I can’t remember the last time I watched a television documentary I couldn’t follow. Some are more captivating than others, but I can generally fathom what’s going on. The people who make them – and I’ve made a few myself – are at great pains to keep them comprehensible. This is good, although I must admit that when scripting my stuff, I’ve often been at loggerheads with producers imploring me to make things simpler. “Signpost better!” they say, the idea being to lead viewers gently through the story, reminding and recapping and explaining as you go. On occasion I have been known to throw a hissy fit, fulminating along the lines of: “How bloody stupid do we think the viewers are here? It’s not Playschool we’re doing!” I soon calm down, they get their way and they’re probably right in the end. Much better to err on the side of spoon-feeding – or patronising, as I put it when I’m hissy-fitting – than risk confusing and losing the audience altogether. I get it.
However, here’s the thing: on the same channel on the same evening as your typical, entirely comprehensible documentary, there will be a drama of quite devastating complexity, the twists and turns of which many can make neither head nor tail. Episodes are paused or even rewound; family conferences are called to figure out what on earth is going on. Sometimes the internet is searched for clues; fan forums convene to thrash out the details. And so we go from programmes being ever so careful to assume nothing and explain everything to programmes requiring a mastermind’s analysis.
I have kind of given up trying to follow what’s happening – it’s easier that way. I really enjoyed Slow Horses, for example, yet on reflection I realised I couldn’t explain to anyone what had gone on. If I understood anything, it was only in flashes. I’ve recently developed a liking for Beyond Paradise, which, like its forebear Death in Paradise, troubles itself to explain at the end of each episode how and why the crime happened. Nice, although even here I sometimes get confused. Perhaps it’s just me.
Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist
