Mackenzie Crook's 'Small Prophets': homunculi, heart and BBC magic

Mackenzie Crook's 'Small Prophets', the BBC hit now streaming on Apple TV, runs six elegant half-hour episodes and spends them growing miniature truth-telling creatures in glass jars. That premise alone separates it from the television the critic reviewing it is tired of: serial killers, self-destructive detectives, murderous cute small towns, and shows that open with a chase and then flash the words "36 Hours Earlier" or "5 Weeks Ago" before the story actually begins.

The review calls the show "so original and consistently surprising that it's kind of a marvel", blending deadpan humor, fantasy, social comedy and "an alluring sense of melancholy to create a mood you'll love being inside." A strong claim. The review's evidence holds up, but with a caveat: this is praise for tone and texture, not plot machinery.

Who is Michael Sleep?

Pearce Quigley plays Michael Sleep, a good-hearted, 50-ish man whose flowing locks and white beard make him look like a cross between an old hippie and Father Time. He lives in a suburban house with an overgrown lawn, kept unchanged since his partner Clea mysteriously disappeared seven years ago. He still hopes she will return. He splits his time between half-hearted work at the Tool Box, a Home Depot-like store, and visits to the retirement home housing his inventive but scattered father, Brian, warmly played by Michael Palin.

Brian tells his son about a friend in Egypt who could call up homunculi — miniature humanoid beings who answer any question and always tell the truth. Brian hands over the recipe, which involves everything from old coins to a truckload of manure, and suggests Michael ask them what happened to Clea. Michael is dubious. He tries anyway.

What surrounds the jars?

The cast widens fast:

• Roy (Paul Kaye), Clea's aggrieved brother, shadows Michael, turns up broke and wants to claim the house.
• Clive, the comically hectoring next-door neighbor, is tormented by Michael's messy yard.
• Bev, Clive's curious wife, finds Michael interestingly different.
• Kacey (Lauren Patel), a disaffected young coworker, bonds with Michael over their shared contempt for their boss, Gordon.
• Gordon, an officious incompetent with a greasy ponytail, is played by the show's writer-director, Mackenzie Crook, himself.

All the while, in Michael's shed, the homunculi are coming to life.

What does Crook bring?

Crook specializes in tenderly offbeat series — his cult comedy 'Detectorists' followed members of a metal detecting club seeking buried gold. His belief, per the review, is that people are better than we sometimes think; he casts a sympathetic eye on loners, oddballs, misfits and dreamers, many caught in unsatisfying jobs and thwarted hopes.

That touch shows in virtually every character: Michael, yearning to recapture his vanished life with Clea; Kacey, doing dead-end work while nursing huge, perhaps impossible dreams. Even foolish characters are drawn with loving care and reveal something unexpectedly vulnerable.

The show is "anything but doleful." Crook serves up very good jokes — Michael's goofing on customers at the store earns special mention — and fills daily life with poetic touches: a falling star, an oil spill shaped like a rabbit, a literally enchanting Christmas memory.

When the small prophets finally appear, they are haunting: fragile, truth-telling creatures whose faces bespeak pain and isolation. Trapped inside their bottles, they mirror the solitude of the human characters.

Quigley's droll, confidently quiet performance carries the show. Michael is resolutely uncynical — caring, loyal, accepting of difference — and, without making a big deal of it, open to the wonder of life.

What does this change for viewers? It offers proof, in six half-hour installments, that a series can be funny, fantastical and kind without a single corpse — a rare enough commodity on current television.