"Inside Man" and "The Devil's Hour"

Might as well group these two together, as they're both crime-related mystery miniseries starring actors who were formerly "Doctor Who."

"Inside Man" is the latest Steven Moffat joint for the BBC, a twisty, four episode miniseries that tells two stories that are connected.  In one, a convicted murderer on Death Row, Jefferson Grieff (Stanley Tucci), is interviewed by a reporter, Beth (Lydia West), as he solves mysteries people bring him.  In the second story, a vicar, Harry Watling (David Tennant) has a terrible misunderstanding with his son Ben (Louis Oliver), and Ben's math tutor Janice (Dolly Wells) that results in Harry and his wife Mary (Lyndsey Marshal) keeping Janice prisoner in their basement.   

The series is a pointedly contrived mind-bender, full of too-clever little puzzles and conceits that really only work in a television show.  I could easily see a CBS procedural built around Jefferson Grieff, solving weekly mysteries from behind bars, and exchanging quippy dialogue with his black best friend, fellow murderer and human tape recorder Keith (Atkins Estimond).  Grieff is another Moffatt mastermind, always manipulating everyone around him, and always pithily pontificating on the nature of morality and human nature.  Staley Tucci happily chews the scenery and is terribly charming.  The warden, played by Dylan Baker, is accommodating as only a warden on a television show could be.  It's all terribly entertaining and not remotely plausible.

I was less willing to tolerate the absurd construction of Harry and Janice's part of the show.  The whole point of the story is to show how even the best people can be driven to do terrible things under the right circumstances.  So, the plot is built on a series of increasingly implausible events and extreme conditions that just get exasperating by the end.  All of the characters talk too much, try to be too smart, and inevitably all end up doing the wrong thing.  The last episode also shamelessly ramps up the suspense and tension to hysterical heights so we can have a big climax.  And the worst part is, Moffat efficiently sets up a cliffhanger to lead into a sequel at the end of the series.  It's such an obvious storytelling trick, and I kind of hate that I'm almost certainly going to watch the next one because of it.  Moffat is terribly good at what he does, but is so smarmy about it that it's annoying.

I much prefer "The Devil's Hour," which is a more grounded, six episode Amazon Prime series.  It operates in something much closer to the real world, despite there being supernatural forces at work throughout.  Initially I had difficulty following the action, because the story has an achronological narrative, similar to the film "Arrival."  It's only in the sixth episode that you get a full explanation for how all the pieces fit and what's been going on.  The action revolves around four characters.  First, there's Lucy (Jessica Raine), a social worker who is troubled by visions of alternate versions of past and future events.  She's also the mother of Isaac (Benjamin Chivers), a young boy who seems to have no emotions.  Lucy eventually crosses paths with DI Ravi Dillon (Nikesh Patel), who is on the trail of a shadowy figure named Gideon (Peter Capaldi). 

I enjoyed the experience of gradually working out how all the different storylines and events fit together, and the source of all the strange phenomena and symbols that kept appearing.  It makes such a difference when everything is actually building toward a well thought-out, coherent ending that gives you solid answers.  However, it requires a lot of patience.  This is not a typical mystery show or supernatural thriller, and we spend a lot of time in the early episodes simply following Lucy and Isaac as they struggle through ordinary daily life.  Phil Dunster shows up here as Lucy's terrible ex, who is also in the running for being one of the most reprehensible screen dads in a while.  I appreciate that the series is deliberately paced and willing to take its time, but I nearly gave up after the third episode because the various red herrings and misdirections were so confounding.  It was incredibly frustrating that I not only couldn't see the shape of the plot, I wasn't even sure what genre we were in.

Fortunately, it all works out in the end.  Capaldi is the standout here, though he doesn't have much screen time until late in the series.  The final episode is one of the most satisfying hours of television I've seen in a long time, since it's just payoff after payoff with a genuinely gutsy ending.  Nobody's going to be making any network procedurals out of this one, but I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't get some kind of American adaptation somewhere down the line.     

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