Another chance he takes

[austin_dern]

The Perils Of Pauline Episode Four, ``Trapped by the Enemy'', opens with the discovery that Pauline is not dead.

Oh, it looks grim, with the jaguar attacking Fang, but he wrestles it off the boat, and Warde shoots off-camera, making the jaguar realize it's not being paid to appear in this week's script. Fang, shaken by his mauling, makes a break for it and jumps off the boat. Warde shoots off-camera again, killing two grips, but they let Fang go on the grounds that he can't possibly penetrate the thick field of crocodile stock footage. Willie Dodge attempts to chicken his way out, but Dr Hargraves just says, ``very well, Dodge, would you like to leave now?'' and leaves Dodge standing there like a ninny.

Warde and Pauline talk, in between stock footage of foreign-type animals and natives, of how he wishes she were somewhere safe, which is noble in a way that Dodge's wish to be safe is not because they're the heroes and whatnot. Anyway, they sail all the way up to the Lost City of the Sleestak where the next plot token is to be revealed. Dr Hargrave finds on some ancient script parchments that the other half of the disc will be found ``in the hands of the destroyer'', so, all of you who figure there's going to be some Kali thing going on in this mishmash of mythologies congratulations and go to the head of the class.

While Dr Hargraves rests up after his trip, Pauline and Warde figure, hey, why not duck into the temple, grab the disc, and get back before the short's finished? I'd expect more work to go into an archeological dig, but fortunately the temple is just within easy walking distance, the doorway is clearly marked and swings open easily, and there's just the one room inside so it's not so hard to find the Destroyer. Pauline carefully climbs into the statue's clutches so that its arms can swing over and capture her and, remarkably, that's not the cliffhanger. She's forced to kind of sit at an awkward angle, and Warde pulls the arm back, but that's it. They spend less time hunting down the disc than I spend searching for a belt that fits me at Sears. They leave the door of the ancient temple swung open.

On the way back, a tiger leaps out and kills an extra, so Pauline and Warde whip out their six-shooters and shoot back. This just invites orang utans to peep, so they go shooting them and get in trouble with the orang utan militia. Warde keeps shooting them, even though this just makes more monkeys appear, which doesn't bode well for his general problem-solving skills. Worse, back at the village, Dr Hargraves and Dodge have been taken prisoner by the natives, who're now working for the evil Dr Bashan, and that's the cliffhanger for this episode.

Considering that a bunch of stuff seems to happen this episode it's really a styrofoam peanut of an installment. The cliffhanger's disposed of as swiftly as possible; while we get to a new setting, it's just another little village in the forest and a fresh abandoned temple like the one we were just at, and even the new cliffhanger is just, the villain has got Pauline while there's apes of some kind surrounding Warde. If there's an installment it's safe to miss, it's this one.

Trivia: Immediately after Millard Fillmore's accession to the Presidency on 10 July 1850, as there was no Senate President pro tempore, the only person remaining in the line of succession was Speaker of the House Howell Cobb of Georgia, who was 34 years old. William R King was made the Senate's President pro tempore the 11th of July. Source: From Failing Hands: The Story of Presidential Succession, John D Feerick.

Currently Reading: The Kid Of Coney Island: Fred Thompson And The Rise Of American Amusements, Woody Register.