Episode Five of Season One was in my head from the moment we’d completed the shoot for Episode Four. I felt quite strongly that we had over-stretched on cost with Four; I’d spent about 40% more than I should have, particularly at that stage of our development. I felt that Five needed to be more stripped back, just two people and not even that much fighting. It turned out to be a real departure from what came before.
We had introduced Miss Freedom at the end of Episode Four, and given clues as to her almighty strength. The decision I had to make was whether we do an episode with her that reiterated this immediately, or whether we begin to show where she may have a weakness. Although her beatdown of the villains in Four was short, I felt it made the point, and another 15-20 minutes of supremacy would not really serve any storyline purpose apart from “Miss Freedom – strong, isn’t she?” which doesn’t cut it.
So we set about writing a mind control episode, which would require less fighting but more from the actors in terms of delivery and understanding their characters. Costume-wise we had got quite a lukewarm to poor response for how Miss Freedom looked in Episode Four, and so we redesigned to an extent but basically found something that fit better – a decision I don’t regret.
As the script developed we decided we needed an appearance by Angel, and to show how her involvement in Elite Force had progressed since Episode Two, we decided to give her a brand new white costume.