Why you should be watching BBC's 'Jekyll'

There are many reasons to not like the Brits. Their insistence on driving on the wrong side of the road is one. The fact that their accent makes the dimmest person sound positively brilliant is another. But the thing I hate most is that, by and large, their TV is light years ahead of ours. Take, for example, Jekyll. Done on a budget that would barely cover the catering on Heroes, this BBC series is a reinvention of the Jekyll-and-Hyde legend that crackles with wit, suspense, and genuine terror. No wonder the writer, Steven Moffat, was just hired by Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson to write their Tintin trilogy.

I dare you to watch the first four minutes of the pilot episode and not demand to see more.

See? That’s some mighty fine televisioning right there. (And, yes, that’s The Bionic Woman‘s Michelle Ryan, rocking her native brilliant-making accent.) The first season’s out on DVD, so get thee to a diskery!