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April 03, 2005
On hating TV
We loved the recent Miss Marple series on ABC TV, but perhaps those mostly arrogant, dim-witted detectives she triumphed over have helped give the English crime series a bad name in the UK. The Guardian suggests they’re not a patch on their American equivalents.
Heartbeat is “whimsical piffle”. The Lynley Mysteries “basically Agatha Christie-esque crimes and characters in a contemporary setting”, the lead actor Nathanial Parker “looking like an investment banker who's late for a game of squash”, and his assistant Havers “lovely but thick”.
One thing the British do so much better than the Yanks, and for that matter practically anyone in Australia, is television criticism. They basically hate the medium that feeds them, which is a good start, in our opinion. Clearly Bleeding Edge’s style springs from the same tradition. We’re quite proud of the fact that during a stint of television reviewing we did for The Australian, we managed to get ourselves banned by every commercial network.
And Sam Chisholm (we’d better not say what we think of him) tried to sue us.
By the way, we’re blogging this with BlogJet, one of those blog editors that make the housekeeping chores on sites like this a little less arduous. It seems to work well with Movable Type, although we’re probably going to have a little trouble getting things like fonts right
Posted by cw at April 3, 2005 07:10 PM
Comments
Does Andrew Bolt now write for the "Guardian". That American rubbish is one of the reasons I hardly watch television.When the American's can write and produce programs like "Last of the Summer Wine" and "One Foot In The Grave" then I might start watching television again.
Posted by: jamrob at April 3, 2005 07:42 PM
There is a problem with the whimsical English murder mysteries -- one thinks of Miss Marple and Rosemary and Thyme. It is this ...
a. most of us go through life without encountering one dead body or one murderer -- these whacky old biddies stumble across two a week at the very least
b. given the truth of a: why don't the residents of quaint English villages get the word out that Jane, Rosemary and what'shername Thyme are in town so stay indoors. Or better yet, go on holiday. Stick around and there's a fair chance that you'll be either dead or up on a muder charge.
These old busy-bodies are like malign crows, bringing murder in their wake wherever they go. One concludes that if THEY were locked up for life the English murder rate would plummet.
Observation 3: Both victims and killers in these series are toffs. Do you know when the last time was that one rich person killed another? It happens so rarely that when it does [the Wales case] it is a sensation that never ends. Murder is what the proletariat do to each other and it is rarely interesting. Just depressing.
Which means that there is some other fascination than the recreation of reality in these dozy murder yarns. What is going on? Why are Jane and Hercule, implausible as they are, still interesting?
Posted by: Apal at April 5, 2005 07:56 AM