Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Dead Still’ On Acorn TV, Where A Memorial Photographer Looks Into Murders In Victorian Dublin

Imagine having a job where you prop up embalmed dead people and take pictures of them, with their eyes open, with a view camera. That apparently was an actual job in Victorian times, and in an effort to show that a series can be created around any profession, a memorial photographer is at the center of the new Acorn TV series Dead Still. Read on for more.

DEAD STILL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: We see a close-up of a bearded man. Then we see him adjusting the pale hands of the subject he is about to photograph.

The Gist: Brock Blennerhasset (Michael Smiley) is a “memorial photographer” in Victorian-era Dublin; his profession is a relatively new one given how new photography was at the time, and many people think it’s weird as hell. Basically, he poses dead people, with their eyes open, to sit for a portrait before they’re buried. He’s so good with the cosmetics and the posing that, when they’re families are in the shot, it’s hard to tell which person is alive and which is dead.

We see him taking the picture of a deceased young woman with her family; they take the wedding ring off her finger and give it to Blennerhasset because they don’t acknowledge her marriage. As he’s leaving their home, his driver Cecil Caruthers (Jimmy Smallhorne) accidentally drops a trunk on Blennerhasset’s foot. At home, recovering from the injury, he gets a visit from his niece Nancy (Eileen O’Higgins), who wants to go against her family wishes and become an actor. She agrees to help Blennerhasset out as he tries to continue his business, but there’s one problem: The plate from his last session went missing.

In the meantime Dublin Metropolitan Police detective Frederick Regan (Aidan O’Hare) is called to a murder scene where the victim is posed like a subject of one of Blennerhasset’s portraits, only this time with both his wrists slashed. He knows about Blennerhasset’s work, and he greets the photographer at the door when he arrives looking for the missing plate. There’s been a break-in, and Regan thinks the person who came in looking for a “souvenir” was the woman’s widower, a former convict. Regan then goes to Blennerhasset’s studio to look into that notion more, even though the photographer claims he was only looking for a lens cap.

When Conall Molloy (Kerr Logan), the gravedigger at the woman’s funeral and a fan of Blennerhasset’s work, comes to the photographer’s home looking to help him, the photographer puts him to work looking for the plate. As he goes through the list of rival photographers that Blennerhassett provided, he finds one tied up in his studio; apparently a madman came and asked to have a plate developed. When the rival directs him to Blennerhassett, the fun begins, involving Conall digging up the woman, a quick photo session with a stood-up casket, and some misdirection before calling the police.

When the police arrive, Det. Regan asks Blennerhassett about the two cases where the body is posed like they’re taking a memorial photograph. “Suicide isn’t my strong suit,” the photographer tells the cop, but that likely isn’t the end of their encounters.

Our Take: Dead Still, written by John Morton and Imogen Murphy, is one of those mystery series that’s trying to take a more lighthearted (in a dark kind of way) approach to the murder mystery genre. But instead of having a know-it-all detective like Sherlock Holmes cracking wise, the person being asked to help with Regan’s investigation does something that, unless you’re a photography historian, most people of today don’t even know existed.

The humor of this miniseries is going to come via the chemistry between the tired and somewhat mad Blennerhassett, his sharp-as-a-tack niece Nancy, and his earnest and trustworthy assistant Conall, with Regan’s more-determined-than-most cop in the mix. But none of this would work if Blennerhassett was a one-dimensional character. But we can see that he’s not. There’s some background that we need here, but it feels like we’re seeing a character who has been through the wringer in life and is just trying to ply his trade and his art in some fashion. He’s taken his previous skill as an undertaker and applied it to this relatively-new field of memorial photography, but he also knows that, with cameras getting easier to use, that might not last.

But a scene near the end of the first episode is very telling; after Nancy convinces him to hire Conall on as an assistant, Blennerhassett talks about the new blood in the studio to a wall of portraits of his late wife. So there is a story there of loss and being lost, which we hope will come out as Blennerhassett and his team helps Regan out with the investigation.

We’re just happy that a show that takes place during Victorian times has a sense of humor and an ability to weave together a complex story without completely putting its viewers to sleep.

Sex and Skin: Nothing yet.

Parting Shot: A drunk man stumbles into a study during a swank party. He sees a photo album full of photos of people whose wrists have been slashed and necks have been injured. Then he comes to the photo of the man Regan was investigating. A woman in the shadows says “You shouldn’t be here,” to which the man replies that he was looking for the bathroom. She creepily points to the bathroom and he leaves, the album behind his back.

Sleeper Star: We’d watch Eileen O’Higgins as Nancy all day. She’s smart, she wants to be her own person, and she seems to know how to stand up to her uncle to get him to actually let people into his life instead of using them.

Most Pilot-y Line: “It’s no sweat off my sack,” Regan says when Blennerhassett asks if he can go in and look for the lens cap. We guess it’s more colorful than the modern English curses, it feels like it was added just to throw in some saltiness into the dialogue.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Dead Still‘s mystery is just in its beginning stages in the first episode, but the chemistry between the three leads is readily apparent, and that will fuel the rest of the first season.

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 Dead Still On Acorn TV