I’d love to say that Journey of Radiance (comprising the TV episodes Benares, January 1910 and Peking, March 1910), was some kind of grand send off for the Corey Carrier version of Young Indy as we will be tuning into the Sean Patrick Flanery version of our hero after this but… no, these episodes take us out on a bit of a whimper. Neither are particularly stand out episodes for Indy, with the first part being a Miss Seymour oriented adventure and the second part seeing Indy lying in bed, moaning with a fever.
Benares, January 1910 begins with Henry Jones Sr. encouraging the family and Miss Seymour to come along and hear what the Theosophical Society has to say. Coincidentally, it’s the gathering where Jiddu Krishnamurti is revealed as the society’s poster boy or, if you prefer, the one who would fill the role of ‘World Teacher’; a Messiah of sorts. It’s a strange sort of thing for Jones Sr. to seem enthused about but I suppose the script needs someone to be dragging the family along. I personally think it might have worked better if the vacuous Anna Jones was drawn in by the society’s ideas and took them along.
Indy, naturally, has already met Krishnamurti earlier in the story – finding him with a group of boys and trying to play cricket before converting them to playing baseball. The US-centric nature of the series shines through in moments like this and I think it would have been more interesting – and educational – for Indy to become fascinated with the other culture’s game and playing that more extensively, rather than imposing his sport on the locals. That said, he does comment to Miss Seymour, later on, that he understands what a ‘googly’ is, so maybe something rubbed off on him. Some cute scenes, all told.
The story then diverts into two main streams – an ‘A’ plot, if you like, of Church of England born-and-bred Miss Seymour being annoyed by the Theosophical Society’s BS, and particularly suspicious of its Charles Leadbeater. She strikes up a chummier relationship with the society’s Annie Besant, but blows up both relationships when she finds a draft of one of Leadbeater’s books, essentially proving he’s been writing what the society wants to hear which, ironically, is something Besant doesn’t want to hear.
Although Besant does her best to cast doubt over Miss Seymour’s beliefs; suggesting that Christianity is no more based on ‘reality’ than Theosophical Society beliefs, it still comes across as a little crazy.
While all of that is going on, the ‘B’ plot is Indy basically wandering around with Krishnamurti – at one stage passing through every kind of religious building you can think of, all conveniently placed near one another in Benares – while the child philosopher waxes lyrical about life, the universe, and everything. This isn’t particularly interesting on a general level, or even just the level of wanting to see Indy do something cool and/or fun. Breaking into the royal palace in Perils of Cupid this is not. It’s just… meh.
Onto Peking, March 1910 and while initial hopes are high as we’re in China, and there’s footage of the cast on the real Great Wall and an amazing story might unfold, it soon devolves into Indy in a cart with his mother, Miss Seymour, and an interpreter/guide. The cart falls apart in a storm and the horse runs off, and they find themselves in a farmhouse with no spare clothes, no money, and a bewildered local family. Things go from bad to worse when Indy catches a fever which then takes Carrier out of action for what’s left of the story. A local Doctor finally shows up, delivers some acupuncture, and Indy is saved.
Hard to believe, but that’s all there is to it. The messages of part two being: people with the least (in this case, the farming family) will usually try and give you the most, and that ‘alternative medicine’ might have something to it. I appreciate the sentiment in both cases, however, they’re not incredibly ground breaking and watching Indy moan in a bed for half the episode was hardly riveting. So as I said at the start, this one ends the Carrier era of stories with a bit of a whimper and all we’re left with is an idea of some of the other episodes that he might have got a crack at, if the series had been allowed to go on:
- Princeton, May 1905 – Indy meeting Paul Robeson for the first time. (Not sure they would have had Carrier attempting to play a 6 year old, though?)
- Geneva, May 1909 – I have no details regarding what this would been about.
- Jerusalem, June 1909 – Indy meeting Abner Ravenwood, who is trying to find a sacred relic — the Ark of the Covenant.
- Stockholm, December 1909 – a homage to Swedish children’s novel The Wonderful Adventures of Nils.
- Melbourne, March 1910 – Indy meeting Harry Houdini and flying in an aeroplane with him.
- Tokyo, April 1910 – Indy meeting Prince Hirohito of Japan, the future Emperor Shōwa.
Some of these sound really great – particularly the one that introduces Indy to Ravenwood, who is obviously a bigger character in Indy’s backstory. We can only dream about them now, I suppose.
As for Journey of Radiance itself, it’s a 6/10 for me. Not the strongest of the Carrier era at all.