Lockdown, Lowdown… Ringside Report Looks at the BBC TV Show White Collar

By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

White Collar crime is a high end affair. The top of the scale when it comes to sophistication and the target of that particular crime, we are looking at culture and the vultures who collect it. And so when dealing with such crime, it can often be best to follow a cliché should you want to catch the people responsible… Set a thief… to catch one…

And so, it was with the Jeff Eastin created, Fox TV series, White Collar. Neal Caffrey (played by Matt Bomer) is the former (and often not so former) art thief, forger and con artist who for a whole 6 seasons and 81 episodes helped the FBI to catch a variety of white collar criminals.

He is joined by his sidekick and critical part of the appeal of the show, Mozzie (played by Willie Garson) as they support FBI agent Peter Burke (played by Tim DeKay) in their enterprise of staying out of prison themselves whilst putting a few rival high end criminals behind bars. The back story was about how Burke had spent three years trying to catch Caffrey and when he finally did, Caffrey having spent most of his allotted time in prison – 3 years and 9 months of a 4 year sentence – manages to escape to help his girlfriend. Having put his release in jeopardy, before being recaptured by Burke, Caffrey comes up with a unique idea and partnership; why don’t they let him out to help the FBI as he turns into the gamekeeper to catch the poachers?
Caffrey was the loose cannon with a heart of gold that was matched with a head for crime.

Popularity in anything that lasts for so long depends upon the relationships of the characters and whilst the area in which they were operating was not the mainstay of crime dramas, it would have faltered had not the dynamic between Caffrey and Burke not been testy and feisty at times. Caffrey who wore an ankle bracelet for most of his time struggled to be good and Burke often allowed the leash to be lessened when he thought it would be to his advantage. Caffery had been released from prison as long as he was controlled – that ankle monitor was the key to the deal. Caffery did, however, at times manage to get out of it and make some interesting career choices!

Burke was the straight guy.

He played by the rules, except when the rules made him the target. When he was accused of criminality himself, Caffrey, now a firm family friend set about helping him beat the criminals in the justice system. It was this level of relationship that drove the whole thing along.

Of course, they needed sidekicks and again the characters needed depth. Conspiracy nut Mozzie (played brilliantly by Willie Garson) was perfect. As Caffrey’s closets friend he was our gateway to what was really going on and given his consistent reference to the FBI as suits, it suited, if you pardon the pun, the storyline’s purpose of bringing scepticism in from the criminal angle.
Scepticism from the official FBI came in the shape of Special Agent Diana Berrigan (played by English actress, Masha Thomason) and Special Agent Clinton Jones, (played by Sharif Atkins). As time goes on however, they too get caught in the Caffrey love bubble.

Critical to the show’s success was Burke’s home life. Ever the strait laced thief taker he was also the family man with a wife who was equally devoted – Elizabeth Burke (played by Tiffani Thiessen). This was wholly a conventional relationship which cemented the strait laced nature of our FBI agent in charge and meant when he did stray, it may not have been shocking but it brought an air of real excitement to the sub-plots.

An arch enemy in the form of Mathew Keller (played by English actor, Ross McCall) is also used in the U-boat treasure storyline to give frisson to the whole thing. He ends up in prison at one point but still is able to pull Caffrey’s strings!

Oh, and a mention in passing for Satchmo, the Burke’s adorable Labrador who played some part at some point in a few of the capers!

It is easy to say, I loved this from the beginning to the end, except that is not how I first experienced it. Talk of a revival has made me slightly more excited than I was before about it and made me realize just how much I truly loved watching White Collar. It was a show I had dipped into with Sky and always sought it out when needing something to pass the time. My problem was that watching whatever was available proved to be unfruitful – it left more questions than provided answers, so I went back and watched in sequence – a much more satisfying way to do it!
I loved the fact I could and for the 6 seasons – thanks to Amazon Prime – I was hooked. Given that it had 6 full seasons the end was quite a sad place as it was when Burke and Caffrey had to part company. Season 6 was a 6 episode final series with Neal having been allegedly killed in his final heist. It was not to end at that point. One year on, the Burkes, now with a son – called Neal – get a bottle of wine delivered. It comes with directions to a storage unit and what does Burke find in the storage unit – evidence that a revival of the series with ALL the key characters could be possible. I just hope they don’t waste it! – a revival not the wine, obviously…

British television is a curious affair. Begun through the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) it is funded through the universal license fee. In essence, if you wanted to watch the television , you had to pay the license fee. The BBC got it all and is state run, albeit at arms-length. Then came along commercial television in the form of the Independent Television (ITV) in 1955. Designed to bring a bit of competition to the BBC, it was paid for through advertising but still free to air… well they didn’t add another license fee to it. By the time that I was born, 1965, there was BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. And that was it. It was still years before Bruce Springsteen would moan that there were 55 channels and nothing on but here in the UK, we kept this going until in 1982, we added a fourth channel and in 1997, a fifth. With sparkling imagination, they were called Channel Four and ehm Channel Five… In between came Sky and we understood what Springsteen meant. And so, my childhood and leading up to early adulthood we had three options… But the programs made were exceptionally good. And so, here is some critical nostalgia as the lockdown has brought a plethora of reruns, new formats and platforms and old classics trying to make their way back into our consciousness as broadcasters flood their schedules with classics… or are they classics at all? Let me take you through an armchair critics’ view of what we have to see, to find out… Welcome to the Lockdown Lowdown…

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