Two short seasoned shows, continued

[selenak]

Scott & Bailey, season 2: still highly enjoyable. Also, as promised, new characters - the DSI from Bristol (Julie?) is distinctly flirting with Gill Murray every time she shows up, methinks. Scary Mary is graduated from the Albert Rosenfied school of snarky pathologists, though I must say Albert would not have made that mistake about the time of death in one of the early eps.

In this season, Rachel doesn't have a catastrophic love life; Janet does instead. Though both her husband and her stalkery boyfriend have the occasional scene where you can see why she ever got involved with them to begin with, so that's less of a problem than Nick last season. It's also the season where we meet the families; Janet's mother, Rachel's sister and brother. In absentia (i.e. talked about, but not yet shown) Rachel's mother.

One of the differences between American and British tv: on this show, no one has daddy issues (so far). I mean, I love Christine Cagney, Debra Morgan and Kate Lockley, but it almost became a rule that if you are a female cop on an American tv show, your father was a cop as well, you have severely dysfunctional relationship with him and feel the horrible need to prove yourself because of him. So Rachel (nor, for that matter any of the other coppers as far as season 2 tells) not having that problem feels very refreshing. Instead, Rachel has mummy issues, and her older sister even more so, which, considering their mother left them and dumped the care of Rachel and her brother on her teenage oldest daughter, is understandable. Rachel's younger brother is a screw-up but not in a way that makes you wonder why Rachel hasn't disowned him yet, so, again, improvement over the glaringly obvious jerkitude of Nick from last season in terms of emotional logistics. Also, Rachel's love interest for the season, childhood pal Sean, is a character to whom the "golden retriever" description fandom sometimes uses for Thor in the Marvel films actually applies. Meaning he's an endearing big puppy, very loyal and cheerful and always eager to help out, but also none too bright, so I'm not sure whether this has a future.

At any rate, the core relationship are between Rachel, Janet and their boss (who in terms of screentime deserves to be in the title - does anyone know why it's not called Scott, Bailey & Murray?), and their scenes are golden, so it continues to be a very watchable show.


Haven: various comments made me curious, so I marathoned the first season of this show, which is loosely based on a Stephen King story and thus set in Maine. (Did I mention that when I visited the state with my Aged Parents, they couldn't understand why I kept waiting for dire events to happen?) The special effects are on a pair with British tv shows in the 70s or Sanctuary, and the cases are sometimes extremely clumsily written (in the episode where Duke goes from almost dying to being saved, I don't think we were ever given a genuine reason to his recovery, for example), but the leading trio of Audrey the caustic FBI agent, Nathan the brooding local detective, her partner, and Duke the rogue-with-a-heart smuggler have immense charm, and I can see why everyone who pitched the show to me swore this is one that qualifies for an OT3. One of the conditions for an OT3 is that everyone needs to have a connection to everyone else, not just both B and C to A, and this is certainly the case here. A lot of the character ensemble has the familiarity of a well worn pair of slippers (I don't mean that critically, well worn pairs of slippers are comfy!) - so naturally Nathan and his father the sheriff have issues (see: American tv and daddy issues, observation from above), naturally the local Reverend is bigotted and power hungry (in any given Stephen King story, it's a 99% safe bet that a Reverend/fanatical preacher type is Up To No Good - someone really, really loathes specifically tv evangelists, too). But in the way Audrey is able to help a lot of the Haven mutants troubled people instead of them ending up dead, there is a charming optimism here as well. Oh, and the King injokes are great if you've read a few books of the man. My favourite so far was Audrey being given the novel Misery Unchained for her birthday. (A first edition signed by the author "before he got his foot cut off by that woman". Note "cut off", as in the book, not hobbled/smashed, as in the film.) Haven thus being firmly anchored in the same universe like most of the King novels makes it ideal for crossovers, and not just with King-based tales; clearly, Helen Magnus must have visited this town a couple of times, among others. And I can definitely see Audrey and Emma Swan going out for a drink and exchanging views on coming to towns full of fairy tale characters weirdness which as it turns out you have a deep connection to.

I wouldn't call it must-see tv, but it's nice to relax with.

Comments

[lilacsigil]

The "dad was a cop" rule being broken in Criminal Minds was something I really enjoyed back when the show was good - Prentiss was from a well-travelled, well-educated, highly connected background due to her ambassador mother; JJ had motivation to do with being from a small town and about her sister; Garcia never mentioned her biological father but had a loving mother and step-father who were killed in an accident long before the show. Elle was the only one with father-as-cop motivation.

[kalypso]

Aargh, I just changed my Gill Murray icon, but I'll change it back to give you Dodson & Murray, which someone ought to make as a prequel. (A lot of us ship them!) You can see the new one when you've watched season three.

I think Julie Dodson was a DCI, ie same rank as Gill Murray (and Gene Hunt), in the second season, though she comes back as a DSI this year. Can't remember anything about Bristol, though it was a year ago that I saw it - she was running another team in Manchester then, I think.

[selenak]

Bristol is where we first meet her, when Gill Murray and Rachel go there. And hey, a prequel movie featuring them sounds like fun!

Between Life on Mars and this show, Manchester starts to rival London as a center of tv crime. :)

[legionseagle]

Oxford, of course, holds the crown as the most crime-ridden identifiable place in fiction.

[kalypso]

Oh yes, I dimly remember the road trip. Dodson must have transferred up here later in the series.

No, wait a minute, all the online guides I can find say that in series 2 Pippa Haywood was in episodes 1 and 2 (the burned man) and episode 8 (when Rachel's accused of the spoilery crime). But the trip to Bristol was in episode 3 (revisiting the case of the long-imprisoned serial killer). So I think she's based in Manchester all along. (I also have a feeling that the hapless Kevin was originally on her team, and she managed to throw him out which is why he ended up with Murray & co.)

Between Life on Mars and this show, Manchester starts to rival London as a center of tv crime.

And earlier we had Cracker, some of which was filmed very near my house.

[greenygal]

Haven! I love Haven. Mostly because it has OT3 written all over it in shiny sparkly letters (okay, Duke and Nathan have some issues they need to resolve, but then there has to be some reason they're not all having happy sex yet), but also because for all the clumsiness of the case-of-the-day plots--yes, we're going to lock you in your house for the rest of your life, this is a great idea!--the arc plot is going somewhere. The creators totally know what is up with Haven and Audrey and the others and what all the backstory is (or if they don't, they're doing an amazing job of faking) and I am really hoping that they have a planned story arc that they'll be allowed to complete.