9 posts tagged “cop show”

Unter Feinden—Chris

From another of my favourite shows, Alarm für Cobra 11: die Autobahnpolizei. I don’t catch up with news from this show much since it’s in Germany and DVDs are pricey, so I treat myself sparingly and read fan sites. I still haven’t got my head round them killing off Tom (René Steinke), one of the stars, and I learned today they killed off Chris (his replacement, played by Gedeon Burkhard) at the end of the last season. (Context for non-European readers: this would be akin to making Lethal Weapon and killing off Mel Gibson.)
   The idea is to give the show more dramatic depth in the face of imported shows such as CSI, which is a hit in Germany—Cobra 11 had a reputation for being big on action but light on plot. Probably the sign of the times, and the show has run for nearly 12 years, so the change is welcome to most German viewers—though it makes it harder for people me whose German is really, really basic.
   Star Erdogan Atalay, playing Semir Gershan, is becoming Dirty Harry with all his partners dying … you’d think they were hosting Stars in Their Eyes …

I’ve rewatched the Life on Mars American pilot (the one which will not air) and it’s improved slightly on a second viewing, but not much. Some general comments:

Colm Meaney as Capt Gene Hunt

• Colm Meaney as Capt Gene Hunt: Meaney is a terrific actor—he was brilliant in Layer Cake—and I thought he would bring that sort of demeanour to his Gene Genie. But apart from the orientation scene when he tells Sam it’s 1972, and threatening a witness, he’s plain nice. Even though he knows Sam claims he’s from 2007, he asks him nicely to interview a witness. He also doesn’t smoke, there’s no hint of him being the high sheriff of his domain, nor is there any hint of racism or homophobia. I had hoped he would evoke John Wayne in McQ or Gene Hackman’s Popeye Doyle but the man is given no room to be a “licensed hood” in the script. He’s certainly not ‘an overweight, over-the-hill, nicotime-stained borderline alcoholic homophobe with a superiority complex and an unhealthy obsession with male bonding’ as was described in the original series;
• Jason O’Mara as Det Sam Tyler: rigid, and never feeling that much confusion over being back in 1972. With John Simm, we felt a sense of disorientation, but we don’t with O’Mara’s performance. O’Mara is a great leading man but shows none of the vulnerability here that I think the Sam Tyler role needs. I don’t know much of his work, but I believe he has that Celtic edge that’s needed to pull off the role well—but he needs better direction;
• 

  Rachelle Lefevre as Det Annie Cartwright
  Rachelle Lefèvre as Det Annie Cartwright: playing the straight woman to Sam Tyler, it’s not hard to see why she was cast first by David E. Kelley. Her performance is about the only one I would rate highly, and it’s on a par with Liz White’s PW Annie Cartwright without being an attempt at copying her. Although her publicity shots are rather glamorous, the Rachelle Lefèvre in the programme looks more down-to-earth and real. Perfect.

   My other comments about the overall storyline in the earlier post stand. It is missing something in the first half, but the second half and, in particular, the last act where Sam is in the diner to the rooftop scene with Annie are quite well done.

Rachelle Lefevre and Jason O’Mara in Life on Mars (unaired pilot)

   It’s still mostly inconceivable that everyone in the department knows Sam thinks he’s from the future, yet no one throws him into the funny farm. There’s a veiled threat, not much more. The story lacks humour and there is little “how far we have come” about it other than in technology and location—the social commentary seems to have disappeared for a straight twenty-first-century cop show that just happens to be set in 1972. There is only one sexist line—but in a 1972 police department, one would expect much more misogyny. Heck, there was more in The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
   I normally complain about network tinkering, but in this case I think it’s needed. I just hope the remake of the remake fixes the problems in Kelley’s Life on Mars, as some network types tend to worsen things. Simply having more dialogue with the creators—Graham, Pharoah and Jordan—might help, rather than the two hours Kelley reportedly spent. Even The Office in the US had the hand of Gervais and Merchant. Life on Mars needs help, because, put simply, it lacks life.

Life on Mars US

US Life on Mars looks like it’s in some sort of Hollywood hell, because of all the back-room deals that have gone on. The only new drama from ABC TV in the US this fall, there’s a lot riding on it. The pilot was already made, but now the network wants to tinker. David E. Kelley, who wrote the adaptation and executive-produced it, has departed. In fact, there’s talk of scrapping the pilot and starting from scratch, shifting the story from Los Angeles to New York. Somehow it’s all got to work out before the series débuts.
   Scott Collins of the Los Angeles Times tries to summarize what has been going on and it looks like a mess. One excerpt:

The network and producers are talking about tossing out the pilot and starting over. Or not; maybe they’ll just tweak a few details. Some of the actors might get canned. Not necessarily, though. One thing we know for sure: Over the last few days, the decision was made to move the series out of Los Angeles—in both its setting and its production—to shoot on location in New York City, giving it a very different look.

   What I thought was funny was that the network felt Kelley departed too much from the original.
   I do agree that New York is a better venue for the show; I always felt Seattle would have suited the theme more. But if they are retooling the show before the première, they had better work fast.

Ian Wylie, one of the journalists championing Ashes to Ashes, points out on his blog that a fan called Wibble refers to the figure on the lower left of the mural in Luigi’s trattoria. Spooky as heck.

So, was anyone bored waiting for something good to happen on Ashes to Ashes on Thursday night?
   I don’t think I have memories of Life on Mars that are filtered-out versions, without all the dull moments on that show. It just held my attention better: the whole mystery element about where Sam was, the romance with him and Annie, the fond memories I had of 1970s cop shows. All these are missing in the 1981 context of Ashes.
   Here we have DCI Gene Hunt a pale shadow of his former self. He may have had a few memorable lines (referring to the consummation of the marriage of Lady Diana Spencer to HRH Prince Charles as the ‘twanging of the royal hymen’) but none that I wanted to learn. Where were the moments such as raising the fingers to children from an ice-cream van or politically incorrect racist or homophobic terms?
   I know he is meant to have mellowed out in a post-Sam Tyler world, and that makes some sense, but I’m just not as entertained.
   The only character that seems to have developed better is DC Chris Skelton, who gets more lines and more humour.
   We have more scenes now that do not take place when Alex is present, which is another clue that her experiences are different from those of Sam.
   Which brings me to Alex Drake. I liked her in episode 1, when she proved to be a capable modern-day copper, thrown initially into 1981 and understandably confused by her new world. In episode 2, she seems more relaxed by her surroundings, no surprise—but goes around like a smart-arsed know-it-all. It’s not a clever self-awareness as Danny had in The Last Action Hero. I didn’t have fun like I did there.
   The scenes with Alex’s mother were not great as I doubt I would be such a cow toward someone I hadn’t seen in 27 years.
   I know there are all these meanings about our creating our own reality in this show, and obviously Alex has a few childhood problems, but at least Sam never crossed swords with his parents—with the exception of the confrontation leading up to letting his Dad go in episode 8.
   I realize that Alex Drake is not the regeneration of Sam Tyler à la Doctor Who, but I am not warming to her.
   And I really, really didn’t want to join the negative reviewers in the pre-début phase, but it seems I must.
   I will keep watching as there is still nothing better, and self-parody is part of this postmodern world, but please give us stronger and more realistic characters.
   Summary: Gene Lite is just not as fun.

The Murdoch Press—The Times, anyway—is putting forth a contrary viewpoint to all the hype around Ashes to Ashes, by journalist Caitlan Moran.
   And I think she has a point.
   In summary, Moran feels that Ashes to Ashes has reached some level of self-parody. The star is now undeniably Gene Hunt, which, as I put forth in the comments, must be akin to the Fonz getting top billing in Happy Days after Richie left.
   Richie is Sam Tyler in this context.
   Moran, who has seen the première, or pilot, writes:

It’s not Phil Glenister’s fault – he continues to play Hunt with malicious, controlled glee. The problem is with the show itself. It has lost its innocence. It’s gone from being a little bit in love with Hunt – as any rational programme would be – to borderline stalking him. Every Hunt entrance is a “Hero Shot” – slow pans, moody lighting, orchestral upswell. Every scene is waiting for Hunt to enter, or animate, or conclude it. The show will give him anything he wants – machineguns, a speedboat, a ludicrous plot resolution.

   My remaining concern is whether we are as fond of the 1970s as we are of the 1980s. The cop show—what Americans call police procedurals now, in an effort to differentiate from English English*—probably reached a zenith in the 1970s in the UK, with shows such as The Sweeney (the sort-of inspiration for Life on Mars) and The Professionals (which was designed to compete with The Sweeney). In this context, The Sweeney is the Gospel of Matthew, and the last season of Special Branch with George Sewell was the Book of Malachi.
   But I am not sure if we are as fond of the next decade because we missed these dark, gritty shows. Dempsey and Makepeace and Cat’s Eyes are loved only by fans of the genre. Putting Gene Hunt into this world means the show must centre around him and the evolution of his character in a new decade, full of bright colours and later, pastel shades. Ashes to Ashes cannot be a homage to anything actually from the 1980s even if Moonlighting had been cited in an early press release—to all intents and purposes it can only be a homage to Life on Mars.
   Nevertheless, I am looking forward to the new show, because it presents an opportunity for fans to ask a new set of questions. Or at least I hope we can.
   As Life on Mars neared the end of its run in 2007, there were numerous speculations on what actually happened to Sam Tyler. Some argued that 1973 was Purgatory. Another theory was that Sam Tyler leapt into the body of a 1973 cop called Sam Williams while in a coma. He would wake up, someone else said, and find that Annie Cartwright was actually his nurse and they would fall in love and get married. And a lot more pointed out the Wizard of Oz references. 
   Scriptwriter Matthew Graham put that all to rest when he said, yes, Sam’s in a coma and he killed himself to get to his idea of Heaven, which features Gene Hunt, Ray and Chris, and, most importantly, Annie Cartwright. No other explanation is canon.
   Are we to accept that it’s so elegantly simple?
   Maybe yes, since this is just a TV show, but Graham and co-creator Ashley Pharoah say they want to explore the ‘mythology’ of Gene Hunt.
   The press kits are essentially saying that DI Alex Drake has imagined 1981 and the gang because she read Sam Tyler’s case file and developed an obsession over it.
   It just seems too simple, if it is written as cleverly as the original. I can’t imagine watching Ashes to Ashes and not having the same questions about: what is this time period? Who is Gene Hunt? And I would hope that Graham, Pharoah, Chris Chibnall and whomever else is writing would explore the “why” element of all of this than leave us without pondering what has happened to Alex Drake.
   If this is all—if Hunt is a psychological manifestation of a tumour or the bullet in Alex’s head—then we approach Ashes to Ashes backwards. Last time, seven million of us watched the finalé because we wanted answers. This time we approach the show knowing the answer first. And there goes one major element of why we watched the original.

* The Brits I hung out with for drinkies last night had never heard of the term police procedural.

The clips are coming! Two on YouTube of any note for the new series Ashes to Ashes.
   The fact that Alex Drake is aware of what happened in Life on Mars is going to make for some very interesting self-referential moments. It’s looking good!
   The first promo is only 40 seconds long, so if you don’t want to see the beginning of a TV show, you can stop after that. The second is part of the scene where DI Alex Drake (Keeley Hawes) arrives in July 1981.

From this week’s Life on Mars in the UK, a line beautifully delivered by John Simm:

Listen to me. I can just about handle you, driving like a pissed-up crackhead and treating women like beanbags, but I'm going to say this once and once only, Gene: stay out of Camberwick Green!

Last year’s Irving Rhames starrer, Kojak, has been airing in New Zealand for a few weeks. It shows how the 1970s’ cop-show format isn’t totally for the 2000s, with maybe the exception of USA Network’s Monk, in an age of CSIs. But each time I am reminded of it, I tell the same joke (apologies to Billy T. James):

—Did you hear that Ving Rhames’ salary for Kojak is substantially higher than that of Telly Savalas’s, when adjusted for inflation?
—Really?
—Yep, costs more for a colour Telly.

   I used to tell it with a slight variation using myself as the example.
   But the new series doesn’t really work for me. I still think of Kojak as a Greek guy, having grown up in a Greek neighbourhood, and I think it needs someone who looks like the late George Savalas (a.k.a. Demosthenes) as Stavros. And I still think of Simon Templar as a Chinese guy, and he doesn’t look a thing like Val Kilmer.
   Funny how race colours your impressions. (Pun initially not intended, but it works.)