Thursday, April 20, 2006
Difficult second series
DARK! Nighty Night, BBC2, 10.00pm
We completely forgot to preview the first episode of this last week. Whether that's symptomatic of our slight disappointment with the second series, we're not willing to say. It was always going to be difficult to top the first one - especially since the veritable orgy of murder in the final episode lent it quite a self-contained feel. Then again, there were just enough loose ends to justify a second series - obviously, since here it is.
So, the known facts in regard to series two: Glen has been locked up at Bettle Home for the Criminally Insane, having had his memory wiped by the poisoned Angel Delight at the end of the last series, with no memories other than the fact that he loves Jill. Jill doesn't want to die a penniless widow, so she gets him to marry her. Then by cunningly paralysing Sue with Botox injections, she gets her hands on Cath and Don's new address, nicks Linda's caravan and sets off to Cornwall to find Don. Now Jill's plotting to get a job at The Trees therapy centre to get close to Don again, and it's fair to say that Cath won't be too happy about that.
The main problem we had with the second series was that it just seemed that little bit too arch for our liking - we loved series one because there was something horribly plausible about it. Jill may have been a freakish sociopath, but she lived in a world of reasonably normal people, which made it seem as though there could conceivably be a few Jills lurking among us. In the second series, everything seems that little bit more heightened and lost the fleeting sense of reality that the series had, which was a shame. If you like your comedy blacker than black, though, you'll probably find a few hoots here. And you definitely won't want to miss episode four, the only spoiler to which we'll give is "eeeeeeurrrrgh."
STOP PRESS: It has been brought to our attention that friend of LOWCULTURE Alexis Strum (well, more "passing acquaintance" than "friend", but we didn't get where we are today by not pretending to have more celebrity friends than we actually do) has written the feem toon and sung the feem toon to new Tamzin Outhwaite drama Vital Signs on ITV1 at 9.00pm, so do please tune into that too.
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