Cape Wrath

Having finally gotten around to watching the first episode (from last week), thanks to Channel 4’s On Demand service, I thought I would share my opinions.
I’m willing to be proved wrong by the second episode when I watch it (which will likely be soon), but for now, here are my thoughts…

“Ah, look at the brits trying to do a spooky ensemble drama, ain’t it cute?”

The main advantage with an ensemble cast is purely a production one: the ability to run 2nd units and double-bank several episodes when filming (ie 1/2 cast shooting one ep, other 1/2 shooting another ep).

The secondary advantage is that you end up with enough people to talk about (almost) in order to fill out a 22 episode series. Sorkin’s West Wing and Studio 60 are good examples, as is Heroes and (loathe as I am to admit it) Lost.

The one thing the Americans know how to do is ensemble-cast dramas (which I’ll refer to as an ECD). The skill (and indeed success) of the show is defined by the audience’s ability to identify with and embrace the core values/ideas/ideologies/plight of the main character of any given week (again Studio 60 is perfect for this).

Cape Wrath tries so very hard to give the feeling of an ensemble-cast drama, but fails in so many respects.

Firstly, the UK’s only form of ECD is soap (or ‘continual drama serials’ as some folks would like you to call them).
Cape Wrath looks like a soap filmed by a director who’s fed up of doing soaps and wants to be a bit more ‘American’, so tries a few wacky things with the camera.

Using Melanie Hill (of Bread/Emmerdale/The Bill ‘fame’) does nothing to help remind us this is not a soap.

“Sorry… er… what’s going on?”

The main obstacle with an ECD is world-building. How do you set up each and every character with enough history and backstory (as well as their environment) in a short enough timespan to care about any of them? Heroes does a good job by drip-feeding the information over several episodes, bringing in extra cast when necessary, and dropping them when their usefulness has expired. Other shows take an existing set-up that audiences are likely to be famiiar with (Studio 60 uses a Saturday Night Live-type setup), whilst some opt for a voice-over/monologue-driven structure (Dexter and Sex & The City come to mind).

First epsiodes and pilot shows are often difficult to construct because of this world-building. Torchwood stumbled at that point and cause a mini-ruckus of sorts within the fan community; Spooks‘ first episode is a little ropey in places; even Doctor Who’s first ep ‘Rose‘ is far, far away from perfection.

Cape Wrath tries to be too much in it’s first episode - is it The Prisoner? is it Pleasantville? is it Stepford Wives? is it Heroes-in-a-village? Coupled with the ADHD-inspired flashbacks (mysterious fire, boy with burning hands, strange on-looker - ooooh) the storyline is confusing. Not to the point of interestingness, but to the point of ‘tell me something soon, or I might just switch over’. (Disclaimer: I am not a Lost fan, so your staying-power and need-for-explanation may vary).

In fact, some of the plot points are just down right confusing - Danny and his wife having a quickie on the kitchen worktop leads to confusion when she calls out ‘Eddie’. Danny claims they both killed Eddie; his wife retorts that he killed him. So we think Eddie is probably her ex husband and probably got killed as a result of the fire. Then, ten minutes later, we learn that Danny used to be Eddie, but has changed his name.

Then we learn its a Witness Protection Program thing.

Then we learn the whole town is a Witness Protection Program thing.

Then we learn that there is some big-brother-esque woman overseeing the whole Witness Protection Program thing (who, subsequently, doesn’t appear to know all that much).

And it starts to look even more like a soap.

“Where is he from?” and “Oh, so she’s fresh out of acting school, then”

Jack “of all trades” Tyler - is he American? is he Polish? is he East End? what is up with his voice? It Tom Hardy has done a few things in the past (including a stint as a megalomaniac in a Star Trek film). His introduction tries to set him up to be a slighty naughty version of a Desperate-Housewives Jesse Metcalf style gardner/handyman, but just comes across as wrong.

Felicity Jones as Zoe is unemotional and flat, Harry Treadaway as Mark is typically teenage, but perhaps a little too mashed-up in the head for the British Public to handle (especially in this late-night-soap-esque show; I can see the makers are trying to be ‘edgy’ and ‘cool’, but it seems waaaay off the mark) and Ella Smith redefines the word “acting” and brings it clearly down to a level only previously viewed on Grange Hill, Byker Grove and Hollyoaks.

“Cape raffff”

• The rest of the bad bits:
• It’s not a town, it’s a gated-community housing complex. You can see that from the overhead shots.
• Also, the houses are bright, the streets look clean, but the lighting is inconsistent (ruined even more so by the varying degrees of British Weather).
• Does Big Brother’s Sister (Nina Sosanya - looking good as always) live in the town or near by? It looks like she’s in a cheap motel that’s been painted pink.
• Wintersgill (Ralph Brown): Handlebars? Seriously?
• Melanie Hill as “BO” the next-door neighbour: Poor, poor choice, and worse acting. It needed mentioning again. Her first scene is like something out of a Dead Ringers sketch.
• Why not call the thing Meadowlands? Why go with something irrelevant and borderline unpronounceable? Did they not learn from Star Trek IV: The Wrath of Khan? I see it’s US airing on Showtime got the right idea.
• It’s eight episodes - why is it trying so hard to be an ECD? It backs up the village feel, yes, I understand that, but Jam & Jerusalem did a good job with a clearer, smaller cast.

“Okaaay, so I’m still watching”

The premise, though, is intriguing. What is everyone’s past? Who is a dangerous person and who witnessed something dangerous? How “big-brother” is the town?
My viewing experience may also have been hampered by the shockingly awful quality of 4OD’s video encoding.
And it was just the first episode.

I shall report back once I have seen more….