Survivors News and Reviews

The BBC’s previous child protection documentary series focused on the police trying to detect and apprehend child abusers. This time, the programme makers follow a team of social workers and the general modern child protection structure starting in the home. Episode one showed us selected events over nearly a year in their attempt to help one family’s toddler to thrive out of delayed development and the eventual outcome. It would have been a better documentary if the entire family’s faces had been obscured and not just those of their children.

Hopefully the rest of the short series will drop the manipulative soap opera structure and more time will be given over to the actual work done by the social workers instead of the quick chats and Oprah-style summing up at the end.

You can view episode one on the BBC iPlayer here with a deadline date of 20th February.

- CBG

In It’s OK to Tell, Lauren shares her story, in her own words, of being sexually abused by her family’s nanny, and the story of what happened when she told the truth about what was happening.

Lauren’s story is an important one, I think, for three reasons:

1. Lauren comes from a very well-to-do family. We don’t tend to hear much about someone being abused in upper-middle class white families, but it absolutely happens. More than many probably want to admit.

2. On a similar note, Lauren was molested by a female perpetrator, another thing we tend to not talk a lot about. As a society we want to pigeonhole our pedophiles, to assure ourselves that our children are safer than they really are. Pedophiles come in all shapes and sizes. Avoiding the “creepy” looking middle age men does nothing to actually protect kids.

3. Lauren not only told while she was being abused, but also went through a messy and lengthy legal proceeding. This part of her story is also not one we tend to hear about a lot, but it’s vital that we understand what the process looks like, what sort of challenges are included, and plan for being able to overcome them.

The other thing that I think Lauren does an excellent job of, is including a lot of education within her story. Yes, she tells a story that is heartbreaking, that brings tears to your eyes as you imagine a lonely young girl being groomed and eventually assaulted by the woman she has come to trust and love. In between those pages though, you’ll find a lot of explanation as to what was happening, why, how it fits with typical abuse victims behavior, etc. Those of you have been on your own healing journey for awhile now, or who have spent a lot of time reading and studying child abuse may find the explanations a bit basic, but you also have to remember who the audience for this book is. It’s not us, it’s the children being abused, the parents jut discovering the abuse happening to their children, and those struggling to share their “secrets”. In that regard, Lauren does a good job of showing them the reality of healing.

I also have to respect Lauren for another reason. Yes, she’s a child of privilege, who had access to more resources to add in her healing, and her legal case, than most survivors do. (Her father is a well-known lobbyist in Florida with quite a few helpful connections.) It would be easy to dismiss much of her success to that, however you have to also give her credit for taking full advantage of her status to help others. She, with the aid of her father, have gotten the state of Florida to pass numerous laws to help victims of abuse, and she has started her own foundation, Lauren’s Kids. You can learn more about the foundation on their website, where you’ll also see that Lauren is currently in the midst of walking across Florida to raise money and awareness for abuse prevention programs. If you’re in Florida, check out when she’ll be in your area, and the opportunities to help out along the route, or by walking with her. Even if you’re not, you can donate, or simply give a thought for her safety and health along the 1,500 mile route!

The first series of Coppers was excellent and worthy of awards. It gave a fly-on-the-wall view of modern English policing with pieces to camera from the officers themselves. Unfortunately the programme makers decided to adopt a joking tone for the start of its second series in the style of highly edited reality show programmes from the same TV Channel.
Thankfully the humourous tone is completely dropped midway through the debut episode of the second series as the police team in Nottingham, England catch and process a paedophile including his phone call. It’s not clear whether this is connected to any of the stories we linked last year, but we can only assume the confession stopped the perpetrator’s identity from being concealed.  If you’ve missed it on its original transmission on Monday 9th January then it can be viewed at Channel 4′s on-demand website, now available for 30 days through your Xbox 360 console subject to rights, or search Coppers on Youtube and follow the Channel 4-related links which are currently ranked by episode title.

Link: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/coppers/4od

Seven weeks after the 100th episode, Criminal Minds looked like it had peaked with its realistic depictions of the effects of child abuse. The 16th episode of the season, “Mosley Lane”, is the one that topped second season classic “P911″ whilst retaining part of the earlier episode’s format; of stolen children helping each other, with varying results. It’s one of a few in the fifth season where the story is past the middle when the episode actually begins, and a new child kidnap is part of that beginning.

Normally the pace of Criminal Minds rattles along like an express train, but they pack a lot into this episode’s 40 minutes. A parent who lost a child eight years before, ends up assisting both the team and the new kidnap victim’s parents; the creepy kidnappers evoke the Hansel and Gretel modern fairytale angle that the writers were looking for through their first-choice casting of Bud Cort and Beth Grant as the serial kidnap and murder team. Their detached performances display the banality of evil approach which has proven to be realistic in real-life cases of this time such as those of Steven Stayner, Jaycee Dugard and Shawn Hornbeck, as well as the parents tearing themselves apart.

The ending is also realistic enough, updating P911′s open ending for just the two kids, to one that is bittersweet for the three in this episode and the eldest survivor played by Evan Peters, best known in the UK for the movie Kick-Ass and an episode of the Mentalist, both shown last year. It’s the new benchmark for a show that has already set a high standard and the writers Simon Mirren, teamed with Erica Messer this time, will have to work hard to top this episode either for fans or for realistic depictions of the aftermath of CSA-related kidnap cases. It’s expertly directed by Matthew Gray Gubler which explains his character’s fade into the background on this episode compared to normal, but the episode didn’t suffer thanks to the general ensemble quality.

There are other good series 5 episodes and we’ll bring you those retrospectives at a later date, and we’re sure that the show is repeated in the US frequently. Meanwhile, season six of the show is released on DVD in the UK on Monday 28th November to update people watching without satellite connections, so if the writers have leapt over the high bar within the following season, we’ll bring you those reviews in the future as well.

- CBG

Sources: IMDB.com, TV.com, “Case File: Grim” and “Gubler Direct” Featurettes on Season 5 Box Set

Spoiler Note: This is an ongoing soap opera and this week’s unfolding plot, starting Tuesday 8th November, is discussed below (so apologies to BBC America viewers)

This week one of the UK’s top-rated soaps, Eastenders, has a storyline in which a recently out-gay teen character, Ben Mitchell has falsely accused one of the regular gay adult characters, Christian Clarke of abusing him. This week that will lead to the character leaving the show in a manner that implies he’s gone for good. When it comes to Eastenders, you don’t know if this is just building up to the Christmas specials, considering there is normally a press announcement when actors leave the show permanently.

The show,which has been running for 26 years, is filmed up to two months in advance. I would have had an issue with this storyline at any time of year. However, the deliberate choice to place this storyline in time for an air date ten days before the annual Children in Need appeal, designed to help abused children, represents a serious backward step for the publicly funded Corporation.

Prior to this, Eastenders had not one but two effective and much more realistic storylines about the grooming, exploitation and abuse of another teen character over the past two years, with an effective portrayal of the aftermath. So it’s a shame to see the show returning to the old shock tactics which unwittingly stereotype disclosing teens as lying about their abuse if secretly attracted to the target of the accusation.

This storyline follows the BBC series The Body Farm two months ago in which the same event occurred in episode two, and tarnished an otherwise excellent cold case drama involving the proven abuse of teens passing through a homeless shelter. Unlike The Body Farm, Eastenders will simply continue four times a week and we will see some sort of resolution to this story as opposed to the crime drama’s fast and neat wrap-up inside an hour. The fact remains that it’s still a ridiculous story that plays on the gay = paedophile stereotype as well as that of lying male child victims so everyone loses.

It will be interesting to see if there is any kind of feedback from the storyline and whether it will have any effect on donations to the annual appeal this year, if the BBC is appealing for tens of millions of pounds to help abused children but then the drama department is saying that on the other hand, disclosing teens run the risk of not being believed thanks to their “flagship” soap opera.

- CBG

I’m surprised I didn’t hear about complaints from Jewish communities about this episode of Law and Order SVU, as it basically uses the religion as one massive wrong-footing swerve for the audience as to who attacked and raped a five year old boy, for at least half the episode as they hunt their prime suspects or liaise with more orthodox sections of the community with their own police force.

Once the “overall villain” label moves from any Jewish man in a hat, the writer then takes a shot at working single parents whose kids are left alone and in this story, are exposed to porn. According to this episode that means they will automatically act out what they see and abuse other children, with the parent, in this case a single father, not wishing to take retrospective responsibility. It’s a complete dive in subtlety and intelligence compared to the usual standard of SVU.
The episode is one long preaching session and crosses over with the parent show in becoming more about the hunt before the trial whilst making its moralistic points with a sledgehammer. The saving grace for the rubbish start is the detached performance of the child offender in the trial scenes and the varying degrees of sensitivity used when interviewing the other victims aside from the boy.

Sadly that start, and the preaching, damages what could have been a classic episode despite the realistic conclusion that doesn’t give a magic happy ending and the quality of the acting. The show would be better off leaving any religious aspect aside and sticking to the bread and butter child abuse issues alone, or concentrating solely on the religion rather than a halfway house of an episode.

- CBG

During our previous review of the 2009 documentary “Captive For 18 Years: The Jaycee Lee Story,” we remarked on how unusual it was that there was no title-card update regarding the sentencing of the kidnappers of Jaycee Dugard when the show was re-run in 2010 at the end of the trial.

Following the release of Jaycee’s book about her kidnap and survival last month, that update to the original documentary has now arrived on British television. It’s sadly uneven and not as good as we’d previously hoped.

Aside from having many repeated comments due to one family member still perceived as being “on the outside”, this Cutting Edge documentary suffers from the problems of all the others reviewed in the modern run. It descends into tabloid titillation by showing repeated clips of stalking video taken by Philip Garrido’s wife under the pretense of making a pop video with her husband playing guitar. Her comments are left on the sound track although the TV company blurred out the kids the Garridos were spying on. Even with the picture blurs, we only needed the one example of this, instead of repeating them as filler. It’s much more useful to the viewer to show how she documented one of the 70 visits to the home by parole officers or other law enforcement which failed to lead to Jaycee’s discovery and rescue.

The contributions from the lawyers for the kidnappers were even more irritating, where only one of their comments for Nancy Garrido’s lawyer actually provides any new background we didn’t know from the public record. The rest is a repetition of her “The Man Made Me Do It” defence that kept her sentence down to double figures, which is shown as cutting no ice whatsoever with Jaycee.

The programme makers took the decision to license clips of Jaycee’s American TV interview. Unfortunately, these were not the focus of the repeat as implied by the updated title. Instead, one is used as a bookend to finish the programme and the others to fill in gaps in time which were part of the court case or the occasional comment on Jaycee’s emotions. Clearly, since UK viewers aren’t seeing the whole interview it’s not as useful as buying her book. On a more positive note, the extra contributions from law enforcement were both extended from the first edition and another one was new, following the conviction and sentencing.

This updated documentary isn’t available at the UK Youtube site or Channel 4’s own 4oD portal, whether this is due to licensing issues with the American footage or a standard time delay, just buy the book if you want detailed insight into this case. Reading it will be a major improvement on this patchy clip-show of a documentary. ABC’s own interview with Jaycee Dugard is here.

- CBG

Series 8 of Law and Order Criminal Intent returned to UK Screens last night. It opened with a Goren and Eames story after a drug-dealing blackmailer is murdered.
Since it’s not the Special Victims Unit strand, the child abuse angle follows through to the end as an added twist. However it receives equal weight in the second act. Criminal Intent normally shows you who did it, but not in this episode. It also departs from classic Law and Order in showing the murder rather than just discovering the body. So whilst you were introduced to the likely criminals, you just didn’t know who did what to whom and when.

The wrong-footing of the audience to the very end keeps this old epsiode fresh and smart, and since Jeff Goldblum can be a much more showy actor than Vincent D’Onfrio, it’s good that the original partnership starts this series with Goldblum’s character joining next week. It’ll be a re-run to Americans, whilst UK viewers can check the DemandFive site to see if this series will be streamed alongside Series 9 of Special Victims Unit.

Check the catchup site at DemandFive here to stream it if you missed it.

- CSI

Holby City is a long running, soap-style hospital drama that runs almost without a break all year round – currently in “season” 13. The end of the episode from 2nd August 2011 introduced Andy, an old school friend of a regular character, Dr Greg Douglas, who disclosed sexual abuse at the hands of a soccer coach back in their native Ireland after being admitted following a collapse. There are multiple interconnected storylines in this show but naturally we’re concentrating on the CSA story, written by Dara Fainaru.

Aside from not making the fictional paedophile in question a Catholic Priest that is when any attempt at quality drama ends in service to the soapy storyline. After the confession and twist when Dr Douglas sees a prison transfer in Greg’s notes and diagnoses the source of Andy’s latest seizure, This culminates in a literal cliffhanger near the end, which is used solely to force an implied disclosure from Dr Douglas.

If this storyline does proceed any further with the permanent character, you will have to wade through several other plots to get there and it wasn’t revisited in the following week’s episode on 16th August. Maybe there’s an element of realism in having a survivor go on to make a non-contact offence in downloading child abuse images. This stays in line with 2004 research statistics – but ER’s handling of child abuse in its final season two years ago was much better, without the difference in budget to blame. If the storyline develops any further and doesn’t get any worse, we’ll come back to it in a future review.

- CBG

Single Handed is an Anglo-Irish police drama featuring Owen McConnel as Sergeant Jack Driscoll, member of the Irish Garda police force who takes over his retired father’s patrol patch in the Connemara region of Ireland.

The Lost Boys is the two-part series 4 opener for the UK showings of the drama, though ITV in the UK showed the three one-offs from 2007 to 2009 as a single six-part series for British viewers. Part one centres around a long lost cousin Brian who arrives in Connemara from England after 30 years to trace his father, Jack’s Uncle. At work the cop has to get to the bottom of a murder of an old hermit who had been burgled days before, and the tearaway teen in foster care on an outward bound course becomes an easy prime suspect for Jack’s fellow Gardai.

It’s not long before (as with the cases of the first three shows), the personal and professional lines become blurred once Driscoll digs deeper and through the new character of Jack’s cousin Brian we follow his journey to discover his father’s past, taking in Irish work-house style reform schools and abuse. It uses the isolated setting and scenery to its advantage. The drama takes its own easy going time to build up to its revelations and wrong-footing the audience, though this was treated with impatience from some critics. Stephen Rea is the guest star playing Jack’s Uncle Sean. Rea nearly steals the show from the leads with his flat, understated performance as a man coming to terms with his past and the son he left behind. The other plotline with Sean’s son continues throughout the rest of series 4 but the main case is resolved without a neat little bow to round it off.

This two part episode was excellent drama and realistic from a survivor point of view, as well as a father-son reunion that’s much more raw and emotional than the sanitised version you’d get in a soap opera. The only annoyance was the use of Single-Handed as an attempted ratings spoiler by ITV, meaning I had to catch the end by streaming it. The show deserves an award, but at least there’s an immediate +1 repeat showing for the big screen, and if it was made two years ago, it can hopefully be bought as a box set eventually in the UK. Other than that, UK viewers can watch this two parter for three more weeks for part one, and just under a month for part two, at the ITV Player website. Just like BBC’s iPlayer, if the link fails to work head to the ITV Player’s front page and enter the programme title in the box at the top right to search on it. The other three specials also receive occasional re-runs on ITV3.

- CBG