Definitely one of the strangest episodes. Of anything. Ever. This is the one where Mark finds himself in the world of Romeo and Juliet?! The guest cast are terrific, and obviously enjoying themselves, but the story doesn't really work. Both in terms of how Mark came to be involved, and in terms of the mechanics of what happens between the characters. The feud is used to drive the conflict and results in the villain being a one-note caricature, which is boring to watch. The Juliet-fakes-her-death idea is added without an real effort to make it make sense and (for no good reason) the Friar makes the choice to keep the truth from Mark. All of this is just frustrating to watch. As is the moment where Mark and Romeo are locked up in prison. Mark wasn't doing anything, and Romeo was only defending himself. And they had plenty of witnesses.
The scenes of the crew back at the Cetacean are uniformly terrible. Flat and badly acted. And speaking of the Cetacean
every time I watch an MFA episode (and it's been a couple of years, I think) I am fascinated by the command structure on that submarine. I mean, who exactly is in charge down there? It seems like Mark is the captain every time he comes aboard, but in his absence it seems like Elizabeth is in charge. Expect that CW (who is not even on the sub!!) completely overrules Elizabeth's orders in this one.
Speaking of CW there's a small subplot where CW contacts the Russians to get help. This storyline pops up a couple of times and
then vanishes. Nothing comes of it.
The shots of Jomo underwater clearly aren't underwater.
Marks leaves the world of Romeo and returns to the Cetacean. And, a few scenes later, makes another journey to the world of R&J to try to bring the story to a happy ending. Upon returning to the Cetacean yet again, nobody (of course) believes his odd tale. However, since it seems really easy for Mark to travel back and forth we can safely assume that anybody could travel back with him. But, no, this is never mentioned. And, instead, the conversation is played for laughs. This kind of woolly thinking is one of the major problems the series has.
4/10
