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Thursday, 25 August 2011

Jekyll (revisited)

Chris and I recently revisited this series thanks to a friend lending us her DVD.  We had both watched the series when it was originally broadcast back in 2007, and had enjoyed it (although bits made me jump and there were plenty of gory bits too).  I remember thinking at the time that there should be a sequel as the ending was left suitably open for some kind of continuation, but there has been nothing so far.
Anyway, we both settled down to watch it again and I had forgotten just how good it was.  The writing was clever and darkly humorous with an absolutely amazing tour-de-force performance from James Nesbitt in the lead role.  His Hyde was unpredictable, menacing, funny, child-like and much as I tried not to, I couldn't help but be drawn to the character - the writer's interview showed that he did that on purpose so that the audience would care about both parts of the character.  I had also forgotten that the writer was Steven Moffatt who has taken over the lead writing for Doctor Who and who wrote my three all-time favourite Doctor Who episodes.  These are the "Are you my Mummy?" one with the gas mask people, the Madame de Pompadour one with the clockwork robots and "Blink", with the first appearance of the Weeping Angels.  In fact, at one point in Jekyll, Hyde asks "Are you my Daddy?", which made the link to Doctor Who very effectively for us.
I'm not going to give the story away, but it is a clever re-imagining of the Jekyll and Hyde idea, set in a contemporary world and is well worth a watch.  In fact, having seen it again, Chris has ordered our own copy!

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