Luke Owen reviews the second episode of Channel 4’s The Mimic…
Remember last week when I said I had high hopes for this series? Well, I don’t think I do anymore.
The Mimic’s laugh-free second episode stunned me by just how poorly thought through this possibly good idea is. Because the comedy is down-played, you’re not clued in to whether what is happening on screen is comedy or just a really boring character study.
Martin is still living his bland life but is looking for some form of love. His new best friend, who he met last week doing a (poor) Al Pacino impression, has just started Internet dating (leading to one of the episode’s lamer jokes) and he encourages Martin to do the same – especially now that housemate Jean has a new boyfriend. On top of that, his relationship with his son is taken to new levels as they both realise they’re living lie-filled lives and that Martin’s “talent” could make him some money.
But while all of this is good character and story development, the show’s biggest issue is that Terry Mynott’s impressions just aren’t that good. I said last week that anyone can do a half-decent Schwarzenegger but it seems that I was wrong. The opening of the episode has Mynott pretending to be a famous actor on a sex line but you couldn’t work out who he was doing until he showed us by looking at his IMDB profile. If you’re going to do a Christopher Walken impression, at least do crazy Walken (like Batman Returns Walken) as that’s the most recognisable of his voices.
And while his impressions are key to the show falling apart, the poor writing for cheap laughs is even worse. This week’s episode only contained two obvious scenes intended to get a laugh out of its audience and it failed in both attempts. The aforementioned Internet dating gag was set up to early on for crude humour. See if you can spot where the gag will be – “I will never make you come to a football game” – not that hard is it? Hilarious. The second comes (no pun intended) from Jean’s new boyfriend Jesse who tells Martin blatantly that he interrupted them having sex while the camera reveals that he is half erect. This joke could have been funny, if I’d not seen a repeat of Peep Show the night before which did the exact same gag so much better.
The Mimic fails on both levels it’s trying to achieve. It’s not funny and it doesn’t showcase any impressionistic talent. Against my better judgement, I am going to stick with the show because I do think that setting a sitcom around an impressionist is a great idea, but it’s going to have to do something pretty special next week to keep hold of me.
Luke Owen is one of the co-editors of Flickering Myth and the host of the Flickering Myth Podcast. You can follow him on Twitter @CGLuke_o.
Originally published March 21, 2013. Updated November 6, 2019.
