Every year at Halloween, I make up my mind to watch something scary on TV. Some years I’m only brave enough to watch Linus wait for the Great Pumpkin to arrive. This year I took a bold step, but I may already have hit my fright limit and we’re still two days out.
Spent six hours watching the very worthwhile Jekyll on Showcase this past weekend, starring James Nesbitt. Originally shown on BBC1 this summer, the miniseries is a delightful new take on the old tale of the curious Dr. Jekyll and his evil counterpart, Mr. Hyde. Nesbitt does a fine job with both characters, but once you’ve seen Hyde, drenched in lion blood and belting out “In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight” as if he were on Broadway, you can’t help but cheer for the bad guy. He is deliciously over the top when indulging his Hyde side, capturing both the menace and the charisma of the original literary character.
The modern twist is that Jekyll is set in 2006, and Dr. Tom Jackman is the reluctant inheritor of his ancestor’s curse. There is a conspiracy with plenty of layers, enough shocks to satisfy and just enough gore to be atmospheric. Through it all, a solid dose of black humour keeps the audience in line.
Besides Nesbitt’s tour de force performance, Gina Bellman is full of substance as the hero/villain’s great love and Denis Lawson (familiar to sci-fi fans as Wedge from the Star Wars movies) is excellent as Peter Syme, a man who could be both a villain and a friend at the same time. Michelle Ryan makes a pre-Bionic Woman appearance as the assistant to both Jekyll and Hyde, helping both keep secrets from each other.
It’s a worthwhile way to spend six hours of your time, and though it may not give you nightmares, it’ll give you pause. Are we supposed to cheer so enthusiastically for the bad guy?
This is actually the second run. I skipped it the first time, had it highly recommended to me, and lucked out catching the marathon on Showcase. I agree with you 100%. While there were a couple of plot points where the “bad guys” were a bit too incompetent, this was a great series (from the middle where I caught it, anyways). Some very cool and original twists, and Nesbitt’s performance was great.
Comment by Dale — October 30, 2007 @ 8:19 am |
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