Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Lost Girl: Season 4 – review

Director: Various

Release date: 2014

Contains spoilers

When I watched Season 3 of Lost Girl I felt it was a little bit disjointed and perhaps a tad meandering, with no real big bad point. It did, however, reposition the main characters. This would either work or otherwise in the next season’s favour.

As we enter season 4 Tamsin (Rachel Skarsten), the Valkyrie, is dead and 18 months have passed. Bo (Anna Silk) is literally a Lost Girl as she was taken by the mysterious Wanderer (Kyle Schmid, Blood Ties & Being Human (US)), unfortunately none of those left behind remember her. Somehow Vex (Paul Amos) has taken control of the Dark Fae and Kenzie (Ksenia Solo) is masquerading as a fae and in a clandestine relationship with Dyson (Kris Holden-Ried, Underworld: Awakening & The Death of Alice Blue).

Oh My
They all begin to realise that their memories have been altered and their lives are false (in terms of the fact that they interact in ways they would never would have done if their memories had been unaltered). So the opening concentrates on getting their memories back (and has a welcome cameo by the fabulous George Takaii). When they manage to break the spell that has them all missing the memories of Bo then Bo awakens, on a train (which is an other-dimension construct), remembering her friends. Their rescue attempt and her escape narrowly miss each other.

Kyle Schmid as the Wanderer
With Bo back we face the Una Mens – a group of mind linked Fae, tasked with keeping order and Fae law with extreme prejudice. It seems that they are after Bo until they tell her that they were searching for the unaligned succubus – she has become aligned… with the Dark Fae and here we have the nub of the season. Yes there is an overarch, with the wanderer and (as, despite hints otherwise, the Wanderer isn’t) Bo’s father what we get is a really nice character exploration where Bo has been placed in a faction (by her own hand, not that she can remember doing it) and it isn’t the one she would naturally sit in. However we saw her go somewhat dark before and it makes for some nice character dynamics.

Bo's escape
Whilst we do get the return of Tamsin – Valkyrie rebirth and rapidly grow from childhood to their adult state – in the main the season is about loss and it works fabulously. The storyline is probably the strongest they’ve had and they really use the characters well. There was a particularly good episode around Krampus (and it’s rare that I’ll enjoy a Groundhog Day style episode) and we get revenants that are – in effect – simple zombies.

All in all the season wasn’t just back on form, I’d say it was the best so far. 7 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

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