The purpose of this production is to paint a backdrop of ideas and claims to mitigate growing suspicion about certain public policies. Vaccines, surveillance, migrant entry in to the UK, government secrecy and covert use of violence are all portrayed here, ultimately with the following conclusions:
1. "Concern over vaccines is bogus - even if there are a few deaths, it's worth it. Here, look instead at this odd story we made up about a single rogue scientist who we must stress isn't representative of what's really a very nice industry. When you hear some vaccine scare story, it's probably something funny like this that you don't need to worry about."
2. "Governments do routinely employ assassins, violence and total surveillance, but they always act for the best. When it goes wrong, it's always an individual, it's got nothing to do with the system of unsupervised power to kill. And even if it did, killing is cool if Robert Carlyle does it."
3. "Migrants are mostly super-motivated female English-speaking doctors fighting with their very lives for justice for all. When you think about it, they probably have as much right to a life in the UK as any UK citizen. If you don't think this, you are probably a racist and don't realize it."
4. "Vaccines makers and scientists are primarily concerned with preventing disease and suffering, and not at all vaccine sales or the gigantic social and political power that comes from claiming to be the source of something every human must have. Um. Can we talk about something else?"
The drama and story-line stapled over the front of this cheeky montage of crap is purely there to drill us through it and as a result is as skittish, expedient and meaningless as the children's' TV theme tune with its lame elevator-from-the-90s voice-over. BC faffs and stumbles his way through a very unconvincing romantic entanglement, everyone hates his brother, and Robert Carlyle's thrown in for some too-convincing murder-porn. Isn't he ruthless, yawn.
This series is a bald example that such programs are written with the background narrative to shape our attitudes while the foreground plot bangs on about some silly sex-violence-nostalgia drivel.
A few years on, and all of the issues above have come further into focus contrary to how The Last Enemy portrays - E.g. Vaxxed, expulsion of Gates Foundation from India, Snowden, the migrant issue as reflected in Brexit, Trump and probably soon Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders, - lots- of dead journalists and terrorism.
This particular series is a nice crisp case, but all BBC content is shaped by a similar process.
1. "Concern over vaccines is bogus - even if there are a few deaths, it's worth it. Here, look instead at this odd story we made up about a single rogue scientist who we must stress isn't representative of what's really a very nice industry. When you hear some vaccine scare story, it's probably something funny like this that you don't need to worry about."
2. "Governments do routinely employ assassins, violence and total surveillance, but they always act for the best. When it goes wrong, it's always an individual, it's got nothing to do with the system of unsupervised power to kill. And even if it did, killing is cool if Robert Carlyle does it."
3. "Migrants are mostly super-motivated female English-speaking doctors fighting with their very lives for justice for all. When you think about it, they probably have as much right to a life in the UK as any UK citizen. If you don't think this, you are probably a racist and don't realize it."
4. "Vaccines makers and scientists are primarily concerned with preventing disease and suffering, and not at all vaccine sales or the gigantic social and political power that comes from claiming to be the source of something every human must have. Um. Can we talk about something else?"
The drama and story-line stapled over the front of this cheeky montage of crap is purely there to drill us through it and as a result is as skittish, expedient and meaningless as the children's' TV theme tune with its lame elevator-from-the-90s voice-over. BC faffs and stumbles his way through a very unconvincing romantic entanglement, everyone hates his brother, and Robert Carlyle's thrown in for some too-convincing murder-porn. Isn't he ruthless, yawn.
This series is a bald example that such programs are written with the background narrative to shape our attitudes while the foreground plot bangs on about some silly sex-violence-nostalgia drivel.
A few years on, and all of the issues above have come further into focus contrary to how The Last Enemy portrays - E.g. Vaxxed, expulsion of Gates Foundation from India, Snowden, the migrant issue as reflected in Brexit, Trump and probably soon Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders, - lots- of dead journalists and terrorism.
This particular series is a nice crisp case, but all BBC content is shaped by a similar process.