I just switched my cable TV recently, and it’s much better now. The last company had all kinds of problems with satellite breakups, audio dropouts, jammed service, hours-long guide failures, frequent re-boots that killed everything, etc., but they had one thing that made it all worthwhile: on Sunday nights, they had something called: International Mystery Special, where they’d show some foreign show like Masterpiece Mystery, but in a foreign language, and subtitled.
These shows were my favorite thing on all of TV: they had wonderful, exotic locales, great stories, and wonderful characters. And every week, it was something different! One week, there would be some crazy guy in Norway murdering people in the snow all according to some old Norse pagan practice; and then it would be off to a fictional Venice, where everyone in the police spoke German, and some harried detective would have to negotiate marriage difficulties, meddling in-laws, unruly teen-age children, and aristocratic murders and systemic corruption; then the next week, we’d fly off to Sicily, where some bald guy would figure out who killed who and why in a cesspool of Mafia corruption and familial influence. Oh, it was great; and now that it’s Sunday night again, I wish I had that crappy cable TV back, just so I could watch this one show!
But this whole thing about great foreign, especially Italian, detectives (there was also one from Milan, and one from Rome, I think, but I missed those, mostly) made me wonder about what it would be like to have a series about real-life Italian crimes. Sure, these TV detectives could figure out the puzzle and let the innocent, framed people go; but for most Americans, I’ll bet the first thing that comes to mind when we think of Italian justice is the Amanda Knox trial, and the guy who railroaded her for the murder of Meredith Kercher, apparently without any real evidence, just because he didn’t like her (allegedly). So where’s the novel and TV series for that guy? I’d love to see that!
Okay, here’s how it would work out: Some serial killer is striking in the Italian town where this detective/prosecutor lives, and he’s on the case! So whenever someone gets killed, he just grabs someone he doesn’t like, or simply doesn’t like the looks of, and he railroads them for the crime. Then, the killer strikes again, and he just grabs someone else he doesn’t like, and on and on like that, until all of his enemies are imprisoned for life! Did your dog poop in his yard? Guilty! Do you wear “slutty” clothes? Guilty! Do you have too much fun? Guilty! That would seem so much more accurate to Americans, I’d think, after the Amanda Knox trial(s). So why not make that one? I’ll bet it would be really popular, and so much more realistic!
So please, other TV carriers, carry International Mystery Special! Oh, and make the one I mentioned, too! It could be a big hit here in the US! (I’d watch it! But then again, I think I saw it on the news already once before…)
