The Reckoning - BBC1 - Steve Coogan

It will be a hard watch but I have it set to record.

I thought Coogan was brilliant. He really has Savilles mannerisms done well.

A very disturbing episode and only going to get worse!

I get they were setting the foundations.

However his career spanned over 50 years. Unless I missed a timestamp, which tbh is likely ( I watch everything with subtitles so there can be overlap, or just mind drifting) we're still in the sixties .

I just expected the pace to be faster. It's just not hitting me as hard as I thought it would (yet).

This is not a complaint but Partridge and Savile share the traits of a monstrous ego

Did you watch "the sixth commandment" another true story.

I knew nothing about it, but I was sobbing through that. Extremely hard watch, but excellent. (Don't want to build it up, but it definitely stayed with me)

I watched three episodes last night (iPlayer/etc).

BBC doesn't let itself away with anything.

Tbh from watching episode 1, my opinion is that the show is the BBCs own act of contrition and owning what it as an organisation allowed happen.

Coogan was amazing as Savile. The mannerisms, the creepiness, the way his face changed just before he did something awful was tremendous. I know he has said that he was extremely proud of Philomena, he should be equally proud of this.

I'd say considering there was an inquest into her death it would be easy enough to prove it happened and her heritage.

I can't see them making a balls on something like that as it would ruin credibility.

Yeah scenes are added for dramatic purposes, but I doubt that was one of them.

Just watched 1st episode.

Not sold on his mannerisms. Yes he's got it quite good, but it's very like his Stan Laurel mixed in with Savile.

Powerful stuff, harrowing acting but a tough watch emotionally. I'm not sure if I'll get through to the end and I suspect won't be alone in that. Think I would have presented it as a film and an accompanying documentary rather than mixing the two together. But there is no denying the power of presenting it that way.

I wonder will we see more mainly drama focused series presented that way. Typically "drama documentaries" are heavier on the documentary than drama.

Is there anyway to watch apart from on iPlayer? I don’t have a VPN

I know its easy to say this with hindsight, but I remember watching Jim'll Fix it in the 80's and finding him seriously creepy. I probably didnt know the word creepy in those days but felt something very strange about him. I remember wanting to do something (can't remember what now), and my mum suggested I write to Jim'll Fix it, and me going "Erm, no thanks".

Have watched Episode 1 and found it excellent. I saw another drama a while ago called National Treasure, starring Robbie Coultrane. It's purely fiction, but is clearly based on Saville. I'd recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it.

Steve Coogan was fantastic in this. It goes without saying. The supporting cast were also very strong and as a drama it was fairly well done. I did think it was good linking in the real victims with the dramatisation of their stories incorporated into the narrative.

I couldn’t help feeling it was a bit of an overeggef pudding though. He came across as almost like a cartoon villain. I haven’t read any of the books on him or read too deeply into the facts but I certainly am old enough to remember him on the TV growing up in the 80s. He was always a bit weird and here in Ireland I guess there wasn’t that depth of exposure he’d have gotten in the UK. I wonder if I was in my 20s if I’d have been more repulsed by an old guy hanging around with kids as much as he did? Back when I was a primary school kid and RTE showed Jim’ll Fix It on a Saturday evening at teatime, it looked like the best show ever so some of that stayed with me in forming my image of Saville. TBH he just didn’t cross my mind after I became a teen and from then on until about 2000 when Louis Theroux did his documentary and it emerged Jimmy was weird but Louis missed an open goal at that time you’d think now.

I know now he was a monster and it’s awful to think of so many poor vulnerable kids having their lives upset by what he did, not to mention nurses and other women who received unwanted sexual advances. I don’t deny for a second he was an extremely bad person but all I felt that all that was missing from this portrayal was him twiddling a large moustache and cackling. I felt they were very selective in the narrative they wanted to bring across. Like I say, he was an awful person for sure and doesn’t deserve any kind of rehabilitation of his memory but something felt off and kind of one dimensional about the show. That doesn’t detract from the horrible things he did but I can’t hell feeling there has to be more to the character than they showed on screen

Coogan is fantastic in this, if you'll excuse the use of a positive word for a terrifying portrayal, and the series paints a coherent picture of how Savile was able to get away with his crimes for so long.

It seems like his life will be a case that will be poured over for decades to come. Since the revelations came out, he's gone from being a generally liked public figure to being a real life Freddy Kruger, and not undeservedly.

After finishing the series, I'd be interested to know which scenes were based on real events and which ones were added for dramatic effect.

The series seems to heavily imply that Savile knew on some level that his behaviour was deeply wrong and that part of the reason he did so much charity work was to 'even the score', so to speak. That's not to detract from the other apparent reason for doing that work was to improve his prestige in order to protect himself and have a greater access to victims.

The writers of the show weren't pulling this out of their arses - Savile did an interview one time, I think you can hear the excerpt on A British Horror Story, where he says something like when he dies, St. Peter is going to point out all the bad stuff he did, but Savile could turn around and say, 'but what about this, this and this?' in terms of the charity work and so on.

It reads to me like Savile had a very transactional view of morality, essentially boiling it down to a ledger, and overlooking the ideas of mortal sin or true atonement. I suppose those concepts would have gotten too much in the way of what he wanted to do.

Clearly, he was quite evil indeed, but he's going to remain a topic of fascination for years to come due to his sheer oddness and scheming. His life and personality will be dissected and poured over in much the same way that many infamous serial killers are, again and again. Would he have enjoyed the infamy?

His Catholicism also enabled this behaviour.

Many of the modern stereotypes we identify for paedo's or creepy old men, we get from Jimmy Saville. They didn't fully exist before him. If you wanted to put together a charicature of a creep, a tracksuit and a cigar would be a good start.

Even as a kid I found him creepy. So Im not surprised some people in the BBC found him creepy, but there's a difference between finding someone creepy and all out reporting someone. At one stage Jim'll Fix It was the highest rated show on BBC. It's very difficult to pull a presenter off a high rated show, and even more difficult based only on feelings. "Sorry Jimmy, we are pulling you off the Telly because Mary in Marketing finds you creepy".

The evidence was there but you had to go looking for it. The problem is no-one went looking.