Telly Talk: Jekyll & Hyde

Mwah ha ha! I have just watched one of the silliest programmes on telly, ever! By day Jason is a compassionate, generous, good-natured man who cannot lie. He is good. By night he is Ian, a vindictive, petty, violent and dangerous person. He is bad. Oooh! Things could get complicated… not! For the last five years Jason has kept Ian at bay using a concoction of drugs created by his good mate Reuben, but on his birthday – the very day this series starts on – Ian finds his immunity to it and breaks through to have his dastardly way. What a predicament. Just like the situation a certain fellow found himself in inside a Victorian novel. A certain Dr Jekyll battling with a very naughty Mr Hyde. I’m sure I can’t be the first person to think of it. Gadzooks! – and before you know it there’s more exposition and set-up as Jason is clearly the loveliest neuro-surgeon in the world ever. He goes the extra mile. He quite likes a lady colleague, but her invitation for drinks can never be. He is doomed to live a lonely virtuous life, conscious only between the hours of 8.45am and 8.45pm, trying to find a way to silence his dark alter ego for good.

“Do No Harm is indeed very silly, but it does its silly quite well”

Ta da! And there’s the entire set-up in a nutshell. Do No Harm is indeed very silly, but it does its silly quite well. I’m enjoying the hacking smokers’ cough Jason wakes up with, easily explained by the mountain of cigarette ends in his shoe on the bedside table. More than likely they were simply smoked by Ian for kicks as a way to rile him. The scoundrel. Jason is just too clean cut, and so are the people in his world. The lady upon whose elbow he operates (not just brains this one, he’s clever at fixing people in lots of different ways) cannot imagine leaving her husband: “It would be like cutting off a limb” she explains, what with them having got together when they were 14 years old and sharing a life for 30 years. But can you see the goodness she knows is in his heart? Can you, baloney! He comes in like a bull in a china shop. Good thing such complicated long-standing relationship issues can be fixed with a special plan. I won’t tell you what it is. I’d hate to ruin the surprise. The point is, people in this world seem pretty polarised, even if they don’t have an elaborate personality disorder that’s incredibly punctual.

I can’t say I didn’t enjoy this, because I enjoyed it immensely. I also can’t say I’ll be waiting with baited breath for the next episode. Sure, there are plenty of lines of enquiry set up for me to want to follow. Who is the woman from his past? Will Jason (or Ian) have anything to do with the nice lady who offered him birthday drinks before he doubled over like Cinderella hearing her midnight chimes smartly linked up to a severe bout of indigestion? I’m not disinterested in the answers. I just couldn’t look myself in the eye if I actually made a weekly date with Do No Harm. It’s like that order of a double bacon cheeseburger with fries, and onion rings, and a milkshake, and a massive brownie: as much as you know it’s a lot of fun, there’s no way you could ever admit that it was the evening’s plan from the start.
Do No Harm, Watch, Monday 22 July 2013