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Traffik : Season 1
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Air date: 22 Jun '89 - 6 episodesTraffik is a 1989 British television serial about the illegal drugs trade. Its three stories are interwoven, with arcs told from the perspectives of Afghan and Pakistani growers and manufacturers, German dealers, and British users. It was nominated for six BAFTA Awards, winning three. It also won an International Emmy Award for best drama. The 2000 crime drama film Traffic, directed by Steven Soderbergh, was based on this television serial. In turn, the 2004 American television miniseries Traffic was based on both versions.
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List of Episodes (6)
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Traffik (1989)
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1. The Farmer
22 Jun '89In Hamburg, a popular young German businessman is arrested and accused of being a drugs trafficker. His British wife, Helen, is faced with social and financial ruin and decides to take the family's future into her own hands. Jack Lithgow, a minister at the British Home Office, is responsible for overseeing a new aid agreement with Pakistan to reduce production of opium there. He visits Pakistan on a fact-finding mission and is approached by Fazal, a local farmer who complains bitterly that the
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Traffik (1989)
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2. The Addict
26 Jun '89Jack Lithgow returns to Britain from Pakistan to find that his daughter, Caroline, has been arrested on heroin charges after a student party. Jack confines her to the family home and watches her night and day until he thinks she's off the drugs - but Caroline has been fooling him. Back in Germany, Helen learns that her husband, Karl, is still owed a lot of money by his dealers, which she sets out to recover, but in a massive police raid Karl's entire network is arrested. The situation seems hop
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Traffik (1989)
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3. The Criminal
03 Jul '89Kurt, a German casino owner who financed Karl's heroin business, is hounding Helen. When she says she can't return the money he kidnaps one of her children. Desperate, Helen goes to Britain, where she gets a short-term loan from a corrupt financier. Her child is returned but she is now in deeper debt, and decides to start importing heroin again - even though she is under constant surveillance by the policemen Ulli and Dieter. In London, Jack discovers Caroline is still on heroin. With the deman
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Traffik (1989)
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4. The Chemist
10 Jul '89Jack Lithgow is still under heavy pressure from his job at the Home Office, but worse, his daughter takes a drugs overdose and is hospitalised. He books her into an expensive residential clinic to try and get her off heroin. Fazal accompanies Tariq on his visit to the North West Frontier of Pakistan to buy part of the opium crop. He is then left to oversee the conversion of opium into heroin at a remote laboratory. But the chemist and Tariq argue about the price, and Tariq returns with armed me
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Traffik (1989)
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5. The Politician
17 Jul '89Jack returns to Pakistan to sign the aid agreement. Encouraged by the lawyer Roquia, he presses further, demanding specific arrests before he will sign. His political pressure on the authorities to take more action against known traffickers results in the destruction of a shanty town area of Karachi. Unknowingly, this brings about Fazal's downfall, who is set up as the fall guy by Tariq. Fazal is arrested and thrown in jail. Jack goes back to the North West frontier and finds himself in the mid
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Traffik (1989)
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6. The Courier
24 Jul '89On his return to Britain, Jack is immediately sacked for his extraordinary behaviour in Pakistan. Not only this, but his wife has moved out, and Caroline has run away from the rehabilitation clinic. In Germany, Ulli believes he has trapped Helen and intercepts what he thinks is her heroin shipment. But Helen has double-crossed everyone, and the heroin shipment is actually bound for England. Fazal's wife Sabera has agreed to smuggle heroin for Tariq Bhut in return for a promise that he will sec
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