Last night we finished watching the mini-series Bodies, written by Paul Tomalin. It’s based on the Si Spencer graphic novel by the same name, which I had never heard of before, but now fully intend to get. Paul Tomalin was also one of the writers on Torchwood, although Bodies bears little resemblance.
The same body with the same mysterious wound appears in the same London street in 1890, 1941, 2023, and 2053. The series follows four police detectives, one in each year, as they work to unravel the mysteries of the case.
The characters are compelling, the writing tight, and I can’t think of a single case where I yelled “they wouldn’t do that” at the screen. The actors were all excellent, and I recognized a few from other recent and not-so-recent greats: Kyle Soller from Andor, Stephen Graham from Snatch and Taboo (still on my to-watch list), George Parker from Shadow and Bone and Pennyworth (which I also have yet to watch), and Nicholas Farrell from just about everything, but people of my generation will definitely recognize him from older greats like Chariots of Fire.
Although I don’t think I’ve seen them in anything before, I should also mention Amaka Okafor and Shira Haas for their excellent performances. They both created really interesting, complicated characters.
The cosmology of the fictional science is a big janky. But, if you’re the sort of person who can avoid thinking through all the implications to changes in our assumptions about causality for the sake of a good story then that shouldn’t bother you.
Easy 8/10.
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