Review: Lost Girl – Season 2 / Cert: 15 / Director: Various / Screenplay: Various / Starring: Anna Silk, Kris Holden-Reid, Ksenia Solo, Richard Howland, Zoie Palmer, Lina Roessler / Release Date: September 9th
Lost Girl established itself in its first season as a go-to show for fans of paranormal romance and urban fantasy. Its heroine, Bo (Silk), is a succubus with a heart of gold caught between the forces of the Light and Dark Fae but unwilling to commit to either. This position has its perils, but it enables her to go to places other Fae can’t, and so she does, with the assistance of a small but hardy band of friends and helpers.
The second season pretty much picks up where the first one left off. In her day job as a private eye, Bo investigates another slew of supernatural cases: cracking down on the trade in Mongolian death worms, locating a gun-wielding street artist, tracking down a villain who’s been busted out of jail by a bunch of Fae exotic dancers and taking on an ancient Egyptian resurrectionist with a fondness for ballet. Meanwhile, there are romantic entanglements aplenty. Bo’s on-off boyfriend, Dyson (Holden-Reid), has had his ability to love Bo magically sucked from his body, but there’s a welcome distraction for him in the form of old flame Ciara (Roessler). In turn, the bi-curious Bo tries cuddling up to cute Doctor Lauren (Palmer) for comfort, but she has baggage of her own, and besides, Bo’s bestie Kenzi (Solo) gets jealous when Lauren hogs all of Bo’s attention.
Its unusually unjudgemental and grown-up attitude towards sexuality is Lost Girl‘s key strength, the thing that makes it stand out from the pack. Throw in sharp, catty scripts from a largely female writers’ room and good performances from an unconventional cast (neither Silk nor Palmer are what you would call TV pretty, but there’s a crackling on-screen chemistry between them), and it’s easy to see why the show has its devoted fans.
Where Season 2 disappoints, though, is in the area of spectacle. Lost Girl was never an expensive-looking series, but this time round signs of a rapidly dwindling budget are all over the place. At one point, Bo’s pals hide in terror from a cohort of goons who have come to slay them, but we have to take their presence for granted as there is no cut-away shot to show us what they look like. The season finale is particularly underwhelming: it promises a reckoning with an all-powerful demonic creature, mightier than the Fae, but this turns out to be some greaseball in a cheap suit waving a naff CGI flaming sword. Even the Dal Riata, the pub where everyone who’s anyone in Lost Girl hangs out for a pint, isn’t immune from the cost-cutting: it grows emptier and emptier as the budget for extras seems to have been slashed. A shame… but we’ll still be coming back for Seasons 3 and 4.
Extras: None
