Jock Anderson
At the risk of being shunned, spat upon in the street and fed to rabid stoats, let me make it clear from the outset that a television show called Murder City, screening on Television One, is one of the worst I have seen.
This show is nothing at all what its promotional scribblings would have viewers believe – that it is a British crime drama: it is anything but.
It does seem to be made in London but that’s about as close to Britain as it gets.
At first glance it appears to have been made for release in Latvia, or some other equally under-nourished television viewing palate, Wales maybe, where – in exchange for a handful of meaningless subtitles – they’ll line up outside shop windows to watch anything with moving pictures.
Maybe in Latvia and Wales they think Murder City is a comedy. Parts of it certainly come across like snippets from The Office, but I suspect that is unintentional.
The plots are too bizarre to have been created by anyone remotely associated with the real world. One episode involved a dead woman dropped from a block of flats as a murder weapon.
This week a weedy wee gigolo shot in the head from across the street wandered around for a fair chunk of the show with a bullet lodged in his skull. Walking and talking and everything.
And what about that bullet? I’m sure I heard it described as being fired from an old and rare semi-automatic .22 calibre rifle. Yet the weapon unearthed from under the floorboards of the hitman’s flat had a bolt action.
And what about the hitman? A leering kick boxer infatuated with a bright red car that is named after a girl and has a big noisy hole in the rear?
And what about the wealthy sex doctor complete with special therapeutic rumpy-pumpy room decked out for everyone except his sex-mad missus? Are we seeing things here?
Amanda Donohoe has been hired to act the part of detective inspector Susan Alembic, coupled with Kris Marshall who is presumably also paid to play detective sergeant Luke Stone. Alembic and Stone?
Where do they find them?
Better known for his funny parts as a dentist’s elder son in My Family, it is not possible to take Mr Marshall seriously. Miss Donohoe was in LA Law and should know better. More recently she was a boss screw in Bad Girls where she could sport her trademark hipsters to best advantage.
But anyone whose television biography claims her to be “a devout feminist and socialist” is a sure all-round loser.
A street-weary plod content to follow orders and a squeaky nine-year old blonde with the “DI’s” job firmly in her sights, fill in other gaps along with a coloured bloke and the usual mortuary weirdo.
Their demented boss is played by Tim Woodward who gives a plausible interpretation of a mis-placed person who strayed into the wrong studio. Which is a pity, him being the son of Edward “Callan” Woodward, because he has had some good parts at other times.
Murder City is not one of those.
Much of the blame for this dog must lie with series creator Robert Murphy. Wikipedia’s entry for Murder City gave a click through to Mr Murphy but it was unclear if in another life he was an Aussie rules footballer, the chief judge of the Maryland court of appeals, a professional golfer or a dead ornithologist.
Suffice to say promotional material claims five million people in Britain watch Murder City. Why? Britannia was once such a great nation.
Maybe Murder City is one of those shows that fell into the crime drama box by mistake. It would not be alone.
Maybe it is really a dry but sharp and witty sitcom specially designed for insomniac Welsh and Latvians. Watch their lips carefully. Maybe they already speak in foreign tongues.
Anyway, what do I know? A long time ago I thought Brian Edwards and Paul Holmes were cool…
Next week Alice is found strangled in her student accommodation. Boyfriend Jamie is the Prime Suspect (now there was a good show) but when Alembic and Stone drop in for a wee chat they find Jamie at it with Alice’s mum. Harrumph.
Feedback on this nonsense to jockanderson@xtra.co.nz
