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Posted: 06 Apr 2013 09:14 AM PDT

Serial killers are given prominence on television and viewers are loving it... for now.

CRIME has always been a prevalent topic on television, which explains the popularity of shows revolving around cops and lawyers. Within that one hour, a criminal is caught and punished by our valiant hero(es), ultimately giving victims of crimes in the real world a phantom satisfaction that there is justice. Or it could be just the basic reason for providing good-old entertainment to audiences who like crime shows. Despite its popularity however, police dramas thrive on a formula – earning some of them the apt term, procedural drama.

Well, this year, the trend has shifted quite significantly – a few new series premiering in the US have boldly switched the storytelling style – from the points of view of the lawmaker to the criminal. More specifically, serial killers.

Are murderers about to take over the prime time slots with police playing secondary roles? It seems so with the arrival of series like Bates Motel, The Following, Ripper Street, Cult and Hannibal. No doubt these shows with a flawed central character already have an advantage as they provide the audience with surprising plot twists.

In an interview with The Salt Lake Tribune, Jennifer Salke, the president of NBC Entertainment, explained the shift: "You need somebody who's going to grab people by the shoulders and force them to watch. We can't just launch a procedural show with a great, well-crafted cop story. It's not going to happen. So we need to just make a little more noise."

One of the new shows about to make some noise in Malaysia is Hannibal, premiering on AXN on April 9 (see story on page 6). This new series developed by Bryan Fuller (Pushing Daisies) looks at the early days of Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Lecter is, of course, author Thomas Harris' fictional cannibal killer, most famously portrayed by Anthony Hopkins in the 1991 film The Silence Of The Lambs. In this new series, he is played by Mads Mikkelson (Bond villain in Casino Royale).

Evil has two faces

Self-confessed TV addict Sue Tan, who is an actor and scriptwriter, deduced why audiences are currently interested in shows like these: "Serial killers can be very interesting characters and definitely more captivating than your boring one-time killer. Why I love watching crime TV shows/films especially, is because of the motive and what drives someone to kill. They are also usually very charismatic characters plus all that careful planning! How is that not interesting TV? Also, vampires are so last season."

She added: "If the character is written and played well, as it is in The Following by James Purefoy (who portrays convicted serial killer Joe Carroll), somehow it makes a ruthless killer somewhat acceptable. By no means do I mean that slicing someone's throat for fun is acceptable at all but that sick part of the person is just one part of him that he can't help and the rest of him is, well, for lack of a better word, normal. It also helps that they choose good-looking actors.

"I still want to see him caught and punished, but maybe after season two?"

Airin Zainul, the group general manager for Ntv7 and 8TV, theorised it is human nature to be curious about how other people live. In the case of these new shows, they just happen to be serial killers. "In my opinion, their lives intrigue (the audience) and offer a kind of escapism from our normal everyday lives. With a good storyline, you'd (develop) a relationship with the characters ... they may be anti-heroes, but guided by our altruistic nature, we want to believe that there is good in them still."

That notion of empathy is echoed by Asha Ganesan, a graduate student in social psychology at University of Northern Iowa. "Personally, I think a lot of TV shows are upping the ante, by writing negative characters that people can identify with, (these) grey characters. We are all capable of doing 'not-so-nice' things, but not necessarily to the extremes like these characters. Feeling empathetic may be a good thing because it shows the audience may still value that person's life, even if they have committed heinous acts. Also, maybe the audience needs to be given credit for looking beyond what's on screen. It's possible the audience is taking into consideration other factors that led this person to take on such as lifestyle."

A psycho's path

What drives these individuals to carry out these horrible acts make for continuous debates and scientific researches; no doubt, there are dozens of theories out there. Chemical-imbalance theory aside, what goes on in the mind of a serial killer? How did he get to be the way he is; was there a moment in his life when this violent response was first triggered?

According to the series Dexter – which is based on the first Dexter novel, Darkly Dreaming Dexter, by Jeff Lindsay – the character Dexter Morgan gained his desire to kill after witnessing his mother's murder. Both he and his older brother, who were present when the tragedy occurred, became serial killers as adults. Dexter calls his urges to kill as "the Dark Passenger", a presence in his mind that guides him when he is on the hunt and when he does the dirty deed.

Dexter is also one of the earliest TV series to wander into a criminal mind – it premiered in 2006 and enters its eighth season this year. The series, starring Michael C. Hall in the title role, paints a sympathetic portrait of a murderer (with its whimsical voiceover and ironic observations of people). But the series has its share of creepy psychopaths including one Ice-Truck Killer, who drains the blood of his victims, and The Trinity Killer, who kills in three. As the series progresses, Dexter's cheery disposition – a mechanism he uses to blend in and hide his inhuman self – turns dark. Undoubtedly all these make Dexter an entertaining show.

So what makes serial killers an entertaining subject? Asha answered: "I think the entertainment value comes from the curiosity people have about individuals who are different from the norm, similar to some of the oddest reality shows we see. However, it could also be a way to see people doing things that most of us can't imagine doing to others. Most of the good shows make the serial killers multi-dimensional, dramatic and so different from the average Joe that seeing how investigators react to them is interesting."

Mikkelsen, who portrays a young Hannibal Lecter in Hannibal, agreed with that sentiment. "Yes, I do understand the fascination. I'm not sure it just goes on the topic of serial killers, but there is this fascination with the devil or the dark side of the coin. I don't know how many biographies have been written about Stalin, Hitler or Mao and we want to not embrace it but we want to understand what is going on," the 47-year-old actor said in a published interview.

When asked about the side effects shows like these may have on the audience, Asha said: "I think people immediately assume that all serial killers are geniuses, enigmatic or psychopaths. In real life, most of the stories are not as romantic, not all of them are as attractive as the actors on TV and not all of them are misunderstood.

"On the positive side, I think it exposes audiences to information on certain psychological disorders that may not be talked about if they hadn't seen it on TV. I think the TV show portrays how some of them do need some kind of psychiatric help and their current state could be the consequence of not having people around them realise this."

Entertainment value aside, there is the never-ending argument of violence on TV influencing the audience to commit crime. According to the psychology student, research findings tell very different stories. "I would say violence on TV has led most of us to have a higher tolerance towards viewing violent acts, maybe a result of pushing the envelope with how much TV channels can get away with.

"But I wouldn't say violent acts in real life are attributable only to violence on TV," Asha said.

Tan agreed that watching TV is just a form of entertainment. And sometimes for her, it serves as a form of research especiall when she writes script. "From the amount of crime dramas I watch, and read – inclusive of watching serial killers at work – I would be in serious trouble by now if it had any effect on me. I don't think people who are violent in real life got that way after watching something violent on TV. They might have learnt how to chop up a body, put the parts through a meat grinder and serve it so as not to leave a trace of evidence though." she deadpanned.

Now trending

But how long is this fascination with serial killers going to last on TV? It doesn't seem like it has the stronghold in the industry looking at viewing patterns. In the early 1980s, soap opera was in vogue (Dallas, Dynasty and Falcon Crest) only to fade out and to be replaced by family sitcoms (Family Ties, The Cosby Show, Growing Pains and Full House) ... and so, the cycle continues for it to arrive at our fascination with serial killers. When it first aired seven years ago, Dexter was the first of its kind on prime time. The popularity of the show, both with critics and fans, proved that this is an area that's ripe for interesting storytelling.. So, networks started to order more scripts based on serial killers.

In the end, however, the question remains, would an influx of shows revolving the same kind of characters simply turn into a nasty case of overkill?

Well, whether that happens or not, it's safe to say, serial killers are on the loose on TV for now, and the audience are simply loving it.

A peek into the lives of fictional serial killers

Posted: 07 Apr 2013 01:51 AM PDT

Serial killers are all the rage now on television. Here are seven series bent on feeding our morbid fascination with serial killers.

Bates Motel – Just mention the name Norman Bates, and those of us who are familiar with Alfred Hitchcock's film, Psycho, will picture the famous shower scene. Another lasting impression gleaned from that film is Norman's relationship with his mother. This series is based on the characters from the novel Psycho by Robert Bloch and, Hitchcock's film, but it's a prequel set in the present day (although the clothes and the furniture are all very retro). It has a teenage Norman Bates (Freddie Highmore), moving into the old house with his possessive mother, Norma Bates (Vera Farmiga), so they can run the motel. Oh, come on, you know which motel. When a boy's best friend is his mother, he never stood a chance.

Cult – Get this, Cult is a TV show within a TV show. Billy Grimm (Prison Break's Robert Knepper) is an actor playing a cult leader on a show called Cult. Now the thing is, a series of disappearances and murders in the "real world" are somehow connected to the show. Is this a case of a copy cat serial killer or something else?

Dexter – Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) is a blood splatter analyst with the Miami Police department by day, and a serial killer by night. His father, a police officer, has given Dexter a strict set of rules to abide when he goes on his killing spree so he can never be caught by the law. One of the strict rules is: Dexter must only kill serial killers who have escaped the clutches of the law. Does this make Dexter the good guy or the bad guy? This is something that's debated on the show (and by fans) continously.

Hannibal – From Thomas Harris' book Red Dragon, we know Special Agent Will Graham is a great criminal profiler. But even the great ones need help sometimes – whether they want to admit or not. That's where renowned psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter steps in. Needless to say, the audience knows something that Will Graham does not. Hannibal looks at the early relationship between Hannibal (Mads Mikkelsen) and Will Graham (Hugh Dancy). Hopefully, Will doesn't eat any meal prepared by Hannibal.

Ripper Street – Jack the Ripper is the most famous serial killer – one whose identity is still not known. This series is setin the Victorian era, as the police precinct at the Whitechapel district deals with the aftermath of Jack the Ripper. This BBC series stars Matthew Macfadyen, Jerome Flynn and Adam Rothenberg.

The Following – Joe Carroll (James Purefoy) is so obsessed with Edgar Allan Poe that he teaches about the famous writer in a university. Yeah, a whole subject on Poe. Carroll also happens to be a psychotic serial killer with a legions of followers (hence the title) who kill on his orders. Although Carroll is now jailed, his obsessive fans – some 300 of them – are committing murders on the outside, and all over the United States. Only problem is, the authority has no clue who these people are or how they are communicating with each other, much less with their jailed leader. Former FBI agent Ryan Hardy (Kevin Bacon) has the tough job of finding the trail of the followers ignited by Joe Carroll.

The Mentalist – Although this series, starring Simon Baker, falls under a procedural drama, the one thing that sets it apart from other procedurals is the unseen serial killer named Red John. This madman's heinous actof murdering the family of Patrick Jane (Baker) is the basis for our protagonist to join the California Bureau of Investigation. Even after five seasons in, Red John continues to taunt Jane. Will Red John ever get his comeuppance?

Hannibal’s onscreen life

Posted: 07 Apr 2013 01:56 AM PDT

> Hannibal Rising (2006 novel, 2007 movie, pic above): Thomas Harris wrote this origin story only after being told a new movie would be made with or without him. Eight-year-old Hannibal witnesses his sister's murder and later goes all Munich on the Nazi perpetrators. Directed by Peter Webber, with Gaspard Ulleil (pic, above) as Lecter.

> Hannibal (2013): Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) is living undetected as a psychiatrist and FBI consultant with an awesome kitchen.

> Red Dragon (1981 book, 2002 movie): Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), now behind bars, toys with the FBI agent (Edward Norton) trying to find a psycho called the Tooth Fairy. Directed by Brett Ratner.

> Manhunter (1986 movie, based on Red Dragon): The first big-screen adaptation of a Harris novel, its "Dr Lecktor" is played by a menacing Brian Cox. Director Michael Mann gave it a surreal, Miami Vice-air.

> The Silence Of The Lambs (1988 book, 1991 movie): The Oscar-drenched effort put Hopkins' portrayal on everyone's best-villain lists. With Jodie Foster as FBI agent Clarice Starling, who needs Lecter's help to catch a skinner called Buffalo Bill.

> Hannibal (1999 book, 2001 movie): Having escaped from prison, Lecter (Hopkins) wreaks havoc in Italy before returning to the United States in search of Starling (Julianne Moore).

He drugs Starling and, uh, brainwashes her into becoming his lover. Ridley Scott directed this unpleasant, tedious experience. – The Kansas City Star/McClathchy-Tribune Information Services

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

Sabtu, 6 April 2013

The Star Online: Entertainment: TV & Radio

The Star Online: Entertainment: TV & Radio

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Sabtu, 6 April 2013

The Star Online: Entertainment: TV & Radio

The Star Online: Entertainment: TV &amp; Radio

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The Star Online: Entertainment: TV & Radio