PRODUCTIONS - AFTERLIFE
Episode Synopses
Episode 1: More than Meets the Eye
Robert Bridge (Andrew Lincoln) is a psychology lecturer and specialist in the study of psychic mediums. Though deeply sceptical of psychics and their abilities, Robert takes his students to an 'evening of clairvoyance' where he meets Alison Mundy (Lesley Sharp).
Reluctant and troubled, she is a far cry from the fraudulent psychics that Robert is used to. Ever since she was a child she has seen spirits, and after a near death experience they are beginning to take over her life. She has moved to Bristol in an attempt to start afresh, but it hasn't worked and as she lies awake at night she can't escape the voices that cry out to her.
When Alison's readings provoke an adverse reaction in one of Robert's students he begins to study her with the intention of writing a book about her. But Robert is completely thrown when Alison claims to the see the spirit of his own dead son Josh who was killed in a car accident four years earlier
Episode 2: Lower Than Bones
Eight-year-old Carly Tufnell has gone missing and the police have no leads whatsoever. Her distraught parents make an emotional televised appeal, desperate to know whether their daughter is alive or dead.
At the supermarket the next day, Alison is frozen to the spot when she sees Carly's ghost standing in front of her, dripping wet and shivering. Deeply upset, Alison tells Robert that she has seen Carly in spirit and that she has to let her parents know their daughter is dead. Robert knows how it feels to lose a child and tries to talk her out of it.
Alison visits the police to tell them about Carly's death but is met with deep suspicion by Detective Inspector Felix George (Adrian Lester), especially after Robert turns up and warns him against being taken in by her. But when information from Alison leads to the discovery of Carly's drowned body, D.I. George is forced to acknowledge that perhaps it is only Carly's spirit who can provide the evidence that will lead them to her killer.
Episode 3: Daniel One and Two
Daniel, a shy and awkward boy in his early twenties, is having his first ever date. His mum (Saskia Reeves) is delighted and leaves the young couple alone together. But when she comes back, Daniel's girlfriend is lying, terrified, in a pool of her own blood.
Robert and Alison are visiting a hospital psychiatric unit. After her accident several years ago, Alison spent some time in psychiatric care and Robert hopes that the visit will help her confront her painful memories.
On the ward Alison meets Daniel who has been there since his girlfriend was attacked. He desperately tries to persuade Alison that he wasn't the one responsible for the assault, that it was the other Daniel, Daniel Two. The doctors have diagnosed Daniel as a pathologically violent schizophrenic, convinced that Daniel Two is a figment of his imagination, but Alison isn't so sure. She thinks the more Daniel is drugged by the well-meaning doctors, the more vulnerable he is to the malevolent spirit of Daniel Two.
Episode 4: Misdirection
Desperate to regain some kind of balance in her life, Alison decides to look for a job. An experienced nurse before the spirits took over her life, she finds work at an old people's home, relishing in the normality of a nine to five routine.
But escape from the spirits isn't so simple, and on her first day at the home Alison finds a photo of Robert's dead son Josh. It belongs to Robert's mother (Rosemary Leach), one of the residents at the home, and Alison realises that Josh must have directed her towards this job in another attempt to make some kind of emotional contact with his father.
Alison befriends fellow nurse Connor (Mark Benton), who is clearly troubled. Ellen, a former patient, had asked him to help her die a peaceful death, and when he refused she decided to take her own life, jumping from her bedroom window. Now he is being tormented by Ellen's ghost, convinced that she wants revenge for suffering such an undignified and painful end.
As Connor's visions of Ellen get even more vivid and disturbing Alison worries for his sanity, but it isn't long before she too is confronted by the terrifying spirit.
Episode 5: Sleeping with the Dead
Sandra Petch (Nikki Amuka-Bird) is desperate for Alison's help. She thinks her flat is haunted and is petrified by the sights and sounds that surround her. When Alison comes round to try and help, she witnesses the terrifying tableau of a husband smothering his wife to death, two spirits locked in a repeated loop of domestic violence which Alison can do nothing to stop.
Robert is curious and asks to visit the flat, and all three spend the night there, waiting to see what will happen. As Alison falls asleep she enters a nightmare from which she can't escape, an empathic experience in which she re-lives the last moments of the murdered woman's life.
Episode 6: The 7:59 Club
Her paranoia deepening, Alison thinks she is being haunted by the victims of the train crash which nearly killed her six years earlier. But she soon discovers that the people following her are not the victims but the survivors of the disaster. Led by Irene Moser (Phyllida Law), they are desperate to contact the spirits of those they lost in the crash and have tracked Alison down to help them. They ask her to join their spiritual support group and lead them in a séance in order to communicate with their lost loved ones.
Alison is terrified. She doesn't know if she will be able to survive returning to a moment of such great trauma, and asks Robert for his help. Together they attend the séance and Robert watches in amazement as Alison slips into a trance and speaks in the voices of the dead, re-experiencing the horror of the crash as she does so. One by one she addresses the survivors who talk to their dead relatives through Alison.
In a terrifying and emotional climax to the series, both Robert and Alison come into contact with the afterlife in a way that will change their lives forever.
