Telly Talk: Staying true?
Who didn’t love The Killing? The Bridge was also fabulous. And The Castle communicates such complex political and media-led ideas that its big stories highlight how a simple personal truth can easily become sensationalised and wreck careers. Danish drama writing is rather ace, but after rapidly dismissing the US version of The Killing after the second episode for not being a carbon copy of the original – unfair, I know, but dem’s de breaks – it was with a mixture of curiosity and reticence that I discovered that Channel Five’s new series Betrayal was an adaption of another popular Danish series.
“James Cromwell is always the most evocative of shady paternal figures”
I haven’t seen the original Danish series by the way. Unlike The Killing, which felt like a subtitled revolution in my mind, with subtle writing, nefarious sub plots and political in-fighting that orbited the main spine of a murder investigation, Betrayal has passed me by. And perhaps I could enjoy this version all the more for the lack of a comparison. I kept an eye out for the telltale Danish attractions though, and was most gratified to spot quite a few. Themes were running from the offset. Not simply of the title, the evocative ‘betrayal’, but also of stale relationships that have crept up without malice, familial love on all levels and what that means in terms of affection, obligation and devotion. That most of us are shades of grey, never completely black or white. Props to casting with this last one, as James Cromwell is always the most evocative of shady paternal figures.
It’s these complexities that mark out the Danish influence, along with the absence of two dimensional characters on any level of the script. Stuart Townsend is charming and disarming, Hannah Ware is constricted and conflicted.
These are the two main people we spider-graph out from to gather our starter cast of characters. And if you recognise the actor playing the damaged Thatcher Junior from somewhere, you’ll never guess where from. He’s only our favourite alien’s best friend – Elliott from the 1982 smash E.T the Extra-Terrestrial. But don’t let that limit your appreciation of his performance of a frustrated heir apparent to a business empire.
My quibble, and I can’t even say this with any great authority having already admitted to ignorance of the original series, is that just like with the remake of The Killing, Betrayal feels squashed. As if many more episodes were commissioned for the original run, with the content now being cherry-picked and squeezed into a fraction of the original space. It feels untrue, the speed at which our protagonists dip into what appears to be a mutual obsession – another theme, that also happens to be photographer Hannah Ware’s latest magazine commission. The slightly heavy-handed manner her husband absentmindedly belittles and ignores her. These characters are recognisable from the off, so to see their stories compressed in this manner does feel a tad jarring.
But it is a quibble. Already nominated for the People’s Choice Award for Favourite New TV Drama at only nine episodes in, Betrayal has a great cast, complex and engaging storylines that work along business-, family-, crime- and other-lines, and promises much. Well done Channel Five for picking it up, building on its growing reputation as a strong importer of engaging US shows. A great message to send out to those who ever doubted your programming for 2014.
Betrayal, Channel Five, Coming Soon
