(TV SERIES) Bodkin - A Pretty Interesting Irish Dark Comedy Series with a not so Complicated Cold Case Mystery

With so many new shows in various streaming platforms, I was getting a bit overwhelmed and having difficulty in choosing which to watch first. But this series that was released few days ago looked interesting for me. So I decided to give it a try during the weekend and finished it last night. All right then, I'll get on it.

Brief Story Line

Dove Maloney (Siobhán Cullen - Obituary TV series etc) was an Irish journalist working in London, but was forced by her boss to lay low due to some problem on the latest news she wrote. Dove was assigned to assist a True Crime American podcaster Gilbert Power (Will Forte - Sweet Tooth TV series, Good Boys etc) who was working on a new show about the mysterious disappearance of 3 people in a small Irish village, Bodkin. Gilbert was accompanied by his assistant Emmy Sizergh (Robyn Cara - Dr. Jeckyll etc).

To move around Bodkin, Emmy hired Sean (Chris Walley - The Young Offenders etc) who unfortunately was not too reliable. As the trio tried to find out more information, they found that the locals, particularly Seamus (David Wilmot - Station Eleven TV series etc) was reluctant to help and preferred to let the past go. Dove who felt downgraded for helping Gilbert slowly realize that it might be a bigger case than she thought.

So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this series.

End of Brief Story Line

Cold case mystery had been told many times before so it was not something new or extraordinary. However, I was intrigued to find out, as the show was also put under category of TV comedies in addition to TV mystery, plus I had watched two other series which had true crime podcast element and both were fun. And apparently this was interesting as well. I found myself to be enjoying the show as the comedy added the light feel. Something that I was looking for after finishing a dark series earlier.

The story was pretty engaging for me and it was nice to see the Ireland's small village scenery (never been there before, so it was a good experience to see it, albeit on the small screen). The characters were also pretty fun to watch. The three main characters of Dove, Gilbert and Emmy were very much different with their distinct attributes. Dove was strong-willed and a bit self-centred who would do anything for a story, while Gilbert was friendly and had completely different approach when dealing with people. Though Emmy seemed content as assistant, but she also aspired to be well-known like Dove which made her tried her best to impress Dove although it was against her principal. 

I thought the cast did their job wonderfully here. After checking on the internet, I found that most of the cast were Irish, except for Will Forte (should not come as a surprise since this was a joint Irish-US production). Aside from the names I mentioned above, there were also few support characters like local police Sergeant Power (Denis Conway), the IT billionaire Fintan (Charlie Kelly), Dove's boss Damien (Charlie Kemp) and few others. The series itself was created by Jez Scharf and was not based on anything. One thing that quite surprised me was the name Higher Ground shown before the start of each episode as it was a production company formed by Barrack and Michelle Obama.

The series only consisted of 7 episodes (a bit unique as usually Netflix' original series had 8). It did not have too long duration only around 45- 55 minutes. To me, the first episode did not really have the greatest start and I was a bit confused where it was actually heading. Good thing the characters were interesting to keep me going and it had an ending that made me curious. As the story progressed with the mystery unfolding, I was growing to like it more. My favorite was the fifth episode that showed us things from different angle, however I personally was not too happy with the 6th episode. Luckily the finale was better. It has an ending that seemed to have a proper conclusion, but seeing that it was not categorized as Limited Series, I guess there might be plan for subsequent seasons.

Overall this was a fun and interesting series. The strength for me was in the characters and the story, although the mystery might not be the complicated and very awesome kind. There was very few shocking facts and surprising twists. The dark comedy was a nice thing to have and seeing small village folks and scenery had its appeal too. So if your preference is a dark, multi layer mystery series with lots of action and suspense, then this might not be suitable for you. But for those looking for a light mystery solving series combined with a bit of comedy and set in the beautiful Ireland, then this should be to your liking. 

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars