This week on Time Travel Headache Theatre is Midnight at the Pera Palace: Season 2, the Turkish series thatâs part sci-fi, part historical fiction, part comedy, part mystery â and all fun, right? Sure! The first season of this on-paper unwieldy but in-execution pretty enjoyable series traipsed through the multiverse willy-nilly, anchored by a by-turns gee-whiz and empathetic Hazal Kaya lead performance. She plays a journalist named Esra who stays at the same hotel where her hero Agatha Christie wrote her famous murder-mysteries, and ends up fzworping back in time, therefore allowing Christie herself to be a character. One didja-know from the new season: Alfred Hitchcock was another famous Pera Palace visitor, so he turns up as a character too, as Esra enjoys a history lesson like no other â and finds that her own history is tied to this storied hotel.
MIDNIGHT AT THE PERA PALACE – SEASON 2: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: Zoom in on the door of a Pera Palace room. Closeup: itâs room 511. Thunder rumbles. The door opens. A silhouette of a man in a fedora stands in the doorway. Itâs all rather dramatic, I tell you.
The Gist: The Fedora Guy is Halit (Selahattin Pasali), who youâll recall is one of the not-nice people from the first season. Heâs just landed in 2022 via 1919 â and this series also jumps to 1941 and 1995, so donât get lost or twisted up or youâll be toast. Things we know from the first season: Different rooms at the Pera Palace let one jump to different times. Esra had a doppelganger in 1919 named Peride, whoâs supposed to stop the assassination of a Turkish rebel, but ends up dead. Ahmet (Tansu Bicer) is Esraâs ally, the hotel manager who time-hops with her, trying not to let her shred the space-time continuum into eensy weensy bits. And Esra, who was raised in an orphanage, learns that she may have been born in 1941 and deposited in 1995, and for some reason, she doesnât seem particularly traumatized by this potentiality. She may Just Roll With It like no one else, ever.
And so Esra fzworps to 1941, hoping to find her mother, Ahmet by her side, reluctantly. Itâs worth noting that the room that takes them to this particular year is the Hitchcock Suite, which one assumes is in the north-by-northwest wing, where all the birds nest on the ledges, and where one can have a clear view of all the neighborsâ windows. This 1941 seems to be another alternate reality, because Ahmetâs surprised to learn that a bombing thatâs supposed to have rocked the Palace hasnât happened. Curious. But before he learns that, Esra locks him in the bathroom so she can wander freely and not worry about changing the course of history â which sounds like a lot of fun, to be honest â which sets up a funny scene where Hitchcock Himself checks in and, hoping to take a nice relaxing shower, unwittingly frees Ahmet.
Anyway. Halit ,whoâs in 2022, finds a door in the Pera labeled GATEWAY OF TRUTH, and what kind of moron wouldnât walk through it? So he does, and finds a deep pit, and leaps-of-faith right into it. Also curious! Meanwhile, in 1941, Ahmet catches up with Esra and they visit a brothel in search of her mother, who she suspects may be Leyla, a girl they met back in 1919. She tracks down Leyla and watches in horror as she guns a man down in cold blood. Jeepers! The plot thicks oh so very thickly, eh?
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Iâm standing by the Quantum Leap-via-Murder She Wrote comparison I levied at season one.
Our Take: Midnight at the Pera Palaceâs greatest asset is the tone â it weaves a bit of muscular drama into a story that absolutely, under no circumstances whatsoever, should be taken seriously. The pace is gently propulsive, in episodes that hover around the 40-minute mark and tangle intrigue with light comedy and acceptably ridiculous soap operatics. Itâs modestly inspired, drawing influence from â80s TV and all-too-21st-century multiversal nonsense, but the latter doesnât weigh it down or make it feel tiresome (despite the current glut of material in that vein). At least not yet; weâll see if it can maintain this genial tack for seven more episodes, but season two is off to a good, solid start.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: Remember that bomb that didnât go off at the Pera? Well, it does. NO SPOILERS as to who was inside the hotel at the time, though.
Sleeper Star: Kaya is the star, and sheâs surely lovable in her naivete, but Bicer is the anchor here, playing the voice of reason in this plot, a thankless task to which he lends credibility and a bit of charisma.
Most Pilot-y Line: This exchange sums up the convoluted fun of this series:
Esra: Now, hold on. So if I was sent as a baby to 1995 from another time, and I was a baby in this photo, then I was born in the 1940s, right? So my mother is in the 1940s too.
Ahmet: Weâve messed with time a lot already. If we continue, it will be a disaster.
Ron Howard narrator: And so they continued to mess with time.
Our Call: Despite its rampant genre-mashing, Midnight at the Pera Palace isnât breaking any new ground, really. But itâs consistently enjoyable mediumweight escapism done well, with good performances and production value. STREAM IT â or quantum-leap it, if you prefer.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
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