Spoilers for the first two hours of "Jekyll" coming up just as soon as I go to the zoo...I always feel like I'm in murky waters when I review a BBC America show. They send me the original British cuts of everything (with occasional edits for content: curse words elided, sex scenes trimmed, etc.), and I frequently get complaints from readers that what actually aired was cut to shreds, with commercial breaks every five minutes and large chunks of plot removed. I unfortunately don't have time to watch this stuff twice, so I'll be discussing the versions I saw, and hopefully my experience won't diverge too much from yours.
Anyway, as suggested in my Steven Moffat interview on Thursday, I found "Jekyll" to be quite a lot of fun, both in watching Moffat play his usual games with narrative structure and in watching Jimmy Nesbitt turn himself back and forth between Jekyll and Hyde with only minimal makeup.
Splicing the first two episodes together does create something of a mess, as each of the six hours has its own form and storytelling devices. So while the first hour plays with time so we don't see the monster until halfway through, doubling back to his first meeting with Catherine Reimer, the second hour is far more straightforward, starting with the cat-and-mouse game in the apartment and then turning into an action thriller set piece at the lion's den. I don't think they're completely incompatible, but each would have worked together had they aired separately. (The final two hours, which are also going to be lumped together here, flow together a bit better.)
And, dammit, Nesbitt is something to see as Hyde, isn't he? Moffat said he fought for a long time to not have to use any makeup for the change -- he came around only because it would cause plot problems in later episodes if the alter egos looked exactly like each other -- but Nesbitt doesn't really need it. There's that moment in Miranda Callendar's place where the lighting completely obscures his face, yet you can still instantly tell when the change happens. Just a great scenery-chewing (and lion-chewing, and human-chewing) performance.
I have a few problems overall with the miniseries, but I can't discuss most of them until closer to the end, save that the guy playing evil Benjamin is way too broad, and both his English and American accents sound forced. But I hope enough of you are coming along for this ride that we can talk more about it at length over the next month.
What did everybody else think?
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