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You Me and the Apocalypse sees its first episode with fifteen people trapped underground in a bunker, one minute from the end of the world.
One of these fifteen is Jamie Winton (Matthew Baynton – Bill, Horrible Histories, The Wrong Mans), a banker who really needs to lighten up as he thrives on routine, all of which has been thrown the window by the news that an asteroid, eight miles wide and travelling at 27 miles per second, is on its way.
The story then flashes back to the day this is first discovered, 34 days before, to be precise. Personally, love ‘end of the world’ movies, but it’s not exactly often you get a TV comedy/drama based on the premise. However, these days TV series are the new ‘movies’, as they get several hours to tell their story.
Jamie is first seen, living in Slough – the town which also represented in space, in Elite: Dangerous, courtesy of Kate Russell’s Mostly Harmless – and he’s recording a message to his long lost girlfriend. Not just the first, it’s number 2610 ever since they were parted. But how, or why? As the episode begins we are not privy to this information and, in any event, he doesn’t know where she is at all.
To make matters worse, he’s subsequently arrested on nearly 500 charges of bank robbery, simply because the leader of terrorist group Deus Ex Machina, The White Horse, looks exactly like him; and his doppelganger is traced to Moscow, yet Jamie has never been.
There were some great comic-timed moments, such as after being arrested and interviewed by the police, Jamie’s solicitor asks hopefully: “I don’t suppose there’s a chance you have a twin?”. Jamie replies “No”, to which comes the sigh-ful reply: “Bugger. That really would’ve helped.”
Another came between Jamie and his Mum, Paula (Pauline Quirke):
- Paula: “You’re like that woman in that book”
Jamie: “…You’ll have to narrow that down a bit(!)”
In addition, his flatmate, Dave (Joel Fry), has an alibi of a bowling game for the night his doppelganger was meant to be committing all kinds of deadly deeds. But then, during the interrogation, Jamie reveals his wife Layla (Karla Crome) disappeared at the airport just after they got back from honeymoon, while he went to get some coffee, and the revelation comes that Layla’s been with his doppelganger the whole time! WTF??
The second of the fifteen introduced here was prisoner Rhonda (Jenna Fischer – Pam Beesly in the US version of The Office), seemingly on Death Row according to her uniform, who quickly manages to annoy annoys both the Latinas and the Nazis within a very short space of him, especially when she gave them the finger, but then her solicitor had arrived and she stupidly assumed she was getting out of there that moment. Alas, the prosecutors want to make an example out of her and, as later confirmed on the national news, she’s going to be locked up for the full 5-10 years of her crime of treason.
Why? Well, she’s meant to have hacked into the NSA’s computer systems, but while it was actually her 14-year-old son, and since she, as a librarian, has no idea how to program a computer – and her lawyer knows this, Rhonda is still refusing to fess up the real culprit, and so she’s not getting out of jail any time soon. It’d make more sense to spill the beans, since that way she’d get out of there and her son would get a slap on the wrist. However, we see that she wants to be out because her husband is receiving chemotherapy in hospital… and she’s just wasted her last phone call being cut off by a nurse after asking to speak to him and being told he’s sleeping.
Feeling dejected and fearful, Leanne (Megan Mullally) tells Rhonda not to act like a victim, and just to act like a crazy bitch. Alternatively, she can get into the vulnerable facility by either being stabbed or getting pregnant, at which point she offers to get her some “good, strong semen”…
Go to page 2 for more thoughts on this episode.
And to the third charcter to be featured in this episode is Sister Celine (Gaia Scodellaro), a very reserved, and innocent, nun living in Italy.
Her Mother Superior says God has a plan for her but it’s not there, so she’s sent away for an interview to a job which will allow travel – to the Vatican, no less, where she’s met by Rob Lowe, hilarious as Father Jude, a swearing, chain-smoking priest, whose opening gambit is “Who the fuck are you?”
His job is ‘quality control’ when it comes to making dead Popes into saints. Normally, they have to prove that they’ve performed two miracles since they died, while he counters this sarcastically by claiming they may well have felt up kids and parked in all the handicapped spaces.
He tells her that since she’s spent her entire life from school in the convent, she’s regretting not living a real life, and relied on serving God because she was fat as a child and only He could love her as she was, adding “Have you ever been hungry, addicted, broke?” She hasn’t, but queries whether he has. Like Rob Lowe himself, he confirms that he has and that he’s made mistakes and learned from them.
It’s a little predictable in this scene as it plays out exactly how you’d expect, with her first breaking down into tears, storming out, and then coming back in to throw a glass of water over him, and after telling him that he’s just “a sad little man who touches his penis too much”, with moxy like that, she’s got the job!
With the world now having been informed about the impending apocalypse, Celine’s outside and oblivious to the news – but she’s looking for a sign, and a car crashes in front of her as the owner learns of the comet over the radio, now THAT is a sign!
Riots break out in Italy and the prison, while Dave tells Jamie he’s going to get “absolutely hammered”. Still, regardless of the impending doom, Jamie’s still more concerned about matters close to home, asking his mum, “Do I have a twin?” The answer comes back – “Maybe”. Paula tells him he was adopted. Why now and not before? “It was never a good time”, she says. Jamie replies, “And today is a good time? It’s my birthday and the world is ending!”
He heads back to the police station to tell them the news, offering to wear a wire to trap the evil version of him, with a view to finding his wife, but in the light of new events, they really don’t care. With the investigation abandoned, the cop just hands over the file to him so he can look into it himself.
“Je ne regrette rien” blares out over the prison speakers thanks to Deus Ex Machina, the prison officers run out after they find the emergency line is dead, and soon after, the gang lead by the doppelganger open up the prison and turns up to pick up Rhonda as being a ‘big fan of her work’, with Leanne also latching on at the last minute.
Father Jude tells Celine that the world needs sceptics now more than ever. Is she in or out? Naturally, she’s in.
Back to ’34 Days Later’ – or rather ‘now’ – and there’s 15 of them in the room. Are they the chosen ones? If not, then what’s the alternative explanation?
Since the first episode only covers three of these characters, I assume we’ll get backstories for the rest filled in as well as keeping us up to date on the happenings of those already established.
The question is – with episode one covering day one of the situation, will they cram the rest into the remaining nine episodes, end the Earth and, with it, the chances of a second series. OR do they retain the one-episode-per-day format and hope it takes off in order to fulfil at least three series?
Based, on the first episode, I hope it runs as long as possible.
And normally when I do long reviews of some TV shows, I spend a lot of it picking apart everything that’s wrong with it… but I couldn’t find anything wrong with it. It’s daft, escapist fun with a superb cast that lasts an hour each week and that’s all it needs to be.
Oh, and am I the only one who got the link between Johnny Nash’s I Can See Clearly Now and the movie Thelma and Louise?
The song provides the theme, here, and Leanne suggests she and Rhonda together would be like Thelma and Louise, themselves, while in the film as the cop is locked in the boot of his car, a cyclist comes by and blows dope smoke into the airhole. The song playing over the car radio at the time? Yes, you guessed it.
You Me and the Apocalypse Episode 1 can be watched online for Sky subscribers here, and click on the top-right cast shot for the full-size image. As of yet, the series hasn’t been announced on Blu-ray and DVD.
Episode 1 Score: 9/10
Director: Michael Engler
Producer: Helen Gregory
Creator: Iain Hollands
Screenplay: Iain Hollands (Based on an original idea by Richard Welsh)
Music: Steve Jablonsky and Pieter A Schlosser
Cast:
Jamie Winton: Mathew Baynton
Father Jude: Rob Lowe
Rhonda McNeil: Jenna Fischer
Leanne Parkins: Megan Mullally
Sister Celine: Gaia Scodellaro
Dave Bosley: Joel Fry
Paula Winton: Pauline Quirke
DS Frank Arden: Nigel Lindsay
Scotty McNeil: Kyle Soller
Spike McNeil: Fabian McCallum
Refugee: Julian Seager
General Arnold Gaines: Paterson Joseph
President of USA: Lloyd Owen
General: Nigel Barber
Father Alphonse: Charlie Condou
Nurse: Wendy Kweh
Rajesh: Prasanna Puwanarajah
Rosita Demetri: Sarah de Freitas
Carrie: Elizabeth Moynihan
Polish Marek: Denis Khoroshko
Mary, Police Guard: Célia Alturas
Inmate: Anick Wiget
Prison Guard 1: Claire Brown
Passerby: Joanne Manchester (uncredited)
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.
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