This TV series was one that immediately caught my attention when I saw it advertised. The whole premise was an intriguing one, with a dead body being found by four different detectives…in four different time periods. I’ve always been interested in fiction that’s a little bit out of the ordinary, so this immediately piqued my interest.
I did think that all four of the time periods were really well-developed. It was very unclear how the storyline all fit together, though, and at first my working theory was that the body had been dropped by aliens. Since the series was advertised as being science fiction, I figured that at least was an explanation that made sense…though I still didn’t know how the same naked body, with a bullet wound in his eye (and no bullet in his skull) had cropped up in four different places.
The series was set in four different time periods: 1890, 1941, 2023 and 2053. Despite the large gap between all four of the time periods, they each felt as ‘real’ as the others. While I was watching the series, I didn’t feel like all of this had already happened…even when Shahara finds the old case files that indicate the body’s appeared twice before. The switching between the four different timelines didn’t really feel confusing at all…and I was able to form an emotional connection with each of the main characters and what was going on in their personal lives, as well as dealing with the mystery of the body that had suddenly appeared.
Real representation is something that is sadly lacking in so many films, TV series, books, etc. When I first started watching Bodies, I wasn’t expecting to connect to the four main characters…and even a couple of the minor characters…on a deep and emotional level. However, the forbidden love story between Alfred Hillinghead (the detective from 1890) and Henry Ashe (a journalist from the same time period) was done so extremely well that I’m still thinking about it a few weeks after finishing the whole series. Given that in 1890, homosexuality was treated much worse than it is now (and society is still not perfect now), seeing these two come together and develop feelings for each other, in spite of everything going on…and against the backdrop of the rest of the plot…was really powerful. And there was a deep connection between Hillinghead and the main ‘villain’ of the series.
In the 2053 timeline, with Iris Maplewood as the detective who finds the body, it’s clear that something devastated the world back in 2023. There’s a news story where survivors of whatever happened talk about the effects of it…of the world going dark. And as Iris’ storyline develops, it’s obvious that she too feels the effects of whatever occurred back then. When she meets her brother, he’s in a wheelchair…and it transpires that Iris herself wouldn’t have the ability to walk if it wasn’t for a piece of technology called a SPINE.
Throughout all four of the timelines, there’s a mysterious shadowy organisation that seems to be behind a lot of what’s going on. Those involved in the organisation greet each other with the phrase, ‘Know you are loved,’ which is also used as a codephrase. This organisation is around even in 2053, with Iris being employed by them. But their whole purpose and reason for actually being around isn’t made clear until the last couple of episodes of the series.
Shahara Hasan, the detective from 2023, is a really big focal point of the series, something that doesn’t become obvious until towards the end. She was an easily relatable and likable character who clearly wanted to do right for the two young men who were caught up in everything that was going on. When she went under the table to talk to Elias, who was so clearly an abandoned, frightened person in need of someone who loved him, that was a really powerful scene.
On the whole, I did think this series was really well done. It was a ‘limited’ series (which in Netflix’s terms means a ‘short’ series), but I felt that I was able to get to know about and care about the characters. All four of the detectives had their own lives, families and problems going on outside of the dead body they’d found…which was actually only a small snapshot of what was actually going on in the series.
I watched all eight episodes of this series in one day…and I would definitely watch a series two, if one was made. If you’re a fan of science fiction, I’d say that this series is definitely worth watching. By the end, things do make sense and are connected together…and there’s a lot more going on than just a random dead body showing up in four different time periods.
Ink of Blood 