In the UK: Tuesdays, BBC1, 9pm. Also available on the iPlayer
Nominative determinism is an interesting thing, isn't it? Does your name make you turn out the way you are or is it irrelevant?
Here's a simple experiment: let's look at Bonekickers. It's supposed to be an action-adventure show about archaeologists. It's got a great cast, including Adrian Lester and Michael Maloney. It has a great team behind the scenes, including Life on Mars's Ashley Pharoah and Matthew Graham.
But it also has a bollocks name. Will it follow nature and have the qualities expected of its progenitors? Or will it follow the powers of nurture and nominative determinism and turn out to be bollocks?
Plot
The excavation of 14th century medieval soldiers alongside Saracen coinage in Somerset leads to the hunt for the True Cross. Brilliant archaeologist Dr Gillian Magwilde has a passion for history and a hunger for the truth. She's aided by her loyal team, forensic expert Dr Ben Ergha, eager new intern Viv Davis and the erudite but disreputable Professor Gregory Parton.
Using their archaeological skills the team discover that the medieval soldiers were Knights Templar. Analysis of a small piece of cedar wood from the dig indicates that it's two thousand years old - and from the Holy Land. Could it be part of the True Cross? Gillian needs to buy time to survey the site but right wing religious extremist Edward Laygass, who believes that the country is at war for its Christian soul, acquires the land and declares it Holy Ground.
Laygass calls on a cell of violent modern day crusaders to aid him in his quest, and the team find themselves in mortal danger. An enigmatic symbol carved on the back of a crucifix could give them the clue they need to find the True Cross...
Is it any good?
The answer is that it's astonishingly bollocks: an absolutely hellish piece of brain-warping daftness.
Thing is, it's deliberately daft. There's no way Michael Maloney's acting like that because he thinks it's a serious interpretation of the role. There's no way the writing's as poor as it is because Ashley Pharoah and Matthew Graham can't write.
No, the production team have sat down, said to themselves, “Well, if it works for Hollywood, it can work for us. Everyone loves Hollywood escapism, don't they?”, and produced a complete piece of bobbins, a low budget Da Vinci Code knock-off where every line is knowingly laughable and every dramatic turn has the subtlety of colonic irrigation.
We have secret sects of the Knight Templar running around with swords, decapitating Muslims; we have a search for the cross of Jesus in Bath; we have university archaeologists abseiling into digs and setting fire to ancient relics as diversionary tactics; we have people singing 'Jerusalem' to save their lives from sword-wielding nutters: no way is this done in seriousness. This is escapist daftness at best.
Thing is, the producers are aiming for “so bad, it's good”, yet they haven't made it quite bad enough. So it's just bad. It's Time Team with a sub-machine gun, thinking it's Bruce Willis when it's actually Phil Willis.
The characters are clichéd; the dialogue is hackneyed; there is almost no correlation with reality in any way. At times, it's massively offensive. Even I, as an atheist, wondered quite why all the Christians were so incredibly stupid, gullible, racist or murderous, while their Muslim victims were universally bright, peaceful and kind. We even had retrospective pity from the disreputable professor for all the Muslims killed during the Crusades at the hands of the nasty Christians - hadn't the Moors spent a good few centuries previous busily slashing up Spain, Africa and the Middle East or doesn't that count - statute of limitations and all that?
It might get better. It might be that the next episode about slavery isn't going to be massively offensive, too. It might be they manage to pull it back to being so bad it's good or manage to make it not quite so brain dead (cf Virtual Murder). It might be our brains will slowly be able to adopt for a British programme the escapist mindset we normally have to use for US imports.
But the evidence is looking a bit weak at the moment.
Here are some YouTube vids for you. The first is a trailer, the second is an interview with star Julie Graham and the last is a series of interviews with Graham, Adrian Lester and Hugh Bonneville.
Cast
Viv Davis (Gugu Mbatha-Raw)
Gillian Magwilde (Julie Graham)
Dr Ben Ergha (Adrian Lester)
Prof 'Dolly' Parton (Hugh Bonneville)
Prof Daniel Mastiff (Michael Maloney)
Written by: Matthew Graham
Created by: Ashley Pharoah & Matthew Graham
Produced by: Rhonda Smith
Directed by: James Strong
Updates and related entries
September 5, 2008:
Things we've learned from Bonekickers
July 9, 2008 | Reply
We caught the last fifteen minutes of this. Both of us were keen to watch it as a) we like history/archeology stuff and my husband is really into Templar history and b) the cast list looked fantastic... But.... oh dear oh dear. If the rest of it was like this last fifteen minutes (and from your review it would seem so) we won't be watching again. Paul Nicholls swinging insanely about on a bit of rope, waving a sword (and STILL somehow not managing to cut Julie Graham down)? The whole place going up in flames at the end, and two people are dead, and the cast response is to go to the pub???
The Muslim/Christian thing sounds as if it was handled incredibly badly. Yes... Ferdinand and Isabella were pretty foul to the Moors in Spain (Granada went from being an incredibly enlightened place where Jews, Muslims, Christians got on rather well under the Moors, to a hateful Catholic You Will All Love Jesus kind of place - and I say this as a Catholic). But. The Crusades weren't all about evil Christians slaughtering peaceful Muslims - everyone was pretty much slaughtering everyone else for a lot of the time. You can't judge what they did by the mores of today, and I always get really cross when TV does a glossy number on these things. (Witness the direness of Robin Hood).
Anyway you've saved me bothering to watch it again - unless you tell me next week is better!
July 9, 2008 | Reply
Look, you didn't need to watch this (I didn't) to know it would be rubbish. The trailer and time of year were enough! However, had to say that though I didn't have a clue who Phil Willis is (I do now), clearly he is much closer to the opposite of Bruce than, say, Bob or Ted or any other Willis. Completely brilliant!
July 9, 2008 | Reply
I didn't watch it because I thought it looked awful, but I am almost disappinted that I missed it now, so that I could have reveled in its direness. Of course, when I say "almost" I mean not quite, ie not enough to look it up on iPlayer...
July 9, 2008 | Reply
There's always next week's episode.
Am tempted to suggest, after thinking about it, that the writers might have been trying to capture 70s and 80s nostalgia again by aping action shows of the time that are now universally derived. Might be reading too much into it though.
July 9, 2008 | Reply
I feel the line "I laugh and point at archaelogists" has never been more apt...
July 10, 2008 | Reply
It has actually displaced 'Cyberwoman' as the worst hour of TV 'drama' ever transmitted on the BBC. We were really, really hoping it was supposed to be a comedy. And next week's looks worse, if anything. Eamonn Walker! What are you thinking?
July 10, 2008 | Reply
Crikey. There IS something worse then Cyberwoman? I am really glad we only wasted fifteen minutes on this then...
July 10, 2008 | Reply
I've said it before and I'll probably say it again: at least Cyberwoman was interesting. I'd much rather be subjected to something that's interesting but ultimately rubbish than something that's actually much better written but boring (cf the episode that preceded Cyberwoman).
I'd prefer, on the whole though, to watch something that's both well written and interesting.
July 10, 2008 | Reply
I'd say 'grimly fascinating' rather than interesting.
July 25, 2008 | Reply
Wellll I stuck with it for 2.33 episodes. Then I just felt sorry for my poor brain and gave up. If the actors think it's bollox...and you can see they do, then it IS bollox!!! Now I know why Ashes to Ashes was so bad...
July 29, 2008 | Reply
You poor, poor man.