Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison's third four-part story, "Prime Suspect 3," enters the dark and seamy world of child prostitution, pedophilia and pornography, where some children drift into crime and perversion and others are placed in situations where they are abused by those who are supposed to be caring for them.
It's disturbing, but like the two before it, impressively well-done. The drama makes PBS's esteemed "Mystery!" (Thursday at 9) arguably the finest of its genre. When "Prime Suspect 2" won the 1993 Emmy for best miniseries, the award acknowledged that no other broadcast entry, even from Hollywood, could touch this British production.
The "Prime Suspect" opener, which aired here in 1992, won a string of awards; Helen Mirren won Britain's BAFTA Award both times she played Tennison. If she wins again, she would become the first actress to win three times in a row. That announcement is to be made this week. "Prime Suspect 3," which aired earlier in Britain, has already been named best drama serial of 1993.
Lynda LaPlante, who created Tennison, wrote the first four-hour installment and provided writer Allan Cubitt with the storyline for the second. She has also written "Prime Suspect 3," based on the true case of a convicted pedophile released after five years in jail.
The man turned up first in a film that Granada Television was making about child prostitution. While the crew was filming, said LaPlante, they recorded him picking up a child at a subway station.
"He was blatantly, outrageously so self-assured in front of the camera," said LaPlante, "and he said, 'All I am doing is giving them a sanctuary.' And then they got a tipoff from a boy who had been there and he said, 'He's molesting the kids,' and had been for 10 or 12 years. He had certificates to show he was a man of the church, used to wear uniforms like Salvation Army uniforms. He was subsequently arrested and sentenced to five years. When he was out, he started another youth hostel. I was so angry."
LaPlante, who also became annoyed by the "dismissive attitude" she found among many people concerning the plight of "rent boys," researched the story by visiting an area around London's Waterloo Station. She met young male AIDS victims, one only 12, and listened to the tales told by abused children.
Series star Helen Mirren visited the vice squad at Charing Cross station to research her role as Jane Tennison.
At a television writers meeting in January, Mirren said: "This is a very, very tough subject and I . . . think it needs to be looked at because it's out there amongst us . . . . We all like to pretend it's not there, but the fact is there is a huge industry that's based on child prostitution, and that means there are people out there who are prepared to pay for it. A lot of money is being made, and we like to turn our eyes away from that. This particular piece puts the searchlight on that particular corruption."
This week, Tennison, now at the Soho vice squad, is supervising a clean-up of "rent boys" and other prostitutes. She has no sooner taken over the job than the charred body of 17-year-old Colin Jenkins, known as Connie, is found in the burned-out flat of Vera/Vernon Reynolds, a transsexual cabaret performer.
Connie was well-known at the local center for homeless kids run by Edward Parker-Jones, a man whom one person calls "saintly." One of the other boys tells the police that the night Connie died, a homosexual procurer called James Jackson was looking for him.
Forensic experts find that Connie was alive, but unconscious, at the time of the fire, and that someone called an ambulance to Reynolds's flat that night. The death begins to look like murder.
The problems for Tennison: She cannot question underage boys, who must be treated as children even though what they are doing is far from child-like; and if she calls one suspect in on a suspicion of arson, she cannot switch the interview to an accusation of murder.
At work, Tennison generally keeps her hard-edged demeanor and continues to battle her male-chauvinist colleagues for respect. But she faces personal problems off the job, and that's where we learn more about one of the most complex women on television.
Tom Bell returns as Sgt. Bill Otley, who appeared in the original story as an example of intransigent sexism on the police force. Otley hasn't changed much, and Bell still mumbles. Even LaPlante, who wrote the lines, said she found herself asking, "What did he say?"
David Thewlis, who plays Jackson, won best actor awards from the New York Film Critics, National Film Critics and Cannes Film Festival as a heterosexual rapist in "Naked." This time, his character "seems to have no redeeming qualities, none whatsoever," he said.
Except for Peter Capaldi, who plays Vera/Vernon Reynolds, the transvestites in the story are real cabaret performers who enjoyed the television work and reminded the actors that, because they have taken female hormones, their voices are higher, said LaPlante.
In an amusing aside, LaPlante finally caught the cabaret act of a transvestite who had taken her name because it fascinated him. "They said, 'And now, presenting a Bette Midler number by Lynda LaPlante . . . ,' " she recalled, laughing. "Six feet tall, with flaming red hair like mine." ("LaPlante" is the surname of her American husband.)
On the other hand, LaPlante said, she was careful in the portrayal of the "rent boys." "I never wanted to make them too likable, like 'Oliver.' I went for children who aren't too likable."
As a result, said LaPlante, viewers in England have a greater understanding of pedophilia, of child sexual abuse and even of transvestites. "They were able to watch scenes with a transsexual and be moved by and understand her."
They also began to appreciate "all the different areas that the vice squad had to deal with, and also the AIDS situation" that occurs when an infected child bites a detective.
Police cooperation has been key to the development of "Prime Suspect," said LaPlante. "They're on my side throughout. I couldn't actually write it without their help. I have a real-life chief inspector working with me. She's always there."
She is DCI Jackie Malton, London's first female detective chief inspector, on whom Jane Tennison is based. "She's quite incredible," said LaPlante, "absolutely extraordinary. I love the woman to death. She's frightened of nothing. She's become quite a media star -- this has changed her life too."
For the first time, too, LaPlante addresses the uneasy relationship between police and journalists, creating a character called Jessica Smithy (Kelly Hunter). Smith is based on a British tabloid writer who, LaPlante said, "I really kind of despise."
"They {the police} use the press," said LaPlante. "They're always manipulating the press. Sometimes the newspapers are very cooperative and don't print something when the police ask them not to. But some of the low-life journalists destroy any chance of them catching a criminal. We do have the biggest grub journalists here."
The first "Prime Suspect," in January 1992, paired the investigation of a serial killer with a look at sexism in the London police force. The second, in February 1993, paired the investigation of the death of an Afro-Caribbean woman with a look at racism. Currently, British police are digging up the garden of a house, finding body after body, in an investigation so eerily similar to "Prime Suspect 2" that LaPlante has been called in for consultation. The investigators are using a model of a head made from a skull -- as they did in LaPlante's story -- to reconstruct the victim's appearance.
In all three stories, Mirren, a small and rather delicate woman with a background in the Royal Shakespeare Company, plays Tennison with almost no makeup, looking tired and older on-screen than she does in person. "She has an unusual quality, a forcefulness, a strength to her," said LaPlante.
Mirren, currently doing a play in London, lives in Los Angeles with American director Taylor Hackford. She said at a press conference there in January, "I see {Jane} as driven, obsessive, vulnerable, unpleasantly egotistical and confused, like we all are. She's a very rounded sort of person who I guess will change as I change. I see her as participating in life. She's out there. It's so rare, as a woman, that you get to play those roles."
But LaPlante said "Prime Suspect 4" will likely appear in two-hour versions, airing more often, rather than the annual four-hour dramas that allowed her to explore Jane Tennison's character.
This time, LaPlante will not be along.
"I'm out of it now," she said. "What I did not want to do is create a murder each time for Jane Tennison to investigate. I liked the fact that we could continue into a different area of police work -- homicide, vice -- and I would have liked to have been given the freedom to move her into different avenues. But I just refused to exploit her."
Instead, she'll do a series about prisoners, who will co-write each script. "The storylines that are coming in from the prisoners -- I've got enough material to keep me busy for a decade," she said.
