Daytime TV, society's litmus test

Steve Maltz

One of the perks of working as a freelancer is the freedom to mould your working life around your personal life. So there I was, early afternoon in the gym, pre-emptively working off the plate of chips I was going to eat afterwards, pounding the treadmill and watching an episode of Doctors, the BBC soap loosely concerned with a group of doctors. Twenty seven minutes and fifty seconds later I was both physically and mentally exhausted. Physical exhaustion was a consequence of the light punishment to my heavy body, but the mental exhaustion was due to the litany of bad behaviour, gloom and despair I had just witnessed on the TV screen.

I reviewed the episode and listed out the following: violence, murder, alcoholism, fear of redundancy, stubbornness, unforgiveness, pettiness, aggression, deception, estrangement, lying, arguing, selfishness, jealousy, spitefulness, gambling addiction, male prostitution, stealing, marital unfaithfulness, fighting, loneliness, seduction, abortion, rejection, fear, untrustfulness, anger, attempted suicide, despair, unfaithfulness (again), alienation, hatred, depression. The only saving grace was that there were no blasphemous utterances, something that has even crept into Children's TV these days!

So, where did this leave me? Firstly I thanked God that my discernment and spiritual radar hadn't been so clogged up by the trappings of our culture that these unsavoury themes should pass me by. Then it hit me that there was probably nothing unusual in what I had just seen, in terms of a typical day in Soap-land. Was it always so? I think not. I would guess that an episode of Coronation Street in the 1960s, even one of the racier Elsie Tanner showcases (showing my age now!), would seem the tamest of the tame by today's sorry standards. What has happened since then, is this what they call progress, a natural progression to more enlightened times as liberal social commentators are so fond at telling us?

No, when Guardianistas and their like talk of enlightenment I am reminded of Aleister Crowley, infamous 20th Century Satanist, once called the wickedest man in the World, who said, "do what you want shall be the whole of the Law". If that statement expressed his twisted worldview, which was undoubtedly frowned upon at the time, how pleased he would be to know that 21st Century Soap-land is catching up with his ideals. And, of course, soaps are just reflecting our World, albeit in a highly concentrated, tightly scripted form. It may interest you to know that the episode of Doctors broke at least half of the Ten Commandments, yet none of the scenarios (apart from the murder and attempted suicide) involved the police. Adultery, abortion and addictions are so much the norm now that indulging any of them does not stand out as particularly shocking or unusual. And that is just covering the "A"s!

Our society is basically rudderless and sinking, despite boasting a comprehensive legal system to tell us when we've committed a crime and punishing us accordingly. We're sinking slowly enough for most of us on the inside to be unaware of it, but fast enough for the One on the outside to be fully aware of what is going on. He watches as our standards drop and taboos are regularly and boastfully broken. How many kids are prosecuted for under-age sex, a criminal offence, these days? How much petty crime is unpunished through the sheer unmanageable volume of it? When was the last time someone was prosecuted under the blasphemy law? He watches and grieves, because He knows that the laws that He gave us to live by, first as the Ten Commandments, then as the practical teachings of Jesus, have been all but discarded.

It's because we know best, don't we? We have turned our back on His word and His laws because we have turned our back on Him, because we know best, don't we? And by doing so, we have lost the certainties, the knowledge of what is right and wrong. Nothing is black or white any more, our consciences are free to roam freely, unchecked by acknowledged standards of behaviour. Rather than depending on a set of rules provided to us by revelation from our Creator we make do with a set of statutes created and modified by bastions of the law, fallible human beings just like you and me.

Past generations would have turned to the timeless truths of the Bible for moral guidance. For this generation, the latest issue of Heat or Loaded will suffice. Where will it all end? A sober thought, indeed.

"Doctors", Series 12, Episode 1, January 18th 2010. It's been a trying week for Dr Brook, balancing his surgery appointments with his shifts in the euthanasia clinic and his volunteer work in the NHS abortion centre. Frustration turns to drug-fuelled passion during a routine appointment with the wife of the Practice manager.