TV Review: Requiem
Requiem (2018) -- A new series by Netflix and the BBC, with six, hour-long episodes comprising the first season, starring Lydia Wilson, James Frecheville, Sian Reese-Williams, Brendan Coyle, Tara Fitzgerald, and Joel Fry. The story starts off promisingly, as a 19th Century Gothic mystery recalling Jane Eyre or Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White, dressed up in 21st Century clothes. There's a comely lass who's alone in the world, a handsome heir who's inherited his great uncle's grand estate, a mentally ill woman with psychic powers, and a mystery about a missing child who was never found. For people who like that sort of thing--count me in--it's delicious, for a while.
Matilda "Tilly" Gray (Lydia Wilson of Star Trek: Beyond - 2016) is the comely lass, a London cello player in her late twenties who's drawn to a small village in Wales after her troubled mother commits suicide. Going through her mother's belongings after her death, she finds a box of photos and news clippings related to a child's disappearance in the Welsh village more than twenty years ago. What, she wants to know, was her mother's interest in this missing child? With her friend Hal (Joel Fry) in tow, she travels to Wales to find out. In the village, Matilda and Hal try to unlock the mystery while facing hostile locals, unexplained deaths, and creepy occurrences that seem to center at the local great house, recently inherited by Matilda's new love interest, an Australian named Nick (James Frecheville, About Scott - 2015). Downton Abbey TV fans will enjoy the roles of Brendan Coyle, who played John Bates, and Claire Calbraith, who played the housemaid, Jane, as respectively, retired and active police officers.
Alas, once the missing child mystery is pretty much solved by the last episode, the story starts moving onto Winchester Brothers territory, in more ways than one. You expect Sam and Dean (and Castiel) to show up in the Chevy Impala any minute with a shotgun full of rock salt and a book of Latin incantations. The ending is left open, which presumes another season is forthcoming, but it's probably more fun to just watch a few additional episodes of Supernatural, which are also streaming on Netflix. The production values, sets, acting, etc. of Requiem reflect the usual stellar output of the BBC, and the view of rural Welsh village life is interesting. But this series could have been so much better. 6.5/10, currently streaming on Netflix.