Directors – (Episode 1-3) Marco Kreuzpaintner & (Episode 5-8) Haolu Wang, Teleplay – (Episode 1-3 & 8) Paul Tomalin, (Episode 4-5) Danusia Samal & (Episodes 6-7) Danusia Samal & Paul Tomalin, Created by Paul Tomalin, Based on the Graphic Novel Bodies by Si Spencer, Producer – (Episode 4-8) Sophie MacClancy, Photography – (Episode 1-4) Joel Devlin & (Episode 5-8) Paul Morris, Music – Jon Opstad, Visual Effects Supervisor – Murray Barber, Visual Effects – Milk Visual Effects, Misc Studios, Stargate Studios Malta & Zodiac VFX Limited, Special Effects – Agog Vivid Special FX (Supervisor – Jason Troughton) & Real SFX Limited (Supervisor – Thomas Buckle), Production Design – Richard Bullock. Production Company – Moonage Pictures.
Cast
Amaka Okafor (Detective Sergeant Shahara Hasan), Kyle Soller (Alfred Hillinghead), Jacob Fortune-Lloyd (Detective Sergeant Charles Whiteman), Shira Haas (Iris Maplewood), Stephen Graham (Mannix), Tom Mothersdale (Dr Gabriel Defoe), George Parker (Henry Ashe), Michael Jibson (Daniel Barber), Gabriel Howell (Elias), Synnøve Karlsen (Polly Hillinghead), Chloe Raphael (Esther Jankovsky), Greta Scacchi (The Lady/Polly), Derek Riddell (Chief Inspector Calloway), Amy Manson (Charlotte Hillinghead), Kate Ashfield (Elaine Morley), Mark Lewis Jones (Andrew Morley), Alexandra Roach (Maggie), Nicholas Farrell (Chief Inspector Paxman), Philippa Dunne (Lorna Dunnet), Anna Calder (Lady Harker), Natalie Gavin (Sarah Mannix), Chaneil Kular (Syed Tahir), Johnny Coyne (Farrell), Andrew Whipp (Ladbroke), Nitin Ganatara (Ishmael Hasan), Emily Barber (Kathleen), Oscar Coleman (Jawad Hasan), Anton Cross (Rick Williams)
Plot
Police detectives in London of four different eras – Alfred Hollinghead in Victorian London of 1890; Charles Whiteman, a Jewish detective in the midst of the German Blitz in 1941; Sharara Hasan, a Muslim officer in the year 2023; and Iris Maplewood in the year 2053 – all arrive at Longharvest Lane in Whitechapel where they find a dead body of the same man. He has been killed with a wound in the eye but no bullet can be found. In each era, the detectives begin their own investigation into the mystery where it becomes apparent that mysterious forces are pulling strings behind the scenes. For Hillinghead, this draws him into forbidden path away from his marriage to discover gay love, while Whiteman hides a young refugee girl after refusing orders to kill her from the mysterious taskmasters. The nature of the mystery becomes apparent as one that involves time travel where one man has created elaborate plans that stretch over a century in order to build the perfect future. However, as Shahara becomes aware, this is a plan that requires that killing of thousands in the present day.
Bodies was a mini-series in eight episodes made for Netflix. It is adapted from Bodies (2014-5), an eight-issue comic-book produced by Vertigo Entertainment. The comic-book was created by British writer Si Spencer, who had done work on Judge Dredd and assorted original titles for Vertigo. In addition, Spencer had written for British tv series such as The Bill (1984-2010) and Eastenders (1985- ). Spencer passed away in 2021 and the mini-series is dedicated to him.
Bodies comes with one heckuva of great opening hook. In the first episode we are introduced to the four main characters who are all detectives – Amaka Okafor as a Muslim police officer in 2023, Kyle Soller in Victorian London, Jacob Fortune-Lloyd as a Jewish officer during the Blitz and Shira Haas in the year 2053. All four of them discover the nude body of the same man in the same Whitechapel back alley, where in each case he has been shot in the eye but with no evidence of a bullet or an exit wound. It is a great and fascinating hook for any story as you wait to see how such a mystery can piece together.
The mini-series works with an epic scope – Bodies must surely be a first in its idea of a murder(s) mystery that spans across 160 years where people are piecing together clues in each era (and eventually finding ways to communicate things to the other). The cliffhangers that many of the episodes end on work extremely well – especially the point when Shira Haas tracks down the dead man (Tom Mothersdale) as an academic in her timeline only to enter the university as the dead man walks in perfectly alive.
Inspector Alfred Hillinghead (Kyle Soller) discovers the body in Victorian London of 1890Detective Iris Maplewood (Shira Haas) discovers the body in the future of 2053
The writing reaches its peak towards the end of the seventh episode where we see everything unfold from the point-of-view of Stephen Graham’s Mannix and all the threads and details throughout fall into place with considerable ingenuity where we get an explanation of the dead bodies and who the messages and recordings are coming from. (The only issue that left a quibble to me was why it was necessary to have to kill the girl Esther in the 1941 timeline – aside from setting Jacob Fortune-Lloyd on his course of actions, I failed to understand what purpose she served in the story). It becomes even more ingenious in the final episode where we see everything unfold again where the simple matter of a single doubt placed in Stephen Graham’s mind causes a ripple that goes right through to the present day. (Although there is an ambiguous final scene where Amaka Okafor encounters Shira Haas as a cab driver and we see the Know You Are Loved corporation logo in the city skyline in the background.
I did have some quibbles about the Victorian Gaslight setting – were newspapers routinely printing photographs in 1890? Was fingerprinting commonplace during this era? Although a little amount of Google research shows me that the first photograph printed in a newspaper occurred in 1848 and photojournalism as a profession had begun by the 1870s. On the other hand, fingerprinting was not employed until 1892 in Argentina and not by law enforcement agencies around the world until the late 1890s, in both cases some years after the mini-series’ setting.
The lead performers all give solid performances. I kept initially mistaking Jacob Fortune-Lloyd for Dominic Cooper and he has the same cocky leading man handsomeness. The only one among the three that doesn’t come off Shira Haas who speaks through an odd unidentifiable accent (she is Israeli in real life) and comes across as stilted and an unsympathetic character. (The story also never gives any background explanation for her crippling spinal condition even though it is a central facet of the character).
