Of English Matters
Jul. 31st, 2007 02:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakLife is good to me: next week I'll be in London from Monday till Friday. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kangeiko, londonkds, kathyh, rozk, I hope to meet you all!
Also, I've been watching the first season of Between the Lines, a showlondonkds recommended. From the early 90s, centred around a team in the Complaints Investigation Bureau (CIB) at Scotland Yard, which has the job of investigating misconduct by other policemen. It's excellent, as noir and shades of grey as the premise promises. Watching it, though, one thing struck me that might simply be a different way of narrating when compared to some other shows whose first season I've seen this last year - Dexter, for example. (Heroes is too different a promise and too widespread an ensemble show to compare.) One of the qualities I loved about Dexter was that we didn't just know how everyone in that police station in Miami related to Dexter but how they related to each other. How Doakes and La Guerta were old partners, how Angel was basically everyone's friend but hid his disintegrating marriage, how Doakes developed a gruff regard for Deb and Deb and La Guerta had tension to the max, and so on. Whereas in Between the Lines, you have in the pilot the leading man, Tony Clark, being more or less drafted into CIB. The other two members of the team, Harry and Maureen, have already been there for ages. So has their superior, Chief Superintendent Deakin. But there is no sense on what kind of relationship Maureen and Harry have with each other, and not until the very last episode of the season, when it's important to the plot, do we find out what either of them thinks of Deakin. We know these people strictly in the way they relate to Tony Clark and do their job, and I find myself missing those other dimensions.
Mind you, this doesn't make the show less interesting. Each of the cases the team investigates doesn't have an easy solution, and there is an ongoing arc through the season, case-wise, which pays off in the finale. Of the regulars, I liked Maureen best; smart, competent, and as opposed to Tony Clark, who is something of a chronic adulterer, not falling for people trying to distract/bribe her with sex. All the actors are good, but I think Siobhan Redmond, who plays Maureen, either gets the best lines or has a way of making hers sound like that.
kangeiko, londonkds, kathyh, rozk, I hope to meet you all!Also, I've been watching the first season of Between the Lines, a show
londonkds recommended. From the early 90s, centred around a team in the Complaints Investigation Bureau (CIB) at Scotland Yard, which has the job of investigating misconduct by other policemen. It's excellent, as noir and shades of grey as the premise promises. Watching it, though, one thing struck me that might simply be a different way of narrating when compared to some other shows whose first season I've seen this last year - Dexter, for example. (Heroes is too different a promise and too widespread an ensemble show to compare.) One of the qualities I loved about Dexter was that we didn't just know how everyone in that police station in Miami related to Dexter but how they related to each other. How Doakes and La Guerta were old partners, how Angel was basically everyone's friend but hid his disintegrating marriage, how Doakes developed a gruff regard for Deb and Deb and La Guerta had tension to the max, and so on. Whereas in Between the Lines, you have in the pilot the leading man, Tony Clark, being more or less drafted into CIB. The other two members of the team, Harry and Maureen, have already been there for ages. So has their superior, Chief Superintendent Deakin. But there is no sense on what kind of relationship Maureen and Harry have with each other, and not until the very last episode of the season, when it's important to the plot, do we find out what either of them thinks of Deakin. We know these people strictly in the way they relate to Tony Clark and do their job, and I find myself missing those other dimensions.Mind you, this doesn't make the show less interesting. Each of the cases the team investigates doesn't have an easy solution, and there is an ongoing arc through the season, case-wise, which pays off in the finale. Of the regulars, I liked Maureen best; smart, competent, and as opposed to Tony Clark, who is something of a chronic adulterer, not falling for people trying to distract/bribe her with sex. All the actors are good, but I think Siobhan Redmond, who plays Maureen, either gets the best lines or has a way of making hers sound like that.
