Jekyll (Or, how ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
selenak stopped worrying and loved the Moff)
Well, mostly. But in truth, the international edition of the BBC iplayer put Moffat's series Jekyll online and since I had forgotten what annoyed me about the pilot (which was all I had watched before) back in the day, other than James Nesbitt antipathy which I knew could be handled as since then, I had liked him in other roles, I decided to give it another ago. And lo and behold, the result turned out to be the first Moffat series I actually love.
Steven Moffat & self so far:
- RTD era DW eps: nifty and brilliant. Loved Girl in the Fireplace and Blink, like Empty Child and Library two parters; probably love Library now belatedly on stronger feeling for River account
- Coupling: tried the first four eps, couldn't quite see the point, gave it up
- Moff era DW: I have individual episode love and am tremendously entertained most of the time (except by iDaleks and stupid pirates, argghhh), frustrated by occasional laziness by someone who is supposed to be a brilliant plotter (no, I'm not getting over that crack thing in s5 and little girl unsought in s6 any time soon, and generally feel in like, not on love, which means generally far less angst and thus great relaxation during viewing (due to lack of emotional investment which is a double edged sword)
- Sherlock: quite why this is supposed to be a brilliant show is beyond me. First season has a good pilot with flaws, an awful middle ep and a so-so third ep. Also I couldn't stand Sherlock himself in all three eps, which is a drawback to my viewing enjoyment. Second season had a good opener with flaws, a boring middle ep, and a good final ep (things are looking up!), plus I had come around to sympathy for the main character in two eps, which is definitely a plus. So basically it's entertaining, but if it gets cancelled tomorrow (which it won't be, what with the raging success), there would be no tears from me.
So, what made Jekyll, now that I've watched it in its entirety, the first Moffat series (as opposed to individual episodes) that I can love wholeheartedly?
Not flawlessness. Let me start with a complaint because I love to go out on a high note. The Moff occasionally does his thing again where he becomes too entranced with his own cleverness and the "wouldn't it be cool if...?" principle and comes up with something flashy that doesn't make any character sense if you think it through, notably in the tagscene/cliffhanger of the final episode. I hadn't finished thinking "oh, female Jekyll and Hyde person, that's cool, and yes, it works with the ladies in question" before going "hang on, but doesn't that destroy the premise of the whole reason why the Big Evil Organization is after Mr. Hyde? Because if Evil Overlady Who Heads Said Organization is the Hyde-side of his mother, what does she need him for? The Big Evil Organisation's justification for all the expense on getting their hands on Hyde is that Hyde in the Moffat version has a lot of superhuman abilities that admittedly do come in handy for any Evil Organization (tm): superfast, superstrong, able to deduct your medical history from smelling your sweat - he's basically the Hulk and Dr. Hannibal Lector in one, or, as the series has it, "the next step in human evolution". But if their head is a female version of Hyde (with a Jekyll alter ego who rarely shows up), how come she doesn't have those abilities? And even given that she doesn't for some reasons and her Hyde side just comes with ruthlessness and a perm but without any super abilities, she evidently has the correct genes, as she's his bio mother, and so if you need him to provide the genes so you can commercialize the superman (minus the nasty temper), well, you've got hers. Also: the big twist that original!Hyde was brought forth not by the surpressed need for violence or sex but by love and its "must protect those I love" instinct turned to the psychopatic maximum - how does this square with Linda Watson's character where only her Jekyll version feels that protective urge and her Hyde side doesn't at all? It's a headache enough to make the shiny house of cards that is a Moffatian arc plot collapse, and well, I know how that feels.
And yet. With the emotional logic that allows us to handwave where we love, which I couldn't bring on to That Thing With The Crack and He Should Have Searched For The Girl on DW, I can handwave on Jekyll. Because of so many things. Not least because of my changed feelings re: Mr. Nesbitt's performance. (As both Jackman/Jekyll and Hyde.) It so helps if you can root for the main character. See, one of my Sherlock problems was that while Benedict Cumberbatch is undoubtedly a sight for sore eyes and a good actor, I experienced this gap between show and tell in the first season. I.e. the series told me Sherlock was brilliant (despite not being able to figure out the flamingly obvious thing with the taxi driver in the pilot). It told me that Sherlock and John quickly formed an intense bond on which the rest of the show revolved (but while I bought their friendship in the second season, in the first it was all being told it was there and relying on every Holmes needing his Watson for me), plus I think I had overdosed on charismatic jerks whom the rest of the cast put up with because of their brilliance (one reason why I stipped watching House). Meanwhile, Jekyll asks me to buy into Jackman as not the most brilliant guy ever but someone who does his best to deal with a horrible condition (which, as opposed to Stevenson's Jekyll, he's not responsible for, but Moffat takes something Stevenson has in his novella and no adaption ever used - the father and son comparison Jekyll makes for how he relates to his alter ago and Hyde to him - and runs with it), and Hyde as someone more complicated than just Jackman/Jekyll's surpressed Id. The central relationship on which the show revolves is one where I can believe what everyone brings into and is getting out of it, to wit: Jackman & Hyde with Claire. Claire doesn't have much to do in the first two eps and you wonder why they're wasting Gina Bellman on this, but then, starting with the third she really comes into her own, and the fact the Jekyll character has a wife turns out to be so much more than a plot device to give him someone to worry over. Claire being blazingly alive, smart and able to unimpressed by swagger and monologues is as crucial as the audience believing in what both Tom Jackman and Hyde see in her, and she in them. Early on, Hyde makes a hostile crack about her that falls flat when he refers to her as Lois Lane, but as it turns out, the comparison is actually warranted: not to Lois-not-figuring-out-who-Clark-is but to Lois in her more recent incarnations where she gets to form Superman's identity a lot and her relationship with Clark never fades away into unimportance in favour of the one with Superman, but both count.
The Moff's long established talent for puzzles, time wimeyness and non-linear narratives also are put to good use when it comes to Claire and Tom Jackman, and not just to them, but most effectively with them. Mid series isn't only when we find out how the Claire and Tom relationship evolved but also how Tom Jackman found out he has an alter ego (when the show starts he's already known for half a year) while showing us simultanously Claire developing a relationship with Hyde. More minor questions (for example, who is Katherine working for, what is her attitude to Hyde as opposed to Jackman?) are answered in a similar manner in the course of the show. Also, instead of going the easy route (this is a 'verse where Stevenson never wrote Jekyll & Hyde) the show goes for: Stevenson did write Jekyll and Hyde via arrangement with Original!Jekyll, which is part of the plot's big mystery and solution (where does Tom Jackman come from? Is he a clone or original Jekyll?, any discrepancies in characterisation and set up are because the book is actually a trap by Original!Jekyll for wannabe experimentors. And very importantly, there are some terrific supporting characters; the Lesbian detective duo plays a far greater role than I would have guessed from the pilot, and are clearly Madame Vastra and Jenny with more screen time, their banter only matched by their competence, while on the villain's side Benjamin (played by a delightfully slimy Patterson Joseph) and Peter Syme (every bureocrat fancying himself an antihero who just gets his hands dirty for a greater good) are boo-hiss worthy without being caricatures. Even when the Moff goes for the occasional cheap laugh I'm good with this and accordingly amused, such as when the super macho mercenary whom the preceding sequence built up so the audience is supposed to believe is a big threat is dispatched by Hyde in two seconds flat. Speaking of mercenaries, another virtue of the show is that it never falls into the mistake of letting all the minions of our Evil Organization (tm) act like brainless zombies who can't make up their own minds or realize when they're in danger of getting killed, and/or who are bemusingly loyal to people we haven't seen doing something to earn their loyalty. So when we get situation where you think "why aren't they getting the hell out of there?" you don't think that, because they actually do get the hell out of there. And one of the mercenaries is neatly shades of gray and far more impressive than his superiors without being a Hearthrob Cynic With A Heart of Gold in the Han Solo mode (he's middle-aged to old).
Alter egos Are Us: the premise offers Moffat a good chance for his fondness for mirroring. Jackman/Jekyll and Hyde, obviously, but also Tom Jackman's twin sons, Claire and Alice, and the two middleaged ladies who are of course one (even if that is a headache because of the premise logic fail, see start of the review) and both mirror Tom and Hyde. Seeing your doppelganger is a revelation in more than one way: when current day Hyde goes back into the memories of Jackman/Jekyll to Victorian Hyde and thus has the chance to speak with himself in a way that doesn't mean talking to Jackman/Jekyll, he comes out with the conclusion of what he doesn't want.
Lastly: loved that the fact the Scottish pronounciation of "Jekyll" is very different from the way the name gets pronounced in just about any film version ever is actually a plot point. Go, Moff! My English teacher went on about that for ten minutes.
Steven Moffat & self so far:
- RTD era DW eps: nifty and brilliant. Loved Girl in the Fireplace and Blink, like Empty Child and Library two parters; probably love Library now belatedly on stronger feeling for River account
- Coupling: tried the first four eps, couldn't quite see the point, gave it up
- Moff era DW: I have individual episode love and am tremendously entertained most of the time (except by iDaleks and stupid pirates, argghhh), frustrated by occasional laziness by someone who is supposed to be a brilliant plotter (no, I'm not getting over that crack thing in s5 and little girl unsought in s6 any time soon, and generally feel in like, not on love, which means generally far less angst and thus great relaxation during viewing (due to lack of emotional investment which is a double edged sword)
- Sherlock: quite why this is supposed to be a brilliant show is beyond me. First season has a good pilot with flaws, an awful middle ep and a so-so third ep. Also I couldn't stand Sherlock himself in all three eps, which is a drawback to my viewing enjoyment. Second season had a good opener with flaws, a boring middle ep, and a good final ep (things are looking up!), plus I had come around to sympathy for the main character in two eps, which is definitely a plus. So basically it's entertaining, but if it gets cancelled tomorrow (which it won't be, what with the raging success), there would be no tears from me.
So, what made Jekyll, now that I've watched it in its entirety, the first Moffat series (as opposed to individual episodes) that I can love wholeheartedly?
Not flawlessness. Let me start with a complaint because I love to go out on a high note. The Moff occasionally does his thing again where he becomes too entranced with his own cleverness and the "wouldn't it be cool if...?" principle and comes up with something flashy that doesn't make any character sense if you think it through, notably in the tagscene/cliffhanger of the final episode. I hadn't finished thinking "oh, female Jekyll and Hyde person, that's cool, and yes, it works with the ladies in question" before going "hang on, but doesn't that destroy the premise of the whole reason why the Big Evil Organization is after Mr. Hyde? Because if Evil Overlady Who Heads Said Organization is the Hyde-side of his mother, what does she need him for? The Big Evil Organisation's justification for all the expense on getting their hands on Hyde is that Hyde in the Moffat version has a lot of superhuman abilities that admittedly do come in handy for any Evil Organization (tm): superfast, superstrong, able to deduct your medical history from smelling your sweat - he's basically the Hulk and Dr. Hannibal Lector in one, or, as the series has it, "the next step in human evolution". But if their head is a female version of Hyde (with a Jekyll alter ego who rarely shows up), how come she doesn't have those abilities? And even given that she doesn't for some reasons and her Hyde side just comes with ruthlessness and a perm but without any super abilities, she evidently has the correct genes, as she's his bio mother, and so if you need him to provide the genes so you can commercialize the superman (minus the nasty temper), well, you've got hers. Also: the big twist that original!Hyde was brought forth not by the surpressed need for violence or sex but by love and its "must protect those I love" instinct turned to the psychopatic maximum - how does this square with Linda Watson's character where only her Jekyll version feels that protective urge and her Hyde side doesn't at all? It's a headache enough to make the shiny house of cards that is a Moffatian arc plot collapse, and well, I know how that feels.
And yet. With the emotional logic that allows us to handwave where we love, which I couldn't bring on to That Thing With The Crack and He Should Have Searched For The Girl on DW, I can handwave on Jekyll. Because of so many things. Not least because of my changed feelings re: Mr. Nesbitt's performance. (As both Jackman/Jekyll and Hyde.) It so helps if you can root for the main character. See, one of my Sherlock problems was that while Benedict Cumberbatch is undoubtedly a sight for sore eyes and a good actor, I experienced this gap between show and tell in the first season. I.e. the series told me Sherlock was brilliant (despite not being able to figure out the flamingly obvious thing with the taxi driver in the pilot). It told me that Sherlock and John quickly formed an intense bond on which the rest of the show revolved (but while I bought their friendship in the second season, in the first it was all being told it was there and relying on every Holmes needing his Watson for me), plus I think I had overdosed on charismatic jerks whom the rest of the cast put up with because of their brilliance (one reason why I stipped watching House). Meanwhile, Jekyll asks me to buy into Jackman as not the most brilliant guy ever but someone who does his best to deal with a horrible condition (which, as opposed to Stevenson's Jekyll, he's not responsible for, but Moffat takes something Stevenson has in his novella and no adaption ever used - the father and son comparison Jekyll makes for how he relates to his alter ago and Hyde to him - and runs with it), and Hyde as someone more complicated than just Jackman/Jekyll's surpressed Id. The central relationship on which the show revolves is one where I can believe what everyone brings into and is getting out of it, to wit: Jackman & Hyde with Claire. Claire doesn't have much to do in the first two eps and you wonder why they're wasting Gina Bellman on this, but then, starting with the third she really comes into her own, and the fact the Jekyll character has a wife turns out to be so much more than a plot device to give him someone to worry over. Claire being blazingly alive, smart and able to unimpressed by swagger and monologues is as crucial as the audience believing in what both Tom Jackman and Hyde see in her, and she in them. Early on, Hyde makes a hostile crack about her that falls flat when he refers to her as Lois Lane, but as it turns out, the comparison is actually warranted: not to Lois-not-figuring-out-who-Clark-is but to Lois in her more recent incarnations where she gets to form Superman's identity a lot and her relationship with Clark never fades away into unimportance in favour of the one with Superman, but both count.
The Moff's long established talent for puzzles, time wimeyness and non-linear narratives also are put to good use when it comes to Claire and Tom Jackman, and not just to them, but most effectively with them. Mid series isn't only when we find out how the Claire and Tom relationship evolved but also how Tom Jackman found out he has an alter ego (when the show starts he's already known for half a year) while showing us simultanously Claire developing a relationship with Hyde. More minor questions (for example, who is Katherine working for, what is her attitude to Hyde as opposed to Jackman?) are answered in a similar manner in the course of the show. Also, instead of going the easy route (this is a 'verse where Stevenson never wrote Jekyll & Hyde) the show goes for: Stevenson did write Jekyll and Hyde via arrangement with Original!Jekyll, which is part of the plot's big mystery and solution (where does Tom Jackman come from? Is he a clone or original Jekyll?, any discrepancies in characterisation and set up are because the book is actually a trap by Original!Jekyll for wannabe experimentors. And very importantly, there are some terrific supporting characters; the Lesbian detective duo plays a far greater role than I would have guessed from the pilot, and are clearly Madame Vastra and Jenny with more screen time, their banter only matched by their competence, while on the villain's side Benjamin (played by a delightfully slimy Patterson Joseph) and Peter Syme (every bureocrat fancying himself an antihero who just gets his hands dirty for a greater good) are boo-hiss worthy without being caricatures. Even when the Moff goes for the occasional cheap laugh I'm good with this and accordingly amused, such as when the super macho mercenary whom the preceding sequence built up so the audience is supposed to believe is a big threat is dispatched by Hyde in two seconds flat. Speaking of mercenaries, another virtue of the show is that it never falls into the mistake of letting all the minions of our Evil Organization (tm) act like brainless zombies who can't make up their own minds or realize when they're in danger of getting killed, and/or who are bemusingly loyal to people we haven't seen doing something to earn their loyalty. So when we get situation where you think "why aren't they getting the hell out of there?" you don't think that, because they actually do get the hell out of there. And one of the mercenaries is neatly shades of gray and far more impressive than his superiors without being a Hearthrob Cynic With A Heart of Gold in the Han Solo mode (he's middle-aged to old).
Alter egos Are Us: the premise offers Moffat a good chance for his fondness for mirroring. Jackman/Jekyll and Hyde, obviously, but also Tom Jackman's twin sons, Claire and Alice, and the two middleaged ladies who are of course one (even if that is a headache because of the premise logic fail, see start of the review) and both mirror Tom and Hyde. Seeing your doppelganger is a revelation in more than one way: when current day Hyde goes back into the memories of Jackman/Jekyll to Victorian Hyde and thus has the chance to speak with himself in a way that doesn't mean talking to Jackman/Jekyll, he comes out with the conclusion of what he doesn't want.
Lastly: loved that the fact the Scottish pronounciation of "Jekyll" is very different from the way the name gets pronounced in just about any film version ever is actually a plot point. Go, Moff! My English teacher went on about that for ten minutes.