White Ghost
Air date: 10/28/1996
Written: Paul Abbott
Directed: Richard Standeven
Fitz ends up in Hong Kong on a lecture tour. He's tapped by DCI Cheung (Freda Foh Shen) to help investigate the murder of a wealth businessman. The killer is Dennis Philby (Barnaby Kay), an English entrepreneur bankrupted by bad investments - and enraged that his pregnant Chinese girlfriend Su Lin Tang (Rene Liu) wants an abortion. Philby kidnaps Su and kills others. Cheung finds Fitz useful, even if her stuffy boss (Michael Pennington) harbors doubts.
White Ghost seems content to be a field trip episode, with Fitz taking in the sights of exotic Hong Kong. There's talk about the impending handover from Britain to China and the contrast between Fitz's off-beat style and the Hong Kong police's methodical approach. The show moves quickly enough, but the setting isn't utilized to any particular effect. Robbie Coltrane's as snappy as ever and the show has some fun moments, but there's an air of why bother about it.
Conspicuously absent is Fitz's family, who've apparently grown tired of the old sod. Penhaligon's studying for a promotion, so she's out. Only Ricky Tomlinson's Wise returns, mostly as the butt of jokes (he spends the show's first hour jet lagged). Luckily there's Freda Foh Shen as the coolly professional DCI Cheung. Her interaction with Fitz follows a familiar arc, from bemused tolerance to grudging respect, but Shen's smart performance makes it work.
What doesn't work is the story. Neither Abbott nor actor Barnaby Kay make Philby credible in his actions or motives; he kills because the plot requires him too. The show works up a serviceable manhunt tension but little more, the hallmark of Paul Abbott's Cracker. White Ghost is passable entertainment, even if there's no reason for it to exist.
A New Terror (aka Nine-Eleven)
Air date: 10/30/2006
Written: Jimmy McGovern
Directed: Antonia Bird
It would be one thing if A New Terror were simply a lark like White Ghost. But it's actively, infuriatingly bad. Evidently, this show was crafted by a Bizarro Jimmy McGovern: the eloquent anguish that make his original Cracker scripts unforgettable, channeled differently, ruins Terror.
After ten years abroad in Australia, Fitz and family return to Manchester. Much to Judith's chagrin, Fitz finds himself drawn into a new case. An American comedian (Matt Rippy) turns up dead, evidently killed by an ex-soldier. It turns out the murderer is Kenny Archer (Anthony Flannagan), a veteran of Northern Ireland suffering from PTSD. Conveniently, he's also a policeman himself. Despite the reluctance of the Manchester police to bring him on board, Fitz inevitably assumes a central role in the investigation.
A New Terror works for about 15 minutes. All these years and Fitz proves the same old sod, ruining daughter Katy's wedding with a crude toast. Having Fitz revisit the New Manchester, no longer a post-industrial wasteland but a thriving metropolis, provides a tinge of amusement. It's nice to probe his relationships with Judith, who seems more tolerant towards Fitz's vices, and Mark, now a surprisingly well-adjusted adult. McGovern successfully whets our appetite with this early character development. Then the plot starts.
A New Terror isn't a Cracker episode so much as a violent diatribe against George Bush, Tony Blair and the Iraq War. This topicality proves immediately off-putting. Cracker explored relatively universal themes: male insecurity, sexism, class tension and racial disquiet. Only To Be a Somebody, with its evocation of Hillsborough, tied itself to real-world events. That episode's deft treatment of an authentic tragedy stands in stark contrast to A New Terror's crass ranting. Just seven years on, Terror feels incredibly dated.
McGovern channels his outrage into overwrought America bashing. Kenny kills exclusively boorish stereotypes: his second victim especially (Demetri Goritsas), a racist, wealthy businessman screwing a married Englishwoman, is less subtle than The Simpsons' Rich Texan. This taps into British anti-Americanism of Second World War vintage ("overpaid, oversexed, over here"), if not much older. Then we get Chomsky-lite diatribes about 9/11 as foreign policy blow back and American support of Sinn Fein. Even Fitz's interrogations degenerate to ranting about Bush. Isn't this a crime drama?
Friends traveling abroad during the Bush years assure me such resentment was commonplace. And on one level, associating a nation with its government is an easy judgment. Americans certainly don't distinguish between, say, Mahmoud Ahmedinijad and the average Iranian. But it takes a special kind of nerve for McGovern to call killing Americans solely for being American "understandable, but not excusable." Forgive this Yank for taking offense.
McGovern's so firmly planted on his soapbox that he barely bothers with a story. Wise and Penhaligon go unmentioned; Judith and Mark get hustled off at earliest convenience. Fitz deals with three cops (Richard Coyle, Nisha Nayar and Rafe Spall) who register zero personality between them. Kenny being a detective himself doesn't amount to much; he spends much of the show browbeating a petty crook who witnessed his first murder. That's not to mention Antonia Bird's obnoxious direction, splicing in news footage and jerky flashbacks like a distaff Oliver Stone.
Any redeeming features? Anthony Flanagan deserves praise for making Kenny sympathetic in his anguish if not his actions. With a little sharper writing, he could have made a genuinely tragic villain. Better still, Robbie Coltrane is in top form, a little grayer and paunchier but as vulgar, sly and brilliant as ever. At least we know if there are future Cracker revivals, Fitz remains up for the task. The same may not be true for Jimmy McGovern, however.
* * *
Rather than dwell on these unsatisfactory postscripts, let's wrap things up with a brief, personal retrospective on writing these articles.
I've shied away from writing about television shows, for the problems evident here: lots of surface and subtextual content, ongoing plot lines, many characters and diffuse subplots. Most movies, even installments in franchises, can be reviewed as an individual work. But you have to consider a TV episode both as a self-contained entity and part of a larger whole. Also, you can't include every little detail from an episode, however significant. It took me twice as long to write even the most perfunctory Cracker review than my average film review.
This was a burden for Cracker, a series with just 11 episodes. I can't imagine doing a long-running show like The Sopranos or The Wire, or even King of the Hill, without going insane. While I'm satisfied with most of these reviews, and glad I at least tried something different, Groggy's not likely to revisit television any time soon. Hopefully my readers feel I did Fitz and Co. justice.
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