Faraday is still struggling to make sense of everything but gets a helpful lecture about Jazz.

Last week I was left picking up the blubbery remnants of my bungee of disbelief, so I was nervous to see whether things would recover now that we’re past the half way point.

Ehhhhmmm…

Scratches head.

Episode 6 gets off to a great start. We meet Faraday at his most human having accepted that he can’t escape a certain degree of genetic assimilation. The whole chapter is framed as a video message he is sending to his wife back on Anthea, which is framed very much in the style of the Adam McKay wacky explanatory inserts familiar from The Big Short, complete with ironic animations.

It’s a very entertaining watch as he tries to explain the idiosyncrasies of humanity to his wife’s logical Vulcan-like sensibility. Hugely entertaining, but hokey as hell. The philosophising is about as sophisticated as a Hallmark greetings card. Faraday’s reference points for understanding human behaviour appear solely sourced from 21st century Western, middle class American culture, with the odd reference to US race politics, as if written by someone who has never ventured further from their laptop than LA, New York or a Soho ad agency.

It then gets even more wonderfully hokey as (a few spoilers here) Justin’s father (Clarke Peters) now starting to adopt Anthean characteristics, demonstrates that the key to achieving the kind of nuclear fusion you can do in a manky old warehouse, is to be found in the music of Charlie Parker. And to cap it all, they go ahead and do it with the help of a souped-up Bon Tempi.

This is utter nonsense. Although, I’m sure there are a few fusion scientists who will watch this and immediately pop up to the attic to see if they can find their old Stylophone, kicking themselves that they missed this obvious key to finally solving the challenges of fusion technology.

But…

Oddly, my newly repaired bungee held together, as the series jumped us over about fifty hungry sharks. We are now so divorced from any kind of credibility, it has ceased to matter, and the story and sheer exuberance of the characters just about hold it together.

On a more serious note I struggle to see how the Antheans ever developed the tech to build a space-worthy Easter egg without some ability to creatively improvise of their own. That’s how technological evolution works. Duh!

Verdict: The Man Who Fell to Earth has to be this year’s most inconsistent series, ranging from compelling and moving, to daft and sentimental, to a joyous dance of nonsensical narrative chutzpah. I rather like it and I have no idea what’s going to happen next. 7/10

Martin Jameson