Review of The Serpent

'The Serpent' tells the story of Charles Sobhraj, who robbed and murdered his way through a host of young Western travellers in Asia in the 1970s. It's a chilling story, and also a fascinating one; but it might have been better as a four part series than a seven part one. Told mostly from the perspective of a Dutch diplomat who tried to bring him to justice, it suffers from a certain monotony; the setup is clear early on, and a lot of time passes without anything really changing. Even the ending lacks a major dramatic punch, given the way Sobrahj (as depicted) seems emotionally invulnerable, both to what others might do to him and also to what he does to others (that said, Tahir Rahm plays him very well). Some minor niggles are that the unfortunate hippies he preys on all seem just a little bit too good looking (and his girlfriend looks beautiful even when dying of cancer); and while people generally did smoke a lot in the 1970s, from watching this you'd think that everyone was on 60 a day. But the main limitiation of the programme is just that it's rather slow; erhaps had they told things more from the point of view of his girlfriend they could have found a stronger narrative arc.