Against All Enemies, November 4, 1997

By Shirley

The good news is that we got to watch Harm fly a Tomcat. The bad news is that this is not a good episode. The story is extremely wishy-washy. A missile fired accidentally during an exercise, downing a North Korean civilian jetliner. Harm and Mac, sent to investigate, discover that there is a spy on board. This spy has been sending top secret information to the North Koreans. Moreover, it turns out that that was no civilian jetliner; it was a spy plane!

It could have been exciting. It wasn't. There was no sense of excitement or drama in this episode at all. It gave off a humdrum aura. Still, there were interesting moments, contrived ones, but interesting.

We have the very attractive female spy (Tuppany), who accidentally revealed herself when she became distracted, no, not by our handsome Harm, but by the paperwork on the table. The result? She poured hot coffee all over his, um, lap. Luckily, he was able to reassure us that no permanent damage had been done. Whew! This of course caught Mac's eye, and eventually led to Tuppany's unmasking. Harm was a good sport about the incident, which Mac enjoyed hugely, once she was assured of his wellbeing.

What else? Well, it was rather stupid of Harm to just walk into that galley to confront Tuppany all by himself (I guess TPTB had to get him into the Tomcat somehow), and it served him right that she promptly took him hostage. This allowed him the opportunity to play hero and save the day. He did wish to be up there in a Tomcat. As they say, be careful what you wish for. He looked terrific in all that pilot gear. Mind you, it did not make up for a weak contrived story, but I'll accept the crumbs.

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