Wire in the Blood: Ghastly and ghoulish

I have never read the novel Wire in the Blood by Val McDermid, so I do not know if anything in it explains the title. However, if someone suggested to me that it meant transmit blood into your home via the cable wire, I would have to agree. This is one of the most bloody, deranged, ghastly, gruesome and yes (sorry Peter), grisly TV shows I have ever seen. It is also gripping, well written, well acted and... I want to say entertaining, but given the content of this show, I am not sure it applies.

Let me go on record right up front and say that despite the fact that this TV show was broadcast on BBC and later, in the USA on the BBC America cable channel, parents should treat it as a hard R rated horror movie. It is absolutely inappropriate for children of any age. I would also be wary about allowing adolescents to view it, and many adults will find it too upsetting to watch. Even this review, toned down as it is, might upset the nervous. At one point there is a joke about the show being like Silence of the Lambs. It is.

Robson Green, who PBS watchers may remember from the uber-nasty British version of Touching Evil (not the sanitized US version) plays Dr. Tony Hill, a clinical psychologist who teaches in a university in a large North Eastern town. Hermione Norris plays Carol Jordan, a local DI (Detective Inspector) who asks Hill to help out as a profiler in a murder case she is investigating, where she suspects a serial killer is involved. The story progresses from there.

The series is episodic, in that it embodies a number of complete storylines or cases, but it is also serial, in that the cast and characters develop in an interesting and linear manner during the series. For this reason, it is important to see the series in order. For the same reason, I am not going to include a cast list for either the series or for the individual episodes. Sorry, but for the sharp eyed reader, it would give too much away.

Not that a cast list really matters. While the supporting characters are well defined and well acted, it is the two central characters, Hill and Jordan, who occupy most of the screen time. Hill is brilliant, but totally focused and obsessive, to the point where he has problems relating to people in the everyday world. He has conversations, even arguments, with himself exchanging places and talking in different voices. He tries to put himself into the mind set of the killer. He tries to put himself into the mind of the victim also, to the point where he almost accidentally kills himself.

Jordan is the perfect counterfoil to Hill. She is brilliant and focused too, but she is also pragmatic and well grounded. She relies on evidence not intuition, and is a firm believer in good old-fashioned police work. Professionally, they make a great team. When not working, there is a strange fascination between them that slowly builds, creating an excellent will-they, won't-they tension in their relationship. Mind, given the nature of their cases, this attraction rather resembles a dance macabre between a cobra and a mongoose, and it quite unclear just who will end up being eaten.

The writing is consistently good, the plots are well paced, the stories are gripping, the cast, especially the leads, are well fleshed out and exceptionally well played. This is an extremely good police drama. However, it is not necessarily a whodunit. Sometimes the real murderer is in the show as a minor character for you to "discover" but sometimes the killer is never seen until they are caught. This is, of course, very realistic. The psychology too seems very real. I am not qualified to judge its accuracy, but it is believable and that's what counts.

* * * Queasy readers might want to stop reading at this point. * * *

Where the show differs from normal TV fare is the crimes. Here we have sick, deranged psychopaths of the highest order doing the unspeakable. Compared to some of these people, Hannibal Lecter was a pussycat. One episode features a killer intent on testing all the medieval torture techniques on a vile web site. Another has a killer inflicting rape and intense ritualistic brutality on teenage girls. A third killer is a pedophile responsible for the molestation and deaths of children. This is the worst sort of criminal committing the worst sort of crime. Not a show for the feint of heart.

The BBC also pushes the envelope with this show, going as far as they possibly can on broadcast TV. Naturally, they are limited by how much on screen violence they can transmit, but they show the results of that violence in full graphic detail. Due to vagaries in British law, nudity is permissible in certain circumstances. So, for example, they cannot show a young woman being beaten and slashed in a frenzy of psychotic rage, but they can show the aftermath, with her naked, sexually-posed corpse in full frontal nudity, with only the ghastly pools of blood providing any privacy.

It is perhaps a sad commentary on our society, that some readers may find her naked body more offensive than her horrendous wounds. It is also odd how our taboos about our own bodies prevent healthy expressionism but endorse group participation in voyeuristic necrophilia. Not that this scene is gratuitous, you understand, for only by understanding it can the true killer be revealed. It is necessary; it is essential; but it is shocking. This show is not sensationalizing these crimes, but it is not making them more palatable (and hence acceptable) by providing the polite violence-euphemisms we see on every day TV.

With topics like torture, genital mutilation, pedophilia, kidnapping, rape, cruelty to animals and stuff too horrible for me to even mention. You can understand my warning above. However, despite the vile nature of the crimes, the show is light hearted and even funny on occasions. If it were not so, its darkness would be unbearable.

This DVD contains the full first season, consisting of three investigations, each consisting of two 50-minute episodes. It is packaged on three DVDs, each containing a full storyline. Each CD has the same pathetic set of minimal BBC extras. The transfer is good with excellent sound and picture quality. Sometimes you might wish it were less so.

I do not want to say that I enjoyed this show, but I will say that while watching it, time passes quickly. There are currently, I believe, five more seasons. I plan to watch them. While Wire in the Blood is certainly original from a TV show point of view, it covers much ground that has been seen in cinema. The quality of the scripts and performances cannot completely offset the somewhat trite cliches in some of the characterizations, particularly early on. Consequently, I can only give it four stars. I will recommend it, but only for adults with strong stomachs. Some of the images it contains will stay with you for a very long time.

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Episode Summary:

As usual, I will reveal no significant details beyond the first 5 minutes.


*

1: The Mermaids Singing

The bodies of three young men are found. They have been tortured and genitally mutilated, but because the methodology appears different, the police are loath to classify the deaths as those of a serial killer. Hill is brought in to advise.

This is the weakest of the three episodes, and it is probably the most grotesque. It is heavily cliched. One senior police officer in particular seems like the ubiquitous moron that apparently every police force in the world both employs and promotes. Not only is this character trite but his actions seem, in context, unbelievable. This one portrayal probably cost this DVD its fifth star.

*

2: Shadows Rising

The decomposed body of a teenage girl is found in a lake. The husband and wife stars of a popular TV show are being stalked. Is there a connection?

This is a strong episode with a complex plot and explicit sexually motivated violence.

*

3: Justice Painted Blind

A man is accused of murdering a child, but the jury acquits him. Later bodies are found, killed in a way that mimics the death of the child. What's going on?

Though it does have brief nudity, this is the least graphic and least violent of the three episodes. However, it involves pedophilia, child molestation and murder, so it is no less offensive than the others.

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