Apparitions?

I managed to finish work by 9:00pm so had a chance to watch the first episode of the new BBC exo-thriller Apparitions. This is a six part series with Martin Shaw as the exorcist, Father Jacob, waging war on demons. It's a bit like a British version of the Exorcist but really looks, and feels, like a sequal to channel four's vampire drama Ultraviolet...

As a piece of drama it's quite well made and will probably draw me in for episode 2. It's appropriately grim and dark with some real moments of evil - as you would expect.

The key issue for me is whether its fairly uncritical embrace of catholic "mythology" will work in a post-modern context. It might have been more interesting to mix catholic and pentecostal concepts of evil and exorcism, but perhaps this is an issue for future programmes... So far this is an old-world look on evil with fairly limited references to the majority world - via Mother Theresa - who was born in Europe...

Kevin Smith played with his own catholic tradition in Dogma - in which a couple of angels attempted to use a loophole created by the institutional church in order to get back into heaven. This produced an entertaining romp which dealt obliquely with issues of truth, authority and faith. Apparitions is more serious but has its own agenda. So far it has hinted at issues of homosexulity, child protection and faith. Failrly high on the agenda is the clash between secular materialism (both within and beyond the church) and the unseen world which has to be experienced in order to be believed...

This is an inteligent piece of television and it does acknowledge the reality that many religious people are quick to see the influence of demons when the real source of evil may be illness, pschological difficulties, or institutional violence. The message of Father Jacob seems to be, if in doubt, say a prayer. As you enter consciously into a spiritual domain you'll find out what the problem really is. Which isn't a bad message to take on board...

It will be interesting as the show develops to see how it deals with some of the issues it has so far only hinted at: faith, reality, secularism, materialism, multi-cuturalism, plurality, atthiesm, power, hierarchy, etc... This was only episode one. The scene is set. What will happen next?