Posted by neilg
on 9/28/2008, 3:38 pm, in reply to "Batteries? What Batteries - Episode Rewatch #3 Hall Of Bones"
hmmm... The episode description didn't ring any bells but parts of it came back to me as I watched.
Not a perfect epsiode — lacking, to my mind, a certain structural integrity that I thought was present in last week's episode. Without the single focus of Sir John we're left with a series of events, seemingly randomly linked that culminate in the fulfilment of the initial quest - the restoration of the gang's magical items...
But for all that there are parts of it I really liked.
My favourite aspect of the show has always been the element of domesticity that every now and then creeps into the stories - I've always liked to imagine the gang when they are not fighting monsters and having adventures. We get glimpses of that in this episode when they are picking the fruit from the trees, for example. I love the factor of the mundane that must exist in the series' scenario, which arises chiefly because it concerns the adventures of a bunch of ordinary children, from earth, trapped in an extraordinary, and yet recognisably utilitarian environment.
By which I mean, this is an environment that contains people with lives that are not contingent upon the fantastic, superhuman elements of fantasy but are, notionally at least, independent and subsistent on the recognisably rural landscape around them.
I like the town in this episode, for this reason.
Better drawn, I thought, than the town last week and more convincing, possibly because I felt it sat in its environment more appropriately - no deserts and mushroom forests beyond it limits this time, but a rural, and arboreal European landscape.
The alien inhabitants surprised me initially - and there appear to be Orcs drinking at the local bar - but, I suppose, this town is, as towns are, a centre of aggregation - where people of all walks of life can find refuge and mutual support from the inhospitable wilderness.
The bar reminded me of the Mos Eisley canteen in Star Wars - a collection of the most disreputable inhabitants of the Realm all seeking security (with the occasional opportunity for criminality) together.
Hector the Halfling I don't have much time for. The Halfling is a curious addition to the D&D menagerie, anyway, and there only, as I understand it, because the creators of the original game weren't allowed to use the term Hobbit by the keepers of the Tolkein estate.
It strikes me that Hector's presence suggests a kind of ticking off from a list of Dungeon and Dragon related elements - of which Merlin (A Wizard/Sorcerer) and the Beholder are previous items.
It's curious, too, that the designers created Hector with hairy legs (as a progression from merely hairy feet), and a red cap so that Hector looks, for all the world, like the bizarre offspring of a garden gnome and an Orangutan.
Likewise, the Spider Queen seems slightly incongruous - what is she doing in this town? And where, on earth (or at least below it) is the bottomless pit that the gang are trapped above? Is this some kind of wine cellar that got out of hand?
That said, there is some great scenery in this episode, not the least of which is the Hall of Bones itself, and the spectacular stone causeway that leads up to it. The animation in most of the closing sequence if of the best quality, in particular where the gang make their escape from the exploding structure, the causeway collapsing beneath their feet as they run.
All in all, then, not great but with elements that appeal to me as belonging uniquely to the series (the fruit picking, the town square and the Inn) and some good quality animation and art work.
7/10
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