Tonight sees the beginning of a new series – but not on regular middle-sized telly-box screens: on the littler screen. Girl Number 9 is a web exclusive and it'll be interesting to see how successfully, over the next week, they manage to tell a complex cops 'n' murderers thriller in five-minute chunks.
It's not the first time anyone's made web-only content, of course: happens all the time, now. But Torchwood actor Gareth David-Lloyd and two former EastEnders – Tracy-Ann Oberman and Joe Absolom – have been appearing on GMTV, radio shows, and generally doing the kind of promotional work that you would associate with a full-length high-budget television miniseries.
But Girl Number 9, between the premiere episode going up at 9pm today and the finale next Friday, will be half an hour altogether: six five-minute episodes. And it'll be interesting to see how they manage it. There are probably two main crimes when people who make normal television turn their attentions to the web:
a) The kind where there's a sense of either trying to push through things as fast as possible because they believe everyone has a short attention span or, worse, b) the kind where they decide that since it's the web and they have all the time they want, they can produce something flabby and badly in need of editing.
They seem to have avoided this with Girl Number 9. Granted (having only seen the first episode) at first there's a sense that they might all-be-talking-very-fast-to-squeeze-everything-in, as well as swearing just 'cause they fucking can – but that fades soon enough, and the whole thing settles into a very steady pace, for a web series.
Which is fitting – writer James Moran and director Dan Turner say in an interview on the well-thought-out site that they approached the story format first, that they decided they were going to make a web series, and then approached the story, plot developments and so on from there. So everything's been created from scratch to fit the medium. Will it work? No way of telling yet, let us know as you watch it … but it's good to see people investing properly in making original web content.
At first glance, it would appear that Girl Number 9 manages to neither overstretch nor mistake the medium for something it isn't. And it's helped by choosing something time-specific. Not to reveal too much about the first episode, but think 24 but with the number referring to minutes, rather than hours.
It's a web-savvy approach, and that makes me happy to begin with: from the structure, down to the use of the Website on which it's being shown, which gets brought in to the narrative quite early on.
And for the past few weeks there has been a quiet build-up online, with the characters tweeting, or some of them, at least - from Tracy Ann Oberman's hardbitten chief, to "Ryan", who appears to be the office computer spod and possible comic relief another detective, Weinberg, and the murderer, whose under-the-radar presence on the micro-blogging site makes you wonder how many other boastful serial killers might be out there, gleefully tweeting away.
All that is by the by now it's actually starting, though. This week, we'll be watching the episodes as they go up online, and posting a tiny twitter-like review of each at the bottom of this post. But most importantly: if you're watching too, pop back every day and tell us what you thought. Is it possible to tell a complex story in bite-sized chunks, and if it is, what's the thing that makes it work? They're making something for the web. Well, we're the web. We'll review it webstyle.
To be continued (after episode one is online at 9pm Friday) …
EPISODE ONE:
An introduction to the main characters, then, in the kind of underground bunker policestation that makes you wonder what the police are doing with our taxes if not spending it on lightbulbs or paint or cleaning materials.
We met Chief Lyndon, (rough and hard but with a soft heart. Likes swearing), her best detective, Matheson (witty and sarcastic, likes swearing), and Vincent, the most quick-to-confess murderer I've ever seen. Detective Matheson swore he was going to break this bloke who they suspected of dismembering 7 kids. Within 13 seconds of him entering the room, Vincent had confessed. But there's another one (girl number 8, surely?) who they have 30 minutes to find. Well, that's the show set up, then.
Vince has a camera trained on her, and he wants to play. Simple? Oh, let's not imagine it'll be simple. But it had better be more exact: "We've got 28 minutes to find her or she's dead", said Chief Detective Lyndon as we watched the clock count 27 minutes 24 seconds. She'd better get a bit more accurate with the counting or that poor lass has had it.
Bonus: Use of the term 'You Silly Sausage'. I cannot confirm or deny the rumour that I will be sampling Joe Absolom saying this for a ring tone.
EPISODE TWO (in 140 words)
Rolling into the second episode, we jumped whole minutes in time. It's a bit of a relief that the whole thing isn't going to be pinned to the action happening on screen, really - as that seemed likely to be a little restrictive.
Still, we left the poor kidnapped girl with 24 minutes to live; and found her with only 7, sitting in an unknown room, saying "Miaow" (which made no sense until we realised she was saying "Let me out" instead). The static IP address helped them pinpoint her location (hurrah, technology), but that may not help. Joe Absolom - whose beautiful performance revolves around the complex mess of conflicting personalities playing across his face like fast moving clouds passing over a coop of angry chickens - claims to have more games to play. And that was the second day.
EPISODE THREE
So much for girl number eight, then.
There I was, complaining about the incongruities Girl Number Nine focussing on girl number eight. I just didn't realise that (SPOILER) girl eight would be ripped limb from limb by episode three.
My deepest sympathies to fictional girl eight's family. And to Detective Matheson, who turns out to be Girl Number Nine's. The fact he wasn't on twitter now makes sense; it would have been difficult to not mention kids, and too easy to guess if he did.
So far? Seems to be paced well. They're all good with Absolom turning in a cracking performance. Certainly watching a story in 4-minute daily chunks is like reading a novel with only a three-stop bus commute to do it in, but it is what it is: and for that, it's going well, I think. You?
EPISODE FOUR
Hands up who's utterly hooked.
…
…
I'm sorry, I was finding it difficult to type, what with both my hands being up in the air.
This has, I admit, become interesting, as a drama. Of course, it's interesting on the basis that "violent murder" is interesting … but let's face it, that's ALWAYS interesting. So suddenly one of the main characters (or THE main character) having a loved one suddenly about to die is interesting. And the condition Vincent The Murderer put on the situation even more so.
Questions?
a) How much further is this web series willing to go? Kill a major character suicidally?
b) As a web series I'm hooked. That's all. I'm wishing there was more.
c) With no web cam or no phone, how does he phone and save his daughter, especially if he's dead? Clearly, no one's thought this through.
(It's ace, though)
EPISODE FOUR
"Pee-pooooo! Wayke uurp!" - Sorry, that wasn't me, that was Tracy Ann Oberman's Chief trying to get things done in Britain's most energy-efficient squad room.
But whatever happens in that squad room, amongst the peeee-poooo that have been twittering, blogging, whateverelsing all this time, that turns out to matter not at all (and therefore raise a few questions about "point", but we'll let that pass). If the only thing that was going to matter was the nail-biting moment of pressure and game-play between these two men in a locked room, not much else can have any effect now.
Not that it needs to, in many ways: as a examination of one earth-shaking, game-changing moment it's very powerful indeed. You have to wonder how much more it would add if you knew about the family circumstances, the past history between these men, complex psychological backgrounds etc … but in other ways? It matters not at all.
What matters is waiting for the resolution tomorrow. And then we can discuss it all in full.
THE FINAL EPISODE
Well, that was a dark little half hour, wasn't it?
The last episode passed, and just when you thought you couldn't say "But surely they won't …" one more time, they did.
Certainly it wasn't a story, a mood, a set of characters that you could see stretched out longer. But that's the point. Because they're not going to be stretched; this starts and ends here.
It was able to kill people off willy nilly, brush in the faintest suggestion of personality or backstory in order to focus on twisting one particularly dark little tale? Fine. Because that's tailored to fit the medium. And from that point of view, not even starting on performances (David-Lloyd/Absolom great; all else - meh), direction and dialogue, I believe it's a particularly well-crafted example of creating drama just for the web.
I've said enough: What did you think?
