Episode 7 of The Doctor Blake Mysteries is titled ‘Bedlam’ and is not surprisingly set in an asylum in chilly old Ballarat. Written by Chris Corbett instead of regular Stuart Page, this episode has a bit more vavoom to it than previous episodes past.
When a nurse is murdered, Lucien (Craig Mclachlan) overlooks the ‘obvious’ (the mentally-ill man caught with the knife in his hand over the dead body) and begins to look at the victims life and the conspiracy of why she would be killed in the first place. As usual, he unravels a sad tale of a meanie doctor who has begun experiments using ECT and the killing them accidently and it’s the lovely nurse who finds this out and is killed to silence her.
Lucien shows us his lovely piano skills and he as a drunken late night as he wishes away the feeling of disappointment of not living up to his father’s name. For the first time, due to Jean’s (Nadine Garner) snooping, we finally have a visual for Lucien’s lost wife and daughter.
Overall it’s a different feeling kind of episode but the overall story strands are given very little attention and very little ground is gained in regards to Lucien’s wife, his father and a possibility of Jean and Lucien getting romantic. I saw Craig McLachlan on the ABC1 series The Agony of Life during the week and he seemed to be a tad depressed about the state of his career in the past. Playing Lucien is a real turnaround for McLachlan. He is by far the greatest asset to the show and he portrays Lucien with such grace and dry wit. It’s a real shame that he hasn’t has more opportunities to shine in Australian dramas in the past because he’s really, very good.
Even though everyone has given the poor bugger schtick about his one hit wonder ‘Mona’ he has managed to beat the odds and show he’s still got life in him yet. And yes, I danced around my lounge room to that bloody song for months. Catchy as hell but very uncool with hindsight!
The weep counter has remained steady now since episode two and looks like there will be less weeping and more piano playing for our beloved Dr. Blake. Yay! I hope that if a new series is granted that the move the story along with a much faster pace so audiences can look forward to learning more about the characters and actually caring about them too. I’m sure that TPOC (the power of Craig) will get them over the line in the end.
Now, I’m off to watch ‘Mona’ on Youtube and to pretend that I don’t know the words.
The Doctor Blake Mysteries airs on Fridays at 8:30pm on ABC1. Read more episode reviews of this series.
