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Sunday, April 26
The Frankenstein Chronicles S01E05 “The Frankenstein Murders” REVIEW
The Frankenstein Chronicles S01E05 “The Fortune Of War” REVIEW
Airing in the UK on ITV Encore, Wednesdays
Writers: Benjamin Ross, Mike Walden
Director: Benjamin Ross
Essential Plot Points:
Episode The Fifth: In which our inspector has a creeping suspicion
- The anatomy act is passed.
- We discover Garnett Chester was responsible for Flora’s pregnancy.
- We discover Garnett Chester may be responsible for the composite corpse.
- We discover Garnett Chester’s dead body,
Review:
Frankenstein. The name alone is enough to make most people think of monsters, even if it actually belongs to the creator of such horrors. And so we reach the penultimate episode of The Frankenstein Chronicles, and still we have no monsters to show for it. While the body count creeps up slightly this episode, it’s more political intrigue than monstrous goings on.
We begin with Mary Shelley (Anna Maxwell Martin) confessing to Inspector Marlott that Sir William Chester is more than capable of murder in pursuit of his great obsession: galvanism. Indeed, she has seen him killing in the name of science before. She then leaves town, which is frankly a blessing as Martin’s delivery has about as much life as the fictional monster her character created.
Marlott sets out to investigate Sir William (Samuel West), but discovers that maybe it’s his cousin, Garnett (Mark Bazely) who is a more likely fit.
The excellent Robbie Gee makes another appearance as Marlott persuades Billy to confess he supplied the bodies of children to Garnett. Marlott takes the evidence to his boss, Home Secretary Peel, who promises to deal with it personally. Next thing we know Garnett’s body ends up in William Chester’s office at the hospital, wrists slashed with a scalpel, seemingly by his own hand.
Meanwhile Boz’s expose in The Chronicle has put the Anatomy Act in jeopardy, Sir Bentley Warburton (foppishly played by Elliot Cowan) demands an emergency sitting of parliament.
Peel digs the dirt on Sir Bentley with a dawn raid on a sweet shop; the same sweet shop where Warburton gave Nightingale the slip in a previous episode. It seems the proprietor’s perfumed pompadour isn’t the only thing peculiar about the premises; it’s home to some seemingly salacious goings on. The raid brings some much-needed levity to the episode, with shrieks of “Please don’t tell my wife,” and men in frocks running this way and that. Threatened with scandal Warburton withdraws his opposition and the act is passed.
Marlott is now in line to become supervisor of the newly-created Metropolitan Police Force, and everything is nicely wrapped up.
Except… Chester has form for making things look like suicide, and he has plenty to gain from the Anatomy Act. Namely a plentiful supply of dead bodies to experiment on in his pursuit of galvanism. Marlott now believes Chester has succeeded in bringing the dead back to life, and that the original abomination actually crawled its way to the river…
Sean Bean continues to play the dogged inspector true to form. A veritable ray of sunshine to oppose his dour melancholy comes in the form of Flora, excellently played by Eloise Smyth.
Not much has been made of Marlott’s condition. We get about one interrupted dream or hallucination per episode. It would have been nice to see him descend into madness, mirroring his discovery of the wretched and corrupt world around him. Instead he looks a bit tired and has an expanding sore on his hand, hidden by a dirty bandage.
While there’s a lot going on this episode, you can’t help but feel that the whole series has perhaps missed an opportunity. Aside from the literary characters this could be any political drama set in 19th century London. That’s not to say any of it is necessarily bad, but it could have been made better by maybe diving deeper into some of the Blake/Frankenstein mythos instead of briefly hinting at it and leading with the politics. With only one episode left, it’s a bit late to turn things completely around, but here’s hoping for at least a monster, even if it is only Sean Bean with no nose.
The Good
- Marlott gets a kiss.
- Plenty of political intrigue.
- Moves the plot along at a brisk pace.
The Bad
- Anna Maxwell Martin’s insipid performance as Mary Shelley is really starting to grate.
- Perhaps there’ll be a monster in the last episode…
The Random
- Marlott writes out Billy’s confession and dates it 1st April 1827. This messes with the timeline, as Blake did not die until August.
- While snooping around Garnett Chester’s house Marlott discovers what can only be described as a sex clock, which just happens to chime while he’s there.
Review by Arthur Scott
• Read our other reviews of The Frankenstein Chronicles
The Frankenstein Chronicles S01E04 “The Fortune Of War” REVIEW
The Frankenstein Chronicles S01E04 “The Fortune Of War” REVIEW
Airing in the UK on ITV Encore, Wednesdays
Writers: Benjamin Ross, Mike Walden
Director: Benjamin Ross
Essential Plot Points:
Episode The Fourth: In which our inspector arrives at a dead end.
- We discover Flora is without child.
- Billy the Child Catcher is caught, and isn’t the monster.
- BOZ writes an expose on the “Composite Corpse” for The Chronicle.
Review:
If you thought The Frankenstein Chronicles couldn’t get any grimier, you’d be wrong. At the end of the last episode our resolute Inspector Marlott and his unwilling accomplice Pritty were seen descending into a tunnel under the public house that gives the episode its title. At the end of the filth-strewn tunnel we meet the Bishops: a particularly odorous and exceptionally mucky bunch of miscreants. Led by Ma Bishop (Kate Dickie), they specialise in finding fresh bodies for the surgery schools. Suspecting them of using bodies which aren’t actually quite dead yet, Marlott asks them to find him a fresh corpse for “company”. Yep, he poses as a necrophiliac with a preference young girls.
Meanwhile Flora returns from her stay at Sir Daniel Harvey’s hospital sans child, claiming she miscarried.
Using her as bait Marlott and Nightingale catch both Billy (Robbie Gee) and the Bishops. However it transpires that the two are not connected in any way, nor are they connected to the washed-up body. The Bishops are willing to murder to obtain bodies in good fettle for the surgery schools, but draw the line at children. The escapade is not without its casualties, however, and Flora ends up unconscious after spending too long in the noxious fumes from a brick kiln.
Boz visits Marlott’s old employers, the River Police, and bends some ears to get the lowdown on the washed-up corpse. He pens an expose for The Chronicle on “The Frankenstein Murders”, riling Mr Peel.
Marlott has managed to exhaust pretty much all his leads, and he’s no closer to finding the perpetrator. Perhaps he needs to cast his net a little higher up the societal ladder, it would seem as though Miss Mary Shelley and Mr William Chester are certainly hiding something. Shelley visits a galvanist’s laboratory at the end of the episode; its bloody table looks like something straight out of the pages of her book. Inspector Marlott has been busy clearing the decks, hopefully ready for a monstrous finale…
The Good
- The plot is moving along again, tidying up some loose ends.
- Plenty of action, intrigue and scandal.
- Marlott and Lady Harvey’s strange and awkward courtship continues.
The Bad
- Still no monsters.
The Random
- The Fortune Of War was indeed a public house in Smithfield London, and was used as a base by “resurrectionists” (or body snatchers). It was demolished in 1910.
Review by Arthur Scott
• Read our other reviews of The Frankenstein Chronicles
The Frankenstein Chronicles S01E03 "All The Lost Children" REVIEW
The Frankenstein Chronicles S01E03 “All The Lost Children” REVIEW
Airing in the UK on ITV Encore, Wednesdays
Writer: Benjamin Ross, Barry Langford
Director: Benjamin Ross
Essential Plot Points:
Episode The Third: In which a red dress becomes blue
- We discover Flora is with child
Review:
We’re halfway through The Frankenstein Chronicles now, and not really any closer to finding out who was responsible for the original abomination. There haven’t been any more creatures, reports of missing bodies, or murders. These days it’d probably get filed as an aberration and revived as a cold case for some past-their-prime detective. Yet, even though the trail has gone cold, our inspector doesn’t give up, he presses doggedly onwards…
The majority of this episode concentrates on Flora (Eloise Smyth). She was one of Billy “The Child Snatcher”’s girls, but is now under Marlott’s protection. Errand boy Nightingale takes her dress shopping, where we find out she’s pregnant. Worried that she will do the child harm, Marlott seeks to have her stay with Lady Harvey’s brother (Sir Daniel Harvey, played by Ed Stoppard), in his hospital. This, of course, has the added advantage of giving him the opportunity to snoop around the place.
Sir Harvey offers alternative medicines in his care for patients, which would be outlawed by the Anatomy Act. On a tour of the hospital Marlott comes face to (rotten) face with a tertiary phase syphilis patient, and sees what may become of him.
The Inspector also goes to call on Mary Shelley, to ask her about galvanism. She tells him how many friends and family members she has lost and asks would he not, “Defy God’s laws to be re-united with those we love”? We also get a little more background on Ms Shelly, disowned by her parents as her family name has been brought into disgrace because of her “accursed masterpiece”.
Some action in an otherwise character-led episode comes in the form of a chase between Nightingale and the grave robber Pritty (Charlie Creed-Miles). This starts with an exploding door, and ends in a bloody nose. Nightingale finally gets his man after everyone else has managed to (easily) give him the slip.
The end of the episode gives us a cliffhanger, with Marlott and Pritty descending into a tunnel under the city used for moving dead bodies around unobserved.
Halfway through the series and not much has moved on from episode one. We’re still no closer to finding the responsible parties, and no beasts to speak of. Perhaps our inspector needs galvanizing more than some of the bodies.
The effects of syphilis show us something a little more visceral: with Marlott on the mercury again, seeing hideous visions of himself in the mirror.
The Good
- Some nice effects showing the horrors of syphilis
- Concentrating on characterisation is all too rare these days.
The Bad
- Still no closer to finding anyone, or anything, responsible for the initial body
The Random
- The latin “Cave Baestium” as written on floor of the hospital should probably be “Cave Bestiam” – beware of the beast. Odd as the show is usually pretty good on the details.
Review by Arthur Scott
• Read all our reviews of The Frankenstein Chronicles
The Frankenstein Chronicles S01E02 "Seeing Things" REVIEW
The Frankenstein Chronicles S01E02 “Seeing Things” REVIEW
Airing in the UK on ITV Encore, Wednesdays
Writer: Benjamin Ross, Barry Langford
Director: Benjamin Ross
Essential Plot Points:
Episode The Second: in which our inspector is haunted by a red dress.
- We learn that The Anatomy Act also seeks to combat grave robbers, by giving the bodies of the poor to anatomy schools; a fate previously reserved for victims of the gallows.
- Mary Shelley appears; it seems she has already written Frankenstein.
Review:
The difficult second episode, also known as “stretching it out a bit”. Inspector John Marlott (Sean Bean) is getting into the swing of things working out of Bow Street for the home secretary.
Still on the search for the stitcher of bodies, Marlott concentrates on grave robbers in this episode. They maintain that robbing graves is an honest way to make a living; after all, stealing something that doesn’t belong to anyone isn’t a crime. However, the Anatomy Act seeks to put them out of business, by making all bodies available to anatomy schools after death. They may well feel aggrieved about this, and certainly have access to the raw materials to create the abomination we saw in the first episode. To this end Marlott pursues a gang of grave robbers as they go about their ghoulish business.
Next on his list of suspects is Sir Bentley Warburton (Elliot Cowen), another vocal opponent of the Anatomy Act. He conspires to interrupt a lecture on the “galvanic response of dead tissue” with a flock of sheep.
We also meet William Blake (although he doesn’t last very long) and Mary Shelley. The Inspector reads her recently published novel Frankenstein, which gives rise to more Mercury-induced hallucinations. Is the story of “The Modern Prometheus” a work of fiction, or based on the macabre goings on at the school of medicine?
Mr Marlott is also still getting other people to do his legwork for him: Nightingale (his fellow Bow St Runner); a grave robber; and the political reporter known as BOZ, who seems to turn up in all the same places as the Inspector.
After a pleasing and suitably dark opening episode, we’re in for more of the same. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it might have been nice just to move things along a little quicker. It still looks great and acting is excellent all round. A particularly awkward meeting between Inspector Marlott and Lady Harvey (Vanessa Kirby) is – suitably – particularly awkward. Talk of searching for “a beast with the face of a man”, and some of Blake’s other dark imaginings (briefly shown in the book Blake bequeaths to Marlott) give us hope for some more monstrous episodes to follow.
The Good
- The Book of Prometheus and the inclusion of Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus make for interesting mythos.
The Bad
- Not a lot here to move the plot along, just make it more complicated.
- We still haven’t met anyone actually called Frankenstein.
The Random
- Frankenstein was published in 1823 (second edition, the first was anonymous). William Blake died August 1827. Robert Peel was home secretary between 1822–1827 and again between 1828–1830. So the dates pretty much add up for this being relatively accurately set in 1827.
- BOZ was a pen name used by Charles Dickens, who started his career as a political journalist.
Review by Arthur Scott
• Read our review of the first episode of The Frankenstein Chronicles.
The Frankenstein Chronicles S01E01 "A World Without God" REVIEW
The Anatomy Act >>>