New BBC series: Morse meets Reality TV meets 'New Tricks'
 

In a remarkable hybridisation of popular formats, the BBC has launched its latest series.

First leaked at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/o...re/8319931.stm, the series addresses the ratings-destructive dearth of fictional Oxfordshire murders since the untimely death of Inspector Morse

The first episode features a real-life murder just up the railway line from Oxford 13 years ago, which led to a corpse being telegenically left by the railway itself. The 21 year-old local man charged with the murder was acquitted after evidence was declared unadmissable.

Yesterday, after calling in the "New Tricks" team (or possibly the "Silent Witness" team), the police arrested a now 34 year old man, claiming new technology, and a change in the law about retrials, has enabled them to bring a satisfactory case. For legal reasons (not to mention the serious risk of losing the audience), the name of the accused cannot be released, though inability to guess it has been described by leading Oxford professors as "possible only for someone with an IQ in single figures".

The BBC would not comment when asked to confirm whether the jury would follow the "Strictly Come Dancing" model in arriving at a verdict, or the "X Factor" model.

When asked about the internet rumour he would be chairing the jury, Simon Cowell said he'd kill for a chance like that.

I love watching these sort of shows on the telly. No evidence gets lost. The lab doesn't take three months to process samples. No one complains about budgets. Everyone gets overtime. No one ever drinks on duty. Everyone's suit is pressed. Senior officers are helpful. Journalists don't know more about the case than you do. It never rains and washes all the evidence away. People are always talking about the case earnestly, never about the football, where they're going on holibob or the bristols on the new plonk. In fact everyone is dead right on all the time. No one ever fills in a single form never mind the 300 odd that you actually do have to. Police cars work and aren't full of crisp packets and burger boxes. Suspects aren't clearly as mad as a box of frogs and don't smell like a tramp's sock.

If only.....

Now don't disillusion us.
You are a sensitive soul who loves opera and who publishes slim volumes of poetry.
Of course, we already know how much you love Jane Austen.

Opera is fat bints yelling at one another in front of cardboard trees.

Poetry is for chutneys.

And Jane Bloody Austen will be the death of me.

CW - who's only similarity with Morse is a fondness for jags and has just been told that his new one won't be delivered until february. Is not happy.

Sounds like CW is modelled himself more closely on DCI Gene Hunt than Inspector Morse...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/lifeonmars/characters/gene.shtml

CW - you're forgetting some other things about the TV version. No-one ever locks their car. No-one ever seems to realise that it's the Too Helpful One that did it.

And can it really be that there is no investigating officer who lives a deeply boring home life, does not have interesting hobbies or psychological quirks (apart from being boring) and is generally fairly normal?

So the burning question is who's the plods favourite tv plod?

and is generally fairly normal?>>>>

That would be far too farfetched.

Also on t'telly no criminal goes "no comment" all the way to the Bailey. Colleagues have unresolved sexual tension (believe me in real life it's resolved). Everyone happens to know someone who can relate the series of murders to some ancient Assyrian legend. The coffee is drinkable. The roofs don't leak. People don't have any trouble getting warrants (you try dragging a judge out of the theatre on a Friday night). There's never too many people in the cells so you have to take the perp to bloody Bromley. No one puts deep heat in each other's underwear. The marksmen don't miss. No one loses their cuffs key. No one is trying to look for smut on the internet. CCTV always catches a clear face shot of the perp, and it's always of the highest quality. And all the senior officers are middle aged (most of them are about twelve). No one is in the masons. I could go on. It's quite therapeutic.

Seriously; Scooby Doo is more realistic.

So the burning question is who's the plods favourite tv plod?>>>

Gene Hunt obviously.

But for realism, Jane Tennyson. It's the closest to real life I've seen.

>But for realism, Jane Tennyson. It's the closest to real life I've seen.<

I like Jane Tennyson. She has her knockers but I'm not one of them.

I used to live near Helen Mirren and I occasionally bumped into her in the co-op. She's still a fine looking woman.

"I like Jane Tennyson. She has her knockers but I'm not one of them."

Knockers !! I must of missed that episode.

She was always the poster girl for mumsy vixens. Always had a thing for her and Jenny Agutter.

With regard of television not resembling real life (Holby City's entire pathology department seems to consist of one ex medic who sends his time playing on the computer whereas a real hospital of that size the lab would employ closer to 100 staff) , I was shocked to find that camera crews want real life to look like television.

On several occassions we have had film crews come around about this weeks scare story, and inevitably they want to move things around "because people expect it to be like that"

"Can you use a pippette"? - errr no, we don't use them anymore, and particularly not in this type of investigation
"But people will expect to see them"

That and the scrum of medical staff running around trying to find a lab coat so they can get on telly.

Favourite "police related character" - probably Robbie Coltrane as Cracker, with Helen mirren as close second.

Favourite "police related character" - probably Robbie Coltrane as Cracker>>>>

Aha! More tomfoolery. A gambling addict who's usually drunk and unstable and is informed of all sensitive details of a case against the senior officer's will and gets to order police around....

And there are no Colin Staggs in Cracker.

The new thing with Coltrane in it - Murderland - shows promise though (and is complete cods realism wise).

I suscribe to BBC America. Lately, I would be grateful for anything to be shown here besides Gordon Ramsey or Top Gear. Except for an occasional show lately, we don't seem to be importing much that is very interesting.
The only two latest shows have been Torchwood (the final series) and Occupation (which I haven't seen yet).
We seem to be getting more British shows on PBS.

Willit - so true.

All scientists on telly have ponytails and glasses and no sense of humour (women) or look and dress like geeky trainspotters, and drink coffee out of mugs with the periodic table on (men).

Every lab, whether it's working on infectious disease, solar power, tensile strengths of plastics or particle acceleration has a cage of rats or monkeys in it, and somebody pipetting something into a petri dish. That something always changes colour and immediately proves someone somewhere is guilty/innocent/terminally ill.

PS Someone is always eating in the lab, whilst dissecting something grim, and the plod/layperson attending always faints or is sick.

and the plod/layperson attending always faints or is sick.>>>>

Pretty realistic in my experience. Especially if the corpse is "ripe" (I hate the drowned ones).

And while we may be messing about here, this is actually important. Juries nowadays have all seen CSI and think that what they do is A) possible and B) routine so are reluctant to convict without some chisel jawed scientist in a sharp suit and designer specs going on about blood spatter patterns or beetles.

(Of course if we do get anyone from Forensics it's invariable a spod with acne, national health specs held together with sellotape, an Oxfam suit and a tie with cartoons on it. Who stammers. And is nine years old).

I always liked Rebus, the Ken Stott version rather than the spectacularly miscast John Hannah. Not that I think it's realistic but Stott was born to play the role.