The lowdown:  Sally Lockhart (Billie Piper) returns in 'The Shadow in the North', the second telemovied based on
Philip Pullman's series of novels for young adults. It is several years later, and Sally Lockhart is now working as a
financial adviser, while her friends Jim Taylor (Matt Smith) and Frederick Garland (J.J. Feild) are working as private
investigators, while continuing to run Garland's photography business with Garland's uncle Webster. Sally assists
an elderly client who lost a fortune after Sally advised her to invest in a shipping firm, Anglo-Baltic, which collapsed
after a number of its ships were sunk under mysterious circumstances. Sally agrees to help the woman to recover
her money. Meanwhile, Jim fancies himself as a playwright, but the local theatre manager, Bram Stoker, advises
him to stick to detective work, as there is no future in writing vampire stories. Jim meets a stage magician, Alistair
MacKinnon, who asks for protection as he has had a vision of a man killing another man, and believes his own life
is now in danger. Jim and Fred also investigate a woman who claims to be psychic. The woman has a vision of a
man being killed and placed in a "glass coffin", which tallies with what they know about the man that MacKinnon
saw being murdered and dumped in a river, which then froze over. Jim also meets Isobel Meredith, a woman with
horrible facial scarring who is in love with MacKinnon and would do anything for him.

The cases are of course related and our intrepid sleuths are soon led to a wealthy Scandinavian industrialist, Axel
Bellmann (Jared Harris) who has killed the inventor of the Hopkinson Self-Regulator, a steam gun that is able to fire
bullets much more rapidly than any existing technology and would give an army a huge advantage on the battlefield.
However, the weapon must be transported by railway, and Sally surmises that it would only be useful in war if there
were a railroad line near the battlefield.  However,  it would be a great weapon in controlling civilian populations and
quelling civil unrest. Bellmann plans to claim the Self-Regulator as his own invention, and sell the technology to the
Russians.  Meanwhile, Frederick finally reveals his love for Sally, but just as they become intimate, Bellman orders
his henchmen to set fire to their house. Jim rescues Sally from the fire, but Frederick dies, and Sally sets aside her
grief in order to bring Bellman to justice, even if it means dying in order to destroy Bellman and his weapon. Sally of
course survives, and in the final scene she reveals that she is carrying Frederick's child.

Video:  Bram Stoker   4.2mb       Alistair MacKinnon   6.4mb       The medium   7.2mb       Isabel Meredith   5.5mb
 
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