Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
:: Jekyll ::
by William the Bloody
Dr. Tom Jackman is leading a double a life. He's gotten an apartment in the city, away from his wife and children. It's not what you, or even Dr. Jackman's wife think, as she learns after hiring a private detective to follow him around. There is no other woman. He has an "other self." Someone else, another person also lives inside of Dr. Jackman's body and he isn't a nice sort of person at all. He's violent, destructive, always looking for a fight or a fuck, and the problem is, this other person has the super-human abilities to do and take whatever he wants, whenever he wants. It's for the safety of his family that Dr. Tom Jackman moved out. Tom doesn't want his other self to know about his family if he can possibly avoid it. For now, Tom and his other self have tried to sort of make the best of the life together they are forced to have by attempting to schedule when which one will be in control, using a Dictaphone to communicate between each other, and using constant GPS and video surveillance on each other to know what their other half has been up to. After settling in to this new routine, Dr. Jackman thought it prudent to hire a psychiatric nurse to work as a go between and gofer for both Tom and his other self. It is shortly after Tom hires Katherine as his assistant that his live begins to get turn upside down once again. He not only discovers that his wife had him followed, but that someone else paid the detective more to stop. Tom's best friend has been lying to him for years about his true intentions of friendship, and there is something big waiting in the sidelines to catch not Tom, but his other, evil, and extremely powerful self by any means necessary.
The Good: I'm a fan of the original story The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stephenson and was very eager to see this six episode mini series even more when I found out it was a modern age sequel to this tale rather than a direct adaptation. For the sake of the mini series, the events of Stephenson story were based on true events and our lead character is a direct descendant of Dr. Jekyll who is experiencing the same problem. The only thing is, Stephen presented his tale as fiction, and Tom Jackman was adopted, not knowing anything about his real parentage. It is an interesting idea which is presented very well and has some definitely unique ideas and takes on the Jekyll/Hyde story. Jackman and his wicked alternate persona are both portrayed by James Nesbitt, who does some really terrific acting. Honestly, there are some parts which get a little convoluted and it is Nesbitt's performance which keeps you watching and the whole thing held together. Nearly all of the actors do a great job in this series, and they did the right thing by not having too many characters and developing them very well. I liked how Dr. Jackman's wife was a very strong willed woman and had moments where she held her own against her husband's other self, even after she knew who he was and what he was capable of. The exposition episodes near the end where they explain Tom discovering there's something wrong with himself here and there over the years and the stuff that goes on inside his other self's head are really quite good.
The Bad: There is this one character Benjamin who is an English actor playing an American, and you can completely tell that his accent is fake and that how his character behaves is such a British cliché on Americans in general. Really, the Southern American accent, was what threw it as over the top for me. Now, onto some of the content, Tom has no idea that he is descended from Dr. Jekyll, and yet by some startling coincidence has twin boys and names them Eddie and Harry. Yes, yes, Dr. Jekyll was named HENRY, but please. That's just too much. The "twist" ending I saw coming from MILES away.
All in all I did like it. It wasn't the greatest thing in the world, but it's only six episodes, and I rather liked them. It's a neat little BBC show with some cool ideas and some very fine acting indeed.
B+
