ABSTRACT
Locations as captivating as the plots are intricate. Disfigured corpses that speak acutely of an individual’s status in the social network. World-weary, deeply flawed heroes/heroines formed by finely drawn environments – in explicit as well as implicit and allegorical ways. Where the search for a serial killer reveals the deep fissures and social dislocation ailing contemporary Western democracies and where resolutions are ‘tinged with regret, collateral damage and moral compromise’ (Robinson, 2011). These characteristics
loosely define this group of crime dramas selected to fill the Saturday night primetime BBC Four schedule; and it is a focus on the importance of this sub-genre of police procedurals in European motion in the formation of the BBC as a cultural public sphere that forms the core of my contribution. In looking at how the European crime wave has been used to build the reputation of the minority digital public service channel, I consider how this corpus of TV drama, designed to travel, translates into a repertoire of shared images at the BBC used to intervene into nation-specific debates about jurisdiction and justice within the contemporary age of inter-connected global markets and transnational cultural consumption. This chapter is essentially concerned with representation, not only in terms of social belonging – who is (and is not) represented in the community – but also in relation to cultural capital and affinities defining the role of contemporary British public service broadcasting.
