AE on Telly News (NEW CONCEPTS)

[Mick Harper]

24 Hours in Police Custody (Channel 4)

Luton DI: We need to arrest a third year university student in Coventry.
Luton DCS: Record?
DI: Nothing known.
DCS: Male or female?
DI: Female.
DCS: Get the local woodentops to pick her up.
DI: We could be on 24 Hours in Police Custody.
DCS: Take twelve armed police in full riot gear in two vans.

[Mick Harper]

I had just fought my way out of a 100% digibox when they started showing old Wycliffe's. Daily. Getting up earlier than usual I was able to keep ahead of the curve by watching two episodes back to back, one of them a sub-Wicker Man episode. A lot of people are under the impression that these kinds of practices are limited to Scottish islands. Not so. Historically speaking, they can be found in any police drama with a vaguely Celtic setting.

It will be of further anthropological interest to know they are mainly the work of people brought up within a bus ride of Bow Bells.

[Mick Harper]

I am trying to work out why I find Wycliffe so satisfying, and definitely preferable to all but the best modern policiers. It is not because it is particularly good in itself -- sort of Vera-lite. I think it is because each is a self-contained one-hour episode, not two-hours or several one-hours (or increasingly several two-hours). This results in two inestimable benefits:

1. There is no need for all murders to be multiple murders. Serial killings are OK but they are only a small proportion of murders and tend to be stranger-murders, which by their nature are not very plot-friendly. To make them interesting they have to be exotic and the exotic gets awfully samey. If they are multiple in the Midsomer sense i.e. one murder begets another, there has to be a huge cast of characters with a vast amount of interactions between them, lest the murderer be easily identified after murder #2. Nobody except DI Dull can follow it all and even he took till murder #8 to say whodunnit. We end up having to take his word for it.

2. There is no need for endless backstories. Or, to put it another way, there is no time for endless backstories. Wycliffe being a grouch for no obvious reason is quite enough.

[Mick Harper]

People said it couldn't be done. Watching Wycliffes to keep your digibox numbers down, posting things on the AEL etc and cleaning your flat preparatory to a visit from a family member with considerable clout. They were right.

[Mick Harper]

The problem with car chases in Cornwall is that it's not long before you reach the sea. Or the cliff edge, to be technical. With the police up your arse (a-a-rse as they say down there) there's only one thing to do, confess to the murder and let go of the hand brake. That's two things of course. Three, if you count the explosion when you and the car hits the beach.

I'm not going to no Cornwall for me 'ols if that little lot's going to be falling on you every ten minutes.

[Mick Harper]

It's Not Like The Met

Detective-Sergeant Kersey: When did you last see your son?
Woman in pinny behind counter: Last week in Truro prison. Here, have a strawberry sundae.
Kersey: Ta very much, just the job. Any idea where he might be now?
Woman: I don't know and I don't want to know.
Kersey: How much for the ice cream?
Woman: Don't be silly, it's on the house.
Kersey: No, I'd rather pay.

[Mick Harper]

How'd he get the gun?
Official prison visitor fell for him and smuggled it in.
Anything known about her?
Psychology degree from Exeter University.
Where be that?
In England. Devon, oi think.
And what be that?
A university? They say it's like a school but for grown-ups.
If he's on the lam, he'll need money.
Well, he was bagman for an amphetamine gang.
People'll pay the earth for them.
Not sure about that, sir. Someone I know in that Lunnon bought two thousand for a oner back in the days this programme was being made.
You know someone in London? I'm afraid that means a visit to A10 for you, my lad.

[Mick Harper]

You are a young woman alone at night in an isolated racing stables full of valuable horses. You hear the sound of a window being broken in one of the outbuildings. Do you (a) call the police (b) get a torch and investigate?

"Is this going to be on telly?"
"Yes, pet."
"I'll go with the torch."
"Leave your Equity card with the front desk."
"Is it Frost?"
"Wycliffe."
"Work's work."

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

Chief Constable: I was hoping to bump into you, Wycliffe. There's a Chief Super's post in Launceston. It's open competition, people from all over the country are in for it, but I can guarantee it's yours if you apply. DCC to follow in short order.
Wycliffe: It's an awfully long way to relocate, sir, I'll have to talk it over with my wife.
Chief Constable: Of course, of course. Not too long, mind. We only call once.
Agent (to Wycliffe): There's another series in the offing.
Wycliffe (to his team): There's a possibility of a promotion for me. As most of you seem to know already.
Voice: We are detectives, sir.
Wycliffe: Gossips, you mean. Well, anyway I've decided to turn it down. I'm an old-fashioned copper who likes to be close to the action, not stuck behind a desk somewhere.
Voice: We'll be sorry to see you go, sir.
Voice: Shh, he's staying.
Voice: Bastard. I thought we'd greased it through the lodge.
Voice: His agent's a woman.
Voice: So's his wife.
Voice: He's a right old woman himself. There's a DS going in Launceston, I might put in for that.
Voice: You'll have some competition.

[Wile E. Coyote]

Troppo (Freevee)

Small town, tick. Two detectives, tick. Chase through Corn field, Hitchcockian tick. Dark secrets Lynchian tick.

It works, because they are so broken, she is a convicted murderer, he is an alleged paedo. They are investiagating both a missing person and a suicide, by crocodile attack if you are asking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgoBHoV00rY

[Mick Harper]

As I always say, there's nothing wrong with stereotyped plots. That's why they have achieved the status of stereotyped plots. They can be done well or they can be done badly, but that's quite a different matter.

If you want to test the validity of this, try watching a policier where it's a man going out to investigate with a torch. Both men and women would be off to watch Australian Junior Criss-Cross Quiz Heats within the first five minutes. We are nothing if not pathetic.

[Mick Harper]

Rural Priorities

"So you know why we're here?"
"Word gets round."
"I'm Superintendent Wycliffe."
"Superintendent, eh? George'll be in trouble when he's found."
"You think he'll be found then."
"He'll be in some ditch blind drunk. If you really want to find something you can go after that fox that's been after my farrows."

It wasn't the word 'farrows' that was baffling me -- they're peas ("Sorry, mate, you're too late, the best peas went to Farrow's"). It wasn't vegetarian foxes that was baffling me. It wasn't an elderly Barbour-clad woman saying all this with a double-barrelled shotgun nonchalantly broken over one arm and an adolescent girl in tow that was baffling me. What I couldn't immediately grasp was why none of this raised a single Wycliffian eyebrow despite them all being there because the farmer next door had disappeared, his dubry-whatsit had been set on fire complete with a burnt dog, and there were bloodstains all over the shop. "Not animal, by the look of 'em neither," according to DI Kersey who has spectrographic eyesight.

Our favourite superintendant will be on fox-farrowing duty if he doesn't look lively.

[Mick Harper]

I was right, it was the adolescent girl. George had discovered they were burying diseased pigs (notifying the Ministry would have got the farm shut down). It was him or the farm. Simple as that. Look, you don't pay extra for this, it's all in your basic subscription, but don't expect me to stay on permanent 24-hour Wycliffe Watch just so you don't have to.

[Mick Harper]