NTK in association with the Brigton Stalker-Tourist Board presents
sing-along-a
EPISODE THREE
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About 01:00. Opening titles. [Previously on Killer Net: sex, students, sex, computers, sex, and a man who's confused getting electrocuted with impersonating Jimmy Saville. Oh, and more sex.] Scott's Mum: Nothing wrong, is there? |
...yes, mother. Pornography is wrong. I know that now. And murder, too, I guess. |
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About 01:30. Opening titles. [Camera scrolls across doctor porn. In a totally original never-seen-it-before shot, blood swills down the plughole. Unless, of course, it's not blood, and...] |
...there's a piece of liver in my glass of Ribena! |
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About 03:00. Funny rolling-eyes doctor walks over to body. Pathologist: Somebody worked very hard to conceal her identity... |
...but somehow didn't spot this bloody great tattoo. |
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About 03:10. Policeman touches corpse, and... [Scene suddenly switches to black and white murder scene] |
...he's having a Millennium-style flashback! |
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About 04:30. Dad complains about credit card bill for 1352 quid, oddly charged direct to "Sexy Sadie Inc" instead of some anonymous billing company. Dad: ...and a CD-ROM. In God's name, what can be on it for 120 pounds? |
...well, maps and guided tours of Britain's major city centres, and some highly sophisticated video compression technology, from the looks of things. |
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About 05:00. Dad continues. Dad: In the holidays, you will get a job, and repay every penny. |
...or you could just sell that flash car, and pay it all off in one go. |
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About 06:00. The electric chair "experiment". [Scott and associate fall over onto the ground] |
Slapstick sex scene! (Well, almost.) |
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About 06:30. On Scott's stairs. Jason Orange: You little boys. You fucking nerds! |
...Lynda LaPlante introduces her "hero" character. |
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About 07:00. Back in the lab, looking at porn on the computer. Pathologist: There were three different types of semen on the swabs... |
...and you thought the students were obsessed with sex... |
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About 08:30. Psychology Lecturer's Office. Secretary: Scott Miller's here to see you. Lecturer: He is - is he? |
...why, yes, he is - and no matter how many times you watch Silence Of The Lambs, beardie-man, not all psychologists can be as scary as Hannibal Lecter. |
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About 09:10. Lecturer's Office, though disappointingly he doesn't ask Scott: have you electrocuted this girl? Lecturer: ...you've been running up a ridiculous amount of credit playing Internet games - specifically, pornographic contacts in the United States, CD-ROMs etc. Rather stupid... |
...have you tried Amsterdam? The postage is cheaper... |
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About 10:00. The Police Station. Clerk: Guv, to back up that file, should I press "Save" or "Close"? ["Guv" comically rolls eyeballs in disbelief] |
...who writes these applications? Nowadays, they usually tell you if you try and quit without saving your vital criminal evidence data... |
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About 12:00. College computer room. Scouser and Dweeb are playing Killer Net, with all-new appalling graphics... Dweeb: What's happened to her face? |
...hey, this Scouser guy's good. He didn't just nick the Killer Net CDROM, but also copied Scott's personal preferences and settings files. Unless it's some superfuturistic writeable CDROM, of course - it's fiction: anything's possible. |
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About 13:20. College staircase. Joe: I can't be the guinea-pig. I've got to be a plant... because I know that you're not really giving them electric shocks... |
...along with everyone else in the college by now? All too late, Scott spots the fatal flaw in his project - but this doesn't stop him continuing to yell that "It has to look like an electric chair" when his other subjects had only just left. |
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About 17:00. Electric shock experiment. Scott: It's your decision, Jill. |
...wrong again, Scott. The original Milgram experiment was to see whether subjects resisted being told to give shocks (it's about authority and obedience, remember). Also, they had some sort of justification for the shocks - not just "There's a guy in that chair so keep pressing the button if you want to cause him unecessary pain." Presumably these changes are to get round the ethics committees...? |
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About 20:00. Comedy chase scene. [Scott is sick on face of Baby Spice] |
...yeah, we can sympathise: sudden exertion after sitting around in front of computers all day often has that sort of effect... |
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About 22:00. Back at Scott's house. [And it's frenzied housework as usual...] |
...or is Joe just collecting all the murder books in a big bin-liner bag just to save the police the trouble? |
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About 24:30. Scott talking to lawyer. Lawyer: I'm not following what you're telling me Scott. You put Miss Ringwall - into a game? |
Scott: Have you ever seen the film Tron? |
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About 25:10. Joe busily hiding heroin, etc. Joe: I'm a law student! |
...have you any idea what a murder conviction will do for my coursework? Oh, and good of Joe to remind us that he's a law student, and presumably aware of how bad it will look if he's found disposing of evidence. |
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About 28:10. Interview at Scott's house. Joe: They'd had a bit of a row. Susie: No, I don't think they did. [Detective's eyes keep glancing upwards, meaningfully] |
...and is that a poster for Carmageddon displayed on your wall, sir? |
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About 31:00. Cops (presumably) search flat. [Either that, or they're joining in with the housework. Note how they take what looks like a MacFormat cover disk from the drawer, but leave what looks like a pink and purple Compuserve free install CD] |
...ahhhhhh, a Compuserve user. Now that explains how he gets such high bandwidth... [The next bit, where the guy points at the PC and goes "unplug that and take the lot" is in fact a moderately realistic account of police failing to take disk images and losing swap files when collecting computer evidence...] |
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About 32:30. Dad visits Scott in cell. Dad: Scott, I've got to ask you this, and you've got to understand that, whatever your answer is, you must know that I will always stand by you... |
...is the shell-suit really necessary? It makes you look like a murderer! |
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About 35:00. Cops playing Killer Net. Consultant: It's quite complicated, but basically they've scanned in a photograph... You scan a 2D image into the computer, and use it to build up a 3D model of the face, which you then overlay onto the original image underneath. |
...everyone following this? Even the guy who couldn't remember the difference between "Save" and "Close"? Well, obviously, it isn't actually what's going on here: for a start, there's no need for the interim 3D stage because - it's still a 2D image. But it does mean that the cops don't all go: "Oh, it's this Killer Net game, that we filmed all that extra footage for a few weeks ago." |
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About 36:00. Scary man in deserted warehouse. [In a flourish, pulls away cloth to reveal PCs underneath] |
They're being stalked by a high-tech stage magician! (And when I pull back this cloth, hey presto, Microsoft Windows will have taken on many of the characteristics of the Macintosh GUI...) |
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About 38:20. Consultant is rubbish at game. Consultant: Personally, I find them extremely tedious and a waste of time... |
...anyone got any MAME ROMs? [ObTriv: The actress playing WPC Pam Boxer - the policewoman in these bits - actually broke her right arm during filming, so during these scenes, it is always rather clumsily concealed...] |
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About 39:30. Cops visit home of Brighton's most affluent heroin user. Cop: Miss Ringwall left no clothes, diaries, letters... |
...detailed 3D full-body scans that could have been used to create a Max Headroom-style simulation of her? |
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About 40:20. Susie back to housework again. [Find's Jason Orange's wallet in a drawer] |
...make sure I get my fingerprints all over this! |
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About 41:20. Outside Jason's flat. Spooky man: You are Charlotte Thorpe, aren't you? Susie: No. No, I'm not. |
...great photofit system this guy's got. "Oh, my mistake - now I remember that Charlotte has long, dark hair, while yours is quite short. And blonde." |
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About 42:50. Police Station. Consultant: Because we've just had a successful kill, she's been deleted from the game. |
...and from the CDROM too? Go on, re-install it and it'll be like new - earn those big consultancy bucks they're paying you. |
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About 44:50. Police Station. [Pam enters personal details, Consultant doesn't point out that no-one registers these things using their real name. The camera scrolls across to show how Scott's been getting this extraordinary bandwidth...] |
...via what looks like a US Robotics 14.4kbps modem. No wonder when we cut back to the spooky guy, he's still waiting for it to download... |
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About 46:05. Police Station: Cops notice modem lights (presumably Killer Net is so clever it turns off all modem sound...) Pam: It's all Miller's gear, just as he had it set up at home. |
...good job it didn't need to dial "9" for an outside line... |
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About 46:30. Spooky Warehouse. [Man sticks pin in map on the wall] |
So does he have maps of the entire world there, at that scale? Or does he just run the Killer Net Brighton franchise? |
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About 46:30. Police Station. Cop: Can I have a word, guv? It's about this CD-ROM... Dutton says the game could be sending signals out. Some hidden function. All linked to the fact it was sold via the Internet. I think Scott's telling the truth. I think he's got himself involved in something he doesn't understand... |
...on the strength of this episode, he's not the only one. Still, let's hope the next one is sponsored by Blizzard's Starcraft... |
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About 49:30. Darkened Police Station. Guv produces new evidence, and says "He killed her. Goodnight". The other cop grasps for a final, climactic statement that will sum up his reaction and this entire episode Cop: Shit. |
...says it all, really. Says it all. |