Jekyll: Half a life

Spoilers for the "Jekyll" finale coming up just as soon as I turn the power back on...

Well, that was fun, wasn't it?

There were some obvious problems in the final two hours, notably the horrid accent by the actress playing Mrs. Utterson (she made Benjamin sound like he came from Southie or something), and I feel like the epilogue raised far more questions than it answered. But until then, there were plenty of cool moments: Hyde discovering that he has digital rewind (and good on the FX team for that stuff), the revelation that Hyde wanted to save Claire and the boys ("I'm a psychopath with superpowers, and you're my girl!"), the hilarious punchline to the protracted set-up with bad-ass mercenary Mr. Carver, Hyde declaring "we are coming," Hyde telepathically sending "RUN IF YOU WANT TO LIVE" messages to all of Peter's goons, Peter's good manners increasing proportionately with his homicidal intent, etc.

Looked at as a group, I'm not sure it hangs together perfectly. Nurse Reimer became irrelevant after all that set-up in the first two episodes, and despite the amount of time spent trying to explain Tom's origins, I'm still confused. (Better they had just left the mystery unsolved, I think.) But James Nesbitt was brilliant, and Moffat gave him lots to play while playing his usual structural games.

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Jekyll: I scream, you scream...

Spoilers for the third (or fourth, depending on your POV) installment of "Jekyll" coming up just as soon as I buy a new TV set...

Moffat's experiments with time continue as the bulk of the episode is devoted to the history of Tom Jackman and his hairy-armed alter ego. Even the present-day framing scenes are all about the question of Tom's origins.

Moffat wrote "Coupling," so he obviously knows his way around the romantic comedy aspects of Tom and Claire's early courtship. ("What do you do?" "Rich men... Sorry. It's a joke... Sorry.") I also continue to be impressed by Gina Bellman's non-Jane-ness, particularly when she's being flirty and having blunt conversations about sex, though that's mostly because I'd never seen her do anything else before this. (To use the obvious "Friends" comparison, Lisa Kudrow's proved she can do a lot more than Phoebe.) And in the present-day, she had the awesome coffee-tossing moment, so I'm a large fan of hers right now.

While not much is accomplished in the Peter/Miranda Callendar scenes other than establishing what Tom isn't, the flashbacks are an essential component to the larger story. Given what's coming, we need to be invested in Tom and Claire's relationship, and we also needed a broader view of how Tom started becoming Hyde. It's a bridge chapter, but a necessary one, and an entertaining one.

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Jekyll: Basement tapes

Got enough comments to my review of the "Jekyll" premiere that I'm going to keep blogging through these remaining three weeks. Spoilers for episode two (or three, depending on your math) coming up just as soon as I inventory my wine cellar...

Steven Moffat name-checked Joss Whedon in our interview, and this latest episode had a very "Buffy" feel to it, particularly in regards to our villains, Benjamin and Peter. I complained last time that Benjamin felt too over the top, and while he continues to have spittle dangling from his lips at all times, Peter spends his first full episode as a known villain proving that subtle, even polite, can be twice as scary. ("Do take that in the general area of a, uh,threat... Okay, well, off you pop. Quickly, now.") I hesitate to make this comparison because of the racial connotations, but the pairing reminds me quite a bit of Mr. Trick and Mayor Wilkins, with the flashy bordering on annoying early bad guy getting dispatched quickly so we can spend more time with the more charming, far bigger threat. I'm not saying Denis Lawson is capable of the kind of evil magic Harry Groener gave us in "Buffy" season three, but let's just say I didn't exactly shed a tear when Benjamin's throat got slit, even if it meant that Hyde had just broken his vow against killing.

People who complained last week that some of the writing was too clever by half probably won't have their minds changed by dialogue like, "Dump her. You'll feel like a different man. Now, me, I always feel like a different man," but Nesbitt really does wonders with his line delivery whenever he turns into Hyde. Hyde's so pleased with himself that retorts like "You miscounted" (to Claire's "I thought I married a man") are supposed to be ever so cheeky.

I'm glad this was done as a miniseries instead of a more longform series. While it's a bit annoying to have characters like Katherine Reimer get marginalized in only the third hour (don't expect much more from her the rest of the way), the limited nature of the concept means that we didn't have to wait too long for Claire to find out the secret and to really spar with Hyde. I had never seen Gina Bellman in anything but "Coupling" and didn't know what kind of dramatic chops she had, but she acquits herself nicely against Nesbitt's glorious scenery-chewing.

And, sticking with the "Coupling" theme, Moffat digs into his Fun With Narrative bag of tricks by fracturing the episode's chronology, with each flashback and framing scene feeding off each other beautifully. ("Damages" tries to do the same thing every week, but its content in both time frames is so boring the device doesn't amount to much.)

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Jekyll: Please allow me to introduce myself

Spoilers for the first two hours of "Jekyll" coming up just as soon as I go to the zoo...

I always feel like I'm in murky waters when I review a BBC America show. They send me the original British cuts of everything (with occasional edits for content: curse words elided, sex scenes trimmed, etc.), and I frequently get complaints from readers that what actually aired was cut to shreds, with commercial breaks every five minutes and large chunks of plot removed. I unfortunately don't have time to watch this stuff twice, so I'll be discussing the versions I saw, and hopefully my experience won't diverge too much from yours.

Anyway, as suggested in my Steven Moffat interview on Thursday, I found "Jekyll" to be quite a lot of fun, both in watching Moffat play his usual games with narrative structure and in watching Jimmy Nesbitt turn himself back and forth between Jekyll and Hyde with only minimal makeup.

Splicing the first two episodes together does create something of a mess, as each of the six hours has its own form and storytelling devices. So while the first hour plays with time so we don't see the monster until halfway through, doubling back to his first meeting with Catherine Reimer, the second hour is far more straightforward, starting with the cat-and-mouse game in the apartment and then turning into an action thriller set piece at the lion's den. I don't think they're completely incompatible, but each would have worked together had they aired separately. (The final two hours, which are also going to be lumped together here, flow together a bit better.)

And, dammit, Nesbitt is something to see as Hyde, isn't he? Moffat said he fought for a long time to not have to use any makeup for the change -- he came around only because it would cause plot problems in later episodes if the alter egos looked exactly like each other -- but Nesbitt doesn't really need it. There's that moment in Miranda Callendar's place where the lighting completely obscures his face, yet you can still instantly tell when the change happens. Just a great scenery-chewing (and lion-chewing, and human-chewing) performance.

I have a few problems overall with the miniseries, but I can't discuss most of them until closer to the end, save that the guy playing evil Benjamin is way too broad, and both his English and American accents sound forced. But I hope enough of you are coming along for this ride that we can talk more about it at length over the next month.

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Jekyll of all trades

Today's column previews BBC America's upcoming "Jekyll" miniseries, but really it's an excuse to talk about the genius of writer Steven Moffat (even if he isn't nearly as impressed with himself as I am with him):

Imagine if the same man created "Friends," then popped in once a year to write that season's best episode of "The X-Files," and on the side dabbled in updating 19th century English literature for a contemporary TV audience.

There may be American TV writers talented enough to pull off that kind of hat trick, but the business rarely encourages that kind of genre-hopping. The British TV system isn't so quick to pigeonhole, which is how a man like Steven Moffat gets to show off his amazing versatility.

He created "Coupling" -- the original BBC version, not the loathed NBC remake, which we'll get back to -- a hilarious comedy of sexual manners about six intertwined pals. Each season, he's writ ten an episode of the new "Doctor Who" series that's held up as that year's highlight.

(In season one, it was the Lon don Blitz two-parter. For season two, he gave us "The Girl in the Fireplace," with the Doctor and Madame De Pompadour having a love affair that spanned either a few hours or a lifetime, depending on which one you asked. In early September, Sci Fi Channel will present "Blink," a paradox-filled treat that the British fans adored even though it barely featured the Doctor at all.)

And on Saturday night, BBC America presents "Jekyll," Moffat's riveting six-hour (though aired here in four installments, the first and last double-length) sequel to Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."

To read the full thing, click here. (If you'd prefer to go straight to the printer-friendly one-page version, click here, then close your printer pop-up window.) I'll be blogging about all four installments of "Jekyll," which is terrific. (Though I feel I should add the usual BBC America caveat that I have no idea how badly it'll be cut up when it airs.) Click here to read the full post