A member of the forensic police force told me that nothing had been more detrimental to his work than CSI. She had not only made her work visible, but also given it an almost supernatural aura. There are many professions affected by fictionitis. I have never greeted anyone in a hospital with the shout of “Caucasian woman, asystolic, prepare 10 milligrams of epinephrine!”, nor have I seen a pneumothorax in an elevator, and I know a lawyer who didn’t know he wasn’t can shout protest. !, nor ask his clients to use the Fifth Amendment until he gets to college, the best he could do is catch a straight idiot a la Turn of Office, because the reality most resembles the Spanish series of the 80s.
The true complexity of police methods, so far removed from the artificiality and immediacy of CSI, speaks to The Port Talbot Murders, Filmin’s hugely entertaining series about Wales’ first documented serial killer. The script comes from Ed Whitmore, who is also responsible for the equally recommendable Manhunt. In both attempts he tries to explain in detail the work of the police, which is so often hampered by bureaucracy, human error or a lack of resources, and to point out the obvious: technology is an addition. What solves the cases is the tenacity of those who investigate. He does this without forgetting the victims, because the obstacles in the investigation are different, but what is always the same is the pain and fear of those who wait for answers that do not always arrive.
The fact that fraudulent police fictions have accustomed us to the idea that everything has an immediate explanation means that there are already those who demand to know all the circumstances of the tragedy before a body cools down. And when they don’t live up to expectations, there’s always a conspiracy.
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