Vexed

I wasn’t too great a fan of Vexed when I reviewed the first season of the show. Lucy Punch was the only redeemable thing about that first series, and oddly enough Punch has exited the series and been replaced by a character very similar. Only this time the female role is dumbed down to become as one dimensional a character as Toby Stephen’s Jack Armstrong was in season one. Fortunately, unlike the first series which only contained 3 episodes, series 2 contains 6 episodes in which we get yet another opportunity to flesh out Armstrong as well as his new partner Georgina Dixon. Wasted opportunity? Sort of.

To recap on the character of Jack Armstrong, he’s pretty much the loose canon type that does and says what he wants, a womanizer and schemer, and an all around selfish sort, but his character grows up a bit in this series. Unfortunately what he grows up into is a much larger walking collection of clichés.

Georgina Dixon, played by Miranda Raison (My Week With Marilyn), is bits and pieces of Lucy Punch’s Kate Bishop character from season one. She’s a by the book sorts who is landed with Armstrong, not the greatest of partners if you play by the book, who is made simpler and a bit less intelligent by the standards set up by Punch. Instead of remaining a character that goes against the flow of Armstrong’s character personality and finding some way to meet in the middle, Dixon pretty much falls into practice with him. She’s the man’s version of woman in pretty much every way. A bit disappointing that.

Now I think it would be only fair to mention that while this show comes off as yet another detective mystery show, it’s far from it. If you’re a knit picker for accuracy you’ll hate it. The cases have holes so big you can drive a semi through them, the cases are mostly ignored while the two main characters display their character personalities, and most of the time the cases just fall into the laps of the shows two main characters.

Is there chemistry? Yes, but it feels forced. You can feel the writers working hard to make Jack and Georgina the ideal couple and for them to come to the realization that maybe they should be together. They’re no Castle and Beckett, but the chemistry does start to make the show a bit more bearable. While it’s not a perfect show it does come together a bit more smoothly then season one with the only real drawback being the loss of Lucy Punch’s character. With that being said you just have to accept it for what it is, a filler show, laugh when you can and then move on.