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* SurprisinglyGoodForeignLanguage: The series was filmed on location, using native actors, in the UK, Germany, and Pakistan, so it's no surprise that English, German, and Urdu speakers are natively conversant. In brief sequences, Helen Rosshalde (a UK woman married to a German husband) speaks German to her house staff and local police. The German police handlers will speak German among themselves, but break into accented English to speak with their state's witness, Ledesert (a French citizen). Karl Rosshalde, speaking in competent but accented English, complains that Helen is lazy about learning German, forcing him to improve his English.
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* West German businessman Karl Rosshalde appears to be a model citizen, running hydropower engineering projects in rural Pakistan. However, his immense personal wealth derives entirely from his involvement in drug trading, and a police investigation leads to his arrest. With a trial underway and their black market empire teetering, his wife Helen (Lindsay Duncan) faces the choice between losing it all, or taking his dark dealings into her own hands. Two German policemen, Ulli and Dieter, spar with the Rosshaldes in a cat-and-mouse game, with both sides pushing how far they will go to win.
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* West German businessman Karl Rosshalde appears to be a model citizen, running hydropower engineering projects in rural Pakistan. However, his immense personal wealth derives entirely from his involvement in drug trading, and a police investigation leads to his arrest. With a trial underway and their black market empire teetering, his wife Helen (Lindsay Duncan) (Creator/LindsayDuncan) faces the choice between losing it all, or taking his dark dealings into her own hands. Two German policemen, Ulli and Dieter, spar with the Rosshaldes in a cat-and-mouse game, with both sides pushing how far they will go to win.
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Redistributed the three "Adult Fear" entries to their own subcategories.
* MissingChild: Helen Rosshalde gets a (brief) sequence of audience sympathy, when her black-market drug contacts turn nasty and kidnap her son in broad daylight, with dire threats if she doesn't repay them.
** Slightly nuanced in Minister Lithgow's story in the UK, who's forced to deal with the fear of losing his grown adult daughter to addiction. Also, dealing with her destructive behavior to the point that she will lie, cheat, and steal from her parents to finance her habit. When Lithgow ultimately finds her passed out in a filthy bedsit, selling her body for drug money, it's actually a comparatively positive ending for a runaway drug addict.
** Slightly nuanced in Minister Lithgow's story in the UK, who's forced to deal with the fear of losing his grown adult daughter to addiction. Also, dealing with her destructive behavior to the point that she will lie, cheat, and steal from her parents to finance her habit. When Lithgow ultimately finds her passed out in a filthy bedsit, selling her body for drug money, it's actually a comparatively positive ending for a runaway drug addict.
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* SurprisinglyGoodForeignLanguage: The series was filmed on location, using native actors, in the UK, Germany, and Pakistan, so it's no surprise that English, German, and Urdu speakers are natively conversant. In brief sequences, Helen Rosshalde (a UK woman married to a German husband) speaks German to her house staff and local police. The German police handlers will speak German among themselves, but break into accented English to speak with their state's witness, Ledesert (a French citizen). Karl Rosshalde, speaking in competent but accented English, complains that Helen is lazy about learning German, forcing him to improve his English.
to:
* SurprisinglyGoodForeignLanguage: The series was filmed on location, using native actors, in the UK, Germany, and Pakistan, so it's no surprise that English, German, and Urdu speakers are natively conversant. In brief sequences, Helen Rosshalde (a UK woman married to a German husband) speaks German to her house staff and local police. The German police handlers will speak German among themselves, but break into accented English to speak with their state's witness, Ledesert (a French citizen). Karl Rosshalde, speaking in competent but accented English, complains that Helen is lazy about learning German, forcing him to improve his English.English.
* WouldHurtAChild: In the poppy-growing subplot in Pakistan, the threat of harm extends to one's family and children as part of the drug trade. Tariq Butt himself explicitly uses this as a means of controlling his farmers and chemists, at one point sparing a chemist's life but executing his young son in front of him.
* WouldHurtAChild: In the poppy-growing subplot in Pakistan, the threat of harm extends to one's family and children as part of the drug trade. Tariq Butt himself explicitly uses this as a means of controlling his farmers and chemists, at one point sparing a chemist's life but executing his young son in front of him.
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* UK Minister Jack Lithgow (Bill Paterson) is a rising political star and overseas representative of the Prime Minister, poised to ink a treaty with Pakistan on drug control. A driven man at work, he neglects his family at home, causing his wife to leave him and his daughter Caroline (Julia Ormond) to become a drug addict. He wrestles with his conscience and the political expectations of a hard line on society's drug problems, as his own household disintegrates under its own.
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* UK Minister Jack Lithgow (Bill Paterson) (Creator/BillPaterson) is a rising political star and overseas representative of the Prime Minister, poised to ink a treaty with Pakistan on drug control. A driven man at work, he neglects his family at home, causing his wife to leave him and his daughter Caroline (Julia Ormond) to become a drug addict. He wrestles with his conscience and the political expectations of a hard line on society's drug problems, as his own household disintegrates under its own.
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Adult Fear is now a disambig
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* AdultFear: Present in each subplot:
** In Minister Lithgow's story in the UK, fear of losing your grown child to addiction, to the point that she will lie, cheat, and steal from you to finance her habit. Finding her passed out in a filthy bedsit, selling her body for drug money.
** In the poppy-growing subplot in Pakistan, the fear of harm coming to one's family and children as part of the drug trade. Tariq Butt himself explicitly uses this as a means of controlling his farmers and chemists, at one point sparing a chemist's life but executing his young son in front of him.
** Even Helen Rosshalde gets a (brief) sequence of audience sympathy, when her black-market drug contacts turn nasty and kidnap her son in broad daylight, with dire threats if she doesn't repay them.
** In Minister Lithgow's story in the UK, fear of losing your grown child to addiction, to the point that she will lie, cheat, and steal from you to finance her habit. Finding her passed out in a filthy bedsit, selling her body for drug money.
** In the poppy-growing subplot in Pakistan, the fear of harm coming to one's family and children as part of the drug trade. Tariq Butt himself explicitly uses this as a means of controlling his farmers and chemists, at one point sparing a chemist's life but executing his young son in front of him.
** Even Helen Rosshalde gets a (brief) sequence of audience sympathy, when her black-market drug contacts turn nasty and kidnap her son in broad daylight, with dire threats if she doesn't repay them.
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* CultureClash: Roomami points out the cultural comparison to Lithgow: in the lawless frontiers of Pakistan, people have smoked opium cigarettes for centuries and only the foolish youths take it beyond control, but alcohol is strictly forbidden. In the UK, alcohol abuse is far more problematic than heroin abuse, but is legal. Roomami's cousin, a tribal leader, reinforces this point through his actions: he offers Lithgow an opium cigarette as a sign of friendship, much as a British man might offer a colleague a drink.
** Lithgow even admits this as he finally accepts the opium cigarette: "I've thrown everything else I believe in out the window."
** Lithgow even admits this as he finally accepts the opium cigarette: "I've thrown everything else I believe in out the window."
* DescentIntoAddiction: Lithgow's daughter, Caroline, starts off as a promising university student in the UK. As the series progresses, she's shown becoming addicted to heroin. She steals and sells her parents' home belongings, hides drug paraphernalia inside hollowed-out books at home, breaks into drugstores, and is ultimately seen shooting up in public toilets and selling her body to strangers. In her final scene, she recounts her downward spiral to an addicts support group - some of which was not shown onscreen but underlies the insidious gradual nature of addiction and the victim's self-deceptions.
* FromBadToWorse: Fazal and his family. As poor farmers from northwest Pakistan, they suffer throughout the entire series - first forced to grow poppies through economic pressures, then displaced from their bulldozed farmsteads in a superficial show of government crackdown, and then brought to Karachi as paupers hoping for a better life. Fazal's employment with a ruthless druglord makes things better, but not by much - and not for long.
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* SurprisinglyGoodForeignLanguage: The series was filmed on location, using native actors, in the UK, Germany, and Pakistan, so it's no surprise that English, German, and Urdu speakers are natively conversant. In brief sequences, Helen Rosshalde (a UK woman married to a German husband) speaks German to her house staff and local police. The German police handlers will speak German among themselves, but break into accented English to speak with their state's witness, Ledesert (a French citizen). Karl Rosshalde, speaking in competent but accented English, complains that Helen is lazy about learning German, forcing him to improve his English.
* ValuesDissonance: Roomami points out the cultural comparison to Lithgow: in the lawless frontiers of Pakistan, people have smoked opium cigarettes for centuries and only the foolish youths take it beyond control, but alcohol is strictly forbidden. In the UK, alcohol abuse is far more problematic than heroin abuse, but is legal. Roomami's cousin, a tribal leader, reinforces this point through his actions: he offers Lithgow an opium cigarette as a sign of friendship, much as a British man might offer a colleague a drink.
** Lithgow even admits this as he finally accepts the opium cigarette: "I've thrown everything else I believe in out the window."
* TheWoobie: Fazal and his family. As poor farmers from northwest Pakistan, they suffer throughout the entire series - first forced to grow poppies through economic pressures, then displaced from their bulldozed farmsteads in a superficial show of government crackdown, and then brought to Karachi as paupers hoping for a better life. Fazal's employment with a ruthless druglord makes things better, but not by much - and not for long.
* ValuesDissonance: Roomami points out the cultural comparison to Lithgow: in the lawless frontiers of Pakistan, people have smoked opium cigarettes for centuries and only the foolish youths take it beyond control, but alcohol is strictly forbidden. In the UK, alcohol abuse is far more problematic than heroin abuse, but is legal. Roomami's cousin, a tribal leader, reinforces this point through his actions: he offers Lithgow an opium cigarette as a sign of friendship, much as a British man might offer a colleague a drink.
** Lithgow even admits this as he finally accepts the opium cigarette: "I've thrown everything else I believe in out the window."
* TheWoobie: Fazal and his family. As poor farmers from northwest Pakistan, they suffer throughout the entire series - first forced to grow poppies through economic pressures, then displaced from their bulldozed farmsteads in a superficial show of government crackdown, and then brought to Karachi as paupers hoping for a better life. Fazal's employment with a ruthless druglord makes things better, but not by much - and not for long.
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* SurprisinglyGoodForeignLanguage: The series was filmed on location, using native actors, in the UK, Germany, and Pakistan, so it's no surprise that English, German, and Urdu speakers are natively conversant. In brief sequences, Helen Rosshalde (a UK woman married to a German husband) speaks German to her house staff and local police. The German police handlers will speak German among themselves, but break into accented English to speak with their state's witness, Ledesert (a French citizen). Karl Rosshalde, speaking in competent but accented English, complains that Helen is lazy about learning German, forcing him to improve his English.
* ValuesDissonance: Roomami points out the cultural comparison to Lithgow: in the lawless frontiers of Pakistan, people have smoked opium cigarettes for centuries and only the foolish youths take it beyond control, but alcohol is strictly forbidden. In the UK, alcohol abuse is far more problematic than heroin abuse, but is legal. Roomami's cousin, a tribal leader, reinforces this point through his actions: he offers Lithgow an opium cigarette as a sign of friendship, much as a British man might offer a colleague a drink.
** Lithgow even admits this as he finally accepts the opium cigarette: "I've thrown everything else I believe in out the window."
* TheWoobie: Fazal and his family. As poor farmers from northwest Pakistan, they suffer throughout the entire series - first forced to grow poppies through economic pressures, then displaced from their bulldozed farmsteads in a superficial show of government crackdown, and then brought to Karachi as paupers hoping for a better life. Fazal's employment with a ruthless druglord makes things better, but not by much - and not for long.English.
* ValuesDissonance: Roomami points out the cultural comparison to Lithgow: in the lawless frontiers of Pakistan, people have smoked opium cigarettes for centuries and only the foolish youths take it beyond control, but alcohol is strictly forbidden. In the UK, alcohol abuse is far more problematic than heroin abuse, but is legal. Roomami's cousin, a tribal leader, reinforces this point through his actions: he offers Lithgow an opium cigarette as a sign of friendship, much as a British man might offer a colleague a drink.
** Lithgow even admits this as he finally accepts the opium cigarette: "I've thrown everything else I believe in out the window."
* TheWoobie: Fazal and his family. As poor farmers from northwest Pakistan, they suffer throughout the entire series - first forced to grow poppies through economic pressures, then displaced from their bulldozed farmsteads in a superficial show of government crackdown, and then brought to Karachi as paupers hoping for a better life. Fazal's employment with a ruthless druglord makes things better, but not by much - and not for long.
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* PrettyInMink: Helen Rosshalde is frequently seen wearing a fur-lined coat, underlining her status as a lady of leisure, married to a wealthy man. It provides a jarring contrast to the increasingly dirty deeds she must do to keep her family's drug empire afloat.
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* BookEnds: The series begins and ends with a panoramic aerial shot of hilly rural Pakistan, heartland of the opium crops.
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* DelayedReaction: When Fazal asks Tariq Butt for a proper job, Butt retorts with "what use have I for a cripple?" referring to Fazal's injured hand. Butt further tests Fazal's mettle by giving him a sadistically tight handshake. Fazal remains impassive throughout, then takes his leave, only succumbing to his intense pain in the corridor outside.
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* Pakistani farmer Fazal (Jamal Shah) grows opium as per local practice. A politically superficial government raid on his crops leaves him jobless with a gunshot wound in his hand. After making his way to the port city of Karachi, he happens into the good graces of local drug magnate Tariq Butt (Talat Hussein) and begins to take on increasingly dubious work assignments for him - obligations that take a harsh toll on him and his family.
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* Pakistani farmer Fazal (Jamal Shah) grows opium as per local practice. A politically superficial political-theater government raid on his crops leaves him jobless with a gunshot wound in his hand. After making his way to the port city of Karachi, he happens into the good graces of local drug magnate Tariq Butt (Talat Hussein) and begins to take on increasingly dubious work assignments for him - obligations that take a harsh toll on him and his family.
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* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Subverted. When (recently-fired) Minister Lithgow is roaming London looking for his addict daughter, he meets up with her drug dealer - a man clearly on the way down. (The neighbors are willing to commit arson to force him to leave, and he's about to run out of injectable veins.) Lithgow gets a lead on his missing daughter and is about to leave, when the dealer wishes him luck, and comments - in a moment of strange sympathy - that he wished he had somebody looking for him.
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* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Subverted.EvenEvilHasLovedOnes:
** Played straight in the Pakistan and Germany plotlines. Tariq Butt dotes on his son, admitting that he cannot remain angry at him (despite his violation of Islamic teachings by drinking alcohol). Karl Rosshalde has a loving wife who is devoted to their two children (so devoted, she ascends from trophy wife to drug lord to keep the family safe).
** Subtly subverted in the UK plotline. When (recently-fired) Minister Lithgow is roaming London looking for his addict daughter, he meets up with her drug dealer - a man clearly on the way down. (The neighbors are willing to commit arson to force him to leave, and he's about to run out of injectable veins.) Lithgow gets a lead on his missing daughter and is about to leave, when the dealer wishes him luck, and comments - in a moment of strange sympathy - that he wished he had somebody looking for him.
** Played straight in the Pakistan and Germany plotlines. Tariq Butt dotes on his son, admitting that he cannot remain angry at him (despite his violation of Islamic teachings by drinking alcohol). Karl Rosshalde has a loving wife who is devoted to their two children (so devoted, she ascends from trophy wife to drug lord to keep the family safe).
** Subtly subverted in the UK plotline. When (recently-fired) Minister Lithgow is roaming London looking for his addict daughter, he meets up with her drug dealer - a man clearly on the way down. (The neighbors are willing to commit arson to force him to leave, and he's about to run out of injectable veins.) Lithgow gets a lead on his missing daughter and is about to leave, when the dealer wishes him luck, and comments - in a moment of strange sympathy - that he wished he had somebody looking for him.
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* MamaBear: Helen Rosshalde is this to her children. Introduced as a trophy wife, she uncovers her true depths of resilience and determination when her children are threatened.
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* KarmaHoudini: Not every injustice is righted by the end, although there are ambiguous signs that the villains may someday get their comeuppance. [[Spoiler:Helen and Karl Rosshalde are at liberty and may even be planning the next big drug haul, though this time the police are listening in.]]
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* KarmaHoudini: Not every injustice is righted by the end, although there are ambiguous signs that the villains may someday get their comeuppance. [[Spoiler:Helen [[spoiler:Helen and Karl Rosshalde are at liberty and may even be planning the next big drug haul, though this time the police are listening in.]]
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** Ulli gets several as his police force comes under attack during the drug investigations. [[Spoiler:After he shoots and kills a gunman to protect the state's witness, he recognizes the man's face and quickly realizes the assassin has bomb-trapped Ulli's car. He's too late to save his partner, Dieter, who's gone to fetch the car.]] Later, [[Spoiler:Ulli has another "moments too late" realization when the state's witness receives two breakfasts delivered consecutively to his room instead of one. The first one was poisoned, killing the witness before help could arrive.]]
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** Ulli gets several as his police force comes under attack during the drug investigations. [[Spoiler:After [[spoiler:After he shoots and kills a gunman to protect the state's witness, he recognizes the man's face and quickly realizes the assassin has bomb-trapped Ulli's car. He's too late to save his partner, Dieter, who's gone to fetch the car.]] Later, [[Spoiler:Ulli [[spoiler:Ulli has another "moments too late" realization when the state's witness receives two breakfasts delivered consecutively to his room instead of one. The first one was poisoned, killing the witness before help could arrive.]]
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** Even [[Spoiler:Tariq Butt]] gets this, at the very end, though there's an admirable recovery an attempt at false bravado. [[Spoiler:It doesn't help him though: Fazal still injects him with a lethal dose of heroin to the neck.]]
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** Even [[Spoiler:Tariq [[spoiler:Tariq Butt]] gets this, at the very end, though there's an admirable recovery an attempt at false bravado. [[Spoiler:It [[spoiler:It doesn't help him though: Fazal still injects him with a lethal dose of heroin to the neck.]]
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Changed line(s) 43 (click to see context) from:
* KarmaHoudini: Not every injustice is righted by the end, although there are ambiguous signs that the villains may someday get their comeuppance. [[Spoilers:Helen and Karl Rosshalde are at liberty and may even be planning the next big drug haul, though this time the police are listening in.]]
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* KarmaHoudini: Not every injustice is righted by the end, although there are ambiguous signs that the villains may someday get their comeuppance. [[Spoilers:Helen [[Spoiler:Helen and Karl Rosshalde are at liberty and may even be planning the next big drug haul, though this time the police are listening in.]]
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** Fazal's release from jail should be a happy day. [[Spoiler:Instead, he finds that his family has been evicted from their lodgings, his wife and children have been sent to the UK as mules for the drug lord, and his wife is dead of drug poisoning because the condoms she swallowed broke apart.]]
** Even [[Spoilers:Tariq Butt]] gets this, at the very end, though there's an admirable recovery an attempt at false bravado. [[Spoilers:It doesn't help him though: Fazal still injects him with a lethal dose of heroin to the neck.]]
** Even [[Spoilers:Tariq Butt]] gets this, at the very end, though there's an admirable recovery an attempt at false bravado. [[Spoilers:It doesn't help him though: Fazal still injects him with a lethal dose of heroin to the neck.]]
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** Fazal's release from jail should be a happy day. [[Spoiler:Instead, [[spoiler:Instead, he finds that his family has been evicted from their lodgings, his wife and children have been sent to the UK as mules for the drug lord, and his wife is dead of drug poisoning because the condoms she swallowed broke apart.]]
** Even[[Spoilers:Tariq [[Spoiler:Tariq Butt]] gets this, at the very end, though there's an admirable recovery an attempt at false bravado. [[Spoilers:It [[Spoiler:It doesn't help him though: Fazal still injects him with a lethal dose of heroin to the neck.]]
** Even
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Traffik is a 1989 Channel Four television miniseries, covering numerous angles of the international trade in opium and heroin. It spawned a 2000 US film and a 2004 US TV series, and is an early example of a Hypertext Story screenplay.
UK plot: Minister Jack Lithgow (Bill Paterson) is a rising political star and overseas representative of the Prime Minister, poised to ink a treaty with Pakistan on drug control. A driven man at work, he neglects his family at home, causing his wife to leave him and his daughter Caroline (Julia Ormond) to become a drug addict. He wrestles with his conscience and the political expectations of a hard line on society's drug problems, as his own household disintegrates under its own.
West Germany plot: Karl Rosshalde appears to be a perfect Hamburg citizen, running hydropower engineering projects in rural Pakistan. However, his immense personal wealth derives entirely from his involvement in drug trading, and a police investigation leads to his arrest. With a trial underway and their black market creditors and liabilities increasing, his wife Helen (Lindsay Duncan) faces the choice between losing it all, or taking his dark dealings into her own hands. Two German policemen, Ulli and Dieter, spar with the Rosshaldes in a cat-and-mouse game, with both sides pushing how far they will go to win.
Pakistan plot: Fazal (Jamal Shah), a poor farmer in the northwestern lawless province of Peshawar, grows opium as per local practice. A government raid on his crops (part of a token enforcement effort required by the government's drug control treaty) leaves him jobless with a gunshot wound in his hand. After making his way to the port city of Karachi, he falls into the good graces of local drug magnate Tariq Butt (Talat Hussein) and begins to take on increasingly dubious work assignments for him - obligations that demand a harsh toll on him and his family.
UK plot: Minister Jack Lithgow (Bill Paterson) is a rising political star and overseas representative of the Prime Minister, poised to ink a treaty with Pakistan on drug control. A driven man at work, he neglects his family at home, causing his wife to leave him and his daughter Caroline (Julia Ormond) to become a drug addict. He wrestles with his conscience and the political expectations of a hard line on society's drug problems, as his own household disintegrates under its own.
West Germany plot: Karl Rosshalde appears to be a perfect Hamburg citizen, running hydropower engineering projects in rural Pakistan. However, his immense personal wealth derives entirely from his involvement in drug trading, and a police investigation leads to his arrest. With a trial underway and their black market creditors and liabilities increasing, his wife Helen (Lindsay Duncan) faces the choice between losing it all, or taking his dark dealings into her own hands. Two German policemen, Ulli and Dieter, spar with the Rosshaldes in a cat-and-mouse game, with both sides pushing how far they will go to win.
Pakistan plot: Fazal (Jamal Shah), a poor farmer in the northwestern lawless province of Peshawar, grows opium as per local practice. A government raid on his crops (part of a token enforcement effort required by the government's drug control treaty) leaves him jobless with a gunshot wound in his hand. After making his way to the port city of Karachi, he falls into the good graces of local drug magnate Tariq Butt (Talat Hussein) and begins to take on increasingly dubious work assignments for him - obligations that demand a harsh toll on him and his family.
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Traffik is a 1989 Channel Four television miniseries, covering numerous angles of the international trade in opium and heroin. It spawned a 2000 US film and a 2004 US TV series, and is an series.
An early example of a Hypertext Storyscreenplay.
screenplay, it features three main plotlines:
* UKplot: Minister Jack Lithgow (Bill Paterson) is a rising political star and overseas representative of the Prime Minister, poised to ink a treaty with Pakistan on drug control. A driven man at work, he neglects his family at home, causing his wife to leave him and his daughter Caroline (Julia Ormond) to become a drug addict. He wrestles with his conscience and the political expectations of a hard line on society's drug problems, as his own household disintegrates under its own.
* WestGermany plot: German businessman Karl Rosshalde appears to be a perfect Hamburg model citizen, running hydropower engineering projects in rural Pakistan. However, his immense personal wealth derives entirely from his involvement in drug trading, and a police investigation leads to his arrest. With a trial underway and their black market creditors and liabilities increasing, empire teetering, his wife Helen (Lindsay Duncan) faces the choice between losing it all, or taking his dark dealings into her own hands. Two German policemen, Ulli and Dieter, spar with the Rosshaldes in a cat-and-mouse game, with both sides pushing how far they will go to win.
Pakistan plot: * Pakistani farmer Fazal (Jamal Shah), a poor farmer in the northwestern lawless province of Peshawar, Shah) grows opium as per local practice. A politically superficial government raid on his crops (part of a token enforcement effort required by the government's drug control treaty) leaves him jobless with a gunshot wound in his hand. After making his way to the port city of Karachi, he falls happens into the good graces of local drug magnate Tariq Butt (Talat Hussein) and begins to take on increasingly dubious work assignments for him - obligations that demand take a harsh toll on him and his family.
An early example of a Hypertext Story
* UK
* West
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** In the poppy-growing subplot in Pakistan, the fear of harm coming to one's family and children as part of the drug trade. Tariq Butt himself explicitly uses this as a means of controlling his farmers and chemists.
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** In the poppy-growing subplot in Pakistan, the fear of harm coming to one's family and children as part of the drug trade. Tariq Butt himself explicitly uses this as a means of controlling his farmers and chemists.chemists, at one point sparing a chemist's life but executing his young son in front of him.
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* CallBack: Lithgow, on his first trip to Pakistan, meets Fazal briefly as the latter tries to press a letter into his hands. Lithgow's last trip to Pakistan shows him visiting a prison in Karachi where Fazal is being beaten for his involvement in the drug trade - the ineffective government subsidies and harsh punishments having forced him off his land.
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* CallBack: Lithgow, on his first trip to Pakistan, meets Fazal briefly as the latter farmer tries to press a letter into his hands. Lithgow's last trip to Pakistan shows him visiting a prison in Karachi where Fazal is being beaten for his involvement in the drug trade - trade, long after the ineffective government subsidies policies and harsh punishments having have forced him off his land.
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* StomachOfHolding: The mode of transport finally used to get Tariq Butt's heroin into London: each mule has swallowed dozens of condoms stuffed with heroin. Subverted in that Fazal's wife struggles to swallow them at first, and then some leak or break in her stomach, killing her and leaving her children orphaned in a foreign land.
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* DrugsAreBad: To be expected, though with nuance and context. All three plotlines show the tremendous damage that addiction or the drug trade can inflict on real people, but also show how a flawed society shoulders some of the blame for driving people to seek an escape.
* AdultFear: Present in each subplot:
** In Minister Lithgow's story in the UK, fear of losing your grown child to addiction, to the point that she will lie, cheat, and steal from you to finance her habit. Finding her passed out in a filthy bedsit, selling her body for drug money.
** In the poppy-growing subplot in Pakistan, the fear of harm coming to one's family and children as part of the drug trade. Tariq Butt himself explicitly uses this as a means of controlling his farmers and chemists.
** Even Helen Rosshalde gets a (brief) sequence of audience sympathy, when her black-market drug contacts turn nasty and kidnap her son in broad daylight, with dire threats if she doesn't repay them.
* AddictionDisplacement: Caroline is slowly coming off of heroin and smokes tobacco cigarettes constantly at her AA meeting. Understandable, given the tradeoff.
** In Minister Lithgow's story in the UK, fear of losing your grown child to addiction, to the point that she will lie, cheat, and steal from you to finance her habit. Finding her passed out in a filthy bedsit, selling her body for drug money.
** In the poppy-growing subplot in Pakistan, the fear of harm coming to one's family and children as part of the drug trade. Tariq Butt himself explicitly uses this as a means of controlling his farmers and chemists.
** Even Helen Rosshalde gets a (brief) sequence of audience sympathy, when her black-market drug contacts turn nasty and kidnap her son in broad daylight, with dire threats if she doesn't repay them.
* AddictionDisplacement: Caroline is slowly coming off of heroin and smokes tobacco cigarettes constantly at her AA meeting. Understandable, given the tradeoff.
* CallBack: Lithgow, on his first trip to Pakistan, meets Fazal briefly as the latter tries to press a letter into his hands. Lithgow's last trip to Pakistan shows him visiting a prison in Karachi where Fazal is being beaten for his involvement in the drug trade - the ineffective government subsidies and harsh punishments having forced him off his land.
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Subverted. When (recently-fired) Minister Lithgow is roaming London looking for his addict daughter, he meets up with her drug dealer - a man clearly on the way down. (The neighbors are willing to commit arson to force him to leave, and he's about to run out of injectable veins.) Lithgow gets a lead on his missing daughter and is about to leave, when the dealer wishes him luck, and comments - in a moment of strange sympathy - that he wished he had somebody looking for him.
* FanDisservice: As Karl Rosshalde's trial wears on, his lawyer Domenquez begins a physical relationship with Karl's wife, Helen. She's not exactly enthusiastic about this, but may consider it a price of doing business with him. There are scenes with both Domenquez and Helen unclothed, that do not rate as particularly alluring.
** Helen's harrowing strip-search by the female German customs officer is definitely not played for titillation. The (implied) intrusive cavity search afterward just takes it even further into Squick territory.
* FanDisservice: As Karl Rosshalde's trial wears on, his lawyer Domenquez begins a physical relationship with Karl's wife, Helen. She's not exactly enthusiastic about this, but may consider it a price of doing business with him. There are scenes with both Domenquez and Helen unclothed, that do not rate as particularly alluring.
** Helen's harrowing strip-search by the female German customs officer is definitely not played for titillation. The (implied) intrusive cavity search afterward just takes it even further into Squick territory.
* HowTheMightyHaveFallen: While in prison, Fazal meets a hopeless addict, who is so far gone he can't remember what day it is and doesn't even care what day he will be hanged - he only worries about running out of heroin before they execute him. Fazal, himself a farmer-turned-hatchet-man for a drug lord, asks the wretched addict what he used to be in life. The answer: a doctor.
* KarmaHoudini: Not every injustice is righted by the end, although there are ambiguous signs that the villains may someday get their comeuppance. [[Spoilers:Helen and Karl Rosshalde are at liberty and may even be planning the next big drug haul, though this time the police are listening in.]]
* OhCrap: Many moments throughout the series when you can almost see a character's realization of horror overcome them.
** Ulli gets several as his police force comes under attack during the drug investigations. [[Spoiler:After he shoots and kills a gunman to protect the state's witness, he recognizes the man's face and quickly realizes the assassin has bomb-trapped Ulli's car. He's too late to save his partner, Dieter, who's gone to fetch the car.]] Later, [[Spoiler:Ulli has another "moments too late" realization when the state's witness receives two breakfasts delivered consecutively to his room instead of one. The first one was poisoned, killing the witness before help could arrive.]]
** Fazal's release from jail should be a happy day. [[Spoiler:Instead, he finds that his family has been evicted from their lodgings, his wife and children have been sent to the UK as mules for the drug lord, and his wife is dead of drug poisoning because the condoms she swallowed broke apart.]]
** Even [[Spoilers:Tariq Butt]] gets this, at the very end, though there's an admirable recovery an attempt at false bravado. [[Spoilers:It doesn't help him though: Fazal still injects him with a lethal dose of heroin to the neck.]]
* OhCrap: Many moments throughout the series when you can almost see a character's realization of horror overcome them.
** Ulli gets several as his police force comes under attack during the drug investigations. [[Spoiler:After he shoots and kills a gunman to protect the state's witness, he recognizes the man's face and quickly realizes the assassin has bomb-trapped Ulli's car. He's too late to save his partner, Dieter, who's gone to fetch the car.]] Later, [[Spoiler:Ulli has another "moments too late" realization when the state's witness receives two breakfasts delivered consecutively to his room instead of one. The first one was poisoned, killing the witness before help could arrive.]]
** Fazal's release from jail should be a happy day. [[Spoiler:Instead, he finds that his family has been evicted from their lodgings, his wife and children have been sent to the UK as mules for the drug lord, and his wife is dead of drug poisoning because the condoms she swallowed broke apart.]]
** Even [[Spoilers:Tariq Butt]] gets this, at the very end, though there's an admirable recovery an attempt at false bravado. [[Spoilers:It doesn't help him though: Fazal still injects him with a lethal dose of heroin to the neck.]]
Changed line(s) 30 (click to see context) from:
* ValuesDissonance: Roomami, an educated female lawyer in Pakistan, makes an interesting case to Lithgow, the visiting UK minister tasked with ending opium and heroin smuggling: in the lawless frontiers of Pakistan, people have smoked opium cigarettes for centuries, but alcohol is forbidden. In the UK, alcohol abuse is far more problematic than heroin abuse, but is legal. Roomami's tribal leader cousin makes this point more through actions: he offers Lithgow an opium cigarette, much as a British man might offer a colleague a drink as a sign of friendship.
to:
* SurprisinglyGoodForeignLanguage: The series was filmed on location, using native actors, in the UK, Germany, and Pakistan, so it's no surprise that English, German, and Urdu speakers are natively conversant. In brief sequences, Helen Rosshalde (a UK woman married to a German husband) speaks German to her house staff and local police. The German police handlers will speak German among themselves, but break into accented English to speak with their state's witness, Ledesert (a French citizen). Karl Rosshalde, speaking in competent but accented English, complains that Helen is lazy about learning German, forcing him to improve his English.
* ValuesDissonance:Roomami, an educated female lawyer in Pakistan, makes an interesting case to Lithgow, Roomami points out the visiting UK minister tasked with ending opium and heroin smuggling: cultural comparison to Lithgow: in the lawless frontiers of Pakistan, people have smoked opium cigarettes for centuries, centuries and only the foolish youths take it beyond control, but alcohol is strictly forbidden. In the UK, alcohol abuse is far more problematic than heroin abuse, but is legal. Roomami's cousin, a tribal leader cousin makes leader, reinforces this point more through his actions: he offers Lithgow an opium cigarette, cigarette as a sign of friendship, much as a British man might offer a colleague a drink drink.
** Lithgow even admits this asa sign of friendship.he finally accepts the opium cigarette: "I've thrown everything else I believe in out the window."
* ValuesDissonance:
** Lithgow even admits this as
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Changed line(s) 19 (click to see context) from:
** Helen knows the police are tapping her phone. She may also be aware that [[spoiler:her lawyer Domenquez is now a police informant]. To throw them off the scent [[spoiler:she calls Tariq from the tapped phone in full earshot of Domenquez, and chats with him regarding a shipment of Indian statues]]. The police detain her shipment and one overzealous officer smashes all the statues, finding nothing and discrediting the investigation.
to:
** Helen knows the police are tapping her phone. She may also be aware that [[spoiler:her lawyer Domenquez is now a police informant]. To throw them off the scent [[spoiler:she calls Tariq from the tapped phone in full earshot of Domenquez, and chats with him regarding a shipment of Indian statues]]. The police detain her shipment and one overzealous officer smashes all the statues, finding nothing and discrediting the investigation.investigation as the TV news channels arrive to cover the story.
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Changed line(s) 21,22 (click to see context) from:
* BittersweetEnding: All three storylines end with the possibility of improvement and justice, at the cost of all the human suffering that has gone before. In the UK, [[spoiler:Lithgow's heroin addict daughter Caroline is in rehab, going on four days clean, and former Minister Lithgow himself appears to accept that you can't dictate a drug-free life by fiat, speaking at a global forum on the need for making a society worth living in]]. In Germany, Ulli is making inroads to building a case against the drug lord, with the apparent backing of the German police [[spoiler:and may bring justice after losing his investigator partner Dieter and after a failed court process]]. In Pakistan, Fazal is safely reunited with his children [[spoiler:after losing his wife to drug poisoning and avenging himself on the Pakistani drug lord]].
* ChurchgoingVillain: Tariq Butt, the drug lord, is seen visiting the mosque for prayers. He is also furious with his son for attending western-style parties where alcohol is consumed.
* ChurchgoingVillain: Tariq Butt, the drug lord, is seen visiting the mosque for prayers. He is also furious with his son for attending western-style parties where alcohol is consumed.
to:
* BittersweetEnding: All three storylines end with the possibility of improvement and justice, at the cost of all the human suffering that has gone before.
** In the UK, [[spoiler:Lithgow's heroin addict daughter Caroline is in rehab, going on four days clean, andformer ]]former Minister Lithgow himself appears to accept that you can't dictate a drug-free life by fiat, speaking at a global forum on the need for making a society worth living in]]. in.
** In Germany, Ulli is making inroads to building a case against the drug lord, with the apparent backing of the German police [[spoiler:and may bring justice after losing his investigator partner Dieter and after a failed courtprocess]]. process]].
** In Pakistan, Fazal is safely reunited with his children [[spoiler:after losing his wife to drug poisoning and avenging himself on the Pakistani drug lord]].
* ChurchgoingVillain: Tariq Butt, the drug lord, is seen visiting the mosque for prayers. He is also furious with his son for attending western-style parties where alcohol isconsumed.consumed (contravening Muslim teachings).
** In the UK, [[spoiler:Lithgow's heroin addict daughter Caroline is in rehab, going on four days clean, and
** In Germany, Ulli is making inroads to building a case against the drug lord, with the apparent backing of the German police [[spoiler:and may bring justice after losing his investigator partner Dieter and after a failed court
** In Pakistan, Fazal is safely reunited with his children [[spoiler:after losing his wife to drug poisoning and avenging himself on the Pakistani drug lord]].
* ChurchgoingVillain: Tariq Butt, the drug lord, is seen visiting the mosque for prayers. He is also furious with his son for attending western-style parties where alcohol is
Changed line(s) 24 (click to see context) from:
* HyperCompetentSidekick: Helen is this to Karl Rosshalde. By the end of the series, while he's in jail, she's proven herself capable of shaking down debtors, facing off creditors, ordering hits on a state's witness, securing the release of her young son from hostage takers, persuading a Pakistani drug lord to take her seriously with an in-person meeting, and outwitting the German drug interception team several times. By the end of the show, he's expressing interest in making love and taking the kids for a vacation - she just wants to plot their next big drug deal.
to:
* HyperCompetentSidekick: Helen is becomes this to Karl Rosshalde. By the end of the series, while he's in jail, she's proven herself capable of shaking down debtors, facing off creditors, ordering hits on a state's witness, securing the release of her young son from hostage takers, persuading a Pakistani drug lord to take her seriously with an in-person crack meeting, and outwitting the German drug interception team several times. By the end of the show, he's expressing interest in making he just wants to make love and taking take the kids for a vacation - she just wants she's ready to plot their next big drug deal.deal.
* InMediasRes: The entire series starts off halfway through a drug deal at an industrial compound.
* InMediasRes: The entire series starts off halfway through a drug deal at an industrial compound.
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Deleted line(s) 11,14 (click to see context) :
* BatmanGambit: Several, during the course of Rosshalde's deal with Tariq.
** Helen agrees to smuggle heroin from Karachi to Hamburg to prove to Tariq that she won't be searched - an impossibility, given the criminal case against her husband. [[spoiler:She throws away the drugs at Karachi airport, undergoes a predictably thorough and intrusive search at Hamburg, and then buys back some existing Tariq brand heroin on the Hamburg market to send back to Tariq.]]
** Helen knows the police are tapping her phone. She may also be aware that [spoiler:her lawyer Domenquez is now a police informant]. To throw them off the scent [[spoiler:she calls Tariq from the tapped phone in full earshot of Domenquez, and chats with him regarding a shipment of Indian statues]]. The police detain her shipment and one overzealous officer smashes all the statues, finding nothing and discrediting the investigation.
** The Customs inspectors industrial action (workers' strike) has been in the news as a background report for a while. Tariq Butt sends over the actual heroin shipment [[spoiler:in the stomachs of several Pakistani airline passengers working as mules]] during the first night of the strike, when no customs officers are able to stop them.
** Helen agrees to smuggle heroin from Karachi to Hamburg to prove to Tariq that she won't be searched - an impossibility, given the criminal case against her husband. [[spoiler:She throws away the drugs at Karachi airport, undergoes a predictably thorough and intrusive search at Hamburg, and then buys back some existing Tariq brand heroin on the Hamburg market to send back to Tariq.]]
** Helen knows the police are tapping her phone. She may also be aware that [spoiler:her lawyer Domenquez is now a police informant]. To throw them off the scent [[spoiler:she calls Tariq from the tapped phone in full earshot of Domenquez, and chats with him regarding a shipment of Indian statues]]. The police detain her shipment and one overzealous officer smashes all the statues, finding nothing and discrediting the investigation.
** The Customs inspectors industrial action (workers' strike) has been in the news as a background report for a while. Tariq Butt sends over the actual heroin shipment [[spoiler:in the stomachs of several Pakistani airline passengers working as mules]] during the first night of the strike, when no customs officers are able to stop them.
Deleted line(s) 19,20 (click to see context) :
Added DiffLines:
* BatmanGambit: Several, during the course of Rosshalde's deal with Tariq.
** Helen agrees to smuggle heroin from Karachi to Hamburg to prove to Tariq that she won't be searched - an impossibility, given the criminal case against her husband. [[spoiler:She throws away the drugs at Karachi airport, undergoes a predictably thorough and intrusive search at Hamburg, and then buys back some existing Tariq brand heroin on the Hamburg market to send back to Tariq.]]
** Helen knows the police are tapping her phone. She may also be aware that [[spoiler:her lawyer Domenquez is now a police informant]. To throw them off the scent [[spoiler:she calls Tariq from the tapped phone in full earshot of Domenquez, and chats with him regarding a shipment of Indian statues]]. The police detain her shipment and one overzealous officer smashes all the statues, finding nothing and discrediting the investigation.
** The Customs inspectors industrial action (workers' strike) has been in the news as a background report for a while. Tariq Butt sends over the actual heroin shipment [[spoiler:in the stomachs of several Pakistani airline passengers working as mules]] during the first night of the strike, when no customs officers are able to stop them.
** Helen agrees to smuggle heroin from Karachi to Hamburg to prove to Tariq that she won't be searched - an impossibility, given the criminal case against her husband. [[spoiler:She throws away the drugs at Karachi airport, undergoes a predictably thorough and intrusive search at Hamburg, and then buys back some existing Tariq brand heroin on the Hamburg market to send back to Tariq.]]
** Helen knows the police are tapping her phone. She may also be aware that [[spoiler:her lawyer Domenquez is now a police informant]. To throw them off the scent [[spoiler:she calls Tariq from the tapped phone in full earshot of Domenquez, and chats with him regarding a shipment of Indian statues]]. The police detain her shipment and one overzealous officer smashes all the statues, finding nothing and discrediting the investigation.
** The Customs inspectors industrial action (workers' strike) has been in the news as a background report for a while. Tariq Butt sends over the actual heroin shipment [[spoiler:in the stomachs of several Pakistani airline passengers working as mules]] during the first night of the strike, when no customs officers are able to stop them.
Added DiffLines:
* HyperCompetentSidekick: Helen is this to Karl Rosshalde. By the end of the series, while he's in jail, she's proven herself capable of shaking down debtors, facing off creditors, ordering hits on a state's witness, securing the release of her young son from hostage takers, persuading a Pakistani drug lord to take her seriously with an in-person meeting, and outwitting the German drug interception team several times. By the end of the show, he's expressing interest in making love and taking the kids for a vacation - she just wants to plot their next big drug deal.
* StepfordSmiler: Subverted. Helen Rosshalde becomes the main character in the Germany plot, and refuses to continue with the role of decorative wife as her husband's drug empire starts to crumble.
* StepfordSmiler: Subverted. Helen Rosshalde becomes the main character in the Germany plot, and refuses to continue with the role of decorative wife as her husband's drug empire starts to crumble.
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Changed line(s) 1,2 (click to see context) from:
Traffik is a 1989 Channel Four television miniseries, covering numerous angles of the international trade in opium and heroin. It spawned a 2000 US film and a 2004 US TV series, and is one of the earliest examples of a screenplay with a Hypertext Story.
to:
Traffik is a 1989 Channel Four television miniseries, covering numerous angles of the international trade in opium and heroin. It spawned a 2000 US film and a 2004 US TV series, and is one an early example of the earliest examples of a screenplay with a Hypertext Story.
Story screenplay.
Changed line(s) 5,8 (click to see context) from:
West Germany plot: Karl Rosshalde appear to be a perfect Hamburg citizen, running hydropower engineering projects in rural Pakistan. However, his immense personal wealth derives entirely from his involvement in drug trading, and a police investigation leads to his arrest. As the trial goes underway and his black market creditors and liabilities increase, his wife Helen (Lindsay Duncan) faces the choice between losing it all, or taking his dark dealings into her own hands. Two German policemen, Ulli and Dieter, spar with the Rosshaldes in a cat-and-mouse game, with both sides pushing how far they will go to win.
Pakistan plot: Fazal (Jamal Shah), a poor farmer in the northwestern lawless province of Peshawar, grows opium as per local practice. A government raid on his crops (part of a token enforcement effort under the drug control treaty) leaves him jobless with a gunshot wound in his hand. After making his way to the port city of Karachi, he falls into the good graces of local drug magnate Tariq Butt (Talat Hussein) and begins to take on increasingly dubious work assignments for him - obligations that demand a harsh toll on him and his family.
Pakistan plot: Fazal (Jamal Shah), a poor farmer in the northwestern lawless province of Peshawar, grows opium as per local practice. A government raid on his crops (part of a token enforcement effort under the drug control treaty) leaves him jobless with a gunshot wound in his hand. After making his way to the port city of Karachi, he falls into the good graces of local drug magnate Tariq Butt (Talat Hussein) and begins to take on increasingly dubious work assignments for him - obligations that demand a harsh toll on him and his family.
to:
West Germany plot: Karl Rosshalde appear appears to be a perfect Hamburg citizen, running hydropower engineering projects in rural Pakistan. However, his immense personal wealth derives entirely from his involvement in drug trading, and a police investigation leads to his arrest. As the With a trial goes underway and his their black market creditors and liabilities increase, increasing, his wife Helen (Lindsay Duncan) faces the choice between losing it all, or taking his dark dealings into her own hands. Two German policemen, Ulli and Dieter, spar with the Rosshaldes in a cat-and-mouse game, with both sides pushing how far they will go to win.
Pakistan plot: Fazal (Jamal Shah), a poor farmer in the northwestern lawless province of Peshawar, grows opium as per local practice. A government raid on his crops (part of a token enforcement effortunder required by the government's drug control treaty) leaves him jobless with a gunshot wound in his hand. After making his way to the port city of Karachi, he falls into the good graces of local drug magnate Tariq Butt (Talat Hussein) and begins to take on increasingly dubious work assignments for him - obligations that demand a harsh toll on him and his family.
Pakistan plot: Fazal (Jamal Shah), a poor farmer in the northwestern lawless province of Peshawar, grows opium as per local practice. A government raid on his crops (part of a token enforcement effort
Changed line(s) 11 (click to see context) from:
* BlackAndGrayMorality: Some of the clear victims in the piece are also driven to do terrible things, in part due to circumstances beyond their control. Other evildoers are not victims in any real sense, though.
to:
* BatmanGambit: Several, during the course of Rosshalde's deal with Tariq.
** Helen agrees to smuggle heroin from Karachi to Hamburg to prove to Tariq that she won't be searched - an impossibility, given the criminal case against her husband. [[spoiler:She throws away the drugs at Karachi airport, undergoes a predictably thorough and intrusive search at Hamburg, and then buys back some existing Tariq brand heroin on the Hamburg market to send back to Tariq.]]
** Helen knows the police are tapping her phone. She may also be aware that [spoiler:her lawyer Domenquez is now a police informant]. To throw them off the scent [[spoiler:she calls Tariq from the tapped phone in full earshot of Domenquez, and chats with him regarding a shipment of Indian statues]]. The police detain her shipment and one overzealous officer smashes all the statues, finding nothing and discrediting the investigation.
** The Customs inspectors industrial action (workers' strike) has been in the news as a background report for a while. Tariq Butt sends over the actual heroin shipment [[spoiler:in the stomachs of several Pakistani airline passengers working as mules]] during the first night of the strike, when no customs officers are able to stop them.
* BlackAndGrayMorality: Some of the clear victimsin the piece are also driven to do terrible things, in part due to circumstances beyond their control. Other evildoers are not victims in any real sense, though.
** Helen agrees to smuggle heroin from Karachi to Hamburg to prove to Tariq that she won't be searched - an impossibility, given the criminal case against her husband. [[spoiler:She throws away the drugs at Karachi airport, undergoes a predictably thorough and intrusive search at Hamburg, and then buys back some existing Tariq brand heroin on the Hamburg market to send back to Tariq.]]
** Helen knows the police are tapping her phone. She may also be aware that [spoiler:her lawyer Domenquez is now a police informant]. To throw them off the scent [[spoiler:she calls Tariq from the tapped phone in full earshot of Domenquez, and chats with him regarding a shipment of Indian statues]]. The police detain her shipment and one overzealous officer smashes all the statues, finding nothing and discrediting the investigation.
** The Customs inspectors industrial action (workers' strike) has been in the news as a background report for a while. Tariq Butt sends over the actual heroin shipment [[spoiler:in the stomachs of several Pakistani airline passengers working as mules]] during the first night of the strike, when no customs officers are able to stop them.
* BlackAndGrayMorality: Some of the clear victims
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Changed line(s) 22,23 (click to see context) from:
* TheWoobie: Fazal and his family. As poor farmers from northwest Pakistan, they suffer throughout the entire series - first forced to grow poppies through economic pressures, then displaced from their bulldozed farmsteads in a superficial show of government crackdown, and then brought to Karachi as paupers hoping for a better life. Fazal's employment with a ruthless druglord makes things better, but not by much - and not for long.
* ValuesDissonance: Roomami, an educated female lawyer in Pakistan, makes an interesting case to Lithgow, the visiting UK minister tasked with ending opium and heroin smuggling: in the lawless frontiers of Pakistan, people have smoked opium cigarettes for centuries, but alcohol is forbidden. In the UK, alcohol abuse is far more problematic than heroin abuse, but is legal. Roomami's tribal leader cousin makes this point more through actions: he offers Lithgow an opium cigarette, much as a British man might offer a colleague a drink as a sign of friendship.
* ValuesDissonance: Roomami, an educated female lawyer in Pakistan, makes an interesting case to Lithgow, the visiting UK minister tasked with ending opium and heroin smuggling: in the lawless frontiers of Pakistan, people have smoked opium cigarettes for centuries, but alcohol is forbidden. In the UK, alcohol abuse is far more problematic than heroin abuse, but is legal. Roomami's tribal leader cousin makes this point more through actions: he offers Lithgow an opium cigarette, much as a British man might offer a colleague a drink as a sign of friendship.
to:
* TheWoobie: Fazal and his family. As poor farmers from northwest Pakistan, they suffer throughout the entire series - first forced to grow poppies through economic pressures, then displaced from their bulldozed farmsteads in a superficial show of government crackdown, and then brought to Karachi as paupers hoping for a better life. Fazal's employment with a ruthless druglord makes things better, but not by much - and not for long.
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Changed line(s) 23,25 (click to see context) from:
* ValuesDissonance: Roomami, an educated female lawyer in Pakistan, makes an interesting case to Lithgow, the visiting UK minister tasked with ending opium and heroin smuggling: in the lawless frontiers of Pakistan, people have smoked opium cigarettes for centuries, but alcohol is forbidden. In the UK, alcohol abuse is far more problematic than heroin abuse, but is legal. Roomami's tribal leader cousin makes this point more through actions: he offers Lithgow an opium cigarette, much as a British man might offer a colleague a drink as a sign of friendship.
----
----
to:
* ValuesDissonance: Roomami, an educated female lawyer in Pakistan, makes an interesting case to Lithgow, the visiting UK minister tasked with ending opium and heroin smuggling: in the lawless frontiers of Pakistan, people have smoked opium cigarettes for centuries, but alcohol is forbidden. In the UK, alcohol abuse is far more problematic than heroin abuse, but is legal. Roomami's tribal leader cousin makes this point more through actions: he offers Lithgow an opium cigarette, much as a British man might offer a colleague a drink as a sign of friendship.
----friendship.
----
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Changed line(s) 1,2 (click to see context) from:
Traffik is a 1989 Channel Four television miniseries, covering numerous angles of the international trade in opium and heroin. It spawned a 2000 US film and a 2004 US TV series.
to:
Traffik is a 1989 Channel Four television miniseries, covering numerous angles of the international trade in opium and heroin. It spawned a 2000 US film and a 2004 US TV series.
series, and is one of the earliest examples of a screenplay with a Hypertext Story.
UK plot: Minister Jack Lithgow (Bill Paterson) is a rising political star and overseas representative of the Prime Minister, poised to ink a treaty with Pakistan on drug control. A driven man at work, he neglects his family at home, causing his wife to leave him and his daughter Caroline (Julia Ormond) to become a drug addict. He wrestles with his conscience and the political expectations of a hard line on society's drug problems, as his own household disintegrates under its own.
West Germany plot: Karl Rosshalde appear to be a perfect Hamburg citizen, running hydropower engineering projects in rural Pakistan. However, his immense personal wealth derives entirely from his involvement in drug trading, and a police investigation leads to his arrest. As the trial goes underway and his black market creditors and liabilities increase, his wife Helen (Lindsay Duncan) faces the choice between losing it all, or taking his dark dealings into her own hands. Two German policemen, Ulli and Dieter, spar with the Rosshaldes in a cat-and-mouse game, with both sides pushing how far they will go to win.
Pakistan plot: Fazal (Jamal Shah), a poor farmer in the northwestern lawless province of Peshawar, grows opium as per local practice. A government raid on his crops (part of a token enforcement effort under the drug control treaty) leaves him jobless with a gunshot wound in his hand. After making his way to the port city of Karachi, he falls into the good graces of local drug magnate Tariq Butt (Talat Hussein) and begins to take on increasingly dubious work assignments for him - obligations that demand a harsh toll on him and his family.
UK plot: Minister Jack Lithgow (Bill Paterson) is a rising political star and overseas representative of the Prime Minister, poised to ink a treaty with Pakistan on drug control. A driven man at work, he neglects his family at home, causing his wife to leave him and his daughter Caroline (Julia Ormond) to become a drug addict. He wrestles with his conscience and the political expectations of a hard line on society's drug problems, as his own household disintegrates under its own.
West Germany plot: Karl Rosshalde appear to be a perfect Hamburg citizen, running hydropower engineering projects in rural Pakistan. However, his immense personal wealth derives entirely from his involvement in drug trading, and a police investigation leads to his arrest. As the trial goes underway and his black market creditors and liabilities increase, his wife Helen (Lindsay Duncan) faces the choice between losing it all, or taking his dark dealings into her own hands. Two German policemen, Ulli and Dieter, spar with the Rosshaldes in a cat-and-mouse game, with both sides pushing how far they will go to win.
Pakistan plot: Fazal (Jamal Shah), a poor farmer in the northwestern lawless province of Peshawar, grows opium as per local practice. A government raid on his crops (part of a token enforcement effort under the drug control treaty) leaves him jobless with a gunshot wound in his hand. After making his way to the port city of Karachi, he falls into the good graces of local drug magnate Tariq Butt (Talat Hussein) and begins to take on increasingly dubious work assignments for him - obligations that demand a harsh toll on him and his family.
Changed line(s) 13,14 (click to see context) from:
* BittersweetEnding:
* HopeSpot: Although true justice is still a long way off, by the end of the last episode all three locations (UK, Germany, Pakistan) see some progress being made towards addressing the drug problem.
* HopeSpot: Although true justice is still a long way off, by the end of the last episode all three locations (UK, Germany, Pakistan) see some progress being made towards addressing the drug problem.
to:
* BittersweetEnding:
BittersweetEnding: All three storylines end with the possibility of improvement and justice, at the cost of all the human suffering that has gone before. In the UK, [[spoiler:Lithgow's heroin addict daughter Caroline is in rehab, going on four days clean, and former Minister Lithgow himself appears to accept that you can't dictate a drug-free life by fiat, speaking at a global forum on the need for making a society worth living in]]. In Germany, Ulli is making inroads to building a case against the drug lord, with the apparent backing of the German police [[spoiler:and may bring justice after losing his investigator partner Dieter and after a failed court process]]. In Pakistan, Fazal is safely reunited with his children [[spoiler:after losing his wife to drug poisoning and avenging himself on the Pakistani drug lord]].
* ChurchgoingVillain: Tariq Butt, the drug lord, is seen visiting the mosque for prayers. He is also furious with his son for attending western-style parties where alcohol is consumed.
* HopeSpot: Although true justice is still a long way off, by the end of the last episode all three locations (UK, Germany, Pakistan) see some progress being made towards addressing the drug problem. Most of Karl Rosshalde's criminal court proceedings are this, with the repeated expectation that he will be convicted.
* ChurchgoingVillain: Tariq Butt, the drug lord, is seen visiting the mosque for prayers. He is also furious with his son for attending western-style parties where alcohol is consumed.
* HopeSpot: Although true justice is still a long way off, by the end of the last episode all three locations (UK, Germany, Pakistan) see some progress being made towards addressing the drug problem. Most of Karl Rosshalde's criminal court proceedings are this, with the repeated expectation that he will be convicted.
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* This list may also include tropes relating to a secondary or tertiary character or location.
* This list may also include tropes relating to a secondary or tertiary character or location.
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Traffik is a 1989 Channel Four television miniseries, covering numerous angles of the international trade in opium and heroin. It spawned a 2000 US film and a 2004 US TV series.
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!! This show provides examples of:
* BlackAndGrayMorality: Some of the clear victims in the piece are also driven to do terrible things, in part due to circumstances beyond their control. Other evildoers are not victims in any real sense, though.
* CrapsackWorld: Exploitation exists across all strata of society, causing rich and poor alike to participate in the drug trade in their own self-interest. Also identified as a major cause of the demand for drugs by Minister Lithgow at the end.
* HyperlinkStory: At least three plots take place: in the UK, West Germany, and Pakistan. An early example of this trope, given that the TV series was released in 1989, before the Internet and hyperlinked webpages became a household phenomenon.
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!! Episodes of this series provide examples of:
* BittersweetEnding:
* HopeSpot: Although true justice is still a long way off, by the end of the last episode all three locations (UK, Germany, Pakistan) see some progress being made towards addressing the drug problem.
* TheWoobie: Fazal and his family. As poor farmers from northwest Pakistan, they suffer throughout the entire series - first forced to grow poppies through economic pressures, then displaced from their bulldozed farmsteads in a superficial show of government crackdown, and then brought to Karachi as paupers hoping for a better life. Fazal's employment with a ruthless druglord makes things better, but not by much - and not for long.
*
* This list may also include tropes relating to a secondary or tertiary character or location.
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!! This show provides examples of:
* BlackAndGrayMorality: Some of the clear victims in the piece are also driven to do terrible things, in part due to circumstances beyond their control. Other evildoers are not victims in any real sense, though.
* CrapsackWorld: Exploitation exists across all strata of society, causing rich and poor alike to participate in the drug trade in their own self-interest. Also identified as a major cause of the demand for drugs by Minister Lithgow at the end.
* HyperlinkStory: At least three plots take place: in the UK, West Germany, and Pakistan. An early example of this trope, given that the TV series was released in 1989, before the Internet and hyperlinked webpages became a household phenomenon.
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!! Episodes of this series provide examples of:
* BittersweetEnding:
* HopeSpot: Although true justice is still a long way off, by the end of the last episode all three locations (UK, Germany, Pakistan) see some progress being made towards addressing the drug problem.
* TheWoobie: Fazal and his family. As poor farmers from northwest Pakistan, they suffer throughout the entire series - first forced to grow poppies through economic pressures, then displaced from their bulldozed farmsteads in a superficial show of government crackdown, and then brought to Karachi as paupers hoping for a better life. Fazal's employment with a ruthless druglord makes things better, but not by much - and not for long.
*
* This list may also include tropes relating to a secondary or tertiary character or location.
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