Adrian Hodges’ adaptation of Alexander Dumas’ novel occupies the post-Sherlock Sunday evening slot on BBC One and it looks the part. Prague doubles for a lived-in Seventeenth Century Paris, and the fight scenes are stylish and kinetic. A strong and charismatic cast delivers, though ultimately the end product is solid rather than exceptional.
Those of a certain age may remember the 90s show Breaking the Magician’s Code, wherein a chap in a mask and gaudy suit debunked a series of magic tricks, including falling from a great height, being shot, and getting rid of an elephant from a room…
Anything sound familiar, Holmes fans? For the audience it was a dual draw: fun to see the illusions performed, and equal fun to see how they were accomplished.
‘I think, sir,’ a boatman from Cornwall famously once remarked to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘when Holmes fell over that cliff, he may not have killed himself, but all the same he was never quite the same man afterwards.’
‘Marriage changes people’, Mrs Hudson coos in ‘The Sign of Three’, oblivious to the fact that, in the very books she sprang from, marriage was always but a footnote in John Watson’s adventures with Holmes.
The first instalment of this two-part finale left us with Princess Ariadne sentenced to a traitor’s death; her fate sealed after the revelation that she aided Jason’s escape from the palace in the aftermath of his failed assassination attempt on Queen Pasiphae.
Hot on the heels of last Christmas’s really rather excellent Treasure Island, Sky1 have set their sights on another literary adaptation: John Meade Falkner’s swashbuckling tale of smugglers on the South Coast, Moonfleet.
Downton Abbey never fails to over-promise and under-deliver. There is, at least, a kind of consistency in this; but it makes for exasperating viewing. After the calamitous events of last Christmas’s festive episode, this year, writer Julian Fellowes was taking no chances. Like an over-cautious Christmas tree decorator, he sought to take his characters out … >
Matt Smith was magnificent – never more so than as the aged toymaker whittling away at his wood. Raggedy man, we shall miss you. But then, you knew that already.
Negatus’ kinks are further developed in this finale, as his boss Imperatrix is due to arrive to sort things out herself, due to Negatus’ incompetence. In disguise as a tramp (the titular Ernie), Negatus plans to destroy Debbie once and for all. Along the way he learns that being pure motiveless evil isn’t necessarily great for your self-esteem.
With the werewolf shenanigans of ‘Hunger Pangs’ past, and not even referenced, the opening part of Atlantis’s Christmas-straddling finale was rooted in earlier events. Returning in a dream that saw Hercules dead, Jason was reminded of the fateful bargain he struck with Pasiphae’s vengeful sister, the witch Circe. It was a creepy and effective start to a storyline full of promise.