CRIME AND FAMILY DYSTUNCTIONING

DAZZLER MEDIA — HIDDEN / CRAITH — 2018

This series has a particularity. A great part of the dialogue, outside the police station and other public services, is in Welsh with English subtitles. The viewers who do not like subtitles will be at a disadvantage. But all the viewers in the world will have to understand that English is the official or standard language of the United Kingdom, but in each component of this UK the local language, the local dialects, and the local accents are valorized and protected as historical and cultural heritage. Since this series takes place in a rural area in northern Wales, there is no escape for television there to use Welsh in many programs, what’s more in series taking place in Wales.

The second remark is a warning. Each season is one story in one mini-series of 8, then 6, and 6 episodes each. Two seasons have on the DVD sleeves, a subtitle. Season 1 is “Some Scars Never Heal.” Season 2 is “Lives Shattered Lives Rebuilt.” The third season has no subtitle on the front of the DVD box, but a simple subtitle on the back: “The Final Groundbreaking Series.”

Each season, each story is vastly developed and researched but a few simple ideas emerge from the three seasons. First of all, the present crime or dead body discovery necessarily has roots in the distant past and that distant past…