The basic premise of Garth Merenghi's Darkplace is that in the early 1980s the best-selling horror author (Matthew Holness) and his publisher/publicist, Dean Learner (Richard Ayoade), produced and starred in a six-episode TV series for Channel 4, where they played Dr Rick Dagless MD and hospital administrator Thornton Reed respectively.
Set in a Romford hospital that sits on an inter-dimensional gateway or some such, Darkplace was so controversial that it was buried in the vaults never to be repeated … until now, with each episode further contextualised via retrospective introduction and interjections from Merenghi and co.
There's no doubt that Garth Merenghi's Darkplace is a clever meta-fictional concept, oh-so ironic and post-modern, but it's also one that emerges as somewhat too clever and cynical for its own good, with that continual sense of being a too-conscious attempt at manufacturing a cult series, whereby flattering the commissioning executives and delivering the right target demographic to advertisers are more important than actually saying anything.
In other words, it's something that's just as formulaic in terms of contemporary TV as the kind of James Herbert/Guy N. Smith/Sean Hutson style horror it parodies was twentysomething years ago.
It also leads, alas, to that continual sense of doublethink about the whole exercise, whereby if something is just crap, well that was the intention. We win, you lose, and everything is recuperated within the system, with no possibility of discussion outwith its frame of reference.
Now, don't get me wrong – I liked it better than I thought I would, and found much of it pretty damn funny, but just wished it had been a bit more self-critical and questioning of its audience and institutions.
Each episode comes with a DVD commentary track, featuring Merenghi, Learner and their co-star Todd Rivers (Matt Berry). What you get out of these likely depends on how far you buy into the premise of the series and its mythos. As more of the same, they are entertaining and provide a lot of added value.
But personally, I would have preferred it if Holness and Ayoade had dropped the meta-fiction for a moment and talked as themselves about their ideas and inspirations, to get a better handle on whether they have a genuine appreciation for their subject matter or are just privileged young Cambridge Footlights veterans mocking and exploiting popular forms.
The disk also includes Darkplace: Illuminatum and Misc. Horrificat Illuminata, together providing another hour or so of interviews; In Memoriam Darkplace, a gallery of production stills; storyboard to screen comparisons; radio spots; a cut scene from The Scotch Mist episode (1 minute 35 seconds); home movies shot by Garth's wife on the set (4:15); test footage from the pilot episode (1.52) and the single released by Dean Rivers and series composer Stig Baasvik. In other words, a lot of extras that take you behind the scenes of the fake series, but again not the real one.
There is also what looks to be an easter egg in the form of Garth and Pam's "red hot" home movies, though I couldn't figure out how to access it.
Image and sound quality are fine and more than adequate to the deliberately lo-fi nature of the series, as connoted through the chapter menu where a stack of videotapes bearing the names of the episodes; even if all six would have fitted on a 180 minute tape back in the day…
Copyright © K H Brown 2002-2005
Rating:
5.0 / 5
(1 vote)
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