Banged Up Abroad, good viewing for Monday nights on TV3.

Oracle

Anyone watching this series on TV3 on Monday nights? It's very good television, basically about how various individuals get themselves locked up while abroad. The usually clatter of drug smugglers, dope mules and gold smugglers (last night) appear, but their stories are told with some sensitivity and nice dramatisation. I enjoy hearing each persons story, some are interviewed from prison. It's UK made. I'd say it's finishing it's run soon, I hope they make another series.

humanji

I really hate this show. A bunch of drug smugglers acting like victims. A couple of weeks ago it was about 2 guys who excaped jail and flew home. Should we be happy they got away with their crimes?

cashback

humanji wrote: »

I really hate this show. A bunch of drug smugglers acting like victims. A couple of weeks ago it was about 2 guys who excaped jail and flew home. Should we be happy they got away with their crimes?

Funny I kind of feel like this too but can't help getting sucked in to the story sometimes. That one you mentioned, I found myself rooting for them to escape, then thinking... why?
Mind you, don't know if anyone deserves a prison stay in Caracas. Well maybe some actually.

zuutroy

Watching it now...very good imo...amazing story in the current one.

dubmick

it is being repeated at the moment

Tomohawk

Originally Posted by humanji View Post
I really hate this show. A bunch of drug smugglers acting like victims. A couple of weeks ago it was about 2 guys who excaped jail and flew home. Should we be happy they got away with their crimes?

They're not all drug related stories. There was one a couple of weeks ago on TV3 about an american motorcyclist who was kidnapped by terrorists in the jungle whilest en route to the southerly tip of south america. The programe makers used dramatic re-enactments interspersed with a fascinating interiview with the original kidnapee in the events depicted. It was insightfull study into the lenghts the guy went to survive his predicament, eventually going on hunger strike and finally ramming a twig up his nostral passage (in secret) to induse a nosebleed in order to fake another more serious illness.

worth watching indeed...

Kur4mA

Yep, I watched this for the first time a few nights ago. It really is addictive viewing. The episode I watched was about a guy who got caught up in a drug smuggling business and got so **** faced that he thought swallowing 67 condoms full of Cocaine and strapping the rest around his body was a brilliant idea. It's very easy just to call these guys scum, but it does make you think when you hear their side of the story.

cashback

Tomohawk wrote: »

They're not all drug related stories. There was one a couple of weeks ago on TV3 about an american motorcyclist who was kidnapped by terrorists in the jungle whilest en route to the southerly tip of south america. The programe makers used dramatic re-enactments interspersed with a fascinating interiview with the original kidnapee in the events depicted. It was insightfull study into the lenghts the guy went to survive his predicament, eventually going on hunger strike and finally ramming a twig up his nostral passage (in secret) to induse a nosebleed in order to fake another more serious illness.

worth watching indeed...

That one was very good alright. The relief at the end was great when he saw the ambulances..

TerrorFirmer

kyub wrote: »

Yep, I watched this for the first time a few nights ago. It really is addictive viewing. The episode I watched was about a guy who got caught up in a drug smuggling business and got so **** faced that he thought swallowing 67 condoms full of Cocaine and strapping the rest around his body was a brilliant idea. It's very easy just to call these guys scum, but it does make you think when you hear their side of the story.

Yeah saw that one, very interesting, couldn't help but feel somewhat sorry for him - caught yards from freedom after a 16 hour flight with 67 condoms full of coke in his stomach. :eek:

zuutroy

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Yeah saw that one, very interesting, couldn't help but feel somewhat sorry for him - caught yards from freedom after a 16 hour flight with 67 condoms full of coke in his stomach. :eek:

Well, if he hadn't have been caught he was going to die, so I didnt feel that bad for him

Raekwon

kyub wrote: »

Yep, I watched this for the first time a few nights ago. It really is addictive viewing. The episode I watched was about a guy who got caught up in a drug smuggling business and got so **** faced that he thought swallowing 67 condoms full of Cocaine and strapping the rest around his body was a brilliant idea. It's very easy just to call these guys scum, but it does make you think when you hear their side of the story.

That was actually a repeated episode, I saw that one before Christmas.

I really liked the one where the English woman and her two new 'friends' were caught in Bangkok and x-rayed for drugs. She was so stupid it was incredible, I had absolutely no sympathy for her at all. At one point, while still being questioned, she had an opportunity to go to the toilet and get rid of all the drugs that were inside her but she declined. What a moron!

sunshimmer

I agree. It's astonishing that these people, so articulate in telling their stories and recounting their ordeals in the finest of detail, were 'naive' enough to agree to smuggle drugs/gold/cash. It's a well made show but it's amazing that week on week these people consistently feel that they are the ones who have being wronged. Motive is also consistent: greed.

Awesome-O

i love this programme although i have missed it the last 3 weeks, it's amazing how naive some of these people actually are, they say things like "i didn't realise i'd be smuggling such a large amount", so if it was a smaller amount do they think that would make it ok? and yet i always feel sorry for them, purely from the state of the prisons they are held in..surely not fit for many humans..i can think of one or two crimes that deserve worse treatment

humanji

humanji wrote: »

Should we be happy they got away with their crimes?

I get your point, but I'm not sure that they are protrayed as victims. I find it interesting, in the same way that much of the stuff on the Crime Channel might be interesting but you're not supposed to end up rooting for the criminal. In fact, unlike many criminals, it seems that many of those who serve their time abroad and feature on the show don't wallow in self pity or end up as career criminals, the ones I saw couldn't believe how stupid they were to have done what they did, or how they wrecked their own lives and the lives of loved ones, the shame and humiliation they brought on themselves...they don't engage in lines about the system forcing them into their crime.

Newaglish

I have a special point of hatred for this programme - as mentioned before it features a batch of criminals complaining about how unfortunate it is they are in prison and looking for sympathy.

That being said, it's relatively well made, and I one episode I did watch till the end showed that the two being interviewed (boyfriend and girlfriend) were still serving time in separate prisons, and the interviews had been taped in front of a black sheet background to hide the fact that they were in prison cells.

But all in all - I have absolutely no pity for somebody who smuggles drugs and gets caught - why should anyone?

Newaglish

Newaglish wrote: »

as mentioned before it features a batch of criminals complaining about how unfortunate it is they are in prison and looking for sympathy.

I've seen a few episodes and must say I haven't heard one person complaining about their luck, or look for sympathy.

Heisenberg.

This post has been deleted.

Oracle

Thanks for the tip The Scientist, I'm glad it's back. Just reading the programme blurb on the TV3 web site this sounds like a previous episode. I hope this is a new series and not a repeat.