The Thin Line of Objectivity
A closer look at Million Dollar Lover from the BBC Series Intrigue, reported and produced by Sue Mitchell
Million Dollar Lover is a 10-part series from the BBC4 series Intrigue that follows the unlikely love story of an 80-year-old widow named Carolyn, who falls for Dave, a man twenty-three years younger than her. Sue Mitchell, an investigative journalist from the BBC who also lives in California, watched this story unfold on her street in Cayucos, a seaside Californian town, during the early days of the pandemic.
The image of a couple—she 80, and he 57—is dramatic. The same image often plays out with opposite gender roles, but here we’re asked to consider if a loving relationship is possible when it’s a younger man who cares for the aging widow.
The plot moves quickly: Dave swiftly transitions from handyman to housemate, then from couch surfer to bedroom occupant in a matter of weeks; Dave convinces Carolyn not to get vaccinated; Carolyn co-signed a lease for a new truck…then the talk of marriage begins.
Dave is not the kind of second husband that grown daughters are going to rally behind
He is unhoused, spent a decade in prison, has lived on the street, is a former drug addict…and as the series unfolds we learn about the decently long rap sheet of unspeakable evil events from his life (trafficking his daughter for drugs, domestic abuse, among other events).
Mitchell is known for her work that documents people whose lives find them on the margins of society. This series demands that you set aside Middle-Class Values to consider if this could be a true redemption story.
Was Dave truly in love with Carolyn, or was he in love with the idea that she could be his golden ticket if he could net this elderly landowner as his wife?
Cayucos is the embodiment of the American Dream
A place where homes were affordable forty years ago, and are now worth millions. A place where neighbours watch out for each other, look in on each other and share meals. It’s a place where homeowners are now wealthy, but don’t act like millionaires. It’s a place where Carolyn’s family has built their lives, and their net worth, over four generations.
The two daughters, now busy middle-aged working parents who live close but don’t seem to have enough time to spend with Carolyn, worry that their mother has been conned and swindled—or worse, abused.
Amidst the revelations about Dave's life, Sue Mitchell skillfully interweaves glimpses of his qualities. Portraying him as affable and devout, Mitchell unveils Dave's persona—a skilled musician who crafts jewelry from salvaged materials to eke out a living. Through recorded interviews with Carolyn and their concerned neighbors, Mitchell sheds light on all the different angles at play.
These neighbours, fueled by a wish for Carolyn's happiness, stand united in their efforts to bolster this unlikely romance. Their support extends to Dave, as they endeavor to fulfill Carolyn's desire to care for him, to support him, even after she passes.
But Carolyn's daughters don’t buy any of this. They assert their mother has succumbed to dementia and is unable to assess her “relationship” accurately. They worry that she is being conned and manipulated.
What plays out in Million Dollar Lover is an actual Middle-Class GenX nightmare
The tension that hangs above this series is the millions of dollars worth of property that hang in the balance; will Carolyn marry Dave, and give him one of her houses? As the steam rises from this torrid love affair, one daughter becomes so enraged she hits Dave, which then delineates a clear chasm between them.
The daughters mandate the couple to sign a cohabitation agreement, but with the talk of marriage, its relevance is threatened. What will become of their generational wealth?
By now the family is communicating through a lawyer, but then Carolyn lands in the hospital through murky circumstances. Only once she’s there does it become clear that in addition to a back injury, she has also Covid; but unfortunately, at Dave’s insistence, she’s unvaccinated.
This is the breaking point for the daughters. As the battle reached its final stages, they moved in like a snowplow along a winter highway, removing all pathways to their mother except direct family members.
As the series unfurled its narrative, a distinct tone emerged—a tone refreshingly devoid of judgment. Yet, I couldn't help but wonder: was the journalist herself swayed by Dave's charisma? Her relentless pursuit of Dave's story led her into precarious situations, navigating through numerous family members and murky locales.
Venturing into Dave's world—be it his daughter’s car that also served as her makeshift home between Recovery Centers, a drug-infested squat, or even a potentially perilous ride in a van—could she resist becoming entangled in this story?
Is it feasible to dissect the life of a neighbor, and a friend, which unveils every sordid detail of his life, which will now need to be shared with the world, in an objective and balanced way?
At times, it seemed to me that her proximity to Dave blurred the lines of objectivity. Could she impartially report on this unconventional relationship, and equally consider all the perspectives involved—from neighbors to children to abandoned daughters—if she was also his friend, and a neighbour, to all the other people who rallied behind him, and Carolyn’s dying wishes?
Mitchell's deliberate approach confronts these challenges head-on. Her no-nonsense, non-judgemental, give-this-guy-a-chance attitude is visible as she speaks about Dave in her narration, with Dave in the interviews, and goes along with Dave to revisit previous chapters of his life. It also carries forward with her discussions with the neighbours and the daughters—clearly her ability to gain trust and access is exceptional. There are so many angles covered in this story it begins to feel like a circle.
The focal point of the narrative makes a keen shift towards the underdog, as it teases out the truth. This is not a hard distinction to make: Dave says it all very plainly and clearly. Mitchell's deadpan delivery injects an unsettling tension, as she presents Dave's story with stark, almost clinical honesty, as she dutifully reports out all the dark corners of his history, and grapples with the uncomfortable truths that his life uncovers.
I didn't love this series, but I couldn't tear myself away either. Despite the initial sluggish pace and recurring audio clips, I found myself drawn into the unfolding drama. Mitchell's narrative tone possesses a drone that both irked me and held my attention, in a manner that I both respected and disliked. Perhaps this indifference assisted me in maintaining a balanced and measured approach towards whom I believed and sided with, in this unsavory love story.
Perhaps I stuck with it because this story could easily unfold in my life. Like Mitchell, I have a widowed mother, and although we live close, my busy family life gets between us and regular family dinners. She holds generational wealth, a lifetime of hard work that she built with my late father, and the idea of that being handed over to a young hustler, who appears to have cared for her (starting last month), would send me around the bend as well. I would worry about her mental faculties. And I would probably lose my cool as well.
Mitchell's repeat references to her BBC training, how it emphasizes impartiality even in the face of adversity, piqued my curiosity. What sets the BBC apart from others with its mission to avoid bias?
To answer this question, I found the BBC Charter and Editorial Guidelines:
The Charter sets out the BBC’s Public Purposes:
1. To provide impartial news and information to help people understand and engage with the world around them.
2. To support learning for people of all ages.
3. To show the most creative, highest quality and distinctive output and services.
4. To reflect, represent and serve the diverse communities of all of the United Kingdom’s nations and regions and, in doing so, support the creative economy across the United Kingdom.
5. To reflect the United Kingdom, its culture and values to the world.
This all got me thinking about the wider industry
While these landmark values work for a public broadcaster, they are also required by Broadcast Law and Broadcast Regulation. The honour of having a broadcast licence, which uses public space to transmit the signals that feed our televisions and radios and computers, means that the trade-off for this priviledge is that they also do some good for the public.
As the BBC points out, “good” is interpreted as remaining impartial, to support learning, and reflect both the diversity of communities and the culture which defines them, out into the world. It’s all vague and can be interpreted in many ways, but at the very least, they are guided by a set of core values.
But what about the vast other territory of the private entities, the companies and the studios, who make narrative series like this one?
What compels these studios to adhere to journalistic standards and practices? Will they rigorously demand that impartiality is upheld? In our post-truth AI-fueled world, is it even possible to worry about these sorts of questions? Is our best hope that they all just wash out in the rain?
Part of what makes this story work, that makes sure it’s a story with core values, not just a series of vignettes designed to titillate listeners, is that Mitchell reported it to the end; the actual completion of this series of events.
It would have been very tempting to end this story at a tense moment, perhaps while Carolyn was fighting for her life, a valuable cheque was lost in the wind, which would leave the listener to wonder whether Dave did indeed take Carolyn’s money, now that she had left the house. End with mystery, leave the listener wanting more.
Without spoiling the ending, I can say that there’s a resolution to the story that upholds Mitchell’s journalistic values: chiefly, that she dug down to the end of the story and provided “impartial news and information to help people understand and engage with the world around them.”
Some exciting things to look forward to in Bingeworthy…have you heard the new AI-sexbot series from Embodied?!