2 out of 5

Created by: Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton

Covers season 1… cause I don’t feel compelled to watch season 2

‘Psychoville’ has that unique UK flavor to it – a la Mighty Boosh – where none of the characters have to be particularly likeable or relatable or cool or attractive.  Ideas are meant to fuel these things, and the ideas are there in ‘Psycho,’ but besides my American shallowness wishing not everyone in the show was purposefully kooky, the series takes sooo long to get to a point where things are moving forward that I’m not sure how you’re supposed to get into the vibe of things.  Unless, probably maybe, you’re a follower of the League of Gentlemen, two members of which were the creators here.

On paper the premise has a lot of promise – following five individuals who find a handwritten “I know what you did” letter, followed by further letters and videotapes that suggest knowledge of a shared nefarious deed in everyone’s past – and I will say that the tone of this is inspired – a dark horror comedy that attempts to pull off a legit mystery.  There’s a seemingly one-shot, one-room episode that’s wonderfully scripted (though a bit obvious with its ‘wait here’ cues), a pretty grandly off-color musical piece, and loads of little jabs that did have me smirking here and there.  And I guess it’s not just the kook that bothered me, but the execution of the kook.  You have your man-child with the over-caring mother who encourages his obsession with serial killers, your “Mr. Jelly” clown with a rusty hook-for-a-hand and a bad attitude, an overweight married woman who feeds a doll blood convinced that it will come alive as her child, a blind man obsessed with completing a Beanie Babies-like collection, and a dwarf with telekinetic powers.  Cool.  But then everything is just slightly too mean or slightly too gross or slightly too crass.  The whole palette of the show is shot in a rather unappealing sickly green, so it doesn’t help the buck teeth and scars and scabs all these characters sport.

…And then any sense of intrigue is squashed a a sense of structuring malaise.  We lazily bounce between the characters, relying on their visual oddities and immediately apparent character defects to keep us invested for 2, 3 episodes while mystery man continues to vaguely threaten about something of which we’re given no further context… before finally owning up to some background bits and pieces.  As I’ve mentioned with horror – gore is generally ineffective without context, and the same goes for a mystery.  If I don’t care about the people and have no clue as to the setting, then why would their past seem any more ‘mysterious’ than usual to me?  This is further embellished by the character’s lack of responses to the letter, the show getting a lot of its content from the receiver’s mis-identifying the source and thus spending an episode or more following the incorrect assumption.  It results in some chuckles in our final episode of season 1.  That’s a long time to wait for something minor.

Lastly: the mystery kinda sucks.  Yes, I wasn’t very interested due to what was mentioned above, but there’s an over-riding sense of ‘why?’ to the whole setup that makes it seem like this show started as a concept instead of a story – meaning the ‘mystery’ was made to fit the mold.  And it never quite fits.  Plus, despite all the quirk, even the humor is fairly obvious.  I came to ‘Psychoville’ because of the current-running ‘Inside No. 9’, which is an anthology series, and the setup works so much better there.  The unique horror comedy tone is in place, and the jokes and twists are still somewhat obvious, but because one’s investment only has to last for 20-30 minutes, all the effort can go into telling and representing the story.

‘Psychoville’ isn’t an amateur achievement.  Smart people put it together, and brave writers / creators / directors gambled on an overall out-there look and vibe.  It will, certainly, be some people’s cups o’ tea.  However, the off-putting nature of almost every aspect destroyed any sense of immersion for me, making the mystery feel clumsy and the pace wandering.  It’s watchable thanks to committed performances by the multi-part actors and some lightly amusing antics, but overall it felt like empty viewing.