Skip to content
The Shepherds And The Fox starts going back to Seattle, 9 years ago, where police search Marcus Fox’s house where they can see he fills his house with knives, there’s Mozart on the turntable, those funny circular, prawn cracker-like things, and in the cellar, there’s the bodies of 8 of his victims… and then they lift the floorboards to reveal many more. No wonder his new body, in the form of Madison (Millie Brown) is so pissed off.
She, on the other hand, has located the co-owned building, is given the brush-off by a patronising business woman, but made me laugh when she talks back to her elders by retorting, “Nice tits”.
Richard’s biggest problem, as is brought to his attention by his returning father, Frank (Robert Forster), is to find who Marcus Fox exists as now, and who brought him back.
Jack meanwhile, is away from his wife and staying at a hotel when he receives another threatening phone call, admist the usual static down the line, and… they know where he is. He, initially, can’t get hold of Gary but then they later meet up and he’s figured out the truth about all those people coming back from the dead… because the girl who killed herself in the first episode is now living inside *his* daughter. Well, not quite *that* girl, but the one who was inside of her, and all three of them went to school together back in the day.
Finally, Madison ends up locating her old house where she used to live, as Marcus Fox, and she wants a meet with the elusive, and so far yet unseen, Rose Gilchrist…
Unfortunately, some bits were all starting to get a bit predictable, so when Frank tracks Jack down, and the latter demanded answers about his wife’s involvement with the organisation, Frank tells him he can ask her himself… in the next lifetime, only to be caught out by being gunned down by… Richard, yes, his own flesh and blood. I knew that was coming the moment he got shot in the arm. Or maybe it was just a flesh wound.
That said, I didn’t suss in advance that the end reveal would be that Amy is Rose.
One annoying fact about this show is that there’s a number of potentially great sound effects in this series, including, this week, a flashback of Gary looking for clues, but it’s only been filmed in Dolby Surround, and not Dolby Digital 5.1 like a lot of big series. The split-surround sound would’ve been fantastic.
Overall, despite an interesting ending, we’re now past the halfway point and it’s still only drip-feeding information to us. I really thought we’d be much further forward than this, so with just three episodes to go, it’s not going to go down as one of the all-time greats. Nor will it draw me back for season 2, unless it seriously ups its game.
Intruders had clearly been doing badly in the BBC2 ratings, as it’s been bumped from a prime-time slot to a graveyard Saturday evening at 10.45pm for the next episode.
Score: 5/10
Director: Eduardo Sánchez
Producers: John Martini, Angie Stephenson and Amy Hodge
Screenplay: Glen Morgan (based on the book “The Intruders” by Michael Marshall Smith)
Creator: Glen Morgan
Music: Bear McCreary
Cast:
Madison O’Donnell: Millie Brown
Jack Whelan: John Simm
Amy Whelan: Mira Sorvino
Richard Shepherd: James Frain
Frank Shepherd: Robert Forster
Gary Fischer: Tory Kittles
Allison O’Donnell: Sonya Salomaa
Fern: Kathryn Dobbs
Middle Aged Man: Cameron Grierson
Detective: Patti Kim
Alsion O’Donnell: Sonya Salomaa
Detective Ron Blanchard: Daryl Shuttleworth
Paige Crane: Shanae Tomasevich
Larry Owens: Jonathon Young
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.