Faux Life: Things That Happen On TV But Not In Reality

[Browncoat]

1 hour ago, ABay said:

According to Fernando Lamas (Billy Crystal on SNL), it's more important to look good than to feel good.

And dahling, you look marvelous!

[Danielg342]

On 5/29/2024 at 3:36 PM, possibilities said:

I don't know any fugitives IRL, so I don't know how they really live or how much anybody is still looking for or interested in prosecuting them. But thinking about it is so stressful, I know I'd be unable to sustain any kind of ruse.

There's also the "unknown" factor too. Yeah, most people might give up the search after a year or two because there are more pressing cases and the likelihood of finding someone gets harder as time moves on, but all it takes is someone deciding to make your case a passion project and, while it's not a slam dunk that the police will find you after reviving your case, just the fact that can happen means that you're never really "in the clear" when you're on the run.

Which makes me wonder how many times those "fugitive finding"/unsolved cases shows ever deal with failure. Because I imagine people working in unsolved cases have a high degree of failure, given the nature of their work.

20 hours ago, Notabug said:

Nobody has bedhead.  The guys are clean shaven or their beard is neatly trimmed and the ladies are fully made up, often with false eyelashes and even lipstick.

The worst are dead people. "Forensics for Dummies" said it best when the author boldly declared that dead people "don't have eyelids that flutter and look relaxed and peaceful. They look dead."

Of course, the author also states the obvious when outlining the reasoning behind these "pretty dead people"- it's easier for an audience to sympathize with the dead person if they still look like a person instead of the garbled mess that actually is a dead person, plus I can't imagine there are too many within a viewing audience that would actually want to see an authentic-looking dead person. Realistic as it may be, it's still not a pleasant sight.

[janie jones]

14 hours ago, Danielg342 said:

Of course, the author also states the obvious when outlining the reasoning behind these "pretty dead people"- it's easier for an audience to sympathize with the dead person if they still look like a person instead of the garbled mess that actually is a dead person, plus I can't imagine there are too many within a viewing audience that would actually want to see an authentic-looking dead person. Realistic as it may be, it's still not a pleasant sight.

I'm not sure what this means. Not everyone who dies is mangled (which is what "garbled mess" brings to mind). Some people are just dead. No, they don't look alive, and shows could probably do more with makeup, but I feel like there's only so much you can do when the actor is actually alive.

[merylinkid]

On 5/30/2024 at 1:15 PM, proserpina65 said:

Judging by the idiots who miss trial dates and skip out on bail in the circuit court where I work, they don't really put a lot of effort into it.  Especially not when they run out of beer over the weekend.

there was the guy this week who didn't miss his court hearing, he zoomed in while driving (unsafe, don't do this kids).   It was a hearing on charges of driving on a suspended license.   He was more than a little surprised when the judge revoked his bond.   Criminals in real life tend toward the stupid end of the spectrum.

On tv, its always this criminal mastermind with an elaborate plan -- that is undone because he has a signature he leaves at every crime scene, a playing card, the way he ties up his victims, something.   

[Notabug]

7 minutes ago, merylinkid said:

there was the guy this week who didn't miss his court hearing, he zoomed in while driving (unsafe, don't do this kids).   It was a hearing on charges of driving on a suspended license.   He was more than a little surprised when the judge revoked his bond.   Criminals in real life tend toward the stupid end of the spectrum.

On tv, its always this criminal mastermind with an elaborate plan -- that is undone because he has a signature he leaves at every crime scene, a playing card, the way he ties up his victims, something.   

I saw the video on the news.  The judge's face was priceless as the guy did the video hearing on his suspended license while driving.  When questioned about what he was doing, the fool freely admitted that he was driving to an appointment and seemed clueless as to why the judge might be asking.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/29/us/video/washtenaw-michigan-judge-cedric-simpson-suspended-license-digvid

[Zella]

I read an interview with the defendant where he said that to his knowledge the license suspension had been rescinded. And I could see why that would cause him to be shocked when he was initially charged with it again, but by the time the court date rolled around, it shouldn't have been news to him that he still really didn't have a valid license and that is was a really bad idea to depict himself driving. 

https://www.wxyz.com/news/hear-from-the-man-caught-driving-during-virtual-court-hearing-for-suspended-license

Edited June 1 by Zella

[Notabug]

6 hours ago, Zella said:

I read an interview with the defendant where he said that to his knowledge the license suspension had been rescinded. And I could see why that would cause him to be shocked when he was initially charged with it again, but by the time the court date rolled around, it shouldn't have been news to him that he still really didn't have a valid license and that is was a really bad idea to depict himself driving. 

https://www.wxyz.com/news/hear-from-the-man-caught-driving-during-virtual-court-hearing-for-suspended-license

In many places, there are also laws against distracted driving.  I would think that making a video court appearance while tooling around town would meet the criteria.  Even if his license wasn't suspended, he was a fool to make the zoom call while driving.  Michigan has a distracted driving law, though I don't know the details.

[Zella]

29 minutes ago, Notabug said:

In many places, there are also laws against distracted driving.  I would think that making a video court appearance while tooling around town would meet the criteria.  Even if his license wasn't suspended, he was a fool to make the zoom call while driving.  Michigan has a distracted driving law, though I don't know the details.

For sure! I just found his explanation even more confusing since during the infamous video he looks absolutely stunned that he's in trouble. LOL 

[Danielg342]

13 hours ago, janie jones said:

I'm not sure what this means. Not everyone who dies is mangled (which is what "garbled mess" brings to mind). Some people are just dead. No, they don't look alive, and shows could probably do more with makeup, but I feel like there's only so much you can do when the actor is actually alive.

Depending on how far along a corpse has been dead for, the body can get quite messy with all the liquids seeping out, the depressed skin, the stiffening body, insects, etc.

...but, my main point (or, rather, the "Forensics for Dummies" author's main point) is that a dead body isn't pretty. Unfortunately the author didn't specify how he would like Hollywood to dress up their corpses so they're more realistic, and I would agree that there's only so much you can do with an actor that is still alive.

I think TV shows should utilize closed body bags  and camera angles more often instead of using dead bodies, then doing what they can when they need to show them.

12 hours ago, merylinkid said:

On tv, its always this criminal mastermind with an elaborate plan -- that is undone because he has a signature he leaves at every crime scene, a playing card, the way he ties up his victims, something.   

From a writer's standpoint, a smart criminal is more of a threat in a story because it presents more of a challenge to hero. That said, the lengths Hollywood can go to present just how smart these criminal masterminds are can be quite ridiculous, giving them resources and insights and abilities they shouldn't have.

Edited June 2 by Danielg342

[Dimity]

10 hours ago, janie jones said:

I'm not sure what this means. Not everyone who dies is mangled (which is what "garbled mess" brings to mind). Some people are just dead. No, they don't look alive, and shows could probably do more with makeup, but I feel like there's only so much you can do when the actor is actually alive.

I wondered this as well.  I am assuming those who take issue with the way a dead body is shown are not talking about people who have died a peaceful death in hospice or a quick death from an aneurism or whatever.   Decomposition and the like does not happen at the moment of death.  

Edited June 2 by Dimity

[Mabinogia]

1 hour ago, Dimity said:

Decomposition and the like does not happen at the moment of death.  

I have watched some British crime shows where they had bodies found long after death and the decomposition was pretty gnarly. I'm not at all squeamish about decaying rotting corpses, but there were some were I looked away for a moment. 

[merylinkid]

16 hours ago, Danielg342 said:

hat said, the lengths Hollywood can go to present just how smart these criminal masterminds are can be quite ridiculous, giving them resources and insights and abilities they shouldn't have.

I see Red John has entered the chat.   

Honestly that whole thing was way too extended.   They should have wrapped it much sooner but kept him on as a consultant (and that's another unrealistic thing the consultant bunch for these agencies) because they realized with his help they had a higher clearance rate.   He stayed on because he liked the work and it was more honest than his previous life as a conman psychic.  

[DoctorAtomic]

I think the general consensus was they should have ended Red John with the guy they caught in the third season. He was only a disciple or something iirc. 

[Zella]

Yeah I loved The Mentalist back in the day, but I never cared about Red John and the more the show doubled-down on the storyline, the more it turned me off. It reminded me a lot of Castle, in that the show actively ignored what it did so well to pursue a longer arc about a character's backstory that just devolved into pure tedium and overtook the narrative.

Edited June 2 by Zella

[DoctorAtomic]

And it made Jade have to be stupid to continue the plot. 

[Danielg342]

7 hours ago, merylinkid said:

I see Red John has entered the chat.   

Honestly that whole thing was way too extended.   They should have wrapped it much sooner but kept him on as a consultant (and that's another unrealistic thing the consultant bunch for these agencies) because they realized with his help they had a higher clearance rate.   He stayed on because he liked the work and it was more honest than his previous life as a conman psychic.  

Heh. There are many others you could list there too. There's The Reaper and The Replicator on Criminal Minds, Christopher Pelant on Bones, Saint on S.W.A.T., Theo Galavan on Gotham, any number of baddies from The Blacklist...heck, The Mentalist would score another one in Tommy Volker.

...but...yeah...the poster child for how not to write a an overarching baddie is Red John. Plain and simple.

I'm with @DoctorAtomic that the Red John storyline should have ended with Bradley Whitford's character shot in the mall cafe at the end of S3, because that moment was too perfect and it was too well-built up. Nothing the show could have done afterward could have topped that.

(For the record, Whitford's character was revealed to be a Red John minion named Timothy Carter who held a woman prisoner in his basement)

I could go on a rant about Red John but I'm not sure how on topic it would be, so I'll just mention the most salient point: Bruno Heller has actually admitted he didn't know who Red John even was until halfway into Season Four. Which meant we got three and half years of clues that were based upon someone who didn't yet exist.

Which is really Hollywood's big problem with its overarching mysterious criminals (and its overarching mysteries in general- like Lost or the "Mombatross" of Castle). Too often a writer or a producer (more likely a producer, methinks) falls in love with the idea of their show having this "mystery" that they introduce it, give it some bare bones but never develop it any further.

Eventually you get a character or a concept that falls flat because they have all these things tacked on to it without a concern about if they actually work together, leading to a mishmash the writers try valiantly to put together at the last moment only for them to realize by that point they're in way over their heads.

To get this back on topic, I do want to say that smart criminals do exist. Ted Bundy is probably the smartest of any criminal of recent vintage, as Bundy used his knowledge about police procedures and forensics to thwart police attempts to catch him.

Bundy committed his crimes in different jurisdictions, because he knew that (at the time) the police in those jurisdictions wouldn't share information and not realize they were investigating the same criminal. This worked extremely well for Bundy since the only real evidence at trial was bite marks he left on one of his victims' bodies.

Bundy used blunt instruments for his attacks because they'd be harder for a forensic analyst to trace back to him.

Bundy varied his ruses and his appearances, so that when reports of the crimes would surface, they'd look like different criminals when they weren't.

When you look at what Bundy did and what he was able to accomplish, it shouldn't be surprising that he had a criminal career that actually spanned decades.

Heck, if he didn't deal with a police officer who went over and above what he had to do in that moment, Bundy might never have been caught (Bundy was pulled over for a simple traffic violation, which, at the time, didn't require the officer to run the vehicle's license plates in a database of stolen vehicles. The officer decided to do that anyway which was how Bundy was eventually caught).

Then there's The Zodiac Killer who was never actually caught and sent letters to newspapers taunting the police for their inability to catch him.

So it's not, actually, unrealistic to have smart criminals on TV and to even have smart criminals who taunt the police.

I just think Hollywood gets too wrapped up in creating a "grand" criminal that they don't ground them in reality. They worry too much about ratings, about having a criminal that escapes at the right moments and gets caught at the right moment (i.e., the season/series finale) that they don't think about the details that would make the criminal human or believable.

In short, the producers love the idea of the mystery- they just never put in the work to make it work...and their show suffers because of it.

[DoctorAtomic]

2 minutes ago, Danielg342 said:

I'm with @DoctorAtomic that the Red John storyline should have ended with Bradley Whitford's character shot in the mall cafe at the end of S3, because that moment was too perfect and it was too well-built up. Nothing the show could have done afterward could have topped that.

That's it. I was guessing on season 3. They could have had copycats after, just not have them dominate the storylines. The Saw movies went on after Jigsaw's death with disciples. Dexter had different villains every season. 

Up until catching Red John, I thought they did fine. Jane wasn't on the top of his game with Red John due to the personal angle. 

iirc, we were all applauding the show at the time for solving the big mystery so early on. 

 

[Mabinogia]

20 minutes ago, Danielg342 said:

I just think Hollywood gets too wrapped up in creating a "grand" criminal that they don't ground them in reality. They worry too much about ratings, about having a criminal that escapes at the right moments and gets caught at the right moment (i.e., the season/series finale) that they don't think about the details that would make the criminal human or believable.

I love a smart criminal (in fiction, not real life!) but, other than the original, Holmes/Moriarty, I detest the personalized arch nemesis criminal. As you pointed out, Bundy skipped around from place to place, which was part of how he went on for as long as he did, because he didn't pick one particular cop and go around committing crimes specifically for that cop in some sort of mating dance. 

It just becomes silly when you have the same master criminal taunting the one detective (who is the lead of the show naturally) because lead detective, who is supposed to be the smartest, most dedicated detective to ever live, can't seem to catch this one specific person because.... ratings.

[DoctorAtomic]

Like I said, which invariably forces the writers to dumb down the hero to keep the criminal out of reach.

That's why White Collar was so great. Neal was this debonaire criminal who got away with a ton of thefts, but stuffy Peter caught him. Twice. And was reminded of it frequently. Different kind of show than what we're talking about, but still. 

Talking about Bundy, in his trial, didn't the judge basically fawn over him and say something like, 'oh you would have been a great lawyer?' I only know the Netflix dramatization, so I don't know if it was embellished. 

[Calvada]

11 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

Like I said, which invariably forces the writers to dumb down the hero to keep the criminal out of reach.

That's why White Collar was so great. Neal was this debonaire criminal who got away with a ton of thefts, but stuffy Peter caught him. Twice. And was reminded of it frequently. Different kind of show than what we're talking about, but still. 

Talking about Bundy, in his trial, didn't the judge basically fawn over him and say something like, 'oh you would have been a great lawyer?' I only know the Netflix dramatization, so I don't know if it was embellished. 

In Bundy's Florida trial, the judge (when sentencing Bundy to death) talked about how he could have been a good lawyer if he hadn't chosen a different path.  All that murdering, in other words.  Bundy probably would have been caught a lot quicker now, simply because of cameras.  The campuses where he found so many of his victims now would have tons of cameras, as well as streets around them.  He and his car would have shown up repeatedly.  Bundy was caught because he made mistakes - one victim in Utah was able to escape from him, resulting in his first conviction, there was a witness who saw him leaving the sorority house in Florida, and when stopped in Florida in that stolen vehicle, he punched the cop and tried to run.  In real life, a lot of criminals are caught because they're impulsive, not bright, or arrogant.  They leave physical evidence, get caught on camera, make incriminating statements, talk on jail calls.  The master criminals on TV shows never leave any evidence (no tool marks, DNA, fingerprints, tire marks), manage to evade all surveillance cameras that are everywhere in our society (or have the ability to hack into systems and alter/delete them), and they apparently have limitless financial resources to support their murdering lifestyle.  Also, they have lots of loyal minions, and magically know when a minion is going to flip so they can get to them.  

[Kel Varnsen]

On 5/27/2024 at 2:16 AM, Danielg342 said:

On the other hand...revealing secrets on a bench, where the public could hear it, is incredibly risky and reckless. I'd imagine real spies (who are, likely, nothing at all like James Bond) don't conduct "business" out in the open. They'll go to safe houses or homes or at least talk in places that are more private than a park.

Those public meetings probably work in real life, because I assume that real spies are pretty average looking people that you probably couldn't pick up out of a line up. But TV/movie spies are of course ridiculously gorgeous. I watched The Americans last year and it was at least a couple of seasons in before I wasn't constantly distracted by how hot Keri Russell is. So it's hard not to think that anytime anyone who had a run in with her had to talk to the FBI, all of them would say that the person who scammed me or stole my info was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. So if people saw her in the park they would remember.

13 hours ago, Danielg342 said:

Then there's The Zodiac Killer who was never actually caught and sent letters to newspapers taunting the police for their inability to catch him.

The interesting thing about Zodiac is it has been over 50 years since his last confirmed murder. And yet people are still talking about his stupid letters and ciphers. Which to me shows how uncommon that kind of thing is. But if you went by TV rules people probably wouldn't talk about Zodiac (or Jack the Ripper) that much because every serial killer would be doing letters and clues and stupid Riddler stuff like that.

[Calvada]

And cops/agents are never recognized, even after they are involved in spectacular cases that would have garnered huge publicity.  They are even able to go undercover!  Just once in Castle  I wanted someone Kate Beckett was interviewing to say, "Hey, aren't you that cop that got shot by a sniper at that other cop's funeral?"  

[Ohiopirate02]

9 minutes ago, Calvada said:

And cops/agents are never recognized, even after they are involved in spectacular cases that would have garnered huge publicity.  They are even able to go undercover!  Just once in Castle  I wanted someone Kate Beckett was interviewing to say, "Hey, aren't you that cop that got shot by a sniper at that other cop's funeral?"  

I have to laugh at how easy it is for the various detectives on Chicago PD to go undercover.  They easily slip in and out while investigating the Big Bad of the week, and none of the low level drug dealers that hang around said Big Bad ever notice Atwater or Ruzek acting suspicious or being a cop.

[Lugal]

17 minutes ago, Calvada said:

And cops/agents are never recognized, even after they are involved in spectacular cases that would have garnered huge publicity.  They are even able to go undercover!  Just once in Castle  I wanted someone Kate Beckett was interviewing to say, "Hey, aren't you that cop that got shot by a sniper at that other cop's funeral?"

They did it on Brooklyn 99 when Rosa was supposed to go undercover in a prison and when she walks through the gates she meets another prisoner who said, "Hey, you're that cop who arrested me in Brooklyn three years ago!"

[Ohiopirate02]

18 minutes ago, Lugal said:

They did it on Brooklyn 99 when Rosa was supposed to go undercover in a prison and when she walks through the gates she meets another prisoner who said, "Hey, you're that cop who arrested me in Brooklyn three years ago!"

I'm doing a rewatch of Brooklyn 99 right now and they do poke fun at a lot of these TV cop tropes.  

[DoctorAtomic]

Isn't there an accepted theory who Zodiac was? But he died before they could do anything about it. 

[Raja]

1 hour ago, Calvada said:

And cops/agents are never recognized, even after they are involved in spectacular cases that would have garnered huge publicity.  They are even able to go undercover!  Just once in Castle  I wanted someone Kate Beckett was interviewing to say, "Hey, aren't you that cop that got shot by a sniper at that other cop's funeral?"  

I remember Crockett and Tubbs kept those cover identities of Sonny Burnett and Rico Cooper for years even if everybody who contacted them, except that idiot Izzy,  got killed by Miami Vice soon after they showed up.

Edited June 3 by Raja

[Danielg342]

11 hours ago, Calvada said:

in other words.  Bundy probably would have been caught a lot quicker now, simply because of cameras.

There were cameras in the 1970s and 1980s...I'm not sure if they were as prevalent as they are now, but they existed.

I'm not sure it would have mattered, though. Bundy didn't have one vehicle and one form of an alter-ego- he had several, changing them constantly. Regardless, I don't think he cared too much if he was seen- as Bundy himself pointed out at his trial, prosecutors had a hard time connecting him to the actual crimes because they had very little physical evidence.

(I am aware that Bundy ran from the officer trying to arrest him...but, again, that officer did something- check Bundy's license plates- that Bundy didn't think he'd do)

Yeah, someone who copies Bundy's methods today would likely get caught, and get caught quickly, but that's because law enforcement and security organizations have learned from what Bundy did and adapted their strategies (for example, in Bundy's time police departments wouldn't share intelligence. Now they do it all the time).

However, I don't think it would follow that Bundy would, necessarily, be easier to catch if he operated today. Bundy would simply alter his tactics, understanding what the police do now and exploiting their weaknesses, like he did in his real time. For all the advancements the police have made, their clearance rate isn't even close to 100%, so I don't think Bundy would fail any more than he actually did if he operated today.

9 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

Isn't there an accepted theory who Zodiac was? But he died before they could do anything about it. 

Arthur Leigh Allen, who died in 1991, was the only person ever named by police as a suspect in the Zodiac killings. A lot of circumstantial evidence links him to the crimes, but nothing concrete or tangible (none of the DNA on the letters Zodiac sent matched Allen's DNA, for example).

10 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

The interesting thing about Zodiac is it has been over 50 years since his last confirmed murder. And yet people are still talking about his stupid letters and ciphers. Which to me shows how uncommon that kind of thing is. But if you went by TV rules people probably wouldn't talk about Zodiac (or Jack the Ripper) that much because every serial killer would be doing letters and clues and stupid Riddler stuff like that.

I think what it really boils down to is the Hollywood archetype of "the perfect criminal", the diabolical mastermind who taunts the police at every turn and seeks to become famous via crime, isn't even that common of a criminal.

Truth is, the vast majority of criminals are criminals of opportunity or criminals by necessity. Teens from dysfunctional families get into gangs because the gangs are more of a "family" to them than their actual families are. People get into the drug trade because their families are poor and they need the money.  A lot of serial killers do what they do because they want to enact fantasies they have. Then you've got your jilted lovers, the revenge killers, the counterfeiters, all the way up to the terrorists.

For about as many reasons- good-intentioned reasons, even- that you can think of for why someone might commit a crime, there's a criminal who has actually done it.

It's those kinds of things that I wish TV would explore a bit more. I mean, I get it- a criminal who, say, has stolen a rare diamond because he's knee deep in gambling debts is much harder to define as a "bad guy" than someone who is like The Joker or The Riddler, but it's more realistic. Plus, with TV exploring more police officers whose own moralities are pretty grey, shouldn't it be time to have some criminals who fit the same moralities?

[proserpina65]

On 6/1/2024 at 11:56 AM, Zella said:

I read an interview with the defendant where he said that to his knowledge the license suspension had been rescinded. And I could see why that would cause him to be shocked when he was initially charged with it again, but by the time the court date rolled around, it shouldn't have been news to him that he still really didn't have a valid license and that is was a really bad idea to depict himself driving. 

https://www.wxyz.com/news/hear-from-the-man-caught-driving-during-virtual-court-hearing-for-suspended-license

If I've learned nothing else in my 17 years at the circuit court, I've learned that the vast majority of people who commit crimes are stupid.  Or at least clueless.

I was surprised that driving guy wasn't in Florida, though.

17 hours ago, Danielg342 said:

a criminal who, say, has stolen a rare diamond because he's knee deep in gambling debts is much harder to define as a "bad guy"

Not for me.

[Quof]

3 minutes ago, proserpina65 said:

the vast majority of people who commit crimes are stupid

My colleagues and I remain convinced that the people who are convicted of crimes are the stupid ones.  If you're smart enough, you can get away with anything.  

[proserpina65]

1 minute ago, Quof said:

My colleagues and I remain convinced that the people who are convicted of crimes are the stupid ones.  If you're smart enough, you can get away with anything.  

I suppose that's true, but most people do get caught and convicted in my county.  Of course, we're not a hotbed of exotic crime here.

[shang yiet]

On TV or movies, people are really good at packing. After some big fight or quarrel, they decide to leave the house/spouse and are all packed up 30 minutes later with just one suitcase and one handbag. For me, it would take hours or days just sorting out my stuff and deciding what to bring with me.

[Anduin]

37 minutes ago, shang yiet said:

On TV or movies, people are really good at packing. After some big fight or quarrel, they decide to leave the house/spouse and are all packed up 30 minutes later with just one suitcase and one handbag. For me, it would take hours or days just sorting out my stuff and deciding what to bring with me.

I recently had four months to think about what to pack and only did it in a rush the day before. :)

[Affogato]

20 hours ago, Danielg342 said:

.

It's those kinds of things that I wish TV would explore a bit more. I mean, I get it- a criminal who, say, has stolen a rare diamond because he's knee deep in gambling debts is much harder to define as a "bad guy" than someone who is like The Joker or The Riddler, but it's more realistic. Plus, with TV exploring more police officers whose own moralities are pretty grey, shouldn't it be time to have some criminals who fit the same moralities?

It is fairly clear that The Riddler and most particularly the Joker are dangerous what used to be called sociopaths. High on the APD scake,  I’m not sure if you can define them as ‘bad’ because they appear to have no actual moral compass, but it is easy to define them as too dangerous to be free in the community, and (in the case of these two) too dangerous to be locked up.  If Gotham does not have Capital Punishment, they really need to consider it.

 Meanwhile, someone who does have a moral compass but has done something and gotten himself into debt, then stealing to get out of debt, may clearly be considered a ‘bad guy’, even if he theoretically could be rehabilitated, a possibility which is not open for the Joker. 

Someone who steals bread to feed their starving family, or trespasses to sleep in someone’s shed during a snow storm, because they are homeless, is another thing entirely. 

[JustHereForFood]

On 6/2/2024 at 6:56 PM, DoctorAtomic said:

I think the general consensus was they should have ended Red John with the guy they caught in the third season. He was only a disciple or something iirc. 

Agreed, that was a great season finale.

 

On 6/3/2024 at 3:36 AM, Danielg342 said:

I'm with @DoctorAtomic that the Red John storyline should have ended with Bradley Whitford's character shot in the mall cafe at the end of S3, because that moment was too perfect and it was too well-built up. Nothing the show could have done afterward could have topped that.

(For the record, Whitford's character was revealed to be a Red John minion named Timothy Carter who held a woman prisoner in his basement)

I could go on a rant about Red John but I'm not sure how on topic it would be, so I'll just mention the most salient point: Bruno Heller has actually admitted he didn't know who Red John even was until halfway into Season Four. Which meant we got three and half years of clues that were based upon someone who didn't yet exist.

Which is really Hollywood's big problem with its overarching mysterious criminals (and its overarching mysteries in general- like Lost or the "Mombatross" of Castle). Too often a writer or a producer (more likely a producer, methinks) falls in love with the idea of their show having this "mystery" that they introduce it, give it some bare bones but never develop it any further.

Eventually you get a character or a concept that falls flat because they have all these things tacked on to it without a concern about if they actually work together, leading to a mishmash the writers try valiantly to put together at the last moment only for them to realize by that point they're in way over their heads.

Agreed with everything. I prefer when the creators have everything planned from the beginning. Of course, now there is always the threat that their show will be cancelled before they are able to tell the whole story.

[DoctorAtomic]

I don't know if it's necessary to plan *everything * out from the start. Maybe have a general theme or narrative direction. TPTB on Breaking Bad only planned season to season. Sopranos too. 

It's the paradigm. Or, it's not knowing the show you have. That's a huge tragic flaw. There's no need to keep the Big Bad looming over a show. You could end Red John whenever you wanted. People weren't really watching just for that. 

I'm surprised when running a show, we see the same mistakes over and over; you'd think they'd have someone in with experience in watching television. 

 

[Danielg342]

6 hours ago, proserpina65 said:

Not for me.

OK, so my example wasn't the best one but my point still remains. A lot of criminals commit crimes with good intentions, and I'd like to see Hollywood explore more honestly criminals who have arguably sympathetic reasons for their crimes.

[possibilities]

Some attempt at that was made by the "Accused" series. Whether it is successful is up for debate, but that seems to  be one of the things they are trying to do.

 

 

[Kel Varnsen]

4 hours ago, Affogato said:

If Gotham does not have Capital Punishment, they really need to consider it.

I think the problem there is that Gotham is usually presented as a super corrupt city too. And even more than just in general, I am not sure I would trust officials in Gotham to be able to execute people.

34 minutes ago, Danielg342 said:

OK, so my example wasn't the best one but my point still remains. A lot of criminals commit crimes with good intentions, and I'd like to see Hollywood explore more honestly criminals who have arguably sympathetic reasons for their crimes.

The Canadian produced police procedural Flashpoint was pretty good at balancing criminals who were dumb or assholes with ones who had a sympathetic backstory. I think that show was on CBS for awhile too.

[Danielg342]

3 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

I think the problem there is that Gotham is usually presented as a super corrupt city too. And even more than just in general, I am not sure I would trust officials in Gotham to be able to execute people.

Arguably, Gotham may be one of the few cities in fiction-land where it would be believable that the same criminal would escape prison so easily, because it's so corrupt.

At the same time, you'd have to ask questions about why Gotham's officials keep their jobs and keep getting elected to those jobs despite their incompetence, and why the country Gotham  is in doesn't take action to restore order in the city. A city with maniacal serial killers isn't just a municipal threat- that's a threat to the whole country.

3 hours ago, possibilities said:

Some attempt at that was made by the "Accused" series. Whether it is successful is up for debate, but that seems to  be one of the things they are trying to do.

I'm thinking more along the lines of the variations of the detective series, because Hollywood tends to write those series with a black and white morality (unless the investigators are seen as anti-heroes and are somewhat corrupt themselves). Very rarely do these "Case-of-the-Week" series feature a criminal who is supposed to be sympathetic on a level, being the kind of criminal that makes the detective- and the audience- wonder who the "good guys" really are.

[andromeda331]

14 hours ago, shang yiet said:

On TV or movies, people are really good at packing. After some big fight or quarrel, they decide to leave the house/spouse and are all packed up 30 minutes later with just one suitcase and one handbag. For me, it would take hours or days just sorting out my stuff and deciding what to bring with me.

On Bewitched Samantha did that at least twice but she had magic so she was able to quickly grab all her clothes from the closet and dresser as well as her makeup. All while invisible so Darren couldn't stop her although he tried.

[Raja]

9 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

The Canadian produced police procedural Flashpoint was pretty good at balancing criminals who were dumb or assholes with ones who had a sympathetic backstory. I think that show was on CBS for awhile too.

CBS originally got Flashpoint to fill holes left by the 2007 writer's  strike.  And rolled for a few more seasons before transferring the last seasons to ION TV.

I remember the pilot was dealing with the emotional trauma done to the police sniper as a result of his duty but it morphed into just another S.W.A.T show over its run.

It looks like CBS is trying for the same with NCIS: Sydney strike breaker

Edited June 5 by Raja

[Kel Varnsen]

6 hours ago, Danielg342 said:

A city with maniacal serial killers isn't just a municipal threat- that's a threat to the whole country.

That is one of the things that eventually turned me off of CSI (the original Vegas one). It seemed like every year the season long villian was some kind of genius super villain serial killer. But it seems like if there was that type of serial killer operating in Vegas every year it would make international news and there would be no tourists.

[possibilities]

I guess Robin Hood is a story where the "criminal" is the good guy. 

I thought many of the "criminals" on "Accused" were very sympathetic characters, but it's true they didn't portray the detectives as bad guys. It was more a case of "oh shit, this is really morally complex".

I've noticed a trend lately where some of these shows have some nod to police corruption, but not to the extent that it's considered the whole system, and not to the extent that the "criminals" are portrayed as the good guys.

There have also been some shows that portray people wrongly suspected, but it's usually resolved by "the good cops" rather than an on-going tragedy or systemic outrage.

There was a show... I can't remember the title... it was a series that ran for a few seasons with new stories each year, where there was a definitely systemically corrupt police presence against an innocent suspect. I wish I could remember the name of the show or any of the actors or characters... if I can dredge it up, I'll come back and say more. And even there, I recall there was like one honest detective trying to fight the corruption. 

 

 

[Ceindreadh]

9 hours ago, Raja said:

CBS originally got Flashpoint to fill holes left by the 2007 writer's  strike.  And rolled for a few more seasons before transferring the last seasons to ION TV.

I remember the pilot was dealing with the emotional trauma done to the police sniper as a result of his duty but it morphed into just another S.W.A.T show over its run.

It looks like CBS is trying for the same with NCIS: Sydney strike breaker

I'm pretty sure that the Australian actors and writers guilds weren't on strike last year when NCIS:Sydney was being filmed. 

[Raja]

1 hour ago, Ceindreadh said:

I'm pretty sure that the Australian actors and writers guilds weren't on strike last year when NCIS:Sydney was being filmed. 

I didn't say scab, I said strike breaker. 

[Ceindreadh]

7 hours ago, Raja said:

I didn't say scab, I said strike breaker. 

And as I said, the Australian guilds weren’t on strike so therefore they were not breaking a strike by working on an Australian show. 
 

 

[Danielg342]

13 hours ago, possibilities said:

I've noticed a trend lately where some of these shows have some nod to police corruption, but not to the extent that it's considered the whole system, and not to the extent that the "criminals" are portrayed as the good guys.

I find what generally happens now is that a lot of writers may write that certain law enforcement officers are corrupt or that even whole departments (including, even, the department the hero(es) work in), but they tend to lack a lot of nuance.

What we don't have in Hollywood are police procedurals where their heroes are genuinely allowed to make mistakes. Unless it's a "special episode", we never see them arrest the wrong suspect, follow a dubious lead, or make the incorrect analysis, and the cases the heroes close are always perfect and never seem up for review.

We'll never see the heroes fail to pick up a piece of evidence, and all the evidence they do get is of pristine quality that could never be questioned.

Oh, and the confessions the criminals give are always air tight.

That's just the tip of the iceberg.

How many times have you ever seen a situation similar to this:

• You've got an episode or an arc about gang activity. One of the characters the hero would potentially have to arrest is an illegal immigrant, and their involvement in the gang is at the far lower end, so much that they may not have committed any crimes and if they did, they weren't as "bad" as the main crime that's being investigated. In real life, the gang member would likely still be convicted of being in the gang and thus get deported, rightly or wrongly, without a moment's thought. In Hollywood, they always seem to get a sympathetic DA who decides to "let them off the hook" so they don't get deported.
• Or, you've got a single mother. She's not the main criminal but an accomplice, and only really being involved in the crime because of her kid (because in Hollywood, women always do things for the kids). In real life, we'd sent the mother to jail and the kid becomes a foster kid, no matter how many times the mother pleads for leniency because "my kid needs me!" In Hollywood, we've again got that sympathetic DA that finds some way to keep them out of jail and keep their family together, even if they'd have no reason to do something like that.

Nuance does not exist in many Hollywood police procedurals. The heroes are always good and never wrong, those who oppose the heroes are always bad, and the people the heroes throw in jail are always people the heroes don't feel a lick of guilt for throwing them in jail, because they "deserve it".

I get, on a level, why Hollywood operates in this way- having a detective who is wrong and makes mistakes doesn't present as a very competent hero and, depending on the tone of the show, you don't want your criminals to appear too sympathetic. I get all that.

However, I think even on "sunnier" shows on the Hollywood spectrum of portrayals of police departments could still show their heroes slipping up and having some genuinely sympathetic criminals. We don't have to get them to the point where we start questioning the hero's competence, but at least an occasional acknowledgement of their humanness would be nice.

[possibilities]

I stopped watching Hawaii 5-0 because the heroes grabbed someone they suspected, put him in a basement, tied him up, and shot him in the knee to get information. When they later found out they had the wrong guy, they just moved on-- no repercussions for them. No guilt, just-- oops! wrong guy! We gotta keep looking!

They had a habit of deciding who they thought was the perp, grabbing that person without any real evidence, and then roughing them up and letting them go when it turned out they were wrong--- but it was treated like no big deal, they were sexy macho heroes and this behavior was part of their rogue genius or something.

I take it that's not the kind of fallibility you want to see!

Right now on Elsbeth they have very fallible cops, but they are portrayed as hapless incompetents to Elsbeth's genius, so their mistakes don't really go far. They have theories that don't pan out, but Elsbeth solves the case before it goes too far.

I think the industry struggles with a desire for a happy ending. If they show remorse on the part of the fallible, or tragedy in the lives of their victims, viewers will be sad and associate that sadness with the stuff the advertisers are selling, so even if they watch the show, it is unclear who will pay the bills.

Edited June 6 by possibilities

[DoctorAtomic]

We had a lot of  fun with 5-0 here back in the day on that.