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Detectorists

This Person (Ottilie)

I love, love, love the TV show Detectorists. This has been my comfort show over and over through tumultuous times. I feel calm and connected to something when I watch it. I would love to be Andy and Lance's friend in a field routinely pacing up and down in the countryside. I love how it shows a gentle side of life where people jibe with each other but ultimately accept each other's eccentricities. I love the scenes where history comes to life. It really is a harbour in a storm for me, and I'm very grateful for it. I also have this feeling when I watch Jam and Jerusalem. I think these shows have a model for how I could be in society - small communities that tolerate quirks. It's a real antidote to the utter twaddle that mainstream society promotes. 

Parents

  • Love this show too. It's so gentle, and the music and scenery are good for the soul. Lovely character dynamics. And being grounded in a 'special interest' is likely to speak to the autistic soul more than any. 

    I love how there are no real villains, and nobody is beyond redemption or making low-key, understated amends. The way they ended the third series with an ep in which even Art and Paul call a truce and become friends with everyone really touched me.

    Which brings me to the one time the show's ever disappointed me: that last special revealing that those two went back to being adversarial and mercenary. That's just plot mechanics and seemed to betray the spirit of that first end to their arc. But,... other parts of that special were beautiful and transporting and moving in exactly the way thee series always was. I just have a thing about some characters getting turned back into 2d charicatures when we'd already moved past that into something more poignant. 

  • in reply to Shardovan
    Shardovan said:
    I just have a thing about some characters getting turned back into 2d charicatures when we'd already moved past that into something more poignant. 

    Yes, I know what you mean. 

  • in reply to This Person (Ottilie)

    It can sometimes get even more problematic too. Very different type of show I know, but when the first Inbetweeners movie came out, they introduced tentative love interests with well rounded and sympathetic female characters, presumably intending that to be a final button on things - bit of emotional maturity at the end of the run that such partners would require of them. 

    Then they made another film, and - in order to contrive a plot that requires them to all be free agents again- they turn at least one of those very same female characters into a shrewish cipher, pretty much a misogynistic stereotype, acting totally at odds to how she was first time around. No reason given, just 'cos. It really did the whole thing no favours at all. I'm surprised the actress agreed to come back and do it actually. 

    Anyway, I know that MC's writing is leagues above that, much more nuanced and gentle. So even that little moment of 'ah, that's lazy, shame he did that' didn't impact on the heart of the show staying true to itself more generally.    

  • in reply to Rashford

    Yes, OFAH maybe should have resisted going back to the well. Some of that post-ending era was pretty ropey. Though two moments almost justifiy it: 1. Trigger's dancing 2. John Challis' perfect delivery of  'Do sell-by dates mean nothing to the Trotters?' when he's doing his midnight raid on the fridge.  

  • in reply to Shardovan

    Yeah true, they messed up the characters just for some cheap laughs. But that's what happens in most comedies, they can't leave it with a happy ending. It like only fools and horses. The supposed final episode tied up all the loose ends and then they make loads of specials ruining the original series. 

  • in reply to Shardovan
    Shardovan said:
    Anyway, I know that MC's writing is leagues above that, much more nuanced and gentle. So even that little moment of 'ah, that's lazy, shame he did that'

    I don't know why he did that. It seems like he had complete creative control so it wasn't someone else's idea or he had to compromise. 

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  • in reply to Shardovan
    Shardovan said:
    Anyway, I know that MC's writing is leagues above that, much more nuanced and gentle. So even that little moment of 'ah, that's lazy, shame he did that'

    I don't know why he did that. It seems like he had complete creative control so it wasn't someone else's idea or he had to compromise. 

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