Friday, April 18, 2008

Style File: Waking the Dead

Waking the Dead returned this week with its seventh series. It hasn’t really been that good since the end of the fourth series. The sixth series was particularly lame and this one isn’t looking any better.

“The Shouty Man” (Trevor Eve as Superintendent Boyd) is still shouting his way through every episode but with the added tension of him looking for his estranged son. The plot in the first two episodes was a credibility stretching yarn involving various terrorists groups, plus some thoughts on the nature of parenthood.

Besides the poor quality of the plots though, the thing that has started to annoy me in the more recent series is the clothes worn by the team. They are far too well dressed to be realistic. I know there are probably plenty of stylish detectives out there and I don’t believe that they must be in the Columbo/Frost scuffy model, but really, this lots look like they’ve taken far too much time over their appearance.

Spence is probably dressed by Paul Smith, always looks sharp and is bizarrely looking younger with each passing series. Stella is the epitome of French chic and is probably dressed by Agnes B. Dr Grace Foley, with her coloured knits and statement necklaces, looks like she’s had a makeover with Trinny and Susannah. Even Boyd, a man racked with guilt, anger and aggression, still finds time to buy suits that aren’t from M&S.




It just doesn’t seem realistic. Surely it is odd for a whole department to be this well-dressed? Not even the CSI teams are this universally well-groomed.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree with each series this is getting lamer and lamer...

It's got to the point when the characters are speaking to one another we can guess what they are going to say (which probably proves more about our house than the series itself).

But most of all, what I CAN'T stand is the scientist woman and how she is an expert in absolutely everything and as the OH keeps pointing out, every email she receives is useful and highly important to the case - doesn't she get spam like the rest of us?

SandDancer said...

I don't like the current scientist woman either - I really liked the first woman they had in the early series. I find this one's character quirks about her smoking and having music on, irritating rather than making her like a believeable character.

We are still watching it though...