Trigger-Happy Cops in Prodigal Son

 I've just started watching Prodigal Son, mostly because Michael Sheen is in it as the serial killer dad, but I'm quickly warming to the other members of the cast as well.

There's one thing that really jumped out at me in the first few episodes, though, and it's how the members of the NYPD portrayed here are so quick to pull out their guns.

Now, this is a series that is approving of cops - they are solving some grisly murders, after all, so they're obviously the good guys.  But in so many situations their first response is to point a gun at someone, while someone else yells "NO!  Don't shoot!"  For instance, Malcolm Bright falls asleep in an office in the precinct, has a nightmare and starts running.  Despite the fact that he's in an area of the precinct that he's obviously authorised to be in, and that he's also obviously unarmed, half a dozen officers immediately point guns at him, and it's left to the woman on the team to wake him up, bring him back to reality, and save him from the very real risk of being killed.

In another episode, the murderer has been dosing victims with LSD before killing them - the officers know this, but still their first response, not the last response, is to point a gun at the victim who is obviously tripping.

I'm sure that this portrayal of the police is reasonably recent - I'd have to go back to watch a few episodes of Kojak or something similar to be sure, but I'm pretty sure Kojak was more often seen with a lollipop than a gun in his hand, even though there was a lot of violence in the show.

I've also been thinking about the recent protests in the US with the slogan Abolish the Police.  If Prodigal Son is a favourable depiction of police officers in action, and they are shown to be so trigger-happy, I can't say I'm surprised that there is a protest movement against that style of policing.

More Bletchley Circle

The Bletchley Circle has maintained its very high standards.
Series 2 has the group of women, who had been code-breakers at Bletchley Park during the war, trying to prove the innocence of another Bletchley girl who has been accused of murder. The victim is a scientist played by Paul McGann.
That story deals with Cold War spying and experiments at Porton Down, while the second half of the series (only 4 episodes to a season, sadly) deals with Maltese gangsters trafficking girls into the country, via a little 'harmless' perfume smuggling. Spivs selling dodgy nylons were still around, as was rationing, in the early 1950s.

The beauty of the series is that there are four main characters who work together, so when Susan leaves, she is replaced by Alice, and by the time of the third season, set in San Francisco, there are only two members of the original team left, Millie and Jean.
They discover that a murderer in San Francisco is killing women in exactly the same way as one of their colleagues at Bletchley during the War was murdered, and travel there to see if they can bring him to justice. But they need some local knowledge, so first they have to track down an American code-breaker Jean was in touch with during the War, who they know only as Major Six.
The story takes place against the backdrop of the Fillmore district, where mainly black families are being forced out for re-development to take place. During the War, the area was home to a Japanese community, who were also forcibly removed.
And for the second part of the series, it all goes a bit Peyton Place, with intelligent women trapped in loveless marriages and meaningless lives in the suburbs, until one of them is killed in what seems to be a hit and run accident - or was it murder? (The only really happy marriage seems to be between Iris and her husband living in the Fillmore).

I'm looking forward to seeing Millie, Jean, Iris and Hailey in Part Two.

The Bletchley Circle

I've watched the very last episode of the Librarians (and what a brilliant finale to the season it was) so I was looking round for something else to watch when The Bletchley Circle came to my attention.

I first became aware of Anna Maxwell Martin when she played Rev. Merrily Watkins in the TV adaptation of Midwinter of the Spirit by Phil Rickman - but before that, she played Susan, a code breaker at Bletchley Park during the War, who gets a team together to solve a series of murders that the police are not managing to solve, using the skills they developed during the war as code breakers, but which they are not able to use (or even mention) in peace time.

I saw the first episode last night, and it was brilliant stuff, so I'm looking forward to the rest of the mini-series. I understand there's a second series, too, as well as a spin off set in San Francisco.