The poorly-received fantasy drama limps to its climax, trying desperately to make us care about hero Luke's (Christian Cooke) tragic family history, which you'll very likely have no knowledge of if you missed episode 1. The story has been left to wilt on the vine since then, and "Nothing Like Nebraska" consequently fails to make its audience care about the discoveries Luke makes here. The fact of the matter is, the big revelations were obvious and clichéd from the start...After Luke is attacked by a "pyromancer" clown called Whoppo (Tim Eagle) during a typically ill-choreographed teaser, a side-effect of exposure to the half-life's luminous green juggling balls (don't ask) results in Luke being given minor psychic powers. This manifests as nightmares about his father's death in a car accident, which he witnessed as a baby from the backseat – only now he remembers seeing an ominous shadowy figure approaching the vehicle after the crash...
The episode essentially revolves around Luke being tricked by Gladiolus Thrip (Mackenzie Crook), the beak-nosed villain from episode 1, who has been resurrected by a local medium called Karen Speedwell (Pauline McLynn). Working together at a séance with Luke in attendance, Thrip poses as Luke's dead father Jay Van Helsing (Thomas Arnold) and persuades him that his godfather Galvin (Philip Glenister) is actually a dangerous half-life – or, "something nasty pretending to be something nice".
That's a phrase that is oft-repeated throughout the episode, not least by Father Simeon (Richard Wilson), who is later murdered. All this leads Luke to accept that his late father is genuinely trying to warn him that Galvin and Mina (Zoë Tapper) are not his friends, they're his enemies. Even best-friend Ruby (Holliday Grainger) isn't fully trusted, as Luke grows closer to Karen Speedwell... unaware that he's being manipulated by Thrip.
To be fair, this was possibly the best episode of Demons, if only because it actually attempted to build on its mythology. It's just a shame the big mystery over the death of Luke's father hasn't been referred to much since the first episode, and no clues were bread-crumbed throughout the past five episodes. Therefore, "Nothing Like Nebraska" carried no real weight to its drama – not helped by the fact Christian Cooke continues to be the least compelling hero in a fantasy drama, perhaps ever. Sulkiness is Luke's base setting, and turning his jacket collar up is about the limit of his "attitude".
Glenister has been a terrible disappointment in this role; Galvin being the total antithesis of the charisma and charm he showed as Gene Hunt in Life On Mars. The trans-Atlantic accent hasn't helped, so quite why this episode decides to have Glenister attempt a Deep South accent (to even less success) is an example of how badly judged Demons often is. Bad decision to reprise Thrip as the lead villain, too – as Crook's performance, while fun, is utterly non-threatening and rather amusing. As a kind of Russell Brand teddyboy, Thrip was a limp and disappointing villain in episode 1, and bookends the series with another inadequate turn. It goes without saying that his eventual demise (at the hands of Mina, in full-vampire mode) is a damp squib, too, as that's been a key feature of every episode's climax.
The only genuine surprise in this episode was the reveal that Jay Van Helsing had become a half-life sympathiser, so Galvin effectively left him to die in his car after rescuing Luke, but vowed never to tell Luke about his father's ignoble end. Trouble is, am I alone in thinking there's a strange, intolerant message being sent to young audiences? Jay effectively wanted humans and half-lives to cooperate and live together in peace – and is that such a bad, unachievable dream? Did Jay deserve to die for wanting to unite both species? Isn't Galvin a bit too narrow-minded in branding Jay a traitor and letting him burn to death in a car?
Overall, while this was a great deal easier to watch than previous episodes, the finale was primarily undone by the absence of a strong foundation, constructed in previous episodes. Couldn't Luke have been given these psychic nightmares a few episodes back? Why couldn't the "something nasty pretending to be something nice" buzz-phrase have been sprinkled throughout the whole series, a la Doctor Who? This all felt very anticlimactic -- and the series, as a whole, was a creatively bankrupt mess. And no, I have no idea what the coda (with Mina hunched on a rooftop in vampire guise) was all about either. I doubt there will be a second series to find out, thankfully. Demons will hopefully be "smited" by ITV bosses post-haste.
7 February 2009
ITV1, 7.50pm
Writer: Peter Tabern
Director: Matthew Evans
Cast: Philip Glenister (Galvin), Christian Cooke (Luke), Zoë Tapper (Mina), Holliday Grainger (Ruby), Mackenzie Crook (Gladiolus Thrip), Richard Wilson (Father Simeon), Pauline McLynn (Karen Speedwell), Saskia Wickham (Jenny), Thomas Arnold (Jay Van Helsing), Mark Phoenix (Sandy), Tim Eagle (Whoppo) & Victoria Finney (Séance Woman)
