Off we go again to the Village of Cresden Green, the beachhead for the Geonin invasion.
This week we are revolving around the impending village Fete, with threats, violence, cake, impending doom and a guitar.
Uljabaan observes that people cooped up inside the force-field around the village are going to be blowing seemingly small things out of proportion. However it is clear that no such incentive is needed, little things will be massive problems, aliens or not. Old grudges stay as old grudges, and if your cake is too "Northern" for the village cake stall, there will be blood.
The Uljabaan observation gives an opportunity to reiterate the premise of the series, which is something that seems to happen every week. It's a bit irritating to hear this again and again, for a show in its second series, it should now have the confidence not to have to do this, we don’t need a recap of the fact that the village is cut off from the rest of the world by an impregnable force field, blah blah.
The Computer is trying out a new predictive algorithm, and confidently predicts that Richard will die within four days, it doesn’t tell him how though.
This is a nice angle on the old comedy staple of the overheard misinterpreted death conversation. This isn’t a mis interpreted or overheard conversation, the computer is VERY confident about this death, and no-one is trying to hide it. Everyone knows the death is predicted, and they still put Richard in hazardous situations.
Elsewhere, Lucy Alexander has taken up the guitar and is writing protest songs (badly) about the aliens and the invasion. Uljabaan wants to treat this as sedition, but the wise Computer tells him to laugh it off or risk his reputation as a “nice” Invading Alien Warlord.
Everything of course is going to come to a head at the village fete.
This didn’t feel like one of the strongest episodes of this show, another average half an hour of comedy, despite some solid performances. I’m still not convinced by Charlie Edwards as Uljabaan, I still prefer Julian Rhind-Tutt.
The stand out though as ever is John-Luke Roberts as the Computer, to the point where if Microsoft could integrate him into Windows 8, people might actually LIKE it. Yes, he is that GOOD !