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cimoreneWell, I won't say the conclusion of season 5 of the BBC's Shetland wasn't worth it. Nah, I guess it was worth it.
But that was an awful lot of head-scratching to sit through before the emotional payoff! I kinda knew one was coming because of people's tags on Tumblr, the same source that informed me there was an odd couple of a widower and his step daughter's biological dad coparenting an empty nest and wearing lots of sweaters and first directed my interest to this show (although in general both Wax and I are already biased in favor of shows set in beautiful places, rural crime shows, and varieties of English accent that are less familiar which is almost anywhere outside of London).
While the show started off well, series 4 and 5 have a different feel. As I complained on Tumblr yesterday, it's become...
... the performances are good and the people are great, and like many shows where that's the case and the writing is the problem, it's managed to stay reasonably watchable. But I definitely feel like there have been Attempts to include more of the lead's co-dad and young adult daughter over time and they should probably lean into that, because while I won't say they always come out of it making sense, they are probably the most solid part of the show anwyay.
As somebody observed in their tags on Tumblr, there's a recurring & bizarrely intense desire to fix the lead up with some female love interest, but I guess they aren't willing or able to pay for the same one to come back in multiple years, so instead they show up in the beginning of a series and exit with some transparent plot excuse at the end, like the series of female characters thrown at Kirk by original Star Trek, but even more painfully awkward because at least Kirk's habitude is weaponized charisma and he is willing and able to swiftly and ruthlessly charm or romance anybeing for the success of his various missions. Shetland's Jimmy Perez, in contrast, is at worst reluctant and lukewarm and at best cautious and doubtful - this show leaves the impression that his series of entanglements are less the stumbles of an earnest and shy guy who might be open to love and more the result of all his friends and family having an unhealthy overinvestment in his sex life and badgering him about it pretty constantly. It's honestly really weird. Now, I would theorize that this compulsion comes from a need to counterbalance the implicitly homoromantic Odd Couple setup, which is so openly central to the premise that you can't even hang a lampshade on it, it's more like using it as a dining room table without benefit of a tablecloth. But they already set him up with an unattainable dead wife, and the other guy with an alive one, which seem like they could be made to provide some heterosexual reassurance, surely. Also all the het romance plots are cringeworthy, and I'm really starting to feel bad for this guy. Can people just let him be single without implying he's got to be traumatized or dead inside or mentally ill?
OTOH they may be planning to move the dads in together, which would make sense because they need natural ways to include the co-dad as a regular character and having somebody living with the lead would make it easier to construct scenes at home for him. Possibly this idea has increased their heterosexual anxiety, and the necessity of divorcing the co-dad in order to move him in with Jimmy made them think they need to turn to Jimmy to assuage that anxiety. But this is a terrible idea if they're going to continue to not be able to afford another regular character. They could get away with an offscreen partner for the other guy, which makes him a better candidate for it. Although best of all would be to let go of this stupid obsession and if someone's anxious, let them talk to a therapist.
But that was an awful lot of head-scratching to sit through before the emotional payoff! I kinda knew one was coming because of people's tags on Tumblr, the same source that informed me there was an odd couple of a widower and his step daughter's biological dad coparenting an empty nest and wearing lots of sweaters and first directed my interest to this show (although in general both Wax and I are already biased in favor of shows set in beautiful places, rural crime shows, and varieties of English accent that are less familiar which is almost anywhere outside of London).
While the show started off well, series 4 and 5 have a different feel. As I complained on Tumblr yesterday, it's become...
- badly written
- disjointed
- surreal
- melodramatic
- international, but in a weird way, like wholly dictated by people with no actual knowledge of foreign countries
... the performances are good and the people are great, and like many shows where that's the case and the writing is the problem, it's managed to stay reasonably watchable. But I definitely feel like there have been Attempts to include more of the lead's co-dad and young adult daughter over time and they should probably lean into that, because while I won't say they always come out of it making sense, they are probably the most solid part of the show anwyay.
As somebody observed in their tags on Tumblr, there's a recurring & bizarrely intense desire to fix the lead up with some female love interest, but I guess they aren't willing or able to pay for the same one to come back in multiple years, so instead they show up in the beginning of a series and exit with some transparent plot excuse at the end, like the series of female characters thrown at Kirk by original Star Trek, but even more painfully awkward because at least Kirk's habitude is weaponized charisma and he is willing and able to swiftly and ruthlessly charm or romance anybeing for the success of his various missions. Shetland's Jimmy Perez, in contrast, is at worst reluctant and lukewarm and at best cautious and doubtful - this show leaves the impression that his series of entanglements are less the stumbles of an earnest and shy guy who might be open to love and more the result of all his friends and family having an unhealthy overinvestment in his sex life and badgering him about it pretty constantly. It's honestly really weird. Now, I would theorize that this compulsion comes from a need to counterbalance the implicitly homoromantic Odd Couple setup, which is so openly central to the premise that you can't even hang a lampshade on it, it's more like using it as a dining room table without benefit of a tablecloth. But they already set him up with an unattainable dead wife, and the other guy with an alive one, which seem like they could be made to provide some heterosexual reassurance, surely. Also all the het romance plots are cringeworthy, and I'm really starting to feel bad for this guy. Can people just let him be single without implying he's got to be traumatized or dead inside or mentally ill?
OTOH they may be planning to move the dads in together, which would make sense because they need natural ways to include the co-dad as a regular character and having somebody living with the lead would make it easier to construct scenes at home for him. Possibly this idea has increased their heterosexual anxiety, and the necessity of divorcing the co-dad in order to move him in with Jimmy made them think they need to turn to Jimmy to assuage that anxiety. But this is a terrible idea if they're going to continue to not be able to afford another regular character. They could get away with an offscreen partner for the other guy, which makes him a better candidate for it. Although best of all would be to let go of this stupid obsession and if someone's anxious, let them talk to a therapist.
