It's Christmas time, and with Christmas come ghost stories. This Christmas, we watched two of the BBC's ghost stories made for Christmas.
The sixty-ninth TV show: #932 The Tractate Middoth
While put in this category (and aired as a horror on Christmas Eve), it feels like this doesn't quite become a good horror story. In fact, the story ends when it feels like the real story is about to start, set up with a lot of warnings, but instead the first act is the full thing. What we get instead is a mystery story, a hunt for a missing will, where a mysterious entity interferes a full time - at the end to make sure the right people get the will. The ominous warnings after it, however, about how it gives a gift that isn't to be trusted, never gets resolved and is instead a cliffhanger that doesn't get resolved. We genuinely wondered if this was some sort of ad break or otherwise a part one, but no - it's only that. If this is the best sample of the revival, it doesn't really work.
The seventieth TV show: #249 The Signalman
Jumping back in time, this is part of the original run that also included A Warning to the Curious. The Signalman's story set up is fairly standard - three warnings that end with the observer's death, based on Dickens' own experiences. It's quite compelling in how it slowly builds its suspense - it's clear what went wrong and sets everything up early, but you clearly don't get quite what's going on until the end. While not horrific and somewhat predictable - I believe I picked up a lot of the story through osmosis - it's well told and builds its curve of suspense really well. Thanks to the limited cast and location, the action stays contained and easy to follow, without it feeling left open further. It's more of a success.