Moral seriousness. Two words pretty much guaranteed to deter anyone reading this piece from reaching its conclusion. And the words which came into my head as I was watching Martin Shaw go into a lighting shop glaring with the lamps it contained, and all of those lights dim as he came across a lampshade made of human skin.

Dimmed lights don’t rate as special effects, but the simple power of that image is what distinguishes Apparitions from any number of shows dabbling in the supernatural. Oh, there was more going on than that, and it even involved someone floating in midair at one point, but really what matters with this show is the power of the ideas it explores. The images are a way of conveying those concepts, not just a source of cheap thrills for the audience.

Apparations is all about an exorcist, Father Jacob, who is targeted by demons as he gets closer to becoming the Catholic Church’s Chief Exorcist. That kind of pressure goes with the territory, and in this second episode the heat really started to rise for Father Jacob.

Heat, fire, and flames were key notions within the story, which saw Jacob’s otherwordly enemy use the argument that ‘Hell is worse than a million Holocausts’. What made the debate particularly compelling was that the demon arguing this case seemed to sincerely believe that he was doing Father Jacob a favour by wanting to exorcise God from him, and forgave Jacob for what the demon had earlier referred to as throwing them back in the fires from which they’d escaped.

The fact that Jacob used distinctly worldly violence to trick the demon into being subdued is one point in favour of the demon’s paradigm. You almost feel sorry for them, until as it’s pointed out elsewhere, it was Satan that was behind Hitler, and hence the Holocaust. Meaning that God might be guilty of contributory negligence, but no more than that, free will being what it is.

Me taking such notions on board, and not a Catholic bone in me, gives you an idea of how convincing Joe Ahearne’s writing is, supported by some strong performances too. And intelligent writing is the key to this show’s success. As the Chief Exorcist says of his opponents’ tactics, ‘Every word is designed to snare you’. Like a timeshare sales pitch, but even more insidious, Apparations has woven its spell on me, and for at least an hour a week I buy into a medieval worldview.

Is that such a surprise though? After all, two of my favourite shows are The Shield and Spooks, and they feature moral conundrums of the knottiest sorts, with a side order of action for good measure. And good drama has done that since, well, there’s been any drama at all. The Oedipus stories are corking tales, and Shakespeare always gave his audience credit for more intelligence than a lot of modern television programmers do.

Success on the screen can give rise to imitations, but often the wrong lesson is learned. When Tarantino burst into popular consciousness, what did the studios do? One choice would have been to back new talent. The other was to commission a series of ultimately forgettable crime flicks where the violence was served with awkwardly hip dialogue (see Things To Do In Denver When You’re Dead and its teethgrating references to ‘boat drinks’ if you really need a reminder). Let’s hope that if Apparitions is viewed as a hit, it spawns not dodgy occult dramas, but television which inspires, confronts, and challenges, whatever its surface characteristics.