The penultimate episode of Supernatural sees Robert Muller returning to scripting duties for a story that riffs off that most gothic of tales, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. And the result is, frankly, bizarre.
'Night of the Marionettes' sees Gordon Jackson's Howard Lawrence recounting what happened when he sailed from England in 1882 with his wife and daughter and they stayed in a strange inn on their way to the Vila Diodati. On discovering that Mary Shelley, Lord Byron and the others stayed there on their own trip to the famous house, he wonders if events in the nearby village inspired Frankenstein and soon discovers that this is indeed the case when he and his family watch Herr Hubert's puppet show featuring life-size marionettes - one of which looks suspiciously like a certain famous literary monster.
'Night of the Monsters' is deeply macabre, from the revelation that the performers have their marionettes kill people and then resurrect them to create more marionettes, to the unexpected hint of father-daughter incest between Lawrence and Mary. The latter seems entirely gratuitous, adding little to the plot except to explain Elsbeth Lawrence's alcoholism, but it helps to make this the most horrific episode of the series. It doesn't quite work: the deliberately sinister marionette show is really well staged and directed (it helps that director Alan Cooke gets to shoot this sequence on film), but it's also quite lengthy, and thus smacks of padding. Having come up with an episode that pays homage to Frankenstein, Muller can't seem to work out how to conclude it satisfactorily, and it loses steam towards the end.
Nevertheless, the episode's striking visuals (in a series that rarely shows monsters, the Frankenstein's monster marionette works really well) ensure that it stands out, and as usual there is an impressive cast, with Jackson giving a fine performance and getting strong support from Kathleen Byron as Elsbeth and Pauline Moran as Mary. Vladek Sheybal is brilliantly cast as the sinister Herr Hubert. The sets also look the part, proving rather more gothic than the program's usual period sets. 'Night of the Marionettes' thus reflects Supernatural as a whole: flawed, but worth watching.
'Night of the Marionettes' sees Gordon Jackson's Howard Lawrence recounting what happened when he sailed from England in 1882 with his wife and daughter and they stayed in a strange inn on their way to the Vila Diodati. On discovering that Mary Shelley, Lord Byron and the others stayed there on their own trip to the famous house, he wonders if events in the nearby village inspired Frankenstein and soon discovers that this is indeed the case when he and his family watch Herr Hubert's puppet show featuring life-size marionettes - one of which looks suspiciously like a certain famous literary monster.
'Night of the Monsters' is deeply macabre, from the revelation that the performers have their marionettes kill people and then resurrect them to create more marionettes, to the unexpected hint of father-daughter incest between Lawrence and Mary. The latter seems entirely gratuitous, adding little to the plot except to explain Elsbeth Lawrence's alcoholism, but it helps to make this the most horrific episode of the series. It doesn't quite work: the deliberately sinister marionette show is really well staged and directed (it helps that director Alan Cooke gets to shoot this sequence on film), but it's also quite lengthy, and thus smacks of padding. Having come up with an episode that pays homage to Frankenstein, Muller can't seem to work out how to conclude it satisfactorily, and it loses steam towards the end.
Nevertheless, the episode's striking visuals (in a series that rarely shows monsters, the Frankenstein's monster marionette works really well) ensure that it stands out, and as usual there is an impressive cast, with Jackson giving a fine performance and getting strong support from Kathleen Byron as Elsbeth and Pauline Moran as Mary. Vladek Sheybal is brilliantly cast as the sinister Herr Hubert. The sets also look the part, proving rather more gothic than the program's usual period sets. 'Night of the Marionettes' thus reflects Supernatural as a whole: flawed, but worth watching.