Atlantis: Review: Series 1 Episode 8: The Furies

Hercules accepts a job to take a chest across the desert to Helios, and Pythagoras’ brother comes along…

As has been pointed out before, the stronger parts of Atlantis are the political machinations going on in the palace, while the three lads go about having not particularly comic adventures. This week, there’s a bit of a change around: there are no scenes whatsoever in the palace, and the comedy is toned town between Hercules, Pythagoras and Jason.

It doesn’t really work a lot better. It’s not helped by focusing on some very weak secondary characters, whom we’re suddenly meant to believe have fallen in love and some out-of-left-field character “development”. We need the palace scenes!

I’ve bemoaned the lack of attention on Pythagoras, and it’s fair to say that there is some movement on that score in this episode – but this should be building on some dark secret that he’s occasionally made reference to previously… not in a meeting with the Oracle at the top of the episode! We suddenly learn that he’s responsible for the death of someone close to him (and let’s be honest: did anyone not see where this was going the minute that the Furies were summoned?) which apparently has been preying on his mind for a very long time.

Verdict: Some decent location work doesn’t disguise the fact that this feels like an early draft script pressed into service. 5/10

Paul Simpson