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Between The Lines

Started by Endicott, April 07, 2021, 01:25:01 PM

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Endicott

I've noticed an old series from 1992 is being re-shown on BBC4, Sunday nights. Currently 5 episodes in to Between The Lines, a series about the dept of the Met who police the rest of the Met. I remember liking it at the time but don't remember much about it apart from it had a great cast.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Between_the_Lines_(TV_series)

The eps re-broadcast so far are on on iPlayer:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b00df5nm/between-the-lines

Anyone watching?

I watched the first one last night and very much enjoyed it, still think the cast is very good and enjoyed seeing Ben Chaplin again in a side role.

Yeah, watched all 5 so far. It is great for the 'oh its him' count.

Liked Episode 2 - very mundane motivation at the heart of it and Pete Postlethwaite playing a proper piece of work. Also got swerved when Marc Warren rocked up as a very lowly copper. One line and then out.

It is, at times, a little bit Monkfish.

gilbertharding

It is absolutely mental how much everyone smokes. Also 1992 must have been a high watermark for nipples on tv. Just before they invented the internet, I guess.

Phil_A

Glad they're re-running these as I've never been able to locate Series 3 on DVD at a reasonable price. Currently £90 on Amazon! Found 1 & 2 separately as very lucky charity shop finds.

Always interesting to compare and contrast the approach of "Lines" with Line Of Duty, from a production design point of view in particular.

In LOD the important police biz takes place in all brightly lit, open-plan spaces with lots of glass-fronted offices so everyone can spy on each other's shit all the time, whereas in BTL it's all dingy corridors and cramped little offices where you can practically smell the fag stench.

Steve "Sex Dwarf" Arnott seemingly gets as much lady action as the ever-randy DSI Clark does in "Lines", except it all takes place off-camera.

Alberon

I remember two things about this series. I really enjoyed it, and it really went off a cliff in its last series.

Ignatius_S

Thanks for the heads-up.

Been wanting to watch this since reading up about Tony Garnett's career, a couple of years ago.

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

Didn't a startlingly young- looking  Jason Watkins have a part in this as a copper, or am I thinking of something else? As has been stated, it *is*  a very good series for spotting various English actor types, that smoothie tory from " The Thick Of It", that feller who played Stenroach on "Ideal", that actor who looks a bit like Jarvis Cocker whose daughter is quite popular on CaB,  Post - " Alfresco"  and Pre- " The High Life" Siobhan Redmond being all serious actorly, Tony Haygarth, Jim Carter, David Morrissey, etc. The feller playing Det. Sup. Tony Clark is a dead ringer for a slightly slimmer Lisa Jesusandmarychain, too.

Endicott

My memories of those old NotBBC meet photos are mostly turned to dust now, but I always had you as more like the bloke who plays him who's Chief Sup. John Deakin.

Fambo Number Mive

Watched the first two of these. I like DS Connell, she's my favourite character followed by dry DI Naylor. Not keen on Clark, he's a bit of a thoughtless wanker really although seemingly good at investigating bent coppers*. Thanks for the heads up, this looks like a really good series. The most senior coppers in this seem to be
Spoiler alert
utterly cynical about police corruption
[close]
.

*could this be described as "Hastingsing"?


Fambo Number Mive

Also I love the theme tune.

beanheadmcginty

Just discovered that Neil Pearson was the narrator of the Poddington Peas.

gib

How do i get the rest of the episodes?

Sunday nights, BBC4 after Line of Duty.


Fambo Number Mive

Watched the rest of the series 1 episodes so far on iplayer. I've seen most of series 2 before and would say the show is excellent, aside from the scenes showing Clark's personal life which I found very tedious. I get that some of his personal life affects how he does his job but a lot of those scenes I found tedious. The personal life/Clark shagging scenes are a very small part of the show though, the actual CIB stuff is well worth a watch.

Imagine how much the CIB offices must stink of fags. What would happen if a detective who was asthmatic got a job there?


Famous Mortimer

Quote from: Alberon on April 07, 2021, 07:28:00 PM
I remember two things about this series. I really enjoyed it, and it really went off a cliff in its last series.
Agree, and agree - I was a teenager when it was first on, and really enjoyed it. I remember Francesca Annis being extremely good in it, and I like how Wikipedia describes it as a surprise hit - just one of those shows that was written well and had a great cast.

Fambo Number Mive

Eps  6 and 7 now on iplayer.

sovietrussia

Quote from: Fambo Number Mive on April 13, 2021, 09:07:19 AM
Eps  6 and 7 now on iplayer.

Never been a fan of Michael Angelis' irritating sing-song delivery and Tudor-Pole's scouse accent was an absolute atrocity in episode 6. However this is still cracking stuff.  There's an unrelenting, oppressive and unsensational bleakness about the whole show which I think you wouldn't see now - that late eighties/early nineties milieu depicts a gloomy time, just as I remember it.  I also love the police vernacular throughout, which seems unique to this show for the most part and would only really be expanded on when the David Simon police dramas came along in the 2000s.

Tom Georgeson is great as the down-at-heel, scruffy/weary old Inspector Naylor, but all the cast are great with often terrific guest turns (despite what I said earlier).  I can take or leave Clark's private life machinations, but I guess that's just something in a lot of drama during that time period.

gilbertharding

Couldn't decide if Tudor Pole's over-acting and 'scouse accent' were hilarious or excruciating.

Poor Molly Cope, getting that transfer from the Liverpool News (or whatever it was supposed to be called) to the Grauniad, so we the viewer get to see both cheeks of her bottom in a hotel room. I wonder what happened to the Rover P4 we saw she drove in that odd scene with her, the source, Naylor and Clark in the rain.

Am I right in thinking that the last series went downhill because the three of them had to leave the force and become mercenaries? Or am I thinking of the movie spinoff, where they all went to Spain on holiday and the hotel wasn't finished?


Fambo Number Mive

According to Wikipedia, in the third series "Clark, Naylor and Connell
Spoiler alert
leave the police force and work in the murky world of private security, far-right political groups and espionage
[close]
"

I think they work for
Spoiler alert
Deakin
[close]
as well which seems somewhat unrealistic.

Without the police corruption surroundings the characters aren't nearly as interesting, they might as well have had Clark, Naylor and Connell open a B&B in Margate called "For The Benefit of the Tape".

Jaye Griffths, who played Molly Cope, also planned DI Johnson in The Bill. I think she's a great actor.

Norton Canes

#21
Halfway through episode one. Two immediate thoughts: Neil Pearson, a decent actor generally, is a bit lightweight for the central role he has to play here. Some of the supporting actors have such 'lived-in' faces and mannerisms that they seep sleaze out their pores, but Pearson's version is too mannered. I get the same feeling of him not hitting the right note as I do when watching Nicholas Ball in Hazell. He may have graduated from sitcoms but not with a distinction. Also, the production is mostly pretty slick but some of the editing is awful, cutting between characters in conversations like we've suddenly been dropped into a different scene.

Still, brilliant to see Ciarán Hinds so soon after The Terror. 



Norton Canes

Ha ha, Pearson and Hinds are blatantly not there together in the scene starting at 25:50. That's hilarious. Is it even Ben Chaplin that Pearson bundles into his car after Hinds 'hands him over'?

paruses

Quote from: Norton Canes on April 15, 2021, 04:17:44 PM
Halfway through episode one. Two immediate thoughts: Neil Pearson, a decent actor generally, is a bit lightweight for the central role he has to play here. Some of the supporting actors have such 'lived-in' faces and mannerisms that they seep sleaze out their pores, but Pearson's version is too mannered. I get the same feeling of him not hitting the right note as I do when watching Nicholas Ball in Hazell. He may have graduated from sitcoms but not with a distinction. Also, the production is mostly pretty slick but some of the editing is awful, cutting between characters in conversations like we've suddenly been dropped into a different scene.

Still, brilliant to see Ciarán Hinds so soon after The Terror.

That's who it is!

I thought ep 1 was a bit odd and think you've nailed it that NP is too lightweight for it. Weirdly there's a bit of a tonal shift from ep2 and he seems more at ease in it. I'm really enjoying it - mix of nostalgia and decent drama.

Norton Canes

Yes, just seen episode two - he drops the hard-bitten copper act and the cockney accent, and plays the role more like a beleaguered middle-manager, replete with whiny estuary inflection. The whole production looks far more slick and heavyweight too. Looks like the first episode might have had a bad case of pilot-itis.

Solid amount of 'oh its him' tonight.

gilbertharding

Quote from: A Hat Like That on April 18, 2021, 10:06:19 PM
Solid amount of 'oh its him' tonight.

Matey from Vicar Of Dibley, her Dad from Not Going Out, and Sickboy from Trainspotting. Cracking stuff.

Fambo Number Mive

Is that Ep.9? Impressive karate (?) kick in that one.

Quote from: gilbertharding on April 19, 2021, 04:50:02 PM
Matey from Vicar Of Dibley, her Dad from Not Going Out, and Sickboy from Trainspotting. Cracking stuff.

This week
Keith Allen and Paul Higgins are Monkfish: Customs and Excise.
(also Nigel Lindsay with 1 line)

John Hannah, Rudolph Walker and Father Larry Duff.

Both episodes really good, tbh, the first set in and around an early 90s Canary Wharf so some towers but also desolate quays. Decent plot and, while so very angry, Allen and Higgens were a delight. Second one, about a death in a police holding cell, also effective - no corruption, no-one did anything particularly wrong even, as far as I could make out.

Enjoying.

Norton Canes

Catching up slowly with these. David Bradley was absolutely phenomenal in the Masonic cover-up one. The one where the coppers were fencing goods (sorry, I'm making these sound like Freinds) was a bit nondescript and Ray Winstone was nicely sinister but underused. And yeah, who thought it was a good idea to cast Eddie Tudor-Pole as a Scouser? Then there's that bizarre moment in the Liverpool one where the whole plot judders to a halt because Clark's bit on the side decides to hike up there; he then takes a train to London so that he can appear in a one-scene garden party with his wife, before showing up in the Liverpool nick the next day like nothing's happened. 

Still think Pearson is the weak link in this, unfortunately. Clearly trying hard, but too vapid. Nice to see Tom Georgeson (Naylor) is still around at 83.