Move – And You’re Dead
This distinctive, character-driven episode, in which the “rescue” plays a minimal role, recounts, by way of flashback, Alan Tracy’s civilian side gig as a professional racing driver on some sort of Mad Max-style death circuit. When his outrageous car (of course designed by Brains) helps him do the business, his rivals plot his demise by leaving him and Grandma Tracy atop a ravine-spanning bridge in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but a bomb and an accompanying sensor for company. Should either one of them move, the bomb will blow, taking them and the bridge with it.
A welcome change of pace to the more traditional disaster-rescue episodes, ‘Move – And You’re Dead’ plays like a classic gradual-reveal thriller. The use of flashback works well as a device to keep Alan occupied as the bomb ticks away at his feet, while overall the episode depicts a rare personal angle reserved only for a few characters throughout the series.