There’s a scene in episode seven of Tunnel, the Anglo-French version of the Danish-Swedish cop drama The Bridge (Bron/Broen – keep up at the back) in which the British cop (played by Stephen Dillane) expresses disbelief that the public would do such a thing as vote on the question of which of two children, potential victims of the series’ serial killer, should survive. But of course, vote they do.

This scene made me think about the themes of the show, and whether it worked as well in French/English as it did in Danish/Swedish. Does the tunnel work as a metaphor in the same way as the bridge, for example?

It was an obvious move, I guess, though any border crossing between any two European countries could have been used, without the clunky bridging metaphor. A bridge spans a gap and offers easier communication and potential peace, love, and understanding. The American version goes straight for a bridge: easy, and much better television. A tunnel, on the other hand, hides under the ground/sea and is a bit of a pain in the backside to use, and instead stands for hidden things, guerrilla warfare, ignorance, being in the dark, struggling towards the light. It’s also cramped and not very visual when it comes to the opening body-cut-in-half sequence.

Clémence Poésy plays Elise as a virtual clone of the Swedish version (Saga), whereas Dillane seems to channel Michael Kitchen in Foyles War. This makes him seem more sympathetic and a better cop, though he makes similar mistakes to his Danish counterpart in the bedroom department. His wife is played by Guinevere from Merlin, who doesn’t look right in 21st century clothing.

The key villain, apart from the actual villain, is a journalist, as he was in the original. This journalist is a tabloid hack, who aims his work at the lowest common denominator, showing nothing but contempt for both his material and his audience.

All of which made me think. There’s no getting away from the fact that this Canal+ co-production is made in conjunction with Shine, which is of course part of News Corp/Fox, and headed by one of the Murdochs.

So. Contempt for the audience? Tabloid journalist as the lowest of the low? The public being asked to vote on something, as in some ghastly reality show? Are these mixed messages, or is there one big one?

Who is to blame, after all, for the low blows of tabloid stories? Why are journalists so underhand, nasty, and venal? While I was watching this, in France, a journalist supposedly disguised himself as a priest in order to gain access to Michael Schumacher’s hospital room. Whose hunger do they feed? Throughout the programme, the killer manipulates both the cops and the general population into acting out on his behalf. He directs anger at capitalist enterprises and the tendency of those in the private profit sector to put profit before people. A laudable message, of course, except in this case it is portrayed as coming from an unhinged fanatic. And those who do his bidding are portrayed as a pitchfork-wielding, molotov cocktail-throwing mob.

Ah, the crowd and the mob. While our killer critiques capitalists, they’re only ever portrayed as doing what comes naturally. Sure, they treat people badly, but only because the public demands low, low prices. Which we do. So when the mob attacks the sportswear shop that sells the shoes made in far-Eastern sweatshops, who is being critiqued?

I think the answer, as always, is the mob. It’s the mob who buys tabloids and swallows their lies; it’s the mob who walks around in cheap clothing made in sweatshops; it’s the mob that habitually votes in trashy reality shows. It’s the mob that demands the Leveson Inquiry, and the mob, on Twitter, who goes baying after stories, real and fake, bullying people into apologies, or worse. (I’ve noticed a new trolling tendency, on the Twitter. Some ass posts a link or a photo, and urges Twitter to “do your thing.”) Giving the people what they want is hardly noble, but we are all implicated. It’s a right wing message: capitalism may be horrible, but we are all horrible together, so shut up. The classic capitalist response to any activist is to fixate on some minor hypocrisy: you shop at Amazon, or you drink at Starbucks, you wear clothes made in sweatshops, so shut up.

So, is the tunnel an apt metaphor? We are deep underground, helpless, out of control, and struggling towards the light. We live in ignorance and struggle to know truths that are true and uncompromised by hypocrisy and lies. In episode eight, the cops are arguing about the relative lack of CCTV in France. One of the French cops says, “But, civil liberties…” and the English cop shouts, “FUCK CIVIL LIBERTIES!”

Yes, because without the cameras, we are all in the tunnel. Fuck Civil Liberties could be the motto of most cop shows, right?

It’s a good adaptation, though bleak and depressing, as these things tend to be.

*Tunnel is what it says on the box for the French boxed set. In Britain, it’s known as The Tunnel, I know. My version was the French one, which had English on the soundtrack, but only had French subtitles – none in English for the French sections. If I hadn’t already seen The Bridge, I might have been lost.