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Wire in the Blood
This pimp post is going to be me waxing enthusiastic about one of my favourite shows in the world. Complete with capspam!
Basics
Wire in the Blood is a British crime series based on the books by Val McDermid, although only about three of the early episodes follow the book plots - after that, the show has its own storylines. The books are good enough, but the show is phenomenal.
YouTube is disgustingly devoid of anything to do with the first three seasons, but I did find a Season One trailer - the voiceover is REALLY ANNOYING but it's a pretty good introductory collection of clips, all told.
Each season is made up of 4-6 episodes and each episode is practically a movie in and of itself - 1.5 hours long with self-contained crime plots - so I only watched and capped two of my favourite episodes from the third season for the illustrative pictures below. I wouldn't worry overmuch about spoilers: the suspense is in each individual storyline, which I won't go into, but trust me when I tell you that they're smart and unpredictable and shocking.
Lead characters
Dr. Tony Hill is a psychologist who specialises in criminal psychopathy. He lives in an extremely untidy townhouse covered in books, forgets to do things like eat and iron his clothes, and is rather bad at interacting with people socially. He's very, very smart and very, very screwed up. He understands serial killers, but he doesn't really understand everyone else.
Doctor: The tests seem to indicate Asperger's syndrome.
Carol: Oh, no, he's always been like that.
Doctor: Really. He seized on quite minor details and drew the most extraordinary conclusions.
Carol: Was he wrong?
DI Carol Jordan is a workaholic who lives in a very nice flat with her cat, Nelson. Unlike Tony, she does possess social skills, she just chooses her career over her relationships most of the time. She's a demanding boss and a very good police officer and she doesn't let a lot of things get to her, at least visibly.
And together, THEY FIGHT CRIME! (Seriously.)
Doctor: You're Dr. Hill's...partner? Wife?
Tony: Is this more word association?
Carol: I'm his next of kin.
One of the things that makes this show so strong is the professional and personal relationship between these two. I could ramble on for paragraphs about it and still not be able to capture it as well as the actors and the writers do, but it's messy and hesitant and co-dependent in a way that's almost sublimely complex. The show occasionally plays 'case of the week' parallels like many shows do, but it does it with ten times the intelligence and subtlety that, for example, Grey's Anatomy ever could. And it never abides by its own rules. Tony has problems separating his own psyche from those that he is trying to infiltrate, and he has very little tact. He cares very deeply but cannot ground himself. Carol cares just as deeply but has no practice with allowing a single person to become the focus. Both of them have barriers, neither of them can trust themselves, but both of them learn to trust the other implicitly.
Unlike a lot of fictional relationships, the impression is never given that it is just a need for UST and some surface problems keeping them apart. Maybe they could push past into something that's voiced, something official, but maybe it would all fall apart, and the latter fear is not just in the minds of the characters: it's a very real possibility. This balancing act is the core of the show. It's awkward. It's real. It's absolutely gorgeous. It says: in the end, love could be enough. Not enough for sex or any sort of conventional relationship, but enough for two people who really do lack the ability to cope with anything more. Love is what they have, and it works.
Random cinematography flailing
Oh, man, seriously. This show hits all of the kinks I have when it comes to effective cinematography. It uses shots and more shots of people's hands and eyes (I tried to cap some, but they usually go by too fast), it uses choppy montages to fantastic effect, and the light. Cold-lit. Kind of clinical and merciless and frantic and beautiful all at once. It never shies away from the ugly parts - the blood and violence, the gritty professional cynicism, the gloomy British weather - but somehow transforms them aesthetically anyway (this = the most important thing that any kind of medium can do for me. period.). The angles are interesting. I'm just...going to spam you for a bit. (And these are only from a single episode!)
There are often episodic themes to the camerawork which create another parallel to the storyline. My favourite episode of any TV show ever, 'Synchronicity', plays around with reflections and silhouettes. A lot.
Basically, I cannot recommend this show to you highly enough. Hermione Norris can say more with one raised eyebrow than a lot of actors can with a full-fledged monologue, and Robson Green is just...amazing. I will leave you with my favourite cap, which is Tony looking like someone kicked his puppy -
- and a drabble that Ji wrote for me that captures the tone perfectly.
faded from the winter
Although it is Carol who looks removed from the world, fainter almost than a handprint on a fogless car window, she finds it is Tony who really does not belong. There is a color of light he carries with him; a color that follows him like a dangerous man whom neighbours judged perfectly normal. These are a few words to describe it: cold, hollow, and delicate. It is almost -- but not quite -- blue. It is as if an innovative filmmaker had painted the lens of his camera with gel, and then, through some accident of circumstance, left it on Tony, with the viewfinder encompassing all the world.
The camera's concentration, too, he brings into her life. So that a February day eating tangerines zeroes in on the two of them: no one else. There is no one outside the little black box of their minds, which move so much in tandem. As usual, Tony has bled the tangerines dry of eponymous color; of flavor, of feel. Yet everything is enormously, monstrously clear. They are waiting, she knows. They have laid out the map and are waiting for something to go wrong. The weight of it between them creates impasse. The sins of others between them are no man's land.
Sometimes she thinks, she could violate all these rules: could put her hand out, through unbroken glass. But she knows that he knows that she never will.
WATCH THIS SHOW, FLIST.
Basics
Wire in the Blood is a British crime series based on the books by Val McDermid, although only about three of the early episodes follow the book plots - after that, the show has its own storylines. The books are good enough, but the show is phenomenal.
YouTube is disgustingly devoid of anything to do with the first three seasons, but I did find a Season One trailer - the voiceover is REALLY ANNOYING but it's a pretty good introductory collection of clips, all told.
Each season is made up of 4-6 episodes and each episode is practically a movie in and of itself - 1.5 hours long with self-contained crime plots - so I only watched and capped two of my favourite episodes from the third season for the illustrative pictures below. I wouldn't worry overmuch about spoilers: the suspense is in each individual storyline, which I won't go into, but trust me when I tell you that they're smart and unpredictable and shocking.
Lead characters
Dr. Tony Hill is a psychologist who specialises in criminal psychopathy. He lives in an extremely untidy townhouse covered in books, forgets to do things like eat and iron his clothes, and is rather bad at interacting with people socially. He's very, very smart and very, very screwed up. He understands serial killers, but he doesn't really understand everyone else.
Doctor: The tests seem to indicate Asperger's syndrome.
Carol: Oh, no, he's always been like that.
Doctor: Really. He seized on quite minor details and drew the most extraordinary conclusions.
Carol: Was he wrong?
DI Carol Jordan is a workaholic who lives in a very nice flat with her cat, Nelson. Unlike Tony, she does possess social skills, she just chooses her career over her relationships most of the time. She's a demanding boss and a very good police officer and she doesn't let a lot of things get to her, at least visibly.
And together, THEY FIGHT CRIME! (Seriously.)
Doctor: You're Dr. Hill's...partner? Wife?
Tony: Is this more word association?
Carol: I'm his next of kin.
One of the things that makes this show so strong is the professional and personal relationship between these two. I could ramble on for paragraphs about it and still not be able to capture it as well as the actors and the writers do, but it's messy and hesitant and co-dependent in a way that's almost sublimely complex. The show occasionally plays 'case of the week' parallels like many shows do, but it does it with ten times the intelligence and subtlety that, for example, Grey's Anatomy ever could. And it never abides by its own rules. Tony has problems separating his own psyche from those that he is trying to infiltrate, and he has very little tact. He cares very deeply but cannot ground himself. Carol cares just as deeply but has no practice with allowing a single person to become the focus. Both of them have barriers, neither of them can trust themselves, but both of them learn to trust the other implicitly.
Unlike a lot of fictional relationships, the impression is never given that it is just a need for UST and some surface problems keeping them apart. Maybe they could push past into something that's voiced, something official, but maybe it would all fall apart, and the latter fear is not just in the minds of the characters: it's a very real possibility. This balancing act is the core of the show. It's awkward. It's real. It's absolutely gorgeous. It says: in the end, love could be enough. Not enough for sex or any sort of conventional relationship, but enough for two people who really do lack the ability to cope with anything more. Love is what they have, and it works.
Random cinematography flailing
Oh, man, seriously. This show hits all of the kinks I have when it comes to effective cinematography. It uses shots and more shots of people's hands and eyes (I tried to cap some, but they usually go by too fast), it uses choppy montages to fantastic effect, and the light. Cold-lit. Kind of clinical and merciless and frantic and beautiful all at once. It never shies away from the ugly parts - the blood and violence, the gritty professional cynicism, the gloomy British weather - but somehow transforms them aesthetically anyway (this = the most important thing that any kind of medium can do for me. period.). The angles are interesting. I'm just...going to spam you for a bit. (And these are only from a single episode!)
There are often episodic themes to the camerawork which create another parallel to the storyline. My favourite episode of any TV show ever, 'Synchronicity', plays around with reflections and silhouettes. A lot.
Basically, I cannot recommend this show to you highly enough. Hermione Norris can say more with one raised eyebrow than a lot of actors can with a full-fledged monologue, and Robson Green is just...amazing. I will leave you with my favourite cap, which is Tony looking like someone kicked his puppy -
- and a drabble that Ji wrote for me that captures the tone perfectly.
faded from the winter
Although it is Carol who looks removed from the world, fainter almost than a handprint on a fogless car window, she finds it is Tony who really does not belong. There is a color of light he carries with him; a color that follows him like a dangerous man whom neighbours judged perfectly normal. These are a few words to describe it: cold, hollow, and delicate. It is almost -- but not quite -- blue. It is as if an innovative filmmaker had painted the lens of his camera with gel, and then, through some accident of circumstance, left it on Tony, with the viewfinder encompassing all the world.
The camera's concentration, too, he brings into her life. So that a February day eating tangerines zeroes in on the two of them: no one else. There is no one outside the little black box of their minds, which move so much in tandem. As usual, Tony has bled the tangerines dry of eponymous color; of flavor, of feel. Yet everything is enormously, monstrously clear. They are waiting, she knows. They have laid out the map and are waiting for something to go wrong. The weight of it between them creates impasse. The sins of others between them are no man's land.
Sometimes she thinks, she could violate all these rules: could put her hand out, through unbroken glass. But she knows that he knows that she never will.
WATCH THIS SHOW, FLIST.