A Brexit break for Mrs May: losing herself in the Bermuda Triangle!
THeReSA MAY revealed last week that, on the rare occasions she gets to unwind in front of the telly, she enjoys the U.S. crime drama N.C.I.S.
All the North London media bubblers sneered snootily and said how typical it was that the Prime Minister would watch such a mystery-by-numbers show, straight off the American TV conveyor belt.
It’s true that N. C. I. S., which screens here nightly on the 5USA channel (Freeview 21), is massproduced — more than 300 episodes in 15 years. But it’s also wittily scripted, with satisfying solutions to the inventive crimes, all with some connection to the U.S. Navy: N.C.I.S. stands for Naval Criminal Investigative Service.
Best of all, it co- stars David McCallum, beloved to generations of British children for his Russian agent Illya Kuryakin in The Man From U.N.C.L.e. McCallum, 84, is such a pro that, to play the N.C.I.S. pathologist Dr Donald ‘Ducky’ Mallard, he spent two years watching LA medics doing autopsies... and then, with the coroner’s permission, performed one himself.
Perhaps it is that forensic attention to detail that the PM admires. Or perhaps, like millions of viewers, she simply likes the scientific certainty of a military investigation, where accurate data matters more than psychology.
In similar vein, documentaries about lost military planes and ships — such as Air Crash Investigation on National Geographic — are a guaranteed ratings hit. That’s why The Bermuda Triangle
Enigma (C5) is airing on three consecutive nights. Ignore the snobs: people love this stuff.
Any suggestion of the supernatural was scotched at the start. Presenters Rick edwards and Ortis Deley are concerned solely with the physics, meteorology and any other science that can explain why so many vessels and aircraft have vanished in the waters between Puerto Rico, Miami and Bermuda.
Their investigation began with the chilling last radio messages from Flight 19, a squadron of five U. S. bombers that lost their bearings in the area and vanished in 1945. The 14 crewmen’s bodies were never recovered.
Vivid experiments proved how easy it is for disaster to strike at sea. An inky cube, dissolving in warm water, showed how turbulent currents are created by a cloudburst of cold rain over hot seas — and why you never want to fly under a thunderstorm.
Rick went snorkelling over the debris of a military plane wreck, while pilot Ortis recreated the problems of flying in fog without instruments — by closing his eyes. None of this was wildly dramatic. It was just informative. The PM would probably have thoroughly enjoyed it. Take the melodrama out of The Apprentice and you’d be left with something like Give It A Year (ITV), with Alan Sugar’s nononsense business associate Karren Brady at the helm.
Away from His Lordship’s grumpy shadow, Karren is a sunnier personality, who dispenses advice and even offered to lend one entrepreneur the cash he needed to build his Mexican fast-food business, if he got no joy from the banks.
The premise is similar to Davina McCall’s tearjerker This Time Next Year — with new enterprises instead of broken hearts. Karren inspects a start-up business, provides some suggestions and points out a hidden pitfall or two, then leaves. Twelve months later, she drops by to find out if sales are booming.
Lord knows it’s not fancy. Karren’s probably got suits that cost more than the average episode. But it offers smart ideas and words of caution to budding British business tycoons — and the PM would certainly approve of that.