A nun takes on a quest in an attempt to get an all-powerful AI to shut itself down.

I’m not sure my attempt to summarise the plot of Mrs Davis is going to be all that helpful.

Okay… so there’s something about the Knights Templar and the Holy Grail in Medieval France, and then Ben Chaplin turns up as a desert island castaway called Arthur Schrodinger (and yes, he does have a cat) who is rescued but is unaware that the world is now dominated by an AI called Mrs Davis. Meanwhile in a convent near Reno, a nun on horseback, called Simone (Betty Gilpin) is exposing fraudulent illusionists. But Mrs Davis (the AI) is fixated on her for some reason, and needs Simone to find the Holy Grail, but Simone is kidnapped by German Nazi bikers and then rescued by her old boyfriend who is leading the resistance against the AI from under a giant rock, however Simone is now married to Jesus (and not just metaphorically) who runs a down-at-heel diner with no customers… and so on and so on.

And if you think that sounds bonkers, just wait until you get to Excalibattle and the theological derring-do with the Pope in a dungeon under the Vatican. Oh yes, and did I mention the exploding strawberry jam?

I think Mrs Davis is supposed to be some kind of fantasy sci-fi comedy parable about faith versus science, but I wouldn’t bet my house on it. Four episodes in and I still don’t really have a clue what’s going on. It’s episodic to the point of being annoyingly random. Nothing is what it seems, which is fine for a one-off plot twist, but when it applies to every story beat it means the viewer stops trusting in the narrative at all. It’s most definitely at its worst when it’s trying far too hard to be funny, and about half the gags don’t land at all. But…

But… having said all of that…

Verdict: Mrs Davis is oddly compelling. It’s barking mad. While it’s nowhere near as funny as it thinks it is, it has a certain Pythonesque, sweary, Simone In Wonderland surrealism about it – also reminding me of The Phantom Tollbooth in its sense of episodic moral fable – and manages to be hugely entertaining and intriguing despite itself. 7/10

Martin Jameson

www.ninjamarmoset.com