HAVING four Gospels provides us not with a diffuse, unfocused, and contradictory view of Jesus: on the contrary, it gives profound perspective, a multi-dimensional in-depth image that enables us to circumnavigate and view Jesus in the round.
My fond hope is that this scriptural model inspired (possibly at some distance) the 1978 BBC series Law and Order, whose four episodes depicted the same criminal events and characters from four points of view: the police, the criminals, the law, and prison. In GF Newman Remembers Law and Order (BBC 4, Wednesday of last week, followed by a repeat of the first episode of the original series), the writer of the series looked back at the inside information that inspired its creation, and the furore that it caused.
He depicted a Met Police mired in endemic corruption, with officers violent and aggressive, contemptuous of the law, and aiding and abetting one another in theft and abuse. In other words, their moral world was not in utter contrast to but identical with the criminals’. This portrayal of a symbiotic relationship, whereby each learnt from and mirrored the other, caused uproar: questions were asked in Parliament, and there were calls for Newman to be arrested for sedition.
The BBC caved in to pressure from the popular press and refused to sell the series abroad; privately, police officers said that it was largely accurate. It would be good to think that it depicted a bygone age, long ago cleansed and reformed; recent abuse cases suggest, appallingly, the opposite.
Newman reckons that the scenario of police officers patiently wading through evidence and securing convictions through brilliant deduction is no more than a comforting fantasy, greatly distanced from the grubby reality.
The Turkish Detective (BBC2, Sundays) offers an attractive example of such fiction, and has the added advantage of providing yet another language to be picked up by osmosis via subtitles.
The plots are preposterously convoluted and intertwined; the characters, boys and girls alike, are all gorgeous; Istanbul is a fascinating and photogenic backdrop. The detective himself is compelling: a charismatic fount of wisdom, sitting (of course!) very lightly to the rules, and struggling — as all TV detectives must — with an existential conflict between his all-consuming vocation and the preoccupied neglect that he inflicts upon wife and family (just like a vicar, in other words).
Is Spent (BBC2, Mondays) comedy or tragedy? The model and stand-up comedian/actor Michelle de Swarte writes and stars; and her magnetic vitality and brilliance illuminate thinly veiled autobiography.
Mia’s modelling career in the United States has brought her millions, which she has completely squandered. She returns home, penniless. This Prodigal Son de nos jours has, as yet, no sublime catharsis: she bums off family and friends, and sleeps on a park bench, while still pretending to be a global success, and lying as much to herself as to them. In a probing and mesmerising skewering, poverty-stricken Brixton’s bitter reality undercuts savagely high fashion’s vicious and hollow glamour.