Posted on: January 31, 2010 Posted by: Jay NeuFutur Comments: 0

Bonekickers was a single-series show that aired on the prime BBC station in 2008, and represents the next step in the evolution of Ashley Pharoah and Matthew Graham’s writing after Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes. The show itself is filled out by actors both veteran (Adrian Lester (Hustle) and Hugh Bonneville (The Emperor’s New Clothes) and relatively new (Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Spooks)), using each actor’s unique skills to make a realistic interplay that never seems forced or unbelievable.

Bonekickers is a show that links together a number of popular television and film foci, seeming like a blend of Bones, NCIS, and even National Treasure. This means that there are mysteries to be solved going back as far as the series’ first episode, “Army Of God”. In this episode, an Arab dirhem (coin) is found in England, a discovery that leads to a conspiracy linking together remaining members of the Knights Templar and evangelistic Christians. “Follow The Gleam”, the final episode of Bonekickers, ups the ante considerably. This is due to Dr. Gillian Magwilde (Julie Graham, of “Casualty” and “Harry”) risking eir professional career, life, and limb to find the legendary sword Excalibur.

Alongside the episodes, Acorn has placed an illuminating behind the scenes featurette in this box set that really gets at the nitty gritty of each episode, be it stunts, acting, or the mythology and history behind some of the team’s efforts.
With each subsequent set of releases by Acorn media, it seems as if they are getting ever closer to releasing DVD sets at around the same time that they hit shops in the United Kingdom. Where releases from shows across the pond were woefully inadequate a few years back, Acorn Media has done a tremendous job in the years since then in making sure that cultural phenomena like Bonekickers will be devoured by American audiences soon after the original finale date has passed.

Rating: 8.0/10

Bonekickers (DVD) / 2010 Acorn Media / 344 Minutes / http://www.acornmedia.com

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