TV is the New Reading

“Wire in the Blood”

is simply breathtaking

I knew it was on. I was purposely ignoring it. Between “Dexter” and “Desperate Housewives” and “Brothers & Sisters” I just could not commit to another Sunday night drama.

But those shows are off, now, for the summer, and with the two-hour episode I caught this weekend, I’m not sure I care whether the new seasons ever start up again or not.

“Wire in the Blood” is a brilliant psychological drama that is not afraid to take an in-depth exploration of psychopathic serial killers way over the top.

In this instance, the scene opens on a rooftop where clinical psychiatrist Tony Hill, played by Robson Green, is interrupting a suicide across the street from an elementary school. Because no coincidence is too unlikely, this chance encounter threads through a series of religious murder-suicide pacts featuring improbable suspects and bizarre crime scenes.

I can already tell I haven’t managed to sell you on this series as yet. I should explain. The series was written specifically for me and for a few crime-detective fiction afficianados who get an unconscionable amount of our “literature” from airport bookshops. It’s based on the series by Val McDermid.

Even the unnecessarily evocative title, “Wire in the Blood,” is a dark reference to the nervous system, the helplessly popping and fizzing neural network responsible for our actions, at the center of investigation for Hill’s psychiatric consult.

So as addicted as I am to short-lived shows like “Touching Evil,” “Killer Instinct” and “The Inside,” and to longer-running series like “Profiler” and “Criminal Minds” – this latter of which I ignored this season but plan to revisit in summer reruns – the formula to get me to watch a crime drama is a focus on motivations of criminals with more-than-usually-sinister modus operandi.

The episode I saw on Sunday included flashes of cultish Freemason rituals tying together images reminiscent of human sacrifice and graphic re-enactments of the suffering of Christian martyrs as a gang of murderers carried out their dark deeds.

The investigation sifted through crime scenes and evidence and interviews with deeply troubled and troubling people, but also explored mass media and mainstream celebration of the darker impulses of humanity.

All the while, Hill’s demeanor was clinical, detached and potentially as disturbing as the minds of the killers he was pursuing, in his own attempt to understand the significance of the crimes to the criminals. This didn’t make him popular with his fellow investigators, but it did make him invaluable as he made connections others were afraid to make.

Add to the fact that the stories aren’t even remotely possible – that is, these are crimes invented specifically to be solved specifially by this investigator, so all attendant considerations of forensics, reasonable character development and conservative estimates of human abilities and intuition are completely out the window – and the show is a wonderfully escapist romp through psychological extremes, and it all wraps up satisfactorily in the end.

“Wire in the Blood” airs 7 p.m. Sundays on BBC America. Enjoy!

Features Editor Terry J. Aman compiles the Best Bets for The Minot Daily News.

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