Metropolis
Screen Caps from "Metropolis"
Screen Caps from 2nd episode of "Metropolis"
Screen Caps from 3rd episode of "Metropolis"
Order Metropolis from Blackstar
This is a tense and darkly funny thriller following the complex lives of six university friends now struggling to find their adult selves in the frantic landscape of contemporary London.
Egos collide as Matthew (Matthew Rhys), a dope-smoking drop-out, continually vies for the upper hand with his ambitious and career-hungry girlfriend Charlotte (Louise Lombard) - especially when she starts a passionate affair with 62 year-old billionaire businessman Milton Friedkin (James Fox).
Tanya (Emily Bruni), a bright, young agony aunt is cut from the wreckage of a car and must put the pieces of her life back together when a handsome stranger (James Purefoy) suddenly walks into her life.
Frank (Kris marshall) is making the most of a dead-end career as an insurance assessor by acting as the Robin Hood of claims and defrauding his company for the benefit of his claimants.
Charlotte's best friend Sophie (Flora Montgomery) weaves a precarious path through the mercenary politicians scheming behind closed doors at Westminster.
While Alistair (Jason Barry) a loveable, charming but increasingly tragic character, has plans for fame, which go desperately wrong when he has himself admitted to celebrity rehab clinic The Cloisters.
The themes of sexual intrigue, substance abuse, friendship, love and betrayal are central to the lives of these young Londoners and the chaotic, emotional drama of Metropolis.
Shot on location in London this sharp series is underpinned by the darkly wicked wit of writer Peter Morgan (Marth - Meet Frank, Daniel and Lawrence; Micky Love and Shapinsky's Karma). Metropolis was developed, produced and directed by Glenn Wilhide (The Royle Family and the Camomile Lawn).
The Observer/The Guardian
May 7, 2000
Kathryn Flett
Metropolis, on the other hand, is quite an extraordinary piece of garbage. After watching the first two episodes, I thought I'd better make sure that this really was as bad as it appeared to be by watching the remaining six in one sitting.
By the end, I was nostalgic for the beginning, when things had merely looked crass and heavy-handed in an amusing sort of way, rather than exasperatingly, enragingly, depressingly and expensively crass and heavy-handed. Metropolis was written by Peter Morgan, who was responsible for the charmless romantic comedy Martha, Meet Frank, Daniel and Lawrence. Morgan had obviously used up too many first names in one go, so in the sparklingly-titled Metropolis, he reprises a Frank, this time giving it to his (dyed but meant to be real) red-headed character, an insurance- claims inspector whose pudding-basin hairdo starts off bright copper before a brief phase of dirty blondness, ending up gleaming and burnished again, like a Burne-Jones babe. But, frankly, tonsorial continuity was the least of Frank's problems - somewhere behind being completely and utterly redundant plotwise. But then he's not alone in that.
As in Hearts and Bones, Metropolis revolves around the lives of six former college friends muddling along together, preparing to knock loudly on the door of 30 shouting: 'Let me in, I'm a grown-up', but wondering quite why they've bothered staying friends. Apparently - and here's the science bit - six is the perfect number of characters for an ensemble comedy drama-cum-thriller-thing: enough to cover the bases vis-ý-vis beauty, brains and losers, but not so many that you forget their names or who's sleeping with whom. Unless it's Friends, of course, where no losers are ever allowed, so help them God. In Britain, however, everybody can be both a loser and loathsome. Though to be a loser and loathsome and clichÈd and unfunny as well is, I think, almost unforgivable. And to squander a bunch of young actors with everything professionally still to live for is clearly downright wicked.
There is a stalker character in Metropolis who is played so badly by James Purefoy that he should be grateful he has three distracting movies currently awaiting release. Portraying all-purpose psychosis, Purefoy adopts a terrifying, high-pitched, wheedling and eye-rolling routine which makes him look and as though he were auditioning to play Tinky Winky. And then there's Flora Montgomery as a Tory sleazebitchlet on the make, who is clearly very comfortable with non-gratuitous semi-nudity. Or, come to that, totally gratuitous semi-nudity. Unfortunately, even while wearing Agent Provocateur underwear, she smoulders like the young Princess Anne preparing to take a particularly exhilarating jump at Badminton.
Then there is James Fox who, very tragically - and at the age of, what? fifty- or sixtysomething? - is finally revealed to have been earning his living as an actor under completely false pretences for all these years. Wooden? The man arrived on set with instructions for self-assembly. Still, given that Fox's character is a billionaire, patrician financier called, er, Milton Friedkin, who lives in a hotel and owns all the gold in the world you can't really blame him. 'Arrr-harrr!' Milton tells his young lover at one point later in the series. 'Read the signs and everything falls into place.' This is advice the whole cast might have been advised to take to heart and bone.
Still, I think I may have to return to Metropolis in the next few weeks because I haven't yet had the opportunity to write about Gina Bellman, who this week crops up as an Armenian widow and seduces Frank. In the meantime, however, you can see the beautiful Ms Bellman on the front cover of Radio Times, right there alongside Hearts and Bones 's Amanda Holden and another of Metropolis 's feckless yoofs, Matthew Rhys. And Krishnan Guru-Murthy who, by some extraordinary oversight, has totally failed to land himself a part in a sensitivesomething comedy drama thriller series. Yet. Anyway, this week sees the start of yet another new sensitivesomething comedy drama series, on BBC 2. This one is called Coupling and, rather confusingly, stars Gina Bellman. And Jack Davenport, from This Life. I think I need a little lie down.
click on Graceland to go home