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Episode #42
'INVADERS FROM S.C.U.M.'
by Jennie Tremaine
Featuring:
James, I.Q., Tracy, Gordo, Phoebe, Trevor, Mr Milbanks, Coach Mitchell,
Dr Derange,
Jaws, Nick Nack, Scumlord.
Synopsis:
It's a clear, dark night, until Warfield Academy
is suddenly bathed in an eerie, green glow. Noticing how unusual this
is, James and Gordo venture out of the dorms to investigate - and is
shocked to see one of the students, Hayley Comet, being attacked by a
small, humanoid figure in a purple jumpsuit and what appears to be a
gas mask. James and Gordo manage to fight the creature off, but it runs
back into a large, hovering vehicle which looks a flying saucer - and
disappears into the sky. Hayley is convinced that she's just had an
alien encounter, but James isn't so sure. The next day, Mr Milbanks
hears about the event and sentences James and Gordo to two weeks'
confinement to Warfield. Hayley escapes with a warning as she's a new
student, but later rings her father to tell him what happened.
Professor Comet, an eccentric scientist and rather gullible old man,
believes the whole story and tells Hayley that the aliens have already
arranged to come and pick him up tonight.
Hayley's worried, but can't convince her father otherwise - and when
she tells James, he decides they ought to sneak out and prevent her
father from going with them. Meanwhile, Gordo, Tracy and Phoebe are
assigned with the task of keeping Trevor out of the loop regarding
James's whereabouts. I.Q. uses a megaphone to ask Trevor to report to
the gymnasium where Coach Mitchell has a special assignment for him.
All that happens, however, is that Trevor ends up getting caught in the
gym equipment and bouncing around the room indefinitely. Later, he
attempts to listen in at James's window to check if he's still on
campus, and the others play a tape of James's voice to trick him. When
Phoebe pokes her head out of the window, Trevor loses his balance and
falls head first into Mr Milbanks' prize plants. At night, he is caught
snooping around the dorms looking for James, and when Tracy pretends
she thinks he's an intruder Milbanks goes mad, and punishes him
appropriately.
Meanwhile, at an old castle not too far away, the 'aliens' take off
their masks and are revealed as none other than Jaws, Nick Nack, and...
Doctor Derange! They receive a briefing from Scumlord, who warns them
not to mess things up. We learn that England is about to launch its
first particle beam satellite, and that Scumlord aims to control it,
thus threatening the stability of the entire world. Since Professor
Comet is a member of the team involved with the satellite launch, the
best way to get to the satellite is to get to him. Tracy arranges for
James to leave via the secret passage through Milbanks' room, and he
meets I.Q. and Hayley outside in the sports car. Sure enough, the
'spaceship' turns up at the appointed hour, and Jaws and Nick Nack, in
disguise, collect Professor Comet and take him on board, just before
James and his friends pull up to stop them.
James leaps out of the car and manages to hang onto the ship as it
flies away, while I.Q. uses his boomerang CD, with integrated homing
device, to track the spaceship and see where it will go next. He and
Hayley also find a piece of metal that fell off the ship, marked 'Essex
Foundry, Birmingham' - another suggestion that the 'aliens' aren't from
another world. On board the ship, the S.C.U.M. agents trick Comet into
thinking he's travelling at warp speed into space with some clever
visual effects. James has managed to get on board the spaceship, and
soon finds himself confronted by Jaws and Nick Nack, who try to chase
him but fall on top of one another instead. Eventually, they get him at
gunpoint and lock him in a cell - but the Professor is still none the
wiser. Meanwhile, I.Q. and Hayley follow the signal
towards the old castle, where the S.C.U.M. agents have landed.
With James still locked up on board the ship, they take the Professor
outside; he's flabbergasted that their planet is almost identical to
the Earth! However, they make it clear that all they're interested in
talking about is the satellite launch, which they wish to observe -
Nick Nack has even managed to steal the disk containing the launch
software. The Professor still sees no problem with this, and starts up
the software, thus giving Derange control. The S.C.U.M. agents take
their masks off, revealing their true natures and showing the Professor
what a fool he's been. At this point, James has escaped from his cell,
but he is powerless to stop Derange as he is shooting at I.Q. and
Hayley as they drive towards the castle. The Professor begs them not to
shoot at Hayley and Derange agrees on the condition that the Professor
cooperates and helps out with the takeover; he reluctantly agrees. When
I.Q. and Hayley finally arrive, I.Q. uses the car's x-ray mirror to
determine whereabouts the flying saucer is inside the castle walls, and
then uses a laser cutter to make a hole in the wall through which they
can climb.
To distract the crooks, I.Q. sets the flying saucer on time delay so
that it sets off flying on its own, forcing Jaws and Nick Nack to go
and investigate. Hayley and I.Q. burst into the nerve centre, allowing
James a chance to knock Derange's gun out of his hand so that the
Professor can stop Derange launching the satellite for S.C.U.M.. During
the fray a stray laser beam damages the control panel, shorting it out
and meaning that they no longer have control over the satellite and
that it will launch by itself, causing mass disaster. Derange and his
henchmen flee from the scene in the saucer (actually a modified
hovercraft), but forget to turn off the automated laser defence at the
castle. The hovercraft is bombarded with laser beams; this, combined
with Jaws and Nick Nack's bickering and some shoddy workmanship by the
Essex Foundry causes the ship to crash and burst into flames. Scumlord
is on hand on the telescreen to give all of them a telling-off, while
back at Warfield Trevor also suffers in detention for all his escapades
by getting stuck in a bucket - to everyone's amusement.
Review:
With sixty-five episodes during which to milk the
franchise and a collection of remarkably odd-looking villains, it was
practically a dead cert that the 'alien hoax' card would be played
sooner or later. Invaders from S.C.U.M. certainly
came later, and the gaping loopholes in this episode obviously didn't
put the writers off, since A
Derange Mind two episodes later covers very similar
subject matter, and again with Doctor Derange. The problems with this
episode outweigh the successes by far; Scumlord's appearance seems gratuitous, and the already shaky plot - involving the
hijack of a 'particle beam satellite' whose implications for the world
are devastatingly vague - is hardly enhanced by the all-too-frequent
attempts at comedy involving the three lead villains. More than ever
before the crooks' physical abnormalities are played upon for laughs
in a manner which may leave some viewers feeling a little
uncomfortable, the clear implication being that Jaws, Nick Nack and
Derange might as well have left the helmets off.
The two henchmen are so badly caricatured here that they can barely
move without falling on top of one another, and their appeal isn't
improved by the fact that the visual footage from one scene (in which
the three argue over the controls) is repeated frame-for-frame later
on. To worsen matters, the guest girl of the day, Hayley Comet, is
wooden and poorly realised to say the least, while such criticisms
would be compliments when applied to her father, who obligingly fulfils
every eccentric professor stereotype in the book. Of course, if we take this episode as purely comedy-driven,
which largely it is, many of these points can be overlooked. And there
are more positive moments; I.Q. actually gets a piece of the action for
once, confining Bond to the back seat for at least three minutes. All
in all, however, this episode is pretty dismal and would be one of
Derange's least memorable outings were it not for the fact that it is
all so unashamedly unlikely.
Highs:
The villains' complete lack of effort in keeping up the act while
speaking in front of the Professor isn't remotely detrimental to their
plan; he falls for it hook, line and sinker. In fact, Derange's
sloppiness is evident and amusing throughout; he forgets to turn off
the automated defence systems on the castle before they escape, and has
clearly had the craft constructed on the cheap, as the steering wheel
comes off in his hands.
Lows: Just about everything else. At one point, Gordo has
to have the word 'fortnight' defined for him. And perhaps most
disappointingly, some 'amusing' footage of a bickering Jaws and
Nick Nack being separated by Derange at the hovercraft controls is
unsubtly recycled later on in the episode.
Lines to Remember: Professor Comet: 'Truly
astounding! Your planet is almost identical to ours!' Derange:
'Yes! Amazing, isn't it?'
James to Hayley, on the abduction attempt: 'That's
most disturbing. It's also most disturbing that we haven't been
introduced.'
Lines to Forget:
Hayley Comet, unafraid to state the bleeding obvious
having almost been abducted and dragged into one: 'That was
a spaceship!'
Professor Comet on Jaws, Nick Nack and
Derange: 'Why, you're not an alien! You're a large human!
And you're a small human! And you're a loose human!"
Gadgets & Gizmos: I.Q. has invented a boomerang disc
for James's CD player. It sticks to anything and, rather predictably,
contains a homing device. Some of the many features of James's sports
car are also showcased in this episode including an 'x-ray' rear view
mirror that can see through walls, laser-proof shields, and a miniature
laser gun of its own that can cut through solid stone. I wonder if they
have a licence for that...
S.C.U.M. on the Surface: This is one of the most overtly
S.C.U.M.-controlled plots, with Scumlord visible and clearly in command
of an otherwise entirely hopeless situation. It is rare that Derange is
seen communicating directly with the leadership but this episode
asserts more clearly than ever before his allegiance to the
organisation.
VHS Vault: This episode
is available on the UK video entitled James
Bond Jr. vs. Jaws the Metallic Munch, alongside Plunder
Down Under and Ship of Terror.
Notes: Why were Derange and his henchmen so anxious to
escape at the end? Why would the satellite launching by itself pose any
immediate threat to them? Why are we even bothering to ask?
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