'THE DEEP' 1.5 - "The Last Breath"

[SPOILERS] The last gasp, more like. After five soporific weeks, The Deep drew to a conclusion that was as preposterously dumb as we've come to expect, which makes a balanced review difficult to write. It's far easier to just catalogue the floatsam and jetsam...

This was a finale that gave us: Clem (James Nesbitt) implausibly surviving certain-death and making it back aboard the Volos (without even depressurizing!), only to choke-out a Russian who might actually have helped him; the irradiated Vincent (Sacha Dhawan) finding renewed strength whenever the script demanded it, before stupidly calling attention to Clem so that Raymond (Tobias Menzes) could shoot his friend in the belly (making you wonder why they bothered bringing Clem back just to kill him in a less interesting way); and Captain Zubov (Goran Kostic) blindly shooting the Volos' weapon/transmitter without being sure it was even aimed properly, thus killing more the crew -- again.

By the time we'd reached scenes where an unconscious Frances (Minnie Driver) was being told by the "ghost" of Maddy (Antonia Thomas) about how to restore air flow to the damaged Orpheus, it was clear writer Simon Donald was clutching at straws. There was mild intrigue top-side in the Arctic Ice Station, with mild-mannered geek Hatsuto (Dan Li) revealed as the real threat to his bearded colleague, whom he killed just before an American ship arrived to stage a cover-up, but little else worked to justify the five week commitment to this miniseries.

The final act was especially idiotic and annoying; with Frances and Samon (Goran Visnjic) in bed together on their way home, celebrating the fact they've smuggled out some lava bug DNA to scupper the American-Russian cover-up, followed by Catherine (Orla Brady) arriving home to break the news to her daughter (Molly Jones) than she's effectively regained her "dead" mummy but lost her daddy. And while I think Jones is a wonderful young actress with a maturity beyond her years, giving a little girl adult lines while comfort her mother transformed those beach scenes from emotional to downright creepy.

I've skirted a lot in this review -- like the Orpheus escaping from under the sea by following Baluga whales to their ice hole, or the confusing end for Svetlana (Vera Filatova) dying in a Russian mini-sub. How did she get in there? If she was going to just die, why not save budget and just have her remain on the Volos as it exploded? Speaking of which, is nobody concerned that a nuclear explosion just took place under the sea?

Overall, I've heard it mentioned by The Deep's supporters that at least it's not another drama involving cops or doctors, but something more creative. That's true (to an extent), but productions like this are generally more expensive to make, so failure can have a lasting effect on the whole genre -- in a way other, cheaper genres don't have to worry about. If a cop show fails, another will be along soon enough. For me, I can't be blindly grateful that the BBC bothered to make an underwater adventure miniseries, there needed to be a level of quality to ensure it wasn't a wasted effort. Sadly, quality wasn't part of the deal with The Deep, which felt improvised using first draft scripts most of the time. There was so much expositional dialogue it became instantly laughable, but the real disappointment for me was how The Deep's sense of mystery evaporated too quickly. It was possible a great storyline and potent atmosphere could have masked the dialogue and performances, to a degree, but the tale of Russians sneakily drilling for oil and trying to hide an amazing new source of bio fuel just wasn't very exciting.

I'm unsurprised this show sank without trace.

WRITER: Simon Donald
DIRECTOR: Colm McCarthy
GUEST CAST: Orla Brady, Tom Wlaschiha, Nick Nevern, Goran Kostic, Nigel Whitmey, Dan Li, Molly Jones, Ron Donachie, Richard Brake & Antonia Thomas
TRANSMISSION: 31 August 2010 - BBC1/HD, 9PM

'THE DEEP' 1.4 - "Everything Put Together Falls Apart"

[SPOILERS] The titles almost beg to be made fun of, don't they? The penultimate episode of The Deep once again felt thinly stretched, contained only a few half-decent moments, and the characters continue to be as substantial as jellyfish -- meaning I can't get swept along by their exploits. It also disappointed me that the "mystery" is exactly what most people guessed from episode 2 (Irish explorer Cath discovered a micro-organism that can excrete 75% clean fuel, which Russian oil corporations don't want exposed).

The one positive about "Everything Put Together Falls Apart" was that it looked slicker, no doubt because Colm McCarthy (Spooks, The Tudors) has taken over the director's chair. There were more imaginative camera angles, some good compositions, and several scenes that approached the cinematic feel The Deep's been aiming for but missing. Unfortunately, creator Simon Donald was back behind the script, so it felt sluggish, the dialogue was functional at best, and it missed some good opportunities. In particular, far more should have been made of Clem (James Nesbitt) going to see Vincent (Sacha Dawan) and thanking him for sacrificing himself to plug the ship's radiation leak.

I'd just be repeating myself to continue reviewing this episode any further, but there was an enjoyable sequence with Clem (inside LURCH) being dangled into a 2,000-foot deep trench to extract fresh "lavaworms" that hold the key to the world's energy crisis (although it dragged on too long). And despite the climactic surprise that they killed-off James Nesbitt (the one actor most people assumed would survive till the very end), his character's death didn't touch me. And the loss of Nesbitt doesn't bode well for the big finale next week, because he was the only actor capable of making me take some notice. Without him, The Deep could be totally scuppered.

WRITER: Simon Donald
DIRECTOR: Colm McCarthy
GUEST CAST: Orla Brady, Tom Wlaschiha, Nick Nevern, Goran Kostic, Nigel Whitmey, Dan Li & Molly Jones
TRANSMISSION: 24 August 2010 - BBC1/HD, 9PM

'THE DEEP' 1.3 - "Ghosts Of The Deep"

[SPOILERS] I'm not impelled to write in depth about "Ghosts Of The Deep" (pardon another pun), but the third episode was undoubtedly the best hour this miniseries has produced so far. It helped that the script had no introductions to make, or exposition to deliver, it was just a solid hour of life-or-death crises with the established characters. It was often silly and the plot still feels stretched to twice its natural length (we're 180-minutes into the series and the story could have been told in 90), but I'd be lying if I said episode 3 didn't keep me entertained...

The crew of the Orpheus are aboard the Russian sub Volos with the surviving two crewmen, discussing a way to get word to the surface for a rescue, when it becomes clear the stricken ship's nuclear core is going critical. The only way to prevent the vessel from exploding is to manually cool the engine by inserting nuclear rods into the core, but doing so means whoever volunteers will die a painful death from radiation poisoning...

I think "Ghosts Of The Abyss" (another James Cameron allusion) worked because, no matter how clichéd such scenes have become in pop-culture, it's reliably dramatic whenever characters are put into impossible situations like the handful presented here. A scene of the crew drawing straws to decide who has to martyr themselves worked very well, even if it predictably came down to a 50/50 choice between Clem (James Nesbitt) and young Vincent (Sacha Dhawan). A better show would have done something amusing and unanticipated with the scene, like have the short straw drawn first.

Nevertheless, I had fun with what this episode threw up. Even the way every impasse was overcome by a reliably last-second solution was thankfully more amusing than infuriating -- like Samson (Goran Visnjic) taking pity on frightened Vincent's situation and deciding to enter the engine room himself, only to be stopped when Svetlana (Vera Filatova) realized they could salvage a motherboard from the crashed Hermes to repair the Orpheus's systems and escape.

Or the moment when the imminent destruction of the Volos didn't occur, because Vincent had chosen to sacrifice himself by replacing the rods in secret, thus preventing the tragedy of Clem being killed along with his wife Catherine (Orla Brady), whom he'd only just managed to find aboard the Russian sub alive and well. A moment that should have been very predictable with hindsight, but the story did a good job of hiding the twist. It helps that I tend to stay "in the moment" with dramas like this, especially ones I'm not seriously expecting to surprise me.

Overall, thanks to a good performance from Nesbitt and some enjoyable tension from its two tent-pole situations, "Ghosts Of The Deep" was a far more exciting hour of underwater thrills. The acting is still largely bland, the dialogue's not great (the amount of times people yelled "Clem!" gave me ear ache), and it's not entirely convincing from a technical standpoint, but with lowered expectations this hour held my attention.

Interestingly, this is the first installment not written by creator Simon Donald, with Paul Rutman (Marple, Lewis) behind the script, and he certainly managed to deliver a more engaging hour. I just hope the surface-based subplots (especially the weirdness of intruders sneaking into Clem's family home to snoop around his wife's study) is headed somewhere interesting... but I suspect she's just found a source of renewable energy that a Russian oil conglomerate don't want to come to light.

WRITER: Paul Rutman
DIRECTOR: Jim O'Hanlon
GUEST CAST: Tom Wlaschiha, Molly Jones, Dan Li, Nigel Whitmey, Nick Nevern & Ron Donachie
TRANSMISSION: 10 August 2010 - BBC1/HD, 9PM

'THE DEEP' 1.2 - "Into The Belly Of The Beast"

[SPOILERS] The crew of the Orpheus are in deep shit, in more ways than one. "Into The Belly Of The Beast" (an amusingly provocative title for such dull content) was an apathetic hour containing a few flashes of promise that were flushed away by dismal dialogue, specious storytelling, and listless characterisation. It all gave me a sinking feeling...

The Orpheus has been snared by a giant underwater craft resembling an aquatic Zeppelin, and Lem (James Nesbitt) has detained Raymond (Tobias Menzies) on suspicion of murdering teenager Maddy (Antonia Thomas), although Raymond is protesting his innocence. Trapped in a lower part of the sub with diminishing air, Frances (Minnie Driver) and Samson (Goran Visnjic) decide to leave Orpheus by squeezing into the one-man LURCH submersible and head to the their captor ship. Once aboard, they realize the mysterious vessel is of Russian origin and find bodies of people who died bleeding from their orifices (matching Maddy's appearance), which could mean there's been a catastrophic radiation leak. That said, a few Russkie submariners are very much alive and unhappy there are interlopers in their midst...

It all sounds intriguing enough, and at times director Jim O'Hanlon did a decent job building atmosphere as its video-game mystery unfolded. It's not hard to feel curiosity about discovering answers to questions about an inexplicable submarine full of dead Russians, and The Deep's shoestring BioShock ambience of creaking hulls and clanking pipes was intermittently effective.

But that's about the only positive to take away from episode 2, which was otherwise hindered by more of the same problems from last week. The script is frequently abysmal, with characters explaining things for the benefit of the stupidest couch potato -- giving the impression The Deep is targeted at a demographic who rarely bother with sci-fi but tuned in because it's on primetime BBC1 and the nice man from Cold Feet's in it.

Still, there's disparaging fun in collecting the gems or silliness each episode delivers: if most people aboard the Russian ship are dead and the survivors weren't aware of the Orpheus crew, who snared the Orpheus to save it from destruction on the seabed?

Why doesn't the Orpheus have doors that can be opened manually? I'm no expert, but I don't believe real submarines rely on electricity to open and close doors -- they have those manual wheels you have to spin, right?

How was Vincent able to perform an autopsy on a human subject, when he admitted himself his only training has been dissecting rabbits in school? Simply having your character mention the ludicrousness isn't enough to make me forgive it. Additionally, how did he remove someone's brain without taking their skull off?

Why are Frances and Samson forced to communicate with the Orpheus by writing on notepads and showing it to a camera? Don't they have walkie-talkies as backups in these submersibles?

Maybe a few of those nitpicks can be explained, or will be explained in future episodes, but the fact audiences are able to stop and criticize to that extent proves the story and characters don't have everyone's full attention and minds are wandering. I'd happily forgive a lot of idiocy in a drama of this type, if the main plot and characters were compelling and kept me on the edge of my seat... but they're not. The disappearance of Clem's wife and the Frances/Samson romance just isn't doing it for me. And as for the central storyline? My early theory is the Russians have found a source of renewable energy in the hydrothermal vent field that this ship's been constructed to mine, but it ran into problems with disastrous results, and Clem's wife has some knowledge that's particularly valuable to their operation. Is it worth sticking around to see if I'm right, that's the real question.

Overall, "Into The Belly Of The Beast" is exactly the kind of British telefantasy I'd hoped was behind us post-Life On Mars. It's straight-to-DVD material told at a snail's pace, making me think the five-hour storyline is actually just a two-hour special unwisely stretched over five weeks. And while the cast seem committed to the ropey material, most are outshone by talented child actor Molly Jones in her brief bookending scenes. Vera Filatova is proving to be particularly terrible as the heavy-fringed Russian cutie -- who's only there because, fortunately, she can communicate with the Russian villains.

"This is bad," she says while snooping around the creaking ghost ship. Well, at least she's perceptive.

WRITER: Simon Donald
DIRECTOR: Jim O'Hanlon
GUEST CAST: Tom Wlaschiha, Molly Jones, Simon Donald, Dan Li, Nigel Whitmey, Nick Nevern & Ron Donachie
TRANSMISSION: 10 August 2010 - BBC1/HD, 9PM

'THE DEEP' 1.1 - "To The Furthest Place"

[SPOILERS] Clumsily written, formulaic, and with flat photography only outdone by the performances, The Deep began its five-part voyage on a damp note -- but one that eventually stoked interest thanks to a wave of action and a reveal that avoided preconceptions of a riff on 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea...

2,000 feet below the Arctic Ocean, just above the Elysian hydrothermal vents, undersea explorer Catherine (Orla Brady) was apparently killed while in a submersible craft that lost its connection to mothership the Hermes. Six months later, Catherine's widowed husband Clem Donnelly (James Nesbitt) is now part of a team aboard the research vessel Orpheus, investigating micro-organisms that could hold the key to the world's energy crisis. A crew that consists of the usual clichés: tough captain Frances Kelly (Minnie Driver), hunky marine biologist Samson Ungliss (Goran Visnjic), sweet physicist Svetlana (Vera Filatova), geeky volcanologist Vincent (Sacha Dhawan) and inexperienced student Maddy (Antonia Thomas). The Orpheus's crew are also joined by salvage expert Raymond (Tobias Menzies), who wants to use their ship to retrieve the Hermes's black-box recorder from the sea-bed.

It's an aquatic Event Horizon, then. A standard Hollywood template applied to a BBC-budgeted miniseries, with all the hamfistedness that still implies. Characters don't grow beyond their introductory labels, which undermined the flurry of activity in the final moments when developments relied on the audience caring that Frances is having a secret affair with Samson, or that the most personable crewmember gets murdered. Considering how the core triumvirate of actors are of a decent standard, it was unfortunate that Driver (following Alex Kingston's career trajectory) and Visnjic were given nothing to work with, and Nesbitt's talent was only stretched to weeping over a pebble his daughter Scarlet (Molly Jones) gave him.

Minnie Driver drives the mini-sub

Most of the blame rests with Simon Donald's script, which was almost comically prone to exposition. Clem was introduced walking along the beach with his moppet daughter, inexplicably telling her about a very important rule regarding no communication with the surface once a dive begins. Is this the kind of thing a father talks to their child about? Maybe, maybe not, but thank goodness he did because within thirty minutes Samson's wife contacted the Orpheus just as it was about to submerge.

At other times, characters would recite explanations or dispense facts for the benefit of the audience. A certain degree of hand-holding is required with dramas taking place in a world outside most people's experience, so I could let these moments slide, but it might have been wiser to have included an uninformed character to act as the audience proxy. As it was, it often felt like the characters just enjoyed patronizing each other about what hydrothermal vents are, or that they're breathing a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen.

The saving grace of "To The Furthest Place" (that will hopefully be a turning point for the series), were decent action sequences toying with disaster; with history repeating itself as Samson became trapped in a snared submersible below the Orpheus, prompting a dangerous Thunderbirds-esque rescue between boiling vents that resulted in a crash to the ocean floor and the arrival of an enormous deep-sea craft. The fact the greater mystery of The Deep might not involve a passé sea monster, but instead involve something man-made, is actually quite refreshing.

The Deep's storyline could go a number of ways now, and might still involve a giant squid at some point (can they avoid that temptation?), but the possibility something plausible is behind the Hermes's disappearance is more interesting to me. Is Catherine alive aboard that mysterious ship? Who owns and operates said vessel, and why are they so interested in the Elysian hydrothermal vents? Is it anything to do with Frances's theory that all life on the planet started there? Was the international exclusion zone around this area enforced because there's something dangerous lurking in the deep?

Overall, I can't say I really liked this episode, despite the fact it perked up in the final act, but there is potential the next four episodes might seize upon. If the mystery becomes more involving (with a clever explanation), and the characters develop now they're stuck undersea together in a confined space, The Deep has a chance of capturing some of the magic I think it's aiming for as a smallscreen mix of The Abyss, Sunshine and Sphere.

Asides

• There are familiar faces beyond the three leads that you may recognize: Antonia Thomas (Misfits), Tobias Menzies (Rome), Orla Brady (Mistresses, Fringe), Vera Filatova (the Russian émigré from Peep Show's sixth series) and Molly Jones (the little girl from Being Human series 2).
• Hermes and Orpheus are obviously named after Gods in Greek mythology, but is LURCH named after The Addams Family's manservant?

WRITER: Simon Donald
DIRECTOR: Jim O'Hanlon
CAST: James Nesbitt, Minnie Driver, Goran Visnjic, Orla Brady, Sinead Cusack, Sacha Dhawan, Vera Filatova, Tobias Menzies, Antonia Thomas, Nicholas Pinnock, Molly Jones, Shonagh Price, Ron Donachie, Nigel Whitmey & Dan Li
TRANSMISSION: 3 August 2010 - BBC1/HD, 9PM