The Characters:
The main crew consists of Beatrice, Jessie, Billy, Spike and Leopold. Beatrice and Jessie are half sisters, with Spike and Billy as two childhood friends. Leopold is the Prince of England who, upon an incident with Beatrice on the street, falls in love with her at first sight. Billy, the muscle of the group, looks to be incredibly in love with Beatrice, but unwilling to do anything about it, especially with the introduction of Leopold. Spike is your standard fast-talking galvanizer that keeps the groups together even in the roughest of times.
Additional Main Characters: Dr. Ben Watson and Sherlock Holmes. The Linen Man. Beatrice and Jessie's mother.
The Good:
There's a lot to like about this show.
1. It begins with Beatrice taking the lead as the moral compass and mental strength of the group. She takes care of her sister Jessie, who is riddled with constant nightmares of witch doctors chasing her with what seems intent to kill or at the very least, terrify the piss out of her. Jessie does take over as Most Important Character due to her supernatural powers that earn her the title of Ipssissimus. What I like most about this: a strong female lead where it doesn't feel like the writers are trying to make a point of it. She's treated as just a lead, there's no fatal flaw that separates her from previously scripted male leads, it just feels like a normal main character... which is how it should be.
2. Also, yay! We're not bound by era-accurate race roles! Characters of multiple backgrounds, White, African-American, and Asian descent are featured without a need to push the idea of forced equality. The show creates a Victorian England with a certain level of racial equality (I say certain because the royal family is still white, of course). Gotta admit, Victorian England without the slavery and racism seems pretty dope. Oh if only it were real.
Really what I'm trying to say is that it's refreshing to see characters that aren't pigeon-holed into certain roles based on what is "expected" of them.
3. Man, the evil characters in this show are warped! Starting with the Bird Man, played by the same man who played Sandor "The Hound" Clegane in Game of Thrones, who abducts babies because he cannot handle the death of his own newborn child, to the Linen Man who is the shows primary baddie.
Award for best executed bad guy: The Tooth Fairy, played Sheila Atim. She is one creepy lady. The Tooth Fairy takes the teeth of children and plants them in the ground in order to create exact clones that she will use exact revenge on the man responsible for her father's suicide. She uses children. As Assassins. And these children aren't even real. She also happens to teach Jessie the most important lesson she can teach her about her powers and how to control them. I'll leave it for you to watch the show and find out what I mean by that if you haven't watched it already.
4. The choice in costumes are a fantastic contrast to the dark themes prevalent throughout the show. When I think of the Victorian area, my first thoughts go to things dark and bleak. Clothing doesn't have much color and if it does, it's usually meant as a sign of wealth. It feels like The Irregulars uses bright clothing for all characters as a way to give the viewer hope of the positive that still exists despite a world of chaos building around them.
The Problematic:
1. Character development starts at a premium in this show. Pilot episodes are meant to build interest in a show. I don't expect every character to get explained right from the jump, that wouldn't make any sense, but give me SOMETHING to work with here. Just a taste, a little bit of background to hook me in and really make me want to watch the full season.
2. I know that Sherlock Holmes isn't meant to be the main character, but the arc they gave him is a true disservice to the nature of Holmes. He's depicted as a genius, and shown to maybe have been in the past, but in present times he's just a bumbling drug addict scraping at remnants of past intelligence. For someone whose entire canon is being smarter than everyone around him, he consistently makes the dumbest, most petulant choices throughout.
3. WHY WASN'T THE LINEN MAN GIVEN MORE OF A BACKSTORY?! I mean seriously, he's your main bad guy up until Bea and Jessie's mom reappears in the final episode, and I'd be more likely to paint her as an anti-hero more than anything. His path to darkness is shown in a brief clip of his past where Jessie reminds him on the first time he caused someone to go insane. He turned his best-friend into a madman simply because he was jealous of the girl he was dating. But that's it. It's just quickly tossed out there and we're expected to run with it without wanting more. And then he dies so we can't even get more from him. UGH!
Where does the show go from here?
Honestly, I have no clue. The season wraps up with Leopold being forced into his princely duty of marrying a woman of a high ranking family in Europe (country not specified) in return for his family bailing Billy out of jail (teaser). Watson, who watched the man he loves jump into purgatory to chase after Bea and Jessie's mom... oh, Sherlock is Jessie's dad by the way... whom, he is madly in love with. Billy is left to his own self-pity that Beatrice isn't into him and he doesn't have a significant other. Spike and Jessie seem to be kicking off a romance of their own. Meanwhile Beatrice and Watson are left feeling completely alone as the men they love are both gone.
The rip has been closed, order seems to have returned to London, and there's no real path to the next adventure the gang has to take on. I'm happy that the show left me asking questions about what is to come, but give me a teaser, or something. Come on!
Finishing up:
All-in-all The Irregulars follows a pretty linear path without many twists and turns. Knowledge gained isn't used to catch you off guard, but to develop the remaining plot. I may be miffed at the slow start to how characters are portrayed, but in the end I feel like the progression and arcs were done very well... save for Sherlock's. I'm both curious and worried that if there is a Season 2 what the plot will be. It could feel like a natural continuation of things, or in worst case scenario, feel like a complete departure from Season 1 and make the whole show seem disjointed.
Pressures on for the writers to get this right.
Rating: 3.5/5 starts. Worth a watch.
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