News: Please refresh your browser on every visit as modifications are implemented relevant to the recent upgrade.

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
 

Author Topic: The Frankenstein Chronicles review  (Read 23785 times)

Offline patch

  • News Hound
  • Ulric's Lady
  • *
  • Posts: 19440
The Frankenstein Chronicles review
« on: October 13, 2015, 06:20:09 AM »
The Frankenstein Chronicles, ITV Encore, Sean Bean

Quote
Georgian London is brought thrillingly to life as Sean Bean hunts a ghastly foe

★★★★ ITV Encore, day and date to be announced

VISITORS, don’t worry – CrimeTimePreview hasn’t capriciously decided to cover gothic horror dramas on a whim. This atmospheric and fascinating telling of the Frankenstein tale is actually a monster-mash of the crime and horror genres.

And why not? Everyone from Andy Warhol to Mel Brooks has dabbled with Mary Shelley’s creature, and here director/writer Benjamin Ross and writer Barry Langford have crafted an intriguing journey into the darker recesses of Georgian England.


With Sean Bean heading a cast that includes Anna Maxwell Martin as Shelley and Steven Berkoff as William Blake, it’s a six-parter that rises above your average shock fest or cop procedural. With its well-worked background themes of bodysnatching and abandoned children, the writers have stitched together a story with heart as well as a brain.

Sean Bean is terrific as the investigator Marlott

The year is 1827 and the setting is switched from Switzerland to London. Bean’s Inspector John Marlott is working undercover on the Thames trying to catch opium smugglers when his men discover an ‘abomination’ in the muddy foreshore – a body made from the pieces of eight children.

Home Secretary Sir Robert Peel (Tom Ward) is none too delighted when Marlott brings the ‘object’ to the attention of the authorities. The politician fears it is the fiendish work of opponents of the Anatomy Act, which aims to regulate the practice of surgery and remove the barbers and bodysnatchers that give it a bad name. He wants Marlott to expose the perpetrator of this heinous crime, telling him that ‘details of your investigation must remain confidential’.

Sean Bean, who has just finished a stint in the US series Legends, is suitably craggy and deferential as the investigator who is low on the social ladder and has a hellish job on his hands. As he tries to piece together any leads he can about the poor children that may have been used to create the body in the river, he hears tales of kids abducted by a monster around Smithfield meat market.

Dank, shadowy, with great CGI

He is also a deeply compromised protagonist, telling the parents of one missing girl, ‘I know what it is to grieve.’ He has syphilis and has lost his own family.

The production looks splendidly dank and shadowy, and the digital work does wonders in recreating landmarks such as Greenwich as seen from a misty, muddy Thames.

Where series such as The Tudors offered a kitsch pantomime version of history, the creators of The Frankenstein Chronicles are clearly fascinated by the Georgian period and use it intelligently in this narrative. And it’s suitably creepy, too.
 
http://crimetimepreview.com/2015/10/the-frankenstein-chronicles-itv-encore-sean-bean.html/

Offline lab183

  • Frisk-eh's Playhouse
  • Merrick's Clone
  • *
  • Posts: 521
  • Life is a song, love is the music
Re: The Frankenstein Chronicles review
« Reply #1 on: October 13, 2015, 08:49:16 AM »
Great review! Can't wait! I can't wait to see this one -  "the writers have stitched together a story with heart as well as a brain." I hope so! It's pouring rain with thunder & lightning here in Boston this morning. Would be the absolute perfect day to watch it!  :thumbsup:

Offline patch

  • News Hound
  • Ulric's Lady
  • *
  • Posts: 19440
Re: The Frankenstein Chronicles review
« Reply #2 on: November 12, 2015, 12:36:59 AM »
REVIEW: The Frankenstein Chronicles Episode One



Quote
The opening to “A World Without God”, episode one of ITV’s new drama The Frankenstein Chronicles, is appropriately dark, gloomy and mysterious. We firstly find Sean Bean a.k.a. Inspector John Marlott on the River Thames acting undercover to catch some smugglers in the act.

After apprehending the perpetrators, the real focus of the scene arrives via the murky waters. At first it appears to be the corpse of a child. Grotesquely, on closer inspection, it is revealed to be a collection of crudely stitched together body parts in the shape of a human child.

This provides the first, genuinely unexpected, jump scare moment. Marlott bends down to tenderly hold the “girl’s” hand when suddenly she grabs him back. Adrenaline instantly coursing through my veins, I was glad for the appearance of the credits to regain some composure. This was clearly not going to be the easy ride I thought it would be.

Sean Bean is our guide through this dreary and ominous 19th century London. He plays the gruff, hardened character we are used to seeing in Bean – but he does it so well he’s forgiven for his typecasting. In flashbacks we learn he has his own dark past to contend with that clearly influences his gritty determination in the present.

 The proposed “Anatomy Act” (which would eventually be the 1832 Anatomy Act) drives the storyline. In response to the shocking illegal trade of corpses for dissection, British Parliament proposed that anyone intending to practise anatomy required a license. They were to be given legal access to unclaimed corpses, in particular those who had died in prison or a workhouse. This caused uproar in the country with many accusing the government of betraying the poor.

In the midst of all this political unrest, Sir Robert Peel asks Inspector Marlott to investigate a series of strange and chilling murders that seem to be related to the found corpse. When a surgeon examines the stitched-together “girl’s” body, he comments that it is a “composite” made up of eight different children. Icky.

Marlott employs a young street urchin to investigate reports of missing children. He is frightened by his findings and begs Marlott not to send him back on the hunt. Suffice to say, the next time we see the little boy, he’s looking a lot less lively…

The show succeeds in creating truly scary scenes, leaving viewers tense and intrigued throughout. Seemingly Fagan/Bill Sykes’ inspired character “Billy” makes for an intensely threatening villain for this debut episode. He burns a small girl with a hot poker and offers up an older girl to Marlott with the words, “you’re the first”. I wonder if we’ll see more of him. Is he the “monster” that all of the children are frightened of?

The programme is satisfyingly brimming with real elements of gothic horror – we rarely see anything in daylight – and there’s plenty of grotesque imagery and genuine mystery. What makes this programme really successful though is the blurred line between reality and the supernatural; nothing is too farfetched or fantastical to believe, making it all the more horrific.

I will be tuning in to episode two for sure, but this time I will come prepared with a pillow to hide behind.
http://tvdaily.com/review-the-frankenstein-chronicles/

Offline Rebecca

  • First Acolyte
  • Sharpe's Siren
  • *
  • Posts: 1819
Re: The Frankenstein Chronicles review
« Reply #3 on: November 12, 2015, 12:47:11 AM »
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/tv-and-radio-reviews/11989543/The-Frankenstein-Chronicles-review-eerily-effective.html

Quote
It was always a pea-souper in 19th-century London – at least according to TV drama. It’s always night-time, too. Things go bump. Dead bodies get discovered. People wearing hats put hankies over their noses to mask the foul stench. All the above clichés were present and correct in period chiller The Frankenstein Chronicles (ITV Encore). The twist was that the “abomination” washed up on the Thames shoreline turned out to be stitched together from eight different children’s body parts. Call Esther Rantzen’s Ye Olde Childline.

Enter Sean Bean as river policeman Inspector John Marlott, who was battling his own demons, naturally. A veteran of the Battle of Waterloo, he was haunted by the deaths of his wife and child, to whom he’d unwittingly passed on syphilis. Soon our stubbly, squinty hero was dragged into a dank, dark underworld of urchin gangs, child prostitution, butchers and body snatchers. Was a diabolical scientist lurking somewhere in the shadows around Smithfield meat market, attempting to re-animate the dead?
The Home Secretary, Sir Robert Peel (Tom Ward), showed interest in the case – although he had his own agenda. Other real-life figures enter the fray in future episodes: poet-painter William Blake (a scenery-chewing Steven Berkoff) and, of course, writer Mary Shelley (the ever-excellent Anna Maxwell Martin).

This gory drama was rather like a Frankenstein’s monster itself, constructed from stitched-together elements of Sharpe, Sherlock, Oliver Twist, Ripper Street and Penny Dreadful. However, it was bold, eerily effective and chillingly atmospheric. Bean’s always a gruffly engaging screen presence and the all-star supporting cast was strong.

Sadly, stuck in a late time-slot on an obscure channel, it’s hard to see this finding an audience. A shame, as it showed real promise. Perhaps ITV should rip it up and stitch it back together on prime time. It’s alive!

Why do they keep putting his shows in crummy time-slots?!  :wellll:

Offline patch

  • News Hound
  • Ulric's Lady
  • *
  • Posts: 19440
Re: The Frankenstein Chronicles review
« Reply #4 on: November 12, 2015, 02:15:12 AM »
The Frankenstein Chronicles episode 1 review: A World Without God
 
This review contains spoilers

Sean Bean watches a dead pig float down the Thames in new supernatural ITV drama, The Frankenstein Chronicles...

Quote
1.1 A World Without God   

Frankenstein’s monster has never been quick on his feet, so, fittingly missing Halloween by a week, The Frankenstein Chronicles slowly shuffles its way onto ITV Encore. With parts harvested from history, fiction, and film, this Frankie follows in the footsteps of Sky’s Penny Dreadful and ITV’s recent Jekyll And Hyde – so far, so 'TV Execs are still mid-ransack over at the Waterstones’* Gothic fiction aisles' – but what has this show got in abundance that those others were lacking?

Sean. Bean.

*Other retailers are available.

First plus of the series: viewers used to Bean characters getting killed off have nothing to fear this time – some crazy bio-scientist can always just piece him back together during the next thunderstorm with leftovers from whatever’s lying around at ITV. Bits and pieces left over from The Bill. Todd Carty, someone like that.

Bringing his intense brand of perma-frowning working-class regular Joe-ness to 19th century river cop John Marlott, Bean’s got lots to frown about with this guy. In 1827 London, a corpse looking suspiciously like Helena Bonham-Carter in minute 86 of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has washed up on the bank of the Thames, and Marlott is tasked with figuring out who’s been taking their cross-stitching hobby too far.

Surrounded by the bad haircuts and political rhetoric of the upper-classes of the time, Marlott is bossed about on the corpse conundrum case by Sir Robert Peel (Tom Ward), and lectured on the moral implications of the looming Anatomy Act by Lady Jemima Hervey (Vanessa Kirby) and Sir Bentley Warburton (Elliott Cowan). It’s as though the sliced/spliced body and the Anatomy Act thing might turn out to be related somehow…

Almost kiboshing the whole investigation from the start is all the cutting edge crime-solving technology Marlott doesn’t have access to as part of the day job, none of it having been invented yet. Yes, CSI: Miami this aint. The Frankenstein Chronicles’ version of a tech montage sequence consists of Sean Bean tensely watching how a dead pig floats down the Thames, really, really slowly.

Helping Marlott with the case: a top-hatted side-kick called Mr Nightingale (Richie Campbell), and some clues just vague enough to seem deep and meaningful, courtesy of William Blake. The Little Girl Lost, Prometheus Bound, that Red Dragon stuff that was used in the Hannibal Lecter film – Blake’s oeuvre has a lot to be mined, symbolism-wise. Plus, at least some of it was probably on the GCSE syllabus for most viewers. The referencess are populist enough to imbue the action with easy creeps, but just high-brow enough to make you feel clever for picking them up.

That stitching together of high and lowbrow; the upper and lower classes; the fictional and historical is what makes this show’s approach to the Frankenstein canon so ambigious so far. Will it be a cop show, with a smattering of ‘Resurrectionist’ scares? Will it turn into full-on gothic horror, with the investigation just an entry point? Will it be a history lesson on the laws and class differences at play in the early 19th century? Whatever this chimera settles into, its offbeat elements are what are working best for it so far.

Floating pig aside, not enough shows can claim a hero with the key characteristics: 'former soldier – dead wife and kids – nice hat – has syphilis'.

 
http://www.denofgeek.com/tv/the-frankenstein-chronicles/37771/the-frankenstein-chronicles-episode-1-review-a-world-without-god



« Last Edit: November 12, 2015, 04:17:02 AM by patch »

Offline lab183

  • Frisk-eh's Playhouse
  • Merrick's Clone
  • *
  • Posts: 521
  • Life is a song, love is the music
Re: The Frankenstein Chronicles review
« Reply #5 on: November 14, 2015, 11:13:10 AM »
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/tv-and-radio-reviews/11989543/The-Frankenstein-Chronicles-review-eerily-effective.html

Quote
It was always a pea-souper in 19th-century London – at least according to TV drama. It’s always night-time, too. Things go bump. Dead bodies get discovered. People wearing hats put hankies over their noses to mask the foul stench. All the above clichés were present and correct in period chiller The Frankenstein Chronicles (ITV Encore). The twist was that the “abomination” washed up on the Thames shoreline turned out to be stitched together from eight different children’s body parts. Call Esther Rantzen’s Ye Olde Childline.

Enter Sean Bean as river policeman Inspector John Marlott, who was battling his own demons, naturally. A veteran of the Battle of Waterloo, he was haunted by the deaths of his wife and child, to whom he’d unwittingly passed on syphilis. Soon our stubbly, squinty hero was dragged into a dank, dark underworld of urchin gangs, child prostitution, butchers and body snatchers. Was a diabolical scientist lurking somewhere in the shadows around Smithfield meat market, attempting to re-animate the dead?
The Home Secretary, Sir Robert Peel (Tom Ward), showed interest in the case – although he had his own agenda. Other real-life figures enter the fray in future episodes: poet-painter William Blake (a scenery-chewing Steven Berkoff) and, of course, writer Mary Shelley (the ever-excellent Anna Maxwell Martin).

This gory drama was rather like a Frankenstein’s monster itself, constructed from stitched-together elements of Sharpe, Sherlock, Oliver Twist, Ripper Street and Penny Dreadful. However, it was bold, eerily effective and chillingly atmospheric. Bean’s always a gruffly engaging screen presence and the all-star supporting cast was strong.

Sadly, stuck in a late time-slot on an obscure channel, it’s hard to see this finding an audience. A shame, as it showed real promise. Perhaps ITV should rip it up and stitch it back together on prime time. It’s alive!

Why do they keep putting his shows in crummy time-slots?!  :wellll:

That's ridiculous. I can't imagine this was "cheap" to make...why waste the time, money and effort and not lobby for a better position? Somebody dropped the ball.

But my other question is with the plot line...how does one "unwittingly pass on syphilis, which resulted in his wife & child's death, yet he remains alive looking quite healthy? Not important I know but still...

Offline Karrie A

  • Frisk-eh's Playhouse
  • Rich's Cabin
  • *
  • Posts: 406
Re: The Frankenstein Chronicles review
« Reply #6 on: November 14, 2015, 11:42:29 AM »
"But my other question is with the plot line...how does one "unwittingly pass on syphilis, which resulted in his wife & child's death, yet he remains alive looking quite healthy? Not important I know but still..." was asked by lab183.


In the latent stage of syphilis, you can have no symptoms. This stage can last a long time in some individuals.

The child would have been born with congenital syphilis. The wife probably went into the final stages quickly and her health overall would have been effected by a weakened immune system caused by pregnancy and childbirth.

The symptoms of early stage syphilis may have been masked by the poor hygiene on the battlefield. Sores and rashes would be likely ignored.
« Last Edit: November 14, 2015, 11:58:53 AM by Karrie A »

Offline patch

  • News Hound
  • Ulric's Lady
  • *
  • Posts: 19440
Re: The Frankenstein Chronicles review
« Reply #7 on: November 15, 2015, 03:51:31 AM »
The week in TV: The Frankenstein Chronicles; London Spy; Peep Show; Unforgotten

Quote
Not quite sure what we’d do if we were suddenly deprived, historically, of the fact of early 19th-century London. If sex was invented in 1963, murder was apparently invented in about 1826, seemingly amid the smoggy reaches of the Isle of Dogs and the treacherous pilings of Borough and Tobacco Dock: all sucking silt, yellow lights lazily swung, tolls of heavy bells seasoned with fog and heartache. Today there are surely something like 84 boatmen, complete with requisite humps, joke Rada speech impediments and foul clay pipes, employed exclusively by ITV drama location scouts to poke about the nether reaches of the Great Wen in the hope of finding smelly mud and a long shot that won’t suddenly include a FlyBe plane docking at City airport.

So The Frankenstein Chronicles arrived, even as Jekyll and Hyde is treading the same sulphurous cobbles, a potentially disastrous timeslip clash cunningly avoided by much of Frankie having been filmed, indeed, in Northern Ireland. The six-part Frankenstein Chronicles takes as much poetic licence as Jekyll, in that it plays fast and loose with literary truths: Blake pops up, as does Mary Shelley, and a grizzled Sean Bean, now quite shorn of his Sharpe good looks and allowed to just get on with being a good actor. He gnaws the furniture rather decently as the one uncorrupt member of the river police, though gnaws it with that certain Beany melancholy – “I knurr what it is to grieve”; “My days are consumed by smuurk” – which suggests his days are in no danger of being consumed by a sell-out run of Laugh? I Nearly Dropped My Knobkerrie! at the Gaiety theatre.

 It’s genuinely rather good, and a beast of wholly different hide to Jekyll: that one, despite the pre-watershed “outrage” at its gothic horrors, remains a thoroughgoing, good-natured mash-up, whereas this offers real rare shivers, missing children and children returned polluted – parts sewn together, abominated – and I’m quite itching to see where it goes next, and whether it can come any closer to explaining William Blake (as close to a bona fide mystic as anyone else these lands have produced). Also, and unusually for this kind of programme, the makers have finally listened to the only 99.99% of the population who can’t abide watching drama so verite that it looks like it’s been filmed from behind a heavy Victorian Welsh dresser through a clump of Swarfega wrapped in staunch blackout curtains tucked inside the Earl of Hell’s waistcoat: a lighting technician has finally done his, rather than an auteur’s, job.
http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/nov/15/week-in-tv-frankenstein-chronicles-london-spy-peep-show-unforgotten


« Last Edit: November 15, 2015, 03:58:40 AM by patch »

Offline lab183

  • Frisk-eh's Playhouse
  • Merrick's Clone
  • *
  • Posts: 521
  • Life is a song, love is the music
Re: The Frankenstein Chronicles review
« Reply #8 on: November 15, 2015, 10:31:52 AM »
"But my other question is with the plot line...how does one "unwittingly pass on syphilis, which resulted in his wife & child's death, yet he remains alive looking quite healthy? Not important I know but still..." was asked by lab183.


In the latent stage of syphilis, you can have no symptoms. This stage can last a long time in some individuals.

The child would have been born with congenital syphilis. The wife probably went into the final stages quickly and her health overall would have been effected by a weakened immune system caused by pregnancy and childbirth.

The symptoms of early stage syphilis may have been masked by the poor hygiene on the battlefield. Sores and rashes would be likely ignored.

 :thanks2   Very kind of you to explain!

Offline patch

  • News Hound
  • Ulric's Lady
  • *
  • Posts: 19440
Re: The Frankenstein Chronicles review
« Reply #9 on: November 16, 2015, 06:52:40 AM »
THE FRANKENSTEIN CHRONICLES “A World Without God” Review



Quote
What happens when you take a classic novel like Mary Shelley‘s Frankenstein and combine it with the talent of Sean Bean? Pure awesomeness. Well at least that’s what I expected heading into this latest drama from ITV, and following it’s premiere episode I can gladly say that it’s most definitely on the right track to achieving this. Giving us an intriguing story that uses its subject material in a unique way, the creative team behind this show definitely left a lot to explore, with “A World Without God” being a solid start.

The series centers around Inspector John Marlott (Sean Bean) as he investigates a crime involving the bodies of stitched-up children. First thing that should be made clear about this show, is the fact that it’s not your usual take on Frankenstein, with the bolt-necked monster not appearing whatsoever in this narrative. That said we do get a story that soaks up the time period of Shelley‘s classic novel, with the dark, gothic vibe being felt throughout the Georgian, setting. A lot of this credit is down to co-creator Benjamin Ross, with his direction of this opening episode being simply magnificent.

It is however the acting ability of Sean Bean that really makes this a program worth watching, as despite Ross and Barry Langford’s plot being more than intriguing, it is the characteristics of John Marlott that really captured my attention. Having already made a name for himself in various films and television shows, Bean definitely brings a certain level of atmosphere to the projects he works on, with his emotionally focused performance here being utterly captivating. He also conveyed the inner thoughts of Marlott in a sensational fashion, with the inspector using his keen mind in his quest to solve this mystery.

Despite being front and centre, Sean Bean wasn’t the only actor to stand out in this premiere episode, with both Tom Ward (Sir Robert Peel) and Richie Campbell (Nightingale) complimenting Marlott perfectly. Da Vinci’s Demons star Elliot Cowan (Bentley Warburton) also stars in this show, giving a much bolder character that suits the actor perfectly. His character is used in just the right way, never feeling overwhelming, with his agenda looking to be one that will be slowly built upon as the story progresses.


VERDICT
The Frankenstein Chronicles “A World Without God” gave us a solid start to this new series, with it’s thrilling plot, gripping mystery and wonderful performances making it definitely worth tuning in to watch. So make sure to catch it before next week’s installment.
 
http://www.snappow.com/tv-shows/the-frankenstein-chronicles-a-world-without-god-review/




The Frankenstein Chronicles

Series 1, Episode 1 - "A World Without God"

The Frankenstein Chronicles is not a lumbering monster, but a finely crafted, dark Georgian mystery.
Quote
Sean Bean, appointed gruff representative of the North of England to the rest of the world, is so perfect in his role as Inspector Marlott that I would not be surprised if the show was created around him, or projected out of some past-life experience, Assassin’s Creed-style. At one point, Marlott actually recollects that prior to being an Inspector, he was in the 95th rifles—and earlier on we see his green tunic—just as the fictional character Richard Sharpe was in the 95th when Bean played him in the Sharpe television series that made his career. Someone might have even whistled the theme tune, but I would need to go back and check, as I was too delirious at the possibility of it being true.   

Bean’s Marlott is weighed down and hollowed out by the circumstances of his life—he knows “what it is to grieve” over deceased family members—but he also possesses a nuanced emotional backbone, which is occasionally brought to the fore in the odd magic trick, an emotional recollection, or a desperate chase after a missing child in the midst of a world in which men are haphazardly consumed by peat-bogs, Lords and Ladies condescend to him, and pigs are used in lieu of floating child corpses for investigative purposes

In the slow-moving opening episode, several elements come to together to suggest ambition and sophistication beyond a standard police-procedural with mild horror elements and the odd jump-scare. When Marlott chases after a girl he believes to be a missing daughter in a rose-red dress, I felt like I was watching a Georgian Don’t Look Now; and I wouldn’t have been at all surprised to find the same creepy ending as the similarities did not appear coincidental. Also, foreshadowing his appearance in next week’s episode (alongside Mary Shelley! Whoop, whoop!), Marlott stumbles across his first real lead: William Blake’s poem “The Little Girl Lost”. With it, he begins to unravel secretive word games reminiscent of The Da Vinci Code (ALYC=LYCA). There are also references to the Anatomy Act and potential sabotage, and a Jack-the-Ripper-esque cover-up attempt by the political and social elite to shift suspicion from the possibility of the killer being a skilled surgeon onto “the work of a barber or butcher”. There is also the hidden history of Nightingale (Richie Campbell), the black officer with a foundling past, which has been described as a piece of “colour-blind casting” by Ben Dowell of The Radio Times, but I believe may be a little more purposeful than that.

When it comes to genre conventions I have one universal rule: if a child dies then all bets are off; anything can happen. Given that The Frankenstein Chronicles use wholesale child dissection as its opening premise, then I’m looking forward to seeing where else the dark tale might lead us. Except for Sean Bean dying, which doesn’t seem likely, does it?
http://www.popmatters.com/review/the-frankenstein-chronicles-series-1-episode-1-a-world-without-god/



« Last Edit: November 16, 2015, 10:29:55 AM by patch »

Offline patch

  • News Hound
  • Ulric's Lady
  • *
  • Posts: 19440
Re: The Frankenstein Chronicles review
« Reply #10 on: November 17, 2015, 09:26:27 AM »
The Frankenstein Chronicles with The Bean

Quote
I do like a bit of Bean now and again. Unfortunately his recent venture, Legends, wasn't worthy of any thespian recognition.

 The first season was a piss poor chewed up and regurgitated US TV show, which had Sean Bean waiting in each scene for the other actors to catch up with him. It was bogged down by weak dialogues and full of eye-candy with zero talent.

 The man can act, and a wee bit of sex on legs on-screen never hurt anybody, even if he is looking rougher than a dog's tongue lately.

 In fact I would suggest watching him in Accused: Tracie's Story, in which he plays a transvestite. You might never look at him in the same way or he may feature in your dreams, in high heels and a blonde wig from that point forwards, but you will get to see what he is capable of.

 Unfortunately Sean has this slight affliction that never really goes away completely or shall we say lately he doesn't really give two monkeys whether it does. Affliction: Northern accent. You can always hear it just below the surface, so he either picks or gets offered acting jobs where he can be his jolly Northern (yup jolly is totally sarcastic) self or perhaps it has become more of a trademark at this point.

 In Legends he plays a spy or spook, who takes on a multitude of identities to go undercover, so it goes a little like this: Sean as a cowboy with an American accent with a Northern English twang, Sean as a drug dealer with a Northern English twang or Sean as a posh upper class Brit with a Northern English twang... The list is never-ending. I think at this point he is just like 'fuck it.'

 Which brings us to his new venture into television, The Frankenstein Chronicles on ITV. There seems to be a spate of TV shows jumping on the supernatural, myths and book characters bandwagon at the moment. Penny Dreadful is gloomy, depressing and suitably freaky ass gory, Jekyll and Hyde is a ..well I haven't quite figured that one out yet, main character has a wee bit of road rage, day rage, life in general rage. I'm finding it hard to follow anything in between the moments of rage.

The story starts in London 1827, a suitably gloomy, foggy and creepy setting I might add. Marlott (Bean) finds the body of a child on the banks of the Thames.

 The body of at least eight children sewn together to make one. The surgeon, who examines the body says the child was never alive, so why and how did it grab Marlott?

 I had to laugh at the accurate portrayal of the upper class snooty English sirs and lords with their sensitivities and utter disgust at the second class humans they are surrounded by, oh woe be me that I must walk amongst the dregs of humanity. Meanwhile Bean is playing an officer of the river police with, you guessed it, a Northern accent.

 Sir Robert Peel (Tom Ward), the Home Secretary, thinks the abomination has been created by quacks, who are trying to stop Parliament from passing a bill on the practice of medicine. Making it illegal for anyone other than a licensed or trained medical doctor to perform certain medical acts or surgical procedures. A few years later was the Anatomy Act was passed:

Passing of the Anatomy Act 1832, which expanded the legal supply of medical cadavers to eliminate the incentive for such behaviour. The Act authorised persons who had legal custody of a dead body to send it to a medical school before burial, so that it might be used for the study of anatomy and practice of surgery. If relatives could not be found
Before the Anatomy Act of 1832 (England) was passed, only the corpses of executed murderers could be used for dissection. We know that this wasn't technically adhered to, especially in the case of Burke and Hare (1828, Scotland), who provided corpses simply by killing people themselves.

 Marlott believes from the get go that this is the work of a medical professional. He keeps his controversial opinion to himself, but is bound to knock heads with the upper echelon. He is partnered with Bow Street Runner Nightingale (Richie Campbell).

Marlott weaves his way through the perilous and dismal world of the London streets. His informants a mixture of street urchins, child prostitutes to body snatchers. Little does he know that the promise of a few coins leads a young boy straight into the arms of the monster Marlott is looking for.

 The period drama moves smoothly between fact, real life historical figures and the premise of a famous fictional story. Next week the author of said book, Mary Shelley (Anna Maxwell Martin), is being introduced into the fray.

 It will be interesting to see whether the drama sticks to the 1818 publishing date of Frankenstein and the events being inspired by Shelley or whether it has her writing the events she personally experiences, ergo the birth of Frankenstein the book. Either way her presence opens the door for some intriguing developments.

 What do I think of it so far?
 I think it has gotten off to a great start and I look forward to watching it unfold. It's nice to see the Bean in something that lets him shine. The Frankenstein Chronicles has a fantastic supporting cast with some very talented fellow colleagues. The scenery and setting are authentic, the dialogues are period suitable and luckily not prone to the cheesy texture of some television shows I could mention. Indeed it promises to be a series full of potential and very memorable. So, yes I am a very happy bunny that the Bean is finally in something worth watching again.
http://genxpose.blogspot.nl/2015/11/the-frankenstein-chronicles-with-bean.html

Offline SMcFirefly

  • Ian's Treasure
  • ***
  • Posts: 245
Re: The Frankenstein Chronicles review
« Reply #11 on: November 17, 2015, 01:13:21 PM »
The Frankenstein Chronicles with The Bean

Quote
I do like a bit of Bean now and again. Unfortunately his recent venture, Legends, wasn't worthy of any thespian recognition.

 The first season was a piss poor chewed up and regurgitated US TV show, which had Sean Bean waiting in each scene for the other actors to catch up with him. It was bogged down by weak dialogues and full of eye-candy with zero talent.

 The man can act, and a wee bit of sex on legs on-screen never hurt anybody, even if he is looking rougher than a dog's tongue lately.

 In fact I would suggest watching him in Accused: Tracie's Story, in which he plays a transvestite. You might never look at him in the same way or he may feature in your dreams, in high heels and a blonde wig from that point forwards, but you will get to see what he is capable of.

 Unfortunately Sean has this slight affliction that never really goes away completely or shall we say lately he doesn't really give two monkeys whether it does. Affliction: Northern accent. You can always hear it just below the surface, so he either picks or gets offered acting jobs where he can be his jolly Northern (yup jolly is totally sarcastic) self or perhaps it has become more of a trademark at this point.

 In Legends he plays a spy or spook, who takes on a multitude of identities to go undercover, so it goes a little like this: Sean as a cowboy with an American accent with a Northern English twang, Sean as a drug dealer with a Northern English twang or Sean as a posh upper class Brit with a Northern English twang... The list is never-ending. I think at this point he is just like 'fuck it.'

 Which brings us to his new venture into television, The Frankenstein Chronicles on ITV. There seems to be a spate of TV shows jumping on the supernatural, myths and book characters bandwagon at the moment. Penny Dreadful is gloomy, depressing and suitably freaky ass gory, Jekyll and Hyde is a ..well I haven't quite figured that one out yet, main character has a wee bit of road rage, day rage, life in general rage. I'm finding it hard to follow anything in between the moments of rage.

The story starts in London 1827, a suitably gloomy, foggy and creepy setting I might add. Marlott (Bean) finds the body of a child on the banks of the Thames.

 The body of at least eight children sewn together to make one. The surgeon, who examines the body says the child was never alive, so why and how did it grab Marlott?

 I had to laugh at the accurate portrayal of the upper class snooty English sirs and lords with their sensitivities and utter disgust at the second class humans they are surrounded by, oh woe be me that I must walk amongst the dregs of humanity. Meanwhile Bean is playing an officer of the river police with, you guessed it, a Northern accent.

 Sir Robert Peel (Tom Ward), the Home Secretary, thinks the abomination has been created by quacks, who are trying to stop Parliament from passing a bill on the practice of medicine. Making it illegal for anyone other than a licensed or trained medical doctor to perform certain medical acts or surgical procedures. A few years later was the Anatomy Act was passed:

Passing of the Anatomy Act 1832, which expanded the legal supply of medical cadavers to eliminate the incentive for such behaviour. The Act authorised persons who had legal custody of a dead body to send it to a medical school before burial, so that it might be used for the study of anatomy and practice of surgery. If relatives could not be found
Before the Anatomy Act of 1832 (England) was passed, only the corpses of executed murderers could be used for dissection. We know that this wasn't technically adhered to, especially in the case of Burke and Hare (1828, Scotland), who provided corpses simply by killing people themselves.

 Marlott believes from the get go that this is the work of a medical professional. He keeps his controversial opinion to himself, but is bound to knock heads with the upper echelon. He is partnered with Bow Street Runner Nightingale (Richie Campbell).

Marlott weaves his way through the perilous and dismal world of the London streets. His informants a mixture of street urchins, child prostitutes to body snatchers. Little does he know that the promise of a few coins leads a young boy straight into the arms of the monster Marlott is looking for.

 The period drama moves smoothly between fact, real life historical figures and the premise of a famous fictional story. Next week the author of said book, Mary Shelley (Anna Maxwell Martin), is being introduced into the fray.

 It will be interesting to see whether the drama sticks to the 1818 publishing date of Frankenstein and the events being inspired by Shelley or whether it has her writing the events she personally experiences, ergo the birth of Frankenstein the book. Either way her presence opens the door for some intriguing developments.

 What do I think of it so far?
 I think it has gotten off to a great start and I look forward to watching it unfold. It's nice to see the Bean in something that lets him shine. The Frankenstein Chronicles has a fantastic supporting cast with some very talented fellow colleagues. The scenery and setting are authentic, the dialogues are period suitable and luckily not prone to the cheesy texture of some television shows I could mention. Indeed it promises to be a series full of potential and very memorable. So, yes I am a very happy bunny that the Bean is finally in something worth watching again.
http://genxpose.blogspot.nl/2015/11/the-frankenstein-chronicles-with-bean.html

I bolded the parts that I had a problem with.  I see that this is a blog now and not a professional review, but still I'd like to point out what is wrong here.

Legends has no "thespian recognition"? Seriously? Bean's performances in this show are Emmy worthy, even though the first season did have generic writing. Also, I know his accent is very thick and I know I've read that he isn't the most comfortable with pulling other accents, but he doesn't just say "fuck it", he hides it very well. Lincoln Dittmann for example, I honestly didn't hear his accent at all, nor did I when he played Len Barlowe, and the same goes with the recent Dmitry Petrovich. He may not be the most comfortable with doing other accents, but he does do it well. I remember his irish accent from the Field and Patriot Games, which were well done.

Offline patch

  • News Hound
  • Ulric's Lady
  • *
  • Posts: 19440
Re: The Frankenstein Chronicles review
« Reply #12 on: November 19, 2015, 12:05:31 AM »
Review: The Frankenstein Chronicles episode two



Quote
  made a mistake watching the second episode of The Frankenstein Chronicles – I forgot to bring my pillow to hide behind. I should have taken my own advice after reviewing the first episode.

Episode two, a.k.a. “Seeing Things”, plunges us further into the murky waters of 19th century London and the mysterious child murders plaguing our hero, Inspector John Marlott (Sean Bean).

Marlott follows his only hunch to the bedside of William Blake (Steven Berkoff), real-life poet, painter and printmaker. Marlott shows him the poem of “The Little Girl Found” believing it to hold clues to the whereabouts of little lost girl “Alyc” (a.k.a. Alice – she can’t really spell her name like that can she)? In his long rattling breaths, close-to-death Blake tells him to find the girl he must learn, “…the truth of the beast… the beast with the face of a man”. Spooky… if still pretty vague.

Blake’s fans and friends surround his deathbed and the most vocal of them is a young woman (Anna Maxwell Martin) keen to get rid of John Marlott, interrupting the intimate situation. Having read that Maxwell Martin would be portraying Mary Shelley, alarm bells were ringing for me – why aren’t you noticing who she is Sean Bean? Don’t you know the book she’s written? It all fits!

Marlott’s hallucinations continue to haunt him, drip feeding us the backstory of his family life. He appears to see his wife and baby daughter in an idyllic afterlife, cured of what killed them – most likely the syphilis that Marlott currently suffers from.

Nightingale’s (Richie Campbell) task to trail body snatcher “Pritty” (Charlie Creed-Miles) pays off when they manage to catch him in the act, having set him up with a rather morbid scenario. Pritty considers himself a legal businessman and claims to be unaware of the dark goings on that Marlott refers to. He does, however, know of a gang that may sink to such depths – murdering to undercut the body snatchers’ trade.

During the “sting” to catch Pritty we return to The Frankenstein Chronicles’ favourite way of terrifying me. The corpse of a young boy lies on the table in front of Marlott until SUDDENLY he’s not lying down but sitting bolt upright staring ahead with his creepy dead eyes. The editing makes us question whether this is related to the Frankenstein-element of the storyline or if in fact we are privy to Marlott’s mercury-fuelled hallucinations. How far into Marlott’s mind are we?

Mary Shelley drops by again to inform Marlott of the death of William Blake and to pass on an assortment of his creepy looking paintings that, let’s be honest, would be more at home in a GCSE art class. Discovering Shelley’s name is an exciting turning point for John as this leads him to finding her famous text, Frankenstein. Hurry up and read it John – connect the dots, we’re way ahead of you.

 This episode sees the return of Lady Hervey (Vanessa Kirby), this time on her own and pleading to save John’s soul. She fears the anatomy act would bring on “a world without God” and she also throws in a bit of flirting with the line, “I don’t feel you to be a stranger”. Are we being introduced to a love interest? This is particularly poignant as we learn Lord Hervey (Ed Stoppard) is her brother, not her husband. He himself is intent on sabotaging the anatomy act, lecturing that it will make, “poverty a crime and the afterlife a privilege of the wealthy”.

An homage to the more traditional Frankenstein adaptations comes in the anatomy lecture as we watch a surgeon slice into the arm of a boy and force his arm to twitch and rise up using a powerful electrical charge. The electrical machinery is suitably crude looking that this appears as a perverse form of torture, even if the boy is stone cold dead.

After a woolly disruption to the lecture, Marlott follows the skulking young man we’ve spied in both episodes one and two so far. Tracking him down to a pub we discover the sly gentleman is a journalist by the name of Boz (Ryan Sampson). After a bit of a testosterone battle, Marlott manages to “persuade” Boz to keep an eye and an ear out for any interesting goings on. History buffs will know the significance of the name Boz, recognising it as the pseudonym of hugely successful author Charles Dickens. Will this have significance I wonder?

Towards the end of the episode Inspector Marlott is sought out by Flora (Eloise Smyth), the young girl in the pink dress we first met last week being offered up to the Inspector. She admits to having kidnapped Alice after spotting her pretty pink dress in the marketplace. What Flora doesn’t know however, is where bad guy Billy (Robbie Gee) has taken her. I feel the shadow of the “monster” approaching. Will we be any closer to finding the murderer next week?
http://tvdaily.com/review-the-frankenstein-chronicles-episode-two/




Review: The Frankenstein Chronicles (S1 E2/6), Wednesday 18th November, ITV Encore

Quote
Frankenstein Chronicles started off in fine fashion last week, presenting a grim pre-Victorian world where the Middles Ages were starting to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into something resembling the modern age. The trouble was that the 1820s were still filled with people who took their morality from spiritual and religious leanings, and the almost constant fear of death (of which there was much) precipitated an obsession with the supernatural, the occult and the existence of beasts and monsters. This fear and this sense of these two worlds colliding, was heightened when a young teenage girl was found on the banks of the Thames, her body seemingly stitched together from other, unknown body parts. John Marlott, seconded by home secretary Sir Robert Peel, was on the case and was convinced something awful was afoot.

In the hunt for Alice – a missing girl feared to be this thing’s next victim – Marlott found a William Blake poem – Lyca – at the house of a prostitution ring, headed by a gold-toothed leader called Billy. So it was only natural that Marlott sought him out, convinced that his poem contained information about the missing girl. When he entered Blake’s house he found a strange ritual in progress. A near-death and bed-bound Blake (Steven Berkoff) was surrounded by acolytes, chanting something as if to rid him of his illness. Despite being made to feel unwelcome, Blake beckoned Marlott to his bedside and, as the policeman recited his tale, Blake nodded in acknowledgement and told Marlott that he too had lost a child once, and that the Lyca was all about all missing children. Portentously (and in typically hammy Steven Berkoff fashion) he told Marlott that he would have to ‘know the truth of the beast… the beeeeeast, with the face of a man’.

Marlott left the room none the wiser, but he had met a woman who was particularly unwelcome in Blake’s room who, later in the episode, brought him news of the famous expiry and a copy of The Book Of Prometheus, which Blake wanted Marlott to have. She left him his card. Her name was Mary Shelley (played here by the superb Anna Maxwell Martin).

Away from all this intrigue, Marlott and Nightingale were convinced that the bodysnatchers – those legal graverobbers who exhumed bodies and sold them for cash – had something to do with the body they had found. Find out if there was anything irregular about their supply chain and then they would find the perpetrator of these awful crimes. Or so they thought. They caught a gang red-handed, digging up the body of a young boy (told this was grisly), and under questioning the leader, Mr Pretty, told Marlott that someone had been murdering to provide fresh body to the surgeons. he also said this: “A dead body ain’t property. Taking one ain’t theft.”

And therein lay the moral dimension of this series, the concepts of death and the afterlife being discussed and explore through different character at the either ends of the economic and intellectual spectrum, all wrapped up in a murder mystery.

This discussion was furthered when Lady Jemima Hartley (Vanessa Kirby) – along with her brother a fervent opposer of the Sir Robert Peel’s Anatomy Act – came to Marlott’s place to issue him with a warning – that the passing of act could lead to a wider moral and spiritual vacuum, which would deny ordinary people their holy body to be intact and therefore be disqualified on judgement day. “If we deny Christ the poor Mr Marlott,” she asked, “don’t we deny him for ourselves? And that’s what’s at stake here – not merely the future of medicine, but prospect of a world without God.”

She told him the act would also outlaw benign, philanthropic practises, such as her brother’s, who runs a place – a children’s charitable hospital – in East London.

Marlott then went to visit Sir Williams Chester, the chief physician, and instead found his unwelcoming cousin, Garnet Chester in residence instead. After shooing Marlott away, he conducted a demonstration in front of a select audience on the cadaver of a young boy, pumping electricity into his arm, and ‘re-animating’ it. This practise was influenced by the work of Italian physician Luigi Galvani, a pioneer in bioelectromagnetics.

All fascinating stuff, but the case was stalling and Marlott – and Sir Robert Peel knew it. With pressure from Peel for progress – the Chesters were emerging as suspects because of their interest in ‘galvanic’ practises – Marlott retired to his digs, where he received a visitor. It was Flora, who he met at the gang’s hideout at the end of episode one, and she came to him scared, cold and hungry. In conversation in a pub, where Marlott and Flora’s breath could be seen in the cold air (that’s one of the features I love about this series so far) she promised to help him find Alice.

Earlier in the episode a mercury-fuelled dream saw Marlott, his syphilis raging, tell his deceased wife that he longed to be with her again. And then it hit me: with everyone afraid of death and debating death and trying to escape it, he was the only one who didn’t fear it.
https://thekillingtimestv.wordpress.com/2015/11/19/review-the-frankenstein-chronicles-s1-e26-wednesday-18th-november-itv-encore/



« Last Edit: November 19, 2015, 04:34:41 AM by patch »

Offline patch

  • News Hound
  • Ulric's Lady
  • *
  • Posts: 19440
Re: The Frankenstein Chronicles review
« Reply #13 on: November 20, 2015, 01:04:38 PM »
The Frankenstein Chronicles S01E2 “Seeing Things” REVIEW



Quote
Essential Plot Points:

Episode The Second: in which our inspector is haunted by a red dress.
We learn that The Anatomy Act also seeks to combat grave robbers, by giving the bodies of the poor to anatomy schools; a fate previously reserved for victims of the gallows.
Mary Shelley appears; it seems she has already written Frankenstein.
 

Quote
Review:

The difficult second episode, also known as “stretching it out a bit”. Inspector John Marlott (Sean Bean) is getting into the swing of things working out of Bow Street for the home secretary.

Still on the search for the stitcher of bodies, Marlott concentrates on grave robbers in this episode. They maintain that robbing graves is an honest way to make a living; after all, stealing something that doesn’t belong to anyone isn’t a crime. However, the Anatomy Act seeks to put them out of business, by making all bodies available to anatomy schools after death. They may well feel aggrieved about this, and certainly have access to the raw materials to create the abomination we saw in the first episode. To this end Marlott pursues a gang of grave robbers as they go about their ghoulish business.

Next on his list of suspects is Sir Bentley Warburton (Elliot Cowen), another vocal opponent of the Anatomy Act. He conspires to interrupt a lecture on the “galvanic response of dead tissue” with a flock of sheep.

 
We also meet William Blake (although he doesn’t last very long) and Mary Shelley. The Inspector reads her recently published novel Frankenstein, which gives rise to more Mercury-induced hallucinations. Is the story of “The Modern Prometheus” a work of fiction, or based on the macabre goings on at the school of medicine?

Mr Marlott is also still getting other people to do his legwork for him: Nightingale (his fellow Bow St Runner); a grave robber; and the political reporter known as BOZ, who seems to turn up in all the same places as the Inspector.

After a pleasing and suitably dark opening episode, we’re in for more of the same. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it might have been nice just to move things along a little quicker. It still looks great and acting is excellent all round. A particularly awkward meeting between Inspector Marlott and Lady Harvey (Vanessa Kirby) is – suitably – particularly awkward. Talk of searching for “a beast with the face of a man”, and some of Blake’s other dark imaginings (briefly shown in the book Blake bequeaths to Marlott) give us hope for some more monstrous episodes to follow.



The Good
The Book of Prometheus and the inclusion of Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus make for interesting mythos.

The Bad
Not a lot here to move the plot along, just make it more complicated.
We still haven’t met anyone actually called Frankenstein.

The Random
Frankenstein was published in 1823 (second edition, the first was anonymous). William Blake died August 1827. Robert Peel was home secretary between 1822–1827 and again between 1828–1830. So the dates pretty much add up for this being relatively accurately set in 1827.
BOZ was a pen name used by Charles Dickens, who started his career as a political journalist.
 
http://www.mcmbuzz.com/2015/11/20/the-frankenstein-chronicles-s01e2-seeing-things-review/

Offline patch

  • News Hound
  • Ulric's Lady
  • *
  • Posts: 19440
Re: The Frankenstein Chronicles review
« Reply #14 on: November 24, 2015, 04:43:21 AM »
 Doctor in the House, The Frankenstein Chronicles and I'm a Celebrity: TV review – video

The Frankenstein Chronicles from 3.51min

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/video/2015/nov/24/doctor-house-frankenstein-chronicles-celebrity-tv-review-video






Offline patch

  • News Hound
  • Ulric's Lady
  • *
  • Posts: 19440
Re: The Frankenstein Chronicles review
« Reply #15 on: November 26, 2015, 12:32:24 AM »
Recap: The Frankenstein Chronicles episode 3

Quote
  The gripping drama is halfway through its intense storyline and we still feel as much in the dark as Marlott does. The production of the show keeps us hanging on, with authentic settings, elaborate Victorian costumes and wonderfully Dickensian dialogue. This week’s review will use some of the episode’s most revealing and intriguing quotations to explore the twists and turns of “All the Lost Children”.
http://tvdaily.com/recap-the-frankenstein-chronicles-episode-3/

Offline patch

  • News Hound
  • Ulric's Lady
  • *
  • Posts: 19440
Re: The Frankenstein Chronicles review
« Reply #16 on: November 27, 2015, 12:17:56 AM »
The Frankenstein Chronicles episode 3 review: All The Lost Children

Quote
1.3 All The Lost Children

“What would we not do to defeat death, Mr Marlott? Might we not defy God’s laws in order to be reunited with those we love?” asks The Frankenstein Chronicles’ Mary Shelley this week, under some gentle interrogation regarding the murdered, mutilated and missing children in the capital. At this stage in his investigation, Marlott has an intriguing list of leads, taking in literary legends like Shelley – still a controversial figure in the nineteenth century, having been accused of blasphemy in the creation of Frankenstein (there’s thanks for you) – and lowly grave robbers like Pritty, still on the run after escaping the watch of deputy Mr Nightingale last week.

That Marlott has so much to pick through, so many pieces to puzzle over, is what’s bringing Chronicles’ mystery thriller aspects to pulsing life as the main suspects are lined up. Could the Hervey siblings be so charitably-minded that they’d take to corpse mutilation to make a point about the dangers of the coming Anatomy Act? Maybe. Are surgeons like Sir William Chester, part of a medical community excited by the Galvanism movement, this eager to act out the plot of Frankenstein for real? Perhaps. And has Shelley herself had a part in this case beyond providing inspiration for some science and/or religious nut(s) looking to make a killing – business, morality, or medical breakthrough-wise? It's difficult to gauge at this point. None of the opposing tensions at play are too broadly drawn, each side of the Religion vs Science/Nature vs Technology debates are personalised with characters that aren’t too easy to peg as someone to be suspicious of, or someone to trust.

Apart from the one we can trust. Interesting cases and suspects don’t make for worthwhile television without a special lead character, and the tormented but still striving copper John Marlott is pretty special. Not just because Bean was back in military garb (for the Sharpe fans) during a flashback sequence this week, either (though that was rather special – and pretty – too). Unsaddled with the shtick elements most TV dicks get – ‘1970s Ladies Man, Tough Guy’, ‘Cigar Smoker, Acts Confused’, ‘Nosy Old Lady, Has a Typewriter’ – Marlott is just a grafter, an everyman, the much-needed human(e) centre of a story filled with the monstrous and the cold-hearted. His interactions with witness Flora, for instance, are practical – placing her in the care of the Herveys gives him an ‘in’ to investigate them further – but also careful and considered – he wants to keep her and her unborn baby safe, probably not just for the case.

The syphilis, and the mercury-induced hallucinations he has of his dead wife and child, now that could be schlocky– if handled insensitively. Instead, Marlott’s ongoing guilt imbues the series with a certain sadness, and his infection, an ongoing reminder of flesh’s fragility, marked mortality in a canon where a bolt of electricity can undo death. Probably.

Not that the STD scars are just there to make Marlott maudlin and navel-gazey; that infection also adds some nice meat to the body horror that comes as part of any Frankenstein-themed package, the sores snaking across Marlott’s hands and back resembling decay, or the stitching of a body falling apart, perhaps… And Sir Daniel Hervey’s reveal of the patient in the final stages of the disease was a particularly nasty bit of horribleness, for Marlott, as well as the viewer. Along with the horror came more thrills in this week’s episode, which squeezed in not only a chase scene, but also a knife fight, and some Queensberry-rules boxing courtesy of Mr Nightingale (or ‘Joshua’, as he tenderly tells Flora), as well as a quick introduction to the most intimidating cake shop in town.

As we hit the midway point of The Frankenstein Chronicles, All The Lost Children added yet more threads to the series’ thorough stitching of its plot, and depth to its characters. Other bonuses of the episode – it passed the Bechdel Test; there was a snappy Pro-Life/Pro-Choice debate done and dusted in less than 30 seconds; and Anna Maxwell Martin’s voiceover readings from Frankenstein highlighted just how engrossing the source material still is. So, some very neat and detailed stitching this week.

 
http://www.denofgeek.com/tv/the-frankenstein-chronicles/37998/the-frankenstein-chronicles-episode-3-review-all-the-lost-children




Review: The Frankenstein Chronicles (S1 E3/6), Wednesday 25th November, ITV Encore

Quote
We’ve reached the half-way stage of this engrossing, grim series, and so far equal time has been given to finding away through the moral and spiritual quagmire of where medicine and science mix with religion. John Marlott – a policeman seconded by home secretary Sir Robert Peel, who thinks that a murderer struck because he was against his new Anatomy Act – had slowly

Like ghosts emerging from the Georgian London fog, these suspects are yet to truly show their hand, but by the end of this episode I felt we were edging closer to a full presentation of possible murderers. But, like so many series before it, this third episode of The Frankenstein Chronicles took a breath to fill out some back story to some of the characters.

It had been inferred that Marlott had passed on the then-fatal, sexually transmitted disease syphilis to his wife and child. The heavy burden of this guilt had been weighing him down like a planet on his shoulders as he trudged around London, the mixture of the mercury pills he had been taking and the stupefying nature of the cases he was investigating (the stitched-together murder victim and the missing girl Alice, who he had become mildly obsessed with because it obviously reminded him of his own daughter) addling his mind.

We found out a little bit more in this episode. The hallucinatory effects of the mercury caused him to have more flashbacks, seeing his wife when she was alive and his daughter being buried after succumbing to the disease. One single line also told us more about his past. During a meeting with the journalist Boz, who chided him for not knowing what the novel Frankenstein was, Marlott told him that all he knew was that he fought in the battle of Waterloo against Bonaparte’s men, and that was all that mattered. Minimal exposition, but enough to tell us that Marlott had lived a life and had probably brought syphilis back from the war with him.

 This fascination with Frankenstein provoked him to visit Mary Shelley in Kentish Town. This stern woman (played with real force by Anna Maxwell Martin), who was both suspicious and disdainful of Marlott, revealed that she, too, had had quite the life – her husband, Percy, died four years previously, and her mother Mary Wollstencraft, died in childbirth. Her father had also died.

When Marlott asked Shelley about Prometheus, she answered: “He stole fire from the Gods and moulded from human clay, like my Victor. A symbol of rebellion. For all of us who oppose tyranny and oppression,” she answered.

“Tyranny and oppression? Or the laws of God?

“What would he not do to defeat death, Mr Marlott? Might we not defy God’s laws, in order to be reunite with those we love?”

This was a telling passage of dialogue, one that seemed to refer to Shelley’s past but also Marlott’s past, too. And even perhaps their futures.

Elsewhere, young Flora was beginning to become an important character in her own right. After staying at Marlott’s and building a friendship with Nightingale, she revealed she was pregnant. Marlott had an idea. He escorted Lady Harvey to church and asked her is he could deposit Flora at her anti-Anatomy Act brother’s hospice. She agreed and took both Marlott and Flora there. Marlott’s plan was to have Flora spy on Sir Daniel Hervey and his workings, because, in Marlott’s mind, he was a suspect. Hervey granted Marlott a tour of his charity hospital, and as they saw people with cancer Hervey asked about the syphilis he had instantly spotted when the two men first met in episode one. He told Marlott he could give him a natural remedy that may help, but Marlott rebuffed him. Instead, Hervey took him to see a patient who was suffering from the disease, his face half eaten by the bacteria and suffering form near-death fits. It was enough to terrify Marlott, his own mortality coming sharply into view.

We also saw Sir William Chester, who behind his smirk is playing his Galvanist cards close to his chest, and  we caught a brief glimpse of Sir Robert Peel’s parliamentary opponent, Sir Bentley Warburton, who’s also a suspect.

The episode ended when Marlott and Nightingale went in pursuit of gang leader Billy, in the tunnels that were used to ferry the dead bodies between their point of capture and the hospitals. Something tells me this is going to get darker before anyone sees any light.
 
https://thekillingtimestv.wordpress.com/2015/11/27/review-the-frankenstein-chronicles-s1-e36-wednesday-25th-november-itv-encore/



« Last Edit: November 27, 2015, 05:00:42 AM by patch »

Offline SMcFirefly

  • Ian's Treasure
  • ***
  • Posts: 245
Re: The Frankenstein Chronicles review
« Reply #17 on: November 27, 2015, 01:43:11 AM »
such a good episode. I can't wait until this airs in North America so I can view it in good quality with no interruptions :P

Offline lab183

  • Frisk-eh's Playhouse
  • Merrick's Clone
  • *
  • Posts: 521
  • Life is a song, love is the music
Re: The Frankenstein Chronicles review
« Reply #18 on: November 27, 2015, 03:39:01 PM »
I totally agree. I watched it on you tube thanks to Patch's links! But, the screen is cropped and I want to see it again in a bigger format. It was a great episode!  :thanks2

Offline patch

  • News Hound
  • Ulric's Lady
  • *
  • Posts: 19440
Re: The Frankenstein Chronicles review
« Reply #19 on: November 28, 2015, 12:09:17 AM »
I totally agree. I watched it on you tube thanks to Patch's links! But, the screen is cropped and I want to see it again in a bigger format. It was a great episode! 

You could try these   http://seanbeanonline.net/forums/index.php?topic=4872.msg110085#new



The Frankenstein Chronicles S01E03 “All The Lost Children” REVIEW



Quote
We’re halfway through The Frankenstein Chronicles now, and not really any closer to finding out who was responsible for the original abomination. There haven’t been any more creatures, reports of missing bodies, or murders. These days it’d probably get filed as an aberration and revived as a cold case for some past-their-prime detective. Yet, even though the trail has gone cold, our inspector doesn’t give up, he presses doggedly onwards…

The majority of this episode concentrates on Flora (Eloise Smyth). She was one of Billy “The Child Snatcher”’s girls, but is now under Marlott’s protection. Errand boy Nightingale takes her dress shopping, where we find out she’s pregnant. Worried that she will do the child harm, Marlott seeks to have her stay with Lady Harvey’s brother (Sir Daniel Harvey, played by Ed Stoppard), in his hospital. This, of course, has the added advantage of giving him the opportunity to snoop around the place.

Sir Harvey offers alternative medicines in his care for patients, which would be outlawed by the Anatomy Act. On a tour of the hospital Marlott comes face to (rotten) face with a tertiary phase syphilis patient, and sees what may become of him.

The Inspector also goes to call on Mary Shelley, to ask her about galvanism. She tells him how many friends and family members she has lost and asks would he not, “Defy God’s laws to be re-united with those we love”? We also get a little more background on Ms Shelly, disowned by her parents as her family name has been brought into disgrace because of her “accursed masterpiece”.

 Some action in an otherwise character-led episode comes in the form of a chase between Nightingale and the grave robber Pritty (Charlie Creed-Miles). This starts with an exploding door, and ends in a bloody nose. Nightingale finally gets his man after everyone else has managed to (easily) give him the slip.

The end of the episode gives us a cliffhanger, with Marlott and Pritty descending into a tunnel under the city used for moving dead bodies around unobserved.

Halfway through the series and not much has moved on from episode one. We’re still no closer to finding the responsible parties, and no beasts to speak of. Perhaps our inspector needs galvanizing more than some of the bodies.

The effects of syphilis show us something a little more visceral: with Marlott on the mercury again, seeing hideous visions of himself in the mirror.

http://www.mcmbuzz.com/2015/11/27/the-frankenstein-chronicles-s01e03-all-the-lost-children-review/


"But my other question is with the plot line...how does one "unwittingly pass on syphilis, which resulted in his wife & child's death, yet he remains alive looking quite healthy? Not important I know but still..." was asked by lab183.


In the latent stage of syphilis, you can have no symptoms. This stage can last a long time in some individuals.

The child would have been born with congenital syphilis. The wife probably went into the final stages quickly and her health overall would have been effected by a weakened immune system caused by pregnancy and childbirth.

The symptoms of early stage syphilis may have been masked by the poor hygiene on the battlefield. Sores and rashes would be likely ignored.

I noticed in Ep 3 Sir Hervey talking to Marlot about a natural remedy derived from bread.Could this medicine be penicillin and the saving of John Marlot?






« Last Edit: November 28, 2015, 03:21:46 AM by patch »