Jekyll (2008)

It's one of the most brilliantly engaging, twisted, hilarious, morbidly fascinating pieces of television writing in ages. "Jekyll", very unlike Steven Moffat, also falls apart a bit at the end. At least, it does if you consider it a stand-alone mini-series. That Moffat has written a second series of the show does not matter if it never appears on our television screens, and it appears from interviews and such that Moffat regards the second series as a 'sequel' to this, which suggests this should be able to stand alone. And it does, for the most part. The final episode, however, solves most of the questions and gives satisfying answers to the questions so brilliantly posed by Mr. Moffat during the first five episodes... then goes and throws in a few new questions, including one huge mystery posed by the epilogue of the series, one which causes the answers which previously made sense to be questioned, and yet is worked so intricately into the fabric of the elaborate plot Moffat lays out that it is impossible to ignore or dismiss as a cheap sensationalist shock moment. It would be an effective teaser for an upcoming series if the upcoming series were anything approaching a certainty, but since this was, to some extent, supposed to stand alone it is a tragically poor ending, beyond the initial jolt of the moment.

There is so much going on in "Jekyll" psychologically, so much going on in the writing, layers of meaning and layers of narrative devices being used at all times, that one could write a dissertation in many different fields in Humanities, Social Sciences, and Sciences on just six episodes of television. That is impressive, but almost not as impressive as Moffat taking a literary classic with huge popularity and truly making something that is almost entirely his own from it. This is not an 'adaptation', this is pretty much an original script with characters (and not even really that) and a central plot (and not really even that) we're familiar with. It is originality in a field of unoriginality, and proves with great finality that modern-day adaptations don't have to be dull. There's no point in even comparing this to Stevenson, whose story had different concerns and a different ideology. Jekyll and Hyde here serve as the basis of a different (and much more modern) exploration of duality than in Stevenson's novel.

With his "Doctor Who" episodes and with later series of "Coupling", Moffat displayed a knack for being clever with structure and with story. His scripts have always worn their complexity on their sleeves, which is great when the thing works organically and completely. "Jekyll" is five episodes of absolutely some of the most dazzling, brilliant storytelling ever on television, and one of the most unique takes on a literary classic I can think of, then... Maybe, just maybe, Moffat tried to be too clever and lost the thread a bit. There are several plot issues, but let's not bother with those. Hopefully we will see what Moffat had in mind for the second series in some form. If left unproduced, perhaps the scripts will somehow find their way online. As it stands right now, "Jekyll" is 97% of an astonishing television classic, and that 3% is a lot harder to ignore than you'd think.