A week of fantasy TV

By Brian Clegg

Having recently had a week with sole charge of the TV remote, I’ve taken the opportunity of catching up on a couple of new series in my favourite fantasy sub-genre. I’m not a fan of swords and sorcery (with the noble exception of Lord of the Rings), but I love what you might call real-world fantasy. This is pretty much the same as urban fantasy, but doesn’t have to be in a city. You could also see it as magical realism without the pretentiousness. 

The idea, then, is to incorporate fantastical occurrences in the normal world. The first example of this was ITV’s Passenger. This sets what should be a normal police procedural story in a weird village (Chadder Vale) in Lancashire. There are strange occurrences, some sort of unexplained dangerous creature and a cast of misfits. As such, you can see it as a mix of Twin Peaks, Stranger Things and Happy Valley.

Perhaps the weirdest decision by Andrew Buchan, the man behind the series, is to set the show in the present, but to emphasise Chaddar Vale’s oddness by having various aspects of life there stuck in the past. The the police use a Mini Metro patrol car, the computer game we see, played on a console, is blockily retro, and mobile phones are of the ancient variety. Perhaps influenced by Twin Peaks, there are also some decidedly American aspects to the look of the place (even though the natives speak broad Lancashire). For example, the police uniforms look to be from the wrong side of the Atlantic. Standout performance is from Wunmi Mosaku as the police detective whose boss is more interested in her finding stolen wheelie bins than solving a murder.

The series develops a good sense of dark, brooding atmosphere and attempts a touch of humour, mostly in the dialogue and the incompetence of some of the characters. This all works well, but I’d argue that it’s too slow to get anywhere – and it ends in a way that demands a second series, which I’m not sure it will get. Admittedly, if there is going to be one, then the ending is okay, but it does leave everything open and much unexplained. It would have been better to have tied it up more, while still leaving room for new directions. I’m glad I watched it, but I can understand why some were frustrated by the ending. Take a look on ITVX.

The second new series on the block was Disney+’s Renegade Nell by the excellent writer Sally Wainwright. This is a different form of the genre – it could only be called real-world fantasy if Bridgerton can be considered to reflect historical reality (hint – it doesn’t). Set in England in the early 1700s, it doesn’t attempt period speech, and the cast is colour blind – it works fine, but the result is to reduce the cognitive dissonance of the clash between the fantasy element and the normal world (because the world isn’t normal for 1700), which is why real-world fantasy works so well.

The central character, Nell, is a poor inkeeper’s daughter who gets her own back on the toffs by becoming a highwaywoman, attempting to avenge her father’s murder and getting embroiled in various plots while trying to keep her younger sisters safe. So far, so straightforward pseudo-historical. But Nell is helped out by a fairy-like character who can give her superhuman strength, while the dodgy lord-of-the-manor’s dim son and scheming daughter hook up with a magician lord in the Privy Council, played magnificently by Adrian Lester. And why not throw in Herne the Hunter too?

Nell is played well by Irish actress Louise Harland, while comedian-turned-actor Nick Mohammed employs his trademark naivety to provide an entertaining turn as the fairyoid, Billy Budd. In one sense this is a natural step forward by Wainwright from her Victorian series Gentleman Jack - it’s another show with a strong female lead who thwarts the convention of her period and Harland is more effective than the usually excellent Suranne Jones who is far too mannered as Gentleman Jack, seeming to spend half her time running from one place to another. 

Renegade Nell is an oddity for Wainwright who, as a writer, is steeped in the North of England, but here the setting is primarily the Thames Valley, featuring key locations of London (including the village of Tottenham), Slough and Uffington – but it’s necessary because of the need to bring in Queen Anne and her key advisors. Despite the pseudo-historical setting, I enjoyed it more than Passenger because there was considerably more action, significantly more plot development and more of a sense of fun, despite the dark context. Worth catching up with if you have Disney+ (though probably not worth subscribing just to watch it).

One thing Disney+ would also give you is access to the the greatest urban fantasy TV show of them all, Buffy the Vampire Slayer – to top off the fantasy week, I watched two of the classic Buffy episodes, Hush and Once More with Feeling. 

More than half of Hush (from Season 4) has no speaking at all as a spell renders everyone in Sunnydale speechless to enable horrific attacks without the victims being able to cry for help. Despite the distinctly nasty baddies, this provides for some excellent humour, particular during a briefing using overhead projector slides and some unfortunate mime.

Once More with Feeling seems like it should be a much lighter episode, as it’s a musical where characters repeatedly burst into song to expound various feelings – though unlike traditional musicals, there is a logical explanation for this random song and dance in the form of a meddling demon with a nefarious purpose.  There is still a surprising amount of humour, despite this being from the mostly miserable-toned series 6 (the reason for the misery is finally explained to the rest of the cast in a song performed by Sarah Michelle Gellar featuring some interesting atonality). I’d forgotten the ending, which as often is the case with Buffy defies expectations.

Although now 20 or so years old, Buffy still holds up surprisingly well – especially when revelling in the cleverness of these episodes. What comes across immediately is the sharp dialogue and the depth of humour. (One specific delight I’d forgotten is Anya’s suggestion that the cause of the musical outbreaks might be bunnies.) The whole point of the series is to subvert the horror show stereotype by having a strong female character as the vampire slayer, rather than the female lead being a helpless victim – and these two episodes make good use of this feature. Although Passenger and Renegade Nell both had a degree of subversion, neither came close to Buffy‘s ability to combine a continuous thread of humour with dark topics.

If you have never seen Buffy, it has yet to be toppled from its top spot.

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Now Appearing is the blog of science writer Brian Clegg (www.brianclegg.net), author of Inflight Science, Before the Big Bang and The God Effect.