This article was originally published in The Courier on 14 October 2017.
LOUIS THEROUX: DARK
STATES – HEROIN TOWN: Sunday, BBC Two
SNOWFALL: Sunday, BBC Two
When
you think of Sunday nights on BBC Two, you probably envision genteel arts
documentaries or bittersweet Brenda Blethyn films. You don’t imagine a blizzard
of Class A drugs exploding from your screen. Yet that’s what we got last Sabbath,
with a heavy narcotic double-bill.
In
LOUIS THEROUX: DARK STATES – HEROIN TOWN,
our inquisitive interlocutor visited a depressed Appalachian industrial
community where heroin use is rife. It’s an increasingly typical victim of, in
Theroux’s sombre words, “the most deadly drug epidemic in US history.”
He
met tragic addicts such as Curtilia, who spends more than $200 a day on her
habit. She confessed to Theroux that her drug-dealing boyfriend, who hovered ominously
in the background, was physically abusive. She was essentially his slave.
As
Theroux watched her shoot up, he gently enquired, “There’s nothing I could say
that would persuade you not to do that?” She shook her head with a weary smile.
Later
he met her elderly great uncle. He loved Curtilia with all his heart. She loved
him too, but she needed his money. He knew what she was using it for. She wept
when this softly-spoken old man confessed to Theroux that he was enabling her
demise. It was heart-breaking.
Theroux’s
point was clear. Most of these addicts turned to heroin after becoming
dependent on prescription painkillers wantonly prescribed by their doctors.
Following a crackdown on this irresponsible practice, illegal drugs became
their only way of numbing the pain. The multi-billion-dollar Big Pharma
companies signed their death warrants.
To
give us at least some comfort that decent professionals still exist, Theroux
met a doctor who cares for recovering pregnant addicts. His work is vital, as
one in ten babies born in this area are dependent on opiates.
He
also followed a fire emergency team who were constantly tasked with reviving
overdose victims, presumably because the local ambulance service couldn’t cope
on its own with the sheer volume of critically ill addicts. The sympathetic agent
he spoke to looked understandably tired.
This
was a typically sad, humane, unflinching Theroux report. When it comes to
presenting visions of unadulterated hopelessness, he has few peers.
Crack
cocaine is the drug of choice in SNOWFALL,
a new drama from Boyz n the Hood
director John Singleton.
Set
in South Central LA in 1983, it follows a black teenager as he shifts from soft
low-level drug dealing to Devil’s Dandruff distribution. He’s the archetypal
good kid getting in over his head. Naturally, his surname is Saint.
Dramas
set in the recent past often have a tendency to overdo period details, but Snowfall boasts an authentic sense of
time and place. There’s a nice selection of classic rap and soul on the
soundtrack. You can feel the ghetto-blasting summer heat.
Comparisons
with The Wire are inevitable,
especially when TV critics insist on making them. But what can a poor boy do?
Any new American crime drama involving drugs, troubled law enforcers and a
prominent black cast is destined to be judged against that monumental classic. Snowfall is more generic and less
Byzantine in its storytelling reach.
It
also shows, initially at least, why people enjoy taking drugs, whereas The Wire was more concerned with the
grim realities of addiction, poverty and crime. I’m sure Snowfall will tackle these issues eventually, but for now it feels
like a slick facsimile of David Simon’s angry masterpiece.
Despite
my nagging misgivings, it does show some promise. It’s well-made, the performances
are fine, and even the clichés are acceptable if you don’t take it too
seriously.
It
also serves as a counterpoint to Theroux’s new series. Snowfall pinpoints a time when hard drugs were beginning to become
more commonplace on the working-class streets of America.
34
years later, Theroux raked over the devastating legacy of that narcotic
epidemic.
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