In the family slot vacated by Doctor Who, Atlantis (BBC1, Saturday) returns. Minos is dead, Ariadne is in charge. Pasiphae and her army are attacking the city of Thera, and Greek mythology itself. Are those the screams of the Therans as their breastplates are punctured by those nasty, pointy Colchian swords? Or are they the screams of classical scholars as their beloved stories are torn apart, smashed like Grecian urns, then stuck back together all wrong?
Medea is smuggled into Atlantis, inside a chest, possibly a Trojan one. To infiltrate the schools and introduce an Islamist agenda? No, to steal the Palladium. Nooooo, not the Palladium, cries Bruce Forsyth. Don’t worry, Brucie, this is no more 1960s London than it is Birmingham 2014 (though only the gods know what the hell it is). The Palladium is no theatre, but a statue with protective powers. A rather tacky, cheap-looking flashing statue – I think Jason must have picked it up at Argos.
Jason goes to see Juliet Stevenson, the Oracle, who gives him magic mushroom tea in order to see things more clearly. A new dawn is beginning she tells him. Uh-oh, echoes of New Labour 1997, and we know where that went; don’t get your hopes up too high, good people of Atlantis. And be especially wary if Ariadne goes on about the threat from a foreign fleet of triremes of mass destruction.
For now, though, Jason’s job is to fetch back the Palladium, which has been carried away, along with Medea, by a winged screechy creature (possibly left over from when Merlin occupied this Saturday evening slot). He sets off with best pals Hercules and Pythagoras, on a boys’ adventure. That’s Hercules the fat Yorkshire pub bore, not heroic Hercules (shouldn’t it be Heracles anyway?). And Pythagoras the amiable Greek geek who knows more about right-angled triangles than he does about first aid. Don’t pull out objects of impalement (a Colchian arrow in this case, in Jason’s leg); it can lead to a fatal loss of blood, that’s what I learned on my course. Now I worry that any children watching, and who Atlantis is aimed at, are picking up bad tips. They’re also learning not to trust anyone and that mercy and forgiveness don’t pay off. Ariadne should never have welcomed Uncle Sarpedon back, and they should have killed that Colchian archer in the woods first time round.
But there are more pressing worries right now. They might have got the Palladium (didn’t they do well, says Brucie, three against an army of 10,000). And they’re over the Indiana Jones-style rope bridge (again, kids, if you do find yourself having to cross a bridge like that, don’t all go together). They’ve cut down the bridge behind them (correct, finally some sense) and are into the relative safety of a cave, but then Pasiphae collapses the cave entrance, just with a look. Cool …
… Unless you’re Jason, Hercules and Pythagoras, who are suddenly feeling like Chilean miners. Nor are they alone in there by the sounds of things: echoey beasty noises in the dark. Not bats, I agree, but what though? A (Chilean?) minotaur? Didn’t Jason see that off in series one? Cerberus then? Gorgons? Medusa? Scylla (played magnificently by Sheridan Smith)? Or, more likely, a CGI mongrel, of all of the above, with a bit of Cyberman too, why not, and the voice of John Hurt, more ghosts of previous tenants of the slot.
Doctor Who is an impossible act to follow. Comparison with Merlin is probably fairer, given that both are fantasy adventures based around characters from legend. And Atlantis is second best. Not because of the myth-mashing, but because it’s simply not such good drama. Merlin had more complex characters, and better jokes too. Admittedly, I’m not really the target audience, and the kids are sure to like it (they did last time, according to the figures). But if this is supposed to be family entertainment, there should be something for Mum and Dad too. My missus, who is a fan of fantasy and who would series-link Merlin for herself without shame, isn’t impressed. “The lost shitty of Atlantis,” she calls it. Yup, that’s where the punning idiocy comes from.
Making World’s Greatest Food Markets (BBC2, Sunday), in which Roger the Billingsgate fishmonger tries his luck at New Fulton fish market in the Bronx is a huss man’s holiday, I suppose. He’s off to India later in the series, though sadly not Mumbai. So no huss man’s bolly day …
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