Giving screen time to a killer
BBC series spends almost as much time with the criminal as it does with the cops
A few weeks back, I wrote about how the Fox network is trying to reboot its 1990s hit series “The X-Files,” but almost immediately afterward I started to think about the challenge the network will likely face in trying to bring back that show’s stars, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson.
I’ve yet to watch Duchovny’s recently wrapped series “Californication,” and have to admit I thought it was still on the air.
However, Duchovny is already slated to play a detective hunting Charles Manson in a new NBC series called “Aquarius” set in 1967, scheduled to debut this year.
Anderson, meanwhile, has been in my sights as both a reoccurring character on “Hannibal” and as the protagonist in the BBC series “The Fall,” set in Northern Ireland.
“The Fall” just finished its second season, and while talks of a third season have begun, nothing has been finalized. In fact, I’ve heard rumblings that some fans of the show were disappointed in the latest finale.
This past week, I binged through the first season of “The Fall” and am getting ready to jump into the second season, which picks up the crime drama in mid-investigation.
The series is only 11 episodes long so far — a five-episode premiere season followed by a sixepisode second — so it’s not a huge time investment.
The series reminds me of some episodes of the Robbie Coltrane series “Cracker,” which I watched more than a decade ago, not only because it is a British show, but because the criminal being hunted — and his actions — becomes as much a part of the narrative as the police work. You almost never see that in North American shows, where the biggest mystery is who, with the why a distant second.
But I do have to question how the show begins. The opening scene shows Anderson scrubbing her bathtub and then her face before sitting on a bed and looking through files. Certainly not the most action-packed or telling introduction.
A strong beginning is usually the hook that draws me into a show — a bit of adventure or some dialogue that sets up the plot and tone.
This slow, wordless opening reflects what you can expect from “The Fall” when it comes to pacing. It’s glacial, but good if you can stick with it. Glacial is a good word to describe the tone of the show in general, as many of its characters are cold and detached.
Nobody ever seems to be in a rush in “The Fall.” So far, there have been no foot or car chases.
The violence seems more personal as you follow the killer as he plans his crimes and preserves his trophies, but also dur- ing the scenes where he kills his victims. Your heart races, but it is more because of suspense than speed.
Anderson’s character, Det. Supt. Stella Gibson, arrives in Belfast early in the series from the Metropolitan Police in London to review a case for the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
After she links a previous murder to the case she is reviewing, a third victim is found and she’s convinced all three are the work of a serial killer.
The killer is Peter Paul Spector ( Jamie Dornan), a bereavement counsellor by day, who tells his wife he counsels others at night over the phone, which gives him time to search, stalk and break into the homes of professional young women. He returns later to strangle them and pose them in erotic positions.
It’s strange to watch him inter- act with his wife and two small children in other scenes; killers aren’t usually humanized on TV.
It’s even creepier after one of his kids sees him squirrelling away notes in her bedroom ceiling and assaulting a babysitter.
But you also see Spector get help for a client who’s being beaten by her husband. He feels remorse after he finds out one of his victims was in the early stages of pregnancy.
Spector isn’t all evil, which makes you unsettled, as he’s certainly evil enough.
There are also some weird juxtapositions, back-and-forth montage scenes of, say, the killer bathing his victim after death, while
Gibson has sex in her hotel. This and other visuals give the show an arty feel.
I have to say, I was glad to see Archie Punjabi (“The Good Wife”) in this series, but unfortunately she is not used enough, nor to her potential. I think she is also in Season 2 and hope she gets a bigger role.
There is another, possibly linked crime going on in the background of the first season as well.
A police officer, not working on the primary case, is gunned down outside his home.
The cop is connected to Gibson, but may also be dirty and involved in drugs and/or prostitution.
That part of the story is still being developed by the end of the first season of “The Fall.”