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Episode #19
'HOSTILE TAKEOVER'
by Sue Shakespeare and David Holmes
Featuring: James,
I.Q., Tracy, Gordo, Phoebe, Trevor, Mr Milbanks, Coach Mitchell.
Synopsis: Mr Milbanks is driving James, I.Q. and Tracy back
to the Academy in the Warfield van one day when a pair of black cars
attempt to force the van off the road. In the confusion, Milbanks falls
and hits his head, leaving James to take the wheel. The cars' drivers,
agents of S.C.U.M., begin to fire lasers, and as the three vehicles
approach a sharp bend on a cliff edge, James asks I.Q. to use his
boomerang invention to bring the van to a halt, while the other two
cars plummet off the cliff - the agents in them just jumping clear in
time. The agents are apologetic to a sinister masked figure for
'failing to eliminate' Milbanks, but he assures them that their master
plan will still succeed. Milbanks regains consciousness on the road
outside the van, James and I.Q. wonder what S.C.U.M. is up to, and they
return to Warfield.
On arrival, Milbanks is accosted by a shrieking staff member, Miss
Pearce, who has some bad news: the entire Warfield staff has been
recalled for extra training. Milbanks is furious and vows to look into
it. There's also a surprise for James - his friends have nominated him
in the upcoming election for Class President! Unconvinced anyone would
vote for him, and unwilling to take part in what's essentially a
popularity contest, James isn't so sure about entering - but of course
Trevor soon announces his own intention to stand. Later, the whole
school is called to a special assembly, at which Milbanks grudgingly
announces the staff recall. He introduces his temporary replacement Mr
Baxter, who wows the students with promises of no homework or exams -
but James thinks he's just too perfect...
As the staff leave, Tracy's upset, but Milbanks tells her they'll be
back before she knows it. He also wishes the boys luck at their fencing
tournament taking place at Warfield that evening. Baxter takes over,
and before long Trevor is attempting to worm his way into the new
head's good books, and offers to help with anything he needs. Baxter -
who amusingly keeps calling Trevor 'Travis' - takes him up on the
offer, asking him to find out what the other pupils talk about and
report back to him. Later at the fencing match, trouble's afoot when
the visiting team are tackled by S.C.U.M. agents in the locker room,
and locked in a closet as the masked S.C.U.M. agent appears, ordering
his men to take the visitors' place in the sports hall! James is
horrified when a genuinely sharp blade on his opponent's fencing sword
rips open his chest guard, and the fight turns real.
As James battles the goon, some more attack Gordo and I.Q., who aren't
even supposed to be fencing! Things are looking grim as the opponents'
skills are fearsome - but just as James's attacker has him at
swordpoint, a mystery ally bursts in and helps James fight off the
intruders. Once they've fled, the mystery fencer reveals himself as
none other than Mr Baxter! The audience in the sports hall cheers with
approval, but James is suspicious. Later on, he voices his concerns to
the others in his room: it's almost as if Baxter is running for Class
President. The next day, when Gordo causes Trevor to throw beetroot
over Mr Baxter in the dinner queue, the gang seize their chance,
offering to remove his jacket to clean him up. As they do, James takes
pictures of the documents in his wallet with a miniature camera in his
watch. I.Q. later runs his records through the computer, but finds
Baxter's history checks out completely.
Suddenly, on bringing up the rest of the new staff's records, they
notice that all of them have sequential driver's license numbers. This,
combined with the fact that they're always working late at night for
Baxter, convinces James to go on a surveillance mission. Using I.Q.'s
gadgets he clambers across the rooftops of the Academy, firstly spying
Trevor, who goes to Baxter telling him that all the students support
him - except James! He then watches as all the staff members are called
into Milbanks' office for a meeting. Using a drill and eyepiece to view
the proceedings from the floor above, James is horrified when Baxter
turns a device at his waste, changing before his eyes into Mask, the
S.C.U.M. agent. All the other staff members do the same, and turn into
the agents who attacked the Warfield van.
As James listens, Mask tells the assembled agents that their mission is
to capture Admiral Billings, the head of the British secret service and
head of Warfield's board of directors - he's due tomorrow for his
annual inspection of the Academy. Once he's removed, S.C.U.M. can
infiltrate the secret service. James reports back to the others via the
microphone in his watch, but as he removes the eyepiece a chunk of
ceiling falls and alerts the S.C.U.M. agents to his presence. Mask
orders them to find him, and they chase him onto the rooftops, firing
lasers. He runs towards the helipad, where he's attacked by a S.C.U.M.
agent (beardy). The others follow, firing their lasers so that, when
I.Q. and the others rush out from the dorms, they see James toppling
off the roof into the churning waters below!
Distraught and furious, the gang are accosted by Mask and his cohorts,
who warn that they'll go the same way if they don't cooperate. Gordo
physically attacks Mask, but is overwhelmed. They're told to return to
their dorms, as they'll be needed to complete Mask's plan - he orders
guards to be placed outside to ensure they don't go anywhere. The next
morning, 'Baxter' and his deputy are warned that Admiral Billings is on
his way, and prepare to go and meet him. Billings is appalled at the
lax new educational standards Baxter has introduced, and is taken
inside for an 'explanation'. I.Q. watches from the dorm with a
telescope, and decides it's time to fight back - he distributes a range
of weapons to Gordo, Tracy and Phoebe. They soon catch Trevor listening
in at the door, making notes of all they've said for Baxter - but
before he can report back, Phoebe blasts him with a bubblegum gun,
fastening him to the floor!
As the gang leaves the dorm, they see Baxter walking through the
courtyard with Billings, who's apparently been converted to the new
schooling methods. They decide to 'go out fighting', 'for James', and
attack - using I.Q.'s boomering to tie up Baxter and Billings, before
picking off emerging S.C.U.M. agents with the the weapons. At that
moment Baxter turns his cloaking device to reveal - James! The other
S.C.U.M. cronies realise they've been double-crossed, and attack with
lasers, but James joins his friends in driving them off. Billings
congratulates him, and back in Milbanks' office they explain that,
during the struggle on the helipad after overhearing Mask's plans the
night before, James had altered a S.C.U.M. agent's cloaking device to
make him look like James, and it was the agent that got shot off the
roof. James then hid, stole another imager, and took the S.C.U.M.
agent's appearance, allowing him to stay close to Mask and apprehend
him during the meeting with Billings. James then took Baxter's
appearance to fool the other S.C.U.M. agents - which is when I.Q. and
the gang intervened. With S.C.U.M. defeated, they all have a good laugh
when Trevor comes in and is terrified to see Baxter turn into James
before his eyes! The crooks are carted off to jail, and Billings thanks
James and his friends, telling them that Mr Milbanks doesn't need to
know about what went on.
Review:
A sense of menace and threat underlies every aspect of
this episode, from the attack on the van in normally safe Warfield
territory before the opening credits, to the wholesale invasion of the
Academy - both physically through the villains' takeover, and
psychologically through Baxter/Mask's mind-games with James and Trevor
and the removal of the Academy's key authority figures (Milbanks,
Mitchell and, to an extent, James). The episode turns the established
formula of the show entirely on its head - usually, James is the one
encroaching on S.C.U.M. territory in foreign lands, whereas here
they've encroached on his home front, and it's a lot scarier than
anything we've seen before. It's virtually unheard of for Milbanks in
particular to come under direct attack from S.C.U.M. - usually used as
a mild antagonist in filler material, he has come to represent a
reliable touchstone of normality. When he and the other staff are
removed from the picture for 'extra training', the rules are changed
and old certainties break down, building up to the midnight meeting in
the absent head's office when the new staff reveal their true
identities. In a sense, once he is sure Baxter is a fraud, James is
forced by circumstance to take nominal control of Warfield, symbolised
by his grudging bid for class president. But when he's seen by his
friends plunging from the roof and failing to resurface, the others
assume him dead, even further heightening the tension that
sets this episode well apart from the rest. In fact, in what appears to
be a first for the series, one character apparently does
die - the S.C.U.M. agent who plunged off the roof looking like James -
enhancing the darker mood of the story. While by far and away the best
episode conceptually, the realisation lets it down on many fronts (see
'Lows' and 'Blunders & Bloopers' below); this in part is
because there's too much good material to fit in a 22-minute slot, and
the ending is therefore hurried and anticlimactic. This would have
worked far better as a two- or even three-part episode, with far more
time to explain all the complexities as well as prolonging the action.
But despite the numerous failings this remains a very firm favourite.
Highs: As well as the overall concept of the episode, there
are a number of subtle touches that really work well: Tracy leaning
over to take a sip of James's coke in the canteen; 'Baxter' repeatedly
getting Trevor's name wrong ('Travis') and James compounding the habit;
the gang's emotional last stand against S.C.U.M. at the end. Also,
since time isn't wasted on the usual gadget demo session with
I.Q., most of the gizmos James uses are introduced naturally in the
narrative, which works well here given the time constraints.
Lows: Visual continuity is a huge
problem on several occasions to the extent that at times it prohibits
understanding - for the outright errors, see 'Blunders &
Bloopers' below. But more frustratingly, several important plot points
remain completely unexplained. Namely, we never discover how S.C.U.M.
summoned away Warfield's existing staff with Billings' assent, and
where they were in the interim - did a S.C.U.M. mole within the
government arrange a genuine 'retraining' session, or were they
actually kidnapped and this was just what Billings and the students
were told? Then we have the issue of Billings telling James to keep the
events secret from Milbanks; a deeply suspicious move, surely? The
headmaster of a school so obviously within the secret service's remit
would need to know that it was very nearly seized by enemy agents - if
only to implement a security crackdown to see that it doesn't happen
again. Meanwhile Mask, the main villain of the piece, is demasked
offscreen (we see him in the police van, still wearing the mask), so
that we never learn who he really is, despite being teased about his
identity throughout given the fact that his face is always covered,
either by the mask itself or the cloaking device. Finally, there's no
word as to who becomes class president. Arguably these points were
never supposed to be cleared up and were deliberately left to the
imagination; however, for a show aimed largely at children it seems
somewhat remiss not to address them at all, even in passing.
Lines to Remember: James
to Trevor after he spills beetroot all over Baxter's suit: 'Travis!
Look what you've done to Mr Baxter!'
Gadgets & Gizmos: I.Q.'s
home-made boomerang is great for sending S.C.U.M. agents crashing to
their doom. He also has a grabber-gun that steals bananas from those in
front of him in the lunch queue - and there's now a miniature camera
and radio transmitter installed in James's watch, too. For late-night
surveillance, there's a mini parachute, and a pair of binoculars with
built-in amplifier that can help James hear at a distance, as well as
see. But even better is I.Q.'s deadly armoury of confectionery-based
weapons: Phoebe tries out the gum gun, while Tracy's device appears to
shoot popcorn.
Also on the gadget front this week is S.C.U.M.'s revolutionary cloaking
device which, with the flick of a dial, can make anybody look like
anybody else!
S.C.U.M.
on the Surface: Very
much so. The organisation's plan to infiltrate the secret service is
one of their most audacious and dangerous schemes yet. Mask is the most
senior S.C.U.M. agent we meet here, but it's clear he's acting on the
orders of his own superiors (possibly Scumlord, though he isn't seen or
mentioned) within the plot to capture Billings. It's also implied
through their ability to remove Milbanks from Warfield that S.C.U.M.
may have contacts or agents very high up in government. Mask may even
be one of these such contacts, since great care is taken not to reveal
his real identity either to fellow S.C.U.M. agents or the viewers.
The plain-clothes S.C.U.M. team seen frequently in this episode
(including both the moustached and bearded guys mentioned in 'Blunders
& Bloopers' below) also appear at the Rio carnival in another
unusual installment, Barbella's
Big Attraction. Since
both episodes deal with plots apparently run by S.C.U.M. high command
it's likely these men are senior special operatives of some variety.
They also crop up in two more conventional episodes, Mindfield
(which briefly features Scumlord) and No
Time to Lose.
The uniformed S.C.U.M. agents seen in the final showdown are dressed in
a rare red and black variant as opposed to the usual blue get-up,
perhaps suggesting they too belong to a secret/special branch of the
organisation.
Loco Parenthesis: Coach Mitchell briefly appears as the staff get on
the bus to head for the retraining programme, but has no lines. While
his dubious approach to pupil care is a running joke in this guide, his
absence here underlines the very different atmosphere surrounding this
episode, as James struggles without his mentor; indeed, at one point,
he wishes out loud that Coach Mitchell were here. As it gradually
becomes clear that the entire replacement teaching staff are S.C.U.M.
impostors, Mitchell begins to look like a very enviable option in
comparison.
Blunders
& Bloopers: Warning: don't read this section if
you're easily bamboozled. Where to begin? Most of the confusion here is
caused by the appearance-switching that goes on as a result of the
cloaking devices. Firstly, in the original
footage of the rooftop struggle, it appears to be a bald, bearded
S.C.U.M. agent that grappled with James on the roof directly before
'James' fell to his doom; then both the bearded man and a
guy with a moustache are seen straight after the
fall alongside Mask and the other agents. Duing James's explanation,
we're shown that it's actually the moustached man whose form James has
assumed and who becomes Mask's deputy of sorts. So whichever is
correct, either the bearded man or the moustached man must be James.
And yet both appear in the final battle after
James has apprehended Mask and taken Baxter's appearance!
To confuse matters further, in James's flashback
of the helipad struggle, the artwork for one of Billings's police
chaperones is used by mistake instead of whichever of the two S.C.U.M.
agents was supposed to have been killed, meaning it's even less clear
which one it was. And lastly, Miss Pearce, the Warfield staff member
who first informed Milbanks about the retraining, was recalled with the
rest of the teachers - yet later appears (with a male voice!) as one of
the cloaked S.C.U.M. agents, when she clearly shouldn't be on site at
all in any shape or form. To cap it off, the man disguised as Miss
Pearce is the very same moustached agent who was helping Mask, and
may have died falling off the helipad, and appears
just seconds before he emerges as 'Miss Pearce' in the very same scene!
In short - if you want to enjoy this episode without a headache, just
assume that all minor S.C.U.M. agents and Warfield staff are completely
interchangeable.
Notes: Hostile
Takeover raises intriguing points about the extent to which
Warfield Academy is controlled and protected by the British government
and, more specifically, the secret service - which would make sense
given that the pupils are the children of high-profile people. Milbanks
says it's the Ministry of Education that has called them away for
retraining, immediately indicating that it's a state-run school and not
in the private sector - while the fact that Billings, the head of the
secret service, is also head of Warfield's board of directors and has
presumably agreed to the decision, strongly suggests that the Academy
is overseen by the intelligence services. We see evidence of this sort
of link in other episodes - such as Coach Mitchell and his advanced
knowledge of S.C.U.M.'s activities, the fake phone call from the Prime
Minister in Earthcracker
(which Milbanks is quick to believe is real), and the revelation in The Beginning that
Warfield used to be a counterintelligence training base, explaining the
secret passage in Milbanks' office.
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