Armchair Thriller: Fear of God

Warning: suicide, cults

In my last post I commented that I don't think I have been completely fair to Armchair Thriller (1978 to 1980). The title places it in a great tradition, of course, of the long-running series Armchair Theatre and its successor Armchair Cinema. The difference, of course, is that Armchair Theatre drew on the older television tradition influenced by the actual theatre, of broadcasting a play in one go on one occasion, but Armchair Thriller's stories are all separated up into several episodes. Except when they're sewn together as TV films. I swear when I started blogging about old TV I had no idea how much like being an archaeologist it is, often like assembling the pieces of a pot and still not being sure about it, but I had better warn you that you will find the episodes of Armchair Thriller in several redactions online, and at least one series is also around in film form.

The other thing which fractures Armchair Thriller is that its episodes were made by two independent TV complanies, mostly by Thames Television, but two serials were made by Southern Television. As a result if you buy the DVD box set which describes itself as the complete series, it only includes the Thames serials and not the Southern ones. It's absolutely maddening, as so often in the world of old TV.

Fear of God has good snappy episode summaries on IMDb which I will try not to reproduce but I'm going to be absolutely frank here and say that I am sorry that I have so far managed not to see Fear of God because it contains all the things which virtually guarantee that I'm going to love it.

It starts with the classic intrepid-reporter-after-a-lead-that-everybody-wants-buried-including-the-police trope, which I already love. The reason is that a young woman has killed herself by jumping off the roof of the near-derelict building he lives in, and she has left a diary behind, of course. We have other threads in the shape of the condemned building which the reporter, Paul Marriott, is obviously keen to keep standing, and his recent divorce.

It turns out the woman belonged to what was then called a cult, and even if I wasn't already in love, my heart would have melted. I LOVE cults, or new religious movements as they were referred to when I was a young theology student in the nineties. SInce then both scholars and the public have gone back to calling them cults in distinction to more respectable religions. I'm hoping that one of these days the population notice that established, respectable religions also tend to function exactly the same as cults, just with the difference that the charismatic founder is dead, but that's another matter entirely. The cult in Fear of God is somewhat wooden without too much detail on its cultic workings, but that's OK because the serial is just getting started on the weird shit.

You could be forgiven for thinking that the first episode is perhaps a little slow and that this is going to be a straightforward mystery. However once the cult appears the show ramps up the pace and introduces a whole layer of science fiction, about sonic weapons used by the cult, which takes this one well out of standard mystery territory. From a pedestrian start as a mystery this show really throws all sorts of stuff at the viewer and even on my (currently) third viewing I'm still trying to get my head round it.

In fact this is much of the criticism of this episode online, that it isn't what it seems like it's going to be. This is a valid criticism, I think, and if it wasn't that the other stuff it introduces was so very me, I would probably agree. Perhaps a variation of this criticism could be that I think this four-part TV serial could in fact have been a film. In a film-length time I think the various elements could have been introduced at a different pace and avoid the feeling that it's changing tack part way through.

I spotted some dissatisfaction in the reviews with the way this complex plot is resolved: you will not be surprised to know that it's resolved by introducing something completely off the wall. I'm not going to tell you what it is because I don't want to spoil it, but suffice to say I roared with laughter at how it's done and wouldn't criticise the resolution personally.

I would praise the entire cast for excellent performances at some very intense and difficult roles. It is another peculiarity of the way the show develops that some quite key characters are only seen in one episode, so you don't get that much of some of these excellent performances. I would particularly single out Robert Austin depicting sheer fanaticism as the cult leader. This is something incredibly difficult to do without turning the leader into a one-dimensional caricature but he manages to do it for the approximately thirty seconds for which we see him. Another excellent performance is Peter Settelen as a drug addict who gets involved - again a very difficult role to do convincingly without caricaturing, but he makes the role a nuanced, insightful performance. With drug addiction, obviously. Settelen has appeared in many shows which are probably a bit later than what you will see here, but he is perhaps best known for having been Princess Diana's voice coach, so isn't just an actor.

My personal verdict is that this is one of those shows you watch for the journey rather than the map. If you require tight plotting and clear arcs through the mystery, I don't think this will be your sort of thing, and I think a lot of the perplexed reviews online are from people who really don't like this sort of show.

Fear of God is an excellent, layered thriller, although its far-ranging plot might not be pleasing to all.

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