Channel 4 is vilifying white working-class men again – In Flight is just another series conforming to TV's new woke rule

The Sun

17 hours ago

HOW can you tell if a TV show broadcast between the start of July and the end of August is a bit rubbish?
The clue's in the question.
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It's broadcast between the start of July and the end of August, a time when networks assume everyone is on holiday and don't generally waste revenue-generating gold like Mr Bates Versus The Post Office, Chernobyl or I'm a Celebrity.. . . . Get Me Out of Here!
They fill it with outright garbage, of the Cooking With The Stars variety, or stuff they're not quite sure about like Channel 4's In Flight, a six-part 'thriller' about international drug smuggling which has got less air miles to its name than Greta bleedin' Thunberg.
It starts in Belfast, continues in Belfast and at some point, many hours from now, will come to a bloody climax in Belfast.
A happy arrangement in most circumstances, but In Flight's plot and drone footage captions asks us to believe a large number of scenes are taking place in 'Sofia', 'Istanbul', 'Dubai' and 'Bangkok', which all look suspiciously like . . .
Belfast.
A decent drama can always overcome the travel constraints of a miserly budget, of course, with the help of brilliant acting and credible script.
In Flight's on the back foot, though, from the moment we discover Katherine Kelly' s tortured airline stewardess, Jo Conran, has a d**kwit 19-year-old called Sonny who's landed up in a Bulgarian jail, after allegedly beating a local gangster's son to death.
And the only way she can now stop him being killed is to smuggle heroin on behalf of a bloke called Cormac, who she met in a bar.
To this unlikely end, she's definitely helped by the fact In Flight exists in a world where there are no policemen and the UK's only full-time customs officer is an ex-boyfriend called Dom, who still, inexplicably, has the hots for the sullen mare.
Whatever chance In Flight had of carrying me with it, though, was effectively knackered when, instead of drawing things to a conclusion after three episodes (max), it was decided the show should keep going for six hours.
A horrible self-indulgence.
And you can see the effects for yourselves as early as the second episode, when the plot starts repeating on a loop and the cast is re- duced to barking out old Spider-Man lines.
Sullen mare
To the extent that poor old Cormac, played really well by Stuart Martin, even has to tell Jo 'You've got 24 hours' at one point.
Wednesday was also the night when an airport cleaning lady who'd found heroin stashed in a tampon machine (don't ask) battered Jo senseless with a red-hot frying pan filled with cooking oil.
Yet she emerged, seconds later, from the beating without so much a single skin blister or any notion she'd been in a violent struggle at all.
How this medical miracle transpired, I've no idea.
But it was a key moment, because once the continuity's gone, I can no longer suspend my disbelief and start to notice everything else that's wrong with the drama.
In the case of In Flight, which never has the decency to become so bad it's good, it's merely disposable, one of the big issues is the lack of a significant supporting cast to take the edge off Katherine Kelly, who you could never accuse of underplaying a role.
Here, she gives it every pained contortion in the facial yoga manual and five big gulps, in the airport's arrivals hall, for good measure.
From the word go, In Flight also seems to conform to television's new rules of cultural apartheid, which state that every single white male — but especially the working class ones — is a violent, cowardly, irredeemably stupid thug.
Call it the Adolescence effect, if you like, I have a suspicion Sonny isn't as innocent as his mum hopes.
In the meantime, someone's just stabbed him and Sonny's now flat out in a Sofia/Belfast hospital where a Bulgarian Northern Irish doctor is explaining: 'He's lucky. We've given him a sedative, he'll be out for some time.'
And if he's really lucky, he'll be out for the next three episodes.
PRINCESS ANDRE was nearly two hours into her new fly-on-the-wall ITV2 series, at a stables in Ibiza, when she made a frank admission.
'I actually love the smell of, like, horse manure.'
Which is just as well, or she'd be overwhelmed by the hum coming from her show, The Princess Diaries, where the only thing numbing the stench is the general and welcome absence of mum Katie Price.
A victim of internal family politics, I gather. Although it was sold to viewers as a chance for TV's latest Nepo Baby to 'step out of her parents' shadow', 'make her own way', and all that self-deceiving toss.
On account of the fact, presumably, that ITV2 thinks its viewers are too thick to work out the reason there's always some professional creep on hand, to indulge Princess's every whim, is the fact she's got famous parents.
Without them, obviously, the show would never have been made and she'd be just another overentitled teenager who cannot hold a single conversation without at least one 'actually' and half a dozen 'likes'.
That's why The Princess Diaries is never more than seven minutes away from a Peter Andre cameo – and Princess took the nuclear option, very first episode, of video-calling mum Katie then expressing genuine astonishment at the sight that greeted her.
'She's actually on holiday in Dubai and she had her boobs out. Oh my God, she's so unpredictable.'
Really? 'Cos if I had to gamble every single thing I own, I'd have predicted that's exactly what she'd be doing.
INCIDENTALLY, full and very patronising coverage of the women's Rugby World Cup begins on BBC, August 22 – with the bit I'm really looking forward to, every studio discussion being about the USA's coach, Sione Fukofuka.
Great sporting insights
COURTNEY SWEETMAN-KIRK: 'It was always going to be a lose-lose unless they won.'
Steve Parish: 'It's 99% done. So 100%.' And Dan Biggar: 'To come away with a 3-0 defeat would be pretty special for the Lions.'
(Compiled by Graham Wray)
TV Gold
ITV's Ridley featuring that fine actor John Henshaw, who rarely gets the credit he deserves but is nearly always the best performer on screen.
The savage SAS: Who Dares Wins milling bout between Conor Benn and Troy Deeney which left even the Special Forces instructors looking slightly daunted. BBC2's incredibly relaxing Tiger Dynasty documentary.
Amazon Prime repeating Mr Benn, a childhood enchantment so beautifully narrated by Ray Brooks, who passed away last weekend.
And BBC2's VJ Day 80: We Were There which, as always with World War Two documentaries, delivered an emotional punch to the stomach in the final credits.
But we owe it to these men and women to watch it all the way through.
Lookalike of the week
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Sent in by Stewart Sinclair, East Lothian.