Scorn and Her Fury

The bow-tied senior consultant, Dr. Robert Smith (Brian Cox), observing his protégé with Christopher, however, detects something else: a borderline personality disorder stemming from the institutionalized racism that knee-jerkingly calls black paranoia a mental illness. Or .?.?. is Dr. Smith a careerist who would love to have his name attached to, as his young charge cynically calls it, “a cure for black psychosis”? The title stems from Christopher’s seeing oranges as blue — outside and inside — a sign to Dr. Flaherty that all is not right chemically, but to Dr. Smith a metaphor for the woe heaped upon an abused minority. And as the pedigreed, wealthy Dr. Smith engages in a Mamet-ian game of diagnostic gamesmanship with his young charge over Christopher’s sanity and ethnocentric analysis — the patient’s other eye-opener is his claim to be the son of Idi Amin — one starts to realize that the title is actually a metaphor for the warring perceptions of the doctors.

The performances easily carry the force of Penhall’s potent lashings against the health industry’s more self-interested overseers: When Cox and Simm are at their most high-and-mighty over Christopher’s well-being, they practically quiver with righteousness — that’s some blue vein Simm has in his face — and when exposed over their analytical shortcomings, they cower hilariously. Then there’s Parkes, confused, then angry, then blasé, then eager to accommodate, mindful of every word the two doctors say, but distrustful overall, like a child caught in a nasty custody battle. Naturally, perhaps a little too naturally, Penhall has one of the doctors say, “Maybe he’s more human than us. Maybe we’re the sick ones.” But I prefer Christopher’s pained assessment toward the end: “You can’t talk straight in this place.”

Photo by Lorey Sebastian / HBO

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More About

• Jean Harris
• Annette Bening
• Robert Smith
• Joe Penhall
• Phyllis Nagy

BLUE/ORANGE | BBC America | Saturday, Feb. 18, 10 p.m.