Indy Timeline: December 1916/January 1917
Oganga opens with a battle on the East African front in
December 1916. Once again, we see the
horrors of war, with bullets raining down on advancing troops. What distinguishes this sequence from earlier
battle scenes in the series is that we get to see Indy acting heroic – crashing
across the German lines to capture a Gatling gun. It was rewarding to see the hero of the
series showing bravery – too often in earlier episodes he is whining and
bumbling his way through these stories.
Regardless, this initial battle sets the scene for the bulk
of the first half of the episode. In
order to capture the gun, Indy has disobeyed an order and locked horns with his
commanding officer. This clash will play
out in the moral dilemma that follows.
When the troop is assigned a special mission to recover additional guns
for the war effort, they must traverse harsh African terrain. In the course of this journey, they encounter
a village that has been wiped out by small pox.
The lone survivor is an African baby boy.
With their own troops dying of disease, Indy’s commanding
officer orders that the boy be left behind to die – the troops don’t have the
capacity to take him along and he could infect them with disease. Will Indy leave the child behind? This moral puzzle is central to the episode
and symbolic of larger issues regarding colonialism and the fate of black
Africa. Indy writes to T.E. Lawrence
about his desire to see an independent African continent and engages the black
Sergeant in his troop on the issue of whether they are fighting is just another
“white man’s war for black man’s soil.”
These are complex issues for the show and it manages to
handle them well, showcasing the contradictions that can exist when trying to “do
the right thing”. All of this leads
smoothly into the second half of the episode in which Indy has fallen ill with
fever and finds himself “captured” by the great German doctor, Albert
Schweitzer. Schweitzer (called “Oganga”
by the native Africans) runs a hospital for the local population deep in the
jungles of the Gabon.
The second half of this episode is also well written, but
Young Indy’s petulance returns in full force here. For every wise statement that Schweitzer
makes about his philosophy of “reverence for life”, Indy is cast as the
foil. I suppose this is meant to make
for more dynamism in the dialogue in a segment that has little action, but it
does make Indy come off (once again) as a whiney brat. When Schweitzer explains his efforts at the hospital,
Indy responds with “It’s so hopeless what you’re doing! You’re trying to hold back a tidal wave!!” <<Sigh>>
No matter, in spite of its slow pace (and one sequence in
which Indy hacks through “chopsticks” on a piano and a pelican dances along),
Schweitzer’s wisdom is powerful enough to carry the episode. The strong performance of Freidrich von Thun
as Schweitzer is bolstered by an excellent supporting soundtrack that bounces
between echoes of John Williams’ score to the original films and the classical
music that Schweitzer played and loved. Indy
just seems to be along for the ride and to squeal complaints.
The episode ends with yet another moral dilemma, which illustrates
the contradictions of war and is a nice way of framing the question of the boy’s
fate from the first half of the episode.
I won’t spoil it here, but will note it involves yet another tantrum
from Indy. Schweitzer does a good job of
challenging Indy with deep questions regarding his role in the war and his
outlook on the world throughout the episode.
My hope is that the character takes some of this wisdom to heart and
grows up moving forward… less whining from our “hero” would be a welcome place
to start.
Overall though, Oganga is a good episode with some deep
philosophical questions. It is nothing
like the feature films, but that does not mean it is without its own
merits.
Indy Rating: 8/10
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