April 13: The Eternity Trap Parts One & Two (SJA)

Huh.  Tommy Knight (Luke) isn't in this story at all -- not even a quick cameo (apparently because he had GCSE exams).  But Floella Benjamin makes her third appearance as Professor Celeste Rivers of the Pharos Institute (she was also in The Lost Boy and The Day of the Clown), so that's something at least.

The Eternity Trap is designed as a game of two halves.  The first half is an effort to tell a standard ghost tale, with lots of spooky goings-on and such.  So we get inanimate things moving on their own, people who appear and disappear, and sounds that only certain people can hear.  I have to admit, while it seems like they do a pretty good job with all of this, I wasn't terribly enamored with it.  Perhaps I'm just not particularly interested in ghost stories, but I just kept waiting for them to get on with it.  My wife said she found it reasonably effective -- particularly the scenes in the nursery, with all the mechanical toys moving and such -- so I'm willing to believe it's just me.  They certainly do a good job of building up a tense atmosphere -- it's just not one I'm terribly interested in, so I'm just waiting for the explanations in part two.

Erasmus Darkening is confronted by Lord Marchwood. (The
Eternity Trap Part Two) ©BBC

Unfortunately, the explanations that are provided aren't terribly interesting.  There's some technobabble about a transdimensional accelerator and how Erasmus Darkening is an alien who's been trapping people in the house for the last 344 years, but not enough is made of this: it's sufficient for them to say that it's actually science, not magic or anything paranormal, without delving into things.  This is a shame; if they'd explored the centuries-old electronics in the secret cellar a bit more, or done something clever with it, this might have become more special.  But no, Erasmus is defeated thanks to more technobabble (he's converted into electricity) and that's about it.

This is actually rather frustrating because there's quite a bit that's right about this.  The acting is almost all really good -- Donald Sumpter (who was in The Wheel in Space and The Sea Devils) is suitably threatening as Erasmus, while Callum Blue does a good job as the heroic Cavalier, Lord Marchwood.  And it's always lovely to see Professor Rivers again -- really, only Adam Gillen lets the side down a bit as Rivers' assistant Toby, who seems terrified of everything most of the time, rather than the intensely fascinated character the script wants.  But sadly, this seems like a story by the numbers; you may find the first half effective, but the resolution of The Eternity Trap is a damp squib that the story can't quite overcome, and the result is ultimately rather uninvolving.