Hooten & the Lady

Having been a fan of Michael Landis for a long time I was pleased to see that he had another series coming up. I recorded the first episode and watched it with my beloved wife. She summed it up in one of our family's time honoured phrases, "Another guilty pleasure!" HatL stands in the archaeologist tradition of Indiana Jones but is more closely allied with the Michael Douglas motion pictures begun with "Romancing the Stone": boorish adventurer with a heart of gold teams with a snooty, wealthy and very beautiful woman join forces to find lost artifacts. The secret ingredient in HatL is the dynamic interplay between the two lead actors, and the brilliant writing. The crisp dialogue is always refreshing. And it is laugh-out-loud funny! We love it and hope you might too.

This was really good! Why would they cancel something that lots of people clearly enjoy. It had everything, a bit of love interest, adventure, comedy the lot. So annoyed.

Lady Alex Lindo-Parker (Ophelia Lovibond) convinces her bosses at the British Museum to fund an Amazon expedition to find the lost Victorian explorer Percy Fawcett last seen in 1925. She is captured by natives along with treasure hunter Ulysses Hooten (Michael Landes). They escape and find Fawcett's map to the legendary city of Z. They would continue to have many adventures retrieving lost artifacts.

This has the Romancing the Stone vibe. Lovibond and Landes have a solid combative romantic chemistry. There is a bit of exotic with the locations. The production is relatively good. With more money, it could really take off. On the other hand, the show has structural problems. The fact that the two leads aren't together means that the show has to construct various reasons to pull them together every week. It has to waste ten minutes out of every episode to make up an excuse for them to join forces. It would have been so much easier if the pilot has Hooten arrested and part of his parole is to help the Lady retrieve artifacts for the museum. There is also very little need for the museum people. The boyfriend is useful but he should be jettisoned at the end of the first season. The show doesn't last that long and is canceled after eight episodes.

I thought about giving a 9, then why not 10 out of 10. I was also saddened to see reviews which thought this series "rubbish" & went further to pick the cast etc to pieces. I understand everyone is different & free to express their opinion, but what about "if you have nothing nice to say, why say it at all". May I say I love this series immensely. The way the characters bounce off each other in dialogue, the very British upper lip, the scenery, the story line all make for pure & simple entertainment which has me engrossed, smiling, happy & content for the entire program. It's sheer fun & that's what I'm sure the directors were out to achieve, no sinister nail biting high blood pressure drama to have you dangling off the edge of your seat. Lighten up people & enjoy this for what it is.

New thing on Sky1 with Indiana Jones like treatment...its good fun. Much better than so much crap on TV right now.

The cast is good and production values are right there with good U.S TV Series.

Story lines in first 5 episodes are also good and kept me engaged.

I am not looking for anything more from any of the TV series and this fits my bill at least.

So in conclusion, its worth a watch if you are also into exploring new series like me.

Sid