We live in a new Golden Age of television. Look at the shows on the air right now: Game of Thrones, Hannibal, Justified, Mad Men, Archer, Community, The Walking Dead, True Detective, and so on. So trying to add another name to that list is an ambitious undertaking. Luckily for Turn, it has ambition in spades.
Like any prestige drama on AMC, Turn looks fantastic. (Hell, even Low Winter Sun looked good.) If all “Pilot” asked us to do was look at the costumes and sets for ninety minutes, it wouldn’t be half bad. But Turn insists on throwing a hell of a lot of plot at us.
Here’s the basic rundown: Abraham Woodhull (Jamie Bell) is a cabbage farmer living in New Jersey with his wife and son. After a fight at a tavern, he’s recruited by Captain Ben Talmadge (Seth Numrich) and Caleb Brewster (Daniel Henshall) to spy on the British. You see, Abe’s father Richard (Pirates of the Caribbean‘s Kevn McNally) is a loyalist, and very close to Major Hewlett (nicely played by Pacific Rim‘s Burn Gorman).
The problem with Turn is that the setup isn’t all too thrilling. We know Abe will end up spying, otherwise there would be no show (we also know who ultimately wins the war, but let’s not get too nit-picky here). Turn is ably acted, and Bell does a great job as Abe. “Pilot” really picks up in its last thirty or forty minutes, when it realizes that it’s not a historical drama, it’s an espionage story that just happens to take place during the American Revolution.
There are a few scenes of spycraft, and even though all the spying is being done by amateurs, it’s still thrilling to watch. We’re already dealing with secret signals and interviews disguised as friendly encounters. In one memorable sequence (remarkably directed by Rupert Wyatt, set to take the reins on Dawn of the Planet of the Apes), Abe takes a public oath of loyalty to King George, while at the same time Ben Talmadge and his men ambush and slaughter a troop of redcoats, who would have gotten the drop on them were it not for Abe’s intel. That’s a great sequence, it’s just a shame that it came past the sixty-minute mark, when a lot of viewers might have tuned out because of the slow pacing. If Turn wants to be a slower, more methodical drama, that’s fine; I don’t need my spy stories to be all James Bond all the time (I like Breach and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy as much as the next man).
“Spies during the American Revolution” is an easy sell. AMC, and Turn, need to capitalize on this show’s potential to be a captivating spy thriller, and let the history be incidental.
A Few Thoughts
– I didn’t get to talk much about the British Captain Simcoe, who is clearly being set up as the main villain. I hope he gets more dimension to him, because at the moment Samuel Roukin plays him like a 1700s version of a 1980s bully
– The new husband of Abe’s ex-fiancee gets imprisoned pretty quickly. How long before they end up in bed? I give it until episode six
– Welcome to our coverage of Turn! Like any new show, I’ll give it two or three episodes to sink its claws into me, and then I’ll decide whether or not to continue with the coverage
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