Adolescence (2025, Netflix)

Here is the first impact Adolescence had on me: although I tried not to, I watched the series as a father rather than a professional in the field of forensics. The series was written and directed by Steven Graham, who also plays the father in the drama, and consists of four gripping episodes, each an hour long. It is so well-made I couldn't retreat into my professional identity or maintain the usual separation between home and work while I watched it. The message landed immediately, violently, within the first few minutes, as we follow a squad of armed police making a dawn raid on thirteen-year-old Jamie's home. There's no pause, no transitions between scenes, no relief from the tension. The camera's eye doesn't blink, as we follow the unfolding trauma inside the family home, in real time.

The opening scene reminded me of patients who describe, “The police at the door”, or the constant dread that they might come knocking. By the final episode, I felt as though this dread has spread to include any parent of an adolescent child. And maybe it should be—maybe we all need to feel it. The police might come knocking at any door, delivering the awful news that their child has fallen victim to a perpetrator or has become one, both living a dangerous, secret life—one too hidden to see until it's too late.

In the opening episode Jamie is arrested for murder. We watch him put into the police van alone, while his parents follow behind in a haze of distress and uncertainty. We follow him being processed at the station and put into a cell, again with no cuts in the action to offer respite to the viewer. The intensity of the experience brought back a personal association: a medical emergency, taking my son to A&E, the fear of not knowing what was wrong, the hope that it wasn't serious, and the mental scramble to normalise everything.

But in Adolescence there is no ambulance for the victim is already dead, and the idea that Jamie is the perpetrator unfolds before our gaze. Along with t