TV: Courting Death
In his own way, John Waters is this countrys Alfred Hitchcock. While not delving into true terror territory, his Cecil-B-Demented film work rarely fails to shock viewers, even as it winks at them, with a directorial style thats instantly recognizable. Now, Waters is echoing the Master of Suspense by appearing in a TV series that is reminiscent of the classic Alfred Hitchcock Presents of the 1950s. This is not to say that CourtTVs Til Death Do Us Part stands the faintest chance of becoming a classic, but at least the characters die trying.
Every half-hour episode is a campy, low-budget and joyfully mean-spirited salute to mariticide, the age-old act of offing ones spouse. The murders are based on true stories but with names changed, characters combined and virtually unknown writers creating the dialog. Waters serves as narrator, in character as the Groom Reaper, a jovial lover of strangulation, bludgeoning and misguided attempts of corpse concealment. His bad pun of a name is second only to the shows promise to love, honor and perish.
Each episode begins with a happy couple tying the knot, but the camera soon enough pans away to find Waters as he spouts such wonderfully bad set-ups as, He had a head for figures, and she was ready to multiply. Too bad 10 years down the road, one half of this pair will be subtractedpermanently. Next, we fast-forward to when the honeymoon is definitely over, observing about 10 minutes worth of marital discord in scenarios where either husband or wife could be the ultimate killer. To their credit, the show always manages to keep the suspense building until a brain finally gets bashed or a delicate throat strangled.
This is the first scripted series for CourtTV as they undertake a rebranding strategy. The first couple pages of every script are available on their website:?a good tease and a great tool for understanding how a show comes to life. It also reveals that half the seasons episodes were written by either Ken or Mary Hanes, a couple who clearly know better than to attempt to share a credit, or to bring their work home with them.