Plot-holes

[BravoNine]

(26-01-2011 01:55 AM)binkie Wrote:  The failure of the script to illustrate its own explicit content does more than give us idiot-Lucas. It also fundamentally alters the way in which we have to conclude the Spooks-universe works. We have spent nine seasons investing in, engaging with, and familiarising ourselves with the operation of this universe. We are drawn into a dramatic environment in which highly committed, necessarily anonymous, men and women are brave, resourceful and selfless against a background of creatively sourced, intelligently interpreted, well-communicated information. Season 9 leaves us to conclude that, actually, MI5 is staffed by sleepwalkers and that intelligence is just a. n. other noun. It wasn’t only the character of Lucas that was undermined by season 9, it was the believability of the sustaining environment of the Spooky-verse. That’s a pretty big plot hole, I'm afraid

This is my biggest issue with Series 9.

This storyline of Lucas being so good at what he did that he fooled everyone didn't just end up making MI5 look like complete morons and idiots, it makes the whole intelligence community look like fools!

How am I to believe that one man managed to throw off the scrutiny of every single intelligence community (the British, the Chinese, the Russians, the Americans, and so on) in the world for 15 years and it takes one little newbie just less than 5 seconds to find out the truth????

The Russians had him for 8 years and they didn't find out anything?!?!? I mean, seriously!!!!!! Are they just that stupid?!??!

[BoHenley]

Apologies if this is slightly off-thread, but I would really laugh if it turned out that Lucas wasn't John Bateman either, that the JB/LN persona was another Vaughan manipulation (think: Day of the Jackal, the original, that is). I mean, I haven't rewatched 9.7 or 9.8 in the last month or so, but did any of the Spooks team actually verify that he WAS John Bateman?

And Bravo, I agree with you. It's too silly. Thanks Binkie and Byatil for some great posts too.

[BravoNine]

(26-01-2011 03:28 AM)BoHenley Wrote:  but did any of the Spooks team actually verify that he WAS John Bateman?

Alec said something about finding out that John Bateman went to university with Maya Lahan.

Honestly though, if it took Alec this easy to find it out, how come the last 15 years no one noticed anything?

I guess MI5 is just run by stupid people.

[penfold]

I know we have to suspend disbelief when watching Spooks -it's all part of the beauty of it -but my disbelief is suspended so high it's up in the rafters, hanging by its ears.

It should be mandatory for scriptwriters to read or watch previous storylines, to acquaint themselves with the backstory of their characters. I would have thought that that was the case -but obviously it doesn't always happen.

[binkie]

(26-01-2011 02:47 AM)Saerwen Wrote:  I'm not sure how to do quotes so I will just say instead what a brilliant post and analysis I really enjoyed reading it and you so hit the nail on the head.

Thank you, Saerwen I know I do ramble on at times, so it’s always reassuring to learn that at least some of what I write makes sense some of the time!

(26-01-2011 03:27 AM)BravoNine Wrote:  This storyline of Lucas being so good at what he did that he fooled everyone didn't just end up making MI5 look like complete morons and idiots, it makes the whole intelligence community look like fools!

How am I to believe that one man managed to throw off the scrutiny of every single intelligence community (the British, the Chinese, the Russians, the Americans, and so on) in the world for 15 years and it takes one little newbie just less than 5 seconds to find out the truth????

The Russians had him for 8 years and they didn't find out anything?!?!? I mean, seriously!!!!!! Are they just that stupid?!??!

I think it’s this kind of conclusion that really underlines the folly of the Lucas-is-John development. It’s not so much that the storyline itself is an entirely disastrous concept, but that it was so clumsily written in the service of this character that rendering it required the rules of the Sppoks-universe to change in order to accommodate it. What this leaves us with is a dramatic environment which now excludes the potential for much of what made it such a satisfying environment prior to this storyline. Season 9 has unmade the world – not by showing us Lucas-is-John, but by showing us the ineptitude by which the deceit was apparently conceived and maintained. If the show thinks the pre-established rules of the Spooks-universe will just continue - snapping back into place with a Lucas-is-John shaped hole in the middle of them - it should think again. The rules must change, because it is no longer possible to accept the legitimacy of the rules by which the operative success of the narrative has been achieved. It will be interesting to see how a narrative predicated on the value and consequence of intelligence-gathering and –interpretation manages to maintain itself as something other than a vehicle for Harry/Ruth when the descriptive structure of the assumptions underpinning that narrative has been so badly damaged.

[HellsBells]

(26-01-2011 12:25 AM)WhiteSwan Wrote:  How could Lucas = John get that job in a casino? Those jobs are not given away just like that, you need special training. And at least in Bavaria you would need a police certificate stating that you had no criminal record. Wasn't JB involved in drug dealing? How amazing he managed to get such a sensitive job! And apparently he was fluid in French, too, as this is the official language in Dakar.
So it seems John=Lucas and Lucas=Lucas not only looked fairly alike and were the same age, they also both had a training as croupiers before going to Dakar, both spoke French, both were fluid in Russian, had the same education and degrees (if JB were to pose as Lucas he needed the same qualifications) and neither of them had any family or friends. Now that's what I call a coincidence!

I think Lucas=John mentioned he had done some croupier work back in to UK which allowed him to get the job at the casino. When he got caught drug struggling it was completely unofficial, the 'police' took the money, drugs and his passport by way of a bribe, therefore John would not have a criminal record. Since most people would have learnt french at school he probably knew enough to get by. I think Lucas= Lucas may have worked in the bar, I don't think he was another croupier. Lucas=John said he was trying to earn enough money to return to the UK, how would money help him? Could he buy a fake passport, so why kill Lucas=Lucas? Why didn't he just go to the Embassy say his passport had been stolen and let the embassy staff get him home, that is part of they job after all?

[binkie]

(26-01-2011 12:19 PM)HellsBells Wrote:  Lucas=John said he was trying to earn enough money to return to the UK, how would money help him? Could he buy a fake passport, so why kill Lucas=Lucas? Why didn't he just go to the Embassy say his passport had been stolen and let the embassy staff get him home, that is part of they job after all?

Well, obviously, the reason he couldn't go the embassy is that it wasn't in the script - and that's the worst possible reason for a character in any drama to do, or not do, anything. Too much of the Lucas-is-John storyline relies on this because-it-says-so-in-the-script logic. Were this not the case, we would not need this thread

[BravoNine]

(26-01-2011 12:33 PM)binkie Wrote:  Well, obviously, the reason he couldn't go the embassy is that it wasn't in the script - and that's the worst possible reason for a character in any drama to do, or not do, anything. Too much of the Lucas-is-John storyline relies on this because-it-says-so-in-the-script logic. Were this not the case, we would not need this thread

Yes exactly, the near impossibility of all these coincidences just happen to align perfectly for Lucas/John to get to where he is today is just amazing!

He was "SOOOOOOOOOOO CAREFUL" that it took a newbie less than 5 seconds to find out the truth....yeah....that's being careful......I hate to see what his version of "not being careful" may be.........maybe it was really his own "not being careful" that got him caught in Moscow.....

And because of this show, I will never look at a briefcase the same way again.....you can still see me glaring at it from miles away....

[binkie]

(26-01-2011 12:45 PM)BravoNine Wrote:  And because of this show, I will never look at a briefcase the same way again.....you can still see me glaring at it from miles away....

Ha ha ha! I fear for the global fashion future of the briefcase. I'm thinking some kind of Scott Summers-esque battle visor might be in order to help with glare-control

[BravoNine]

(26-01-2011 01:05 PM)binkie Wrote:  

(26-01-2011 12:45 PM)BravoNine Wrote:  And because of this show, I will never look at a briefcase the same way again.....you can still see me glaring at it from miles away....

Ha ha ha! I fear for the global fashion future of the briefcase. I'm thinking some kind of Scott Summers-esque battle visor might be in order to help with glare-control

I've been regaling my friend who has never seen the show in the finer details of the stupidity of this Lucas-is-John plot, she tells me she feels like she just saw the whole series already from me just venting to her! And now she just face-palms every time I glare at a briefcase.

And even to this day, I still don't see the use of this briefcase or do I even know what happened to this briefcase after Lucas-is-John was discovered, and why the hell did Vaughn just conveniently kept the briefcase for 15 years.....it was all very silly....

Oh don't even mention to me about Cyclops, I'm still glaring at the people responsible for destroying this character in the X-Men movies! He had such an importance in the comics, I LOVE Cyclops, but they short-changed him in the movie in favor of Wolverine and I will never forgive them for that no matter how adorable Hugh Jackman looks........and don't even get me started on how angry I was to discover that the new X-Men prequel about the origins of X-Men does not have Cyclops in it.....GAR!