"Why do I get all the dirty jobs?" "Typecasting?"
REVIEW: At the center of Animals is a romance subplot it's hard to get behind. When Dayna was a teenager, her dad's friend came to tutor her and they... fell in love? At first, it seems like a home schooled girl crush, but Justin (a name that really lacks a science fiction ring) seems to say he felt it too. There isn't much chemistry in the room once she joins him on Bucol-2 (writer Allan Prior shouldn't be allowed to name any more things), as Dayna is mostly repulsed by his genetic experiments, even if the occasional smile crosses her lips (which usually feels unmotivated). By the end, she'll have been conditioned by Servalan to hate and betray him, then back to loving him, and one wonders if that later emotion isn't as fake as the hate, pushing her reactions to well beyond what the true Dayna ever felt. So it's creepy, and we spend a lot of time with the two of them alone, doing not very much except re-explaining the plot.
Our man Justin has created creatures right out of Where the Wild Things Are, not the first time the show has deployed genetically crafted "creatures" who then attack the lab they came from. It happened very recently on Terminal, as well as all the way back in episode 5 (The Web). The brainwashing evokes the very first episode of the show, and so one wonders if the program isn't all out of fresh ideas. I like Dayna a lot - she might even be my favorite character of the back seasons - but this storyline isn't strong enough for the rest of the crew to mostly sit it out. When we do see them, it feels like a Boucher insert, full of quips. Vila is bribed with booze to go down into raw sewage while fixing the ship, and we're reminded that he and Dayna absolutely loathe each other. He doesn't care if she's abandoned on Bucol-2. Avon gets to be real butch. Soolin shoots a bunch of new-model Mutoids (they have blond hair now). And speaking of characters I loathe, I thought Orac was fine, but I hate Slave's obsequiousness. Tarrant agrees with me, but he has more of a sense of humor about it.
And then there's Servalan, or Commissioner Sleer, as she calls herself now. I still don't really understand how a former Federation President can be "incognito" while holding an office similar to when she was in charge of the military, and not changing her style whatsoever. No matter how many people died in the war, there's no way her face wasn't known to the whole galaxy. Or do we think she's NOT a vain creature? It's absurd, and here we have a blind man recognizing her voice and getting killed for it, as if this wouldn't happen with everyone she meets. So weird. She's otherwise slimy and slick, torturing Dayna to get what she wants (an army of creatures), but shooing Justin (accidentally?) when the going gets tough. Gosh, I hope that when Servalan finally goes (if she ever does), Dayna gets to pull the trigger.
NOT MY FEDERATION, BUT MIGHT BE MY EMPIRE: No, we have to go back much earlier in science-fiction history, to H.G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau.
WHO?: William Lindsay, Servalan's ship captain, was the vampire king Zargo in State of Decay. Her intelligence commander, Borr, is played by Max Harvey, who would be the Time Lord Zorac in Arc of Infinity. Kevin Stoney (the blind Ardus) played both Mavix Chen and Tobias Vaughn (no episode titles necessary - iconic!), but also Tyrum in Revenge of the Cybermen.
REWATCHABILITY: Medium - The Dayna-Justin relationship is as objectionable as it is hard to believe, but you find some joy in the subplots that aren't in the A-plot.
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