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The Irregulars Chapter One: An Unkindness in London
episode 1.1
UK 2021
produced by Rebecca Hodgson, Greg Brenman (executive), Jude Liknaitzky (executive), Tom Bidwell (executive) for Drama Republic/Netflix
directed by Johnny Allan
starring McKell David, Thaddea Graham, Jojo Macari, Harrison Osterfield, Darci Shaw, Clarke Peters, Royce Pierreson, Rory McCann, Anthony Bessick, Suzie Chard, Daniel Fearn, Nicola Goodchild, Edward Hogg, Lisa Dwyer Hogg, Micah Loubon, Tania Nwachukwu, Marli Siu, Ian Whyte
written and created by Tom Bidwell, based on characters created by Arthur Conan Doyle, music by Paul Haslinger
TV series The Irregulars, Sherlock Holmes
review by Mike Haberfelner
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London, circa the 1890s: Bea (Thaddea Graham), Jessie (Darcy Shaw),
Spike (McKell David) and Billy (Jojo Macari) are a quartet of street
urchins struggling to make ends meet - and cough up the rent money for
their rather roomy Baker Street townhouse. Fortunately, they live right
across 221b Baker Street, and thus have caught the attention of one Doctor
Watson (Royce Pierreson), who together with his private detective friend
(not in this episode) sometimes needs street urchins to get to placesthey
can't go themselves as distinguished gentlemen. As it happens, babies have
been kidnapped all over town, and the first assignment for our young
heroes is to track down the mother of one of the babies, Susan Shipley
(Marli Siu), mother of one of the babies - and while finding her is not
the problem, she's eventually killed by a flock of birds. Soon enough, our
heroes are joined by Leopold (Harrison Osterfield), a young aristocrat who
has decided on mingling with the common people, and he helps them to find
out all the kidnapped babies were born on the same day at the same
hospital, and only one of the babies born at that place has not yet been
kidnapped. Bea and gang decide to get their hands on the last baby before
whoever-it-is can, and Billy actually manages to break into the baby's
home, but is beaten to the punch by a raven that flies away with the
little one. Our heroes now find out one of the babies at that particular
hospital on that day was stillborn, and that baby's father, Arthur Hilton
(Rory McCann), just happens to be an ornithologist - so it's off to the
bird house in the zoo for our heroes. But how to defeat someone who can
control birds? Well, fortunately Jessie, who has had wild nightmares of
late, has just found out she's an empath, and by touching somebody she can
enter their minds. So the others create a diversion while she gets close
enough to touch him - and she finds out that Arthur was so devastated
about his baby being still born and his wife dying giving birth that he
... well, just by accident during a seance to get in touch with his dead
wife, he gained the power to control birds, and thus had all these babies
kidnapped ... Now on paper, it sounds like a good idea to make
a series focussing on Sherlock
Holmes' Baker Street Irregulars, showing their side of
the story, and to some degree the series gets it right really, like when
it comes to the portrayal of London's dirty underbelly, and the young
leads can really hold their own and come off as convincing urchins. It's
pretty much everything else though that doesn't work or doesn't seem to be
thought through: For one, our heroes all seem fairly educated and relie on
that much more than on their street smarts, and likewise, their assignment
doesn't seem like something Holmes and Watson would have difficulties
doing themselves, there's little they'd need urchins for. The weirdest
thing though is all the supernatural stuff thrown in that seems to come
out of thin air, like Jessie suddenly learning she's an empath, and the
villain having acquired his powers only by accident - this all seems like
narrative short cuts rather than logic and reason, which always were the
backbones of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock
Holmes stories. So in all, at least this first episode feels
like a missed opportunity.
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