Something rich and strange...
written by Max Dann with Deb Cox
and
Andrew Knight
directed by Ali Ali
Guest cast:
Alison Whyte as Katrina Fennessy
Francis Greenslade as Simmo
Koala's Spiel:
OK, this is the episode I knew was coming. It appears that the Dan and Laura's relationship would have been fine if they had lived on a desert island, but unfortunately for them, reality intrudes constantly.
It is clear that Dan is the outsider of the family. Now that Jack is back in Miranda and Rupert's lives, Dan's presence is less of a necessity and more of an intrusion. Rupert keeps trying to get his parents back together. The abc web-site describes it as Rupert's "well-intentioned, but for Dan painful, attempts to get his parents back together again." I don't know, the way David Wenham played it, he looked more irritated or annoyed rather than pained. I don't mean that offensively - Rupert's an annoying kid and I know that I would be annoyed and irritated. Dan doesn't looked pained at all.
The relationship is further complicated when Dan tries to tantalise Laura with tales of travel to exotic faraway places but Laura is unable to reconcile this fantasy with her life. For Dan though, it is not a fantasy and he is intending to leave forever.
The Council having major difficulties and things get worse when Bob is served with a court summons for failing to lodge his tax return.
The tax prosecutor is a young woman named Katrina Fennessy who is obviously supposed to be drop-dead dazzling but unfortunately to my eyes, was a rather witchy-looking red-head. Alison Whyte looked better in Frontline for some reason.
Ms Whyte is quite lenient towards Bob and displays a very flattering interest in him, which intensifies when she convinces him to convince the town that a community bank would be a great idea for the town.
At a "family" picnic which Rupert organises with annoying guilelessness, Rupert is humiliated by Jack's attempts to make a man out of him. I really couldn't imagine first season Jack done the same thing as he seemed a somewhat sympathetic father. Anyway, Rupert runs away with the predictable result that as the town mobilises to look for him - Jack and Laura are drawn together by their common bond as parents.
It's plausible that Dan would leave, it's believable that he would leave abruptly, but I still find it inexcusable. He's been a part of Pearl Bay for so many years, with many ties whether or not he acknowledges them. To just up and leave is incredibly irresponsible and .... mean!
I really didn't envy the writers faced with the task of getting Diver Dan out of the show. This is not because the show can't go on without him: he's cool, but frankly there are more than enough likeable, attractive, bizarre characters in Pearl Bay to people several TV series. The real difficulty was the character they'd created. We've been told variously that Diver's 'lack of ambition is infuriating', all he does is fish, after being in the Merchant Navy he came back to Pearl Bay and has been in the boathouse for (I think) eight years. Given that he's just been sitting around and making coffee all this time, how could the writers make him leave just when things are finally working for him and Laura, and seem consistent?
The opening scene of the episode set the tone for the rest of the hour. Laura and Dan dancing the cha-cha, are about to get a bit amorous, when Laura remembers a promise to Rupert and Miranda that they would play Scrabble. On arriving at Laura's house, they discover Jack has turned up, and the eternally clueless Rupert insists that they can play as well with five. This one and a half minute vignette pretty much captures the essence of the whole episode. Laura and Dan have a fantastic relationship: but only absent of Laura's commitments to her family. The classic moment is the revelation of just how Dan plays Scrabble: 'No Americanisms, nothing ending in STE, and no words starting with PR unless they're vegetables.' Which prompts the question of which vegetables do start with PR?
Pretty early on in the episode, the audience is asked to believe is that Dan wants to go to Cuba, and get out of Pearl Bay. Hmmm. Did anyone else sit back and think: where the hell did the 'wanderlust' character trait come from? I thought this sudden elaboration on Dan's character was pretty contrived, as anyone who watched series one knows damn well that Dan turns laid back and stagnated into an art form. I was prepared to say 'fine' and go with the flow, on the basis that it was all kind of necessitated by David Wenham's departure, but I'd like to note in passing that I didn't think the whole 'I want to see the world' thing was very convincing.
As the episode progresses, the audience is given a number of nominal reasons for Dan's decision that things just won't work for him and Laura. Jack's behaviour is one: his numerous caustic asides in the scenes with both him and Dan cemented my resolve to hate this character forever, no matter how reformed he gets. On asking to borrow Dan's rod, he says diffidently 'it seems a fair exchange really', and Dan's expression whilst the clueless Rupert hovers in the background is tough to read. Another reason for Dan's growing distance could be Rupert's confiding in him that he ran away to try and get his parents back together. Add this too the small moments throughout the episode: Dan watching Jack and Laura hug Miranda when all three are united in concern for Rupert, Dan's romantic evening with Laura being cut short by the Scrabble, all this is supposed to create a growing sense that Dan is excluded from Laura's family life, or that he feels unable to cope with the responsibilities attached.
The reason why Dan's departure was so depressing in the context of the show up to this point, is that the writers didn't let him out easily (ie: he's leaving to fulfil life-long dream, killing him off, etc) in the sense that he could say 'I love you Laura, but I have to go' and the audience could believe it. Instead, his choice is pretty selfish. He essentially gives Laura a choice which isn't a choice: I'm leaving, and doing so on these terms, fit into my lifestyle, or forget it. In probably the moment of greatest truth, Dan admits that he'd probably stay if it was just Laura, but it's not: it's the kids, her ex-husband, her job; and 'happy families aren't my specialty.' This moment revealed Dan's limitation. Sure he's the fantasy of just about every Australian woman, but here he failed Laura in a big way.
What made me utterly miserable for a week or two from Laura's perspective, was what this says about starting one's life over. This whole show is about reinventing yourself, about turning a new leaf, starting over and making it better. What this episode did is place the first real qualification on that ideal. Reinvention only goes so far: Laura can change lifestyles from city lawyer to country magistrate, but ex-wife and mother are titles she's stuck with. This isn't to say that she ever regrets or resents her children, but only her horizons have to be limited by them. Although Dan was a bastard to ask of Laura what he did, his tempting offer illustrates the gap between what she may desire, and what she can have. 'If I could start my life over, I'd start it with you', Laura says to Dan at the end of this episode, and at about that point I got seriously depressed.
Having said that, and before people send angry emails about how I undervalue families, the reason why this episode was so effective was through the combination of the different storylines into an argument for the importance of family and children. Rupert's running away made Laura realise how much her children meant to her, even to the extent that she'd consider reuniting with Jack if it made a difference. Kevin sympathises with the distraught Jack and Laura, telling Dan that he just wouldn't understand. And Harold and Meredith, in perhaps the most interesting take of all, muse over how giving up their child, they lost the need for that worry - but is that a good thing? Similarly, Heather contemplates the agony of a lost child, and finally confronts Meredith with her feelings of betrayal. The deep connections between family members comes out strongly in this episode, and I hope I wasn't the only person who had a lump in their throat at Miranda's distress being unable to find Rupert, or Heather crying whilst watching Craig asleep, or Heather breaking down in front of Meredith. The scene between Meredith and Heather was wrenching, and seeing Heather stripped down to her anguish at being abandoned was incredibly moving. Lots of really emotive stuff.
This episode isn't as simple as coming down to a choice between family and lovers, or responsibility and desire. I think it is an amazingly honest sketch of how people can be in love, but it just won't work. The truth which came through this episode, is that the hard part isn't falling in love, the hard part is managing to fit it into your life. Dan and Laura falling in love was like an escapist fantasy, but ultimately they were defeated by reality. Tissues, anyone?
Lyn's Spiels © 1999 Lyn