Drama
Testament
Angel Studios’ Testament is a, ahem, testament to the incredible acts of Jesus’ earliest followers as it follows their stories after Jesus.
Television has crowded into the darkest corners of society via its crime procedurals. Through the screens in our home we’re invited to follow fictional cops as they stumble upon the goriest of fictional crimes scenes and track down fierce fictional murderers, rapists and terrorists. Neither we nor TV’s overseers seem particularly interested in the good and honest officers who monitor speed traps or write parking tickets. Unless, of course, a dead body might be found wrapped around a parking meter post.
Law & Order: SVU’s been around for 16 seasons already. So it was only a matter of time before a show like Stalker made it to the schedule. The CBS crime procedural pits a team of Los Angeles sleuths against some of the city’s most depraved and sneaky villains: fame-starved “fans” who lurk outside celebrity homes, icky fantasies roiling through their brains; obsessed lovers who believe that a toxic combination of persistence and violence may convince their would-be paramours that they are indeed “the one”; mothers or fathers who are forbidden from seeing their children for often very good reasons but somehow can’t seem to stay away.
Even one of our investigators is a bit of a stalker himself.
Stalker doesn’t deviate much from the well-worn crime procedural template. It’s intensely episodic, with each installment centered around a different crime that Jack, Beth, Ben and Janice have to solve, hopefully before the baddie claims another victim. It pushes season-long story arcs off to the side for the most part, with the exception of Jack’s backstory. He once had a relationship with Assistant DA Amanda Taylor that resulted in a kid. And while Amanda has forbidden Jack from having any involvement in her son’s life, that doesn’t keep Jack from spying on them.
If that sounds a little messed up to you, well, you’re in good critical company. But it’s been the show’s salacious sadism that’s earned it the most scorn. After the first episode featured a woman essentially tortured to death, The Hollywood Reporter accused Stalker of being “a disgraceful television series depicting the pornography of terror,” adding that “under no circumstances should anyone watch.” The Los Angeles Times opined that “a show this cynically conceived and constructed is … unforgivable.” And TV Guide said that “TV really doesn’t get much uglier or more cynical.”
But all this outrage was conspicuously missing when Hannibal showed up on the scene. And Game of Thrones and True Detectives. And American Horror Story and Sons of Anarchy. Characters in The Walking Dead are engaging in cannibalism these days—a revelation that made some critics cringe but hasn’t done much to lessen the overall enthusiasm for the show.
It’s gratifying to hear that everyone’s so horrified by Stalker’s bad content. But it seems they’ve decided to care because Stalker is a bad show—while giving a bloody pass to “prestige” dramas.
Plugged In will continue to try to paint both kinds of shows with the same brush.
(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at letters@pluggedin.com, or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)
A wealthy socialite says she’s being stalked by her jealous ex-husband. The inside of her house is covered in insulting graffiti (including the word “b–ch”). She opens a box containing the mutilated corpse of her dog. She’s physically assaulted several times. She’s choked on a parking garage floor. Her head is smashed with a picture frame. She crashes into a mirror. (But of course things are not quite what they seem.) A tied-up woman is held at gunpoint, with her assailant expressly planning to kill her.
We learn that the socialite divorced her husband after he cheated on her. We see a video recording of a couple kissing, with the man shirtless. There’s talk of tawdry affairs. And Jack reveals that he also cheated on his girlfriend. “That’s what men do,” he says.
Wine is gulped and “prescribed” for relaxation. We hear “b–ch” (four times), “b–tard” (once) and “boobies” (twice). Scripture is used as a threat. (A suspect’s father is a pastor.) We hear about the bad behavior in Jack’s past.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
Angel Studios’ Testament is a, ahem, testament to the incredible acts of Jesus’ earliest followers as it follows their stories after Jesus.
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