S01E04

Easily the best episode of Jekyll to date, this fourth instalment takes the bold move of halting the central narrative of the series to run through earlier events.

The amusing first meeting at a dinner party between Tom and Claire is particularly well played out, with Gina Bellman far more at ease with this material. The flirtatious aspect of Claire, hiding Tom’s shoes to secure his later bedroom advances, harks back to her role in Coupling, also written by Steven Moffat.

A strong sense of moral ambiguity gives the show an extra edge, as we’re now rooting for Hyde to make an appearance and slaughter the nasty thugs who terrorised Claire in front of Tom with an ice cream of all things. The impotence of Tom is neatly juxtaposed with the virile nature of Hyde, who effectively becomes a vigilante crusader for a period, rather than just the bad guy. There’s also some much-needed gore to appeal to our primal blood-thirsty instincts too - which certainly ups the entertainment value in a series lacking bite so far.

The episode’s conclusion, picking up the cliffhanger from the third episode, neatly does the job of generating suspense back in the present chain of events. Here’s hoping Jekyll continues the recent improvement…