Criminology 102

Felt I didn't really finish with my thoughts on the subject in my last post, so here's some more.

Since crime is a commonly accepted fact of life, it's fairly safe to assume that it will have happened to the majority of people, that at some point in our lives, we're going to have to have dealt with the ramifications and repercussions of crime. The one thing that always strikes me is that we tend to blow crime way out of proportion on the screen. I mean, look at the cold-hearted killers that we get on the screen, take Cameron Pell from LUTHER as an example. I'll talk more fully about LUTHER next time.

He wanted to make London remember its myths and dark secrets, while brutally murdering people in a Mr. Punch mask. That's all well and good, it makes for compelling television, but at the same time, is there much of that in real life? The vast majority of crime is committed as Crime Of Passion, it simply comes out of the moment before we know what we're doing. I think the best series to highlight this is ACCUSED in recent years, if one can tolerate it's over ponderous and preaching nature.

So does that make the majority of criminal drama as fanciful as science-fiction and fantasy? Since this stuff doesn't really happen in 'real life', should we just accept it as fiction in the same way as we do MERLIN or STAR TREK? Or is it that it's grounded in reality and then takes off from there? The cops and robbers are still present in our everyday lives, but just not in such a way that we see on screen. Is there serious crime out there? Of course, but not enough of it for an episode a week.

Maybe that's why The Bill ended?

CASE HISTORIES.

You know, I really did quite like this show. The characters are easy to get on with, the writing's pretty well rounded and the style is very friendly to it's audiance. The whole two-part story lines are a common thing for the BBC, what with one of their producers having discovered a long time ago that a novel can be neatly divided in half and made into a TV serial and it certainly works in this instance.

It's always good to see Jason Isaacs get work, he's got to be one of my favourite actors over the years. His range lends itself well to this particular role, a gruff Yorkshire-born Private Detective working in Edinburgh, who's often carting his daughter around with him on his investigations. He's charismatic and ignorant at the same time and he seems to gather lost girls to him like a lighthouse gathers lost fishing ships.

All in all, I think my only real complaint with this series is probably drawn directly from the books themselves. Why are all the secondary cases he investigates somehow tied into the main one? He looks into the murder of a girl, a homeless girl then attaches herself to the father of this murdered girl, who just so happens to be the daughter of another woman who had hired Brody to go find her daughter? It's all a little convoluted and why do they all have to be linked? Surely the world's a big enough place for people to not have any connections to each other? Surely the story's big enough for that as well?

With six episodes under it's belt, which constitutes three out of the four current Jackson Brody novels, it's unceartain whether or not there'll be anymore Case Histories in the future, seeing as how they'll be out of source material. It's definately one I'd be interested in getting on DVD.

Next time, the one, the only, LUTHER.

Criminology 101

So we're currently awash with crime dramas over here in iPlayer land. What with the BBC making a big deal out of THE SHADOW LINE and now with CASE HISTORIES, the return of the superlative LUTHER and memories of ZEN and WAKING THE DEAD still fresh, it makes me wonder what captivates audiances about crime thrillers? With so many of them around, what makes a good one?

I read in an article recently that crime novels outsell virtually every other genre of novels put together and if I were to look on my mother's shelf up in Scotland, I'd find that she has her fair share of them, not to mention the countless thousands that get checked out at the library. Makes my future as a sci-fi writer look even more dubious, to be honest.

So, Crime. It's all around us, it's in our everyday lives, it's something we hear about in the news all the time, so why do we romantacise it? Why do we put it up on a pedestal in order to view it with sexy actors and snazzy camera angles? Perhaps because it excites us, danger and being close to the edge and all that, but I don't think that people in those actual situations would agree with that point of view. Perhaps because it's very basic to human nature, the urge to see Justice?

Of course, the one thing that comes hand in hand with criminals are the police. And let's face it, if there's one institution that the UK tends to have a massive problem with, it's the police. How often do we see the police as self-serving, callous or sometimes just downright corrupt on the television? How often are they simply no better than the criminals that they intend to track down? Why do we even look to them for protection? Hmmm... I feel I may have to qualify my thoughts on this.

THE SHADOW LINE.

Right then, this was one hell of a series. I mean, it's not often you see this kind of thing. It's slow, serious, heavy, hard-hitting and well acted. It's got a cast that makes you do a double take and it's so auter-driven that it makes you wonder why anyone else bothered to turn up to work on it. For every positive point about this series, I can probably find a negative one, so to me the series kind of blanked itself out as soon as it was done.

Don't get me wrong, this is a visually sumptuous and very indulgent series, it languishes detaild attention on the smallest of facets, it boasts an impressive opening cast (what with Christopher Eccleston still looking for work after Doctor Who and Chiwitel Ejiofor gracing the screen with his immense presence) and then only adds to that with the persons of Eve Best, Stephen Rea and Rafe Spall (an extremely entertaining nutcase).

But at the same time it's ponderous, preachy, confusing and not particularly riveting. By the end of the series and the reveal of the central plot, I'd all but completely lost interest due to the roubd-about methods of getting there. What was it about in the end? Laundering drug money into funding police pensions? Was that about it? Because if you ask me, something that mundane doesn't really deserve the reverance this series seemed to ladle onto it.

The almost endless series of murder and double-dealing was difficult to keep track of, especially when most of it didn't really seem to have much of a purpose, or was for it's own sake. Tobias Menzies' journalist character was to be commended for acurately portraying what the general public probably think of journalists these days (ie, ruthless scum), but he was killed off just when he was about to get interesting. As was the same with Robert Pugh.

So all in all, I could probably ramble on about this series for a good page or so, but it would just round-about whinging, much like the series itself. So much potential, so much gorgeous camera work and excllent acting, but so little substance to back it up with, and you can have all the pretty lights and people doing good jobs as you want, but if there's nothing underneath, then there's not much point. The ending was perplexingly annoying, as well.

Ah well. Next time, CASE HISTORIES.

Going To The Movies

When I stay up in Newbury I do actually get the chance to watch actual television, not just the constant barrage of iPlayer streams that I'm normally exposed to. So since my friends up there have Sky, me and Kerry have been keeping up with GAME OF THRONES, which I was undoubtably going to have to talk about at some point. It's a pretty cinematic series, if that term works, in that if definately feels like they've tried to make Lord of the Rings in a ten-part installment. I'll talk about that one in a more complete sense some other time.

Back with the BBC, IN WITH THE FLYNN's is a sitcom too far for Will Mellor, who should really try and break out of the rut he's in. I watched the first episode and didn't find it to be much of a patch on OUTNUMBERED, which has a much more cynical take on parenting small children.

In reference to the title, I very rarely actually watch movies on the iPlayer, I always think that I'll try and get round to it, but never manage to, they're just too long for the amount of time that I devote to the iPlayer each time. However, I did make an effort for this particular one...

GROW YOUR OWN.

Now while I appreciate that this film did get a cinema release and I normally talk about things that get a cinema release in my other blog, I caught this one today on the iPlayer and it's co-made by the BBC, so I figure 'what the hell' and watch. And I loved it, this was a lovely little film.

It suffers in a number of areas, I can't quite tell if it was meant to be a multi-protagonist film, since there quite a few little stories running through the piece, also I wasn't certain about Benedict Wong's central character, I'm not sure he held up the film, our real hero was Kenny.

Omid Djalili (yes, I had to check to remember how to spell his name) recieves very little screen time, which is a shame for such a recognisable and well-loved face. The mobile phone company 'villains' of the piece weren't very noticable, we could have had a bit more of them, I think.

But these little things aside, this was a charming film with some good funny moments and a lot to root for.

No, I can't quite believe I just made that joke either. Next time will by SHADOW LINE. Definately SHADOW LINE.

Demons Run

Oh my SHITTING CHRIST. Have you been watching Doctor Who? I mean seriously, have you been watching this?! I can't talk about it because it would just be a little ridiculous to do so, but if you aren't... well... then you're mentally disturbed for denying yourself the genius of Moffat. I mean, there are television writers, then there are great television writers, and then there's Moffat. I seriously don't think I can textually suck this guy off enough, it's just not possible. And to think that he'll probably still be in charge when the 50th Anniversary comes around...

In other news, the SHADOW LINE is also hotting up and I think I should probably check out CASE HISTORIES as well, all depending on how much I can trust my laptop.

Other than gushing more about Doctor Who, there isn't much else for me to talk about at the moment because I haven't really had much computer access lately.

So...

THE SCHEME.

Now, this series caused and still continues to cause a fair amount of antagonism and controvosy amongst its viewers and I was compelled to check it out in order to see what all the fuss was about. And now I can definately see why.

After just one episode there's drug abuse, broken families, prison sentences, excessively ugly people and numerous police visits. There are homeless teenagers living by the grace of benefits earners and there are needles on the side of the road.

And this is a documentary.

This series was described as 'poverty-porn', and I know that one of my former lecturers would call it 'class-tourism', since it's intended for middle class audiances and is about an extremely under class housing scheme.

My mother called it 'grim'.

I call it 'taking advantage'.

The people in this show are real and their woefully pathetic and painful lives are on display for the rest of the world to see. I don't really approve of this kind of television, but I can't deny just how fascinating and compelling it is. This is a side of life that I'll never really know and know that I would never want to. I feel that I pity the people who have taken part in it and I know that my pity is probably the last thing they would ever want. It doesn't surprise me that the last two episodes may never be shown due to an ongoing court case.

It makes me sad to think about, so next time I'll probably either be talking about the SHADOW LINE or another classic from my dvd shelf.