Medium Dark

I think I'd got the wrong impression of Medium from the couple of episodes I'd seen on the BBC. I've seen a few episodes (or bits of episodes) on the Sci-Fi channel recently and it really is a lot darker than I'd thought. It has a real ambience of foreboding and makes me feel a bit uncomfortable at times.

The last couple of episodes I've seen weren't so much about her solving crimes but the difficulties of living with her special powers, her moral obligations and how it conflicts with family life.

It is a more interesting show than I had thought and I'm keen to watch more of it. The middle child, who may have the same powers, is so adorable and a brilliant little actress too.

Song of the Week: Bob Marley "I Shot the Sheriff"

I was in Spain the week before last and the poolside bar played a lot of Bob Marley. Not the political stuff (I've cleared a pub in the past by putting "Redemption Song" on the jukebox) but the more poppy ones. Which reminded me that I hadn't picked this obvious choice for my Song of the Week.

According to Wikipedia, Marley had wanted the lyrics to say "I shot the Police" but feared the reaction from the Government. The song didn't attract any controversy but there is an interesting article here about why it didn't when compared to "Cop Killer", although it does focus on the Eric Clapton version rather than the Marley original.

Obama loves The Wire

The final series of The Wire is starting in the UK, but we have already seen it on DVD obtained over the internet. I'm envious of people who still haven't finished watching it and whilst there is still joy to be had from re-watching it, nothing beats that first thrill of discovery.

As part of a feature on The Wire in the London Paper yesterday, they had a quote from Barack Obama, as The Wire is apparently his favourite television show. The quote was about his favourite character being Omar Little, the gay stick-up artist.

That’s not an endorsement. He’s not my favorite person, but he’s a fascinating
character

I can't imagine David Cameron watching The Wire, although I could imagine him claiming to watch Hollyoaks or Skins to appear to be "down with the kids".

I found this interesting feature about it here.

Cold Turkey

I've really not watched much at all in the last few weeks.

Apart from:
Two episodes of Medium that I fell asleep in before the end
Two episodes of the first series of Cold Case
An episode of Diagnosis Murder that I started to watch whilst in Spain, but it turned out it was one I'd already seen.

I'm away again this weekend so I doubt I'll get to watch anything for a while yet. Bother.

That man Lynley again

Having been disappointed by the final Inspector Lynley two weeks ago, I was confused by his return this Sunday. But it turned out to be a repeat.

I’ve no idea why the BBC choose to repeat this particularly episode on this day. It wasn’t a particularly good episode and it involved the death of a cricketer. Considering how exciting Kevin Pietersen was playing at the weekend, for once I think I’d have chosen cricket over detectives!

Song of the Week: Radiohead "Karma Police"

I'll confess here and now. I don't like Radiohead as much as everyone else does. For a while I was convinced they were the most over-rated band in the world.

But then I'll here certain songs, and realise that actually they are pretty good and I can see what all the fuss is about. "Fake Plastic Trees" is my favourite Radiohead song, but even I can't pretend that it is detective related, so instead, here is my second or third favourite, "Karma Police".

Nothing but Ironside

Between going away for work, the Apprentice final and the football, I haven't had much time for detectives this week. That, and the fact that the schedules still seem pretty empty of crime shows.

Except for Ironside on ITV3 early in the morning.

Yesterday, I actually got up at 6.30 to join the Ironside-athon from the beginning. Five episodes (although I only ended up watching three as it turned out I'd already seen the last two). Then another three this morning, although I only got up in time for the latter two. There are another two episodes on in the small hours and if I didn't need sleep I'd be tempted.

Whilst I appreciate the extra Ironside, there doesn't seem to be any logic in the scheduling with episodes now skipping about between series without reason. I prefer the earlier series with Eve. I don't mind Fran so much, but I'm not keen on the later episodes device of showing you what is going to happen in the episode before it starts (it was a common device, but not one I like). Also everyone's hair is bigger in the later shows. Mark has a huge afro and mustache, Ironside looks like he's had a blow-dry and even Ed has more hair. Because the fashions are so obviously from the Seventies in these episodes, they look more dated than the Sixties' episodes where the main characters were more staid looking.

The topics covered in this weekend's episodes included; defection from the Soviet Union, vigilantes, witchcraft, and remorse over shooting a young armed robber, but the best episode was one where Ed had to bring a hitman back to San Francisco on a flight from Chicago. More screen time from the delectable Don Galloway is always welcome (he is surely the best-looking fictional policeman ever), but it was also another beautifully constructed episode. There was an urgency to get the hitman back to San Francisco as Ironside believed whoever hired him would now in turn want him killed. Sure enough this turns out to be true and Ed's task is complicated when the flight is re-directed to Reno and he is left to protect the prisoner, never really being sure who he can trust. Actually, the twist in the tale was pretty obvious but it was still well worked and there was more suspense than in your average show.

Unfortunately, this Ironside-fest won't last. It continues for the next few days, but will be over before next weekend, when there is no more Ironside at all. Next up it looks like a run on The Rockford files.

Cold Case, Cold Case, Cold Case

Today, I wasn't watching "Waking the Dead" nor "New Tricks", but that other show about cold cases, the imaginatively titled "Cold Case".

I've seen an episode or two of it before, but this afternoon I came across a new "on demand" channel that included Season 4 of Cold Case.

As I didn't have much else to do (I'd already been to the shops, repotted my tomatoes, read the newspaper and done lots of walking) I watched three episodes of it on the trot.

The first case involved high school kids in a mall massacre, the second a female Iraq war veteran and the third an urban miner. Each time the team interviewed several potential suspects, before eventually find their culprit, who each time was someone they'd already interviewed earlier.

I'm pleased I've found this series as there doesn't seem to be much else on at the moment and it is easily watchable. As the fact that I've just watched three episodes in one session illustrates.

Out with Whimper, Not a Bang: Inspector Lynley

I wasn't going to bother Inspector Lynley after the previous week's dull episode, but then I read that this was the final one. I felt compelled to watch it on the playback service. I couldn't let it finish without knowing what happened in the end.

The episode was called "Know Thine Enemy" and it involved abduction, rape and power games between husband and wife. It was mile better than the previous episode, but somehow I couldn't help feel that I'd seen it all before, probably on Law & Order SVU.

I had wondered how it would end, the show more than the actual plot. Before watching it I wondered if he might die, but as the episode progressed I thought being fired or resigning would be more likely. Then it just ended. They solved the case, justice would be served and he gave some reassuring words to Havers.

I feel cheated. I want closure as much as an American in therapy. Apparently, the BBC were getting rid of it to clear space in their schedules, although I shudder to think what new reality television torture that might be.

How TV Changed Cops

I can’t remember the last time I watched anything on Channel 4, so I was intrigued to find a documentary there last night of particular interest to this blog. It was the first in a new series on How TV Changed Britain and this episode was about cop shows.

It started with a section on Life on Mars and how many people believe a return to the Gene Hunt style of policing is what this country needs. From there, it went back through the history of the depiction of police on British television, how that affected the public’s perception of the police and what the police themselves thought of each show.

It wasn’t anything particularly intellectual and some of it wasn’t particularly accurate even (incorrectly saying Gene Hunt policed Hyde, calling Cracker a policeman and claiming Silent Witness was responsible for the rise in interest in forensics, which surely must be more down to CSI?). But it was still an interesting little history of British police shows.

Whilst Dixon of Dock Green obviously looks tame and idealistic by today’s standards, it did briefly raise an interesting point that I’d never really considered before relating to class. Being a police officer back then was very much a working class occupation and the standard portrayal of cops was largely comic, showing them as bungling. Dixon was the first wholly positive portrayal of this working class type, so although it doesn’t look particularly exceptional now, it was quite a change back then. This hadn’t occurred to me before but thinking just of Agatha Christie plots, the amateur detective (Poirot or Miss Marple) is an upper-class amateur, always getting on up on the working class police man. I would have liked the documentary to have explored this more, but it didn’t.

I also found out about a programme I’d never heard of before but that goes by the same name as later US show, Law and Order! The UK Law and Order was from the 1970s and was controversial in showing wide-spread police corruption. The real police hated it and demanded the BBC withdraw it, which they didn’t and then real life cases of corruption hit the headlines. This programme claimed that the show hit such a nerve that it forced the police to look internally and make changes.

Another interesting artefact was Police, a fly-on-wall documentary series with Thames Valley Police, again from the BBC. The police were obviously confident that they could be held up to close scrutiny and the show was initially popular with police and public alike. Then there came an episode about a rape where the interview technique the victim was subjected to was horrific - questions about whether she was on the game or (bizarrely) whether her periods were normal. This rightly caused outrage and apparently led to the police changing how they dealt with rape reports.

It was good to see the positive impact that television shows have had in the past, outside of just providing entertainment. Sadly, I feel this is happening less and less as the BBC is more concerned these days with chasing viewer figures than changing society.

Career Cases

Some actors' whole careers are defined by one role. Peter Falk has played other parts, but he is Columbo. Richard Belzer is John Munch, in a record breaking number of programmes. Others are celebrated for two roles; John Thaw was Jack Regan in The Sweeney then Morse and Raymond Burr was just as much Perry Mason as he was Ironside.

As I've mentioned before I love it when someone famous from one show turns up in another. But then there are those minor players who have appeared in a staggering number shows.

Take Richard Anderson, who appear as the father of drug-using niece in today's Ironside. He may have found success in the Bionic Woman and Six Million Dollar Man series, but his crime show CV comprises:

• Columbo
• Hawaii 5-0
• The Streets of San Francisco
• Perry Mason
• Barnaby Jones
• Charlie's Angels
• Nero Wolfe
• Knight Rider
• A Team
• Hardcastle and McCormick
• Simon & Simon
• Murder She Wrote
• and five episodes of Ironside, each time as a different character.

Then there is Robert Lipton, who played the would-be murderer in the episode "One Hour to Kill". He has appeared in the following:

• The D.A.
• The Mod Squad
• Police Story
• 21 Jump Street
• Murder She Wrote (in three episodes as different characters)
• LA Law
• The District
• Without a Trace
• and two episodes of Ironside (again as different characters)

Just by following the careers of these minor characters, I could fill up my schedule for months (if only I had access to all those old shows).

Its Family Affair: Ironside

The two episodes of Ironside I watched this morning were from Season 2, which is strange because the last episode I saw was from Season 3. Both episodes involved family members of the team, but they couldn't have been more different.

The first episode "Up, Down and Even" involved Eve's niece being arrested for drug possession. What followed was a diatribe on the dangers of drugs, but it was so dated that even the dangers didn't seem quite so dangerous. One boy sleeps a lot in class, another doesn't do athletics anymore, a group of girls skip school to lounge around giggling - I'm sure teachers and police today wish that drug problems were so innocent.

The language too was dated. Kids were being "turned on" to marijuna use, which was "groovy". One "drug fiend" even used the phrase "better living through chemistry". There was a soundtrack of ethreal beauty about lost causes including B J Baker's "Melody Man" and despite the obvious anti-drug message of the episode, it didn't seem that far away from 60's exploitation films like "The Trip".

Next episode saw a complete change of pace. "Why the Tuesday Afternoon Bridge Club Met on a Thursday" had a lighthearted feel to it in comparison with the previous episode, which is bizarre considering this episode involved a murder and the last just involved a bit of cannabis. The family member this time was Ironside's aunt, a prominent member of the Bridge Club. When one of her bridge friends disappears, the aunt suspects foul play and has Ironside investigate, but she and her cronies can't help but get involved. The husband, it turns out, has a bit of a Crippen complex, but in case we should ever find it too gruesome, there is bouncy incidental music to keep things jaunty.

Lynley returns

I watched the latest Inspector Lynley Mystery on playback last night because there really wasn't much else on.

Lynley is still foppishly good looking, but plot was still paper thin. The son of a posh family, old friends of Lynley naturally, goes missing. Fast forward 12 years (although most of them don't really look to have aged that much) and his body is found. Lynley persuades his sister to return from Rome for the funeral, and "accidentally" ends up bedding her. She is then found splattered on the pavement and our hero finds himself a suspect.

Of course, we know it wasn't him, but he has to find out who it was. Unfortunately, there is never any real sense that Lynley might really get charged with it (this is afterall the start of a new series) so there is no dramatic tension. The final "twist" whilst being fairly obvious, didn't make much sense in terms of motivation.

The 10 minute chase scene through Rome must have been great for the actors and crew but didn't add anything for the viewer. The whole thing could surely have been wrapped up in 60 minutes rather than drawn out to 90.

Song of the Week: Gram Parsons and Emmy Lou Harris "Streets of Baltimore"

Since I've watched nothing but Homicide and The Wire this week, it seems only fitting that I pick a Baltimore song.

It isn't anything to do with detectives, but like The Wire and Homicide Life on the Streets, it is about the streets of Baltimore.

And its by Gram Parsons, the acceptable face of country music, the grandfather of alt-country, the pioneer of country/rock fusions etc etc etc. Actually the older I get the more country music I like, but Gram Parsons was one of the first country-ish artists that I liked.

Cross-referencing

I take great pleasure from seeing actors I know from certain crime shows popping up in others. Law & Order is particularly good for this.

Last night in an episode of Homicide, I encountered something I like even more but that happens less frequently:

Crime shows mentioning other crime shows

In this episode, "Abduction", it is suggested that the police use a hypnotist to get more information out of a child witness. Falsone is unconvinced, but Giardello says "At this point, I'd even use that woman from Profiler".

Genius!

Homicide: The Subway

Continuing watching Homicide, we reach an episode entitled "The Subway".

This may be one of the most traumatic things I've seen on the television.

A man is pushed into the path on an oncoming subway train and is trapped between the train and the platform. He is alive but his spinal cord has been severed and he can't feel his legs. The trains needs to be lifted away from him so that he can be pulled out. But once he is moved, his heart will stop in 30 seconds and it is a 5 minute journey to the hospital. There may a million to one chance of survival, but this Homocide, it doesn't do miracles or fairytale endings.

Into this situation comes Frank Pembleton, a murder police faced with a victim who is still alive but who knows he will die soon. Bayliss interviews the suspect, Lewis searches for the victims girlfriend, but the episode is mainly a two-header with Pembleton and the dying man. The big questions about life and death have never been so urgent.

The man (played exceptionally by Vincent D'Onofrio before he was in Criminal Intent) is no simpering victim. He is angry with life, with the world, with the twist of fate that has led to this and Frank Pembleton is his friend in his last minutes.

In the past week, I've been to the theatre twice and the cinema once, yet here it has been this, on the small screen, a medium often derided as low-brow, that has left the biggest impression on me.

I read recently that the average Londoner will spend 5 years commuting during their lifetime. Travel safely.

Another Quirky Detective

I just saw an episode of Pushing Daisies. I'd not seen it before and had no idea that it featured a detective. Not just any detective, but a knitting detective by the name of Emerson Cod.

The episode was called "Smell of Success" and involved the death of a woman by the means of an exploding scratch & sniff book.

I don't mind a bit of quirky and kooky but this was too much. It was all too quirky and all too kooky and all so sickly sweet. I like things with a bit more grit.

Of course, I have been known to completely change my mind about programmes (Psych and Ironside for example) but I'm not sure it will happen with this one.

Early Morning Ironside

Despite it being Sunday and the day of rest, I woke up at 6.50 this morning and watched Ironside. Actually I'd had trouble sleeping all night so I thought I may as well capitalise on it and watch Ironside while I was awake.

Today's episode had William Shatner as the Special Guest Star. He played a criminal who was in prison after Ironside had persuaded him to turn himself in, but now his wife had been murdered, leaving his son alone. There was nothing wrong with the plot but Shatner was his usual hammy self. I don't understand how he managed to get work as an actor. This rather marred the episode for me.

I watched another episode of it yesterday morning, which was much better. Ironside was alone at home as Mark was at his evening class and Ed and Eve were at the opera. He received a threatening phone call, saying he had an hour to live (the episode was called "One Hour to Kill"). Tension was built up as the episode moved between Ironside anticipating his fate, Ed convinced something wasn't quite right and Mark struggling with some detail in his mind, trying to place its significance. There was suspense, but also a discourse on perception, guilt and the human mind.

Besides the drama, there were also moments of levity involving Ed's inability to understand opera and a pessimistic pizza maker. It really was a great episode which made it worse that it was then followed by today's Shatner ruined effort.

Tumbleweed

There have been no posts for a while because I've been very busy and unfortunately not watching much in the way of detectives. I've had a hectic time at work and I'd have liked nothing more than unwinding in front of a good murder or two, but there hasn't been much on recently. So my viewing of late has mainly consisted of rewatching The Wire and I'm not sure I've much more to say on that topic at the moment.

But we are now in possession of Season 5 of Homicide which should keep me entertained for the coming week.

Quote of the Week: PD James

What the detective story is about is not murder but the restoration of order.

P. D. James