Clone

Everything you need to know about Clone

Three episodes in, and Clone is getting better as the series unfolds - a view publicly espoused by Pryce. Unfortunately, it's coming from a very, very low base and the reviews so far have been enough to make you feel sorry for it.

Review in The Independent

The biggest problem of all is Adam Chase's script. It really is outstandingly poor, and its poverty is compounded by the canned laughter.

This gentle sci-fi comedy hasn't found its feet yet mainly because the clone is irritating rather than amusingly innocent. Plus Jonathan Pryce's Frankenstein character is a bit two-dimentional. At least Mark Gatiss's twitching and grimacing as a sadistic colonel is something to relish.

Review in The Stage

Clone really isn't very funny at all. That it is accompanied by the uncritical and inexplicable guffaws of a canned laughter track doesn't disguise the fact that it is a veritable humour free zone, but merely draws more attention to it.

Jonathan Pryce and Mark Gatiss in a new sitcom on BBC3? We sat down in eager anticipation, and 30 minutes later, got up feeling intensely disappointed and frustrated. A high concept plot about a failed experiment to create a super-soldier, three or four good lines and an intrusive laughter track do not add up to a decent new sitcom. This first production from Ash Atalla's (The Office) new production company was a real disappointment - and Pryce looked embarrassed to be in it.

Jonathan Pryce is renowned as a fine classical actor with a good reasoon: he's a bit rubbish at comedy. This was made all too clear in Clone, a curious hybrid of sci-fi and sitcom which cast Pryce as a scientist whose attempt to create a perfect soldier backfires when instead of a Terminator he ends up with a freaky belly-buttonless nerd who behaves like Frank Spencer.

Much hilarity was obviously supposed to ensue but Pryce's boffin was neither crazed nor cruel enough to divert attention from Adam Chase's misfiring script, which strangely gave its only good gag to Mark Gatiss as a mildly psychotic army officer. When Pryce's perfect creation turned out to be a klutz, he told Pryce: 'Your career is over, it's ancient history - like a dial-up internet connection or pubic hair in porn'. If only the rest of Clone had been so well observed.

Clone, a new sitcom in which Jonathan Pryce plays a scientist who unveils a cloned 'super-soldier,' was worth marvelling at. How anyone could think this utter bilge worthy of Pryce's talent and our time is one of the minor wonders of the age.

When you have people like Jonathan Pryce and Mark Gatiss onboard, you had better make it good, but this was pretty lame. The acting was good and Gatiss really was hamming things brilliant, but everything else was pretty awful. There were some nice touches and ideas, but these didn't carry out. In fact it didn't feel like a sitcom, it felt like a very low-budget film. The plot was so familiar and very filmic too. I just didn't see the point of it really.

The laughter track was annoying and, to be honest, so was pretty much everything else. Now, I'm not saying this is bad as Coming Of Age, but the fact that Clone is getting mentioned in the same sentence as that monstrosity says it all.

Blog Review

There's a multitude of good lines - and a multitude of not very good lines. Some of the situations are obvious and clichéd. All the performances are gloriously over the top, sometimes amusingly, sometimes embarrassingly, and the central premise of the show feels weak - like it's just an excuse to have a bloke peeing everywhere in place of decent plotting.

In this new, six-part sitcom Jonathan Pryce plays madcap scientist Dr Victor Blenkinsop, who has dedicated 17 years and three marriages to a top-secret project for MI7. At his side is an inept assistant and, limping behind, barking orders, is his goggle-eyed boss, Colonel Black (Mark Gatiss). His mission is to create a super-soldier and, naturally, it goes horribly wrong: the clone is no deadlier than a newborn. Cue all sorts of social faux pas as Blenkinsop and his overgrown tyke go on the run from the fuming colonel. Unfortunately, this particular fish out of water is more tiresome than funny.