In the Navy: Hornblower - The Even Chance

My cousin's contribution to the deluge of DVDs received this Christmas. My opinion of Hornblower while watching it on TV was, if memory serves, that it was the prettier, gayer version of Sharpe. I am hoping memory is serving, because that sounds pretty good to me right now.

The most incredibly florid description of the situation in 1793 ("ships and men rot in idleness") tells us things are not great in the Navy. Horatio Hornblower, a freakishly doe-like Ioan Gruffudd, arrives at his new ship. Archie Kennedy shouts at him to jump on: "you'll be all right!" While Archie has correctly identified Horatio as indestructible, here's a little advice to Horatio: Never, ever listen to Archie again. Archie, by the way, is Jamie Bamber, and this is exactly why I have never managed to find him sex on legs in Battlestar Galactica. The eyes appreciate the pretty in that series, but the brain just says: Archie Kennedy. He looks utterly adorable but completely asexual here, all moon-face and sweet demeanor, but ultimately, what a waste of space the character is. "Welcome to Purgatory," he says, with such a huge grin on his face that I wonder if Archie actually knows what Purgatory is.

Archie takes Horatio below (so to speak), and informs him he'll "get used to it". Shouldn't Horatio have been at sea since he was a kid? They were in Master and Commander. Whatever. It's quite novel to see Archie more at ease than Horatio. He even yells at someone who disses Horatio. Except he's got one of those hopeless faces. Oh, Archie. You never stood a chance. To be fair, the crew have been hanging around for 6 months which would suck. Archie hopes the Revolution in France will "come to something". Ya think? "You can't kill a king!" Ya THINK, Archie? Archie goes on that while the peasants are starving, they can't eat the heads of the nobility anyway. Er, shut up. Archie finally stops nattering to introduce Horatio to the somewhat jaded midshipmen, who prove my point by saying he should have started at 12, not 17. Amazing that he's Rear-Admiral by 20, really. Horatio chucks up his guts and looks miserable. Welcome to the Navy, child.

The Capt turns up, and it transpires that he's the spymaster from Sharpe, so television has eaten itself! He tells Horatio that his father was a doctor, and that from now on he must obey orders and do his duty and what the fuck ever else that Horatio presumably knew all of already. "No harm will come to you," the Capt says. How true. It'll come to everyone else you know.

Anyway, the midshipmen sit around in attractive half-light only to be interrupted by Jack Simpson, who has failed his exams so has rejoined them. He boots Horatio out of his seat and eats his food. Archie, looking utterly wretched and about to either cry or be sick, explains that Jack is da Man or, as Jack says, Caesar. Jack orders Horatio to dance, which he does, and Jack orders Archie to wake Horatio every half-hour. It's all a bit weird.

Anyway, halfway through the night, Archie starts fitting in a vaguely convincing manner. Clayton The Nice Midshipman, says he hasn't been fitting since Jack went away. Horatio paws at Archie - so it's situation normal.

Antagonism boils between Horatio and Jack, as conveyed in a few scenes. Horatio is afraid of heights and gets stuck up the rigging. Jack climbs past him and completely ignores him. It is utterly cruel of course but kind of satisfying with it. I mean, what with sea-sickness and vertigo, what the hell is Horatio even doing on the ship? Horatio is better at maths than Jack. Jack gets Horatio over a table, sits on him, and asks him if he likes boys. Horatio, interestingly, doesn't answer, and only kicks off when Jack slurs his mother - the brawling stops when Clayton pulls a gun. Horatio lies to the first officer about the fighting and is tied to the rigging. Well, we all have bad first weeks, am I right?

Clayton suggests to Horatio that he either commit suicide or desert, but in a nice way that's difficult to explain. Horatio wants to beat Jack. Clayton, expertly filling his voice with ominous tones, says the beating is nothing "you don't know...what he is capable of." But Archie does, he doesn't add.

Jack and Horatio are ordered to go a-pressganging on shore. Horatio uses his mad maths skillz to win at cards. Jack kind of accuses him of cheating, and Horatio calls him out.

Back on the ship, again in a flatteringly lit scene, Archie squeals: "A duel? Are you mad?" Archie looks about fifteen. Horatio points out that he'll be rid of Jack either way and that he has an even chance. Archie, Horatio and Clayton stand there looking attractive in their uniforms and contemplating death. "He'll kill you certain sure!" Archie declares. Nice. Archie needn't have excited himself, because Clayton wallops Horatio on the head (this is a mark of great friendship in this episode, as it turns out later), and takes his place to fulfil his honour by taking Jack on. Horatio: so noble it rubs off on other people. Little Archie goggles in the background. Who knew that under that sweet round face lay the sculpted features of Lee Adama? The duellers are both shot, but Clayton more so than Jack.

Horatio rocks up, and poor, bleeding Clayton apologises for not killing Jack. Well, the thought was there. We can't all be Horatios. There's a ruckus in the street and Horatio sends Archie and his fabulously conditioned hair (Maybe it's real, maybe it's Pantene?) to quieten them. Clayton bites it and Horatio wanders off. Archie bounds up and announces "he's dead!" Horatio is like, no shit. Archie, with inappropriate glee, means King Louis. "It means war!" he squeals, joyfully. Nice to see how quickly you get over your friend's death, Arch. Wait until the end of the episode, you little squirt, because what goes around comes around. And don't even look at Series Three.

The joy keeps coming because it turns out the pretty ones are leaving to join the frigate Indefatigable. Horatio tries to get out of it because he's honourable or whatever else, but ends up going. His new captain is the magnificent Pellew, who is Robert Lindsay on full bombast and let me tell you, it's quite the sight. Horatio stares at him adoringly. Finally, he's met someone whose even a bigger windbag! "You've already cost the service two midshipmen," Pellew points out (with considerably more exclaimation points), and orders Horatio to please stop with the shooting. To which Horatio nobly concurs. He has to take on Jack's rabble. Poor, delicate Horatio, having to interact with the lower classes. To be fair, they are hunting rats with their teeth.

Anyway, we finally have some action as they come across a French ship with everyone screaming "FIRE!" Ioan Gruffudd has the biggest mouth I've ever seen in terms of size, but still nearly kills himself trying to shout louder than Jamie Bamber, who seems to have a hefty, if clearly compact, set of lungs in him. We have a brief, but impressive, battle scene that involves Horatio disappearing with a man whose had his leg blown off. He re-emerges to Archie literally squealing "Did you see me? Did you see?....I killed two - well, one certainly! You should have been there Horatio!" His little face is aglow with pride and blood. I have to say, I had entirely forgotton that Archie has latent psychotic tendencies. Anyway, Horatio's won his men over by helping their fellow. You know, Sharpe had to work a LOT harder than that on the Chosen Men. Just sayin'.

We are now in the Bay of Biscay, capturing a food convoy ship full of rice by firing at it. They then give command to Horatio. Were I Horatio, I would already be foreseeing the two problems that will come as total surprises to him shortly. Anyway, as he moseys off, Robert Lindsay effortlessly deafens the entire population for a hundred-mile radius. Listen and learn, boys.

Horatio gets on board, to find the French crew drunk. Sometimes, the actors even remember they are supposed to be French. Horatio is disgusted by their drunkeness, but frankly I can see their point. Matthews, one of the men, kindly helps Horatio out. I have to say, everyone is looking very cold. Horatio is shaking as he looks at his compass and starts talking to it. Cold, or scared, or mad, or maybe all three.

Meanwhile, Horatio has a vision of the firing at the ship, and really, wouldn't Pellew have worked this out already? Anyway, Horatio has a bit of a swim and ascertains that they are, metaphorically and fairly soon literally, sunk. It's a gratuitous shirtless shot of Ioan Gruffudd, but since he doesn't really do it for me, I'm mostly feeling bad for the guy because he looks brutally frozen. Meanwhile, the rice starts expanding, which is the second completely predictable thing, should anyone have given this any thought at all. Also, it's the wrong wind for England. Sucks to be you, Horatio. Just to make things worse, he has to get back in the water to plug the hole. The rats are jumping ship, so Horatio jettisons the cargo. Matthews agrees with the unconvincing-Frenchman that, basically, they're fucked. They jettison themselves, in the lifeboat. Horatio's stockings are remarkably clean.

The Frenchmen want to go to a day jaunt to Bordeaux, to be dropped off and then let Horatio kill himself on the week-long voyage to England on the open-topped boat. Again, I really do see their point. There's a semi-mutiny, and Horatio looks thoroughly bored. He rolls up his map, picks up his compass and throws them both overboard. Who will he talk to now? It was so much smarter than Archie. The Frenchman reckons he can find France anyway - for reference, he cannot. Horatio has managed to lose control of two ships in one day. Anyway, turns out Horatio had marked it wrongly on his map - he says it was a plan to foil the French, or it could be dodgy mapreading on his part. Either way, the Indie turns up and Pellew fishes Horatio out of hassle, for the first but not for the last, time.

The Indie comes across a ship battle in the fog. Horatio spots a sinking British ship, and a French ship sneaking up on them, despite the fact that he's standing right next to Archie, who has failed to spot a damn thing despite nestling an eyeglass. Much chaos ensues. The French ship runs away. "Wherrrrre iiiis sheeeeee?" growls Pellew. A land battery joins in. Pellew decides they should actually run away too. He launches some boats to pick up survivors of the sinking British ship. And who does Horatio fish out, but Jack Simpson. D'OH!

Back on the Indie, Jack is telling a sob story about losing his ship by being harrased by the Papillon. Little Archie is even littler and looks like he's about to cry. Horatio looks sick to his stomach too. Pellew begins to plan Horatio, Archie and Jack to go get the Papillon on a night attack. Both Archie and Horatio have totally stroked out by this point and aren't listening to a thing. Their fear is touching, and would be more so were it not for the fact that Jamie Bamber's eye makeup is distracting.

Archie enters his bedroom, and finds Jack there. "Jack's missed you, boy," he growls, approaching the bed. Archie's terrified. Aw, Archie. He's saved by Horatio (of course!), who walks in. Jack claims they're catching up on old times. "These are new times," replies Horatio. "The boy is mine," he adds, mentally. Archie scurries off after Horatio, and Jack may or may not sniff his bedding.

The encounter is enough to blow Archie's small brains and he has another fit in the boat, on the supposedly covert mission. Really, how is Archie still in the navy? The men keep unhelpfully telling the poor guy to shut up as though he is choosing the timing of these fits, so for the second time this episode, a friend whacks another on the head for his own good: in this case, Horatio and Archie.

They arrive at the Papillon, much crashing and banging. Archie, (who is still flat out in the rowing boat thanks to you know who), is cut adrift by Jack. Horatio clambers up the rigging (struggling with his vertigo - seriously, how DID WE WIN?) and from his vantage point sees Archie floating into the great yonder. Jack then shoots Horatio. In the head. He then falls. From the mast. Into the sea. Unconscious. But this, people, is HORATIO HORNBLOWER, and I refer you to the title of the series, because none of these trials affect him in the least. One of his men dive in after him, the bullet only glanced off his skull, and how he coped with the fall is unexplained. Anyway, he remembers that Jack shot him, and beetles off to tell the first officer. A shot lands that manages to kill everyone around Horatio, but not Horatio. Really, he is Teflon. "The ship is yours," sighs the first officer, dying. There is a brief squabble between Horatio and Jack over who's the ship actually is, but Horatio manages to get everyone to listen to him by force of big brown eyes alone. Hey, it always works for Jared Padalecki, too.

The Indie is battling a ton of French ships, so Horatio sallies in, pretending to be French. You big damn hero. He makes it looks so easy. He just shouts fire over and over and over and over and over again. "My God!" exclaims Pellew. He meets up with Horatio, lists everyone who should have had command before it fell to him, and Horatio has to explain that they are all extremely dead, gone, or, in the case of Jack, in jail.

Pellew advises Horatio against taking Jack on in a duel over whether or not he lied about Jack shooting him. Horatio and Jack decide to fight it out. "I'm going to kill you, snotty," says Jack, ever the wordsmith. He then admits to killing Archie. "Kennedy?" asks Horatio. No, the other one. Duh. And don't sweat it too much over that, by the way.

Anyway, coz Jack is a big dirty cheat he shoots at Horatio before the countdown. The supervisor of the duel gives Horatio a free shot and Jack begs for his life. "You're not worth the powder," says Horatio, walking away. Because Horatio is too noble, and too stupid, to kill him. Jack, of course, makes a lunge for him right then and there with a sword. Lunatic armed with a death wish and a cliche ridden script. Pellew shoots him perfectly from the top of a cliff. You don't touch his boy. Horatio spins around to see who fired, and I swear to God with his Disney-sized eyes and flowing brown curly locks he looks almost exactly like Keira Knightley for a split second. I swear it's true. "Exceptionally fine shot sir, if I may say so," says Mr Bowles. "You may," says Pellew.

Pellew tells Horatio not to fight another duel, since he clearly hasn't the balls for it (he only thinks the last part). "I see something in you, Mr Hornblower," he purrs. "A great future awaits you." Which it does, mainly because of the promotions Pellew bestows on him. Hornblower cries out a few orders, stands on the quarter deck and looks smug. Until the next shit hits the next fan.