Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Year Of The Rabbit’ On IFC, Where Matt Berry Plays A Victorian-Era Detective Who Needs Lots Of Help

Matt Berry has made a career of playing self-important blowhards. Sometimes that works (What We Do In The Shadows) and sometimes it doesn’t (Toast Of London). But in Year Of The Rabbit, Berry has a cast around him that makes Berry’s blowhard character at least a little toned down, which always helps. Read on for more…

YEAR OF THE RABBIT: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A man in what looks to be an interrogation room is accosted by a detective. “WHERE’S THE GIRL?” the detective screams. “I told you, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” The detective slams the man’s head on the table. “I’ll tell you anything! Just make it stop!” says the man.

The Gist: Turns out that the detective, Metropolitan Police DI Rabbit (Matt Berry), is lecturing a class of little kids on “What a cop does all day,” and the person he just beat up was their teacher. “Now, who wants to see how we fish opium out of sailors’ assholes?” he asks, and everyone’s hands shoot up. Mind you, we’re in Victorian-era London.

That’s basically Rabbit’s way of doing things; never halfway. But he’s been running afoul of his boss, Chief Inspector Wisbech (Alun Armstrong), and Wisbech decides to give the rogue detective with the nasty heart condition a young partner, Wilbur Strauss (Freddie Fox). Also barging into the chief’s office looking to become a female copper, or “fopper,” is his adopted daughter Mabel (Susan Wokoma). She hopes to be more than the highest a woman can go in law enforcement, which is “strangled girl in fog.”

A young girl’s body gets dragged out of the river, having been shot twice. The virginal Strauss keeps obsessing over how pretty the corpse is, and Rabbit’s archenemy, DI Tanner (Paul Kaye), declares the murderer to be a guy wearing a blue hat to match her blue gloves. But both Rabbit, and Mabel, who is also interested, know there’s more to it. Rabbit tries to school the young detective that London is “a rat eating its own babies… babies made of shit.” All Strauss wants to know is where Rabbit’s right eyebrow went. “The dog chewed it off last year,” Rabbit tells him.

Despite Wisbech’s satisfaction with Tanner’s resolution of the case, Rabbit looks to find out the truth. His sources — including the Elephant Man — lead him to a burlesque show, where a woman he calls “French Lady” is scandalously showing her ankles. When the vicar that he sees at both the crime scene and the burlesque club gets his throat slashed, he assumes “French Lady” did both murders. But Mabel finds the symbol on the compact found on the body, it matches the symbol of a “secret society,” in her opinion. But when the murderer is really caught (during the chase, Rabbit asks both Strauss and Mabel to punch him in the chest to get his heart started again), both Rabbit and Strauss dismiss that theory as “complete bullshit.”

Our Take: Year Of The Rabbit‘s co-creators Kevin Cecil and Andy Riley (VEEP) have a way with a scathing throwaway line, and Matt Berry has a way to deliver that line with all the seriousness of a Shakespearean thespian, which is why the combination of the three of them make this show refreshingly focused on story as well as gags.

Berry provided “added material” to this series, as the credits state, but he’s not its most creative force, which is fine with us; we loved him in What We Do In The Shadows, but not so much in Toast Of London. When given the right material, Berry’s comedic over-the-top performance strikes the perfect tone, but when given wackier material. That’s what we see here; Rabbit thinks he’s the grittiest, most accomplished DI in the Met, and everyone else around him is either stupid or naive. But because he’s playing against the actually-naive Strauss and the super-ambitious Mabel, Berry’s more outlandish instincts are tempered just enough to make Rabbit a prick we can root for.

It also helps that the “secret society” Mabel found actually exists, giving us a continuing story that’ll underpin Rabbit and company’s weekly investigations. What we hope to see are more fun sight gags like the urchin hawking lungs on the street, as well as commentary on politicians and the rich that would be just as funny on a show set now as opposed to one set in Victorian times. To be sure, in a show like this some of the gags and commentary will fall flat, but because the ratio of good to bad jokes is at least even if not better, then the show is off to a good start.

Sex and Skin: Rabbit and Strauss see the naked corpse of the girl in the morgue, complete with a massive mound of pubic hair. “Good lord, I can see her McFluffies, and we’ve revealed her lady pantry,” Strauss says with wonder.

Parting Shot: A woman (Keeley Hawes) in a room containing the symbol Mabel found tells someone on the phone to follow Rabbit, Strauss and Mabel, then kill them.

Sleeper Star: Wokoma may be the one who ultimately keeps us watching this show. Mabel delivers lines like, “I’m not the one with an erection, Sergeant Fucksacorpse” with such gusto it’s fun to watch.

Most Pilot-y Line: “We can’t arrest you if you keep running!” Strauss says to more than one perp. Fun joke once, but not twice.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Year Of The Rabbit has Berry hitting the right comedic notes, helped by a funny supporting cast and a setting that’s always ripe for comedy.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.

Stream Year Of The Rabbit On IFC.com