The last weekly adventure of the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles is the customary Halloween episode and was deemed too violent to be shown on television in many countries. This was a bit of a crime, as "Transylvania, January 1918" is one of the few episodes in the series that manages to capture the spirit of the Indiana Jones movies. True, it leans towards the dark and bloody themes of the Temple of Doom, often voted everyone's least favorite (though not mine) but what would you expect from a tale set in Transylvania? I for one would not have minded to see more Young Indy adventures in this vein, but alas, that was not to be.
Indy (Sean P. Flanery) is part of a team of specialists on a spy mission led by fellow American Colonel Waters (Keith Szarabjka). As the two of them meet, they start boasting about their language skills: Indy knows 27 (including sign language) while Waters beats him by 5 (including Islandic). All these knowledge never seemed to aid older Indy the movies, but that's neither here nor there. They are joined in their quest by a Roemanian strongman (Paul Kynman), a French knife thrower (Simone Bendix) and an Austrian Doctor ('Allo 'Allo's Sam Kelly). Their objective is to confront the mysterious General Targo (the late great Bob Peck, who's finest hour arguably came as the Soldier who captured Death in The Storyteller). The General, who claims to be a decedent of Vlad Tepes himself, has started his own private war and liberated several Prison of War camps in the vicinity. Along the way they face ceilings dripping with blood, demonic possession and unnaturally hot and cold rooms. Naturally not all of the team members make it all the way through, though some of them are dispatched a bit off handedly.
Dutch director Dick Maas, who's movie debut "De Lift" owed a lot to Spielberg's "Jaws" and opened with an homage to the Star Destroyer shot from Lucas' "Star Wars", is once more influenced by Spielberg in the way he paced and frames this adventure. He even includes the patented zoom in to an extreme close up in moments of dread (in this case zooming in on Hans Geering). Just like in Indy's cinematic adventures, there are plenty of corpses for our hero to bump into in this episode, and despite falling down a castle wall, his beloved fedora manages to stay on until the very end. The script also includes an extended exposition scene in which Indy and Captain Waters are briefed (what George Lucas likes to call 'the pointer scene') and builds up the tension in several ways before we finally get to meet the main villain. Sure, there are a lot of implausible things happening to our band of heroes, and some wonky special effects. Chief amongst these is a ball of lightning that seems to have come straight out of the adventures of Tintin ("Les Sept Boules De Cristal" to be precise). However, it is very refreshing to watch a Young Indy without all lot of historical information awkwardly inserted into the dialog.
After having been completely cut out of the latter season two episodes, George Hall makes one last appearance as weathered old Indy. His bookends were most likely included here in order to emphasize the Halloween elements (Old Indy is telling his ghost tale to three young trick-or-treaters) as well as to add the possibility of some of the more fantastical elements of the story being figments of the old man's imagination. Either way, it's good to see cranky old Indy once more, and here's to hoping we'll finally find out exactly how he got that big scar over his right eye when "The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" opens in 22 days (I mean we've already seen pictures of Cate Blanchett pointing her sword at Indy's face)...
9 out of 10
