Slight Return of the Shouty Man

The previous series wasn't particularly good, so Waking Dead wasn't as much "must watch" as in the past, so I managed to miss the first two weeks of the new series. I may have missed out as the two stories I did see were rather good.

A A Gill praised Waking the Dead in the Sunday Times, mainly for the acting as he isn't keen on the gruesome murders, and I agree it does seem to have become increasingly and unncessarily gruesome. He described it as a British CSI which at first I would have contested, but on watching this latest series, I can see it has become more CSI like. Lots of dependence on science plus the beautifully dressed cast. You are investigating a brutal murder - surely one day you might come into the office in slighly creased clothes and not bother with lipstick?

Whilst the storylines were exciting, the two I saw both involved plots personally relating to members of the team, which added to the unbelievability of it. By the last one, Spence had had enough and transferred to CID, possibly to avoid it being his turn next. Who can blame him though - seven series of being yelled at? I wouldn't have lasted this long.

With the final episodes being called End Game, I presume we've seen the last of Boyd, Grace and co. Of course, I may find time to watch the episodes I missed on the BBC website, but I think it is probably time for them to call it a day. Future careers as models for Boden or Next could await them all.

First Impressions of Wallander

There was a fair amount of hype around the start of Wallander on the BBC (a fair amount of hype that is for anything that isn't a reality tv show). I'd read one Henning Mankell novel but not from the Wallander series and was intrigued by the hype of him being more cerebral than Morse.

It started with a harrowing scene with a teenage girl setting fire to herself on a rapeseed field in front of the eponymous policeman. It didn't get any happier from there. The murderer's preferred method of execution was scalping and although you perhaps didn't see as much as was suggested, it was unsettling to watch.

There is something slightly odd about the BBC's Wallander, about the way it has been filmed. It doesn't look like a modern television show. Something I think to do with the light. It might be the daylight of Sweden is different from ours, I'm not sure. But there was something unnaturalistic about it and it looked more like Bergerac or British shows from that time than things on television now. Or perhaps it is a more European look and the obviously British actors jar with the Swedish landscape.

I wasn't entirely sure about Kenneth Branagh at first. He literally seemed too big for the television screen. Rather than Morse, it was Boyd from Walking the Dead that he reminded me of most. Perhaps he didn't shout quite so much and it was a more nuanced performances than Trevor Eve ever gives but it was in that school.

So again it is another new show that I neither love nor hate but will be adding to my schedule to see how it develops.

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.

What's Wrong with Wong

The last week or so, I’ve mainly been watching Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Season 4 on DVD. Whilst the subject matter is nearly always pretty hard going and disturbing, I find watching SVU bizarrely comforting. I think it might be no matter how stressful my life is, the things happening in the show are a zillion times worse.

Also I feel I know the team well – unlike say CSI where I struggle to distinguish individuals, the SVU team feel like family that I feel comfortable around. There is however one exception – B.D. Wong’s character Dr George Huang, the FBI psychiatrist.

He is so annoying. Always there ready with a handy syndrome to explain a crime. Whilst I recognise the importance of psychology/psychiatry (I confess I don't know the difference) in police work and ordinarily find this aspect fascinating, it is his absolute certainty that annoys me. He never has any doubts, there is never any grey areas with him. This doesn’t seem right as I don’t consider psychology to be a science of absolutes. Dr Grace Foley in Waking the Dead has doubts, Cracker is all too fallible, but Wong is never wrong.

I much prefer the episodes without him. He's taking up valuable screentime that could be given to Munch instead.

And his real name is Bradley Darryl which isn't quite so professional sounding.

Career Choices

So I don’t want to join the police and I can’t become a private investigator, what other avenues are open to me, if I still want to solve crimes? Plenty, if you believe the television.

Criminal Psychologist – often working a police department but not actually a police, Fitz in Cracker is instrumental in solving many crimes, as is Dr Grace Foley in Waking the Dead. So far, so plausible. But then there is Profiler, where the Sam Walker is portrayed as being psychic which she uses to put together a profile of the criminals. This seems less likely but now we've got someone in Medium doing the same. Highly suspect. I'd say stick to the formal qualification in psychology, rather than having visions.

Lawyer – not such a stretch to believe that if you are a lawyer, like Perry Mason or Kavanagh) that you might have to do a bit of detection to ensure the right man is convicted. However, you have to be a criminal lawyer – it is less plausible if you specialise in property/contract/commercial law.

Medic – Quincy was a medical examiner and in the process of investigating how someone physically died, he often got caught up in the motive and moral side of the case too. Still not that unlikely as death is his line of business. Dr Mark Sloane on the other hand is a physician and really should be concentrating on practicing medicine rather than sleuthing. Although, his son is a cop, that is really no excuse – his son doesn’t perform operations so he shouldn’t be solving crimes, Nor should he tap-dance or roller-skate around hospital wards.

Crime Writer - Jessica Fletcher is always caught up in some murder. Does she recycle these real-life crimes in her own book? Its never quite made clear, but she must do because otherwise how would she find the time? I can't think of any other crime writers who do a bit of solving on the side - Ian Rankin sticks with the writing as far as I'm aware and gets help with police procedure details from real police - it isn't the other way around.


Gardener - that pair of green-fingered ladies, Rosemary and Thyme are always digging up corpses along with the weeds. Unearthing a body may happen once but every time you do a bit of weeding? Very unlucky or highly suspicious. If it happened to Monty Don repeatedly, I think he'd look for alternative employment. Gardening in my new home I did wonder when I found a few small bones in the peebles out the front - for a moment, I wondered if they were fingers, but then I remembered the previous owner had a small dog. So again, I don't really think gardening goes hand in hand with crime-solving.


I think I'll have to stick with my current job for now...

Shouting at the Dead

The 20 most used words in the English language are as follows:

the, of, to, and, a, in, is, it, you, that, he, was, for, on, are, with, as, I, his, they

But if you are Detective Superintendent Peter Boyd of 'Waking the Dead', you could probably add 'Spence' to that list.

He's hardly on screen a minute without hollering the name of his long-suffering colleague, Spencer Jordan. Boyd is one angry man - I'm unsure of whether it is the character or if that is Trevor Eve's only style of acting - whatever it is, poor Spence seems to bare the brunt of it. The others in the team are snapped at certainly, but the most shouted name by a mile is Spence.

We've been re-watching selected episodes of the third series this week and I wish I'd been keeping a tally of how many times he's shouted 'Spence'. And if I'd had a pound for every time, I'd easily have enough to buy the boxset of the fourth series.