catalyst2 | Touching Evil

Another one of the canceled-before-its-time great series. Jeffrey Donovan's work in Touching Evil was so good. He portrayed the brain-damaged David Creegan so well. He avoided every cliche that other series trot out for the resident "loon" - he's not ranting and raving, he's not on an emotional knife edge and he's not hallucinating or delusional. He is, though, socially dysfunctional and his logic is impaired (and he is often aware of his ineptitude and embarrassed by it). There is a wonderful scene (can't remember what episode it is from) where they are debating what they know about a case. Creegan asks several questions and they all seem to be on the right track. Then he asks one more and we realise that every other question he asked meant something quite different from what we thought. There is a very embarrassed shuffle from everyone around the table, Creegan appears to realise that he missed something big (but he still doesn't know what) and then the meeting just melts away because no-one knows quite what to do. That right there is a better portrayal of the effects of psychiatric impairment than almost anything else I have ever seen.

Just to add insult to injury, this series doesn't seem to have been released on DVD yet, let alone an R4 version.