Tuesday, September 8, 2009

When the dead stay dead

10:55 AM / Television / CommentsNo Comments

Television

A few thoughts on the opening two-parter of the eighth series of Waking the Dead. (Warning: spoilers ahead for those who haven't seen it.)

  • Overall, a stronger story than the last two season premieres, mainly because this one had a more coherent story than usual by Waking the Dead standards, not to mention an intriguing twist that I for one definitely didn't see coming. I've noticed some degree of criticism of this twist in discussions online, but personally I didn't mind it at all - once it was revealed, all the pieces of the puzzle started to fit together.
     
  • The writer, Declan Croghan, continues his emphasis on Catholic imagery, which I'm still not entirely convinced works particularly well in a show like Waking the Dead, where so much of the focus is on forensic science. As with the season premiere he wrote for Series 6, Wren Boys, we get a creepy convent populated by sinister, abusive nuns. Now, I find nuns to be as sinister as the next person, even when they're not being abusive, but some new ideas wouldn't go amiss.
     
  • Boyd, as usual, was shockingly rude to all and sundry, including witnesses, suspects and colleagues, but at least he wasn't screaming, stamping his foot or assaulting anyone this week (which leads me to believe the writers are saving it all up for the remaining three two-parters). He did, however, threaten to make one suspect lick up his own puke, which is a new one to me.
     
  • Not a single mention was made of the death of Boyd's son at the end of the previous series - although given how spectacularly they bungled that storyline, going as far as to get the character's name and age wrong, I'm not surprised if they decided to simply brush it under the carpet.
     
  • They killed Stella! Oh my god, why? Not only that, but they killed her in the most shockingly offhanded way that I'm convinced that either Félicité Du Jeu had done something to offend the producers or else they only had her for a matter of hours. She barely appeared in Part One at all, save to show up and get shot in the leg in the last five minutes, while in Part Two her appearances consisted of a single scene of her in a hospital bed talking to Grace, followed by a single shot of her corpse in the final scene while Grace told Boyd she'd suffered a thrombosis. A really disappointing, throwaway exit, and I wasn't even all that fond of the character. In terms of exits, I actually found this to be worse than Frankie and Felix's inter-season disappearances, because at least in those cases you could fill in the blanks for yourself.

By the way, I'm well aware that I've yet to complete my Waking the Dead Project, with Series 7 remaining unreviewed. I'd get cracking on it, but the series has yet to be released on DVD (apparently there is some situation revolving around an army general suing for defamation regarding the episode Duty and Honour, which might explain the hold-up), and the copies I recorded off air are stored on an external hard drive whose power supply is kaput. Western Digital are, of course, dragging their heels when it comes to replacing it, but hopefully I'll be able to get it up and running again before too long.

 
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