6.29.2016

Television: Houdini and Doyle

Okay, so when my dad told me about this show I thought it would be exactly up my alley. But when I went to find in On Demand, they didn't have the first four episodes. So I had to begin at Episode 5. I don't know how this might have impacted my perception of the show, and I might try one more episode to see if maybe this one was just off, but . . . I wasn't wowed.

The overall premise of the show is that Harry Houdini and Arthur Conan Doyle help London Metropolitan Police solve crimes. Sounds fun, right? Since I didn't get to see the first episode, I don't know much more about the setup—how they got tapped for this or whatever. But anyway, in this particular episode they were looking for kidnapped girls and the Met was leaning on a proclaimed psychic to help them as well. Meanwhile, Harry was worried about his mother's latest boyfriend.

The whole thing was very . . . serviceable? But not particularly well written or engaging. It lacked banter and the very fun I'd expected. And I figured the culprit out the moment he appeared. (You don't give a character a cut on the cheek without that being important for some reason.)

Kudos, I suppose, to their trying to make it not entirely a boys' club by adding a female detective named Adelaide. I don't know, based on this limited outing, whether I'm supposed to believe there's any chemistry between her and either of the titular leads, but I certainly didn't feel any.

As I said, I might try one more episode just to see if maybe this one was off. On the whole I'd liken the production values to The Librarians, which is in itself a fun enough show. Houdini and Doyle, however, lacks the lift of The Librarians. Or at least this one episode does.

No comments: