Doug Coutts’ TV Preview: Venus and Mars

TV Preview: Sunday Theatre – Venus and Mars | TV1, 8.30 Sunday

A PERSONAL VIEW
By Doug Coutts

Older readers will no doubt remember the bizarre case of the Manawatu cop caught up in a satanic murder plot of his own invention, for younger readers (and older ones who’ve forgotten) there’s Venus and Mars.

Set in Palmerston North, which is like being set in stone but more boring, Venus and Mars kicks off with a whole bunch of real-life assaults on the constabulary. One cop, so far escaping a real beating, has nevertheless been receiving oddly worded threats in the mail, and not from the power company.

His superiors are understandably alarmed as well, alarmed enough to place him under special protection – not special enough though, as one evening the madman breaks in, slashes the cop to ribbons and burns the house down.

Director: John Laing
Writer: John Banas
Cast: Craig Hall, Andy Cunningham, Paul McLaughlin, Joel Tobeck, Sara Wiseman
Production house: Screentime NZ.

Or so everything thinks. An investigation is launched to track down the madman, and then another, more secret, one to look a little closer to home – because some of the Ds think the culprit might be one of their own.

And that sets up quite a bit of tension when it comes out that the Operation Venus team is barking up the wrong tree while the Mars guys are pissing on a pot plant right in the office.

It’s tension that could have been developed a bit more, and it’s not like they didn’t have the time – there’s a brief TV interview sequence that pops up out of the blue (tee-hee) towards the end that makes no sense and could well have been sacrificed to make room for the matter at hand.

The whole thing is swiftly propelled along, to a logical conclusion, by a competent cast, although the detective played by the guy in the EECA commercials never got to say, “There’s a problem with the ceiling insulation in the cell block, Senior Sergeant, and the fridge seals could do with replacement.”

And, if you’re of a mind to burn your house down for the insurance, there are enough handy hints of what and what not to do to give you a decent chance of getting away with it. Just don’t invent a grim reaper pen pal – it’s a dead giveaway.