Touching EvilTouching Evil 1 Boxed Set (DVD)
Starring: Robson Green and Nicola Walker
Story:4.0 Stars
DVD Features:1.0 Stars

Touching Evil is the story of Detective Inspector Dave Creegan (Robson Green) who returns to the Organized and Serial Crime (OSC) Unit after recovering from a bullet wound to the head. Creegan’s injury as changed him in unpredictable ways but his boss wants him back because he is a genius at getting into the mind of serial killers. Creegan and his partner, D.I. Susan Taylor (Nicola Walker), investigate the most serious crimes in England including a serial killer of children. The show was originally broadcast on British television in 1997 and was more recently shown in the US on PBS’s program, Mystery. USA Network produced their own short-lived version of the show in 2004. Beth and I liked it very much and I blogged about it at the time.

The show is much less violent and more thoughtful than we are used to on American television. It is also very stylish in its way. Using dark sets and odd lighting it creates a strange and uncomfortable mood. Robson Green is excellent in the lead roll. He has intense blue eyes and rugged good looks and makes himself completely believable as the detective who can concentrate on his job while his personal life crumbles. Creegan is a loner forced to work with a partner who can’t trust him. The other members of the OSC aren’t sure if the Creegan is as sane as the man they once knew.

The first episode deals with Creegan’s return to OSC and his investigation of several young boys who have been kidnapped and left in an airtight room to suffocate. The kidnapper has left a broadcast camera so he can watch them die. Creegan and Taylor have to crack the case before it is too late. The second episode deals with a serial killer of hospital patients and realistically deals with Creegan’s own demons of having come back from the dead in the ER the night he was shot in the head. The two episodes are excellent and the script and the acting are perfect. The two episodes move along well but also concentrate on developing believable characters.

The third episode was a big disappointment. An attempt to bring cyber-space into a story line, it suffers from being written in 1997 by writers who don’t quite understand cyberspace. The killer is completely unbelievable as computer whiz or as a psychological manipulator of teenagers. For example, the police arrive at the college where they suspect the criminals are and demand that all students be given user id and passwords to get into the computer system. Amazingly, the very next day every student has a new computer id. Even the reason for the initial police investigation isn’t quite believable as the crime that has been committed is horse mutilation. The character of the killer is completely undeveloped and we never get a chance to discover who he is or why exactly he is committing these crimes. I found this the weakest of the stories.

Throughout the episodes there are dark scenes designed to provide a mood. To some extent this works but sometimes (especially in the last episode) it interferes with the story by being so “in your face”. For example, the offices where the detectives work are always dark. I find it hard to believe that someone could read a file or do some paperwork in these offices. An interview room will be a large dark room with a small reflective table in the middle. A single spotlight will shine onto the table and provide reflecting light onto the faces of those around the table. This might be good for cool looking cinematography but it isn’t really believable. Another scene in the offices has red light shining through a window onto the face of one of the detectives while the office itself is lit only by one small spotlight. Dust is floating everywhere so light is always tempered by what looks like dust or smoke. This episode feels very badly overstaged.

But that is only one clinker out of three and the others discs are most certainly worth the price of admission.The DVD’s themselves are of good quality but have no special features. There is no commentary or interviews. The episodes appear on the DVD exactly as they appeared on the Mystery TV program so each 2 hour episode is broken into two 1 hour programs. This means that at the end of the first hour there are closing credits and then opening credits of Mystery followed by Diana Rigg’s introduction which in some cases gives more of the episode away than I would have liked. It would have been much better if they had been edited so that it was possible to watch the episodes without the break.

 

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