ABSTRACT
By the mid-nineties, the British media had woken up to the fact that the nation contained two societies: the traditional leisure culture of alcohol and entertainment (spectator sports, TV) versus the more participatory, effusive culture of all-night dancing and Ecstasy. The clash between old Britain and young Britain was dramatized to hilarious effect in an episode of Inspector Morse entitled "Cherubim and Seraphics." The plot concerns a series of mysterious teenage deaths that appear to be connected to a new drug called Seraphic. Despite its overt "just say no" slant, the episode mostly works as an exhilarating advert for Ecstasy culture. (Literally, insofar as Morse's remark to his detective partner - "it's a rave, Lewis!" - was sampled and used by a pirate station.)
This collision of old and new Englands reaches it peak when the detective duo arrive at the stately home where a rave called Cherub is taking place. Morse drones on about the noble history of the building; inside, the kids have transformed it into a future wonderland. Sure, the crooked lab researcher responsible for the Seraphic drug gets his comeuppance. But the episode ends by allowing the sixteen-year-old girlfriend of one Seraphic casualty to utter a paean to Ecstasy: "You love everyone in the world, you want to touch everyone." And it transpires that the teenagers didn't kill themselves because the drug unbalanced their minds; rather, having glimpsed heaven on earth, they decided that returning to reality would be a comedown. Who wouldn't want to give E a try after that? And who would possibly side with decrepit Morse, with his booze and classical music CDs, against the shiny happy people of Generation E?
