireball XL5 Episode 15 Review: Wings of Danger

[Jubal]

Fireball XL5 Ep 15: Wings of Danger

Rating out of 10: 7.9
IMDB Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0807598/?ref_=tt_ep_nx

Wings of Danger was fairly good, not stellar but certainly at the good end of workmanlike. It brings back the Subterranes of Planet 46 with a reasonably competent plot that strings together alright, and provides some good moments for Venus in particular.

The essential plot, an assassination attempt in revenge for the imprisonment of the Subterrane leader, is not a bad one. The Subterranes make pretty good villains, they have an established grudge, and they get some good planning montages. The assassination plot isn't too bad as these plots go, it includes a chance to show off the Subterranes' abilities as engineers, and (even better) then a chance to show Steve actually getting caught out by something and Venus getting a nice life saving medic scene. It wasn't a plot that allowed for a lot of character complexity, but the characterisation was pretty good - Zero and Ninety were both done alright, and the Fireball crew all got their basic character traits shown up reasonably well. The scenes with Steve's insistence on getting up were a pretty good take on the Venus/Steve relationship.

There are a few slightly less good points. The fact that the radium capsules seem to kill plants within seconds but Steve has plenty of time to get to hospital and get decontaminated is a touch strange. It's a pity that we never get any explanation of what's happened to the Subterrane leader now (he's presumably still somewhere on earth? or is he in the Space pen?), and a better overview of Earth-Subterrane relations would be good. The Fireball crew seem to expect to be able to fly around and scan the surface fine, but are also unsurprised later to find a load of surface-to-air missiles there. They also seem to be able to radio-hail the Subterranes, so why they didn't ask them for an explanation of the initial radio disturbances is also a bit of a gap.

Whilst it perhaps didn't have any stand-out features, this was good quality basic Fireball and well worth the watching time.