Waterloo Road is largely and enjoyable viewing experience despite its many, many flaws. There seems to be a distinct lack of drama on any channel at the moment that deals in anything close to reality. The ‘concept’ drama is still very much alive and, in my opinion, had outstayed its welcome. Waterloo Road has at least one foot in the real world and has a smattering of believable characters – the cynical old History teacher, the spinster French teacher, the irritating expelled student with a face you could take ratting.
Unfortunately a few too many worthy ‘issues’ are creeping in and gathering, riot style, into the one same episode: pupil-teacher crush, lonely teacher gets MS, stressed mother goes into tragic premature labour, ex-junkie goes home to her sinister step-dad, teenage girl raped in bushes, 17-year-old boy begins illicit tryst with 30-year-old secretary…Still, the authentic moments shine through and that makes it almost worthwhile. I’m quite hopeful the issues will resolve ad a bit of human drama may surface.
The Verdict had too much human drama – so much so I thought I might end up having a nervous breakdown. The show was incredibly depressing, yet frighteningly real. The biggest problem for me was not the very predictable young-girl-roasted-or-raped-by-grubby-footballers trial, it was the ridiculous jury. I’m sure the BBC was trying to highlight the very real difficulty and responsibility such a trial holds, but choosing a jury that would never pass the selection stage was simply pointless. An ex-footballer with a penchant for girlfriend beating and dogging? An angry ex-rapper cleared – eventually – of murder? A campaigning mother who’s child was herself raped and murdered? An ex-MP jailbird who himself lied in court? A woman who began a world famous sex-toy shop? Come on! Most people with dull and colourless lives would struggle with such a trial but neither the ‘victim’ nor the ‘accused’ can have felt any confidence when they saw that bizarre group of ‘representatives’.
Naturally all charges were acquitted and, surprisingly for me, the jury did do their best to remove emotion and follow the facts only – but the truly harrowing aspect of the entire show was that at least 75% of the jury felt that the victim had been raped but couldn’t convict the accused for a very minor – but very real – reason. It appears that burdening a rape victim with a very public display of disbelief is much easier to live with that burdening a guilty party with prison purely on a technicality.
It’s no wonder the conviction rate for rape is dropping. If any potential future rape victims watched The Verdict, I doubt they’d even bother phoning the police – and who can blame them?
Bring back comedy. Please? Chillywinter@hotmail.co.uk
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment