He's Not the Messiah, He's a Very Naughty Boy

I’d not seen Messiah before although my mother was a big fan of Ken Stott who used to be its star.

I can’t stand its new star, Marc Warren. I have been known to call him the world’s worst actor (his competition in this category being Jason Statham). I’m not sure why I decided to watch it – I think it was desperation as there really was no other crime shows on. So I wasn’t expecting much. In fact I was expecting to have to turn it off after ten minutes in annoyance at Warren’s bad acting.

But I was pleasantly surprised. As pleasantly surprised as you can be with gruesome killing spree of about 15 people! Although it was essentially another Se7en alike it kept me interested and.I didn’t guess who the murderer was which is quite a rarity.

Warren’s acting was still pretty bad, but he was playing a moody troubled character so that reigned in the worst of his manic over-acting. I did snigger at his wooden insistence that his colleague investigated the sand left at the scene.

I also struggled to take him seriously as a heart-throb. He looks like an Estate Agent. Or a goblin. A Goblin Estate Agent. Its not a look that I’d go for, but somebody out there must like him because he gets more than enough acting jobs.

Rooting for the Bad Guy

When looking for the Talking Heads clip, I came across this quote from David Byrne about his inspiration for the song, Psycho Killer:

"Both the Joker and Hannibal Lecter were much more fascinating than the good guys. Everybody sort of roots for the bad guys in movies"

I understand why many actors prefer playing the bad guy, as it is more of a challenge than playing a bland goodie and I've also worried about what it says of me that I enjoy crimes so much - but actually rooting for the bad guy takes this further. So I started to wonder, do I ever root for the bad guy?

Unfortunately I think the answer is 'Yes, sometimes'.


Moral ambiguity is integral to both The Wire and The Sopranos, and are designed to make you identify with what would traditionally be a baddie. There would be no point in watching the Sopranos if you didn't like Tony at all and the same is true of the drug dealers in The Wire. So I don't think these count.


But I have sometimes rooted for the bad guy when they are definitely the all round baddie.

The most recent case was watching 'Dial M for Murder' the other week. Ray Milland was just so charismatic that I really wanted him to get away with it. Grace Kelly, I didn't care about one way or another. Or was that Hitchcock's intention with his love of making his blondes suffer?

Whilst I do love Columbo, it does sometimes get on my nerves that he solves the case so easily, that he immediately instictively knows who the culprit is. So sometimes while he plays his cat-and-mouse games with the murderer, I do want them to get away with it. Just for once. Especially if its an episode I've seen before, I hope that somehow it may have an alternative ending.


Watching Profiler, the main character did get annoy me and I was bored with watching the show and wanted it over with, so often found myself hoping that Jack of All Trades would hurry up and do her in. I kind of got into it towards the end, but then the first series finished, and I was still none the wiser about his identity and haven't seen any more of it. So I still wish he'd have finished the job off.

But then there are some shows where I always want the good guys to win - Morse, Monk and the Law & Order lot, so perhaps there is hope for me yet.

Nicole Wallace? Who?

A bizarre episode of Criminal Intent last night.

It started reasonably enough with the theft of a diamond by a young Japanese women and the murder of her accomplice. It was going well - Goran was dipping into his vast knowledge of everything to deduce that she wasn't from Japan, but American as she didn't behave like a Japanese lady.

And then suddenly, Eames and Goren decide that something the suspect said reminded them of someone else. 'It sounds like Nicole Wallace' .

It then turned into this cat and mouse game with Olivia D'Abo, who they obviously knew previously and lots of references to previous crimes, which the OH and I knew nothing of. The last time we saw Olivia D'Abo, she was Kevin Arnold's sister and had just brought her hippy lover home to meet her stubborn father.

It was all very fascinating but confusing - it only all became clear when I looked it up on Wikipedia this morning and found out that she was Goran's archnemesis, who had appeared in several previous episodes and will surface in a couple more yet.

So long, Nicole, until the next time.