Considering its only been going a relatively short amount of time, BBC's Atlantis has got quite a bit of attention on this blog. Now, after the end of its second (and apparently final - more of that reaction to come) series, I thought I'd have a look at it one last time.
To me, Atlantis has been consistently good. Yes there have been numerous issues and problems, from starting out as a fledgling new project to where we are now. Negatives have been seen (and mentioned on this blog) but resiliently the positives have shone through and have still deftly outweighed the negatives. This I have acknowledged and I stick by this; at the end of the day, I kept coming back week on week for more Atlantean adventures and I do not regret doing so.
Casting and performance-wise, again broadly similar with a few alterations here and there. Stand outs for me have and will always be the incomparable Mark Addy as Hercules, Jemima Rooper as Medusa (great to see her back in the latter half of this series, if only briefly) and to a slightly lesser extent but still resoundingly Sarah Parish as Pasiphae. What's more, as well as Rooper, we were treated to some other sources of returning and highly needed star quality in the form of John Hannah and Robert Lindsay. Each of these great acting talents made fleeting appearences last series, and it was a great delight to see them again; but they were not used to their full extent in my view. From the moment John Hannah stepped back into the light, due I think to poorly predictable writing, you knew that sooner or later he would be on his way out; good to see him but it did mar his performance slightly. Robert Lindsay was very much a background presence, which I feel was a travesty as he brought such gravitas and charm to proceedings.
Elsewhere we saw a new streak of steel in Ariadne's character which added something, but ultimately probably not enough. During the series 2 hiatus I commented on the disappointing run of Amy Manson's Medea up to that point; yet I am happy to report that, whilst still a bit wooden, her charisma and chemistry (both singularly and with fellow cast) has shot up in my view, definitely rendering her one to watch.
However, the biggest reason for Atlantis not going up in my estimations, the biggest flaw with this series - is that it is the series to end the all too short run of Atlantis. Yep, during its hiatus it was announced that the BBC were dropping the axe. When I heard the news I was dissapointed, but when I thus saw how the series ended I was livid. SO many plot holes, so many unexplored avenues, and so many things left hanging. I can see why they did it - they clearly thought they were safe for series 3. But the way they hoped to take us there was not nearly concrete enough. Its almost as if the latter half of series 2 was designed and executed to get us to the end of series 2 as fast as possible, with a few smatterings of "darker" moments and romantic triangles suggested. All to get us to this awe-inspiring cliff hanger (where the source mythology finally starts to come back into play) into an epic new series that will not come.
Of course, the minds behind Atlantis could not know they would be axed before they could resolve the show, but the writers and producers should have put much more effort into giving us a satisfactory and quality end to series 2 before jumping the gun into a series 3 that now will not happen. Whether it was arrogance, over confidence or just pure lackadaisical nonchalance, the result was a final few episodes of Atlantis that failed to deliver, broadly failed to live up to the standard set in times gone by, and a show that eventually built our hopes up for something that will now never be.
I am shockingly and severely disappointed that Atlantis has not been commissioned for another series (on balance given everything I think it just scraped enough to deserve it) but I am also disappointed that the resulting chain of events meant that Atlantis did not get to go out on the high it deserved to go out on.
No comments:
Post a Comment