The Cutprice Guignol

See, the thing about an anthology show like Inside No. 9 is that it’s going to create a plethora of different opinions. My favourites might not even break your top twenty (as you have all been kind enough to let me know), and yours wouldn’t get close to mine – with the sheer range of styles, genres, tropes, and stories IN9 takes on, it’s only natural that there are going to be some major differences of opinion.

All this to say: I know this is an unpopular opinion. I know a lot of people are going to disagree with me on this. And yet, I must admit it: I just don’t think The Twelve Days of Christine is very good.

There, I said it. Following an apparently-disconnected wander through twelve days in the life of Christine (Sheridan Smith), this has been one of the episodes I’ve been most looking forward to watching again. After engaging more with the Inside No. 9 community, I’ve seen how highly this one tends to rank in people’s favourites – when I first saw it, I was kind of underwhelmed by it, but watching it anew, I would surely see the mastery that so many people do, right?

I didn’t. I don’t. I still don’t really get why people love this episode as much as they do – which is not to say it’s a bad episode, by any means (there are very few actually bad episodes of the show, really). There are a few aspects of it I genuinely quite like, especially the more horror-driven sequences – the first time we see Reece Shearsmith’s character, looming in the dark, is genuinely effective, and, as someone who grew up on Some Mothers Do Have ‘Em, Michele Dotrice as Christine’s mum is a lovely treat. The scattered nods to the eventual twist are pretty well-seeded, and the episode has some rewatch value for that alone.

But this episode hinges on the twist that is undeniably tropey – Christine has actually been in a car accident, and the days we spend with her are nothing more than visions in the moments before her death. Now, I don’t have an issue with going back over well-worn tropes – there’s a reason that they were well-used enough to become tropes in the first place, and that’s usually because they really speak to people. But, for a show as inventive and creative as IN9, this is a decidedly muted and, dare I say, uninspired take on the story – to do a trope like this, the execution either needs to bring something new to the table or be so exceptionally polished as to make it worthwhile, and Twelve Days of Christine, for me, is neither.

The approach to this story, broken up into twelve days, leaves little room for subtlety, and, as a result, the writing comes off as pretty clunky and formulaic; in order to get the point across, the characters have to basically be announcing their plans via loudspeaker whenever they enter the frame, and I just don’t care for it. Sheridan Smith and Tom Riley (who plays her long-term partner) are both solid actors in their own right, but neither of them deliver anything that elevates the already-stale material. The final section, that takes place after the reveal of the twist, is too long and downright indulgent, reliant on getting us sincerely invested in these characters, and frankly, I just wasn’t. Inside No. 9 has some exceptionally good stories that hinge on big, impactful emotion – Merrily, Merrily being one of my favourites – so it’s not like this couldn’t have worked in the show’s format, rather than here, it just didn’t.

For me, at least, and I know a lot of people feel differently. If this episode ranks highly for you, I’d love to hear why, and if you’re an old misery-guts about it like me, you’re also welcome to back me up. Drop me a comment and let’s talk about it!

If you liked this article and want to see more stuff like it, please check out the rest of my Inside No. 9 reviews. I’d also love it if you would check out my horrible short story collection, and, if you’d like to support my work, please consider supporting me on Patreon!

(header image via IMDB)