If this year’s TV Baftas are to be remembered for anything at all, then I am afraid they will be remembered for a mistake. This year’s best international category was already notable for its absences (where for the absolute love of god was Better Call Saul?) but at least we could console ourselves with the fact that a couple of bangers made it in. In The White Lotus, it recognised the sort of wild word-of-mouth sensation that can only come about organically. And in The Bear, it recognised what must surely, hands down, be the very best television show in the world.
And yet, once the Southbank Centre had been crammed to the gills, the winner of the category was announced as Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. The state of that series! Not only was it genuinely witless – less a compelling drama, more a rough clod of true crime dug up and listlessly tossed into the streaming quarry for the sake of it – but the glee it took in fetishising a real-life serial killer turned the stomach. All that, plus look at the title. Nobody in their right mind should ever give an award to a series that not only contains both a colon and an em-dash in its title, but also repeats the name of the subject like a cheap SEO hack.
