S01.E02: Dancers in the Dark

[Yeah No]

On 9/26/2024 at 10:01 AM, Raja said:

People on TV don't watch TV. 😉

On the other hand she said that much of her knowledge came from watching documentaries. I guess true crime is a niche  for those of us who want CSI without an ex stripper backstory attached.

On 9/26/2024 at 10:02 AM, chaifan said:

They need to give Morgan a one-liner like "Oh, I never watch cop shows, can't stand them."  And that will explain the lack of general knowledge as to evidence, police procedure, etc.  And it would make sense because she had a bad experience with the cops with her missing ex.

As someone who used to watch forensic crime documentaries to an almost unhealthy degree (I'm recovered now, lol), she should have known these things from watching them. They aren't just talked about on fictional crime shows. I learned pretty much everything discussed on fictional shows (and more) from shows like "The New Detectives", which was a true crime documentary on TLC (when it really was a learning channel) that aired from the mid '90s through the mid '00s. So I am not buying that she wouldn't know these things. She should know them and it's yet another unrealistic thing about this show I'm ignoring for now.

[Yeah No]

22 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Yeah, the problem with the missing dad story is that she's supposed to be this super genius who can solve all these crimes, but at the same time she was apparently unable to find out what happened to her kid's father. Even to the extent that she never knew his car had been found. I mean, how hard did she look?

That's another problem. Like I said about the pilot, the show is kind of clunky. It revolves around a gimmick that doesn't make sense a lot of the time. If you have to do this much hand-waving, it's not being very well written. Either that or the premise just kind of doesn't work very well.

I do agree with you for the most part about the gimmick and clunkiness, but right now I'm finding the show entertaining enough to stick with it in spite of that. That may change depending on how it handles things in the future. 

As far as why she couldn't solve the missing dad story there is a phenomenon of something being "too close to home" for someone to be as objective as they would need to be to investigate it. More of her own emotions are involved in the case of her missing BF because it's very close to her heart. She may be ambivalent and want to know but not want to know at the same time. Whatever the reason is, it's something she doesn't really love the idea of facing, so she may actually have had some resistance to trying to find it.

She may also blame herself either irrationally or with some reason for his disappearance and that's another reason she'd be ambivalent about following up on it.

[iMonrey]

21 hours ago, Featherhat said:

I can imagine the police took one look at Morgan and her 16 years younger self overwhelmed with worry, screaming baby with her and just when "yep, baby Daddy ran away, don't blame him!"

Sure, the police might not have been moved by her story, but didn't the guy have relatives and other friends? If he was truly missing wouldn't Morgan have known one way or another? The concept that she's such a genius at figuring things out that the police want to utilize her talents for solving crimes is at odds with the idea she never knew what happened to her daughter's father - not even whether he was truly a missing person or just ran out on them. 

[shapeshifter]

On 9/26/2024 at 11:37 AM, iMonrey said:

the problem with the missing dad story

2 hours ago, Yeah No said:

I do agree with you for the most part about the gimmick and clunkiness, but right now I'm finding the show entertaining enough to stick with it in spite of that. That may change depending on how it handles things in the future. 

Ditto. 
I don't see how the requisite origin story of the missing dad can increase viewership or even add anything meaningful to the story.
Maybe I'm just too old and jaded for such stories.

[Raja]

34 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

Ditto. 
I don't see how the requisite origin story of the missing dad can increase viewership or even add anything meaningful to the story.
Maybe I'm just too old and jaded for such stories.

Looking at the wiki for the French original the entire run of 4 seasons was just over the 20 something episodes a traditional US network show so any hold off on finishing the father's story would be seen differently.

Edited September 27 by Raja

[UnknownK]

1 hour ago, iMonrey said:

Sure, the police might not have been moved by her story, but didn't the guy have relatives and other friends? If he was truly missing wouldn't Morgan have known one way or another? The concept that she's such a genius at figuring things out that the police want to utilize her talents for solving crimes is at odds with the idea she never knew what happened to her daughter's father - not even whether he was truly a missing person or just ran out on them. 

I think it has more to do with resources and her age plus baby at the time.

If her baby daddy was doing the normal routine without planning on running exactly what clues does she have to follow anyway? There is no car, hidden emails, credit cards or checks to follow, social media, security camera footage, etc.

There is a reason missing person cases with no body are hard to solve even with all the tech we have today.

[mythreesons]

I really like this show.  In addition to the cast, I like the fact it's not violent like so many shows in this genre.  I have a question that may have already been answered.  If the killer hitched a ride in the trunk, how did he get on the roof without being seen?  Did he take an elevator and use a door to get on the roof?  I can't imagine he could use the outside stairs and get on the roof unnoticed?  Any thoughts?

[shapeshifter]

2 hours ago, mythreesons said:

I really like this show.  In addition to the cast, I like the fact it's not violent like so many shows in this genre.  I have a question that may have already been answered.  If the killer hitched a ride in the trunk, how did he get on the roof without being seen?  Did he take an elevator and use a door to get on the roof?  I can't imagine he could use the outside stairs and get on the roof unnoticed?  Any thoughts?

Parkour?

[Raja]

Just now, shapeshifter said:

Parkour?

That kid? Elevator for sure.

[AnimeMania]

Next New Episode: October 8, 2024     ABC     10pm    

[twoods]

I really like that this show diverted from the usual jerk partner or asshole police chief trope, and the entire team that is surrounded by the main character is supportive and helpful. It’s rare to see this on shows nowadays. Same with the kids not being annoying, and they seem to enjoy each other as a family. 
 

I’m also happy that so far there isn’t too much violence so I can watch with my tween daughter! The cases are intriguing and the 45 minutes fly by.

[UnknownK]

Well, the first year or two tend to be the best written and have interesting cases at least until the main characters mystery takes over and gets boring (Castle).

[Yeah No]

19 hours ago, UnknownK said:

I think it has more to do with resources and her age plus baby at the time.

If her baby daddy was doing the normal routine without planning on running exactly what clues does she have to follow anyway? There is no car, hidden emails, credit cards or checks to follow, social media, security camera footage, etc.

There is a reason missing person cases with no body are hard to solve even with all the tech we have today.

Those are very good points. I figure she did her own research, hit a brick wall and didn't have the time/money/resources to take it to the next level.

It's kind of like my experience doing genealogical research. For years I was only able to take one arm of my tree to my great grandparent but could never go further back than that. This was several years ago. Not having the time or money to hire a genealogist I had to shelve my search for a couple of years but when I came back a few years later more information had been uploaded to the genealogy sites and I not only found their parents but was able to go back several more generations thanks to a published historical genealogy that had been uploaded online. If not for that I'd still be up against my own brick wall with that research.

However I have long lost friends/acquaintances that dropped out of sight years ago and have no online fingerprint anywhere. Every couple of years or so I do an internet search for some of them and sometimes I come up with new information so at least I know they're still alive (these are people I normally would not contact). Other times I don't find any new information.

I figure Morgan might be doing that and is still not coming up with anything, but she doesn't have the resources to take it further than that, and may actually deep down not want to know if something horrible happened to him. I can see preferring to be in the dark than to be thrown back into grief. I definitely think that realizing how much it would mean to her daughter to know why her father left is what has prompted her to take advantage of her association with the police to finally get some answers.

[iMonrey]

21 hours ago, UnknownK said:

There is a reason missing person cases with no body are hard to solve even with all the tech we have today.

Again, I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but baby daddy was not officially a "missing person." Everyone from the police to her daughter thought he'd just run out on them. This, alone, should have been easy enough to verify. Call his parents. Call his friends. Call his boss at work. Is he actually missing? Someone should be able to verify this easily enough. It seems he actually was, in fact, missing, and for some reason nobody was able to prove that. It doesn't make any sense. Especially since they apparently found his abandoned car.

[chaifan]

55 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

Again, I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but baby daddy was not officially a "missing person." Everyone from the police to her daughter thought he'd just run out on them. This, alone, should have been easy enough to verify. Call his parents. Call his friends. Call his boss at work. Is he actually missing? Someone should be able to verify this easily enough. It seems he actually was, in fact, missing, and for some reason nobody was able to prove that. It doesn't make any sense. Especially since they apparently found his abandoned car.

I agree, that the police didn't see this as a missing person, but rather a guy that ran out on his girlfriend and newborn daughter.  I think the Chief made that clear.  As for verifying that, I'm going to have to assume that his parents are dead/no close family (there's been no mention of family yet so this is plausible), loner-type so no close friends, maybe moved around a lot, he was like Morgan and constantly changing jobs so a boss wouldn't have cared.  And as I said above, if the missing persons department didn't coordinate with the impound lot, the car wouldn't have been flagged.  So I can buy that Morgan tried to get the police to see this as a missing persons case, they didn't take her seriously and/or didn't have the time and/or didn't have any evidence to go on, so they just chalked it up to him bolting.  And Morgan eventually had to give up and move on with her life. 

Is it a tightly written subplot?  Nope, it has holes. But not nearly as much as most other shows these days, so I'm ok with it as is.  And, we may find out more as we go along that will answer some of these questions.  They don't have to spoon feed us everything in the first 2 episodes.

 

 

 

[shapeshifter]

2 hours ago, Yeah No said:

Those are very good points. I figure she did her own research, hit a brick wall and didn't have the time/money/resources to take it to the next level.

1 hour ago, iMonrey said:

Again, I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but baby daddy was not officially a "missing person." Everyone from the police to her daughter thought he'd just run out on them. This, alone, should have been easy enough to verify. Call his parents. Call his friends. Call his boss at work. Is he actually missing? Someone should be able to verify this easily enough. It seems he actually was, in fact, missing, and for some reason nobody was able to prove that. It doesn't make any sense. Especially since they apparently found his abandoned car.

6 minutes ago, chaifan said:

I'm going to have to assume that his parents are dead/no close family (there's been no mention of family yet so this is plausible), loner-type so no close friends, maybe moved around a lot, he was like Morgan and constantly changing jobs so a boss wouldn't have cared. 

Based on personal experience with a sample size of 1, it's possible all of the above gave Morgan the brush off with everything from "haven't seen him in a while" to "maybe you should stop beating a dead horse" (I heard that last one). 

But, also based on personal experience, I'm more inclined to think Morgan stopped looking because at various points, she thought it would not do their daughter any good to find out what happened. 

On the third hand, also based upon personal experience, if he disappeared pre-FaceBook or even pre-MySpace, finding him now should not be that hard.
But the older daughter is much younger than FB, so if he's alive, he must be in WITSEC or something???

. 
 

 

[chaifan]

9 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

But the older daughter is much younger than FB, so if he's alive, he must be in WITSEC or something???

That was a guess I posted in the episode 1 thread.  I think that's where this will go, it will be something mob/drug cartel related.  Morgan will bring down the whole operation while saving the ex, her daughter and herself. 

[bros402]

On 9/25/2024 at 8:01 AM, AnimeMania said:

Damien didn't look old enough to drive, let alone be a harden criminal needing a second chance in an auto repair shop.

I believe the mother said that the shop was for at risk youth and those who needed a second chance. He fell into the first category.

[JAYJAY1979]

I like there is a story arc with the lead and long ago husband vanishing, but I hope that the show will give the other characters more to do that is not dependent on Morgan.

Also, Morgan is going to veer into know it all territory so I would love to see the other characters sometimes come up with something that she didn't think of... but would spearhead her into coming up with something (and I don't mean her daughter, but the other cops). 

[anniebird]

I understand how they set up the kid to rob a jewelry store at that specific time but how did they know WHICH jewelry store he was going to rob? I assume there's more than one in LA.

[Raja]

3 minutes ago, anniebird said:

I understand how they set up the kid to rob a jewelry store at that specific time but how did they know WHICH jewelry store he was going to rob? I assume there's more than one in LA.

I guess since his new escape plan after losing his driver was to jump on a commuter train. Once a time was set a store near a train station had to be the potential target.

[Zaffy]

Let's be honest here, the premise is not too realistic, but the whole fun of it is how she solves the cases.

I have watched episodes of the Greek version (IQ 160) and of the original French version (HPI).
The Greek I dislike because I detest the lead. The original French is not bad, but the lead is like a caricature, way too exaggerating acting and character that behaves too goofy for such an intelligent person. She is like Erin Brockovich on steroids.
I prefer the American version cause, compared to the original, they have toned down the lead. She is still a tad eccentric but not annoying.
What I dislike in the American is that the police officer  seems to get adjusted way too soon to her persona. In the original it takes some time, to say the least, and their issues are usually the comedy factor of the show if not the core of it.

Which is why I am not sure how this will go on  if they make her police partner get used to her so easily.
 

[bros402]

5 hours ago, Zaffy said:

Let's be honest here, the premise is not too realistic, but the whole fun of it is how she solves the cases.

I have watched episodes of the Greek version (IQ 160) and of the original French version (HPI).
The Greek I dislike because I detest the lead. The original French is not bad, but the lead is like a caricature, way too exaggerating acting and character that behaves too goofy for such an intelligent person. She is like Erin Brockovich on steroids.
I prefer the American version cause, compared to the original, they have toned down the lead. She is still a tad eccentric but not annoying.
What I dislike in the American is that the police officer  seems to get adjusted way too soon to her persona. In the original it takes some time, to say the least, and their issues are usually the comedy factor of the show if not the core of it.

Which is why I am not sure how this will go on  if they make her police partner get used to her so easily.
 

They'll probably have something come up where she screws up and he goes back to not trusting her.

Or she has different partners - maybe 2 or 3 - so it looks like the cops have more than one detective for murders?

[Raja]

4 hours ago, bros402 said:

They'll probably have something come up where she screws up and he goes back to not trusting her.

Or she has different partners - maybe 2 or 3 - so it looks like the cops have more than one detective for murders?

That's always has been the ignored in the big city special detective unit with super powerful consultants shows. They don't seem responsible for investigating all of the hundreds of real life homicides.

 

If they are a  special unit what causes them to get the call for a kid falling off of the roof? We did have a Captain and 3 detectives, before one got loaned to robbery, working with Morgan.

[chediavolo]

On 9/25/2024 at 1:19 AM, dancingdreamer said:

I find this hour goes very fast. I really  like Morgan, and detective Karadec is coming  around. I have to say, Morgan's  baby is beautiful.  I also loved the older children being  so pleased,  their car was back. 

Love the kids too. But why is her early teens daughters hair bleached blonde and badly? And it looks terrible with her complexion. 

[shapeshifter]

2 hours ago, chediavolo said:

why is her early teens daughters hair bleached blonde and badly? And it looks terrible with her complexion. 

I still wonder why my teen sister did that in the 1960s. 

[astrohip]

5 hours ago, chediavolo said:

Love the kids too. But why is her early teens daughters hair bleached blonde and badly? And it looks terrible with her complexion. 

Agree to disagree. I like her look.

[Johannah]

On 10/19/2024 at 1:46 PM, astrohip said:

Agree to disagree. I like her look.

I do, too.  I generally like when teens express themselves by different hair color and and clothes.  I like pink and blue hair.  It's cute.  And it's better than something permanent like a tattoo someplace that they might regret later.

[chediavolo]

18 hours ago, Johannah said:

I do, too.  I generally like when teens express themselves by different hair color and and clothes.  I like pink and blue hair.  It's cute.  And it's better than something permanent like a tattoo someplace that they might regret later.

Bleaching your hair is actually illegal before a certain age in some states. It is damaging to your hair and potentially to your health hence it being outlawed.  It’s baffling why a mother would allow their young child to do this to themselves. 

[shapeshifter]

39 minutes ago, chediavolo said:

Bleaching your hair is actually illegal before a certain age in some states. It is damaging to your hair and potentially to your health hence it being outlawed.  It’s baffling why a mother would allow their young child to do this to themselves. 

Flashing back again to the 1960s and my sister: 
She is lucky she's not blind, IMO, since she initially used chlorine bleach from our laundry room to bleach her hair.
That might be why our Mom, who was very much into having her own hair "done," got more involved and supported her in her hair bleaching — with products formulated for human hair.

I don't know if the hair will enter into the dialog of the show, but maybe we'll get a similar backstory if it does.

Edited October 21 by shapeshifter

[chediavolo]

1 hour ago, shapeshifter said:

Flashing back again to the 1960s and my sister: 
She is lucky she's not blind, IMO, since she initially used chlorine bleach from our laundry room to bleach her hair.
That might be why our Mom, who was very much into having her own hair "done," got more involved and supported her in her hair bleaching — with products formulated for human hair.

I don't know if the hair will enter into the dialog of the show, but maybe we'll get a similar backstory if it does.

That’s what this girl‘s hair looks like. A bad bleach job or a homemade one.

[astrohip]

It actually looks like a very professional job. Very well done, not cheap at all.