In some ways I agree to the previous review, but one has to remember that everything is relative. Compared to the next two episodes this one is pretty good, I enjoyed it greatly. I am not a specialist, so I cannot judge if the whole affair with an exotic frog poison was reflected truly enough or not, but to me it all looked very convincing. This episode is marked with some very specific characters, which MM lacks sometimes. Isolde is a very interesting character, a little bit unstable, a little bit obsessed, engaged in some very bizarre relationship with Simon whose uncle-father Aloysius is also an interesting participant. On the whole and considered in the row of series this one is not so bad. But I can agree in one point: the investigation is not strengthened here, we know very little about the victims, the culprit turns up very rarely during the film and towards the middle of it one starts losing the thread of the plot. The personality of the murderer is very poorly reflected, unlike of some other characters, Tristan looks as a pale shadow and is almost imperceptible behind such strong personalities like his sister or his father. And the motives of his serious deeds also seem at least unconvincing, his passion for his mother didn't make an impression that he could kill even his own father for her, and I also gained an impression that he had committed the murders almost mechanically. Psycology - that's what MM lack very much! Still, this episode is not as bad as it could have been!
Review of The Magician's Nephew
