Reviewed by John Hussey.

After such promise within ‘Telemon’ this week’s ‘The Marriage of True Minds’ made a horrible turn for the worst. The episode was riddled with predictability and a dragging plot that didn’t seem to go anywhere despite the fact there was a lot going on.

Telemon was the biggest disappointment for me as I feared the writer’s would do a re-run of their ideas established in Series One and that’s exactly what happened. Within the first scene of the episode Telemon was seen with Pasiphae doing some sort of sacrifice to a chicken and blessing her new comrade with its blood. This was truly boring and absolutely lazy. Telemon had potential I felt and to just have him be another Pasiphae servant, like with Heptarian, just made his character unimportant and dull. As predicted from then on, the journey to see his father was a ploy to get Ariadne into the open plains and kill her after being ambushed by her enemies.

Of course Jason, Hercules and Pythagoras suspected that this was to be a trap but without further proof their words meant nothing. Jason attempted to speak with Ariadne but of course her whiny speeches of “doing the right thing for Atlantis” got in the way of the truth, blinding her decisions and placing herself into mortal danger. Luckily Jason managed to persuade her to allow him to join the journey as her protector. It was nice that Dion appreciated his decision to join them, showing a mutual respect for the chosen warrior.

As also predicted Telemon secretly lured Pasiphae to Ariadne and their group were ambushed, showcasing an easy and pathetic defeat to Atlantis’ finest. Honestly it was so cringe-worthy to watch I just thought to myself, “Christ, they really need to get some better soldiers because the only thing these guys know how to do is die without a fight.” It is the clichéd element in all of these stories that the soldiers get taken out leaving only a select few along with the protagonist to save the day. And that’s all it was for the rest of the episode; the surviving few ploddingly along through the desert and wilderness trying to outrun Pasiphae. It got boring very fast is what I’m saying. The story just seemed to drag from then on with very little interest to engage with.

Of course the surprising element of the ambush was that Telemon, much to my guess (as everything else I predicted would happen happened), didn’t actually go through with killing Ariadne. He then returned to Pasiphae only to receive a blade to his chest. Her ruthlessness is really beginning to annoy me again because all she seems to do is go bonkers and kill everything in her path without mercy. But even that doesn’t make her a good villain, it just makes her uninteresting and one dimensional. A villain who is selfish and kills for their own goals is a worthy villain, demonstrated perfectly with my two favourite villains Sosuke Aizen from Bleach, and the Master from Doctor Who.

What Pasiphae lacks is depth and an element that makes her interesting. Aizen has his calmness and calculative mind which controls the situation around him whilst the Master has his obligation to both hate and admire his enemy. Pasiphae has nothing. She simply comes across as whiny person who stabs someone when she doesn’t get her own way, i.e. stabbing one of her own to demonstrate what happens when her army doesn’t obey her. Anyhow, Telemon was left for dead and hasn’t been seen since. Hopefully this isn’t the end for his character and perhaps he can turn a new leaf and aid Ariadne in the war against Pasiphae.

Ariadne bores me as well. Her obligation to stick to the rules makes me so frustrated. She clearly loves Jason so why not just fall in love with him and throw the rule book out of the window. Jason is a strong warrior and would prove to be a mighty protector for Atlantis and wouldn’t really prove as much of an objection to the people. How cares what a few nobles say, they aren’t the majority. Either way I just keep feeling sorry for Jason as he goes round the same conversation over and over again despite his affections and loyalty to Ariadne she still repays him in the same way. Perhaps he should give up on her and put an end to his suffering. I like how we’ve had subtle references to Medusa from Hercules, establishing that he still has feelings for her and knows his one true love has been taken from him through the cruel means of a curse.

The introduction of Orpheus played nicely into the story through his wisdom, allowing the blind man to see more than most men through his understanding of people and the ability to see into their fates. His wife Eurydice brought little to the plot other than challenging Ariadne’s understanding of love. Diagoras certainly didn’t bring anything to the plot because other than his introduction scene he became a background character who wasn’t really seen throughout the rest of the plot, minus a quick scene where Hercules ordered him to take a sword and defend himself.

What I like about the second series is its continuing nature and constant cliff-hangers. This story really left you wondering what will happen next after the death of Dion (which was a pathetic death for him I found and a tragic disposal of a good character) followed by Ariadne apparently striking down Pasiphae with an arrow finished off by Jason and Medea falling from a ledge after she released some sort of shockwave.

Medea still confuses me as I don’t know what her purpose is. She was brought into the plot in ‘A New Dawn: Part 1’ and simply stands at Pasiphae’s side as if waiting for her moment to shine. I also don’t get if she’s a normal human or not because it keeps hinting that she has powers which I don’t get. I would really like the writer’s to get across what they are doing with this character because if she is meant to be one of the main villains then I’m not seeing it that much, nor am I interested in her character because I have nothing to go on.

Needless to say there wasn’t much worth talking about this week because not a lot happened and the episode was rather boring. It’s worth noting that I was impressed that Ariadne could handle herself in combat through her constant kills with a bow which even aided Jason out of some scraps. Other than this it’s simply one of those episodes that build up a lot of story points and tension for the following episodes to fill in the gaps and be potentially the better stories. I suppose it’s one of those weeks where the story can’t be fully appreciated until you’ve seen the final outcome.

In a nutshell Atlantis isn’t the best series on the BBC but it proves to be entertaining, even more so when the writer’s get it right. It’s a show that’s nice to tune into but isn’t anything outstanding and ‘The Marriage of True Minds’ proves what I mean.

Verdict: 6/10