Song of the Week: Talking Heads "Psycho Killer"

The first in a possible series.

It really doesn't get much better than this - a song which combines a few of my favourite things; New Wave, New York (David Byrne is so New York despite not actually being born there) and fictional serial killers.

Hearing this after a drink or two, I am liable to do a side-to-side swaying New Wave guitar playing dance & mouthing along to the 'fa fa fa fa fa' bit. Embarrassing I know.

A Quick SVU

My mother came stay at the weekend and the sun was shining for a change, so my viewing over the past few days has been minimal. I did however sneak in a quick episode of SVU in bed on Saturday night after mother was tucked in for the night. I missed the first ten minutes of it so didn’t quite understand how the disappearance of a pregnant woman fell under the remit of this department. It was nonetheless a decent enough episode with a few twists and turns, and ventures down blind alleys before the woman was found (but alas, not saved) and the culprit apprehended.

The OH continues apace with his rewatching of the Sopranos, but I keep falling asleep, so not much more to report there at the moment, but I've not much planned for this week, so think I'll be catching up on some viewing.

Growing old with the Sopranos

Not technically a detective show, The Sopranos does feature an awful lot of crime and is one of the best programmes ever made, so I'm including it here (its my blog, I make the rules).

Last night, we started to rewatch the first season of The Sopranos. The OH has a bold plan for us to rewatch the whole lot in order over the coming weeks. (I think it is going to be broken up by the arrival of the next set of 'Homicide Life on the Streets' but we'll see).

Re-watching the first two episodes last night, I was struck at how young the cast look. Obviously it is most pronounced with AJ as he was a little dumpling of a child when it began and is a man by its end. But its true of the rest of the cast too, just in a more subtle way - they all look a bit smoother, a little less gnarled back in the early days.

The show started back in 1999 but we came to it late - obviously in the UK we always get shows later, but we also didn't get into it much later on, once the first three series were available on DVD. I struggled to stay awake to watch much of it when it was on television so found having it on DVD was a much better way to watch - plus you don't have the frustrating week-long wait between episodes.

So it was probably 2003 before I really began watching it in earnest, which means that the cast have aged 7 or 8 years to my four. Even so, it got me wondering about how much things in my life have changed during the course of this series.

Like Tony Soprano, during this time I've lost a parent. He lost his mother, I lost my father - neither of whom were particularly sane. Like Carm, I've stuck with my man during this time, deciding its easier to turn a blind eye to his faults (whilst Tony's major failing is being a murdering mob boss, my OH has committed the lesser sins of sports obsession and a fondness for cheese). I would have like to have blossomed into a beautiful woman like Meadow did during this time, but alas I haven't - I've just got a few more prematurely grey hairs.

Fascinated & Flummoxed

My taste in cinema is normally wildly different from my taste in television. It has often been said of me that I’m “only interested in black & white films from the Ukraine’, which, whilst a gross exaggeration, does point to the truth that I’m not one for the Hollywood Blockbuster. And as for the multiplex, it ranks just after Victoria Beckham and seafood in my list of dislikes.

I am willing to watch a thriller in the comfort of my own home but have become rather tired of spate of ‘plot twists’ where the menace was a figment of the imagination or a split personality. It was interesting Fight Club, but dull in the Machinist, annoying in Identity and downright ridiculous in Secret Window (I make no apology for spoiling the endings of those films – I’ve saved you half a days viewing there).

So it is rare that my cinema trips would be relevant to this site, but on Saturday, we went to see Zodiac. It was showing at a nearby arts cinema so we were spared the popcorn chomping masses. All of the reviews I’d read felt compelled to mention how the long the film was, so I’m not going to break with that tradition – it was a long film. But it held my attention, even though I knew the case wasn’t going to be solved (which again isn’t a spoiler – it’s based on a true story). Robert Downey Jnr was as good as ever and the boy Gyllenhaal wasn’t bad, but I came away rather taken with Mark Ruffalo or rather his character, Inspector David Toschi.

More than that though, I’ve found myself still thinking about the film and the case long after we left the cinema, which was befitting really as the film was about obsession as much as it was about a killer. This lead to much internet-searching on Monday. After reading the ever-useful Wikipedia and entering the crazy world of the IMDB messageboards, I discovered a whole site dedicated to the case, and a web of intrigue, theories and conspiracies which would give JFK’s assassination a run for its money.

Plenty of professional police and amateur sleuths have tried to unmask the Zodiac Killer but to date no one has been charged and the facts of the case are still somewhat foggy. And it is clearly going to take a better detective than me to solve this one, but I’ll definitely be watching the film again.

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.

Crime Hotspots: Oxford

Given the fierce rivalry between Oxford and Cambridge universities, everyone connected with the latter must have rubbed their hands with glee when Morse was on the television.

The Oxford of Morse is still a romanticised place, life centres around the University colleges and quaint little pubs serving real ale, and the town is awash with opera fanatics. But lurking amongst its dreaming spires are murderers aplenty.

Episode after episode is described as the death of an academic of some sort, usually of the more civilised subjects Classics, History, Literature etc (little if any reference is made to those involved in its Engineering department). Coming to Oxford as a student, don, professor, or visiting lecturer was portrayed as an undertaking thwart the danger. Much safer to go to Cambridge which, to my knowledge, hasn’t been the setting of any major crime show (spies, rather than murderers are Cambridge’s thing).

I wonder what effect the depiction of Oxford as a hot bed of murder and deceit had on the number of applications to its prestigious seat of learning? Probably very little as studying to enter Oxford probably doesn’t leave much time for crime drama – a lesson that would have served me well in my youth when my stunning academic career was sidetracked somewhat by Remington Steele, Moonlighting and Charlie’s Angels.

Eleven Months of Viewing

So what have I been watching in the eleven months since I last updated?

• Several series of Law & Order SUV (now my favourite L&O series)
• Quite a bit of regular Law & Order but I'm less keen on it without the legal powerhouse that is Stone
• A couple of random episode of Homicide Life on the Street which spurred me to buy the first season on DVD. I'm now waiting eagerly for the second season to arrive from Amazon
• The fourth season of The Wire - it did not disappoint.
• The final season of the Sopranos (another illicit copy)
• Four seasons of The Shield - its awful, it makes me feel cheap
• A few episodes of Adam Adamant Lives (really once you've seen one, you've seen them all)
• Six big series of Waking the Dead
• One episode of Medium
• Probably a smattering of Monk, Columbo, Diagnosis Murder etc in the mix

Just One More Thing

She re-enters the room unexpectedly, in the style of Columbo.



I got tired with this blog last year when I realised that my viewing habits weren't making for interesting reading. Rather than watching a couple of different shows a week, I had moved on to getting very very obsessed about one show at a time, watching a whole series of it, then moving onto another obsession. That didn't inspire me to write much and I didn't think anyone was reading this.



But today, I decided to revisit my detective blog and it turns out I did get two comments about a year ago!



So I'm going to revive this blog and perhaps I may find a couple of readers again.



Now, where should I begin? I've seen quite a few programmes since I last wrote...

Beyond dark

Last episode of SVU I saw was the nastiest thing I think I've ever seen and I've watched all of Cracker, which taking some beating.

There was a warning before the show started as seems to be happening more frequently. The plot was about a nine year old black boy being shot in the playground. The shooting was then linked with a white supremicist group. There several twists in the tale, but the final revelation left me dumbfounded.

The boy was adopted by a white couple and the man was a prison guard. The thinking all the way along was that this child had been picked because an ex-convict member of the racist group had a grudge against him from being in his prison block. However the shocking conclusion was that evidence was found that the couple were complicite in the killing, had taken out a huge insurance policy on the child and had specifically adopted a black child for this reason.

I know its not really, but the evilness of this act left me feeling sick.

I thinkI'm going to take a break from SVU for a bit.

Quote of the Week

From Criminal Intent:

Goran: Your father had some interesting belongings
Man: Yes, he only shopped when he was drunk and only bought what made him laugh.


The same could quite easily have been said for my own father.

A week's viewing

I've watched a lot of detective programmes this week due to illness and all round inertia. As well as the heroic amount of Law & Order, I've also watched the following:

Diagnosis Murder (x2) - the first I've mentioned already, the second involved a deranged shrink trying to blackmail Sloane into murdering someone for him. The plot was pretty much stolen from 'Strangers on a Train' but with less tennis.

Sue Thomas FB Eye(x2) - The rather woolly portrayal of the FBI was getting on my nerves slightly, but the second episode involved human trafficking so was dark enough to balance out the fluffiness of the rest of it.

Ironside (x2) - I still don't like this much. The second episode was about a cop killer, who, if I've understood it correctly, was angry at the police after being caught drunk driving so then went on a revenge killing spree. It seemed a bit extereme to me. Still not happy with the portrayal of the token African American - not sure what his actual job is, but in this episode he just seemed to offer refreshments to the team. As for the blonde woman, her role is just to look pretty and blonde.

Monk - a massive four episodes, including a hilarious one where he was put on anti-depressants and became upbeat, wearing hawaiian shirts and referring to himself as 'The Monk'. He lost his powers of detection, nobody liked his new persona and he had to revert back to his old ways. Perhaps not the most sensitive portrayal of OCD, but I do still like it and shamefully I often find it quite moving. The last episode was the introduction of his new assistant - I much preferred the original assistant, but apparently she wanted more money to stay in the show.

Nicole Wallace? Who?

A bizarre episode of Criminal Intent last night.

It started reasonably enough with the theft of a diamond by a young Japanese women and the murder of her accomplice. It was going well - Goran was dipping into his vast knowledge of everything to deduce that she wasn't from Japan, but American as she didn't behave like a Japanese lady.

And then suddenly, Eames and Goren decide that something the suspect said reminded them of someone else. 'It sounds like Nicole Wallace' .

It then turned into this cat and mouse game with Olivia D'Abo, who they obviously knew previously and lots of references to previous crimes, which the OH and I knew nothing of. The last time we saw Olivia D'Abo, she was Kevin Arnold's sister and had just brought her hippy lover home to meet her stubborn father.

It was all very fascinating but confusing - it only all became clear when I looked it up on Wikipedia this morning and found out that she was Goran's archnemesis, who had appeared in several previous episodes and will surface in a couple more yet.

So long, Nicole, until the next time.

More praise for SVU

The new series of SVU on Hallmark has been spectacular.

In the first episode, Elliot went undercover to befriend a rapist, in the hope that he would work his way into his confidence and become his new partner. Elliot described his cover-story crime of abusing his step daughter and the pair go looking for girls in a van, raising the question of whether they are in fact encouraging this man to rape again. When Elliot reveals himself to be a cop, the rapist tells him that he thought there was some truth in the things he was saying when he was undercover and those urges won't fake. And everyone is left wondering if he might be right. This was dark.

In the next episode, Olivia rescues a young pregnant woman from killing herself and then takes to court the successful scientist who it is claimed raped her. Slowly, they uncover a web of lies, including that the young woman had been drugging a series of rich men and extracting their sperm! It was possibly a bit far fetched but the young woman was a convincing sociopath and I was gripped.

Then an episode where the son of Elliot's former partner is arrested for beating up his female friend. It turns out the boy is on steriods, but it is the father who is pushing him too hard. Elliot loses it complete and beats up his former partner. All sorts of inner demons are revealed and things spiral out of control between the father and son.

Another really dark episode. There is phone call from a nine year old girl who claims to be locked in a room and hasn't eaten for days. Olivia talks to her and desparately tries to get to confide in her so that they can track down her whereabouts. The trace on the mobile phone throws up some confusing, conflicting information and the rest of the team have their doubts about the authenticity of the call. There was a great scene with Munch talking into a voice distorter, pretending to be a child. Olivia remains convinced though. This episode was so tense, I'm sure I'm going to get an ulcer.

A Plethora of Crimes

The upside of being ill is that I've been able to stay at home and watch more detective programmes. Something other than Law & Order for a change.

Diagnosis Murder - shamefully I'd already seen this episode, so didn't really watch it properly - I did some dusting while it was on (I really need to learn how to take it easy when I'm ill). It was the episode with the tabloid journalist, brothel and suspected corrupt cop. It was also the episode where Amanda gave birth.

Wycliffe - a plot featuring kidnap and horse-riding. I thought the main suspect was played by Keith Baron (of appalling comedy Duty Free fame), but it wasn't him. It was only on for an hour which wasn't really enough time to build up the suspense. I like Wycliffe though - he has a good craggy face and reminds for of Arsene Wenger.

Ironside - it wasn't afraid to tackle the big themes of police rascism and victimisation of ex-cons. Unfortunately, the ex-con being victimised turned out to be the cold blooded hitman they were hunting, so it clouded the message somewhat.
It all worked out fine in the end and concluded with Ironside and Mark having a game of darts!

This programme really hasn't aged well and I much prefer Raymond Burr in Perry Mason.


There doesn't look to be much else on for the rest of the day until, of course, the Law and Orders come on Hallmark tonight.

Law & Order Overkill

I was slightly worried on Saturday that I wouldn't get to watch many detective programmes this weekend as I had quite a lot of other things to do. However, I needn't have feared as I did manage to watch several episodes of Law & Order.

The first episode on Saturday night was from the original Law & Order. The opening scene was rather grainy, so I made the bold prediction to my OH that it was an old episode (he prefers the older series so I did think it would keep him onside). I couldn't have been more wrong. It was so new, they even mentioned blackberries - as in the technology, not the fruit. It was a pretty good episode - the main interest coming from a gang boss and his son trying to play the system to get off with a murder charge.

Next we watched another episode of Special Victims Unit. A body of an Eastern European immigrant was found in a garden - it had been there about 3 years. The woman was a twin. As soon as this was revealed, I guessed that there was going to have been a switch - the old switcheroo as I called it to my OH who looked bemused. It also involved a doctor, a dentist, a diplomat and wife-beater with his mail order bride. I dozed slightly and missed the ending, but my OH told me who did it.

As I was sleepy, I moved into the bedroom, where my only option was to watch yet more CVU on Channel 5. I came in half way through the episode and fell asleep before it finished, but frankly it was a relief as what I did see of it, the plot involved men illegally adopting children so they could abuse them. Far too disturbing for me - as I've said before, I prefer a good murder.

I watched another L&O last night, but I'm struggling to remember now what it was about as I think I've had L&O Overkill (which isn't a bad name for a series, if Dick Wolf fancies doing another spin-off).

More Special Victims Unit

This is definitely growing on me. Compared with the outlandish and silly plots in CSI and Linley this week, this is believeable and dare I say it, thought-provoking. The law aspect gives the writers plenty of scope for different plots, without having to resort to disaster-movie storylines or melodrama.

I missed the first 10 minutes, but caught up quite easily. A young woman with Downs Syndrome had been raped. Her over-protective mother was reluctant to have the matter investigated as she didn't want to upset her daughter. The mother wanted her to have an abortion but the manager of the day centre she attended took her to court to take away her guardianship, as he believed the young woman had the right to have the child if she wanted.

The rapist was found, but then there was a conflict of interest for the lawyer (the attractive blonde woman with glasses) in that if she testified that the women was capable of raising a child, it could be used by the rapist's defence as evidence that she was capable of consenting. A tough call indeed.

Good gripping stuff all in all.

Career Change?

I have thought about becoming a detective.

On more than one occasion. Even as an adult.

Putting aside childhood aspirations based on Red Hand Gang, Captain Caveman or Scooby Doo, my first proper thoughts about becoming a detective were raised by a programme that, rather shamefully, I now can't remember the name of.

I think it was a BBC programme (British anyway) and it was about two sisters-in-law who set up their own detective agency, after one of them used a private investigator to follow her husband who was having an affair. Newly liberated by her divorce and hoping to help other women in similar situations, she pairs up with her sister-in-law (whose circumstances I've forgotten - widowed perhaps?) under the guidance of the dishy detective who helped her. In the second (and I think final) series, the sister-in-law had gone and it was just the one woman.

I've tried searching for it on the internet, but Google has failed me. I know the title was the same surname twice with an 'and' e.g. Smith and Smith. I can't remember any of the stars or character names either.

But this show more than any other made me think it would be possible for me to be a detective. I even went so far as to look up local detective agencies in the Yellow Pages.

However, there were two things holding me back (besides not having a sister-in-law to go into business with and a handsome mentor):

1) I couldn't drive (and still can't). This makes following a suspect difficult - car chases would be somewhat one sided if I was on foot.
2) I'm terrible at recognising people. It wasn't just that I needed glasses (which I now have) but I just don't recognise people out of the context in which I'm used to seeing them. I walked past my own mother in the street once - I was only used to seeing her in our house. I'm rubbish at the picture round in pub quizzes and I've failed to recognise Kathleen Turner on five occasions (once in person, the rest on screen or in a picture). Again, this would make missing person work rather tricky.

I am incredibly persceptive and intuitive, but alas these skills are going to waste as I lack the more practical skills necessary for a career as a PI.

(I also look rubbish in a trenchcoat)

Not much of a mystery

More Inspector Lynley last night.

An attractive young woman was murdered in Hyde Park. She had wanted to be a human rights lawyer, but recently changed her mind. She was a virgin, but had gone into internet porn/chatrooms as a career change to work for her half-sister, who had been abused by her father. The lawyer she had been dating, had another fiancee 15 years ago who was also murdered.

I guessed who the murderer was about 30 minutes before the end i.e. a good 25 minutes before Linley did. Linley couldn't see the wood for the trees as he took a dislike to the lawyer - perhaps on the basis that he was posher than Lynley, which isn't allow. Lynley had a dig at him for living in Notting Hill which made me wonder where Lynley is supposed to live - I doubt he's living on the murder mile in Hackney.

My OH half-heartedly watched this along with me, but his attention was waning. I doubt he'll want to watch it next week and to be honest even my patience in being tested with this. He's no Morse.

Oh indeed

Last night we watched the remaining two episodes of Season 3 of The Wire.

So it is all over again and now we go back to waiting for the fourth season to air. I wish they'd get a move on with it, although I do prefer to watch this sort of programme on DVD, rather than have to wait a week between episodes. The suspense will just be too much for me.

I'm curious to see who will remain in the fourth series, given that a fair number of characters ended up dead or in prison. And its focus is going to be on education - there must be some crime in there somewhere though and some type of wire tap - otherwise the title is going to be rather meaningless.

CSI NY: Tigers and Prom Dresses

I managed to stay awake for through a whole episode of CSI New York last night, which I think is a first.

What I particularly like about this (and the Law and Orders) is seeing parts of New York. Last night's episode took in Bronx Zoo and the Meatpacking District.

It also contained some pretty harrowing scenes - a man torn limb from limb by a tiger, Gary Sinise hacking a pig with a range of sharp implements, and general scenes of butchery (unlike my great aunt Meggy, I've no interest in seeing what goes on in a slaughterhouse - it was her idea of a good day out, but that was in the days before television).

The secondary plot involved a debutante, a carousel, experimental cosmetic surgery and a deadly spider. Pushing the boundaries of believability somewhat, but then anything is possible in America and it wouldn't be much of a programme if everyone was just shot.