LINE OF DUTY: cop-on-cop action TV procedural that demands analysis

Sometimes they don't tell them something important like a password but then do, a little bit later, moments before they snuff it in the most telegraphed manner possible

Some of it is so formulaic I am literally saying the lines along with the characters e.g. 'she's my daughter' by that politician

It's kind of good old-fashioned fun I suppose.

I tend to agree with these criticisms.

It's sadly no LoD.

I agree with all of these criticisms but Suranne is watchable enough even in terrible things that I forgive them everything (bar them naming the wrong road where the multi storey car park was - if you're using a real street name, use the right one)

It's frustrating how the detective has agreed (did she have any choice?) to do this exceptionally challenging job, and as soon as she starts it, she is utterly undermined by the people who are supposed to be enabling her investigation - saying "You're under my command", "You can only talk to this suspect for 30 seconds, while walking", etc.

More of this last night. These minor characters keeping letting loose a few tantalizing words, then they quickly shuffle off with a "I shouldn't even be talking to you!" Why not? Isn't this a sanctioned investigation?

I was excited by reference to Renfrew Street (late in episode 3). I no longer recall whether it has said car park on it or not.

I quite like seeing Glasgow on screen, but then, would really like to see more of it. Maybe I should ... watch a programme that isn't mainly set on a submarine.

Last night (4/6): the plot seems to be getting ever more dense with fairly random new elements - Russian spies? Do we get aliens in episode 5?

Unlike others, I don't greatly enjoy watching Suranne Jones, and also didn't greatly enjoy watching the two women's protracted, gradual flashback flirtation, etc, last night. But I can imagine that some feel very differently about this.

I quite enjoy watching the submarine Captain.

I suppose I'm a bit disappointed on balance because the 'from the creators of LoD', for me, sets the bar so high, but without 'from the creators of LoD' I might not be watching.

As with the last season of LoD and Bodyguard, there are so many elements of this that feel jarringly bad / clunky, even in comparison to a lot of the BBC’s middling drama output. I don’t know whether greater autonomy on the part of the producers is leading to the dialogue / plotting coming over like a first draft.

Of course but that directly conflicts with other obligations of duty - real or imagined - and other chains of command, other sanctioned operations. This show, even more than LoD, is a lot about sovereignty and what legitimises that sovereignty in the minds of its executors.

I like how MI5 swoop in and suddenly it’s Longacre et al who are uncooperative. “What did you tell them?” “As little as possible.”

xposts The “you’re a decent man” line definitely clanked. Felt like there was probably a scribbled note next to it in the script saying “Insert real words here”

I think that’s part of the problem for me. MI5, the Navy command, even the police to some extent, never feel like fleshed out structures, in the way that AC12, the LoD commissioner’s office do. The ‘clash of institutions’ element falls flat if you don’t know or care enough about the institutions.

That's well said.

I do, though, like the senior copper, Longacre's boss, who almost always seems to do the right thing and protect his own officers.

But this reminds me to say: I'm not sure that a spy, working under some kind of diplomatic immunity, would be able to commit murder and assault a police officer, and walk away from it because of the diplomatic immunity.

That sounded to me like narrative vaguery posturing as serious realpolitik talk.

was excited by reference to Renfrew Street (late in episode 3). I no longer recall whether it has said car park on it or not.

It doesn't have a car park on it. I'm fairly sure the car park was the one on Waterloo Street.

I'm not sure that a spy, working under some kind of diplomatic immunity, would be able to commit murder and assault a police officer, and walk away from it because of the diplomatic immunity.

pretty sure that this is possible even if not a spy : harry dunn case ?

Right but she fled before she was identified. This guy was in cuffs with evidence everywhere. It felt off to me too.

Agree that the cultures of the different agencies aren't very fleshed out and it would be better if they were. I do feel like the life on the submarine is well done. It feels real. Although this does seem like possibly the most dysfunctional sub crew ever assembled in the history of the British navy!

But this reminds me to say: I'm not sure that a spy, working under some kind of diplomatic immunity, would be able to commit murder and assault a police officer, and walk away from it because of the diplomatic immunity.

My knowledge of diplomatic immunity comes solely from Lethal Weapon 3 where AIUI you can do whatever the hell you like until someone shoots you and says 'Revoked!!!'

Tracer Hand's comments are OTM.

Worst. Crew. Ever.

And yes, I would have thought, a difference between a diplomat who has returned to their home nation, and someone who has been arrested and is being interrogated for murder in another country.

If you’re attached to the London consulate, you can’t be arrested for anything unless your government waives the right. If you’re not, you can potentially be arrested for extremely serious crimes.

she just asks people things and they tell her

I used to enjoy the original CSI until i realise the guilty party never lied, they just hadnt been asked the right question yet

Although this does seem like possibly the most dysfunctional sub crew ever assembled in the history of the British navy!

Tv writers, above any other similar profession, seem prone to throwing quality control out the window once their name gets big enough to merit mention above the title

i hate when spy stuff extrudes into real-world stuff, spies make nothing real happen and they shd stay contained in their relevant dramaspheres

It’s possible it is a red herring. Not sure how the alternative of ‘ok, they know it’s us but I guess we might as well sink the nuclear submarine anyway’ would play out.

My biggest "hmmm" moment so far was the scene where the submarine narrowly avoided crashing into a ship because... the captain saw it on his periscope first?! Surely nuclear submarine radar technology has improved since the days of Tintin books and my children's bathtime

show should have been called BAD SUBMARINE

Tincan sailor, staller, spy

Latest episode had my worst trope - police instantly knowing what they're looking for because the plot demands it.
The spy has been posting a series of images online, no doubt passing information digitally!
Ah yes, it must be 'hidden in the pixels'. Check the pixels. Oh, there it is.

Unclear why MI5 were **threateningly** chasing Longacre for several days when they just wanted to politely ask her a few questions, then immediately joined her side anyway?

she wasn’t sharing information with them like they’d asked so i guess they felt they had to go in hard.

on a different note, what was the malcontent sailor up to with that set of.. keys or whatever that he took from a locker. and did that have anything to do with his subsequent reporting of a tampered-with lock (which for all the world looked like it had been bought for £5.99 at B&Q)?

The good points are coming in thick and fast and TBH it's not looking great for VIGIL.

Other than Martin Compston, what exactly is the link to LoD? It's marketed as "from the makers of" but none of the writers or creators were involved with LoD so is it just the production company or something?

This week's interview scene with the Russian spy just emphasized that this is very much not LoD

Agree, and GroovyPanda's case is good - we think of this as connected with LoD, but maybe it isn't much.

Latest episode had my worst trope - police instantly knowing what they're looking for because the plot demands it.
The spy has been posting a series of images online, no doubt passing information digitally!
Ah yes, it must be 'hidden in the pixels'. Check the pixels. Oh, there it is.

― kinder,

this.
i genuinely LOL'd when that happened.

Time was, a moment like that would have been greeted with "In the... pixels? But how??" but now everyone's seen the ol' steganography trick so many times that everyone's just, right, fishing pics, it might as well be a public email. Funny how the peace camp protestor is savvy enough to use an "encrypted app" to make undetected phone calls to whoever she wants but the trained GRU operative uses fishing messageboards like it's still 1995?

LOOK I STILL LIKE THE SHOW OKAY ESPECIALLY THE PARTS ON THE BAD SUBMARINE

My other favourite part is tracking when Longacre's hair gets tucked into her turned up coat collar, and when it doesn't. i feel like the former is when she's really buckling down to serious detecting and the latter is when she needs to impress some public persona.

Look maybe I have a thing for her hair, okay? I'm big enough to admit that. I'm still laser focused in my assessments of this piece of television drama. It won't affect my judgment. At all. Mmmmmm hair.

For me, this captures the "vibe" of late-period LOD* - a propulsive and tense narrative, an entertaining mystery, and some enjoyably ridiculous bad writing.

Part of the tension comes, not just from the narrative tension, but the sense that the whole series could teeter into shark-jump territory at any moment.

Also it's a lot better than Vera.

* i.e. seasons 4 and 6, not season 5 which was dreadful

alright mate

The shark, in this series, could be ... an actual shark.

but now everyone's seen the ol' steganography trick so many times

I haven't, Tracer, and have never heard this word before.

Vigil still plodding along in a satisfactory manner. "Might X be the bad guy?...Nope"; "It must be someone else...oh it's Y". I do appreciate their (un-LODY-like) aversion to shock twists and puzzle boxes.

Plodding satisfactorily! I'd have said careering ludicrously.

I'd hoped the captain's "we have always been at war" in the first ep was going to be played as paranoia for an anti nuke theme but I guess not.

I do feel slightly uneasy about the suggestion that anti-nuke politicians and their activist allies are dupes for Russian moles.

I sense people are holding back on the post-series analysis/evaluation. Perhaps it’s been thoroughly dissected via Twitter.

I think I felt that this became more exciting in the last couple of episodes.

And I enjoyed the performances by the Admiral (Dillane) and the Captain (so marvellously watchable). Both of these struck me as "acting" in a way that was really enjoyable.

I have to concur, though, with Tracer Hand's indication, above, that the "rhetoric of the narrative" here, so to speak, was "objectively pro-nuke", anti-disarmament.

I'm not sure about the relationship between Amy and Kirsten (was that her name?). Others probably appreciated it (not very long ago a major lesbian relationship on prime time would have been a huge deal, important "representation"; maybe it isn't now). But the emotions or chemistry of it didn't much come across to me. And of course they coexisted with the action stuff in a way that was maybe incongruous.

Just spent the last episode loudly JFCing every five minutes.

Not sure it was objectively pro nuke, it showed the boats crew to be disorderly & amateurish and the top brass obstructive and secretive; sure the cnd folk and the anti nuke politician didn't come out of it any better, the only heroes really were the brave and tenacious rozzers. "We have always been at war" could be taken as paranoia or deep truth depending on your existing opinion, and iirc no case was ever directly made for the deterrent but the case against was voiced more than once.

in line with my previous "good plodding" analysis I appreciated that there was no twist - the bad guy was the bad guy and they caught him

in other shows you'd have scenes of Doward receiving orders from a figure you can't quite see and allegations of "a conspiracy of high-ranking naval officers in league with foreign intelligence" and something somewhere would have blown up

This was ultimately… not good but entertaining, so I guess that means it was at least *a bit* good?

The relationship stuff was kitsch without being interesting, which is an accomplishment. And the bad guy seemed to disappear for most of the episodes, so the revelation was a bit “oh, ok” once he turned up.

Yes to Patterson Joseph and Dillane, mentioned above. Also found Morse pretty compelling whenever he was onscreen - i couldn’t say that about Endeavour .

It was very wet and “both sides” with regards to nukes, which is objectively the same as being pro-nuke imo

The submarine was very wet, for almost its entire screen time!

I thought the love story was incredibly trite. The workaholic cop who can't say I love you. Her 'arc' is that she... says I love you. And the monstrous mother-in-law was just totally fine with DCI Silva being queer I guess? Maybe her shitty little comments were off-camera. In any case there was just no texture to any of that.

Longacre got squintier and more pinched the longer the series went on. I guess she had good reason to. But now that I know she was a Tory in real life I can't help thinking of her character as a Tory. A kind of Ann Taylor lesbian. Eventually her remonstrances of Silva - in the tub, in the bed, wherever - started to feel a little... pressure-y? Yes you fell in love with a cop who constantly looks as though she's been asked to clean cat poo off the couch. What did you expect? You're her first lesbian relationship. Ease off! Can you just enjoy a moment without giving her another 'I Love You' test??

On the other hand I thought the action on the sub was pretty great. You end up loving Prentice. The show does a really neat job of switching your allegiances around with quite a few characters. I love Paterson Joseph but I never quite got a handle on his captain. A good man? Incompetent? I guess those were his two character traits. Unbelievable that a saboteur is known to be aboard but he takes literally no precautions, changes no routines, until that bulkhead valve is wrenched open, and by then of course it's too late.

The Russian plot was I thought pretty stupid. Doesn't mean it's unrealistic. There are a lot of stupid plots undertaken by former superpowers. But the idea that a series of murders and critical failures on a British nuclear sub, all instigated by Russia, would lead to... a withdrawal of Trident funding? seems like wishful thinking! Surely MORE investment would be needed in the face of such an aggressive enemy? (And this aggression seems to put the show firmly on the side of 'we have always been at war' as a simple statement of fact rather than the dystopian paranoia it clearly wants to leave open as a possible interpretation earlier in the series.)

The action throughline on the sub was the best part and really inventive and creepy. It veered from detective fiction to horror to action movie. Really great.

Great post, Tracer.

I think I agree with you about the relationship stuff, though I wouldn't dare to call anyone an "Ann Taylor lesbian" and luckily don't know what it means. But I think you're spot-on really. I didn't know about this real-life Con garbage.

You're so right about certain things on the sub esp: XO Prentice. The Captain was somehow my highlight - this extraordinary crispness every time he spoke, as if he occupied a different element from everyone else.