'Jekyll' moves more quickly than TV audiences have been taught to expect. It covers an astonishing amount of ground in the first couple of episodes, enough to sustain most British series through six episodes or more and some US series through an entire 22-episode season (I'm looking at you, 'Heroes'). Foreshadowing is foreshortened - climaxes come quicker than you expect. I thought the hide-the-family cat and mouse game would be the focus of the entire series, climaxing in the final episode with the standard family-in-peril scenario. The series gets past that point in the first episode, then goes back to the beginning at the start of the second episode and does something completely different. Every episode has a different feel to it - the first is domestic-Gothic, the second a paranoia thriller, the third one of those teasing formalist puzzles that writer Moffatt is so fond of, the fourth a romance inter-cut with a techno-thriller, the fifth a psychedelic ghost story in period costume, the sixth a gonzo action-movie parody.
Even as it slows down a little as it goes along, Moffatt never loses his delight in undermining expectations. The pivotal moment is the death of a major character in the third episode. They're the one character no other writer would kill off so quickly - but Moffatt does it casually, and you can almost taste the adrenaline as the series surges forwards, figuring out where to go from here. The other key transition comes in a fifth episode bait-and-switch twist which might make you punch the air - with one word ('suckers!') the entire nature of the series changes, and what seemed like an inevitable dramatic trajectory suddenly slingshots in a whole new direction.
The downside to this restlessness is that some characters get left by the side of the road. Miranda and Min (Meera Syal and Fenella Woolgar) get little to do after the first episode, when they should be getting their own series. Similarly, Katherine Reimer (Michelle Ryan), potentially the most interesting character in the series, gets lost in the background as Clair (Gina Bellman) and Syme (Denis Lawson) move centre stage in the second half of the series. But what a manoeuvre that turns out to be - Clair's transition from victim-wife cypher in the first episode to audience identification figure in the fourth is strangely exhilarating; the series suddenly finds a focus for its restless energy, and the couple's difficult, fragile relationship lends it an unexpectedly soft heart. It's a shame Moffatt can't quite sustain it to the end of the last episode - the 'emotional' climax feels oddly perfunctory. Perhaps I was just hoping for a less formulaic resolution to the Jekyll/Hyde split from such an unorthodox series - integration rather than sacrifice, perhaps?
The only other flaw in the series? The lions. It was never gonna work on a TV budget.
Even as it slows down a little as it goes along, Moffatt never loses his delight in undermining expectations. The pivotal moment is the death of a major character in the third episode. They're the one character no other writer would kill off so quickly - but Moffatt does it casually, and you can almost taste the adrenaline as the series surges forwards, figuring out where to go from here. The other key transition comes in a fifth episode bait-and-switch twist which might make you punch the air - with one word ('suckers!') the entire nature of the series changes, and what seemed like an inevitable dramatic trajectory suddenly slingshots in a whole new direction.
The downside to this restlessness is that some characters get left by the side of the road. Miranda and Min (Meera Syal and Fenella Woolgar) get little to do after the first episode, when they should be getting their own series. Similarly, Katherine Reimer (Michelle Ryan), potentially the most interesting character in the series, gets lost in the background as Clair (Gina Bellman) and Syme (Denis Lawson) move centre stage in the second half of the series. But what a manoeuvre that turns out to be - Clair's transition from victim-wife cypher in the first episode to audience identification figure in the fourth is strangely exhilarating; the series suddenly finds a focus for its restless energy, and the couple's difficult, fragile relationship lends it an unexpectedly soft heart. It's a shame Moffatt can't quite sustain it to the end of the last episode - the 'emotional' climax feels oddly perfunctory. Perhaps I was just hoping for a less formulaic resolution to the Jekyll/Hyde split from such an unorthodox series - integration rather than sacrifice, perhaps?
The only other flaw in the series? The lions. It was never gonna work on a TV budget.