Edge of Darkness Episode 2 "Into The Darkness"

Curiouser and curiouser...

So, Jedburgh's working for the CIA (does Joe Don Baker ever play characters who aren't CIA agents?), but which side are they on? What do Harcourt and Pendleton want from Craven? How did the police track a getaway vehicle and identify Lowe so quickly as the suspect? Who's pulling their strings? Is/was Gaia connected to the CIA?

It's a real little rabbit warren that Craven's found himself descending into, and the confusion that he seems to be showing is reflecting the position of the audience, not knowing exactly what's going on and who's behind whatever it is that's happening. Interesting to see Sue Cook turn up as herself after Michael Meacher's appearance in the previous episode, though Socialist Advance is obviously a made-up organisation, though with close parallels to ones that do exist.

One bit I forgot to mention last night is the soundtrack, which is one of the few things that dates it (well, that and Ron paying less than £10 to the taxi driver) - the Clapton twangy guitar is a very eighties sound.

They could have anticipated DVD while filming this - I just went back to the killing in episode 1 and you can't really see who it may be, besides dark eyes and a moustache that's probably a disguise.

There's a couple of interesting narrative devices - the use of Emma as Craven's conscience is a clever way of getting the viewer inside his head without voiceovers, and also shows us how dedicated a father he was. There's also the regular imagery of the trains moving though the city with nuclear waste containers on the back, and it seems to me that they're becoming more frequent as the series goes on.

There's a good Wikipedia article on Edge of Darkness, by the way, which reveals that John Thaw was Troy Kennedy Martin's original choice for Craven.