Summer TV round-up PART ONE – A Snark-obsessed professor and the murderous ghost of Alice Liddell

Lewis Carroll made a few cameos on television this summer.

BBC’s Inspector Lewis, on Masterpiece Mystery (also on PBS in America), had an episode in Season V called “The Soul of Genius.” The dead body in this whodunit was a professor obsessed with The Hunting of the Snark, and of course the Inspector has to delve into the poem to search for clues, i.e. a “legendary riddle hidden in Carroll’s philosophical story of an impossible quest for the unknowable.” Oxford’s Botanical Gardens are also visited. Here’s the trailer from the PBS website:

Watch Inspector Lewis: The Soul of Genius Preview on PBS. See more from Masterpiece.

 I’m not sure when PBS reruns it, but it is already available on DVD at Amazon.com, where it received mostly five-star costumer reviews, and is already available on Netflix (Season 5, Disc 1.)

Over on basic cable, Syfy’s Warehouse 13 had a creepy mystery involving Lewis Carroll’s mirror, which aired August 27. The trailer shows the protagonist finding the Looking-Glass in the warehouse, and accidentally unleashing an EVIL SPIRIT from the other side, namely the “murderous” ghost of Alice Liddell.

Syfy’s website had further description of the plot:

Evil dead Alice Liddell, in the Warehouse 13 episode “Fractures.”

[…] Almost immediately, a ping comes in that a young woman has transformed from her meek self to a salacious thug. By the time Pete and Myka realize that Alice Lidell escaped from Lewis Carroll’s mirror – and the mirror somehow got out of the Dark Vault – they realize that she’s also able to jump from body to body using a shard of the broken mirror. […] Artie narrowly escapes the attack from a waitress, possessed by Alice, but once outside, he and Vanessa confer with Pete and Myka. Artie won’t explain how he knows, but says that Alice is there to kill him. They call back to the Warehouse and direct Jinks and Claudia to find a trapping artifact – a hookah that appeared in “Through the Looking-Glass” [sic]- so they can re-contain Alice.

Even if you missed the first-run on TV, this episode “Fractures” can be watched online in HD on Amazon Instant Video, for $2.99.

Tomorrow: Summer TV round-up PART TWO – Antiques Roadshow, Alice in Zombieland, and the future of Alice-derived Television

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