Episode One
This has nice opening credits. Sarah (Natalie Dormer of ‘The Tudors’) wanders around a derelict shopping centre and gets killed by something. Two teenagers Paul and Mac (Daniel Kaluuya of ‘Psychoville’ and ‘Black Mirror’) stumble across this. Paul is freaked out.
Mac sees weird ash visions just like the late Sarah did. Sarah’s estranged husband Mark is Paul and Mac’s history teacher. Paul is a brat, his sister is horrible and their mother is a doormat. Mac makes endless pop culture references. His reading of Tolkein’s Mordor had me laughing so hard I had to freeze the programme until I clamed down.
Paul sees dead people. It seems earth bound spirits aka Fades are mean and some are becoming flesh like the one that killed Sarah. A female vicar has glowing hands and moths fly out of her mouth, okay then. The vicar was a friend of Sarah’s and another of Sarah’s friends ends up in Paul’s bedroom. Nothing creepy about that.
Paul learns about the raging angry things that haunt the world but decides to have a cigarette break with the vapid popular girl rather than think about it. This was okay. The world building and mythology are interesting. But what is with all the dead birds?
Best Lines:
“This is a good idea with bad possibilities.”
“Used junkie needles, I wanna suck the dirty heroin out.”