Taking on the system

IRRESISTABLE CHARM: Judge John Deed, Prime, Saturday, 8.35pm.

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I do love the mixed messages of programmes such as Judge John Deed.

If you stop to think about it, they're up there somewhere with those documentaries about poor deluded women who fall in love with murderers, visiting them behind bars, believing they're the only ones who know the decent man deep within.

It's like that with the Judge. His appeal is that he's an unrepentant bucker of the system. As television watchers, we collude in knowing that the system is there to be bucked, as long as the one bucking is a charmer. "If only," we think in New Zealand, as Rodney Hide and Hone Harawira spring unbidden to mind.

With Judge John Deed (Prime, Saturday, 8.35pm) it's all relative. The "system" in England is, well, English. It's not difficult to look like Che Guevara when the guys he comes up against are such pompous prats as Sir Monty. "We have reached a rapprochement," says Sir Monty when asked how things currently stand with Judge John. "We are brethren after all." Well, with respect, Sir Monty, our fingers are down our throats.

So when Sir Monty sends Judge John to Sussex (Sussex, it's implied, is The Sticks - think Eketahuna, Gore) because he won't be able to get into any trouble there, even a five- year-old viewer could guess that this is not what's going to happen.

One of the main reasons we're meant to like Deed is that he sticks up for the underlings, if Sir Monty's secretary, Vera, could be called such a thing. They way she bustles in, wreathed in smiles, carrying a bunch of flowers which Deed had no doubt bought her, the ruthless charmer, immediately reminds us that she likes him.

To his credit he does call her Vera. I know, it's her name, but it does show what a decent chap he is actually remembering it. He also flirtatiously corrects her when she says she found him skulking outside ("I never skulk!") which, because it's so true and all that, makes her smile. But best of all he gives her due deference.

"We're doing the rape case," she says to Sir Monty. "We" would be completely accurate, but you wouldn't get Sir Monty using it. So sly old Deed comes in and suggests Vera could hear a case.

We know and Deed knows and she knows that with the knowledge of the law she must have gained over the years she'd make a damn fine fist of it, but Sir Monty just gives a deep ho ho ho.

Having just finished arranging the flowers, Vera at this point could have got him under the ribs with the secateurs, but she shows the usual English restraint.

We're also meant to like Deed because a little dog trots so loyally beside him. Enough said.

When Deed gets back to his room, sorry, chambers, looking for all the world like Cardinal Wolsey on his way home from a chat with his monarch, he chucks his wig on the chair, thereby reminding us he's a renegade. Yes, while he might stride along in a lordly manner in a red frock, he really doesn't give a toss about all this be-robed nonsense. What's not to like?

But if you're taking him with a teaspoon of salt, he has a vulnerable side. He's lonely without his daughter, Charlie. Ahhh, daughters. Can't beat 'em as a dramatic device. Then he has a soft spot for his colleague, Jo. We know she's good because one of her first lines this week was "Now they know how corrupt those policemen were."

I'm sorry to say, Jo annoys me. It's her manner. It's as if she's rushing round trying to be brave and assertive and just underneath there's a fragile mouse just dying to break through. Come on.

Also, the storyline about her wanting to adopt the little boy is simply silly. She's meant to be the one with her feet on the ground, in contrast to the maverick man not quite in her life, but she can't even find the street address of the child she wants to adopt.

When she arrives, late, she comes over too talkative - "I'll bet you don't try to take on too much!" she says to Michael, sucking up, all agush with guilt. And whoever gave that child the line "She's not my muvver! My mum's dead!" needs to be sent to the School for Subtle Scriptwriting.

Dealing with the case worker, Jo has the cheek to demand if she has any idea what it must feel like to have lost your mother at eight. (A stroke of genius, albeit predictable genius, to have the case worker say she lost her own at nine.)

But you do have to wonder about the empathy of the woman. It's all very well to battle corrupt cops, but she should enhance this side to her personality by not patronising social workers.

Oh but what the heck, it could be worse. We could have been stuck in Midsomer forever. And even though it's all such rubbish on one level, to be honest I find Judge John Deed very watchable. There's something about the rebellious old maverick, the renegade bad-lot, the unsmiling nose-thumber, that I find worryingly hard to resist.

One To Watch  Captive for 18 Years - the Jaycee Lee Duggard Story, Prime, tonight, 8.30

It's been cobbled together  with almost unseemly  haste, but I'm pleased to say they don't interview Jaycee Lee. It concentrates on how the life of her step-father - a suspect in the case - was ruined. Here's betting it won't be the last doco on this abduction.

- © Fairfax NZ News