As a white-bearded, New England sea captain (complete with a little anchor on his hat) nervously checks his watch, Drs. Prolorne, Hoffman, and Sopler explore the mysteriously-pulsating alien starship they’ve found lodged in the Atlantic seabed. “Radio carbon dating confirms my hypothesis,” Prolorne tells us. “This ship is over ten thousand years old.” Unfortunately, its security systems (complete with pink, wriggling tendrils that seize our Scientists and drag them, screaming, into the darkness) remain spry as ever.
Indeed, as we see, once H.E.A.T. finds that stereotypical sea captain, and his boat, floating above the transmission source. Mendel recognizes it as “Dr. Prolorne’s ship,” though last I checked, xenobiologists weren’t exactly running around burning money on research vessels…except in Michael Crichton novels. But what do I know? In any case, Mendel has a professional chubby for Dr. Prolorne, and he’s sad as anyone to discover that the good doctor is now three days lost below the waves.And so goes any chance for H.E.A.T. to discover where Dr. Prolorne makes his paper. (Probably the same mysterious source that puts gas in the Heat Seeker’s tank…unless H.E.A.T.’s burdening the French taxpayer through Monique’s Hearstian expense accounts). “ ‘Under no circumstances are you to come down after us,’” the unnamed Sea Captain quotes. “Those were Dr. Prolorne’s exact orders.” And if you recognize that voice, give yourself two points; that’s Ron “Hellboy” Pearlman commanding Prolorne's tub. The Good Doctor must be rollin' in it like Scrooge McDuck.
Before Dr. Nick can grow any more indignant at Captain Pearlman’s obedience of orders, Godzilla arrives, scaring the bejesus of everyone not named Tatopoulos. "Relax people,” Nicky says. “There’s no reason to panic. He only looks dangerous,” a patent lie, and a fruitless exercise in cross-species understanding. Godzilla (oblivious to Nick’s shouted commands) sniffs at the ship, casts his head about, and dismisses it with a straight-arrow dive, down, down, down…to the bottom of the sea.Following in a secondary submersible (commandeered with a little help from Monique and her concealed weapon…no, really; that’s not a double entendre at all—she actually walks around with a gun under her arm, much to Nick’s further indignation), it’s not long before H.E.A.T.-proper encounters problems. Mendel does nothing to help Randy’s latent claustrophobia, reminding him (and us) that, once you drop past two miles, “the spray from a hairline crack will cut you in half.” Then the dinosaur arrives.
Identified as a Cryptocleidus by team-paleontologist Elsie Chapman, its menace is somewhat countered by the fact that human technology will always move faster than natural organisms sixty-five million-years-adapted to their environment. Always. Oh, and Godzilla arrives—convenient, considering his last known location. Our human heroes presently descend, leaving the Big G to fend for himself and thus disappear from the remainder of the episode.Below, a massive, spine-ridged hulk of an alien ship lies, half-buried in the silt. Docking, it’s not long before equally-spiny, scale-skinned, guard dogs (“bred from ancient dinosaurs”—as opposed to all those new ones) assault the team. Fleeing through a conveniently-opened portal (which seals shut behind them) they find Dr. Prolorne…who warns them to leave, “immediately.”
“This is a very delicate First Contact situation,” Prolorne declares…though he’s willing to spare time for some exposition. "This ship crashed near the end of the Cretaceous Period. They’ve spent most of that time in stasis, of course; broadcasting an automatic distress beacon…human technology had to reach a level advanced enough to detect it.” Monique questions the intentions of their "hosts.” Dr. Nick requests some face-time. “I’m afraid I can’t allow that,” Prelorane deadpans, sealing H.E.A.T. into their anonymous-looking room with a masterful command of these alien control panels.
But not for long. With N.I.G.L.E.’s tachyon-detector guiding them, H.E.A.T. soon finds the control room—and the bulb-headed, Sumo-bodied, six-limbed, dual-tusked, telepathic beings within. “[Y]our race,” one of them declares, floating over for a meet-and-greet, “is ready to be assimilated. Your cities, machines, infrastructure, will serve my people well….Those who cooperate will find the new order satisfying…even stimulating.” (Ewww…) Those who do not will, apparently, receive telekinetic bitch-slaps and forced brain-drains.
Well…yes and no. And while H.E.A.T.’s moody, atmospheric travails inside the alien ship are all well and good, they begs the question: Why is Godzilla here at all? Omit him, and you’re left with a fairly decent, half-hour, sci-fi/horror show, complete with action, betrayal, and a creepy, cliff-hanger ending that practically broadcasts itself…while sliding right by Dr. Nick and his little band. They’ve obviously never watched a monster movie, or alien invasion film, in their whole freakin’ lives (not even Randy, Token Urban Youth that he is).
H.E.A.T.’s ignorance and Godzilla’s relative-absence are the only real causes for griping I can find here. Both elements are, in their own ways, necessary—the latter because of budgetary and time constraints; the former because…well, we’ve got to set up future episodes and reoccurring villains somehow. Can’t turn all of Nick’s old college buds into Evil Geniuses. Someone’s got to pick up the slack. And there is no trump card in the whole of Kaiju eiga quite like the Alien Invasion.Japanese speculative fiction would have us believe that aliens are simultaneously Out There…and relentlessly scheming to get Here, take over our planet, strip its natural resources, and convert us all into chattel slaves…or three-course meals. During the original series (1954-78) Godzilla (and his “friends” among Earth’s terrestrial monsters) beat back no less than five separate alien incursions. Since the New Millennium, G’s put three more notches in his figurative belt (most recently in the derivative, over-hyped, headache-inducing, Fiftieth Anniversary blowout, Final Wars), and that’s just film. Godzilla’s video games and comic books inevitably throw down the Alien Invasion card as a framing device, with good reason. Simple and direct, it bolsters what might otherwise be a sorry excuse for a plot, allowing Godzilla to play Hero by providing a credible threat much more dangerous to humanity than he is, or could ever be.
Now’s not the time or place to plumb those depths. (Plenty of time for that once we come to this series’ vision of the Monster Wars.) At the moment, I’ve got the creeping suspicion that episode-writer Michael Reaves (veteran writer of Gargoyles, the under-appreciated Phantom 2040, and the best Batman movie in all creation, Mask of the Phantasm) had no idea what to do with Godzilla for the balance of this episode. Our titular character is, once again, left (literally) floating on the margins. Human stumbling around is all well and good but the best daikaiju creators keep their monsters well integrated into the main action…or, at the very least, well-occupied off screen.
While G’s underwater battles against the Cryptocleidi (once the episode gets around to them) are novel, they suffer from the slow pace and low drama common to cinematic scuba-diving scenes. James Bond and Creature from the Black Lagoon fans know what I’m talking about: it’s terribly hard to make a fight scene riveting when everyone’s moving at half-speed. Episode director Tim Eldred does his best to counter this by keeping the episode’s twin fight scenes short and to the point…robbing them of the visceral impact we get inside the alien ship.
Randy’s freak-out allows us, the audience, permission to share his psychosomatic feeling, and few things put Fear in the stout of heart like the thought of all that water… pressing down…on you…burr, baby. Very burr.Profiting, not in spite, but largely because of Godzilla’s absence, “Leviathan” stands as a high point of a first season, paradoxical and shambling, much like Godzilla himself. Jesus, I’m already into overtime and longing to be get back to safe, solid ground, where I can take easy potshots at the series obvious flaws.
For that join us next week, when the going shall get Weird, courtesy of Len Wein, co-creator of Swamp Thing.
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