Review: Lost Girl – Season 1 / Cert: 15 / Director: Various / Screenplay: Various / Starring: Anna Silk, Kris Holden-Reid, Ksenia Solo, Richard Howland, Zoie Palmer / Release Date: Out Now
The people she feeds on may die with a smile on their face, but otherwise well-meaning succubus Bo (Silk) has her work cut out pleasing everybody in this first season of Lost Girl. New in town, she comes to the attention of the neighbourhood supernaturals when she sucks the soul out of a would-be rapist attempting to molest light-fingered punkette Kenzi (Solo), who immediately becomes her adoring sidekick. Having been raised by foster parents, she has no idea what she is or that there is such a thing as Fae. ‘An evolutionary branch that predates on humans’ (as one character explains), the Fae are split into clans, breeds and, most importantly, into Light and Dark. Custom demands that Bo should pledge her allegiance to one or the other, but instead she decides to be a free agent, beholden to none, and with only a push-up bra between her and all kinds of lurking dangers.
Taking advantage of her maverick status to go to places other Fae can’t, she sets herself up as a supernatural PI. Helping out with some of the legwork is her on-off boyfriend, woolly-chinned werewolf cop Dyson (Holden-Reid). Along the way, she encounter furies, banshees, body-jumping spirits, carrion-feeders and headless mercenaries, and learns more about her own powers and mysterious past.
The tone is for the most part bubbly, with Whedon-esque episodes about spookily cheerful sororities and country clubs exploiting illegal immigrants, and non-stop wisecracks courtesy of Kenzi (“How about we make a deal we won’t kill where we shop?” she suggests when Bo eyes up a tasty-looking dude at the local hardware store). Later on, the season takes a darker turn as secrets eat away at Bo’s relationship with Dyson, and edge of another kind is provided by her sexual omnivorousness – in particular, her thing with Lauren, the icily reserved human doctor who works for the Light.
Silk, with her everyday looks and gym-toned body, is more athletic soccer mom than sultry succubus – which is either a clever sidestepping of cliché or a sign of somewhat less than top drawer casting, depending on your point of view. Nor is there a whole lot of sex appeal in her romantic entanglement with Dyson (is it just us, or do those ginger face curls make him a dead ringer for The Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz?). Such things hardly matter, though, thanks to the strength of the scripts. Show creator M.A. Lovretta knows how to have fun with all kinds of folkloric-mythic paraphernalia without letting it get out of hand and tip into absurdity. If you’re a fan of the urban fantasy novels of Jasmine Galenorn and the like, this is a box set to devour without guilt or hesitation.
Extras: None
