Imagine a world where cops are armed but they never shoot anyone. Imagine a world where the mental ill are treated with respect, even when they kill people. Imagine a world where there’s an entire police unit dedicated to investigating crimes committed by the mentally ill so that they can be helped and treated.
No need to imagine. That world is Canada.
Allegedly.
‘Inspired’ by real-life incidents, Cracked sees Canadian police officer Aidan Black (David Sutcliffe) get a touch of PTSD and start doing inappropriate chicken impressions. When he returns to work, still not quite right – ‘cracked’ even – he’s given a chance to help on the newly formed Psych Crimes Unit, where he’s to work with psychiatrist Daniella Ridley (Stefanie von Pfetten), another cop (Luisa D’Oliveira) and a psychiatric nurse (Dayo Ade) in helping to investigate crimes committed by the mentally ill, and then, using his unique insight and compassion, talk to them a lot.
And while on the one hand it’s a delight to have a show that doesn’t think banging everyone to rights or shooting them, particularly if they’re mentally ill, is a good idea, it doesn’t half expose the fact that for most drama, something has to happen for them to be interesting.
Is six years too soon for something to be a Lost Gem? Whatever the haggling on that one, it’s a moot point now, since a Lost Gem is about to be recovered (briefly).
PLEASE WATCH THIS SHOW.
The world is occasionally filled with small miracles. Tonight, starting at 2.45am, ITV1 in the UK has decided to reshow the US version of Touching Evil, one of the TV shows regularly flagged up in Top Ten Lists of “shows that should never have been cancelled”. Now you can take a trip back in time to 2005 and my fifth ever blog entry for a very exciting brief essay on why you should all watch it (and an exhortation that you should all watch season two of The Wire on FX, proof if any be needed that I’m right before everyone else, including Charlie Brooker, and you should all listen to me) or you can stick with me here for a few seconds for some updated reasons.
PLEASE WATCH THIS SHOW.
If you’re unfamiliar with both the UK version (which starred Robson Green, was created by Paul Abbott with occasional scripts from the likes of Russell T Davies) and the US version, the more literal plot is that it’s about a police detective who gets shot – in the head – and who comes back to work brain damaged, his life a mess and his personality altered. However, that brain damage also gives him certain insights and skills (nothing supernatural, unlike the UK version) that enable him to catch criminals better, even if it does make him obsessive and cross lines he genuinely shouldn’t cross.
The less literal theme of the show, as the title suggests, is the corrosive nature of evil – how it affects those who do it, those around them and above all the people who have to stop them. And it’s brilliant. It’s dark, it’s brilliant, and it isn’t afraid to go to places US TV almost never goes. And happy endings in it are very, very rare, which isn’t to say it isn’t also very funny at times.
Why’s it so good? Mainly, because of the writing. It has scripts from the likes of Bruno Heller (Rome, The Mentalist), Ronald D Moore (Battlestar Galactica), Anna Fricke (Everwood, Men in Trees, the forthcoming US version of Being Human) and Michael Angeli (Battlestar Galactica).
But it’s also exec-produced and occasionally directed by the Hughes Brothers (Dead Presidents, From Hell), who give the show a distinct air of unreality. You’re never quite sure if the whole thing is some near-death experience of the lead character’s; whether it is or it isn’t, it’s certainly beautiful to look at.
As if all that weren’t reason enough, there’s the cast. It stars Jeffrey Donovan from Burn Notice and the Oscar/BAFTA-nominated Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air), and co-stars Bradley Cooper (The Hangover, The A-Team) and Kevin Durand (Lost). They weren’t such big names back then so now you get to see them c2004, stretching their acting muscles.
It also features guest appearances by actors including Peter Wingfield (Highlander, Caprica), David Eigenberg (Sex and the City), Andrea Thompson (Babylon 5), Pruitt Taylor Vince (Deadwood) and the mighty Željko Ivanek (Damages, Heroes), who manages to out-do Ian McDiarmid, who played the same role in the UK original.
To whet your appetite and to show you what kind of series it is, here’s the first three minutes or so, followed the wonderfully dark title sequence and excellent theme tune (episode two onwards), and a clip of some of the series highlights, should you want to spoil it for yourself.
But whatever you do, do yourself a favour and watch it. It’s not out on DVD and it only gets repeated every five years (although you can scour YouTube for the eps if you miss one).
Didn’t we have fun with the last meme? This one probably won’t inspire as much, but it popped into my head this morning so I thought I’d pose it anyway.
What’s your favourite repeat?
I’m not a big fan of the repeat – I like new things. I don’t have many DVDs and those I have I watch infrequently.
But when I’ve run out of new things to watch, if I need something televisual to stimulate my brain, I’ll stick on the pilot episode of the US version of Touching Evil. I loves it. Dark, moody, brilliant direction, a cracking ending and the possibility everything’s in his mind – I can watch it over and over, unlike even some of my other favourite shows.
So do you have a programme or episode of a programme that you can and do watch time and again?
Every so often, people ask me what TV shows I’d recommend watching. I mean not just watching, but hunting out then watching, because obviously this blog gives you some big clues as to what to watch as it is – it’s the rarer stuff that’s not on tele at the moment that are the bigger concerns.
The US remake of Touching Evil, starring Burn Notice‘s Jeffrey Donovan (he’s also in Clint Eastwood’s The Changeling soon), has been coming up a lot of late and people are finding out (or should be, if they follow my advice) that
It was brilliant, although as the title suggests, it’s not going to take you to a happy place
It was a whole lot better than the UK version
Even if you don’t like the series itself, the music was brilliant
The USA Network was nuts to cancel it
I won’t go into long drawn out discussions about its merits here – I’ve already done that on several occasions – so instead, I merely offer you, thanks to the joys of YouTube, the full first episode of the series. You can watch the whole 13 on there as well, but I draw the line at setting up playlists for those, too. It’s not out on DVD yet and has only once been shown in the UK so let’s start a petition, hey?
It can’t have escaped anyone’s notice that remakes – aka “format purchasing” – have become all the rage in the US of late (and other countries, too). The forthcoming Fall season has shows like Viva Laughlin (remake of the UK’s Viva Blackpool) and Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares (remake of the UK’s Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares) as well as existing remakes, such as Ugly Betty, The Office and many other minor shows on cable networks (eg Spouse Swap, Faking It, etc).
It’s a good plan. Why bother having to come up with new series when you can buy in existing successful series from other countries? And why risk having the audience being unable to relate to a different country filled with people who have funny accents and maybe even speak a different language when you can buy the format behind a show more cheaply and then make it yourself with your own cast and your own scripts?
However, there’s a realm of possible pain here. As you’ll have noticed from the demise of US versions of Coupling, Absolutely Fabulous and other shows, it’s possible to lose all the things made a show good in its native country when you remake it.
I’m assuming something like this happened when the networks failed to pick up a remake of BBC4’s The Thick of It. As we all know, The Thick of It is rather excellent, so quite why the US networks weren’t interested is unfathomable unless there were some bad cock-ups along the way.
Is it always the case that a remake has to be worse than the original?
