IN part one of Salmond and Sturgeon: A Troubled Union, we learn, against a backdrop of schlocky, dramatic violins, the story of how the SNP were transformed from an unruly bunch of rag-tag nationalists to the dominant force of Scottish politics.
Part two takes us to the more recent past, and details, again against the schlocky backdrop of ominous classical music, how the relationship between Alex Salmond and his protegee Nicola Sturgeon disintegrated.
Across nearly an hour, BBC cameras salivate over the sensational story of ego, betrayal and the breakdown of arguably the most successful political partnership since Blair and Brown’s famous deal at the Granita in 1994.
They did, even the BBC has to admit, do a helluva job. We go from the SNP’s dismal showing in 2003 – where John Swinney failed to get voters anywhere near excited – to the return of Salmond after the leadership contest the following year.
Between then and the 2007 Scottish Parliament elections, Salmond managed to revive the SNP’s fortunes and at that election achieve the game-changing result of getting the party into power in Edinburgh.
To get there, the BBC features talking heads including former SNP strategist Stephen Noon (below) telling of how they were all given copies of a self help book called Learned Optimism.
And learn they did. After years in the Westminster bear-baiting ring, Salmond had to learn to be nice, says former MSP Roseanna Cunningham.
The BBC put in a clip of the former FM looking awkward as he offers some children strawberries. “They’re awfully nice,” he croaks. The BBC wants you to know this does not come naturally to Salmond.
Then we get to the results. Salmond, in what he calls a presidential flourish, takes a helicopter to Edinburgh, to announce that while the SNP have not “won” per se, Labour no longer had the “moral authority” to govern Scotland.
READ MORE: A journalist's verdict on the BBC's Salmond-Sturgeon documentary
A genuinely emotional Swinney looks close to tears as he recalls speaking to Salmond on the way into Edinburgh that day as the future FM tells him that Scotland has changed “for the better” and “forever”.
There are then suggestions Salmond had bullied staff while at the top – his response: “The atmosphere in that government couldn’t have been better.”
There is a slightly odd moment where former chancellor George Osborne (below, left) recalls meeting Salmond on an aeroplane after the Tories came to power.
Salmond is said to have told him the Tories would have no mandate in Scotland and would be hated soon enough. Then in a quote that makes the former SNP chief sound a bit like a serial killer, Osborne ventriloquises: “That’s when I’m going to strike.”
Whether or not the conversation took place, the referendum certainly did. Salmond and his former aide Geoff Aberdein beam as they relate the story of how they tricked Westminster into getting their preferred wording on the ballot paper.
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The campaign, though well fought, ends in failure. Salmond resigns, Sturgeon (below) takes over. Then, trouble starts.
It becomes public that Salmond has been reported to police over accusations of sexual harassment. You know the details and how this ends up. In short, Sturgeon and Salmond are no longer on each others’ Christmas card lists.
As we come to a close, the programme shifts gears. We’re no longer watching a documentary, it’s a slightly campy memorial service to two political giants.
READ MORE: Alex Salmond tears into 'venomous' BBC for new SNP documentary
Salmond looks lonely as the programme sketches the foundation of the Alba Party. Sturgeon is shot at a jaunty angle (through a mirror for some reason) as she announces her resignation. Glenn Campbell gets in a prescient question, batted away by Sturgeon, about the ongoing police investigation into the SNP’s finances.
The BBC may have their reasons for being excited in the event of the SNP’s demise.
But they seem to have jumped the gun somewhat on eulogising a party with at least another year and a half or thereabouts in power in Holyrood. They just can’t wait to declare independence dead.
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