Channel Hop
The American cop show has come a long way in the past 50 years. Things were certainly a lot simpler in the days when Dragnet's Joe Friday sought 'just the facts' and Hawaii Five-O's Steve McGarrett would command Danno to 'book 'em' on a weekly basis. Since then, we've discovered that cops have emotions too (Hill Street Blues), being a detective and a style icon are not mutually exclusive (Miami Vice) and that life on the thin blue line is actually pretty damn gritty (NYPD Blue).
Since 2000, however, the prevailing trend in police shows has been dictated by three letters: CSI. Although there have been notable exceptions (The Shield, The Wire), this decade's TV detectives have become slaves to the microscope, the computer and the test tube.
The Inside (TVB Pearl, Tuesdays, 9.30pm), however, offers something different. The show, created by Tim Minear (whose previous writing/production credits include Angel and Firefly), centres around the FBI's Violent Crimes Unit (VCU) in Los Angeles, the department charged with bringing the country's most evil serial killers to justice. In particular, the show focuses on rookie agent Rebecca Locke (Rachel Nichols, The Amityville Horror), who has more of an insight than most into the mind of
a psycho, having been abducted and held captive by a twisted fiend for 18 months at the age of 10.
The first episode begins with a gruesome discovery. One of the VCU's agents has had the flesh stripped from her hands and half of her face has been carved off, seemingly by the serial killer she was tracking. The VCU's mysterious, cryptic director, Virgil 'Web' Webster (Peter Coyote, The 4400), wastes no time in recruiting a replacement (Locke) and putting her on the case. 'She has a gift forged in pain and she wants me to use her,' growls Webster to fellow agent Paul Ryan (Jay Harrington).
Aided by agents Danny Love (Adam Baldwin) and Melody Sims (Katie Finneran), Locke, Ryan and Webster proceed to tackle a different case each week, which inevitably involve a serial killer on the rampage or a macabre murder. The tone is dark and unsettling while the storylines are well thought out and suitably tortuous, making the show come across like a TV-friendly mix of Saw and The Silence of the Lambs. The scripts are smart and laced with dark humour while Coyote is a standout as the shadowy yet fatherly Webster.
Unfortunately, despite positive reviews, the show was canned after just one season by American network Fox. Maybe it would have fared better if they'd called it The CSInside.
Over on National Geographic, the fledgling extreme sport of freediving goes under the microscope in the superb documentary On a Single Breath (today at 9pm). Hosted by world freediving champion Tanya Streeter, this beautifully filmed special follows 52-year-old grandmother-of-five Annabel Briseno as she attempts to break four freediving records in one week.
Freediving is the art of diving to incredible depths without artificial breathing apparatus; some competitors can reach depths of more than 160 metres and hold their breath for more than six minutes. It is believed to have begun in Japan centuries ago as a way to collect seaweed, with early freedivers fashioning rudimentary goggles from ultra-thin, polished oyster shells.
Through interviews with Briseno, her husband and coach (Matt) and other freedivers, On a Single Breath gets to the bottom of this dangerous but graceful pursuit's appeal and shows the steely determination and intense love of the sport that keeps the divers coming back again and again. It also explains the amazing ways in which the human body adapts to perform at depths more suitable to dolphins and investigates the strange feeling of drunken euphoria divers often encounter at depths below 50 metres. As Briseno demonstrates, however, the hard part isn't getting down, but getting back up.
Combining balletic footage that seems to have come straight from The Big Blue with thoughtful insights, On a Single Breath reveals why, in the words of Japanese freediving champion Megumi Matsumoto, the first breath after a dive is 'like being born'.
