ABC’s ‘Believe’ offers voyeuristic buffet
Most people I know try to avoid gossip and getting caught up in other people’s drama. But where’s the fun in that?
“Who Do You Believe?” (10 p.m., ABC, TV-14) asks viewers to wallow in both sides of an ugly situation, complete with interviews from opposing parties, clips and snapshots from a couple’s (happier) past and reenactments of the dark scenes that got them on “Who Do You Believe?” in the first place.
In the initial episode, we hear from Mark and Charity, whose hastily agreed-upon union unravels soon after they were married by the mayor of Sturgis, South Dakota, during the town’s annual motorcycle rally.
At first, their overlapping stories seem to mesh. Both have other marriages under their belts, but Mark is considerably older. A surgical nurse of long standing, he was at first delighted to see that Charity worked with the elderly and terminally ill.
“It takes a special person to do that” he observes after describing their first meeting, the result of a dating app.
Charity quickly chafes at his rush to the altar and suspects he really wants a caretaker for his disabled adult son. She also recoils when he asked her to put a wad of bills, some $10,000, in her purse during a trip to an antique market, something Mark flatly denies.
After this, their stories diverge, allowing viewers to fill in the blanks with their own prejudices and dispositions. Not to give too much away here, but “Who” isn’t exactly asking us to be a jury. The legal aspects of their disputes are pretty well established and documented. Our “job,” if we choose to accept it, is to determine who is the bigger fool or the more threatening party and the biggest jerk.
Some viewers may find Mark’s need to marry a woman young enough to be his daughter slightly icky. And to do so at Sturgis is a cliche right out of a Viagra commercial. Mark’s controlling nature easily crosses the border between obsessive and creepy. Did Charity stick around for love, duty, or a bigger payday, as Mark alleges?
“Who Do You Believe?” made me wonder what vintage thriller writers like James M. Cain would have made of an era with GPS tracking apps and near-continual surveillance of marriage licenses, banking activity and arrest records. We’d know “The Postman Always Rings Twice” because the Amazon smart doorbell would tell us.
But I digress. Technically, Mark may be guilty of nothing. But the interior decoration of his man cave is a crime!
And inquiring minds want to know just what happened to Charity? In interviews, she looks vastly different from the woman in the old snapshots. Was it her taste for surgeries? And what’s up with the slur? Did Mark poison her, as she suspected?
Not unlike “Wife Swap,” this voyeuristic series allows viewers to spend some time snooping around in other people’s lives. But under the guise of “true crime” detective work, we’re asked to judge — and perhaps distract ourselves from the fact that we’ve just wasted an hour of our lives watching “Who Do You Believe?”
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
› Vargas pulls strings on “FBI” (8 p.m., CBS, repeat, TV-14).
› A New York cop is arrested overseas on “FBI: International” (9 p.m., CBS, repeat, TV-14).
› Looking back at Miguel on “This Is Us” (9 p.m., NBC, TV-PG).
› A Broadway cast reunites on “Spring Awakening: Those You’ve Known” (9 p.m., HBO, TV-MA).