I do remember indeed Ben Miller being some kind of high powered minister or mandarin, Claudiabrown worked for him and Cutter and his ad-hoc team (recruited in the immediate aftermath of the discovery of the anomalies) reported through her. Which made some kind of sense; they were experts, they were all there was, they were already on the spot. Line management was direct while the scale of the immediate threat was assessed.

In this alternate reality, are we in the future? I mean, how long did the ARC take to build? And in that time, couldn’t they have recruited new experts to staff and manage the operation, possibly more compliant than Cutter, so that Ben Miller could return to the PM’s side… And coordinate the armed team so that they could actually go out when anomalies were discovered, rather than staying in the ARC drinking tea…

Basically, the writers seem to have watched Torchwood. They’ll copy the bloody SUV next.

Funny, I was willing to accept the mind control predator because… this is a different universe. I don’t buy that people will disappear and exist as other people, I don’t buy that the biological history of the planet would be different in any appreciable way, but I’m slightly willing to accept that there might be different technological advances.

The bomb tied to the personnel file makes no sense at all, of course. Neither does the whole double-bluff to capture Cutter and crew. Leek has armed soldiers, he could have taken them prisoner at any time and his hatred of Lester would be easier assuaged by just putting a bullet in his brain.

I liked the “Shut Up” sign, but I thought the editing was a bit rough. The idea, I inferred, was to get her to shut up so the mammoth would stop looking and then Cutter could safely run straight over to the car.

Ben Miller was great. His character has been completely sidelined this year and I’ve somewhat assumed that he was being written out of the show, for whatever reason. (Another series of the “Worst Week of my Life” perhaps?)

At least in our timeline Lester was the PM’s #1 top “fixer”, you don’t get that job without being an extraordinary individual. This is really the first time we’ve seen any of that displayed on screen.

Cutter has been getting way too much screen time, and his character is doing things far beyond what I would consider his likely range (defusing bombs, now?).

I wonder if that plays with the other actors on the show and will we see a major reshuffle next series? All they need to do is throw another time change on us and they can restructure the cast at will.

Ben Miller was great, though.