The Bureau is a French police/spy series. Bodyguard is a British spy/suspense series. Gomorrah is an Italian mafia series. Hap & Leonard was an American buddy/detective series. They all have something in common, they are all completely different, and they all speak to me.
What they have in common is that they are sexy. Not sexy as in groaning and heavy breathing, not sexy as in naked slippery flesh, although there may be some of that, but sexy as in sexy isn't ruled out. Sexy as in double entendre, clothes chosen for style even if they're cheap, fleeting glances, off-screen possibilities, unstated but indubitable attraction. The characters have bodies, and the viewer can imagine that they use them. Contrast this with other series. Can you imagine Nicole Kidman shedding one of her gorgeous coats and looking lasciviously at Hugh Grant in The Undoing? Or any one of the wannabe Trumpsters in Succession? There's plenty of sex in Succession, but there's no sexy at all.
The question you have to ask yourself is would you like to find yourself naked and unafraid with any of these people? Forget the bulges and the wrinkles and the saggy bits, your own, they do not matter. What matters is, the Other. Do you want to run your finger down their spine? Do you want to see anybody else run their finger down their spine? If the answer is no, then sexy is out. That's fine if we're talking about The Hobbit, less fine if these are supposedly hot gals 'n' guys. If they ain't hot, they ain't hot, and that's a problem. It's not okay to make tv about people who should be sexy where sexy is off the cards, because what that suggests is that sexy isn't part of life, that sexy should not be, that sexy is bad.
Sexy is a bit like soul. It's either there, or it isn't. Scarlett Johansson is, Gwyneth Paltrow isn't. Idris Elba is, Colin Firth isn't. There's a whole puritan televisual world which acclaims sex, but refuses sexy, and the result is athletic coupling and not a hint of eros. You can tell, because after a certain age not only does the athletic coupling leave you cold, but you wish it would be over. However, even after that certain age, a hint of desire, a frisson of what might be, does not leave you cold. A stroked arm, a gaze turned away, and you know that these people have bodies, that they are capable of desire. Any coupling which ensues will be interesting, and if it doesn't ensue on screen, it will ensue in your mind.
Going back to our TV series, the differences are as striking as the similarities. Bodyguard is all devious deep state class warfare nonsense, The Bureau is the same with Machiavelli and Liberté Egalité Fraternité and terrorism thrown in, Gomorrah is seedy, tentacular amorality and spectacular interior design, and Hap and Leonard is a comforting, familiar blend of naivety, racism and violence. They each represent their respective countries at the Netflix Olympics, and just as ways of playing football reflect national culture, so to do these compelling programmes.
Americans are so good at character and script driven drama and Hap & Leonard fit squarely in the great tradition of Hill Street Blues and The Wire. The stories are pure hokum, but the relationship between the two, the mishaps, the loyalty and the wit carry the series through the suffocating, sinister, racially fraught landscapes and townscapes of East Texas. The British are good at hard-boiled and cynical, and using urban architecture as a design feature. The Italians, judging from Gomorrah, which is the only Italian series I have ever watched, are good at conveying the nastiness of crime, the pervasiveness of corruption, and the damage bad taste and money can do to the soul.
It's not that the possibility of sexy is enough to make for compelling viewing. You need a story, and some characters you are intrigued by, and some snappy dialogue. But sexy is is an added dimension in certain genres, whereas sex is very often a literal turn-off. We know that if sex is presented as coupling, or thrashing about purposefully, or violence, babies may result, but desire never will. No wonder the puritan in a lot of us harbours a nasty suspicion that sex is bad. Sexy is dangerous, sexy necessitates risk, sexy invites us to make physical and emotional fools of ourselves, sexy is rarely pretty. Eros invites us to dare to lose all, to entrust to an Other that which we cling on to, our sense of self. Only in an accord that contains promise should we do this, and we need to give of ourselves in such a way that we can allow ourselves to take in equal measure.
Television that contains this potential is television that speaks to me, and television that doesn't, doesn't. Unless I'm watching football, or a cartoon, or a documentary about ancient Mesopotamia.
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