FARGO, C4, 10pm
AT last, Fargo is back! This is one of the best series on TV and I think we all need to take a minute to sit in quiet awe, glad we’re living in an era where we have both this show and The Handmaid’s Tale running on Channel 4, plus the return, this week, of House Of Cards. What a time to have square eyes.
Ewan McGregor is the big star in this new series. He plays two roles: the Stussy brothers. Emmit is rich and debonair, living in a fairylit mansion with his perfect family. The other, Ray, is balding, weak and colourless, scratching out a living as a parole officer.
Emmit got rich by grabbing the brothers’ inheritance. Meek little Ray has always accepted this but now he needs hard cash to get his girlfriend an engagement ring. He recruits one of his drugged-up parole clients to do one final robbery, to perhaps relieve Emmit of some of his ill-gotten wealth and by the end of the first episode both of the Stussy brothers are in some delightfully deep trouble.
THE BUTCHER SURGEON – WHY WASN’T HE STOPPED?, C5, 10pm
THERE’S something uniquely horrible about a doctor who turns to crime and violence.
Britain’s most prolific serial killer was a doctor; one of its most notorious, Dr Crippen, was also in the profession, and its most legendary, fascinating and eternally famous murderer, Jack The Ripper, has long been rumoured to have been a surgeon.
We shudder when men who are trained to do good or, at least, to follow the Hippocratic Oath to “first do no harm”, become cruel.
The latest notorious doctor is the surgeon Ian Paterson, convicted last month of “wounding with intent” when he carried out unnecessary procedures on his patients. This documentary asks how he was able to go unchallenged. Do we still have an unquestioning deference towards surgeons? If so, how do we remove this whilst still respecting their skills and knowledge?
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