W

hy doesn’t Indonesian television produce local detective programs?

Instead of banal sinetron television series that follow predictable plots, viewers could pit their wits against cunning sleuths battling vile villains across Southeast Asia’s Sin City, home to 12 million stories.

The BBC has been telecasting such programs since John Logie Baird first caught a cathode ray. The US has never let go of the genre. Nor has Hong Kong, where kung fu cops jump off 40-story towers to chop up snakeheads.

So why no Achmad of the Archipelago, a silat martial art master righting the wrongs, defending the poor, confronting the corrupt? What an arresting idea!

Maybe there’s insufficient wrongdoing in the republic to stimulate scriptwriters? Me thinks it safe to eliminate that theory.

Could such programs be religiously forbidden? Negative: Goodies always vanquish the baddies, though sometimes the two can be inseparable.

So here are a few suggestions to get the creative juices haemorrhaging. First we need a hero.

Sjahrit Holmes of Jl. Bond, disguised as a street musician, deducts the obvious that others have overlooked while giving his pipe a workout in the kampung. Tobacco sponsorship? Elementary, my dear Wayan.

Hamzah Poirot promenading La Rue des Thamrin spots clues missed by the clumsy gendarmerie, revealing the dominatrix in the Hyatt as the guilty party, not the scowling satpam.

Nyonya Marples would have no problem seeing the flaws in the alibis of a sinister itinerant vendor poisoning the innocent with toxic bakso (is there any other sort?). This would be The Curious Case of the Kaki Lima.

Murder on the Yogyakarta Express could have a cast of candidates, one wearing a yellow jacket, another green and the third red. One goes missing. The train gathers speed. It’s heading downhill. The guard has disappeared. The emergency lever doesn’t work. A metaphor for the state of politics?

Not interested? So how about a police series: The Thick Khaki Line could feature the gallant gumshoes of Precinct 13 covering the notorious Tanjung Priok waterfront. The lads ensure nothing gets through without their knowledge. And cut.

Too British? Here’s an original idea — let’s steal from the US.

The Funda Mentalist would have a bland, near mute actor (Nicholas Saputra) playing the role of a psychic. He and his sidekick Fatima (Alya Rohali) fetching in a blue burqa with matching sunglasses, dispenses with old fashioned policing methods, like door knocking and DNA testing.

They solve the crime in 38 minutes plus commercials just by looking mysterious. That should do well in superstitious Java.

There’s no shortage of adaptable ideas to suit Indonesian tastes. The Modest City (preserving Asian values), The Touchables (story consultants — the Corruption Eradication Commission), Irian Five-0 (obscure, confused, say critics) and BD (Big Durian) Confidential (the smell says it all).

Ponder the plotlines. It’s dawn at Matabukit Police Station in an overcrowded, rubble-strewn industrial area known for its sleaze. And that’s just the cops.

A man rushes in, blowing a whistle, waking the duty sergeant. “The 50 kilograms of gold atop Monas have been stolen,” he shouts, and is promptly arrested for disturbing the police.

What the flatfoot doesn’t know is that the whistle-blower has top contacts. Minutes later the phone rings. Within seconds the crimson-faced cop releases the prisoner.

The man then reveals himself as Jusuf Bond (Dude Harlino), famous foreign agent assigned by Blok M (Christine Hakim) on the trail of the criminal behind the Great Monas Mystery.

Some character tweaks would be required. Yusuf’s tipple is three fingers of Teh Botol on ice. His favorite car is a custom built black Kijang van with a bed in the back for kips during daylong traffic jams. And Pak Bond only beds his wives.

Enough imagining. Now it’s over to the TV stations.

Naysayers might argue that viewers aren’t yet ready for programs featuring smart and honest police — the idea is just too fantastic.

Far more believable to the poor are the antics of the rotten and the restless in the mansions of millionaires.

— Duncan Graham