I love taking photos of steam, though I don’t do it very often. Isn’t it neat?
Don and I were chatting this morning about one of our pet peeves. This has dominated our conversations lately because we’ve been watching Hinterland on Netflix and we’ve seen what we call the “Law & Order Device” rear its ridiculous head on this otherwise lovely show from Wales.
Tell me: if the police came to your door, or walked onto your property, and flashed a badge, would you answer their first question and then walk away from them in the middle of the interview, continuing with whatever you were doing?
No, you wouldn’t. Nor would about 98% of the public.
And if you did do that for some reason, wouldn’t you expect the police to tell you to “Stop, sit down, and answer our questions or you can answer them down at the station?”
Of course you would.
Yet, Law & Order and other shows use this artificial plot device wherein the person being questioned continually walks away because whatever they’re doing is so important that they can’t stop, or answers rudely, or, in the case of one of the many roles Don has played on Law & Order, slams the door in the detectives’ face. (Are you kidding me? Don and I laughed our tushes off when he filmed that scene.)
It’s a contrivance to give some blocking to a scene, to generate some interest in a routine interview. The writers think it makes it more interesting but the thing is, what’s really interesting is the interview itself – what the answers will be to the detectives’ questions.
But everyone has to have an ‘attitude.’
Hinterland does this with almost every interview and it drives us nuts. Everyone they question is in the middle of some task; sanding a boat, chopping wood, working on a fence, washing glasses in a bar, and NONE of them stop for more than a second in spite of seeing the detectives flash their badges. They’re rude, they ignore the detectives, and quite often, they simply walk away. And the detectives just stand there and accept it.
That’s not real life, of course, and you may argue that it’s fiction. Yes, it is. But it isn’t believable fiction and for us, every time this happens, which in the case of Hinterland is several times during the course of one episode, we are pulled out of the action because we can’t believe what we’re seeing.
Is everyone in this little town and the surrounding communities rude? Does everyone have a chip on their shoulder? Are they all so busy with sanding, scraping, and chopping wood that they can’t stop? Is there some sort of deadline that they must meet – does the wood have to be stacked in the next 15 minutes?
If the police pulled into our driveway and flashed their badges while I was in the middle of gardening, would I even think of walking away from them in the middle of their questions to grab a fresh bag of mulch and wheel my wheelbarrow away from them to another part of the yard, all the while giving surly one word answers? That would be a NO.
As a rule, we think British television series like this are better than the equivalent in the States, so we’re disappointed that this one has fallen prey to what feels like a distinctly American plot device. We like the series, don’t get me wrong, but it would have been much better without the Law & Order Device.
There’s also lots of soulful staring off into space and I can’t tell you how many times we have shouted at the television, “DO something!” There is seldom any variation in pace. But that’s another post.
I guess it’s good that we’re engaged, right? That we shout at the television set in exasperation? The actors are excellent, we love the setting, and continue to watch it. We’ll finish out the series in a couple of days.
But if one more character pulls this crap, I’m going to scream – and I fear Don will join me. You might want to cover your ears tonight. xo
Happy Thursday.
