Jaygee’s Immutable First Law of TV states that nearly all great long-running shows either start to repeat themselves or just get more and more absurdly convoluted in terms of their plots.
Dexter with Michael C Hall would be an excellent example of a once-promising series from the US that did both. From what the one episode I’ve seen of Line of Duty S6, the same seems to be happening to Line of Duty. Having set the bar for UK cop shows in the Tweenies (or whatever the fuck the years after 2010 are called). the show should have pulled the plug at the end of its fourth season when it was at the top of its game.
While I will binge the remainder of LofD S6, I’ll do so with a far lower expectations than before. For me, the best thing that the underwhelming first episode did was to motivate me to dig out my DVDs of GF Newman’s superb Between The Lines. An early 90s successor to the same writer’s earlier Law and Order, BTL starred – among others – the excellent Neil Pearson and the late Tony (none more slimy) Doyle.
If you’ve not seen it, the show is – like LofD – about cops investigating cops and was for the first two of its three seasons (Jaygee’s Law again!) absolutely must-see TV. In addition to tautly structured storylines, you also get the fun of playing spot the emerging star – the splendid Roger Allam and the late Pete Postlethwaite being just two excellent examples.
The good news for those of you who haven’t seen the show before is that almost every episode of BTL is on YT and in reasonably high quality. So if you love intelligently written cop shows and itching for something to watch in the run up to and over the easter holidays, BTL S1 and S2 are definitely worth a whirl.
IMDB precis is below
This show is set in the Complaints Investigation Bureau (C.I.B.), the department responsible for investigating other police officers, of London’s Metropolitan Police [the British counterpart to the Internal Affairs Bureau (I.A.B.) of a U.S. city’s police force]. The first two seasons had stories based around various different aspects of the darker side of the police, ranging from such topics as petty corruption, racism, and sexual harassment through to grand conspiracy, with some plot threads running through the season over several episodes. The series also dealt with the personal lives of it’s less-than-clean-cut characters, particularly the womanizing lead character Tony Clark, and is also notable for its inclusion of a lesbian character in a major role. In the third and final season, the focus changed significantly, moving away from the police force to other areas of security and espionage. Written by
Thought this was great at the time. I might have a look at YouTube
Seen the first couple and think it’s held up quite well.
BBC4 begin a rerun tonight starting at 10pm, just after LoD finishes, with the first two episodes.
I’m glad you mentioned this: I also liked BtL a lot. Being by GF Newman, it reflected its cultural moment by being more pointedly political ( themes of state corruption and surveillance, the decline of the left, etc.) than LoD is prepared to be, where the root problem has generally been ‘OCG’: I remember an episode with Grange Hill’s Bullet Baxter ( Michael Cronin) as a tinpot fascist, obviously based on the hateful John Tyndall. But the third season wasn’t nearly as good.
I’m a big fan of GF Newman’s The Corrupted On Radio 4.
This was a high point of British TV drama, and enjoyed catching reruns on Drama channel about three years back. They made a big mistake with third series moving Clark out of the police force; it turned into a run of the mill yarn about arms dealing and lost all the nuance and moral complexity that had made it so interesting.