Frank's backstep to avert a mining disaster results in the sphere being deeply buried in a hillside with Frank trying desperately to find a way out before his oxygen runs out.

So as you can tell Buried Alive is pretty self-descriptive. The problem is that that's all there is to it. Frank crawls around mines in the dark mumbling to himself while the backstep team spend hours trying to work out where he is. The rest of the episode is taken up with flashbacks to Frank's past as he remembers the events that made him the man he is today. This would be fine were it not for the fact that they don't appear to have any bearing on the situation Frank's in, except that his visions encourage him to keep going.

It's to the credit of the main cast that this episode works at all. The backstep team's concern for Frank seems totally genuine, and the point where they try to reach him and get no response at first, followed by Donovan's plea, is a surprisingly powerful moment. The flashbacks to Frank's childhood in which he was an annoying kid at odds with the world are rather wearing, but seeing some of the events he experienced in Somalia and his early friendship forming with Donovan makes up for this. Mike Vejar's excellent work makes the flashbacks coherent and stylish; it's just a shame that there's not a whole lot of story to go round.

***

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