Reviews
Criminal: UK (2019)
Proper grown-up TV
This isn't the show for you if you can't last half an hour without a car chase or an explosion, but it might just be right up your street if you embrace intelligent, often challenging tv that's rooted in dialogue and brought to life by brilliant acting.
Series one was very good, but Series Two is excellent. They've found ways to turn what could be predictable plots (are they guilty or not?) into four very different and compelling stories where us viewers are encouraged to face our prejudices and see criminal cases from a different point of view from the usual crime and police dramas. Everything we see is what goes on in a room where the police interview that episode's suspect, the room where they watch over these interviews, and the corridor with the vending machine, and it's all supposed to take place in near real-time.
These stories are about more than whether or not today's suspect is innocent or guilty. Some of the suspects are obviously unpleasant, and may be known to have committed other crimes, and the crimes themselves are very serious, but all the more reason to make sure that they get it right. Does that mean it's OK for the police to pretend to know more than they do to pressure the suspect into saying more than they would have done? In the second series especially, we see the police wrestle with the legal and moral boundaries of how to approach questioning, and the significance of evidence. In their own way, the police are under our scrutiny as much as the suspect.
The scripts cover difficult issues, which some people may wish to avoid, but IMO they have been handled with sensitivity and nuance. Some episodes might leave you feeling a bit uncomfortable, possibly asking questions of yourself and how the police and legal systems should deal with complex cases. But that's what makes it grown-up TV and so good.
Criminal: UK: Danielle (2020)
Timely
Just when you think the format might become predictable, they bring in a well intentioned member of the public who is convinced the police should be grateful for their 'help'. Inevitably it's not as straightforward as that.
I've seen some claims that because this programme shows the police challenging 'clumsy' investigations (I'm avoiding spoilers) into possible child abuse, that they are saying that actual child abuse is OK, which is a bizarre take. Those people clearly weren't paying attention.
What was interesting was seeing how Danielle went from being absolutely certain that the police would/should be grateful for her 'help', to realising that she might be in trouble herself.
As everyone spends more and more time online it must be tempting for people to think they can do their own amateur detective work, but as we learn from this, it's far more complicated if you want to do it right.
I Hate Suzie (2020)
Great idea, but doesn't quite deliver
The opening episode of this was great, with fantastic acting and balancing a sense of doom with chaos. The second was good too, but it declined by the middle, seemingly not sure what it was about.
The later episodes contained some really good moments, but they were harder to find, although plot wise it picked up again.
Overall, I enjoyed it, and it was a refreshing change to everything else on tv, but it felt like it needed a good edit, and perhaps to be a couple of episodes shorter.
Criminal: UK: Alex (2020)
A complex episode for a complex issue
This is one of the most compelling pieces of TV I've watched in some time. Wonderful acting, with enlightening insight into the challenges faced by the police, as well as those who legitimately report rape, or are unfairly accused.
I'm aware some people think that tv dramas should never, in any circumstances, have a case where it turns out the man was falsely accused. While I understand the motivation behind that point of view, I don't think that's a solution to the problem of how difficult it is to get a conviction for real cases. Obviously if this approach is taken, it must be done well, and with proper acknowledgement of how 'easy' it is for guilty men to 'get away with it' too, which IMO happened here, but bdonasser makes some fair points. But I'm equally uneasy with the idea that the rareness of false rape allegations means that it's very serious consequences cannot be explored in drama. Most of us are capable of being simultaneously concerned that too many rapists get away with it whilst also having sympathy for the falsely accused. We don't need to pretend that false accusations are of no consequence that don't merit a second thought in order to wish the criminal justice system could do better for victims.
The final dialogue between Alex, and the one police officer who doesn't know of the new evidence, summed it up well. If a man is not charged, or not found guilty, it's often because there is insufficient evidence, and not because the police or even courts believe they are definitely innocent, never mind that they think the woman is lying. And while that is true most of the time, and we assume happens far more often than actual false allegations, false allegations unfortunately exist and the difficulty in demonstrating innocence can be devastating.
Alex isn't very likeable, and deserves to be dumped and to get a dressing down from HR for getting into the situation where he's sleeping with a drunk junior colleague he has some power over. But does he deserve to be sacked? To lose friends and the trust of colleagues? UK employment law means he can't be sacked because of an rape allegation alone, but he works in a business where sales targets matter, and can he maintain them if no-one wants to work with him? He could still lose his job, even if it takes a bit longer. In that respect, the detail of him being arrested in front of colleagues AND clients was crucial.
The question of whether those accused of rape should stay anonymous is a thorny one, but who benefits from that kind of arrest? I don't think it benefits victims, and might ultimately do harm as the anger about the rare false accusations become amplified. Most people, including Alex, albeit begrudgingly, accept that accusations of rape require rigorous investigation, and it was right for the police to interrogate his version of events. It's definitely right that all allegations are taken very seriously, and in some cases it is necessary to go public to establish if there are witnesses, or possible corroborating events. But if there was a presumption in favour of anonymity in the early stages of an investigation unless deemed relevant then I'd say there would be fewer stories in the papers of men determined to explain how they were falsely accused.
At the very least, keeping the arrest more low profile seems the sensible first choice. That said, given what we know of arrogant Alex - did he turn a low-key invite to the police station into a scene requiring an arrest in the middle of his office?
I saw some other people worried that drawing attention to how tough it is to get a conviction will put people off reporting rape. But I think it's better for a drama to be honest about it, than to pretend it's straightforward, because that's why the general public might think a non-guilty verdict means 'she was lying about it'.
The rant about passion always being an excuse rang very true. The discussion about physical evidence was fascinating. On one hand, it's reassuring to know that the absence of bruising etc doesn't mean it can't be rape, but chilling to think that apparent evidence of force doesn't mean as much as we might think it should. Logically, this makes sense, but it's counterintuitive, and the conversation between Alex and his solicitor was handled well, and it was grounding to have a moment where she was becoming upset.
There has been a lot of discussion lately about the role of phone evidence for rape cases, and I read about one where phone records were able to 'prove' the innocence of the defendant, but it only came out months after the initial arrest, and was almost hidden from the defence team. We might feel sorry for Alex, but at least he was able to go back to work the next day and didn't have a trial hanging over him for months.
While the police did discuss the difficulty in obtaining sufficient evidence for a conviction, I did wonder whether they should have found a way to mention how rare it is for false allegations to happen, but I think it's healthier for police officers to think along the lines of those unproven cases being exactly that. They'll have their hunches that many cases are real, but hard to prove, yet there will be many others where they can't honestly say one way or another who is telling the truth.