This morning I received an answer from the BBC to my protest at the levels of horror and violence in Silent Witness, that formerly excellent show about pathology.

I have sent the following extra message to the BBC, sending it also to the blog of the cast, William Gaminara, Emilia Fox and Tom Ward:

I revered Silent Witness for the subtlety and skill of its acting, the deep philosophical themes, the importance of its subjects, and despite the graphic nature of the dissection scenes in the mortuary, I was not disturbed. Not at all.

But this is horror for horror’s sake [seeing a guy’s throat cut in full view, full frontal, nothing spared]. The week before, we were shown a savage, sadistic beating by a prison officer in a toilet cubicle, with blood all over the floor and  a guy having a truncheon shoved up his arse.

The week before that, we saw the den of a depraved child killer with body parts strung up on lines.

This is too much! I am all in favour of less censorship, and I love a bit of non-violent porn, as shown here on SBS. Full nudity and sex scenes, bring it on. As long as it’s not violent, I have no problem.

But this is just sickening violence for shock, horror and ratings sake.

I am going to take this further. I am going to protest to the actors themselves, William Gaminara, Tom Ward and Emilia Fox [viz], and take this to the ABC’s management as well.

This is in the same line as another BBC show, Luther, where a woman was shown having had her tongue cut out. This was violence pornography! I still have the episode recorded as proof, but I had to turn it off. It turned me off, I can assure you.

This is wrong! I protest.