[ULT] Weapon Of Choice

TV Programme: Ultimate Force
Season: 3
Episode: 4
Date I watched this episode: 22/03/2009
Time since I last watched this programme: 9 months, 2 days.

It's been a while since I watched this, but not without good reason. First of all, I was waiting until I had some other finales to watch before watching the season 3 finale of this programme. Secondly, Ultimate Force is hardly my favourite series of all time; in fact I don't really know why I watch it, but I did like some of the earlier episodes.

It really did peter out towards the end, and this episode was not the dramatic season finale that seasons 1 and 2 have seen (though strangely the show was not cancelled, and was renewed for a fourth season). In fact, the ending to the episode, where Henno and co ran into the field, was pretty corny (no pun intended), not very believable, and rather an anticlimax to this story thread in the episode. The episode had a rubbish start too - the "news footage" section didn't add anything to the episode, was disorientating to watch, and also a bit cheesy.

In general they really are trying to fill extra time with the new time format. Seasons 1 and 2 had a 50-minute running length, whereas this season has extended that to 70 minutes, which is not necessarily a good thing. There were three main fighting sequences in this episode (woods at the beginning, the ambush of the home base, and the gasworks) but all of them dragged on for too long without much to keep the viewer interested. Especially in wide open spaces it is very hard to use the set to their advantage; and when they did have an opportunity for indoor fighting, they didn't use it to its full potential. The season 2 premiere "Communication" is a prime example of how they can do these sequences well if they want - by using sets (in that case a boat) to their advantage.

When they did take a break from the action it often seemed random and time-wasting. For example, the firing range at the glass bottles - what did that add? The puppet show was disturbing, not in-theme and completely pointless too. Character development was also weak; Sapiat and the Irishman were not a believable couple, and not enough depth was explored as to the reasons why they were fighting in the first place. They had obviously put some effort into the storyline and the other threads (though there were some loose ends like what the hell was that nun doing there), but all the other bad elements detracted from what could have been a good story.

I think I had higher expectations of this episode than I should have done, and in the end I was seriously underwhelmed by it.