The DSR 1x05 'The Ultra Directive'

by A.J. Black

Carson admits to Kendall about her being blackmailed, which leads the DSR to discover a secret CIA project going back 50 years called 'Ultra', which involved creating psychic spies, which Kendall it seems was party to as a young man...

It's yet to tap into it's true potential, but after a shaky start each episode's been better than the last so far for the adventures of Not Sawyer and his team in The DSR, so let's see if 'The Ultra Directive' can continue the upward swing in quality!

We ended on a good old-fashioned Alias style cliffhanger in 'ESP_ionage,' so we're right back into the action as the captive Jai and Ethan face a sticky end at the hands of fearsome warlord Patrice Lombasa. However, a Caribbean guy (who must have been seen before, so I'll have to check back) looks set to break up the party, training a laser-sighted rifle on Daniel Ratner, the psychic chap with dubious loyalties who got Jai and Ethan into this mess. He's not that psychic, though, as no sooner has he yelled a warning than he becomes the episode's first causalty, gunned down and giving Jai the window to tackle Lombasa to the ground. Ethan grabs a gun and opens fire on the incoming guards as Jai takes on Lombasa - and finds that seven foot of muscle is never an easy thing to take down, until Jai gets a lucky shot in, disarming Lombasa and giving him a Number One Cut courtesy of his own hacksaw. Ouch. The dying Ratner just has time to say there are more like him, and the word 'ultra,' before he checks out, and from that shocker we're back into LA, waiting for Carson to meet Mr. Blackmail. Carson was behind the hit on Ratner! Blimey. She's obviously in this deeper than we realised. Thing is, as she gets back to PBH, she boldly marches straight into Kendall's office to tell him what's going on. So she has a spine after all! Good on her. Now let's see what Kendall makes of this...

Carson spills the beans, and Kendall appears to hide the fact that he recognises the name 'Jonas' as Carson lays out the full ugly story. Jai and Ethan return from the field and let the others coo over them - the expected 'hey, you're alright, man,' moment between the two crops up, as does another hint at the attraction between Mia and Jai. In the debriefing, Jai mentions 'ultra' and this gets a reaction out of Kendall - seems Carson isn't the only one with something to hide here. Carson tells the group about Jonas, but by admitting that she was approached to work for him and passing it off as a purposeful attempt to work as a double agent instead of the blackmail it actually was, she successfully swerves round the issue of her loyalty - although there's a hint that Jai doesn't buy her story at face value like the others seem to. Must be his Sawyer Sense. Narf. With the rest of the team at her back, Carson makes her next rendezvous with Jonas, sitting down for a coffee in a hotel bar as Jonas hands out the assignment. One note - Mia's explanation of what she's doing to get Jonas to swallow a tracking device is a little clunky, and sticks out as some For The Benefit Of Americans styled exposition. Despite showing a little suspicion of Carson's willingness to play ball (and that's bad play on her part - she's clearly no field agent), Jonas takes the bait, and with Carson sneaking a tracking device into his coffee, we're all set. Meanwhile, with Kendall, he meets with a similarly shady chap by the name of Greer, who's also a part of this 'Ultra' business. And the skeletons just keep on falling out of the closet, don't they? It's a wonder they have any room to hang their clothes up sometimes. Mind you, working in a field like the DSR would tend to accumulate all kinds of shady things like this, so I'm finding all these murky pasts adding a great deal to the atmosphere, and the fact that there's a more paranormal slant to them is helping push this away from Alias territory. Not by much, but it's helping.

Act II continues the conversation, further incriminating Kendall as it emerges he and Greer worked in a program called Ultra back in the Seventies, working to create people like Falen and Ratner, but after the program ended in '79 and they walked away, Dr. Hinds continued the work, and Greer appears to be Jonas' boss! Kendall's in a tough spot here - if the DSR team uncover his background with Ultra, he's in deep shit, so he's going to have to take steps to keep his involvment out of view while not obviously hindering the DSR's op. Hmm! After Carson tells the team that she's been ordered to kill three more men, presumably more of Hinds' test subjects, and Jai plans to grab them and fake their deaths, Kendall rather clumsily tries to get Carson to swing towards assassinating them instead. He's obviously afraid they'll expose him if they talk, but Carson's angry reaction forces Kendall to back down. For CIA, they're not very good at this whole compartmentalising/subterfuge thing, are they? Anyway. Mia and Anton are tracking Jonas, surprised to see him enter a givernment Defense building, signalling just how high up this particular conspiracy goes. However, Jonas meets with Greer who is happy to tell him both Kendall and Carson are planning on shopping him, so things are about to go South for the team in a pretty big way! Sara's identified one of Jonas' targets, an Isareli merchant with terrorist links named Dinasik, and despite Kendall's obvious concern over how close to home this investigation is going, Jai leads the team out to snatch Dinasik and get some answers. Jonas busts into Mia and Anton's safehouse but they're not there - they're back at the DARPA building, with Anton ready to do some James Bonding and sneak his way inside. Oh, this can't end well...

In Tel Aviv, Jai and Ethan are spying on Dinasik as he makes an appearance - and I have to say, the sudden loss of tension between these two is actually a little jarring. I know they went through a lot together last week, but it feels as though the arc of their relationship has peaked too soon, and could easily have gone on further into the season. As it is, we already have a good team in Mia and Jai, so the switch away from the Jai/Ethan Odd Couple routine feels somewhat premature. Still. Ethan and Jai snatch Dinasik from a mosque as Anton gets into the DARPA building, but no sooner has he gotten into Jonas' office and started checking the Ultra files than they've started to delete themselves! He tries to salvage what he can, as back in Tel Aviv Jai and Ethan are dragging Dinasik to their car when three black vans full of angry Israeli soldiers show up. Uh oh... Anton is on his way out when he's rumbled by security, and a concerned Mia races in to rescue him as he fights the two guards off - but finds Greer waiting for her! He warns her to stop the investigation into Ultra, but as Anton piles out of the building with security in hot pursuit, Greer slips away and the duo have no choice but to beat a hasty retreat. Carson meets Jonas, but he's not a happy bunny - he challenges her about the fact that the DSR are onto him, but in so doing makes Carson see the connection Kendall has to all this - and you have to wonder if Jonas did this on purpose or not - and it's not long before she kicks Kendall's door down to call him on what's going on. He's forced to his admit his involvment, and a shocked Carson runs off in tears - but as Kendall chases her into the car park, another of those ever-present black vans smashes into her car, and a helpless Kendall watches as Jonas snatches her!

As Kendall starts to brief what's left of the team on Carson's kidnapping, Jai and Ethan return - with Dinasik. Turns out he's part of Mossad (Israeli Secret Service, as Kendall handily points out and sets off the Exposition Alarm once again), and he fills the team in on some backstory - Ultra was indeed a program designed to create people like Falen and Ratner, supposedly shut down in the 70s but which remained active through the work of people like Hinds. With Ultra still operational now, and the 'Directive' of the episode's title referring to a scorched earth policy with regards to any security leaks (like, say one of their former agents putting on the Exposition Hat in DSR headquarters). Greer calls in to order Kendall to hand over all the files on Ultra or risk Carson's life, and we see the captive Carson leaning of Kendall's full involvment at last - and he's still a good guy. He opposed the project and walked away. Well, that's something. Back at DSR, Dinasik's Plot Device ability - sorry, Remote Viewing - is allowing the team to track Carson down, they burst into the location Dinasik gave them, but there's nobody home. Somebody altered the co-ordinates - but who? No prozes for guessing as Kendall shows up at an abandoned quarry, the real co-ordinates, ready to hand the Ultra files over to Greer. Quite how Kendall pulled this switcheroo off isn't revealed, and it does feel a tad contrived. Kendall tries to negotiate the safety of the escaped psychics, but Greer's not having it, telling Jonas to shoot Carson - and in storms Jai, shooting Jonas down! I'm guessing Sara must have decoded the correct co-ordinates pretty sharpish, then. Kendall chases down Greer, and despite trying to take him alive is forced to shoot him. Before anyone else arrives, Kendall smashes the Ultra files and tosses them into the quarry. Greer leaves some dying words - don't trust Carson! Back at PBH, with Dinasik and the other Ultra refugees in Witness Protection, it seems the story's over for now. Carson's confidence in Kendall is shaken, and she lets him know this as we close the episode.

Hmm. Have to say, this episode is a step back from the standards of the last few. Several leaps of logic and contrived deus ex machina moments crop up in the last Act, sabotaging the well-structured build up of the first three, and Dinasik may as well have had Plot Device written all over him for what he contributes to thing. I'm finding this 'remote viewing' idea to be far too conveniently realised, meaning the DSR team don't have to work that hard to find their targets. Hopefully, we won't see this used for a while, because it made what should have been a dramatic last-second save by Jai a slightly groan-worthy 'oh, of course he gets there just in time' moment. Bad DSR. You can do better here - there's a feeling that the stories write themselves into corners at times, needing some leaping of plot holes to get the story to its intended conclusion. Also the dropping of 'Jai Hates Ethan.' It makes sense, character development wise, but we're only five episodes in here. More could have been made of this. So, overall, an episode that started well but loses out from some jerky plotting in the last Act, knocking the rest of the pretty decent episode off kilter. A shame, because we were building up to some good stuff here.

ZPM RATING: