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The award may come as something of an embarrassment for BBC Three and its controller Zai Bennett because The Fades was cancelled after just one series due to budget cut backs at the digital station.
The axe was despite The Fades receiving decent ratings and good reviews – ATV Today’s critic Queenie Le Trout wrote several favourable reviews of the series.The Fades managed to beat BBC One‘s critically acclaimed spy drama Spooks, ITV‘s popular Scott and Bailey and E4 series Misfits.
The first season of British supernatural drama The Fades is a blend of teen angst, family dynamics, and the paranormal. A mix that may not seem to make much sense on paper, but one that Skins veteran and The Fades creator and writer, Jack Thorne, understand well. Thorne’s experience with both teenagers and their relationships with their families is certainly his strong suit, and by introducing supernatural elements, the series achieves a nice balance that lends all aspects more depth—and higher stakes.
The premise of the series rests on the concept of Fades, dead souls that have for some reason stayed in a limbo state among the living without being able to interact with them. To play off of the Fades, Angelics are also a key element to the series, as they are those rare people who can actually see Fades. The main conflict revolves around the two sides struggling to understand each other and their efforts do what each side believes is the right thing for both humanity and the spirit world.
Paul (Iain de Caestecker) is 17 years old and an Angelic, and his dramatic introduction into the world of the Fades sets the entire season in motion. As Paul is drawn into this supernatural world, those closest to him are also affected: his best friend, Mac (Daniel Kaluuya), a motormouth movie obsessive; his twin sister and polar opposite, Anna (Lily Loveless), popular and embarrassed by Paul’s social ineptitude; his understanding mother, Meg (Claire Rushbrook); and Jay (Sophie Wu), Anna’s best friend and Paul’s crush.
It just doesn’t seem right watching Natalie Dormer act in contemporary clothing, let alone with her natural blond hair.
“I do quite a lot contemporary stuff,” Dormer told me, laughing, during a phone interview from London, “but the American audience perhaps wouldn’t know me so well for that.”
What Americans do know the British actress for is her role as the brunette Anne Boleyn in “The Tudors,” Showtime’s bodice-ripping take of the lives and wives of 16th century British King Henry VIII. BBC America currently airs repeats of that series on Wednesdays, but fans can see the modern, blond Dormer in the network’s horror-comedy mashup “The Fades,” in which she plays Sarah, a ghost-fighting “angelic.”
Without spoiling—the network airs the fourth of six episodes at 8 p.m. Feb. 4 (but I recommend you find them and start from the beginning; my review here)—Dormer’s character is put through the wringer.
“I got a great kick out of this show because it was so physically demanding,” Dormer said. “A lot of extreme stuff happens, without giving too much away, we all had ash being blown in our faces or were covered in goo and glue or had to deal with peculiar, extreme physical situations.”
Dormer dons period costumes again for her role in Season 2 of HBO’s fantasy hit “Game of Thrones,” which begins April 1. She finished filming in December, but did not want to reveal too much about her character, Margaery Tyrell. Like Sarah in “The Fades,” practically anything you say about Margaery is a spoiler.
Awkward teen Paul sees dead people. So what, right?
As you begin to read this review of BBC America’s “The Fade,” (8 p.m. Jan. 14, BBC America; 3.5 stars out of 4), you’re likely going to shrug, thinking you’ve seen plenty of ghost stories, not to mention TV shows and movies about teen outcasts trying to fit in and/or get lucky.
You haven’t seen “The Fades.”
Created by Jack Thorne (British versions of “Skins” and “Shameless”), this six-part horror series skillfully crosses “Superbad” with “The Sixth Sense” and just a drop of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” It’s a funny, creepy, touching thriller that had me laughing one second and peeking between my fingers the next.
When Paul (Iain De Caestecker) witnesses a dying woman and a man attacked by an inhuman creature with a tongue that would make KISS frontman Gene Simmons jealous, he’s so freaked out he can’t even tell his best friend, sex- and “Star Wars”-obsessed Mac (Daniel Kaluuya), what he saw.
