Kiss of Death BBC

This is a detective drama series, much like CSI. The forensic team went all out to find a kidnapped woman and her abductor through various scientific methods in the first and second episodes. The latter had taunted the team through video clips of his threats and torture methods on the woman, and her pleas. His motive was revenge on one of the scientists who had earlier convicted him of rape, since he had just been released from prison a month before.

I feel this series is more intense than CSI, in terms of the underlying tensions among the team members which explode into confrontations, and the underlying passions between the team members of the opposite sex which are then outwardly expressed. Jude for example, seems the subservient type but when she takes the initiative to collect some evidence on her own and tells her senior, he scolds her for doing so. That is when she really vents her feelings on him. George, too, verbally retaliates Kay, who is the head of the team, when she is confronted with her past alcoholism, as that will compromise her performance on the case. The passion between Clive and Kay is unexpected as there were no prior signs of it. All they did was to discuss the case and fight over it when their opinions differed. They had a volatile professional past with each other too.

CSI does have these elements too. Lindsay and Danny are CSI:NY's most famous couple, for example. I am not as gripped or drawn into the feelings of this series's characters as I am in the BBC series. The characters in the BBC series act really well and I don't feel as if I am a TV viewer. Instead, I laugh and cry alongside them.

An ethical dilemma presented itself in these first two episodes. As a forensic pathologist, would you go all out to solve the case, even if it meant using illegal means? Would you choose justice above morality? It is a fine line because justice is part of morality. It is similar to the saying 'the end justifies the means'.

Using illegal means compromises the integrity of the forensic scientists even if they get to solve the case. Sad to say, the team engages in such methods when Kay decides to use unlawfully obtained information in order to speed up the investigations. Can we blame her? She was probably at her wits' end.

The team commits a falsehood in order to get to the truth too. Sounds paradoxical? It is. George "admits" to messing up on the investigations and thus this seems to cast a dubious light on the proceedings of the case. However, Miles, the lawyer working with the team, turns it into an advantage. This act of false witness torments George though. She has betrayed her conscience and Miles smugly plays on her "admission" after she leaves. He proposed this idea and is smug about it as he unfolds it before the reporters. Kind of callous and villainous, don't you think? It is as if he is the only one not going through the dilemma and has immediately chosen the bad side. The dilemma experienced makes the others prone to a redemptive aspect in their character even when they choose to go ahead with the falsehood and illegal means.

Seriously, I wouldn't know what to do should this dilemma present itself to me. Would you and if so, what would you do?