The second installment was an improvement. It was darker and a bit more atmospheric, and I liked Richard Wilson's irritable-but-wise old priest character very much indeed (in fact, Wilson's very presence managed to lend some respectability to the whole thing). The episode was only ruined by the final showdown between Luke and the 'powerful' demon - the confrontation was over way too quickly, and Luke's easy dispatching of the demon made a mockery of any tension the previous 55 minutes had managed to generate. But still, you felt that Demons was going in the right direction.
Then came episode three, which managed to single-handedly destroy any credibility the series had built so far. Now, I know that Demons is not meant to be taken too seriously. It's meant as light entertainment. Even so, there's a limit to how ridiculous the plot can get before it becomes unwatchable...and the plot of episode three was so ludicrous and filled with holes that it was just laughable.
Seriously - if 'Mr Tibbs' (some sort of demonic mutant rat) wanted to kill our intrepid bunch of demon-smiters, why didn't he just blow their brains out like he did with his human lackey? But no, instead he decided to take the classic 'James Bond bad guy' route, by trapping Luke and Galvin in a drain and not waiting around to see them drown (when will these antagonists ever learn?). But even more stupid was the fact that he left an unconscious Mina next to a ticking bomb...that was not set to go off for 45 minutes. Hmmm. But it got worse. What would you do if you walked into a room and saw a ticking bomb and an unconscious person? Well, the one thing you wouldn't do is think, "Omg, I need to find a book about how to defuse a bomb" and then sit there trying to find the relevant part (which is exactly what Ruby did). Even if you did do that, what would you do if you couldn't defuse it? You'd run, right? You wouldn't sit there and wait for it to blow you up...which is again what Ruby did (though sadly it didn't blow her to pieces - that would have redeemed the episode entirely).
The series has already got enough problems (Galvin's American 'accent', Ruby's increasingly emo declarations of love for Luke, and the fact that Zoe Tapper is still being totally wasted) and paper-thin plots don't help at all. The only positive thing is that the series can't get any worse. Hell, I don't even know why I'm still watching it. Still, at least tonight's episode has got vampires in it. You can't go wrong with vampires. Then again, if you look at Twilight...
2 comments:
i'm quite enjoying Demons, it's camp and british and silly and I keep thinking I should do a Rupert Vs Rupert post between Demons' Galvin and Buffy's Giles. I think it has to fall into the Dr Who category of sci fi really. It's never going to be terribly edgy. I agree that ep 2 was the best so far.
You're right, I mean it's hard to expect too much from something which is clearly aimed at the family market. Episode 4 was pretty good though, will blog about that later...
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