New Scientist - USA (2019-10-12)

32 | New Scientist | 12 October 2019

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THANKFULLY, I’ve never seen the

inside of a police interrogation

room – not in the UK, Spain,

France or Germany – but I can tell

you that government buildings

can’t be as similar in those nations,

or as well-lit, as they appear in

Netflix’s new drama series.

Criminal, created by George Kay

and Jim Field Smith,^ is a crime

procedural that strips away all

the flashy stuff. You won’t see a

car chase or enter a murder scene.

There’s no DNA lab, no courtroom

drama. Just a room, a suspect and

a handful of police, either asking

questions or observing behind

a two-way mirror. (Admittedly,

there’s a coffee machine in the

hallway – that changes up the

scenery a bit.)

Four countries, with three

stories in each. Twelve tales,

then, enacted on the same limited

set. A back-to-back viewing of

all the episodes isn’t something

I would recommend.

Each story is performed in the

country’s native language with

subtitles. This is television worth

actually watching, not focusing

half your attention on while

scrolling through your phone.

Although each country’s episodes

have a different director, any

disjointedness is overcome by

the shared set design and visual

tone. Despite being set in four

European countries, all the

episodes were filmed at Netflix’s

production hub at Ciudad de la

Tele in Madrid.

I was surprised to see how each

director had framed the action,

finding countless new angles on

the same space. If future episodes

continue in this vein, this interest,

I imagine, will be hard to maintain.

But it is here that psychology

itself becomes another character

in the television show as we see

manipulation play out in real

time, both from the investigators

and their suspects. Some of the

most intriguing views into the art

of interrogation come in snippets

A battle of words The stripped-down, laboratory-like setting of Netflix’s

international whodunnit series Criminal is the perfect foil for scripts that focus

with clinical precision on the mind, says Chelsea Whyte

“ It’s a crime procedural

that strips away all the

flashy stuff. You won’t

see a car chase or enter

a murder scene”

TV

Criminal

Created by George Kay

and Jim Field Smith

Netflix

Chelsea also

recommends...

TV

Broadchurch

Created by Chris Chibnall

ITV

David Tennant’s brilliant

turn as a detective

investigating the death of a

young boy in a seaside town.

Podcast

Crimetown

Hosted by Marc Smerling

and Zac Stuart-Pontier

Gimlet Media

Dive into US organised

crime. Each season focuses

on one city – Providence in

Rhode Island and Detroit,

Michigan – and the peculiar

characters who make up its

criminal underbelly.

of conversation between the

various police crews, who swap

in and out of the room to better

intimidate, empathise with or

stonewall their suspects.

The weakest set of stories

is the one from Spain, which

made caricatures of some of the

characters and had twist endings

I could see coming a mile away.

These episodes included

investigators who routinely lied

to the suspects, as well as forging a

warrant and threatening to harm

their loved ones. Yet it wasn’t

presented in a way that felt like a

commentary on police corruption,

but more as a way to create drama

within the show’s tight format.

It wasn’t necessary. The UK

series includes two performances

that are so compelling I couldn’t

look away. In its first episode,

David Tennant plays the stepfather

of a 14-year-old girl, and is being

questioned about her rape and

murder. For the first 15 minutes he

says nothing but “No comment”,

each a masterclass in restraint.

The moments that stayed with

me longest were from Hayley

Atwell, who plays a woman being

questioned about the death of

her sister’s boyfriend. She was

by turns brash, pained, defensive

and utterly wrecked. Her every

lip quiver was perfectly judged.

We get only glimpses of the lives

of the investigators, whether they

are arguing in the hall or watching

from behind a two-way mirror as

their colleagues psychologically

break down a suspect. But I quite

liked not really being able to tell

where things might go in the

future between these co-workers

as they angled for advantage,

stabbed each other in the back

and fell in love. ❚

JOS

EH

AR

O.C

OM

/N

ET

FLI

X

A highly charged silence:

Lolita Chakrabarti and

David Tennant in Criminal

The TV column

Chelsea Whyte is a reporter

for New Scientist, based in

Boston, Massachusetts.

Follow her on Twitter

@ chelswhyte