anti-recs

This is the BBC's 5-part drama serial Paradox, not anything else of the same name. It's not all bad by any means, but there are definitely things that people should be warned about.

There's an intellectual mystery at the core, and a lot of police action, but it's predominantly a thriller, so there's deadly peril in every episode, which isn't always averted. If there's a particular peril you can't tolerate, it's probably in there somewhere.

They return frequently to the "images from the future", including dead people. This gives me the impression that they don't expect the audience to pay attention, so we need to be nudged in the ribs whenever a piece of the puzzle falls into place. This is OK in the first episode when nobody knows what's happening, but it gets old fast.

Trigger warning for sexual assault: (skip details) a lot of dialogue about rape (some of which debunks rape myths, but), extensive scenes of stalking, an attack on a woman on-screen and the start of another. This is mostly all over episode 3, but missing that one wouldn't make the rest of the show safe.

I want to call out something I'm not sure of the name for: psychophobia? The tabloid-friendly implication that anyone with a mental health diagnosis is a danger to the general public. There's a character, described as "a fantasist" (I think he's supposed to believe his own lies), who the law can't do anything about because he hasn't been caught sufficiently red-handed. If this case was real, the tabloids would be all over it. ( spoilers for episode 3 )

I really don't like what they did with Callum, the only black guy in the main cast. He's a Christian, a conscientious copper, and has a home life which isn't the soap-operatic mess his team-mates are involved in, which is all fine and dandy. Then the writers start playing up how being a believer means interpreting the mystery entirely in those terms, which could work, but in the last episode, OMG I can't even. ( vague spoiler for episode 5 )