It's a crime (drama) again.

Recently, I feel like I’ve been binging on Crime dramas. Is it that time of year…

From the wrong side of the law perspective, I watched the new Minder (4th February 2009 Five) last night on Sky Plus. I had heard some of the reviewers which weren’t that keen. Why produce a remake and George Cole had said it was a programme for the eighties and didn’t have the same relevance now. Though with the credit crunch so maybe the remake will be more relevant than we first thought. The new version wasn’t the most gripping drama in the world and it was light and fluffy, but it was entertaining when you’re just winding down and don’t want anything too deep. Maybe, I’ll watch another ‘new’ Minder when I’m chilling, but not sure if it will be something I’ll want to become a regular viewer of. The ‘new’ Minder with Shane Richie as Archie Daley, Arthur Daley’s nephew, and Lex Shrapnel as Archie’s ’minder’ Jamie Cartwright, moved quickly to establish the partnership between the two men, but Archie and his new minder are too much like each other. Shane Richie looks like he could look after himself if he could be bothered and Jamie felt, at times, like he has come out of Kill Bill because he had to be extreme to make us believe he was the perfect minder for Archie. The thing about the original was that as a viewer you felt that Arthur was vunerable and you didn’t mind the petty stuff, but felt on his side when he got dragged into the more dangerous and heavy crime stuff. ‘Lovable rogues’ comes to mind and this is really the concept behind the new Minder, which might mean it still has some appeal as a concept. Someone mentioned that Arthur Daley was built on George Cole’s Flash Harry character in St Trinians. So why didn’t Five cast Russell Brand as the new Daley character. Now that would have been a different Minder from the original.

In contrast, I watched Moses Jones on Monday (2nd February 2009, BBC 2) and that was really gripping, but you couldn’t miss a minute and had to concentrate on every line. This was clearly heavy stuff and like most of these kind of dramas you’re not spared the gruesome visual images of damaged bodies. I shall certainly be watching Moses Jones again and it will be one of my regular Police/Crime/Murder Mysteries dramas along with Trial and Retribution, Midsommer Murders etc. I liked the relationship between Jones and his sidekick (Matt Smith, the new Doctor Who). Will we get fed up with Matt Smith though, if we are exposed to the hair and cheekbones too much before he gets to the Doctor Who moment.

I was disappointed when I read that Wire in the Blood wasn’t coming back, that was a programme that I really enjoyed. This was a programme that like Prime Suspect pushed boundaries in terms of the evidence of real evil that could be shown on the screen. In many ways, I don’t need to see all the blood and rotting bodies, what I liked was Robson Green’s portrayal of Tony Hill and that he didn’t always act as we would expect a police psychologist to act. It was the quirkiness in the character that was attractive and Green had the perfect looks for the part. There was the love aspect – won’t they will they which might never be resolved in the TV programme now.

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Richard III (ITV 1, Coronation Street, 6th February 2009)

Carla said during the episode of Coronation Street last night: “The lady protest too much. Methinks.” So there is a Hamlet connection. As the programme developed the storyline, it wasn’t Hamlet that I felt it was alluding to but Richard III. As the evil Tony admits to his murders and then tries to bare his chest so Carla could stab him. This storyline should have ended last night, but it drags on for another week. I’ve just watched a teary graveside preview from next Wednesday in the ITV i player. Please no more now – wrap it up and let’s move on.

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Snow snow snow

It’s going to snow again tomorrow and we’ve all be warned about the weather. It was icy this morning, but I could walk on it. I worry when the children are going to school they’ll make slides then it becomes very slippy on the paths.

I’m sure it snowed much worse than this when we were kids. I remember it being much colder and it felt like it snowed all winter. It was great to go out sledging down Low Moor and as a kid I loved those slides which I dread now. It reminded me of the Gladys Knight and the Pips song:

Why does it always seem the past is better
We look back and think
The winters were warmer
The grass was greener
The skies were bluer
The smiles were brighter

Ahh the winters were warmer in the good old past, but I am thinking they were colder and harsher. Maybe then they weren’t the good old days.

Yes it was rather stressful looking at the weather forecast and thinking ‘oh no I’ll be late for work’ and snow would not be an excuse for lateness.

We’ll see how it is tomorrow.. could take some photos!! The BBC web site has got some really fantastic photographs on at the moment.

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Is Carla Emilia? (ITV1, Coronation Street, 4th February 2009)

Ok I said I was getting a little fed up with the ‘Tony is a murderer’ Coronation Street story line yesterday, but it was a great cliff hanger tonight. Just like Emilia in Othello, Carla is out to expose her husband for the rat he is. We all know what happened in Othello, so a cliff hanger where Carla is put in danger as Tony sends the ‘you lot’ home and locks the factory is one which leaves us wondering and wishing that this was a recording and we could watch the next episode in a few minutes time. Roll on Friday to see what happens.

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The Writer's Tale

I have just been reading Russell Davies’ The Writer’s Tale. The book is about the conception and filming of Series 4 of Doctor Who. So a very heavy hardback, with lots of delicious photographs of the programme and behind the scenes stuff, as well as snippets of scripts. Written in an epistolatory style, it uses emails and texts instead of letters and is a correspondence between Russell T Davies and a journalist, Ben Cook. As I read I felt like I was following a private conversation, but I am sure nothing was disclosed that I wasn’t meant to know.

Reading the book, made me realise that the marketing strategy for the programme relied so much on withholding and cliff hangers. This technique isn’t just in the episodes themselves but in narrative constructed around the programme, such as the personal narrative working on the programme. Is David Tennant doing another series or not. I found it enormously enjoyable, both for the writing and the beautiful images. Reading and viewing was strangely and satisfyingly voyeuristic.

It was attracted to the fragmented style of the book. I moved from email to text, looked at images which weren’t directly always related to what was written on the page. It made me think that writing and reading is a changing experience with new technology. I was also thinking, that at home, I hardly use Word anymore, because there are so many other ways to write – this blog for example.

As I write, I’m watching a repeat of episode 1 of series 4 on Sky + and I can now read the programme in different ways because I have read Davies’s book. I know, for example, why the reporter is called Penny and where the title, Partners in Crime’ came from. Sarah Lancashire is great, overacting beautifully as the nanny from outer space and Catherine Tate’s Donna is just spot on, as the Doctor’s companion who isn’t going to fall in love with him in episode 2.

Davies, Russell T. (2008) The Writer’s Tale London: BBC Books
Doctor Who Series 4.1

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