"Alien Kangaroo Slaughter." Damon Dark investigates!

I sat and watched some of my Damon Dark episodes from the last couple of years on DVD this morning and I was very unhappy with my own performance. I felt Damon Dark himself was letting the side down...he seemed flat, serious, and lacking in personality a lot of the time. I'd done funny ones like Damon's Day Off...but it seemed to me what the show really needed was a balance, with humour and personality from Damon while a serious suspense was building up. So, when I was compelled to go and test drive my new camera battery once again, I came up with this...

See what you think!

I like the title font, Ade. "Adrian M. Sherlock productions" has a "Hitchcock presents" feel about it and the silver "Damon Dark" title looks real sci-fi. It's funny how Damon reacts to being dropped in the middle of nowhere... and talking to the horse reminded me of Tom Baker. The mood is nicely balanced and develops well. The tracking (from car) shot of the complex was great and adds tension just at the right moment. And the possible reappearance of _____ is an interesting turn of events.

Great work, Ade. Poor Kangaroo!


Ps. I've been thinking about a DD storyline involving implants myself recently! I'm just trying to pull some ideas together. They're government controlled "behavioural implants" and alien-involvement propaganda is used as part of a PsyOps smokescreen. Guess who's behind it... yep, "Dr" Paul Anderson.

Thanks for the thoughts, Knightmare! Yes, I was wondering when someone would notice the reference to you-know-who from the original Damon Dark series. I see on The Anorak Zone, Kinggodzillak has questioned how Damon reached his conclusions. Ofcourse, the memory jog of that past implant/mind-control story, the Quatermass 2-like complex in the area and the woman who gives him a lift suggesting aliens is her theory about the spate of dead roos...this leads him to form a suspicion, but then Gary's tests are negative. So it does in fact look like Damon's jumping to conclusions and making mountains...from his own past and paranoia...but then that final news story hints that maybe he was onto something after all and just couldn't prove it!

I'm also pleased you found it Tom Baker-ish when Damon talks to the horse...I now think we need a lot more of that in Damon Dark...he needs to develop some personality to go with his character...if that makes sense!

Yeah, Kinga mentions he isn't familiar with the DD format/history, so he naturally wouldn't know about Damon's past. Damon's like DW; seeing more than meets the eye because of his past experience. Maybe in the next installment... during a conversation, Damon will offer a brief reference to why he felt supicious of you-know-who. It would only take a sentence to put the info across.

So it does in fact look like Damon's jumping to conclusions and making mountains...from his own past and paranoia...but then that final news story hints that maybe he was onto something after all and just couldn't prove it!

I like how you're thinking more about suggesting different interpretations.

Thanks! yeah, that type of thing's always appealled to me...in the UFO ep which first inspired me, Straker recounts the plot and we're left wondering if it was true or a mental delusion. So it fits Damon Dark. The Robert Russell one had that suggestion he was a killer of people and only "thought they were alien-possessed", so it seemed a good idea to go on developing that theme...with an implication that maybe there's some sinister alien plot Damon's stumbled upon, ala Quatermass or maybe there's nothing but his own suspicious mind at work! So, yeah, when something works, my instinct is to develop it onwards...

I sort of picked up from years of reading about stuff like Dr.Who that even during the worst patches, if something worked, we got more of it. The post modernism in Vengeance on Varos with the couple watching the Doctor on tele...we soon got Trial of a Time Lord and Greatest show in the Galaxy...because that self-reflexive thing was seen as an idea that had worked well. Etc.

Background on the making of this episode from Facebook:

Adrian Sherlock: Actually, the wife said "we're going for a drive to find some locations and get some shots for Damon Dark" and I'm like "No, I dont wanna go, I haven't got a script, I haven't got a plot, I got nuthin' and where can we go anyway?" But she forces me to go so I huff and complain and we finally stop in the middle of nowhere and I'm like "what's the point of this?" Then she says "well, maybe Damon arrives in the middle of nowhere" so I throw up my arms and say "well, isn't this nice?" and then I'm like "okay, I better walk past a field of animals" and then I see the dead roo and I'm like "Get over here fast with that camera! Look! Get this! Get Damon Dark finding the mutilated kangaroo!" Then the horse comes to say hello, so naturally I questioned the horse! After that it seemed logical to drive to the Quatermass 2 style installation and suggest this as the source of the roo experiments!
The ending of the episode was very carefully scripted to make sure all the adlibbed stuff worked!