Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators (TV Series) See Thyself, Devil! (2020) User Reviews

Very, very good episode.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 8/10 · 4 February 2020]

Former band front man Tony King calls on Frank and Lu for help, believing satanic forces operated a tractor and attempted to kill him.

I preferred this to the series opener, I really liked the story, characters and the more gritty content, a rock singer of course adds a bit of oomph to a story. Great to have Gloria back, she added to the plot, adding some important content.

Quite a dark scene with The Vicar running out of The Church having seen that sinister figure appear.

David Schofield is always good value, he's fun as the purple lensed sunglasses wearing rock singer. Sebastian was very funny, The Master of disguise.

I am so glad they decided to tidy Frank up, and give him a decent haircut.

Particularly good, 8/10.

Old Rockers

[wjspears · 8/10 · 30 August 2021]

Mystery shows about "over the hill" celebrities--particularly rock stars--tend to follow the same storyline and character arcs.

The old rock stars can barely put together a complete sentence. They either always have a drink in their hand, or they have cleaned themselves up--about a decade too late. Their egos tend to be enormous, and if there is a reunion of old members in the episode, there will be old jealousies and unresolved issues that crop up to complicate the investigation.

The clichés write themselves, and can, frankly, drag an episode down. Thankfully, that is not what happens here.

David Schofield as the old rocker, Tony King, is a good blend of quirky and endearing, with a star-struck Hathaway being fun to watch and a skeptical Shakespeare an even bigger hoot.

The mystery itself is not terribly hard to guess, but that is usually the case with this show. It is the journey to the solution that makes Shakespeare & Hathaway enjoyable, and this is an enjoyable entry in the series.

See Thyself, Devil!

[Prismark10 · 6/10 · 5 February 2020]

It could had been the story of Black Sabbath.

Tony King is a 'has been' lead singer of the heavy metal rock group Caliban' s Claw now engaged on the comeback trail. However he has visions of the devil.

Tony is convinced that the devil is out to get him, because the band members once signed a deal with the devil in blood in exchange for fame and fortune.

Frank and Luella are asked to investigate. Gloria returns has she had a past history with a band member. Another former band member now a vicar also sees a vision with fatal consequences.

This was not as good as the series 3 opener. Probably because I knew early on who the suspect was going to be. There were still creepy elements when the devil popped up. It really was filmed like a Hammer horror film.

For an afternoon show, the writer managed to get away with a fair amount of innuendo as Frank was a fan of the band:

Frank: "Caliban's Claw was the single most important rock band of my youth." Luella: "Yeah, you said, you wore out your 7-inch." Frank: "12-inch." Luella "Ha, if you say so."

Lovely play on the old clichés

[Little_C · 7/10 · 6 February 2020]

Loved (as an old rocker) the play on the perpatual desire for a come back.

Shame they didn't do a heavier outtro, just to tie into the theme of the episode.

Look both ways before... you know

[volare12 · 3/10 · 24 August 2022]

I love Shakespeare and Hathaway, so I hate to say it, but: "See Thyself Devil" is really not a good episode. The aging-rock-star-making-a-comeback trope has been done to death - it's been on virtually every British mystery show, and this series' contribution adds nothing new or noteworthy into the mix. It's evident pretty much from the outset who the culprit will turn out to be, and guess what? Why, it's another unrecognized person come back to avenge a slight committed against a family member years earlier! - a plot device S & H has already squeezed dry in previous seasons.

This time the rockstar, whose name is Tony King, is seeing bizarre and threatening visions of the devil (in the form of a black beast), and is convinced he's doomed unless Frank and Lu can get to the bottom of what's going on. The only actual death that occurs, though, happens in a silly scene in which a former member of King's band, now a vicar, sees the same "devil" behind the altar of his church, and goes running, screaming, out into the street where he promptly gets hit by a bus just as Frank and Lu are arriving to talk to him. (At least Tony has an excuse for his hallucinatory perceptions, seemingly being in a drug addled state much of the time, but the sober vicar surely should be able to tell that the thing behind the altar is just a person in a costume, because THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE. I mean, come on...)

The whole story is very lackluster. David Schofield does give a good performance as Tony, his face looking suitably almost as craggy as Keith Richards', but the character is an idiot and a jerk so it's difficult to care about him, and Hathaway behaving like a fanboy gets annoying. Ginny Holder is usually fun to watch, but she's also saddled with a cliché role here: the publicist who is motivated only by dollar signs. The other few guest actors barely register since their characters aren't interesting. I'll give three stars, only because Gloria gets a substantial part and a good backstory to boot, and because Sebastian gets one of his funnier undercover disguises (even though it's not really clear why he's needed). But mostly, this one's a no-go.

Corner, weak plot line, sad

[rapadgettra · 4/10 · 24 March 2021]

Some of the episodes are pretty good, not this one.