BONEKICKERS 1.3 - "The Eternal Fire"

Writer: Matthew Graham
Director: Sarah O'Gorman

Cast: Julie Graham (Professor Gillian Magwilde), Adrian Lester (Dr. Ben Ergha), Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Viv Davis), Hugh Bonneville (Professor Gregory Parton), Michael Maloney (Daniel Mastiff), Shauna MacDonald (Boudicca), Anthony Green (Marcus Quintanus), Sally Dexter (Gloria), Jay Villiers (Cassius), Jonathan Aris (Jeff Greenwood) & Henrietta Bess (Reporter)

After an earth tremor at the Roman Baths, the team dig down into catacombs to prove a theory involving Boudicca...

Bonekickers would be a lot more fun if it abandoned its contemporary archaeological element and just gave us weekly "what if?" stories plucked from history, mixed with dramatic conspiracies...

"The Eternal Flame" finds the Wessex University quartet digging under the famous Roman Baths in, er, Bath -- with Gillian Magwilde (Julie Graham) convinced their findings prove that a Roman called Quintanus (Anthony Green) fell in love with the Celtic Queen of the Britons, legendary warrior Boudicca (Shauna MacDonald)...

It's not long before the archaeologists are digging under the Baths, which is experiencing tremors brought on by sulphuric gas leaks beneath the surface. Later, Dolly (Hugh Bonneville) heads off to the lab with Viv (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) to date a jaw-bone they dig up, leaving Gillian and Ben (Adrian Lester) behind. Another tremor forces Ben and Gillian to take refuge inside a catacomb exposed by the earth-shakes, where they discover a mosaic that seems to prove Gillian's theory of forbidden love between Quintanus and Boudicca.

Facing a life-or-death situation with poisonous gas seeping into the chamber, romantic feelings are reawakened in Ben and Gillian, whom we learn came close to marrying back in '92. As luck would have it, it's also Valentine's Day and the acoustics can pick up love ballads from the gift shop above them...

Yes, it's more silliness from a show that's struggling to find a balance between realism and dramatic license. The kernel of ideas in every episode have been quite interesting so far, it's just that the execution isn't particularly riveting. I think it helps if you have little to no knowledge of British history, but it's not really the fact Bonekickers' ideas are codswallop, it's the fact none of the characters inspire much affection.

Bonneville is the more likeable actor, mainly because his character's as exaggerated and silly as the events surrounding him. Lester tries admirably to maintain a calm and rational vibe, but can't overcome the dopiness of the dialogue he's required to speak. Graham's improved slightly, but she's still annoyingly obsessed with buzzwords like "imagination", while Mbatha-Raw almost fades into the background whenever she doesn't have to ask questions the audience are asking at home (beyond "why am I still watching this?") or throw coquettish looks Lester's way.

To be fair, if you lower your expectations and accept the fact Bonekickers has no chance of becoming a contemporary Indiana Jones, there are regular perils to overcome and a few interesting nuggets of information cribbed from Wikipedia (like the Strontium explanation). The ridiculous nature of everything can also be fun. I particularly liked how the final resting place of Boudicca turned out to be easily accessible through a Roman sewer's stone hatch! Did nobody think to look up there through the centuries? And where else can you find people running away from poison gas underground, before stumbling into a Roman-age minefield to hear Wet Wet Wet's "Love Is All Around Me"?

Overall, this was the first episode of Bonekickers that actually bored me at times (with the four characters quickly divided into pairs and stuck in two locations throughout the episode), although I quite like the recurring mystery of Gillian's research into that mysterious sword. My own theory: it's King Arthur's Excalibur and has been owned by many historical people through the centuries, which is why it's cropping up all over the place, like in this episode's Roman mosaic.


22 July 2008
BBC1, 9.00 pm