Saturday 17 August 2013

Big Gay Longcat reviews Dark Towers (part two)

The old legend


The friendly ghost that appeared at the end of part two is also played by David Collings but with grey hair and a beard and a moustache. He is the ghost of Lord Dark.
"Oh no, not another one!" Tracy says.

The ghost tells them of an old riddle from a legend about Dark Towers:
"Beware of two bees buzzing together.
Beware of the bird with the brown feather.
The house will be saved by the Tall Knight's treasure."

The Tall Knight is another ghost who has haunted Dark Towers for "hundreds and hundreds of years" and is even older and far scarier than the friendly ghost. There is even ominous, thunder-like noises in the background when his name is mentioned to build up how scary he is.


Outside, Benger and Bunce meet Miss Hawk (played by Juliet Hammond-Hill from Power. Together with David Collings and Servalan's randomly Scottish henchmanny, this series is a veritable reunion of Blakes 7 guest actors). Miss Hawk has heard of treasure at Dark Towers too, so this scene nicely parallels the previous scene in the red bedroom by both giving exposition while setting up the conflict to follow.

Back in the red bedroom, the friendly ghost begins to fade away and just has time to give Towser, Tracy and Edward a clue before he vanishes completely:
"Book room, four up, four along, inside, four from the end, four from the top."
Towser growls because he hears somebody coming. There are footsteps and the door begins to open, but the episode ends before we can see who it is.

The clue in the Book Room

After all the build up at the end of part three trying to make a door opening into a dramatic cliffhanger, it is only Miss Hawk that comes into the room. Because Miss Hawk isn't obviously a baddy in the way that Benger and Bunce were (though she is really), Tracy and Edward fill her in on the plot so far. She has already heard of the "Golden Book of the Tall Knight," though this is the first time the treasure is given a name from our point of view.

They go to the "Book Room" (a library) and follow the clue to a book four shelves up and four books along from the left, and then inside the book four pages from the end and four lines from the top of the page.


When I do that with Duncan's bookshelf I get the following clue:
The Deep Fix, a pop group, go to No. 1 with Felt for You, Velvet for Me.
I wonder what it means?

Edward and Miss Hawk think they have worked out the clue and leave Towser and Tracy behind, because Tracy wants to work out the meaning for herself. The episode ends with her pondering the clue, as well as the friendly ghost's riddle from the last episode.

These two episodes of Dark Towers really get the treasure hunting aspect of the plot going with clues and riddles. While the main conflict of the series is still building up, all of the pieces are now in place and there is some foreshadowing of what is to come.

Continued in Part Three.

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