Penny Dreadful: Fresh Hell

"What would Dr Frankenstein be without his creature?"

So, at last the second season starts on Sky Atlantic. It looks as though last season's big bad is going to be witches, but in the meantime we have character arcs to set up for the new season, lushly and beautifully shot by James Hawes as always.

We add to the feminine theme of witches with a riff on Bride of Frankenstein as Billie Piper returns to play said monster, while her prospective mate finds another grimly Victorian job with poor conditions, this time working in a waxworks exhibit, a la Madame Tussaud's, except much more influence by lurid crimes and, well, penny dreadfuls. His boss, I'm pleased to see, is played by the excellent David Haig. 

Elsewhere, Ethan dithers about whether or not to return to Anerica while Vanessa remains her delightfully weird, brooding self. He tells her of his blackouts, after which he wakes to much blood. Much will come of this, especially as an inspector from the Yard is investigating the deaths of his pursuers from the end of last season.

Meanwhile, it's made clear to Sir Malcolm by his poor, bereaved wife that, after presiding over the deaths of two children, their marriage is henceforth to be eked out as a cold, artificial she'll with the two of them living apart. His surrogate daughter, Vanessa, is now his only family. No wonder she runs into his arms, able to confide in no one else. The witches, it seems, led by the mysterious Mistress Kali, are after her soul...

A very promising opening, if not quite up to the heights of last season's opener. I'm looking forward to the rest of the season.

Blake's 7: Rumours of Death

“Oh. Don’t tell me, let me guess. You only ever followed orders?”

This episode is extraordinary. Simultaneously the finest character study of Avon we’ve yet seen, somewhat disorientating in its cleverer-than-it-looks structure, and also managing to be an “arc” episode, this is a showcase for the massive talents of both Chris Boucher and Paul Darrow.

The beginning is a shock; Avon, in a suitably grotty cell, with sounds of unpleasantness in the background and signs of mistreatment conveyed by Darrow’s performance. He’s been there for five days, and has finally attracted the attention of the chief torturer, Shrinker. Then, the tables are suddenly turned, as Avon stops transmitting his signal. Dayna and Tarrant suddenly teleport into the cell, and the three of them force Shrinker back to the Liberator. It’s a brilliant reversal, and a stand-out scene.

What follows is almost as good. Inevitably, the torturer comes in for some baiting from Dayna and Tarrant, but Cally refuses to join in, realising that behaving in this way can lead to a very dark place.

Meanwhile, Servalan is about to take possession of her presidential planet with is on Earth and, inevitably, somewhere that looks an awful lot like Hertfordshire. We see a rather senior married couple, Chesku and Sula, discussing how “Earth and the inner planets are once again united” under Servalan; once again we learn of the limited range of her authority as “president”. But this scene is also, if less dramatically, upended, as Sula turns out to be in league with rebels, shooting her husband dead. Meanwhile, we’re introduced to military double act Granlee and Forres (David Haig), some rather well-drawn and acted characters who are the framing device for much of what follows.

The crew have agreed to carry out Avon’s intentions from last episode; to track down Anna Grant’s killer. There’s a reason for the kidnapping; teleporting down with Shrinker to a subterranean cave, Avon eventually learns more than he’s bargained for, as do we, the viewers. There’s a flashback to Anna Grant, and we have two surprises. Firstly that Anna, apparently the great love of Avon’s life, calls him by his surname(!) and, secondly, that she’s played by the same actress as Sula and is thus the same person. Well, one surprise for me as I didn’t actually notice the big revelation until it was rather more blatantly pointed out later on…

Shrinker convinces Avon that he never met Anna, and that Avon was always being “run” by a Federation agent known as “Bartholomew”; it seems this person may be the killer, and it’s possible that Servalan would know more. With that, Avon abandons the torturer to die in the cave, his mercy extending only to giving him a gun. It’s a graphic example of how, behind Avon’s carefully maintained sardonic exterior, are some very, very passionate feelings.

Servalan, meanwhile, is on film in a posh house, about to host some posh dinner as president. Her presence is making our two surveillance chaps nervous, and rightly so; the rebel plan is being executed very competently indeed, and when the final attack is sprung it works perfectly. Both of our surveillance chaps are shot, and David Haig’s light relief character is the one who’s killed; this tells us something about what we can expect from the tone of the rest of the episode.

The rebels’ moral dilemma of what to do with Servalan nicely mirrors the scene with Shrinker earlier, in the Liberator. It also indicates that their position is not so secure now that they’ve completed their immediate objective; what do they do now? The consequences could be grave, especially as a dying Granlee calls for help.      

The contrast is with a fairly united Liberator crew; for all the quips from Dayna, Tarrant and Cally, they care about Avon because, deep down, they know that he cares a lot for them. Again, passions underneath the cold exterior. 

They find the palace under occupation, with Servalan chained to a wall (kinky!), in obvious distress and showing signs of physical violence. She’s a distressing sight; Jacqueline Pearce is great here.    

Sula’s arrival is a crushing moment for Avon, of course, as he instantly recognises her. Flashbacks of Shrinker’s words reverberate effectively as she tries to convince him she still loves him; she is Bartholomew, and was always using him from the beginning. Only when she tries to kill him does he shoot her, and he’s a broken man. “I let you go, my love”, she says, dying. “No, you never let me go, you never did,” he replies, allowing us a glimpse at those deep, deep passions. Avon is such a more complex and interesting character than he’s often taken for.                                              

Doctor Who: The Leisure Hive

Part One

“Why can’t we do something constructive?”

It’s actually quite a shock to see a new title sequence after six solid seasons. Not to mention a new theme tune for the first time in fourteen! It all looks and sounds very much of its time. Not sure what I think of it yet. Not that it’s anything I’m not extremely familiar with, obviously, but the marathon does sort of put it all into context.

Anyway, the opening shot, panning across Brighton beach for about six hours, is quite bizarre. It’s not a bad idea in principle, but about half the actual length would have been quite enough. Personally it helps that I happened to visit Brighton earlier this year and actually recognise bits, but I imagine a lot of people back in 1980 would probably have… what did they used to say? Ah yes, tuned the television set to the other side. Not a good way to start a new series.

There’s clearly a new broom being wielded- the Doctor’s wielding (rather fetching) new clothes, Tom’s performance is being reined in, and what happens to K9 in this episode might just, at a pinch, indicate a teeny weeny bit of an anti-robot dog agenda. This scene might also be seen as symbolic- after the season-long holiday of Season Seventeen, suddenly holidays are no fun any more. What does this portend?

There’s talk of bypassing the randomiser and the general nastiness of the Black Guardian, all of which actually gives a sense of continuity to the regime just departed. And the Doctor and Romana are both the same as ever. There are many obvious changes here, but on present evidence the sudden change in this story is overstated. There’s a lot of new stuff here, but Spearhead From Space it ain’t.

Anyway, this story is all about Argolis, a sort of intergalactic Butlins with added technobabble. One of the Argolins, Pangol (you’d almost think this story was script edited by someone to do with computers…) is played by Inspector Grim himself, David Haig, but unfortunately it’s now the 80s so we have to put up with some rather dull boardroom scenes. It all looks very good, but underneath the story is little more than competent. I’m not sure what to make of the incidental music either, now that Dudley Simpson has been replaced by the Radiophonic Workshop.

Still, the middle eight’s back in the closing theme tune at least…

Part Two

“How long did the war last?”

“Twenty minutes.”

“As long as that?”

It’s an odd one, this story. The plot itself is sound, giving us a steady stream of revelations about things like the Argolins’ stability. There are good character bits too, like the relationship between Mena and Hardin and our knowledge that Hardin is actually lying to her about his experiments. There’s a nice scene where he confesses to Romana- he’s a believably weak yet sympathetic character.

And although this story has a sense of seriousness that’s been missing for a long time, there are still lots of examples of the type of humour that you’d expect from a David Fisher story, especially the visual gag of the Doctor’s scarf leading to a dead body (“Arrest the scarf then!”). It also looks very good indeed. But in spite of all this there’s something unengaging about this, and you imagine the kids must have been bored.

Part Three

“I’m sick of being old.”

It’s fascinating comparing Tom’s performance to the last few stories. He’s still playing the same character, with the same humour (and lots of funny lines, in spite of what people say) but still, there’s a bit more discipline to his performance, and his use of facial expressions in a serious way is better than it’s been for ages. He’s brilliant as the suddenly aged Doctor, with the shock to the audience being conveyed far more by his performance than by the make-up, excellent though it is. And we’re left to think this might be permanent.

Once again I’m not entirely sure why I’m not enjoying this more- the revelation that Pangol is the only young Argolin, born long after the war forty years ago, is a real twist- but there’s something fundamentally po-faced here, as though David Fisher’s script had had al the fun neutered out of it.

Part Four

“This time I must try to bring him up properly.”

That’s a very long reprise, uncomfortably so, in fact. But it’s an effective resolution to an effective cliffhanger, that our main human protagonist and his lawyer minion have been Foamasi, er, Mafiosi all along. But that also makes me wish I’d seen the fun Fisher originally had with this idea before Bidmead strangled it to death. Still, there’s one familiar fisher motif that’s in evidence here; the syndrome of the story ending right at the start of Part Four, just as in The Creature From the Pit.

Still, this time the filler that takes us to the end of the episode is actually quite good, and it’s been built up enough as a subplot to get away with it, just. And Pangol ends up with a second chance, getting to relive his childhood again. Good idea; they should give it another go sometime. Perhaps in, say, twenty-five years time? It’s a good ending to a story which looks great and has pretty much nothing wrong with it production-wise.

Overall, though, in spite of the fact it looks great, and deserved an awful lot of praise for looking as though it has a much higher budget than anything we’ve seen recently even though it probably hasn’t, already on his first story I have concerns about the direction in which Bidmead’s taking the show. Where was the fun? What was there for the kids to enjoy? 2/5.