December Talking #7

beccatoria said: I still remember, the very first time I met you, you told me about this ~amazing~ sounding low budget S4C X-Files rip-off called Arachnid? And I spent a good forty-five minutes on google trying to find clips from it and failing, therefore, please regale me again with tales of its glory...

(For those not beccatoria - S4C is a Welsh-language TV channel.)

I remember that! I'm just going to burble out everything I can remember about it...

Yes, it was called Arachnid, it was a six-episode miniseries that went out in, I think, early 2001, and it starred Grug Maria (I think?) as a woman who ran an internet cafe, back when the internet was still new and cool. As far as I know the internet cafe itself was called Arachnid, hence the name of the show. It was set in South Wales somewhere, on the coast. She ran the internet cafe with a male friend, and I think they had a sort of will-they-won't-they romance going on. 

The spooky goings-on kicked off when a young man washed ashore on the beach, unaware of who he was or where he had come from. The main character, whose name I sadly cannot remember, was in some way involved - possibly she found him - and got to know him a bit as he slowly recovered from his ordeal over the course of the six episodes.

There was a big mystery around the young man, and possibly-played-by-Grug-Maria-lady was trying to solve it. I think there were also weird side things going on but I can't remember how or why she got involved in any of it. In one episode there was some sort of spooky wood where people kept dying, or something. Another episode involved her running around some sort of creepy abandoned building - a hospital, maybe? Or some sort of dockside storage facility? I remember the sea playing a part. There was also a cult who were evil and scary and trying to prevent her solving the mystery for some reason - at some point they captured her, I think. I think they were trying to find the young man and kill him? Because he had some sort of destiny?

I remember a spoiler about the ending, and who it turned out the young man was. It was a very sci-fi twist. I'm tempted not to tell you in case we ever get hold of it. Surely S4C must still have it in an archive somewhere?

From what I remember it was really cool - spooky and atmospheric and genuinely scary, relateable characters, kind of gory in places, good mystery, slightly more on the sci-fi side than the X-Files... but then I was like fourteen when I watched it, so it might not be as good as I remember - I really wish I could watch it again to find out but there's barely a trace of it even on Google...