What a bizarre hour of television that was.
Taboo, the new BBC drama series created by Steven Knight, Tom Hardy, and his father Chips Hardy, is stylish, inscrutable, and fascinating all at once. Its first episode, which premiered last night on BBC 1, has barely any traces of a coherent narrative. Some of it is spent establishing the premise of the series, which is as follows: a man, James Delaney (Tom Hardy), thought to be dead, returns home to London from Africa in 1814 to investigate the suspicious death of his father, coming into conflict with the East India Company in the process. But an awful lot of the episode's run time is taken up by scene after scene of Tom Hardy being his usual intense self, as James proceeds to freak out everyone he comes into contact with.
Don't take this as a knock on Hardy's performance, because it's not. Hardy has always had the watchability of a movie star and the malleability of a great character actor, and he demonstrates those characteristics here, leaving the viewers hanging onto every inch of his unabashedly weird central performance as he mumbles and glares his way through each scene. It should be frustrating to watch, but instead it's riveting.
The series's title is likely derived from the relationship between James and his half-sister Zilpha (played by Game of Thrones' Oona Chaplin). Throughout this premiere the show drops several hints of a sexual attraction between the two, as well as a possible prior sexual relationship between the two. I'm not sold on this element of the show (I'm not fully sold on the show either), but I have faith that these two talented actors can make it work, whatever tone the show decides to use.
Directed by Kristoffer Nyholm, Taboo looks absolutely stunning, the muddiness and grittiness of 19th Century London shot in a way that is both repulsive and alluring, base and stylish all a once. At times, the show seems far too proud of itself visually, regularly pausing from the little bit of plot to linger on superfluous details that nonetheless contribute to the atmosphere.
This episode of TV is relatively hard to judge, given how little it tells viewers, keeping its cards close to its vest when it comes to nearly everything about it. We know so little about the show's protagonist and his mysterious past, and so as a result Taboo is, for now, almost entirely reliant on mood and performance to keep viewers interested. Whether that can be a successful tactic going forward is unclear.
The true delights of the premiere came during the scenes involving the East India Company, who are desperate to get a piece of land in North America James inherited from his father. Taboo is a dark, brooding show, but in these scenes it demonstrates that it has a sense of humour, showing that it doesn't take itself too seriously. Jonathan Price is a delight, and both he and the other actors are clearly having fun with the material. The negotiation scene between East India and James towards the end of the episode sums this up perfectly, and it also gave Hardy's menacing performance a curiously humourous undertone. Taboo will need to maintain that in future episodes to avoid becoming a joyless slog. Its plot and main character are too absurd to be played completely straight.
Grade: B+
