Jekyll is a six-part British television drama serial produced by Hartswood Films and Stagescreen Productions for BBC One. The series also received funding from BBC America. Steven Moffat wrote all six episodes, with Douglas Mackinnon and Matt Lipsey each directing three episodes.
The series is described by its creators as a sequel to the 1886 novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, rather than an adaptation of it, with the Robert Louis Stevenson tale serving as a backstory within the series. It stars James Nesbitt as Tom Jackman, a modern-day descendant of Dr Jekyll, who has recently begun transforming into a version of Mr Hyde. Jackman is aided by psychiatric nurse Katherine Reimer, played by Michelle Ryan. Gina Bellman also appears as Claire, Tom's wife.
Filming took place at various locations around southern England in late 2006. The series was first transmitted on BBC One in June and July 2007, receiving mainly positive reviews.
Plot Doctor Tom Jackman, a married father of two, has abandoned his family without explanation to live in a heavily fortified basement flat. He hires psychiatric nurse Katherine Reimer to help him with his unusual case. After explaining a set of elaborate security procedures to Reimer, he straps himself into a secured metal chair and undergoes a psychological transformation.
Reimer observes that Jackman's alter ego exhibits rage, heightened senses, greatly superior strength and speed, and a more playful and flirtatious manner. She assures this persona she will keep his secrets just as she keeps Jackman's, but asks for guarantees he will not harm her. After being informed of the novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Jackman's alter ego takes Hyde's name for his own and the two agree to form an uneasy truce. While they share a body, neither remembers what the other did while dominant. They use a micro cassette recorder to leave messages for each other.
Jackman began transforming into the violent, lecherous Hyde recently. Fearing for his family's safety, he chose to isolate himself from them, but he cannot bring himself to cut off all contact, and visits his wife Claire. During one such visit, Hyde assumes control and learns about Jackman's family.
Miranda Callendar, a detective employed by Claire, learns about Hyde and informs Jackman that Jekyll and Hyde was not fiction, but a fictionalised version of actual events. Callendar shows Jackman a picture of the real Doctor Jekyll who lived in Edinburgh, Scotland in the 19th century. Jackman is startled to see that Jekyll looks exactly like him, and that he died at around Jackman's current age; and Callendar speculates that he is a descendant of the original Doctor Jekyll, except for the fact that Doctor Jekyll had died without children.
Jackman is also being stalked by a private security team led by an American named Benjamin. Unbeknownst to him, the team works for his former employers at the biotechnology firm, Klein and Utterson, and is directed by his friend Peter Syme.
When Benjamin's team puts Jackman's children at risk, Hyde asserts himself, killing a lion, then taunts Benjamin by throwing the lion's corpse onto the roof of the surveillance van the team is using. At the hospital he is approached by Sophia, an elderly woman who claims to be his mother, but before he can question her she disappears.
Jackman confronts Peter Syme, who attempts to drug him. This provokes Hyde to appear and take Syme and Claire hostage. Claire argues that they need to find a cure for Jackman's condition. Hyde kills Benjamin and Syme insists that Klein and Utterson have had a cure for a long time. Jackman is captured and locked inside a metal coffin.
Reimer and Callendar confront Syme, claiming they know the truth about Jackman. Callendar theorises that Klein and Utterson have access to cloning technology and that Jackman is Jekyll's clone. Syme denies this and orders them taken away to be killed.
Syme reveals to Claire that the treatment Jackman is undergoing will stabilise into one persona: If it is Hyde, he will be kept for research in order to synthesise the potion that turned the original Jekyll into Hyde; If it is Jackman, she is free to take him home. When the box is opened, Hyde is dominant.
In a flashback triggered by genetic memory, Hyde has a vision of a meeting between Jekyll and Robert Louis Stevenson, the author of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Stevenson agrees to write a fictional version of Jekyll's case but reveals that he knows the truth: there is no potion. Instead, Jekyll was transformed into Hyde by his love for Alice, a maid within his household. Flashbacks into Jackman's own life show his Hyde first manifesting fully during a seaside holiday with Claire, after the pair were accosted by hooligans.
Enraged by further threats to Jackman's family, Hyde escapes from Klein and Utterson. Ms Utterson, a ruthless redheaded American woman at the head of Klein and Utterson, takes Claire and her sons hostage at a private estate, locking the twins in miniature versions of the same coffin used on their father.
Jackman's alleged mother, Sophia, appears on the premises and helps Claire escape her locked bedroom. She tells Claire how Klein and Utterson had indeed tried to clone Doctor Jekyll but had been unsuccessful. Claire meets several of the failed attempts in the lowest basement of the building. They are disfigured and in a near-vegetative state. Sophia explains that Jackman is a descendant of Doctor Jekyll (who died a virgin), through Mr Hyde, and by chance a perfect natural genetic duplicate, "a perfect throwback, a chance in a million". Klein and Utterson had discovered this and had him under surveillance for almost his entire life, from when he was six-months-old. In order to trigger his transformation into Hyde, they created a clone of Alice, the maid whom Jekyll had loved. This clone is Claire herself.
Hyde tries to rescue Jackman's family from Klein and Utterson, killing Syme and many other personnel. In the end there is a stand-off, with Jackman and Claire's sons held hostage and suffocating. The Hyde personality is apparently killed when he is shot with multiple bullets and then manages to avoid 'sharing the damage' by taking the wounds onto himself while allowing Jackman to assume his undamaged, healthy form, leaving Doctor Jackman as the only personality.
Six months later, Jackman has tracked down Sophia, the woman who claimed to be his mother. When he questions her about his father, she reveals that she is the descendant of Hyde, the one through whom he had inherited the family curse from, and that it's "never over". As Jackman watches horrified, the powerless, tired, grey-haired Sophia transforms into her own version of the Hyde persona, the feral, red-headed Ms Utterson.
Cast James Nesbitt as Dr Tom Jackman/Hyde/Dr Jekyll Gina Bellman as Claire Jackman Paterson Joseph as Benjamin Maddox Denis Lawson as Peter Syme Michelle Ryan as Katherine Reimer Meera Syal as Miranda Callender Fenella Woolgar as Min Linda Marlowe as Ms Utterson Andrew Byrne as Eddie Jackman Christopher Day as Harry Jackman Al Hunter Ashton as Christopher
Episodes
Production
Development Jeffrey Tayor of Stagescreen Productions had the idea of a modern version of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in the mid-1990s. He attempted to get it produced in the United States three times, but all three attempts fell through for various reasons. He returned to England from the west coast of the United States and joined with Hartswood Films when Elaine Cameron was scouting for ideas for a supernatural thriller."Jekyll: The Tale Retold", featurette on Jekyll DVD, Contender Home Entertainment Cameron then approached Steven Moffat for a script, and a six-part series was commissioned by the BBC's Jane Tranter and John Yorke in November 2005. BBC America signed on to provide co-production funding in March 2006. The producers regularly met with Moffat for brainstorming sessions. Cameron's assistant took notes from these conversations, after which they would look over the notes and start the process again. The producers invited Moffat to "write anything", with the intention of cutting the material back later. However, they were reluctant to cut material once they saw it on the page. The first episode starts with Jackman already knowing about his alter ego. Because the plot of Jekyll begins after the story has developed for the characters, Nesbitt says that the show feels like it is a second series.
Moffat explicitly describes the series as a sequel, rather than an adaptation, stating the Jekyll of the original story really existed, and Jackman is his "modern-day descendant dealing with the same problems". As Jekyll and Hyde is such a well-known phrase, Moffat labored over what to call the series, eventually deciding upon Jekyll because that word "carries the name Hyde". The final episode replaces the title "Jekyll" with "Hyde". Producer Elaine Cameron says the one word title gives the series a "very modern feel". Moffat initially named the character Jekyll rather than Jackman, but found it cumbersome to constantly explain that the book had not been written in this alternate universe. Instead he chose a version where the book exists, but changed the name to Jackman. Otherwise, Cameron felt, the character would appear stupid by not realising what was happening when turning into Hyde.
The scene between Tom and Katherine was expanded slightly in the sixth episode to keep their relationship active to facilitate a second series. Other plot threads that were left dangling with the intention to be explored in a second series include the reveals that Ms. Utterson is the Hyde side to Jackman's mother Sophia, and that Jackman's twin sons Eddie and Harry can swap bodies. However, no further episodes were commissioned. In an August 2007 interview, Moffat told Alan Sepinwall of The Star-Ledger that he had a sequel written for the miniseries "should the BBC be interested". Following Jekyll, Moffat became a co-writer on Sherlock.
Casting
James Nesbitt and his agent attended a meeting with Jane Tranter in late 2005 regarding the 2006 series of Murphy's Law. At the conclusion of the meeting, she offered him a script for Jekyll, suggesting that he might like the role. Nesbitt took the script role as a way of putting a distance between his previous work. The casting of Nesbitt as Tom Jackman and Hyde was publicised on 12 December 2005, but filming was not scheduled to begin until September 2006, increasing Nesbitt's anticipation to play the roles. Writer Steven Moffat said that the dual-role required a very skilled actor, and a well-known actor was necessary because it was such an expensive show to produce. The production team decided Nesbitt's two characters would be mainly differentiated over a change in performance rather than by extensive make-up because they wanted Hyde to be able to walk around in public without attracting attention.
Michelle Ryan believed herself to be too young for the part, though that aspect had already been written into the character. To prepare, she consulted the Royal College of Psychiatry. Ryan dyed her hair red for the role to help differentiate her from Tom Jackman's wife. Denis Lawson was cast as Peter Syme. The actor consulted his post-graduate son for information on Syme's job.