#while other people are fast enough to open all the tubes and pipette and close them without issue

[hellyes-tommccamus]

Mutant X [TV] (2001-2004)

S01E10 “Dark Star Rising”

[spoilers]

Sci-fi/action

Tom McCamus plays a main role in season 1

This time we visit Tricorp Botanicals. You know some kind of weird Day of the Triffids stuff is going to go down when a botanical company has a restricted area. But the security is lax because two people have broken in with explosives. And their stealth skills leave much to be desired as they are both wearing fingerless gloves. All the better for leaving fingerprints at the scene of the crime, eh?

Shalimar ambushes them and they flash their eyes at her, showing they are ferals too. Just when we thought we were going to have a break from human Mutants and have a visit from Audrey II.

I’m not sure who thought the cat eye flash thing was a good idea. I have to admit it’s a nice digital effect (even though it seems to be different every time we see Shalimar or anyone else do the eye thing - I can just imagine someone saying “quick, rotoscope in some animal eyes on this bit! Yeah any will do!”) It’s not something that’s explained at all. Are those Shalimar’s real eyes and she hides her real eyes unless she wants to show them? It appears to be something she does at will. There is such a thing in nature and it really cool and interesting. Many animals have a third eyelid, or nictitating membrane beneath the first set of eyelids, which protects and cleans the eye. Shalimar is a feline feral, and we have already seen her quick reflexes, acrobatics and territorial nature in action. Cats do have nictitating membranes, but to have them closed most of the time would indicate illness or injury. Other animals can voluntarily close them and use them to protect their eyes from water or pressure. So perhaps Shalimar is more than just a feline hybrid, like a more human version of Dren from Splice (which incidentally stars Sarah Polley who also stars in The Sweet Hereafter and The Claim with Tom McCamus).

Shalimar fights the female feral, which is cool because this is only the second time we’ve seen ferals fight each other. The explosives they set is about to go off so Shalimar grabs it and hurls it up in the air. Another man appears and it’s not clear if he’s also feral but he’s strong enough to lift Shalimar up by the neck and throw her against a wall.

Back at Sanctuary, Jesse treats Shalimar with some kind of laser pen. She’s clearly in a lot of pain but the laser pen makes that and the bruising go away completely. The show is almost twenty years old now, where are our magic future laser medical pens? Laser therapy can treat skin discolouration by destroying bacteria and increasing circulation. But it can’t take away pain, right? Well check out Cold Laser Therapy, which uses low power light for pain relief. Neat, huh?

Apparently Emma detected New Mutant activity in a particular place, which is why Shalimar went to investigate. Adam can’t find the feral team in his database, but he immediately knows who they are when Shalimar describes their tattoos, a black star in a red disc. This symbol looks very much like something the goth/alt scene at the time would have worn as badges and such (how your humble blogger knows such things will be left to your imagination). But anyway they are apparently The Dark Star, an anti-terrorist unit run by Interpol (and also run an alt clothing brand in their spare time?) But records show they all died?

Mason sheds some light on this. He knows all but three of the Dark Star died. He is visited by Dr Harrison (Andrew Gillies, who also appears in Orphan Black with Tom McCamus where they both play scientists) from Tricorp which seemingly has a worse security team than Genomex.

The Dark Star team is now down to two. One of the remaining three must have succumbed to whatever illness he was suffering from in the opening scene.

Emma “meditates”, but what she is doing is more like seated tai chi. She uses yet again a new mental power that she has developed, now she seems to be able to see into the past of New Mutants she has detected, some way away. Coming back to the idea that Mutant X is a rip off of X Men, I think plot points like this are where the writers really wanted to use Cerebro. Adam and Jesse decide to search the Tricorp database for the intruders, and get results. One of the member’s father owns an abandoned engine yard (why on earth is this information there?) so they obviously know where to go. Go anywhere that’s even tangentially related to what you’re looking at - that’s where the next bit of action is due to take place. Classic trope of fictional detective work.

Shalimar and Brennan sneak in. Only after they have entered does Shalimar think to tell him to be extra quiet. And there’s no irony at all in the fact that she does this in a normal voice. The fast moving, punchy scenes are something I love about this show, but it does lead to ridiculous combinations of action and conversations happening at the same time. But it’s a thing many shows are guilty of.

Shalimar kicks down the door and they go to ambush The a Dark Star, but they are ready and waiting with guns. They don’t even know the term New Mutant, but say they were experimented on by Tricorp (you know, the botanical company, that “deals with plants”).

Back at Sanctuary, digging shows Tricorp has ties to Genomex. And Tricorp’s primary research project is the Raffleisa Pricei (looks fake, is totally real). What Emma reads about it being parasitic is true (it lacks chloroplasts, which plants need to produce energy). Adam’s explanation about the similarity between human and yeast DNA, while being true conceptually, has an unfortunate phrasing error. It’s the DNA strand thing all over again! He says that the difference between humans and yeast is a single strand of DNA code. Now if that was true, the hapless scientists at Genomex would have been forever accidentally turning human beings into yeast. Or worse, the opposite. But amusing as this might be, it is not true. Yeast is genetically similar to humans. If you study biology you will learn that every living thing has some degree of similarity, if you look at them with a powerful enough microscope. And so some are bound to be more similar than others. Yeast is a very good biological model for human biology, which means that it can be used in place of a human test subject for pharmaceutical testing with reliable results (as opposed to test animals, which give unreliable results). Adam says he thought the experiments on this plant were over but as it only flowers every 25 years he thinks maybe they have started again (the real one takes up to a year). Oh, and they might look pretty but they smell like rotting flesh.

The two remaining members of Dark Star, Bo (Ralf Moeller) and Angel (Anne Openshaw) tell Brennan and Shalimar about the last mission their unit went on where most of their team were deathly ill from the vaccinations they were given.

Mason and Dr Harrison are scheming together. Mason quotes Nietzsche, or at least the pop culture version of the quote. An assistant to Nixon is responsible for this misquote being repeated everywhere. The actual quote, from my book on Nietzsche is: “Out of life’s school of war: What does not destroy me, makes me stronger”. Of course Nietzsche wrote in German and translations are subjective. But the war part would have been quite fitting here. (But then not all of us are trapped in a giant library. Don’t send help.)

Mason talks about giving New Mutant powers to ordinary people. I’m honestly surprised that this is the first project to do such a thing. And it’s outsourced to another company? What have the scientists of Genomex been doing for the past twenty years? Have they just been paying them to wander round looking scientific?

In an odd background conversation, we hear Brennan telling Angel the four classifications of New Mutants: elementals, psionics, FREAKS and ferals. I’m pretty sure the third kind are actually moleculars. Wondering if that was just a slip up by Victor that no-one cared about, or if Brennan is telling us what he secretly thinks of his pal Jesse. But no time for that, the GSA has caught up with them so it’s time for the freaks to fight together. Some of the fight scenes in a Mutant X are not so bad, but this one is kind of terrible. It ends up Brennan hot-wiring a van in the way only he can, and they literally smash through the wall.

Meanwhile, Adam is doing some unexplained science. We don’t know what it is and we don’t know why, but he has some test tubes filled with different coloured liquids. That’s at least three counts so far of colourful and interesting test tubes mean you’re doing science. He takes some blood from Angel with a micropipette and puts it in some random centrifuge tubes. So are we saying he made a big gouge in her arm to get some blood to the surface so he could pipette it randomly? Did you run out of needles, Adam? And leaving so many centrifuge tubes open and then plopping bits of blood in a few of them really says contamination to me. Then Shalimar comes in and it really makes me cringe how many times he goes back to fill up one sample. He says her blood cells are fighting off a serum from the Raffleisha Pricei. We see an animation of red cells. It’s actually the white blood cells that fight off any toxins in the body. Nobody seems to be able to get straight the story as to why New Mutants were created. A couple of episodes ago Mason mentions that Genomex was dedicated to curing diseases by genetic manipulation. Now Adam says they were giving out vaccinations (with bonus surprise mutations!) Maybe they did both. Maybe one or both of them are lying to make themselves sound better or at least less guilty. We see Adam again distance himself from the company, saying “they” said this, when he has admitted personally that he was deeply involved, if not leading the project.

The GSA now have the dead feral from the start of the show. The scientists at Genomex are examining the corpse, but they want a living specimen, one the drug did not have fatal consequences for.

Adam says he needs a Raffleisa Pricei plant to develop a cure for Angel, so Shalimar and Jesse go along to Tricorp with Bo. Dr Harrison wasn’t kidding about his security being terrible. They easily take out the two guards and grab the plant. But then Dr Harrison shows up with lots more guards - probably borrowed from the GSA. Jesse runs off with the plant and is about to phase through the wall but that would mean leaving the plant behind. But thanks to a handy open window in the greenhouse and a good throw, he makes it. Not sure how realistic it is to have an open window in a botanical research greenhouse because of both contamination and keeping the environment within required levels of humidity and temperature.

Bo and Shalimar easily take out the guards while they are doing the usual Kung Fu style sending one bad guy at a time to fight the heroes thing. But then the rest decide to attack at once and easily overpower the two ferals. Dr Harrison comes across as a lot less meek when we see him here on his own. It really bothers me that when he walks up to the unconscious ferals that he stands on Shalimar’s hair.

Now we get to see Adam practising herbal medicine. He’s grinding something (part of the flower?) in a mortar and pestle and passes it to Brennan and they both do the most pathetic attempt to use the apparatus. It actually requires quite a lot of effort.

Mason makes a speech about creating the perfect soldier. He mentions the use of hashish in Persia, which was given to reluctant assassins to help them overcome reluctance to carry out their hits. Viking Berserkers were thought to use the mushroom Amanita Muscaria to endure a frenzied state in which they could fight in a way that would otherwise be considered impossible. MK Ultra is more recent example, a large project carried out by the CIA in the 50s and 60s testing LSD and other drugs with the intent of developing a method of mind control. One of the scientists involved was reported as saying he wanted to find a cure for mental illness.

Adam yet again reveals another error in his scientific procedure. He takes a blood sample of out a centrifuge (these spin samples to separate them into their constituent parts). And that was the only tube in the centrifuge. You must always ensure to balance a centrifuge with a tube filled with water if you have an odd number of samples. Emma says Angel’s white blood cell count is fluctuating, which is consistent with infection. Adam then says he must develop an antigen. I think he means antibody. Antigens induce immune responses. Antibodies bind to antigens and inactivate them.

Shalimar escapes her captors in Genomex. Mason and Dr Harrison go to watch whatever procedure is being carried out on Bo. Now Dr Harrison gets in on the incorrect usage of DNA strand - apparently he’s isolated the strand responsible for Bo’s survival. By now it seems Mason has changed his mind from wanting to protect the world from New Mutants, he says these people with artificially induced powers will make the New Mutants unnecessary. In episode 5 a training academy is mentioned, and one of its students was Renfield, a New Mutant. So perhaps attempting to turn New Mutants into soldiers has been happening for some time.

Brennan complains about being stuck in the lab looking after Angel with Emma, but when Emma feels her slipping away he uses his powers to try to restart her heart like a defibrillator. This really calls into question the safety and ethics of him using his powers to attack people.

Mason tells Dr Harrison that he is not an optimistic man. Adam calls him an optimist in an earlier episode. Which is interesting. Does that mean that Mason gives the impression of being optimistic while secretly being completely cynical? I would wager that nobody who has at least a little intelligence and life experience could possibly remain completely optimistic. While we can all lean towards confidence or doubt in certain areas, there are extremely few who can be described as pure optimists or pessimists.

Dr Harrison again proves his lack of empathy towards people as he explains he is going to inject Bo with a drug that will permanently paralyse his brain function. I imagine that by this he means he is going to kill him but keep his body alive artificially. And I’m not really sure what that is supposed to achieve. In that state a person would have limited use as a test subject. Earlier they speak about just needing a DNA sample to proceed with the experiment, but then when they bring in a dead subject he is for some reason no use. Even Mason asks if it’s really necessary.

Bo suddenly wakes up and grabs Mason as a hostage and holds the brain paralysing needle to his neck. Which isn’t fair but then life isn’t. This is the first time we see Mason completely terrified and powerless. Shalimar persuades him to let go, telling him he has a new team now. They escape back to Sanctuary where he is delighted to be reunited with a fully recovered Angel.

Back at Genomex, Mason is in a bad way and is wearing a neck brace. Adam must have kept the magic laser technology to himself. Mason formally declares his cynicism in the old adage: hope for the best, expect the worst. And that is really the only sane position to take in this crazy messed up world. Dr Harrison further demonstrates his sociopathic tendencies with some unconvincing empathising. Not only that, he has awful management skills as he hasn’t been to check on his own facility and none of his staff have informed him that their last Raffleisa Pricei specimen has been destroyed. And not only does Mason know about it, he has already had it collected and analysed. He has a couple of his men march Dr Harrison away, and one can only imagine what is going to happen to him. But it’s got to be stasis. It’s always unnecessary stasis.

And as I not ever guilty of going off on tangents, I’m going to tell you about the origin of stasis pods. I have it on good authority that it’s not (currently) possible to freeze a living person. I have however come across research that dropping body temperature to low levels can significantly increase lifespan. No, that wasn’t the right tangent. What I intended to tell you about is the gloriously 80s band Scorpions. Namely the video for Rock You Like a Hurricane. Which was clearly filmed at Genomex in the 80s. Watch it and tell me I’m wrong.