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Line Of Duty - General Discussion

Meredith Quill

By Meredith Quill
in Line Of Duty

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tkc
tkc

I do like the three leads, but I agree with you that the three actors you've mentioned have been wonderful.  I'm in the middle of watching S4 right now (Thandie Newton's series).  At this point, I thi

palmaire
palmaire

Ahem. I rewatched the series this past week and got so annoyed with Kate and her crappy undercover work! All she did in every office was stare suspiciously at people and ask intrusive questions t

nb360
nb360

I'm re-watching season one of Line of Duty and once again I'm so impressed with how addictive this show is, especially the first season. The British make some of the best crime dramas.

Capricasix

Capricasix

(edited)

I literally did a facepalm when I made the connection in the S05 finale to a character in the first season 😄

Superficially, I think Steve looks better with a beard. When he’s clean-shaven, he looks too young to be a seasoned cop. Also, Kate’s haircut in S02 was my favourite.

Edited by Capricasix
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Capricasix

Capricasix

I have been a fan of British television for decades (I remember watching the original House of Cards on PBS in the 1990s), but since I’ve just binged LoD and Bodyguard (twice) in the last month, I’m all GIVE ME ALL THE BRITISH MYSTERIES AND POLICE PROCEDURALS 😄 Netflix has 19 seasons of Midsomer Murders! And I didn’t realize that Vicky McClure was in the first season of Broadchurch, so I’ll need to watch that again.

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bannana

bannana

Okay, I am assuming this is the only thread for the series.

I love it, and am just starting Season Two where Dot is now promoted and working alongside the AC team.

A question I have re Season 1, and I am going to put it in a spoiler just in case:

Spoiler

Dot clearly lied when he told the team that Gates had called him and told them to leave the stakeout/surveillance.  This info is what made them pursue Gates even more.  The lie becomes clear when Gates tells Steve that he never pulled them out.  Steve knows this.  So at the end of Season 1, it should be completely obvious to Steve that Dot is the bad guy.  It is like this dangling clue, very obvious, that Steve and even his boss, completely neglect.

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TaraS1

TaraS1

I just discovered LoD on Hulu a week ago and signed up for Acorn so I could get my hands on S5, which I finished last night.  Mother of god, I love this show! lol.  I love Hastings and the friendship between Steve and Kate, but I think my favorite things are the actual police work scenes and the interviews.  Those were always my favorite parts of NYPD Blue, which is what started my love for cop shows.  I could listen to them referring to documents in your folders (after the very long beep of the DIR) all day long lol

It's hard to say which season was my favorite, but I'm leaning towards S4.  I have never been a Thandie Newton fan (probably because I hated her so much on ER) but I thought she was a brilliant villain.  Same for Keeley Hawes.  I'm not a fan, but she did an excellent job of making me despise Denton while also kind of pitying her for being a pathetic wretch.

I'm so happy they've started work on S6, but if I had realized ahead of time how short the seasons are and how long we have to wait between them, I wouldn't have stupidly burned through all five in a week lol

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scrb

scrb

Just started watching, in season 3 now.

Don't recall them saying it but this is London presumably?  But seems like a lot of non-London accents, including Hasting's.

The open contempt for AC-12 by those outside of it is interesting.  Yeah American cop dramas show IAD is widely hated by the rank and file.

I don't doubt that there are a lot of cops.  Seems like from the POV of AC-12, a big police force is swimming with them.  But you wonder what percentage of bad cops are rooted out by Internal Affairs or the AC dept.

The only sense the public has is the thin blue line and we had all those incidents of black people being shot, with few cops losing their jobs or being prosecuted.  There doesn't seem to be such an unwritten oath among these British police like the thin blue line though.

London is infamous for having al these video cameras.  They're already using video camera footage in the show to try to piece together crimes.

But will the show ever feature a lot of mobile phone videos in light of all the videos which went viral a couple of years ago?  They show the detective characters using their phones, mostly for calls and texting.  Denton used her phone to take pictures in season 2.  

I would think the cops would start spreading stories about Kate, how she turned out to be undercover for AC-12 and would always turn up after an AC-12 investigation had begun.  So you wouldn't expect her to be able to keep doing undercover work.

 

Hulu recommended Prime Suspect based on my watching Line of Duty.  Of course I've seen them in the original airings.  What was notable about that show was that a lot of the decisive moments were all done in interviews, with Jane gaining confidence and then catching suspects in the interrogation room.  Though she had been relegated to desk duties and other cops and suspects underestimated a woman DCI.

The AC-12 cops don't use guns either but seems like they often get on the verge of altercations.

orza

orza

The show is set in a fictional unnamed city somewhere in the Midlands, possibly near Birmingham based on some in-show references to actual motorways and major roads. It's supposed to be a big city so people working in one precinct wouldn't necessarily know and gossip with people in other precincts about a new person who moves on after a short time. Plus Kate is pretty generic looking and uses a different name and legend each time she goes undercover so it's unlikely that people would make any connection.

Starleigh

Starleigh

Funny story about the setting, my sister told me she gave it a try on my recommendation but was having trouble understanding the accents. At one point her husband (who grew up in England) walked passed the TV area and said, Oh, that's a _____ accent (I don't remember the specific area he named, just that it's more of a "rough" working class sort of city, not a "posh" London type. Anyway, he pinpointed the exact accent, just from those few lines of dialogue he heard. Anyway,  agree with the recent post that the last season was not as good as the others, but I'm hoping that since the next one is the last, they will get it together and really deliver. Sounds like it may be out late fall 2020??

orza

orza

The first series was filmed in Birmingham. Production moved to Belfast for the same reason as many other shows film there - lower production costs. There have been enough in-show references to local geography etc to place it in the Midlands.

I can see the logic to setting the show in a fictional city since it deals with police corruption at all levels. Setting it in a real city could lead to some people jumping to conclusions that it is some sort of roman-à-clef and publically speculating which real-life people in law enforcement correspond to which characters in the show. That in turn could lead to libel suits and lots of the wrong kind of drama.

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Starleigh

Starleigh

On 2/27/2020 at 2:48 PM, scrb said:

So are there good British dramas with posh accents?

"Gaffer" to refer to the boss doesn't sound like a compliment.

I think it's an affectionate or at least just an informal way to refer to your superior officer in British slang. Or so I gather from copious rereadings of Tana French detective novels, lol.

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Tighthead

Tighthead

On 2/18/2020 at 5:22 PM, Somanydogs said:

Just finished Season 5 and I am tired.  It is feeling very contrived to me at this point and I am not sure I can hang in for another season.  Mystery is good - implausibility is not.  Enough already.  

My real name is "Hazel".  I guess that makes me "H".  🙄

I enjoy the show for the cast and characters but its just getting more preposterous each season.  

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CoderLady

CoderLady

(edited)

I wish they'd finally finish the "H" stuff. It's not as fascinating as they think it is. Personally, I've grown to loathe criminal masterminds who always manage to get away through some ridiculously contrived loophole at the very end of the story. The writers must think doing this will help draw the viewers back for the next installment but to me it's unimaginative plotting. Just expose the bastard, kill him/her in a glorious final battle, and move on.

 

Edited by CoderLady
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scrb

scrb

1 hour ago, CoderLady said:

I wish they'd finally finish the "H" stuff. It's not as fascinating as they think it is. Personally, I've grown to loathe criminal masterminds who always manage to get away through some ridiculously contrived loophole at the very end of the story. The writers must think doing this will help draw the viewers back for the next installment but to me it's unimaginative plotting. Just expose the bastard, kill him/her in a glorious final battle, and move on.

 

At this point, they may be too far in.

Once they catch H, there may be no reason to continue going on with the series.

Though supposedly ratings are great in the UK so they may want to continue it.

But would the show runner and the major cast members want to continue or move on to something else?

Already taken up over half a decade of their lives so they may want to do something else.

CoderLady

CoderLady

(edited)
2 hours ago, scrb said:

At this point, they may be too far in.

Once they catch H, there may be no reason to continue going on with the series.

Though supposedly ratings are great in the UK so they may want to continue it.

But would the show runner and the major cast members want to continue or move on to something else?

Already taken up over half a decade of their lives so they may want to do something else.

That's an interesting angle. American series tend to go on and on until all the creativity has been used up and the plots get progressively more unimaginative and contrived, until they get cancelled. I know I'm generalizing but good British series do tend to stop before everyone is sick of them.

The "H" through line hasn't been central to the plot, though. Each series has been about AC-12 uncovering and stopping a corrupt cop while operating under the hostile scrutiny of their peers. If you take out the steady drip of "H" reveals that doesn't change, it just makes each series completely self-contained, like Unforgotten.

Edited by CoderLady
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Ceindreadh

Ceindreadh

3 hours ago, scrb said:

 

But would the show runner and the major cast members want to continue or move on to something else?

Already taken up over half a decade of their lives so they may want to do something else.

I don't know about the showrunner, but the cast have ample time between seasons to do other projects. 

Martin Compston had a series called Traces that aired in January and another (The Nest) is starting next week.

Vicky McClure is in the Alex Rider tv series which is currently in post production.

Adrien Dunbar is starring in Blood (second series currently airing).

It's not like in the US where a full time gig on a tv show usually precludes an actor from having much time to spend on other projects.  These three have been pretty busy outside of Line of Duty. 

Door County Cherry

Door County Cherry

7 hours ago, CoderLady said:

The "H" through line hasn't been central to the plot, though. Each series has been about AC-12 uncovering and stopping a corrupt cop while operating under the hostile scrutiny of their peers. If you take out the steady drip of "H" reveals that doesn't change, it just makes each series completely self-contained, like Unforgotten.

I think the problem with "H" isn't that the series is centered around him/her, IMO.  I think the problem with "H" is that the person gets progressively more powerful and all knowing as the series goes on. All corruption seems to eventually tie back to H.  

So the small details about H dropped each season have now turned H into this massive reveal that will likely be a massive disappointment.  How could any character live up to the myth of H? 

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