Other Doctor Lives: Wired: Episode 3 (2008)

I've been revisiting old A Bit of Fry and Laurie episodes, so today, I’m staying home for Stephen Fry.

Wrapping Jodie Whittaker in Wired today. Overall, I’d say this miniseries is pretty good rather than great, but I did enjoy seeing how it all shook out in the end.

Louise is caught between two unappealing prospects. Phillip and Manesh want her to help see their scheme through till the end, which could land her in prison. Crawford and the police want her to help secure the proof they need for their investigation, which could have deadly consequences if Phillip and Manesh find out. As the day of the big heist approaches, Louise has to decide whose side she’s on and what she’s going to do.

This finale is a little bit, “Holy plot twists, Batman!” For a three-part miniseries, there’s a lot of story crammed into this thing, and the last episode misses no opportunity to throw a curveball. Some of them are great, some of them are “wait – what was that?!”, and some of them feel like twist overload. Definitely keeps things hopping, though, and I’d say the miniseries succeeds in making this bank fraud thriller suspenseful to the end.

I admittedly came away a little disappointed in the dynamic between Phillip and Manesh. They’re both criminals, both opportunistic, and both dangerous when crossed, but as we see more of them over the events of the series, Manesh is portrayed as more dangerous than Phillip in a way that’s depicted as more bloodthirsty. Phillip will sic his goons on Louise, show up creepily to threaten her daughter, and throw in some hits himself if provoked enough, but Manesh is pretty free with the knife-wielding and there’s a clear sense that Louise is in worse trouble whenever she interacts with Manesh. Obviously, there’s nothing inherently wrong with one criminal partner being more threatening than the other, but the specific way Wired goes about strikes me as kind of racist in that the guy who gets the most up close and personal with the violence is one of the few people of color in the miniseries.

That disappointment aside, I still like Louise, who manages to keep me guessing the whole time. Stuck between Phillip-Manesh and Crawford, you can’t always tell what side she’s playing for or why she’s choosing to do the things that she does. She also takes her own initiative at times, going against what anyone wants to instead do what’s best for herself. I liked that about her, that she’s not fully a victim/patsy, not fully a hero, not fully a criminal. Her motives are complicated, and so are her actions.

As a bonus, this is the only episode where Louise and Ben are really in scenes together, giving us a chance to see Whittaker act opposite Sacha Dhawan a good decade before either of them showed up on Doctor Who. I always love onscreen Who reunions, and sometimes the retroactive ones are just as good!

Wrapping up Wired:

Accent Watch

London – pretty good, but you can hear a few Northerny notes at different points.

Recommend?

In General – A cautious yes. It’s not as good as I would like, given the excellent cast, but it’s interesting and offers some nice surprises.

Jodie Whittaker – I would. This is a nice, meaty role for Whittaker to play, and she shines in it.

Warnings

Violence, sexual content, language, drinking/smoking, thematic elements, and what reads to me as a racially-insensitive characterization.