Glad to Be of Help

Compared to the other episodes, this one is not that bad but probably the worst, the emptiest, the most boring and meaningless. I always waited till the end, to have an opinion, because the strength of this series was to offer unpreditable stories, without any good vs evil schemes, where the ending was the sherry in the cake, as we say in France. If the ending fails, then the whole is worth being thrown into the bin. It's useless to have many action scenes to obtain a good story. I even think that Joseph Mankiewicz' SLEUTH could have been told here, but of course in a twenty six minutes frame. This one, yes, is weak, not crap, no, certainly not, but flat. And do not dare comparing this episode with the previous ones.

The second episode of The Frighteners shares a lot of similarities with the first, an isolated setting after hours and an unstable element brought into it.

Conservative MP Tony Wardle (John Standing) is wrapping up his scheduled evening of meeting constituents. After sending his aide home, a man named Bob Blaw (Joe Lynch) arrives and asks that Wardle sees him immediately. Blaw is skittish and muddled, which Wardle initially concedes may be due to his previous career as a professional boxer, but then Blaw begins to tell him a tragic story and demands that Wardle helps.

The performances are again really good stuff. Standing, of course is a recognisable face for performances on both sides of the Atlantic and he's great again here. Irish actor Joe Lynch is perhaps less well known but has more to do and pulls it off admirably. The menace is always there under the surface, but he expertly cranks it up, then releases a little tension every now and then. He also does this whilst never letting up on the idea that he's suffering from some form of impairment, either early onset Alzheimers or something caused by the grief he's suffering.

All that said, the story suffers somewhat from its mediocre conclusion. I've tried to get away from the idea that all these anthology shows require a twist, or downbeat, ending in order to be good, but in this particular case the show just dissipates away leaving some of the specifics about whether or not his story is real, up in the air. It doesn't undermine the whole episode entirely but it does mean that it's hard to recommend that you go out or your way to hunt it down.

(But ultimately it's about a Tory who says he's going to help someone and then doesn't. Sounds about right. "Politics" )

Tory MP Tony Wardle is visited late in the day by constituent Bob Blaw, who asks for his help.

It's a watchable entry, but in my humble opinion it is one of the less successful episodes. There is no denying that it does have some very real moments of terror, there are times when you feel like Wardle is in mortal danger, but the story really does fall flat, you feel as if they're very much onto something, but just as you think they're going to deliver something big, it falls flat, the conclusion was poor.

Very well acted, John Standing, such a good actor, a man of sheer talent, who seems to have been around forever, he's excellent here as Wardle, Joe Lynch was equally as good as Blaw, the pair did share some fine scenes.

Not sure what's harder to believe, an MP staying at surgery til 8pm, or a compassionate Tory MP, both are hard to believe.

Not bad, 6/10.