The Series
The stories in Inside No 9 are interesting, and begin in the normal, daily world we all know, yet slowly they lift the veil to reveal a darker side, and seedy underbelly, and the hint of evil contained in everyone.
Inside No 9 is a look at a few snippets of the world, with a feel of series such as The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits. An interesting series that you can watch as and when you wish, in small bites, or a whole bunch of episodes at once.
Sardines
The ensemble cast of characters all seem a bit out of place, playing a childhood game, and reminiscing about days gone by, with the occasional intrusion of adult life. However, things are heading for a surprising twist.
Sardines, enjoyable, in the fact, that the characters are out of place, in the forced world of their childhood games, with the situation leading to a few of those British laughs.
Quiet Night In
Starting off with the feeling of a French Farce, this soon sprinkles in some British humour. By quiet, they mean, no talking, no dialogue, crafted right down to the point of you thinking it’s ridiculous, and just as you think that, they change things up and the whole plot gets twisted. Another roller-coaster of like and hate.
Tom & Gerri
A look at who we are, and our realities. The life we live, and the life we invent to allow us to cope. Once again, a short plot, full of twists and turns, misleading, foreshadowing. And right at the very end, we realise we were far from predicting the story.
Last Gasp
Greed, how far will we go? And then, what remains once we have carried out a most despicable act, and then lose our grip on that we sold our soul to obtain? A story of just such an act of scheming.
The Understudy
Misguided loyalties, misdirection, and not knowing who to trust. A story of ulterior motives, and while it seems to have far reaching consequences, the stage is well contained.
The Harrowing
How quickly the innocent can turn to something foul and evil. A small favour, a little job, and those who are naive to the world can be so quickly corrupted.
Disc And Bonus Features
The disc is encoded at a decent bitrate, however there are places where you can see the results of compression, likely from adding so much data to a single disc. Sound is good, but there is not use of the surrounds. A Pro-Logic system would help the viewer, but more is not really needed for the material at hand.
There is a short featurette by the writers and director on creating the series, with some further insight into the intent behind the series, and the acting / creative methodology behind their vision.
Inside No 9 is available now for purchase in South Africa.
