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Law & Order: The Reaper's Helper (1990)
The past is a grotesque animal
This is a great piece of television. In three quarters of an hour "The Reaper's Helper" deals with casual homophobia, AIDS and euthanasia whilst remaining drama, not painful disquisition. What is close to painful is the unsettling nature of certain assumptions shared by the characters. After a point, when it becomes known that the episode's victim had AIDS, everyone shares the idea that killing sufferers is reasonable and unobjectionable. This came to me as quite a shock, but I think my experience of the rest of the episode was enhanced by my discomfort.
Nineteen-ninety and New York are so far from me in time and space that the episode has a science fictional quality to it. "An underground sect, rejected and ignored, with a terrifying mysterious disease only recently given a name, makes an unwelcome excursion into the public eye when the death of an infected sectator involves the law of the majority. There is no sorrow for the death, but from the parents, who are also embarrassed. The public at large hope the deaths will continue, and are angered greatly by the thought that their own laws might provide an obstacle." Arising from this repugnancy is compelling television, no criminal intention units of special victims or any of that nonsense.