WRITER: Jamie Mathieson[SPOILERS] Can you believe we're at the halfway point already? This week, Mitchell (Aidan Turner), George (Russell Tovey) and Annie (Lenora Crichlow) each got well-balanced stories of development in their personal lives...
DIRECTOR: Kenny Glenaan
GUEST STARS: Bryan Dick, Paul Rhys, Mark Fleischmann, Lucy Gaskell, Alex Warren, Vincent Franklin, Dale Meeks & Federico Zanni
Mitchell is still determined to wean the city's vampires off blood by creating a fanged version of "Alcoholics Anonymous", but in order to make it work he needs to endorsement of renowned 195-year-old legend Ivan (Paul Rhys), who agrees to become a posterboy for the campaign to give it some sense of legitimacy. The idea works and Mitchell's pleased to see an increase in blood abstinence amongst his "nest", but when Ivan admits he doesn't have the willpower to stop drinking blood, Mitchell agrees to let him feed on an unfortunate teenage Emo he's had locked up in a backroom... and live with the hypocrisy of his program.
The idea of vampires enrolling in a support group to kick their bloodlust doesn't feel new or clever to me -- although I'm at a loss to give an example of this storyline being done before in fiction, but I'm sure it has been. It must have been, surely, because it sounds like such an obvious twist. Either way, it was good fun -- although I'd prefer it if the vampires had to drink animal blood as a substitute, because it feels unlikely that vampires can even survive sans blood. I'm also enjoying seeing Mitchell slowly descend into evil despite his good intentions; last week he bludgeoned a vampire and left her to suffer underground, this week he's kidnapped a girl for Ivan to snack on. Both are acts he'd have been appalled by just a few weeks ago, but his determination to succeed is clouding his morals.
Meanwhile, George discovered a way to contain his lycanthropy: by locking himself in a bespoke "sex cage" he had built and installed in his bedroom (try explaining that to any girls you take home!), and drugging himself with tranquilizers when there's a Full Moon. He succeeds in turning his wolf self into a sleeping dog all night, but finds that caging the beast within has embarrassing repercussions. Having got a job teaching English to foreign immigrants, George meets attractive secretary Sam (Lucy Gaskell), but soon realizes he's developing Tourettes as a result of refusing to let his inner wolf roam free. His anger-management also takes a knock, as mild-mannered George grows increasingly furious about his sleazy boss's "lighthearted" sexual harassment of Sam and belittling attitude towards him.
Again, this was a perfectly enjoyable storyline and definitely the best injection of comedy into proceedings, for a series that's become a little one-sided with its comedy-drama balance this year. The only disappointment is that it feels that George only has two types of story available to him: attempts to manage his lycanthropy (and, really, he never considered sedatives before now?), or awkward puppy love (single mum Sam's clearly going to be his rebound from Nina). Still, this was probably my favourite storyline this week, because it at least introduced some new faces and gave George a different role and environment to exist in. I was getting fed up with the fact two characters were both hospital porters. I'm hoping George will continue in his capacity as a teacher for a good few episodes to come, if not the rest of the series.
Elsewhere, Annie found herself another ghostly friend/mentor in WWII airman Sykes (Bryan Dick), who's had 70 years to develop his own skills as an earthbound spirit, and is eventually persuaded by Annie to teach her some of his tricks: from reading people's auras, to tasting food by proxy, and having the strength to close The Door that "the other side" are constantly trying to make Annie step through into apparent oblivion. Again, a fun storyline with an appealing performance from Dick, but I keep getting the impression the writers don't really know what to do with Annie now. She spent series 1 coming to terms with her existence, avenging her death, then earning a corporeal form as reward, but this series doesn't have anything near as compelling for her to achieve. She's just learning parlour tricks and keeping malevolent forces at bay that talk through televisions -- which has been entertaining, but it's not much of a development for her as a character.
Finally, there was a small subplot for Kemp (Donald Sumpter) and his accomplice Professor Jaggart (Lyndsey Marshal), whom it was revealed last week is actually Lucy, Mitchell's doctor friend from the hospital. It appears that she was recruited by Kemp a year ago, after he took an interest in a paper she wrote about "an evil gene", so has joined his crusade to find and eradicate supernatural beings. The main point of interest here was realizing that Lucy's a great deal more sympathetic to Nina (Sinead Keenan), whom they've convinced to let them experiment on her to remove her lycanthropy, and optimistic about intel that Mitchell's trying to wean vampires off blood. Kemp is clearly the bigoted hardliner, but Jaggart's more levelheaded and will probably reverse her opinion on the ethics of what they're doing and unravel Kemp's plans from the inside. Well, that would be the predictable direction to take, anyway.
Overall, this fourth episode was decent but seemed to lack some attack, although George's storyline was a worthwhile step into fresh terrain, which has been long overdue. Mitchell and Annie's storylines were both fine and engaging, but beyond the fact we know Mitchell's complicit in a scam with Ivan and Annie's now powerful enough to close The Door, there wasn't too much of consequence going on. In some ways this episode, written by relative newcomer Jamie Mathieson (Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel), worked as a breather to set-up some ideas and characters that will be better explored in the future, really.
31 JANUARY 2010: BBC3, 9PM / BBC HD, 10PM
