If the first series of last year’s thriller, The Fall, is anything to judge by, the
staid genteel stereotype of the BBC’s dramatic programming has long gone the
way of the rotary phone and the VCR. Mrs. Marple has become a modern woman
unwilling to take a subordinate role to men in any area of life, and a sexually
perverted serial killer is pursuing beautiful young professional women.
Written by Allan Cubitt, The
Fall, stars Gillian Anderson as DSI Stella Gibson, a hard-nosed detective
sent to Belfast from the central office to review a murder case the locals have
been unsuccessfully working on. Not only is she a no nonsense, demanding
professional, she is smart and aggressive in pushing her opinions. Moreover, she
is no less aggressive in her own sexual behavior. This is a woman who takes a
back seat to no one. Almost immediately she ties the one murder case, to a
second unsolved case, and then when there is a third murder, it is clear that
she was right.
The Fall is not a
who done it. Viewers meet the killer from the very beginning. Paul Spector,
played by Jamie Dornan, is the father of two young children married to a nurse
who works in a neo-natal intensive care unit. He works as a grief counselor,
and he likes to strangle young women, pose their naked corpses, and take
photographs of the bodies. On the surface, he is a model citizen. We are shown
him washing his little daughter’s hair. We are shown him packing his kids’
lunch for school. We are shown him counseling a couple who have lost their
young son. Of course we are also shown him doodling a nude picture of the woman
as he pretends to take notes. We are also shown him breaking into a victim’s
house and stealing some of her underwear. He is a perfect candidate for a
chapter in Krafft-Ebbing.
Cubitt’s script tends to alternate scenes of the police
investigation and some of their outside activities with scenes of the serial
killer stalking his new victim as well as his family life. Both Anderson and
Dornan give masterful performances. She manages to be both dominating and
alluring as she exudes sexuality. He is the model of the young family man, even
as he pursues his obsessions. He is an example of what psychologists call
doubling, as DSI Gibson points out. One might well argue that she, herself, is
also a doubler on some level. Doubling, as explained in Psychology Today, is the creation of two independent selves within
a person. Robert Louis Stevenson might have called it “Jekyll and Hydism.
Different selves operate in different situations.
It is an interesting thesis and makes for a riveting five
episode series, available in a two disc DVD set from Acorn in the middle of
October. This first series runs for approximately 300 minutes, and seems to end
with a promise of a series continuation, something for those of us who enjoyed the show to look
forward to. The DVD includes a 12 minute “Behind the Scenes” featurette with
cast interviews.
