#oneaday Day 537: Old dogs

Since I've exhausted both Death in Paradise and its spin-off series Beyond Paradise for the moment, I was looking for a new "detective" show to watch. I considered the other Death in Paradise spinoff, Return to Paradise, but thought I fancied something a bit different. And BBC iPlayer was certainly keen to provide suggestions.

I settled on a show called New Tricks, which I hadn't heard of before, but which apparently first aired all the way back in 2003, and concluded its complete run in 2015. I've watched two episodes so far, and while it's a very different sort of show to Death in Paradise and Return to Paradise, I've enjoyed what I've seen so far.

New Tricks (at least initially) follows the semi-disgraced Detective Superintendent Sandra Pullman (Amanda Redman) of the Metropolitan Police who, after a botched hostage rescue in which she shot a dog and the person she was supposed to be rescuing flung himself out of a window, paralysing himself when he landed on a car several storeys below, has been placed in charge of the fictional "Unsolved Crime and Open Case Squad", or UCOS. This is a branch of the Met specifically tasked with re-investigating unsolved "cold cases", with the officer in charge, initially Pullman, charged with wrangling a small group of retired former officers in the hope of their insights being able to put the various cases to bed once and for all.

Conceptually, it's a tad silly, particularly since the initial lineup of old men all initially appear to be somewhat comedic caricatures. There's Brian Lane (Alun Armstrong), who struggles with severe mental health issues and an obsession over the case that ended his career on the force; there's Jack Halford (James Bolam), who talks to his dead wife when no-one else is around, but is otherwise the most well-grounded of the bunch; and there's Gerry Standing (Dennis Waterman, the only constant member of the cast throughout the entire run of the show), who is a bit of a geezer and a "naughty boy", in his words, with a string of failed marriages behind him and a somewhat unorthodox approach to following the rules. The characters are all introduced as each having their own sort of "thing" that defines them, but just the initial two episodes shows that there's clearly potential for some interesting character work going on.

What I've found quite fun about New Tricks so far is that it blends quite a few disparate elements and comes out feeling quite coherent. There's the obvious conflict between Pullman being a modern police officer (by 2003 standards, anyway) — and a woman, at that — and these retired former officers, all of whom are set in their ways to varying degrees. And then there's the friction between the private lives of all the characters and their professional responsibilities. The show is, on the whole, somewhat on the "gritty" side, with the struggles the various characters encounter all being somewhat realistic and relatable rather than the easily resolved fluff or material for comic relief that the Paradise series tended to favour, but there's also plenty of comedy inherent in the whole situation — particularly when Pullman shows herself to be the sort of woman who takes absolutely no shit from anyone.

The fact that the show premiered in 2003 with a 90-minute pilot before going into full production in 2004 is an interesting consideration, too. In some respects, the way the show is presented makes it clear it's from a different time — and while I try not to think of 2004 as being too much "of a different time" to right now, the fact is, it was over 20 years ago — and it's quite pleasant to return to that world. I'm not talking thematically or in terms of societal norms displayed in the show, obviously, but rather literally the way it is presented. It has a theme song, for Heaven's sake, and one sung by one of the cast members (Waterman), at that! What was the last show you watched that had a full-on theme song — and, more to the point, one that had been specifically composed to include the show's title as part of its lyrics?

Anyway, that's about all I want to say about it for the moment. I'm looking forward to getting to know the series a bit better. I'd actually never heard of it before, somehow, but I guess if it ran for twelve seasons, it must have had something to it, no?

Or, to put it another way: it's all right. It's okay!

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#oneaday Day 379: I watched A Good Girl's Guide to Murder

After enjoying Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators recently, I found myself hankering after another murder mystery type thing, and BBC iPlayer was good enough to recommend a show called A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, which sounded intriguing. I hadn't heard of the show before but I liked the premise and it sounded like an interesting contrast to the somewhat comedic tone of Shakespeare & Hathaway, so I took a chance on it.

A couple of days later, I've finished watching the full series of six episodes, and I really enjoyed it, so I thought I'd talk about it a bit today.

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder is apparently based on a novel of the same name by Holly Jackson. Specifically, it's an adaptation of the first novel in a series of three and a bit — I say this because the last one is described as a "novella" rather than a "novel" — and it looks as if the show has been renewed for a second season, so presumably the plan, long-term, is to adapt the whole series.

The premise of the show is that A-grade and possibly autistic student Pip is preparing for university admissions, and part of this process involves the preparation of an "EPQ" — an Extended Project Qualification, which some students in England and Wales do to add to their "UCAS Points" total. I'd never heard of this, as it was introduced after my time in the classroom as both student and teacher, but apparently it adds up to about half an A-level points-wise. But I digress.

Pip decides to do her EPQ on a notorious local incident in which a young woman named Andie Bell went missing and was assumed to have been murdered, but her body was never found. Her boyfriend at the time, Sal Singh, was assumed to be the murderer because he was found to have committed suicide shortly after Andie went missing, but something didn't seem right to Pip. She starts investigating and — spoilers, I guess — eventually brings the full truth of the situation to light, though not without encountering numerous roadblocks and a lot of soul-searching along the way.

Being a 17 year old girl, Pip doesn't go about her investigation as a policeman or private detective would. Instead, she engages in the sort of subterfuge only a teenage girl is capable of, aided and abetted in most circumstances by Sal's brother Ravi, who also has doubts about whether his brother was really a murderer. Over the course of the series, she breaks into houses, steals evidence, attends illicit raves, puts herself in mortal peril on multiple occasions and somehow manages to survive the whole experience.

It's very much a "suspension of disbelief" kind of show, because a lot of things just sort of seem to work out quite conveniently for Pip, and there are several instances where she almost gets caught and could quite clearly have been collared after the fact, but manages to escape any real consequences. But once you're immersed in the show, none of this really matters, because it's a really fun ride; you root for the plucky Pip as she repeatedly gets into things well over her head, and come out cheering for her when she finally manages to uncover something missed when the case was originally investigated.

Part of Pip not suffering any real consequences for the things she does stems from the "Good Girl" part of the title; Pip is renowned as a good girl, a straight-A student and someone who has always been well-behaved and sensible. As such, she can get away with a lot of things, even when her parents expressly forbid her from continuing to work on the case on the grounds that it's dangerous and threatens to dredge up terrible memories for several local families.

Towards the end of the series, the show really gets into this theme in a somewhat literary manner: the concept that someone can appear to be a "good person" on the outside, but actually harbour darkness in their heart. Exactly what form this "darkness" can take varies from person to person; in Pip's case, it manifests both through her willingness to flout the "rules" of society to get the job done, and her own sense of guilt over the past. She believes that a chance encounter shortly before Andie's disappearance may have indirectly been a catalyst for all this, so part of her initially altruistic-seeming investigation is to absolve herself of that guilt.

In the case of other characters, the darkness is more obvious. One character, crucial to the eventual outcome of the case, describes himself as being fundamentally a "good person" but having a "dark seed" inside himself; he believes that everyone has such a "seed" inside themselves, and it just takes "the right conditions for it to grow". In his case, it most certainly did grow, leading him to commit unforgivable, unconscionable acts — though to his credit, once he's caught he does appear to be legitimately remorseful — and surprise everyone around him that he was capable of such things.

I don't want to get too much into the details of the story because I think it's worth watching and the twists and turns of the narrative are, of course, part of the appeal. So instead I'll talk a bit about the overall presentation of the show, which is excellent.

The visual direction is striking and dynamic; no scene is truly static, and the show makes great use of close-ups to highlight both characters' emotions and the danger and discomfort Pip finds herself in when getting a little too close to the truth. The actors are all very well-cast — Emma Myers as Pip is particularly excellent, as one would hope for the lead — and manage to nail a feeling of realistic diversity without feeling tokenistic. This is relevant, because matters of racism do play a part in the narrative; as Ravi points out, as enlightened as we might wish we all were, the fact is that certain types of people — particularly middle-class people who live in a small, affluent town — are inclined to believe that a "brown boy" (as he puts it) might not have the best interests of a "blonde white girl" at heart.

The show isn't obnoxious about this message; it only brings it up a couple of times, and it is a worthwhile contemporary talking point. The sort of small town in which the majority of the narrative unfolds is the kind that would be inextricably associated with white, middle-class England, but Pip in particular, as a thoroughly modern Good Girl, is above such things. Part of this is down to the fact that her mother married a Nigerian man after Pip's biological father passed away when she was just a year old, and as such, she has always been exposed to the idea of diversity and tolerance on a daily basis. But it's also a reflection of the modern youth: conscious of social issues, aware that society still has problems, and open about wanting to do their part in making things a little bit better.

Where the show is really striking, though, is in its use of music. There's a lot of contemporary music used on the soundtrack, and it is often used to emphasise powerfully emotional moments; it's always very loud compared to the relatively quiet dialogue sequences, though, making for an attention-grabbing contrast between the more personal, intimate moments and the bigger picture of what is going on.

The contemporary popular music is contrasted with an excellent original score that highlights the tension of numerous scenes, in some cases mimicking "sound effects" to reflect what is going on. During a sequence where Pip's beloved dog Barney goes missing, for example, the soundtrack makes use of a somewhat "sonar"-style motif to reflect the search that is going on; initially, it's almost hard to determine whether the sound is diegetic or not, but as the texture of the track builds up as the tension increases, it becomes clear that it's part of the overall soundscape of the show.

I really enjoyed A Good Girl's Guide to Murder overall. After finishing one episode, I was keen to immediately watch the next, and I must confess I have spent my whole morning watching the final three episodes because I really wanted to see how things turned out. It's compelling, well-crafted and exceedingly well-presented viewing, and while it's perhaps not particularly realistic if you stop to think about things too much, it doesn't take long for that to cease mattering and for you to be drawn in to the narrative.

Yes, it may primarily be aimed at teens — it was a BBC Three show, after all — but don't let that put you off if you're a little older and still enjoy a good murder mystery. I found myself thinking as I watched that it would make a good anime, and I think that's testament to what makes it good — like the best anime series, it's a show that all ages can get something out of; it doesn't talk down to its core audience, and it doesn't feel cringeworthy and insincere to older viewers.

Definite recommend, then. Here's hoping that second series materialises!

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#oneaday Day 366: Bardic Investigations

I have now watched roughly half of the complete run to date of Shakespeare and Hathaway: Private Investigators, and I'm still really enjoying it. It's low-effort TV but not in an "insulting to your intelligence" sort of way; more that it's quite gentle in terms of both it's dramatic and comedic aspects.

A good example of this is the fact that in the 21 episodes I've watched so far, there hasn't been a single fight scene, and action scenes in general are fairly limited. There's been a few car chases and a number of on-foot pursuits, too, but given the two protagonists are neither exactly in the prime of life, they mostly conclude with them outwitting their quarry rather than taking them down dramatically.

There's no swearing, either. I don't mind a bit of effing and jeffing at all — heaven knows I do it enough around here — but it is nice to watch a show that isn't being particularly tryhard about showing the "gritty" side of life.

In fact, as I noted in my first impressions, Shakespeare and Hathaway is mostly rather cartoonish, or perhaps more accurately, theatrical. Villains are unmistakably evil, with most of them practically twirling their figurative moustaches at every opportunity. Far from making the show cheesy and silly, though, this is one of many things that helps it to be so easily digestible and enjoyable without demanding too much of the viewer.

I'm not saying all TV should be like that by any means, but in an age where I know multiple people who won't start watching a new series if there isn't an analysis podcast running alongside it, it is very nice to watch something that just knows what it is, and which delivers consistent, straightforward entertainment.

An easy recommendation, then, if only for the exchange "What's the first rule of stakeouts?" "…no farting?"

#oneaday Day 357: Shakespeare & Hathaway

So, dear reader, you may be wondering: after my frankly unnecessary agonising over whether or not I "should" start watching it, given all the other stuff on my media plate right now, I did, in fact, start watching Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators. And I'm enjoying it a lot!

For the unfamiliar, Shakespeare & Hathaway (as I shall refer to it hereafter) is a fairly light-hearted crime drama about the unlikely Stratford-upon-Avon-based duo of private detective Frank Hathaway and his partner in crime-solving, Lu Shakespeare. The pair are brought together during the first episode when there is a murder case at Lou's wedding, and they just sort of… stick together after that.

Shakespeare & Hathaway is not a show that concerns itself with small details, such as whether or not Lu would be allowed to work with Frank as an investigator with no experience or qualifications — a quick Google reveals that private investigator licenses are not actually required here in the UK, but they are strongly advised — but rather in simply providing a series of interesting crimes for the duo to solve. And in that, it succeeds pretty admirably.

As with most crime dramas, each episode focuses on a single case. And they're a varied bunch, to be sure. In one episode, the duo are investigating on behalf of an undertaker who has been given 24 hours to live by a pair of sinister hitmen. In another, they look into the case of a boy who has curious blackouts and is convinced that he is going to commit a murder. In another still, a gift shop owner turns up dead after an apparently botched break-in, but something just doesn't quite seem right.

One of the things I really like about the show is how it isn't afraid to be kind of "cartoony", particularly where its villains are concerned. This is a show where the villains don't exactly twirl their moustaches and do full-on evil laughs, but they honestly come pretty damn close on quite a few occasions.

Perhaps it's more accurate (and fitting) to say that the show is rather theatrical, given its setting and title — and the fact that Shakespeare and Hathaway's long-suffering assistant Sebastian is a RADA-trained (but out-of-work, natch) actor. And, yes, he is often convinced to perform (pun intended) undercover assignments that involve him dressing up in elaborate costumes and often playing "characters" that are very different from his rather mild-mannered but camp and sarcastic real persona. The highlight so far was a scene where he attended a cross-dressing bar and made such a convincing woman that he turned everyone's heads — and I suspect more than a few viewers might not have immediately clocked it was him until he opened his mouth, either.

Also, as you might expect given the Stratford setting, the show is riddled with Shakespearean references, both subtle and slap-you-in-the-face obvious. But Bard nerds will be happy.

The show's not going to win any grand awards or be remembered for years to come, I'm sure. But it is an eminently likeable piece of television, featuring a central cast who have good chemistry with one another. This isn't a show about said central cast going through high drama or amazing revelations — at least, it hasn't been yet — but I'm honestly fine with that. Frank is a pleasingly likeable, flawed everyman type — and I appreciate that he's a larger gentleman, played excellently by Mark Benton — while Lu is someone keen to prove her usefulness, yet endearingly ditzy. There's more than a touch of Daisy from Spaced about her in terms of personality and mannerisms.

I'm coming up on the end of the first series, and I've very much enjoyed it so far. If you're a fan of crime drama that doesn't get too grim, and which takes joy in theatrics and comedy, I would comfortably recommend it to anyone. It's not a demanding watch, but it is oddly compelling. And I'm looking forward to watching more!

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