Of course, C4 can never just show something trashy for entertainment, so this is therefore an 'experiment' supposedly showing how the dynamics of a jury work. Yet it is in two respects completely unrealistic. First, the juries were obviously not selected randomly but in accordance with 'BBC diversity'. Actually the white blokes included are middle-aged white van men, and the whole thing seems set up as a deliberate microcosm of the culture wars. And second, they may reproduce the words spoken in the real-life trial, but what they can't reproduce (of course) is the general impression made by the witnesses - and, as the jurors' comments make clear, *that is what they mainly go by*. Did the real defendant have such mother-me eyes? Did he burst into tears quite so much? We don't know. Yer man gives it his all, though, I must say that.
Indeed it is clear that most people made up their minds pretty early on, and did this according to their existing prejudices. Two eps in, we haven't really seen any discussion, as such, at all; those who hold minority views are keeping quiet. Almost nothing that anybody has said - and least of all the barristers who are paid so much to present a case - has actually had any bearing on how it should be judged. Any fictional defence lawyer, Saul Goodman or Kim Wexler say, would rapidly have made mincemeat of the prosecution's feeble efforts. So if the show proves one thing, it is that people don't decide things on reason. But we already knew that...
Curiously, and in contrast to TV whodunnits, there has been very little focus on the actual MO of the killing. Yet this seems of crucial importance. The guy, having already strangled the woman, and not sure if she is already dead, then finishes her off with a big club hammer that happens to be handy. Why reach for that at all, if the strangling was just 'loss of control'? And okay, he's a sort of blacksmith, but what is the hammer doing on the kitchen table? Nobody in the juries has spotted this anomaly. I suspect him of a pre-meditation that would invalidate the 'loss of control' defence - for whatever that was ever worth.
ETA: no change in the last ep, in which the juries had to decide their verdicts: every single person went by their general impression of the guy and the case, as seen through the lens of their own previous experiences; not by the specific facts of the killing which were the only things relevant. Added to that, we saw those with minority views in both juries cave in fairly rapidly to the social pressure to agree with the others, in spite of having been apparently adamant in their original opinions. One or two of these seemed to feel they'd been cheated, when they realised there was another jury that had returned the contrary verdict and that therefore their own previous views were defensible. But they had no-one to blame but themselves and their lack of backbone.
All in all it was pretty depressing, whether considered as illustrating how the jury system works or its wider implications about how beliefs form and spread in society. Interesting, but not exactly fun.
Indeed it is clear that most people made up their minds pretty early on, and did this according to their existing prejudices. Two eps in, we haven't really seen any discussion, as such, at all; those who hold minority views are keeping quiet. Almost nothing that anybody has said - and least of all the barristers who are paid so much to present a case - has actually had any bearing on how it should be judged. Any fictional defence lawyer, Saul Goodman or Kim Wexler say, would rapidly have made mincemeat of the prosecution's feeble efforts. So if the show proves one thing, it is that people don't decide things on reason. But we already knew that...
Curiously, and in contrast to TV whodunnits, there has been very little focus on the actual MO of the killing. Yet this seems of crucial importance. The guy, having already strangled the woman, and not sure if she is already dead, then finishes her off with a big club hammer that happens to be handy. Why reach for that at all, if the strangling was just 'loss of control'? And okay, he's a sort of blacksmith, but what is the hammer doing on the kitchen table? Nobody in the juries has spotted this anomaly. I suspect him of a pre-meditation that would invalidate the 'loss of control' defence - for whatever that was ever worth.
ETA: no change in the last ep, in which the juries had to decide their verdicts: every single person went by their general impression of the guy and the case, as seen through the lens of their own previous experiences; not by the specific facts of the killing which were the only things relevant. Added to that, we saw those with minority views in both juries cave in fairly rapidly to the social pressure to agree with the others, in spite of having been apparently adamant in their original opinions. One or two of these seemed to feel they'd been cheated, when they realised there was another jury that had returned the contrary verdict and that therefore their own previous views were defensible. But they had no-one to blame but themselves and their lack of backbone.
All in all it was pretty depressing, whether considered as illustrating how the jury system works or its wider implications about how beliefs form and spread in society. Interesting, but not exactly fun.