Opening with a pounding forest action scene, this second episode of Atlantis exists primarily to introduce a further addition to the cast; Jemima Rooper makes her first impression with a slow turn to camera and a terrific scream.
‘Effects of External Conditions’ is all about the chase. Orphan Black wastes no time in getting the police on the trail of the mysterious clone introduced towards the end of the last episode. Meanwhile, Sarah continues to use her connections with Alison and Cosima to assist her deceit as they both help her out in different ways.
It’s almost as if the abrasive industrial landscape of Birmingham scours away the principles of all who set foot in its dark and vice-riddled back streets. The same can be said of Birmingham back in 1919 too (we kid, we kid!), because as Peaky Blinders reaches its fourth episode, people are willing to compromise almost every principle in order to get what they want.
Following the pattern that grisly discoveries occur when the Whitehapel gang are socialising, this final tale began amid a “Zombie Apocalypse” team building exercise.
Not that we were initially aware, joining them fleeing from the undead hordes with Buchan and Miles worryingly immersed in the game. It was a smart move, serving to highlight this fractured team’s plight. If such an event does not truly exist for corporate jollies, it really ought to!
Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel, when the world turns at Downton, it turns only in the direction of the past.
The first beat of the tale was a surprising one with the introduction to Jason (Jack Donnelly) taking place in the present day. Establishing our hero as a rootless young man in search of his father, we soon descended in a mini-sub and found ourselves drawn in the world of Atlantis. And it is a world, rather than the past, we are led to believe.
The third episode of Orphan Black puts Sarah’s motivations under the spotlight while revealing some elements of the show’s larger mysteries. When the body of Katja that Sarah previously buried (rather shoddily, she soon learns) turns up and Sarah-as-Beth is put on the case, things begin to get much more complicated for her, especially as she’s just been told she’s a clone.
As Mel Brooks fans already know, ‘It’s good to be the king’. And despite living over 60 years before the movie History of the World: Part 1, Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy) knows it too. Shame he’s building his power on such a massive foundation of enemies. Keep at it though, Tommy – it makes for great drama.
The second part of this face-skinning story begins at quite a pelt, as our witness link from the previous episode is made within the first few minutes. After her input, Buchan’s disgust is palpable at a link to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, drawing on a work of lurid fiction rather than his treasured archive of fact.
Following the Christmas episode of Downton Abbey, which did for Matthew with a car what childbirth did for Lady Sibyl, you could have been forgiven for thinking that there was only so much melodrama one series could take. But stately homes – and big budget ITV series – don’t go off course so easily.