Whilst flicking through the channels last night, I had the misfortune of stumbling across 'Clone', a BBC 3 'comedy' starring Jonathan Pryce, Mark Gatiss, and Stuart McLoughlin.
Dr Victor Blenkinsop (Pryce) has created a prototype super soldier, but unfortunately his creation turns out to be a harmless and Frank Spencer-esquire fool named Albert (McLoughlin). Both the doctor and the clone go on the run, avoiding the dastardly Colonel Black (Gatiss) and his security agents who are intent on killing them. This leads Blenkinsop and his creation to a sleepy village, with the intention of blending in with the locals and laying low for a while. However, this may be more difficult than it would appear...
Sounds interesting? - it certainly is ambitious... not something that could be said about the quality of the script.
The comedy really lets this series down - each situation seems to be clichéd, and the the jokes really aren't funny. In fact, some of the scenes were so bad that I felt embarrassed - it's like the script was written by a 15 year old with learning difficulties. Why the normally excellent Jonathan Pryce agreed to be in this, i'll never know. The final straw is the 'canned laughter', which cheapens things even more.
The clone himself, who I imagine is supposed to be endearing to the viewers, is simply incredibly annoying - probably one of the most annoying TV characters I have seen over the last decade, and that's saying something. He seems to be a copy of 'Pike' from Dad's Army - but a very poor copy.
The special effects set a new low, even for the BBC, with explosions looking like they've been made on a Commodore 64. Highly not- recommended.
