{"id":308,"date":"2009-03-13T19:03:59","date_gmt":"2009-03-13T07:03:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/?p=308"},"modified":"2009-03-13T19:03:59","modified_gmt":"2009-03-13T07:03:59","slug":"box-watch-blue-murder-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/box-watch-blue-murder-uk\/","title":{"rendered":"Box Watch – Blue Murder (UK)"},"content":{"rendered":"

After Men Behaving Badly<\/a> and, in particular, Life Begins<\/a>, I’ll watch almost anything Caroline Quentin<\/a> appears in.<\/p>\n

Blue Murder<\/a> follows the work and life of newly promoted DCI Janine Lewis (Quentin) as she juggles the fallout from her recent marriage break-up with the full-on investigation of a brutal murder. The Goddess and I watched the first season (all of 2x60min eps) earlier in the week.<\/p>\n

\n

INT. LOUNGE – NIGHT<\/p>\n

Credits scroll upwards on a TELEVISION, WRITER and THE GODDESS on the COUCH stretching and remembering forgotten cups of tea.<\/p>\n

WRITER<\/p>\n

Um. What’d you think?<\/p>\n

THE GODDESS<\/p>\n

It was a bit... pedestrian.<\/p>\n

BEAT as our writer tries a long gulp of long-cooled english breakfast.<\/p>\n

THE GODDESS<\/p>\n

And what did you think?<\/p>\n

WRITER<\/p>\n

Eye-wateringly boring.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\nThat’s one of the many things I treasure about my relationship with The Goddess: she’s compassionate, polite and humane while I am just intolerant.<\/p>\n

Intolerant of things like —<\/p>\n

— our detective heroine being given 48 hours to clear the case or else be replaced —<\/p>\n

— our detective heroine and her team being the only cops available to respond to dramatic turns in the investigation —<\/p>\n

— and the grinding exposition, absolutely stultifying with sequences like:<\/p>\n

\n

INT. INTERVIEW ROOM, POLICE STATION – DAY<\/p>\n

DETECTIVE HEROINE and NERVOUS SUSPECT have a silent, tense moment.<\/p>\n

DETECTIVE HEROINE<\/p>\n

Why don’t you just let it all out so we can have tea and kippers?<\/p>\n

Suspect makes pained expression.<\/p>\n

NERVOUS SUSPECT<\/p>\n

Oh, alright: I’ve been holding out on you all this time.<\/p>\n

(licks lips)<\/p>\n

The gardener did it.<\/p>\n

DETECTIVE HEROINE<\/p>\n

The gardener. Right. With the electric carving knife.<\/p>\n

NERVOUS SUSPECT<\/p>\n

Yeah. To throw you off the scent.<\/p>\n

INT. CORRIDOR, POLICE STATION – SOON AFTER<\/p>\n

Detective Heroine and her MALE CHAUVINIST BOSS travel down the CORRIDOR –<\/p>\n

MALE CHAUVINIST BOSS<\/p>\n

You have forty-eight hours –<\/p>\n

DETECTIVE HEROINE<\/p>\n

Yes, you said.<\/p>\n

MALE CHAUVINIST BOSS<\/p>\n

– so you better have something to show for it.<\/p>\n

DETECTIVE HEROINE<\/p>\n

Well, actually, I just came out of an interview with Nervous Suspect.<\/p>\n

MALE CHAUVINIST BOSS<\/p>\n

Yes?<\/p>\n

DETECTIVE HEROINE<\/p>\n

And she dobbed in the gardener.<\/p>\n

MALE CHAUVINIST BOSS<\/p>\n

But an electric carving knife was used.<\/p>\n

DETECTIVE HEROINE<\/p>\n

Yes. It was to throw us off the scent.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\nBesides mentally screaming at the screen, I’m like, Whoa – I’m the audience and I was there<\/b>: you think I forgot already?<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

I certainly appreciated the portrayal of Quentin’s character trying to balance work and family. There were some moments between her team-members that entertained and spoke volumes about their personalities.<\/p>\n

Maybe I should approach this as more of a relationship drama than a procedural. Maybe things tighten up in subsequent seasons (it’s up to season five).<\/p>\n

And maybe I should get around to trying some Prime Suspect<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After Men Behaving Badly and, in particular, Life Begins, I’ll watch almost anything Caroline Quentin appears in. Blue Murder follows the work and life of newly promoted DCI Janine Lewis (Quentin) as she juggles the fallout from her recent marriage break-up with the full-on investigation of a brutal murder. The Goddess and I watched the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Box Watch – Blue Murder (UK)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[58,59],"class_list":["post-308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scriptwriting","category-television","tag-caroline-quentin","tag-life-begins"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}