The Frankenstein Chronicles

A similar concept to the current retake on 'Jekyll', this is a chase around after the jolly scientist who stitches body parts together and reanimates them, only shown later and, rather bafflingly, on ITV Encore.  More names than you can shake a stick at here, with Sean Bean playing decent, syphilitic river cop John Marlott, who senses that something other than macabre needlework is going on.  The course of his investigation leads him to body-dealing hospital porter Pritty (Charlie Creed-Miles), his big boss Peel (Tom Ward, here exchanging his pathologist's apron with Samuel West), patrician politicians (Elliot Cowan and Ed Stoppard) and even authors William Blake (Steven Berkoff) and Frankenstein's own creator Mary Shelley (Anna Maxwell-Martin).  Oh and let's not forget the magnificent carcass of a pig that he throws into the Thames to test the tides.

This was quite fun and focused less on the gore and shocks of 'Jekyll' than the lacks and longings that would lead someone in early Industrial England to create a composite creature out of dead children.  Marlott has his own Big Sadness that he carries around with him and that we know will be exacerbated by both his mercury pills and his determination to find the truth behind the strange goings-on.  Bean is likeable in the lead role, almost a worn-down, less celebrated version of his Sharpe character grown older.  Why Encore, though, when an ITV audience would enjoy this in a 9pm slot?

Fleming

Fleming is the new 3 part dramatisation of Ian Fleming's life up to the writing of Casino Royale.  It opens with Fleming and his wife swimming in Jamaica, then returing to Goldeneye, for him to finish the manuscript.  In this first five minutes you had the two main problems: first it's showing off its big budget Bond-ness in a pointless (but beautiful) underwater scene, and then the final line, "The bitch is dead now" being typed out, clunk, clunk, clunk....

Ideally this would be like a 'wartime James Bond' - surely someone must have pitched this - but since Fleming wasn't Bond himself (Bond was more a composite of many agents that Fleming had met - Sydney Cotton, Fitzroy Maclean, Dusan Popov and others) instead we get a series that joins the major dramatic dots in Fleming's life, close to accounts like Andrew Lycett's Ian Fleming.

Acting and dialogue is fine within these parameters, and it's not for us to say TWNH, because these things did happen, but we can definitely say TWNH to scenes like Fleming walking into Admiral John Godfrey's office and giving an elevator pitch for two ideas in 30 seconds, one of which was Operation Mincemeat. 

Another problem is that Fleming wasn't likeable or even sympathetic, except maybe as an overshadowed younger brother.  The final problem is that it's just not very interesting or watchable. 

Fleming wasn't Bond, but was a genuine war hero, and there could have been a good, shorter drama if it had focussed on things like Mincemeat, but it's too concerned in showing the details of his personal life, while making visual nods to Bond at every opportunity.  We won't say  it's shaky and not stirring, we'll stick with it's a shame.

Eternal Law

So, God is called Mr Mountjoy, his right-hand woman is Mrs Sheringham and he has angels called things like Terry.  The Devil, in case you're interested, is known as Richard Pembroke, or at least he is at the moment, while residing in York and looking like Tobias Menzies.

In this sort of a world, what TWNHs could there possibly be?  Where they hide their wings?  Despite an obvious scope for moralising, or pondering on just how weird we humans are, this takes a refreshingly light approach to the world of law, mortality and the rest.

After one episode, it's hard to say if it will continue to be as much sharp-scripted fun - Ashley Pharoah created 'Life on Mars' - but we hope so.  We know it sounds awful, and the plot's every bit as holy as the premise suggests (pardon the pun, please) but it's actually... well, just give it a try if you're in the mood for something daft.

And there is something comforting about the idea of bungling angels and their boss Mr Mountjoy watching over us, if only for an hour a week.