The Guardians: Part 5 - Quarmby

Content warnings: violence, murder, suicide, consensual orgy

You will tell by the content warnings on this post that this is the place where The Guardians turned completely wild. I had read in the reviews that there was a certain point at which the series changed, and I think this might be it, because there is once again a sudden change in tempo and subject.

But first I must correct something I said in my post about the preceding episode. I said that a man calling himself Quarmby was introduced to several plot threads at once. I do tend to have difficulty recognising people, but I'm ashamed to say that Quarmby was actually Frank Benedict, Mrs Weston's psychiatrist, calling himself Quarmby, but I didn't recognise him. I am quite happy to think that this was me not recognising a character out of context, though. He is also the main character in this episode, in fact he's pretty much the resident psychiatrist for the entire series, so I thought I'd better get that one out of the way.

In the aftermath of the assassination at the end of the last episode, The Guardians resists any temptation to make this one a dry episode of analysis and investigation. In fact it suddenly makes the plot absolutely wild. We don't only have Frank Benedict shagging away and the usual politickings, but the centre piece is a ten-man orgy on a beach featuring the Guardians and the subsequent suicide of the woman concerned. We have people being pushed off cliffs. We have Mrs Benedict hiring a private detective to tail her husband and the magnificent sight of the detective doing it in drag before being murdered by Dr Benedict in front of his wife. Oh, and the cabinet secretary gets in a heart attack. I don't think this is overly dramatic, I love the pace and of course it's just representative of life in the UK on a normal day. The reason we have such boring food is for some relief from the continual orgies and murders.

Please don't run away with the idea that I'm criticising the show in any way for this. Before now it has merely been complicated and confusing, at this point it's complicated, intelligent, and entertaining, and I hope it carries on like this. There is also a distinct change in the dialogue from the rest of the series, which has tended to be a bit pedestrian and expository. In this episode, I can only describe the dialogue as brittle and sparkling. The best comparisons I can think of are Joe Orton, or even Noel Coward. If you've ever roared with laughter at Orton's What the Butler Saw, or Loot, those plays very much reflect the feel of this episode. It isn't as deliberately funny, but it has exactly the same feeling of being slightly out of control and wild.

The serious plot point of this episode is that Quarmby doesn't turn out to be a person but an origanisation who have already been sabotaging the powers that be - doing good by stealth as they call it - and have arranged for the executed man's father in the last episode to do the assassination of the Home Secretary.

Political discussion points once again include the press, censorship, vulnerability, trust and whether humans can be sacrificed. I think a valide criticism is that some of the controversial points made are slightly ridiculous; for example after it turns out that the unfit are compulsorily sterilised there is made the point that nobody who uses contraception would disagree with this. Surely this would only ever make anyone who used contraception roll their eyes.

A further, more serious, criticism is that there is an absolute cock up at one point. The whole set up in this show is that the union of Great Britain has broken up and the plot only concerns England. Yet despite this we see the Prime Minister standing behind a Union Jack instead of the correct St George's flag, and the sterilisation clinic is said to be in Perth (in Scotland). These things are a direct contradiction of the show's previous references which have all been to England alone and this is the most incredible continuity cock up.

Otherwise, I really enjoyed this episode and appreciated the slight change of presentation.

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