By Geno McGahee
BBC Home Entertainment has just released the DVD 2-disc set of the first season of AFTERLIFE. I was relatively unaware of this show, but I had the opportunity to watch the first season and it proved to be a great mixture of drama and horror.
Psychology professor, Robert Bridge (Andrew Lincoln) has made it a point to teach his students that there are no people that truly have psychic abilities. He informs them about cold-reading and how the mourning is easily manipulated by these charlatans. Nothing can convince him that psychics exist until he meets Alison Mundy (Lesley Sharp), a woman with great psychic power, but she uses it because she has to, not because she wants to and sometimes, it leads to bad things happening. The dead are speaking to her and they will not be quiet until they are heard and their requests are granted.
The Bridge-Mundy relationship is a very interesting one and it really keeps you into the show. Bridge desperately wants to find an explanation as to how Mundy knows what she knows and can do what she does. He is continually trying to explain away the phenomena, but he has his own baggage that comes into play and throws a wrench into the works of his belief system. His students are also quite taken with Alison and they begin to wonder if their teacher may be wrong with his unwavering disbelief about psychic ability.
There are plenty of twists and turns in each episode and I was often surprised by the direction an episode will take and what character will be killed off. As soft and sincere as this show can be at times, it can also be ruthless. This is the same situation that Alison deals with. Sometimes helping the dead hurts the living. There isn’t always a right decision.
AFTERLIFE is a really great watch. It’s very easy to get drawn into it and it’s easy to root for the characters. Despite the topic, there is a level of realism brought to this show. It’s gritty and the acting is very good. The 2-disc set on DVD was just released, featuring the entire first season (282 minutes) and some bonus features. BBC Home Entertainment has unleashed this on the public and it retails for $24.95 (30.98 in Canada).
Rating: 8/10
