Hex



Originally marketed as The British Buffy, which was true in much the same way that Coupling was the British Friends (which, again, was part of the early hype). Hex told the story of a blonde schoolgirl named Cassie who gets supernatural powers with which to fight demons, but has her style cramped by her falling in love with the leader of the aforesaid demons, Azazeal, discovering that her destiny is to give birth to his child, the Anti-Christ.

It had high production values, a pretty and talented cast, and an intriguing (if hardly original) premise. But the thing was... it wasn't as great as it could have been, running on twists and good dialogue and character emotion, but overflowing with plot holes.

And then the lead actress left, taking half the supporting cast with her as she did so.

It was then rapidly retooled into a show about a kickass red-headed immortal schoolgirl named Ella who has supernatural powers with which she fights demons. Unfortunately she was blind-sided by the Anti-Christ (Cassie's sprog Malachi)'s evil plans, the demons won, and the show's second (and final) season ended with the cast divided into the evil, the very dead, and the fleeing in terror. To call it a Downer Ending would be a gross understatement, especially as one of the three survivors was actually dead anyway.

In both seasons, Thelma the ghost was the heroine's sidekick and speaker of memorable quips.

Notable for characters who managed to be simultaneously Genre Savvy and Too Dumb to Live.

On the other hand, it had Colin Salmon and Michael Fassbender in it. And they're always awesome.

""Do you have any idea how frustrating it is being a lesbian ghost?""
 * Action Girl - Ella Dee (when she wasn't crazy), complete with Badass Longcoat.
 * Adults Are Useless - The asylum staff in particular. Plus a whole bunch of murders go completely unnoticed.
 * Alpha Bitch - Roxanne, before her character development in late Series 2
 * The Antichrist - Malachi.
 * Artifact of Doom - The stone of Belial
 * Be Careful What You Wish For - If Malachi grants it for you, you become his succubus or incubus.
 * Big Eater - Thelma gleefully abuses the fact that ghosts cannot gain weight.
 * Black Comedy Rape - Thelma can affect Cassie's dreams, and does so without her permission. Cassie wakes up furious and states that she's told her not to do that, and Thelma clearly finds the whole thing funny, saying that she didn't seem to mind at the time. She does it to Roxanne, too.

""She's my fairy godmother! She's got something nice for me!""
 * Bond One-Liner - Ella, once or twice.
 * Brainwashed and Crazy - People Azazeal has possessed, especially Cassie in "Possession", and later people Malachi has turned into succubi and incubi, especially Leon in "Seven Deadly Sins".
 * Bring Out Your Gay Dead - Subverted somewhat by Thelma, taken to extremes by Maya.
 * It is probably worth noting that every ghost in the series is gay.
 * British Brevity - The first season was only 6 episodes. The second branched out to 13.
 * Bumbling Sidekick - Leon develops a complex about Ella seeing him as this.
 * But I Can't Be Pregnant
 * Butt Monkey - Leon at times. He gets to dress up as a nurse to bust Ella out of the asylum, and to be whipped by a BDSM fairy godmother.
 * Cannot Spit It Out - Several times.
 * Character Development - Leon and Roxanne both mature from having been shallow jerks.
 * Azazeal becomes less Manipulative Bastard and more Papa Wolf in the second season. However, because he wants Malachi to choose his own destiny, the forces of hell put him on a bus and send Mephistopheles to make sure the apocalypse goes as planned.
 * The Chessmaster - Malachi has this written all over him. As do Azazeal and Mephistopheles at some points.
 * Chuck Cunningham Syndrome - Peggy.
 * Cloudcuckoolander - Ella, in the scariest possible way, while she was being mind raped and shot full of liquid Anti-Magic.

"Azazeal: "You remember that time in Egypt? You know I still can't stand the sight of sand.""
 * Cold-Blooded Torture - Azazeal, Ramiel and Perie inflict this on Max.
 * Cool and Unusual Punishment - Raphael gives Ella boils for fancying the guy she’s supposed to be killing. Mephistopheles makes Malachi go blind,.
 * Dating Catwoman
 * Dangerously Genre Savvy - Azazeal.
 * Deadpan Snarker - Cassie, usually bouncing off poor Thelma. Also Mephistopheles (played by the fantastically deadpan Ronan Vibert).
 * Decoy Protagonist - Cassie. Although this was more a case of Real Life Writes the Plot.
 * Defrosting Ice Queen - Ella's character arc.
 * Devil in Plain Sight - The demons are fond of this...and with no small sense of irony either, taking on pious disguises such as priests and witchhunters.
 * Dissonant Serenity - Perie is so good at this that it comes all the way round and becomes something akin to a Death Glare.
 * Dogged Nice Guy - Felix. He gets  for his trouble.
 * The Dragon - Ramiel, aka
 * Driven to Suicide - Subverted: Ella makes it look like Jez was driven to suicide after she kills him.
 * Emotions vs. Stoicism - A major theme of the series.
 * Face Heel Turn - Quite a few...
 * Malachi (who despite being the Antichrist, starts off as more Chaotic Neutral) does this after he gets a taste of the power that mind-controlling people brings.
 * both succumb to their love for Azazeal, the former turning evil and the latter sacrificing herself to protect Malachi.
 * Basically one of the major themes of this show is that Love Makes You Crazy. And sometimes evil too.
 * The Fair Folk - Perie the Faerie is...disturbing as well as evil.
 * Fallen Princess - Ella is Type 1, Roxanne is Type 2
 * Fan Service
 * Fetus Terrible
 * Friendly Enemy - Azazeal towards Ella, but only to a point.
 * Glowing Eyes of Doom - Played with in the first season, where firelight causes demon eyes to appear bloodshot (as Thelma puts it, “manky eyed”). Played straight in the second season with Malachi and his succubi.
 * Good Is Not Nice - Archangel Raphael. As Leon comments, “he’s a lot darker in real life”.
 * Good Smoking, Evil Smoking - Virtually all of the demons smoke.
 * Great Big Book of Everything - The Revelations of Orokiah, which Ella frequently refers to.
 * Heel Face Turn -  after coming to admire Leon (presumably because of his undying devotion to Ella).
 * He's Back - Ella in You Lose, and she even namedrops it ("Didn't they tell you? I'm back!")
 * Immediately subverted when Sariel floors her, leading to Badass in Distress, but this serves to highlight the fact that she does need Leon after all.
 * Hot for Student - Roxanne and her art teacher in season 1, Roxanne and Jez in season 2.
 * Hulking Out - Ramiel snaps back to his daemonic form a couple of times, usually when something has pissed him off.
 * Idiot Ball - All the heroes, passing it back and forth, but especially Cassie and Leon.
 * Deeper Into Darkness is a particularly bad offender..
 * Impaled with Extreme Prejudice - Ella shoots Perie full of hypodermic needles. Which is suitably ironic, seeing as how Perie had been posing as a nurse and injecting Ella with massive doses of St John's Wort.
 * Informed Flaw - Thelma is said to be incapable of touching living things (though not inanimate objects, so she can eat and call a help line), but is never shown trying to do so.
 * In the Blood
 * Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain - Inverted with Raphael, who is ostensibly there to help the heroes but achieves precisely nothing (beyond a bit of snark) before.
 * "It's Not Rape If You Enjoyed It" - Azazeal's attitude to sleeping with a possessed Cassie.
 * Kill It with Fire - Die, scary fairy, die!
 * Kryptonite Factor - Both demons and anointed ones lose their powers if exposed to St John’s Wort. This becomes a plot point of several episodes.
 * Large Ham - Jez, on occasion.
 * Lightning Can Do Anything - It can bring anointed ones back from the dead. Thus Magical Defibrillator is weirdly justified.
 * It also cures possessed people (resulting in a rather amusing episode where Thelma tries repeatedly to electrocute Cassie)
 * Love Makes You Crazy - Arguably the central tenet of the show. Both heroines end up falling for their respective enemies, and love for  causes Thelma to betray Ella and help out the bad guys several times.
 * Love Makes You Evil - The Nephilim and the Faeries, who were originally angels and the human women who tempted them from heaven.
 * Magical Abortion - A double subversion: it's an actual abortion...and Cassie doesn't get it because Azazeal talks the doctor into safely removing Malachi instead.
 * Manipulative Bastard - Azazeal (mostly in season 1) and Malachi. Mephistopheles too on occasion, though he refers to it as "a touch of reverse psychology".
 * Meaningful Name - "I called him Malachi. It means messenger."
 * Names to Run Away From Really Fast - Azazeal and most of the Nephilim (Baraquel, Araquiel, Sariel, Ramiel). On the good side, Ella Dee, daughter of John Dee.
 * Mercy Kill - Malachi grants this to.
 * Mind Rape - Azazeal when he starts playing hardball. He did this offscreen to Cassie's mum causing her to become a Broken Bird, and onscreen to Jo, causing her to become evil. He also uses the Stone of Belial to inflict it on Ella.
 * More Than Mind Control - Malachi pulls this on the entire school.
 * Ms. Fanservice - Perie the fairy
 * New Transfer Student
 * Nice Job Breaking It, Hero - Thelma insisting that Cassie wears her mother's necklace because she thinks it will protect her, when actually it serves to blind her to the fact that Troy is possessed.
 * Nice Job Fixing It, Villain - In an attempt to psychologically torture Thelma, Azazeal sends her back in time, allowing her to.
 * Noble Demon - Mephistopheles seems to see the war with God to be about giving humans free will rather than hurting them. As such
 * Noodle Incident - Ella’s previous boyfriend. Azazeal also alludes to previous encounters with her.

""This is one party you're going to wish you'd missed!""
 * Of Corsets Sexy - Ella.
 * Our Fairies Are Different - Perie and the (unseen) rest of her kind were the women who tempted the angels from Heaven.
 * Peek-a-Boo Corpse - Twice. Neither is mentioned again, or subsequently found by anyone else.
 * Perky Goth / Cute Ghost Girl - Thelma.
 * Plot-Relevant Age-Up
 * Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner - Ella has several.


 * Primal Fear - Thelma can de-succubize someone by going into their dreams and invoking it. For Ella it was being burned alive, for Leon it was castration.
 * Puppeteer Parasite - Azazeal makes use of one in Deeper Into Darkness.
 * Rage Against the Heavens - The angels and demons are as bad as each other.
 * Rape Is Love -
 * Really Seven Hundred Years Old - Ella.
 * Reasonable Authority Figure - David Tyrel, the school headmaster.
 * Rule of Drama - Occasionally supplemented by the Rule of Cool, Rule of Funny and Rule of Sexy.
 * Satan - Azazeal is the closest thing we see, though season 2 implies that there are higher powers that even he is answerable to.
 * Scars Are Forever - Ella has scars on her wrists, which she tends to hide with long sleeves or sweatbands. They are later revealed to be . At one point, Ramiel tries to convince David that they are evidence of self-harming.
 * Schoolgirl Lesbians - Thelma and Maya were dead lesbian schoolgirls. Which didn't stop them having a sex life. Prior to this, Thelma was in love with Cassie, who realized too late that she felt the same way.
 * Set Right What Once Went Wrong -
 * Shock and Awe - The best way to get rid of Nephilim. Ella usually achieves this with a two-part staff called a volta.
 * Shout-Out - Leon quotes Catherine Tate at one point, and Ella and Thelma make a Blackadder reference. Azazeal and Ramiel, rather creepily, discuss Reservoir Dogs while they torture Max.
 * Slashed Throat - Ella's preferred method of dispatching non-demonic targets.
 * Star-Crossed Lovers - Ella and Malachi. It doesn’t last, as Malachi gets Drunk on the Dark Side and Ella does not appreciate being mind-controlled.
 * Spirit Advisor
 * Invisible to Gaydar - Tom. There's no strong indication until Thelma sees that his dream is Leon being in love with him.
 * Supporting Protagonist - Thelma, arguably, as she goes from being Cassie's sidekick to being Ella's sidekick and thus is the most constant character.
 * The End of the World as We Know It
 * The Bad Guy Wins - In both seasons.
 * Thematic Theme Tune - #1 Crush by Garbage. Given that it's a downright creepy song about a Stalker with a Crush, it fits the show's premise quite well.
 * Unlucky Everydude - Leon in season 2, though when given the chance he frequently has moments of Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass.
 * Villainous Breakdown - Azazeal averts this, instead simply commenting in a dry tone, "I'd forgotten how much fun it is having Ella around..." Evil is indeed cool.
 * What Could Have Been
 * What the Hell, Hero? - Thelma and Raphael's actions towards the end of You Lose are pretty inexplicable.
 * Why Don't You Just Shoot Him? - Thelma repeatedly calls Ella out on this.
 * Wild Teen Party - In the first episode of season 2.
 * You Can't Fight Fate - Zig-zagged.
 * You Keep Using That Word - Characters frequently mix up the singular and plural forms of incubi/succubi. Understandable for Leon, but you'd think Ella would know better.

Of course, you might be thinking of a different Hex...