BBC America order THE LIVING AND THE DEAD from co-creators of LIFE ON MARS

Writers Ashley Pharoah and Matthew Graham, who co-created Life on Mars and were responsible for its spin-off Ashes to Ashes, have had a paranormal drama picked up by BBC America. THE LIVING AND THE DEAD will concern Nathan Appleby; a "gentleman farmer" living in 1888 who's obsessed with proving the existence of an afterlife. This leads Appleby to investigate various supernatural events in Victorian England. The series will begin filming next year in the West Country of England.

Big Brother Bonekicks?

Is it just me, or have Bonekickers' creepy "The Disciples Of Good Use" been appearing in Big Brother 9's opening titles this summer? Evidence to compare and contrast above. Maybe they thought Excalibur was in the Diary Room?

BONEKICKERS 1.6 - "Follow The Gleam"

Writer: Matthew Graham
Director: Iain B. MacDonald

Cast: Julie Graham (Professor Gillian Magwilde), Adrian Lester (Dr. Ben Ergha), Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Viv Davis), Hugh Bonneville (Professor Gregory Parton), Michael Maloney (Professor Daniel Mastiff), Dexter Fletcher (Michael Gift), Frances Tomelty (Karen Magwilde), Tobias Menzies (Scott), Rick Warden (Kevin), Jeremy Bulloch (Masked Man), Vicky Hall (Nurse Strong), David Oakes (Alfred Lord Tennyson) & Alex Felton (Arthur Hallam)

I don't mind admitting it: that was good fun. Obviously you'll need a bucket to carry all the salt you'll be pinching, and it derailed a few times towards the end, but "The Tennyson Code" (as one character aptly put it) provided enough pseudo-intellectual mystery and fast-paced adventure for Bonekickers to end on a relative high...

The story begins with media-savvy archaeologist Michael Gift (Dexter Fletcher, resembling Ralph from The Fast Show) discovering a segment of King Arthur's Round Table (well, oblong) buried near Glastonbury Tor. An amateur digger called Kevin Schaffer (Rick Warden) tips off Gillian's (Julie Graham) team at Bristol, although she believes the artefact must be a hoax. It's just so improbable -- isn't it, Gilly? This coming from a woman who recently found the True Cross and the corpses of Boudicca and Joan Of Arc!

Gift is adamant the table's genuine, and that it points to the final resting place of Excalibur -- the legendary sword Gillian's mother dedicated her life to finding (shades of the parent/child Arthurian bond in Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade). After firing her half-sister Viv (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) for her deception in recent weeks, Gillian finds herself waist-deep in a mystery connected to her mother: involving the writings of Alfred Lord Tennyson (David Oakes), murderous secret society "The Disciples Of Good Use" (who like to wear white masks), and the mysterious Henry Timberdyne...

"Follow The Gleam" managed the tricky task of explaining Karen Magwilde's (Frances Tomelty) back-story, while tying the previous episodes together using the sword as a thread. The sweep of the story was enjoyable, even if several key-points weren't explained very well, or didn't make much sense. The Disciples Of Good Use (in their Eyes Wide Shut-style masks) made for creepy villains, but their exact relationship with "Timberdyne" and decision to lock Viv in a tomb has me scratching my head. Indeed, a general fuzziness began to smother this episode about half-way through, as Matthew Graham's script began to struggle, which was a pity.

As usual, everything was coated in a thick gloss of silliness and bad dialogue. Bonekickers thinks characters can get away with saying "the dark is coming" outside of a sci-fi context, but they're very wrong. Or how about that battle-cry of "don't mess with me; I'm an archaeologist!" to inspire misplaced laughter just before a tense fight in Wells Cathedral?

It was also strange to find Karen Magwilde's room in her nursing home had a trapdoor in its floor, which led to a secret chamber full of her research! Is that a feature in nursing homes these days -- en suite bathrooms and secret rooms? Even stranger, how could Gillian lift a thick carpet to find the trapdoor, open it, head down inside, and still manage to close the trapdoor and reposition the carpet behind her? Oh yes, it's because some bad-guys arrive in the room shortly after and the plot would fall apart if they saw an open trapdoor and folded back carpet.

Some of it's nitpicky, I agree. In fact, Bonekickers would probably be rather tedious without its moments of stupidity to amuse. I mean, how can you not smile at Gillian's "Lady Of The Lake" moment, when she's inexplicably catapulted out of some water brandishing Excalibur? Or the perplexing suicide of spooky antagonist The Masked Man (Star Wars' Jeremy Bulloch), who immediately dies after flopping face-first into some water? How... bizarre.

If you approach Bonekickers with the right attitude, it provides a cheerfully preposterous mix of faux history and sub-Indiana Jones adventuring. It's a shame the characters remain the weakest links; particularly Gillian, who's too formidable and unlikeable to be an appealing lead. Creators Matthew Graham and Ashley Pharaoh seem to like writing "strong" women (see Keeley Hawes in Ashes To Ashes), but their strength often comes as the expense of likeability. Hawes' character was similarly criticized for being brash and annoying, remember.

Adrian Lester has almost become background noise as Ben over the 6 episodes, while Mbatha-Raw wears a look of permanent befuddlement, Hugh Bonneville muddles through on broadly-played bluster, and Michael Maloney's probably wondering why he bothered to take on such a pointless, unfunny role as the team's toffee-nosed backer.

Overall, some inventive sparks in its Da Vinci Code-style mystery ensured "Follow The Gleam" was more entertaining than usual, and the recurring mysteries of this series were explained adequately. There's no denying Bonekickers has been a disappointment (primarily because of limp characters and ridiculous approach to the material), but it was certainly imaginative and occasionally pleasurable -- if not always for the right reasons. It remains to be seen if Bonekickers will return next year -- in the face of poor reviews and declining ratings -- but if the characters can be strengthened and the craziness toned down, I'd give it a second chance.


12 August 2008
BBC1, 9.00 pm

BONEKICKERS 1.5 - "The Lines Of War"

Writer: Tom Macrae
Director: Nick Hurran

Cast: Julie Graham (Professor Gillian Magwilde), Adrian Lester (Dr. Ben Ergha), Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Viv Davis), Hugh Bonneville (Professor Gregory "Dolly" Parton), Michael Maloney (Professor Daniel Mastiff), James D'Arcy (Captain Roberts), Burn Gorman (Banks), Adam James (John), Frances Tomelty (Karen Magwilde), Gabrielle Scharnitzky (Dr. Becker), Patrick Monckeberg (Gruber), Philippe Smolikowski (Monsieur Luc), Jane Thorne (Nun), Sam Spiegel (Henri), Peter Sandys-Clarke (Silverman) & Joe Grossi (Monk)

How strange. The first episode not written by creators Matthew Graham and Ashley Pharaoh is also its best. Don't get me wrong, the characters still struggle to earn my affection or respect, and the whole thing is peppered with awful dialogue, but the story (while once again historically questionable) was effectively told...

Gillian (Julie Graham) and her team descend on northern France, where a British WWI tank has been discovered buried in a field, containing the burnt remains of 6 bodies. The discovery might be evidence of a war crime; a situation that starts to cause resentments between Gillian's team, French bureaucrat Monsieur Luc (Philippe Smolikowski) and German archaeologist Dr. Becker (Gabrielle Scharnitzky).

As is typical for Bonekickers, Gillian has a feud with Dr. Becker, making her the world's most unprofessional and, frankly, unlikeable archaeologist. Julie Graham's trying to make Gillian a forthright, determined and strong woman, but she mainly comes across as a snooty, difficult, selfish irritant. The characters around her even comment on Gillian's bad attitude (and the craziness of several plot developments), but that smacks of a writer making apologies to the audience.

However, writer Tom Macrae (Doctor Who) has a decent stab at making the storyline work. The modern-day tensions between European professionals, mining post-war xenophobia, are an obvious connector to The Great War turbulence, but worked pretty well. But the best thing about "The Lines Of War" is how the mystery develops, helped enormously by flashbacks with a bit of substance to them -- as it's revealed the British soldiers were devout followers of Joan of Arc, and had an unusual plan to stop the war...

While ultimately a load of nonsense in the cold light of day, this episode was fun while it lasted and held my interest. This is the first time Bonekickers has focused on a period in living memory, and it was far more successful than the dreamy re-enactments we've had so far. That might be down to the budget, as it's easier to recreate WWI with a half-dozen actors in a forest, than Roman or medieval times. The increase in flashbacks enabled the story to glue the past and present together to a more enjoyable degree. I've mentioned before that the flashbacks are the most entertaining aspect of the show, and "The Lines Of War" wisely spent a sizeable chunk of time back in 1917 with the doomed soldiers.

This episode also found time to explain one of its ongoing mysteries: the identity of young intern Viv (Gugu Mbatha-Raw). Admittedly, I haven't been giving Bonekickers much thought between episodes (can you blame me?), so the reveal worked very well for me. I certainly didn't guess her secret relationship (for obvious reasons), so it was nice for Bonekickers to unleash a genuine surprise. While nothing earth-shattering, or even particularly clever, at least it succeeded in its aim.

Overall, I was entertained (if not thrilled) for long stretches, the script developed nicely and contained a few surprises I didn't see coming. It's a shame the characters are so underwhelming and the dialogue wobbles from banal to unintentionally hilarious (Gillian: "I'm a good ride"), but Macrae's story was welltold and, even if the mystery was a load of cobblers, it kept you watching to make that discovery.


5 August 2008
BBC1, 9.00 pm

BONEKICKERS 1.4 - "The Cradle Of Civilisation"

Writer: Matthew Graham
Director: James Strong

Cast: Julie Graham (Prof. Gillian Magwilde), Adrian Lester (Dr. Ben Ergha), Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Viv Davis), Hugh Bonneville (Professor Gregory Parton), Michael Maloney (Daniel Mastiff), Silas Carson (Kahmil Hammadi), Frances Tomelty (Karen Magwilde), David Ryall (Max Garris), Nina Sosanya (Rachel), Darrell D'Silva (Amwar), Matt Rippy (Jimmy Paul), Vicky Hall (Nurse Strong), Telka Donyai (Khanna), Gemma Baker (Sally), Sherif Eltayeb (Ali) & Justin Allder (Aide)

An Iraqi archaeologist arrives in Bath with a cultural delegation to reclaim a Babylonian relic looted during the Iraq war...

You can't say it's not imaginative and it (generally) fills each episode with enough incidents to keep you mindlessly attuned. It's just that Bonekickers sits squarely in the realm of preposterous nonsense, and there isn't really enough excitement to have you overlook how it strains to keep the ball rolling...

"The Cradle Of Civilisation" concerns an ancient Babylonian relic discovered by an archaeologist during the Iraq War, who smuggles it back to Britain to sell to a private collector. The vase-like relic is covered in writing, which Iraqi politician Silas Carson (Kahmil Hammadi) believes is an ancient prophecy describing who will reunite Iraq and restore the country to its former glory. Throw in a snake (that can "see", but needs 3-D specs), a band of killer occultists, and a chess-playing child genius, and you have a typically bloated and curiously inert adventure mystery...

I've actually been impressed with the creativity in Bonekickers' storylines. It's just a shame these kernels of good ideas are fleshed-out into hackneyed plotting and laughable dialogue. The Da Vinci Code and Indiana Jones are similarly implausible at heart, but they have a commitment and nose for entertainment that overrides an audience's common sense. Indy once met a 2,000 year-old Templar Knight, but we accepted it because it fitted with the established comic-book, '40s movie serial tone. You can't really make the same jump with a contemporary BBC drama. It makes me wonder if Bonekickers might have been improved by setting it in a Golden Age of archaeological discovery, like the 1920s.

Another big problem has been the characters; none of whom are satisfying creations. Hugh Bonneville is the best performer, because he's playing it as a goofy caricature with the fun that entails. Sadly, he's wasted in this episode. Julie Graham grows in confidence every week, but I have a tough time liking Gillian Magwilde because... well, she's essentially an irritating, grouchy know-all.

Like "The Eternal Fire", this episode again involves a sub-plot based around Gillian's love-life (she dated debonair Silas after being dumped by Ben in '92), but it's a development that's as interesting as it sounds. Not very. And I pity poor Michael Maloney -- stuck in the thankless comic-relief role as egotistical curator Daniel Mastiff.

The sword-based mystery underlying the series is moving out of the shadows, which was nice to see -- although it's consequently obvious Gillian and her nutty mother (Frances Tomelty) are after Excalibur. Wisely, writer Matthew Graham thus stirs another mystery into the ongoing narrative, as Silas alludes to Viv (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) being more than she seems. I just wish I had more faith that it's all leading to something revelatory and exciting.

Overall, "The Cradle Of Civilisation" is another confection of sporadic intrigue and irritating dumbness. Of all the episodes, this one lacks a mystery worth investigating (despite its designed "relevance" to contemporary Middle Eastern issues) and loses its thread once nasty occultists and a killer snake begin to soak up the story.


29 July 2008
BBC1, 9.00 pm

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

BONEKICKERS 1.2 - "Warriors"

Writer: Ashley Pharoah
Director: James Strong

Cast: Julie Graham (Gillian Magwilde), Adrian Lester (Dr Ben Ergha), Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Viv Davis), Hugh Bonneville (Gregory "Dolly" Parton), Michael Maloney (Daniel Mastiff), Eamonn Walker (Senator Joy), Frances Tomelty (Karen Magwilde), Leon Herbert (Dr Adahabnkah), William Hope (Preston Letser), Doreen Mantle (Mary Cunley), Benjamin Whitrow (Mr Carr), Trevor White (Nobby), Vicky Hall (Nurse Strong), Duane Henry (Anthony), William Tapley (Joe), Scott M. Bourne (Oban), Ian Porter (George Washington) & Stewart Alexander (King)

When the bodies of presumed slaves are found in the Bristol Channel, the discovery soon brings an American conspiracy to light...

The good news: this was better than the terrible first episode. The bad news: it's still unabashed hokum. However, Ashley Pharoah's script is fuller, more developed and unfolds at a better rate than last week's, drawing you into the mystery despite its ridiculousness. "Warriors" concerns the discover of skeletons in the Bristol Channel, which initially seems to be evidence of the city's role in the 18th-century slave trade between England, the African colonies and America...

The fundamental idea behind Bonekickers is how the past can enlighten, enrich and affect the present, so the team's discovery of the skeletons soon awakens local racial tensions, stemming from Dr. Adahabnkah (Leon Herbert), who demands a government apology for Bristol's role in the slave trade. And then there's the unusual sub-plot of US Senator Joy (Oz's Eamonn Walker), an obvious Barrack Obama stand-in, who finds himself the victim of a smear campaign as he runs to become President of the United States. How is his story possibly connected to muddy bones across the Atlantic?

The answer obviously stretches credibility at times, but taken purely as a "what if?" story, I thought "Warriors" worked quite well. It's all on the level of the National Treasure movies, so even if your history teacher is having a heart-attack at its inaccuracies and bending of the truth, your average TV viewer will find himself pulled into the craziness..

Like I said, Pharoah's writing and careful plot development is the main reason "Warriors" doesn't crumble into hilarity, like last week's fiasco. But there are still some underlying problems to Bonekickers as a whole; not least how every character is pretty listless, although Hugh Bonneville's fruity-voiced academic Gregory "Dolly" Parton showed more promise here. It's a shame he's not the leader, as sourpuss Gillian Magwilde (Julie Graham) just isn't very likeable. There's a mild attempt at character development, too -- by having young Viv (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) fancy Ben (Adrian Lester), then reveal her family history is a mystery to her -- but the whole episode isn't really driven by the characters, and their interplay lacks even Primeval's basic chemistry.

Moments of silliness still threaten to sink everything: wobbly American accents, a vaguely-written present-day militia who don't want a black man in the White House, people doing an African tribal dance at the side of the Bristol Channel, and hallucinations of warring tribesmen caused by a spiked drink (what was the point of that, exactly?) There was also another moment of unnecessary graphic violence (a nasty throat-slitting), seemingly thrown in to earn Bonekickers its post-watershed timeslot. But these token moments of gore just sit awkwardly amongst everything else.

Of slight interest is the underlying mystery of Gillian's private research. Last week we saw she had a secret room full of strange maps, charts and archaeological articles. This week, we discover that her crazy mother (Frances Tomelty) is in a nursing home, drawing weird astrological charts, and her daughter seems very interested in learning about a type of sword. I have no idea what any of it means, and I won't be surprised if it doesn't make a lick of sense by episode 6 either, but it's intriguing...

Overall, taken as a light-hearted conspiracy theory, "Warriors" worked quite well. It was more focused and involving than "Army Of God", even if the history and archaeology remained lukewarm, and the script often threw out nuggets of trivia to cover its back -- sometimes at the expense of a character's believability! Would an archaeologist like Ben not know what a WWII island bunker looks like, for example?

A time-waster that doesn't bear much scrutiny -- but it was fun for the most part and a definite improvement.


15 July 2008
BBC1, 9.00 pm

BONEKICKERS 1.1 – "Army Of God"

Writer: Matthew Graham
Director: James Strong

Cast: Julie Graham (Dr. Gillian Magwilde), Adrian Lester (Dr. Ben Ergha), Hugh Bonneville (Prof. Gregory "Dolly" Parton), Michael Maloney (Prof. Daniel Mastiff), Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Viv Davis), Tamzin Merchant (Helena), Daniel Naprous (Jacques De Saint Omar), Paul Nicholls (James) & Paul Rhys (Edward Laygass)

A team of archaeologists make a remarkable discovery that kick-starts a chain of events involving Knights Templar, a Christian evangelist and the True Cross...

The problem with creating one of the best British shows of recent times, is that you're judged by that standard until you beat it. And the cycle continues. Matthew Graham and Ashley Pharoah were behind Life On Mars, the time-travel '70s cop show that bagged awards, audience appreciation, earned a spin-off, inspired a US remake, and gave us Gene Hunt. Their latest, Bonekickers, was always going to pale in comparison; an adventure drama that hopes to sex-up archaeology -- by portraying it as Indiana Jones meets CSI. But that makes it sound twice as exciting as it actually was...

Bath, Somerset is the setting for the show, as we're introduced to our five heroes: frosty Dr. Gillian Magwilde (Julie Graham), amiable Dr. Ben Ergha (Hustle's Adrian Lester), egghead Prof. Gregory "Dolly" Parton (Hugh Bonneville) and naïve student Viv Davis (Gugu Mbatha-Raw). While excavating a field next to an old folk's home, the gang discover skeletons of Templar Knights, with evidence they were fighting Saracen raiders. The mystery thickens when Viv unearths a chunk of 2000-year-old cedar wood with traces of blood and metal. Can this be a part of the True Cross Jesus Christ was crucified on two millennia ago...?

At this stage, Bonekickers had my interest. It was clear the show had chosen to aim for populist entertainment, using a macguffin Indiana Jones might have enjoyed, and there's nothing wrong with that. Even when local nurse Helena (Tamzin Merchant) gets a splinter of the True Cross stuck in her finger, and is endowed with healing powers, it's a supernatural twist the show gets away with. With a title like Bonekickers, this isn't meant to have a serious, realistic attitude to archaeology.

Unfortunately, after a decent amount of set-up and establishment of the sketchily-drawn characters, the story needs to present us with a contemporary threat for the archaeologists to contend with. Indiana Jones had rival Nazi's, The Da Vinci Code had its villainous albino monk, so Bonekickers has... erm, two racist thugs wearing Templar T-shirts, led by Joe off EastEnders. And their arrival heralds a wave of silliness that upsets whatever balance had been achieved.

The parallels between the medieval Crusades and modern tensions with the Middle East formed a backbone to the BBC's Robin Hood revamp, and again here -- with the sword-wielding Templar thugs, led by James (Paul Nicholls), threatening a mosque of immigrant Muslims, before descending on Bath to steal the True Cross. There's also a grizzly decapitation scene that earns points for shock-value, but lost them for bad taste.

Very quickly, Bonekickers devolves into a convoluted, ridiculous mess. Barely a moment passes without unintentional laughter: someone escapes a Templar thug in a library by throwing a book at him, boo-hiss baddie Edward Laygass (Paul Rhys) is pure religious crackpot cliche, the climactic sequence under a 14th-century dovecote had people swinging around on ropes with a mind of their own, someone sings "Jerusalem" to save their life, and James Strong's direction strained to make the written action look plausible. And just how did the public become aware the team had discovered the True Cross, anyway?

So it's as subtle as a shovel to the head, but the intention of Bonekickers is for audiences to be swept along by the pulpy nonsense and overlook the eye-rolling tosh. And it just about achieves that; in the same way Primeval falls apart under the tiniest scrutiny, but has a conviction and attitude to pull it through. I wasn't bored by "Army Of God", just disappointed a potentially thrilling, intelligent action-adventure series served up half-baked dilemmas, empty-headed history, and silly dialogue.

"Use your archaeological imagination", implores Julie Graham, failing to add ".. and leave your brain at the door." Heed those words, and the bonkers Bonekickers will pass the time.


8 July 2008
BBC1, 9.00 pm
www.bbc.co.uk/bonekickers