The Dangers of Typecasting

Sad and shocking news in the paper this evening that The Bill's Reg Hollis tried to slit his wrists after being told his contract with the show would not be renewed.

Excuse the way my reporting of this seems to muddle the actor (Jeff Stewart) with the character but that is how the newspaper covered it too. And obviously the role was important to the man himself - he's been on the show since it started in 1984. That's an awful long time in one role and it is easy to see how it must be more than a job to him.

I've been made redundant once and whilst I was upset and worried about finding another job, I wasn't driven to such extremes. I quickly got myself some temping work, but I suppose that isn't an option for him (can he touch type?). Vacancies for people who've pretended to be a policeman for over 20 years are probably a bit thin on the ground, although I believe Heartbeat recently lost a policeman so there may be a position for him in 1960s Yorkshire town.

I hope Jeff feels better soon and if its any consolation The Bill has gone downhill anyway so he may be better off out of it.

The Bill: Moving Target

Having read about this a few months back, I spotted that this week was the start of The Bill’s groundbreaking interactive storyline. As mentioned before, I’ve not seen The Bill in years. The only characters I recognised were Carver and Smithy, although there were a few more familiar faces with a few refugees from EastEnders and Millie from This Life.

But it wasn’t all the new cops that was different – the dialogue seemed very stilted. I couldn’t decided whether;
a) it had always been like this but my standards are now higher after watching so many great American shows,
b) each clue was being picked over deliberately to draw our attention to them because of the interactive element
c) the actors weren’t very good

I think it may have been a combination of all three.

The story involved the whipping of a young Asian man, a Rock Against Racism concert and a politician very much in the George Galloway mould. It wasn’t really that interesting until the end of the episode when a shooter gunned down the politician and a community leader type. Personally, I’d have rather they’d have gunned down the band that was on the stage before them, who were very much in the Keane mould.

The interactive element is that you could go online after the show finished and browse the case notes and the incident board. I’ve had a quick look at this but can’t see that it is adding anything much to the episode unless you’ve got the memory of a goldfish and need any possible theories spelt out for you. I had thought that the interactivity would have involved audience votes on who to arrest, where to look for clues etc so this seems a little disappointing.

But it is early days with there being another two episodes to go so I’ll probably give it another go next week and have another explore round the website in case there is anything I’ve missed.

Interative with The Bill

I used to love The Bill. About six years ago, I followed it closely. It was back in the glorious days of Don Beech, a bent cop who then went very very bad. It got very exciting when he went very bad. He got his own brief spin-off. But then The Bill became dull and I lost interest. I haven’t seen it for years now but by bits of things I read about it, it seems to have gone further down the soap opera route, which I’m not that keen on.

But yesterday I read something in the paper that piqued my interest and I may be returning to The Bill fold soon. They are going to do some sort of interactive episodes where viewers can solve the crime, using clues posted on YouTube. I’ve not been able to find anything more out about this yet, but I’m intrigued.

More on this at a later date…