I've come to really like BBC miniseries. Not that longer series don't have their charms, but with miniseries, three, four, maybe even six or eight episodes & the story's told. No need to keep watching year after year. The pithiness of it appeals to me.
Another aspect where the BBC beats American TV hands down is their realism. There's a certain gloss to American series that just doesn't ring true; everybody's just so unnaturally good-looking it's hard to forget they're actors. BBC actors, on the other hand, look like... well, anybody. They're just so natural, so normal looking, it's hard to remember they're actors. And isn't that the way it's supposed to be?
In this series, Kiri, a black child, is scheduled soon to be adopted by her white foster parents the Warners. Social worker Miriam however, in the interests of Kiri knowing her roots, approves an unsupervised visit with her birth mother & her grandfather Nate. But Kiri is abducted during the visit by her ex-con birth father Tobi & later murdered.
At first, it's naturally assumed Tobi murdered her. Then comes a red herring episode in which Si, the Warners' sensitive but shy & somewhat peculiar son seems almost certain to be the killer. The culprit finally turns out to be the last person you'd ever suspect, the mild-mannered foster father Jim, who'd been so unfailingly patient, considerate & downright decent throughout.
Ok, mystery solved. The fallout turns out to be far more riveting than the mystery tho.
Hounded by the media, the dedicated Miriam is forced out of her job - her vocation really, the job she's dedicated her life to - by a cowardly bureaucracy all too ready to throw a scapegoat to the wolves at the slightest whiff of scandal. Her diligence, her compassion, her wisdom, her years of experience thrown on the scrap heap because of a single highly publicized error in judgment. The sheer injustice is thrown into sharp relief when grief-stricken self-reproaching Miriam, her life now ruined, is recognized by a compete stranger. This woman walks straight up to her, punches her in the face, then self-righteously stands over her, shouting "A child! How could you?" as if Miriam, who only ever wanted to do right by Kiri, had murdered the child herself.
Kiri's father Tobi, the obvious suspect, is equally hounded - indeed tried & convicted - by the media. He has a history of violence & he's black: clearly guilty. His father Nate (a fine understated performance by Paapa Essiedu) at first believes him guilty & sets out to track him down. When Tobi convinces him he's innocent, Nate arranges with the police for Tobi to turn himself in. All he asks is a chance for Tobi to shower, change clothes & have a decent meal at home before doing so. Just as they're about to leave for the police station tho, the police renege on the agreement, burst in & arrest Tobi as a fugitive instead.
The foster mother Alice, having come to believe her son Si is the real killer, gives damning false evidence against Tobi in order to protect Si. Si, the foster brother who genuinely loved Kiri, who was most distraught at her death, knows Alice is lying & correctly deduces why. Si's the one who figures out his dad killed her.
He confronts Jim with a choice: Admit it now & it goes no further; deny it & he'll take his suspicions not to the police but - far worse - to his mother. Jim breaks down & confesses. He'd seen the girl as "new glue" to hold his failing marriage together. When she rejected the impending adoption to run off with her birth father instead, he killed her in a fit of rage.
Si then explains his rationale for keeping Jim's guilty secret: Shaken & appalled by the public scrutiny his family has already endured, this shy sensitive boy can all too easily imagine becoming notorious as the son of "the monster family" whose dad murdered poor little Kiri. To avoid that, he'll let an innocent man to go to prison. He's a criminal anyway, isn't he? What does it matter? And this is the saddest most shocking part of all. Si isn't a bad kid, quite the opposite. Throughout, he's shown love & concern for his family, including Kiri, but his desperate need for at least the façade of white middle class respectability, no matter how sham, takes precedence over an unknown black man's innocence.
What a truly horrible ending! But that brings us back to the realism of the BBC. No happy ending here. No justice. Anywhere in the white-dominated world, a black man, innocent or not, is five times more likely to be convicted of a crime than a white man & this series doesn't flinch from this ugly reality.
Another aspect where the BBC beats American TV hands down is their realism. There's a certain gloss to American series that just doesn't ring true; everybody's just so unnaturally good-looking it's hard to forget they're actors. BBC actors, on the other hand, look like... well, anybody. They're just so natural, so normal looking, it's hard to remember they're actors. And isn't that the way it's supposed to be?
In this series, Kiri, a black child, is scheduled soon to be adopted by her white foster parents the Warners. Social worker Miriam however, in the interests of Kiri knowing her roots, approves an unsupervised visit with her birth mother & her grandfather Nate. But Kiri is abducted during the visit by her ex-con birth father Tobi & later murdered.
At first, it's naturally assumed Tobi murdered her. Then comes a red herring episode in which Si, the Warners' sensitive but shy & somewhat peculiar son seems almost certain to be the killer. The culprit finally turns out to be the last person you'd ever suspect, the mild-mannered foster father Jim, who'd been so unfailingly patient, considerate & downright decent throughout.
Ok, mystery solved. The fallout turns out to be far more riveting than the mystery tho.
Hounded by the media, the dedicated Miriam is forced out of her job - her vocation really, the job she's dedicated her life to - by a cowardly bureaucracy all too ready to throw a scapegoat to the wolves at the slightest whiff of scandal. Her diligence, her compassion, her wisdom, her years of experience thrown on the scrap heap because of a single highly publicized error in judgment. The sheer injustice is thrown into sharp relief when grief-stricken self-reproaching Miriam, her life now ruined, is recognized by a compete stranger. This woman walks straight up to her, punches her in the face, then self-righteously stands over her, shouting "A child! How could you?" as if Miriam, who only ever wanted to do right by Kiri, had murdered the child herself.
Kiri's father Tobi, the obvious suspect, is equally hounded - indeed tried & convicted - by the media. He has a history of violence & he's black: clearly guilty. His father Nate (a fine understated performance by Paapa Essiedu) at first believes him guilty & sets out to track him down. When Tobi convinces him he's innocent, Nate arranges with the police for Tobi to turn himself in. All he asks is a chance for Tobi to shower, change clothes & have a decent meal at home before doing so. Just as they're about to leave for the police station tho, the police renege on the agreement, burst in & arrest Tobi as a fugitive instead.
The foster mother Alice, having come to believe her son Si is the real killer, gives damning false evidence against Tobi in order to protect Si. Si, the foster brother who genuinely loved Kiri, who was most distraught at her death, knows Alice is lying & correctly deduces why. Si's the one who figures out his dad killed her.
He confronts Jim with a choice: Admit it now & it goes no further; deny it & he'll take his suspicions not to the police but - far worse - to his mother. Jim breaks down & confesses. He'd seen the girl as "new glue" to hold his failing marriage together. When she rejected the impending adoption to run off with her birth father instead, he killed her in a fit of rage.
Si then explains his rationale for keeping Jim's guilty secret: Shaken & appalled by the public scrutiny his family has already endured, this shy sensitive boy can all too easily imagine becoming notorious as the son of "the monster family" whose dad murdered poor little Kiri. To avoid that, he'll let an innocent man to go to prison. He's a criminal anyway, isn't he? What does it matter? And this is the saddest most shocking part of all. Si isn't a bad kid, quite the opposite. Throughout, he's shown love & concern for his family, including Kiri, but his desperate need for at least the façade of white middle class respectability, no matter how sham, takes precedence over an unknown black man's innocence.
What a truly horrible ending! But that brings us back to the realism of the BBC. No happy ending here. No justice. Anywhere in the white-dominated world, a black man, innocent or not, is five times more likely to be convicted of a crime than a white man & this series doesn't flinch from this ugly reality.