Waking the Dead: Series 6, Episode 6 – “The Fall: Part 2” (2007)

 

Not quite sure what I think of the resolution to this story.  It’s a little too busy for my taste, going for convoluted in place of complex.  We ultimately wind up with five or six different plots, each branching out from the central mystery of the two dead bodies.  There’s self-flagellation and biological parent drama, there are gold bars and an ominously-padlocked freezer, there’s a memory of a family enjoying some Jonestown refreshment.  Something for everyone, I guess?

 

For his part, PC does well.  Lucien has some serious crazy going on, and PC offers a good range of insanity:  creepy-crazy, foreboding-crazy, and sad-crazy all get turns in the limelight.  Plus, we see a few flashbacks to Lucien’s life before the murder of the mid-coital couple.  Based on what the episode reveals about Lucien’s history, his mental state was probably just as fractured back then, but it certainly doesn’t come through.  He was a big-shot banker with incredible power; you’d think someone as unstable as Lucien wouldn’t be able to get the opportunities for such career advancement. 

 

But like I said, you don’t see it in the flashbacks.  He’s stressed, and he’s more than a little desperate, but he gives no obvious impression of his mental health issues.  That’s interesting to me.  Was he repressing?  Hiding – putting on a mask so no one would see?  Did he genuinely used to have it more together?  Has he just gone downhill in the past few years?  If he instead addressed his problems, could he have gotten help?  The episode doesn’t answer any of these questions, because it’s not interested in them, but it’s the kind of thing I get curious about.

 

Accent Watch

 

I’m gonna go with RP.  A number of Scottish slips, especially in the vowels, but I think he’s putting something on, and it sounds RP-ish to me.

 

Recommend?

 

In General – Not really.  A middling example of its type, and I wasn’t terribly impressed with the writing.

 

PC-wise – Maybe.  PC has lots of screentime and lots to do, but things do get a little scenery-chewing from time to time.

 

Warnings

 

Add in some dark elements from Lucien’s backstory.

Waking the Dead: Series 6, Episode 5 – “The Fall: Part 1” (2007)

 

Another murder mystery – if PC appears on Sherlock anytime soon, I think he’ll have the complete boxed set.  Waking the Dead was a long-running crime procedural about a British cold case division.  Pretty standard fare from what I can tell, nothing too exceptional.  PC guest-stars in this two-part story.

 

In “The Fall,” the bodies of a financier and a journalist are discovered, locked together in a less-than-PG manner.  They were shot, one through the other, back in the ‘90s.  There’s a mysterious set of numbers that potentially ties them to another murder.  More significantly, the whole thing may have its roots in a shadowy religious sect that comes complete with self-flagellation and whispers of conspiracy.

 

One card in the deck of possible killers is Lucien Calvin, played by PC.  He knew the financier back in the day; after doing jail time for fraud-related money mischief, however, Lucien has declared himself a new man.  He now peddles psychoanalysis to bankers and views money as the root of all evil.

 

Also, he’s either totally crazy or pretending to be for reasons unknown.  He’s familiar with Dr. Foley, the team’s criminal profiler, and he in fact gives every appearance of having an unhealthy obsession with her.  Dr. Foley thinks he’s playing them somehow, but isn’t sure why yet.  I don’t know if he’s too obvious to be the murderer, or if he actually did it.  PC does a nice job, although the part is more than a little overwritten for my taste.

 

In the episode’s flashback scenes, I couldn’t figure out where I’d seen the actor playing the murdered financier.  Well, turns out he’s Nigel Whitmey, who’s popped up here and there in small roles.  Most memorable for me, though, was his brief turn as “man who gets his head plungered by a Dalek” in series 1 of Who.

 

Accent Watch

 

With PC, it can be hard to tell the difference between light Scottish and middling RP.  I’m leaning towards Scottish here, but I reserve the right to change it tomorrow if part 2 sways me.

 

Recommend?

 

In General – Not necessarily.  It’s a little CSI for me.  Nothing wrong with it, just nothing special.

 

PC-wise – Possibly, depending on how it shakes up.  Whether Lucien is crazy or just faking, PC is committing 100%.  Those eyes, they be crazy eyes.

 

Warnings

 

Violence, sexual content, drug references, and lots of face time given to corpses from the ‘90s.