Plot-holes

[xRuthx]

If I sent someone a manuscript to read like that of series nine and Lucas I'd be told to edit fast and please work on my dodgy character developement! I had a story once where my main character changes political ideology drastically halfway through the story and so "becomes" the enemy. My friend rightfully pointed out I hadn't explained this change of heart enough and that this undermined the story. Can you imagine what he would have said if I had had unexplained idenity crisis and forgotten murder on my character's conscience lol!

I loved the Ruth storyline! I thought that was great but the second Ruth leaves I don't know if I can keep watching

[binkie]

(07-03-2011 06:15 AM)xRuthx Wrote:  See, as a writer myself, I don't think it matters how good an actor is. Bad writing is bad writing and I can't believe how many Spooks viewers just seem to accept the Lucas storyline because it was acted well. I wonder how many fans would insist the Lucas storyline made perfect sense if it had been Ruth with the double identity and the bombing of an embassy. (I obv. am glad this didn't happen. I love Ruth. She's my favourite Spooks character but still... I wonder what difference in reaction there would have been...)

Oohh!! Hello, xRuthx. I like you This is a really good point, which I'm glad has re-surfaced.

It does sadden me that there is a facet of criticism of season 9 which is less about the production and more about the reaction to the content and conclusion of the storyline. We shouldn't spend so much time debating and questioning the Lucas-is-John factor, this criticism suggests, because it's been and gone and it is what it is. It was an exciting and entertaining plotline, for which we should be grateful, and whinging about the loss of Lucas is just the equivalent of unfollowing Justin Bieber's Twitter feed because he got his hair cut. I can't help feeling this is something of a disingenuous attitude, predicated on an assumption of immaturity about the appreciation of Lucas' character and context.

A lot of the analytical effort which has gone into dissecting the logical and moral consequence of season 9 relates to rhetorical function and narrative structure. The fact that the character at the centre of the analysis happens to be Lucas is a necessity of the plot development with which we were presented. Of course we write about Lucas! The writers wrote about Lucas! (Sort of. A bit. When they weren't distracted by writing about John. Or writing John. Or tripping over their own back story. Or falling into plotholes.)

Anyway...

Of course, if the focus of season 9 had been the revelation of Ruth's former life as Gertie-the-mad-bomber-of-old-London-town, and her suddenly renewed efforts to reconnect with the hitherto unmentioned (and unwritten) love of her life - who, it turns out, is conveniently now working as a human rights lawyer at a chambers not five minutes from Thames House - then we would write about that. And we would write about Ruth. And we would write about how there was no implication of Gertie (TMBOOLT), because, not only had Gertie not existed in the minds of the writers who created Ruth, but also the minds of writers who created the character of Gertie (for Ruth to have apparently forgotten to be for the last 15 years) seem to have had only a cursory interest in the character, motives and history of Ruth at all

[xRuthx]

(07-03-2011 11:21 AM)binkie Wrote:  

(07-03-2011 06:15 AM)xRuthx Wrote:  See, as a writer myself, I don't think it matters how good an actor is. Bad writing is bad writing and I can't believe how many Spooks viewers just seem to accept the Lucas storyline because it was acted well. I wonder how many fans would insist the Lucas storyline made perfect sense if it had been Ruth with the double identity and the bombing of an embassy. (I obv. am glad this didn't happen. I love Ruth. She's my favourite Spooks character but still... I wonder what difference in reaction there would have been...)

Oohh!! Hello, xRuthx. I like you This is a really good point, which I'm glad has re-surfaced.

It does sadden me that there is a facet of criticism of season 9 which is less about the production and more about the reaction to the content and conclusion of the storyline. We shouldn't spend so much time debating and questioning the Lucas-is-John factor, this criticism suggests, because it's been and gone and it is what it is. It was an exciting and entertaining plotline, for which we should be grateful, and whinging about the loss of Lucas is just the equivalent of unfollowing Justin Bieber's Twitter feed because he got his hair cut. I can't help feeling this is something of a disingenuous attitude, predicated on an assumption of immaturity about the appreciation of Lucas' character and context.

This kind of attitude about the futility of pointing out flaws worries me because it gives the writer's the impetus to say, "Oh well. People accept this kind of writing so let's do it again for series ten." I can tell you now that if the writer's decimate Ruth in the way they did Lucas, I will never ever forgive them for it.

If people don't critique objectively what was satisfying and unsatisfying about a show, then they can't ever expect the show to better itself. For me I quite enjoyed series nine for the most part- I think it improved greatly from eight, but that doesn't mean I don't think the Lucas/John storyline was utterly idiotic and dreadfully written. If they had lesser actors, 9.7 and 8 would have descended into bad soap territory.

[BravoNine]

(07-03-2011 11:58 AM)xRuthx Wrote:  If people don't critique objectively what was satisfying and unsatisfying about a show, then they can't ever expect the show to better itself. For me I quite enjoyed series nine for the most part- I think it improved greatly from eight, but that doesn't mean I don't think the Lucas/John storyline was utterly idiotic and dreadfully written. If they had lesser actors, 9.7 and 8 would have descended into bad soap territory.

I do agree with this point....if I could, I would march up to the BBC and attack the writers with a baseball bat to make a point of my anger at their stupidity!

This Series 9 was an improvement in the sense that there is at least a cohesive storyline that isn't so scatter-focused as Series 8 seems to be on many levels. But the Lucas/John storyline ruined any credibility these writers have for this series. If I wasn't so drawn in by the fact that these great actors can make me feel so connected with the character, I would have chucked my TV out the window in madness and anger!

I've seen soap operas written better than this!!!

How do they come up with a Lucas-is-John storyline and never bother to try and explain the whole function of HOW it happened? Did they miss writers' school?

I don't even understand how they could possibly think it was okay!!

The foundation of their story rests on this explanation and they never even bother to think they should explain!?!?!??!!

[BoHenley]

Thanks Binkie, xRuthx, and Bravo. You sum it up well.

[xRuthx]

(07-03-2011 10:15 AM)BoHenley Wrote:  As a writer too (and a scientist), the writing of Series 9 was plain sloppy. I'd be kicked in the butt if I didn't do my RESEARCH, and research is what they didn't do, just made up a story, crashed bits together to "make it work," then wondered why fans became angry because it made no sense. (I'll put in the usual disclaimer that some parts of it did work, but you know what I mean).

I hope they won't make this stupid mistake in S10, or I WILL be tuning out.

If they get rid of Ruth early in ten I doubt I'll even make it to the end of the season. Yes, I will be tuning out too if they try a repeat of nine. It's going to be lonely viewing as it is. My friend won't watch nine because she doesn't want to have series seven and eight canon ruined and therefore she won't be watching Spooks anymore either. My brother gave up halfway through series eight when Jo died and my Mum is sceptically hanging on but only because she's a H/R shipper and even she's getting fed up with the will they/won't they. She hasn't seen all of series nine yet. Tbh when she does, I have little faith that she will want to watch series ten either. I will be all alone

[Byatil]

Just watching 9.4...

At one point, Lucas decides to search for Albany on MI5's database. He doesn't have high enough security clearance, but apparently know how to hack the database so as to allow him to access the file. Sorry, but... what?! In 7.1, Lucas makes a point about the fact that he hasn't exactly had much access to computers in the last 8 years, and suddenly he has the ability to hack MI5's top-secret files?! Obviously it is feasible that he might have picked up some hacking skills in the past 2 years prior to S9, however, surely it would take more than a few lines of code to override MI5's security systems?

---

Also; why are MI5's password fields not encoded so as to replace the typed password with a series of asterisks? Seems like a pretty major security issue

[binkie]

Ha ha! Didn't you know all the MI5 passwords are PASSWORD?

[Byatil]

(13-03-2011 05:53 PM)binkie Wrote:  Ha ha! Didn't you know all the MI5 passwords are PASSWORD?

Oh dear, I just cannot believe that they thought having all the passwords visible was in any way, shape or form realistic!

If anyone would care to explain to me how the Chinese go from wanting control of Jiang (the scientist developing a method to convert salt-water to fresh-water) to wanting Lucas North (why do they even want him specifically? Apparently there are plenty of idiots working at MI5 [see: the man whose account Lucas uses to download the Albany file] who would be easily manipulated into handing over the information) and the Albany file (which, apparently, is just an illustration of a ship?)?

[binkie]

(13-03-2011 06:13 PM)Byatil Wrote:  Apparently there are plenty of idiots working at MI5 [see: the man whose account Lucas uses to download the Albany file] who would be easily manipulated into handing over the information) and the Albany file (which, apparently, is just an illustration of a ship?)?

This was one of my favourite plotholes The "man whose account Lucas used to download the Albany file" - who did have a name in the episode, I know, but I can't remmember what it was - existed for three reasons only:

1. To get Lucas into the restricted file
2. To give Ruth yet another moment of being the last-moral-woman-left-alive-in-MI5
3. To underline the remorseless wickedness of Lucas

It never occurred to TMWALUTDTAF to mention, when detained and threatened with jail and the end of his career, something along the lines of "Oh, wait. There was that tall, dark-haired chap who borrowed my access pass at almost exactly the same time ss the events in question. Hmmm, let me see if I can recall what he looked like since, clearly, he works in the building."




As for not-quite-Albany being "just an illustration of a ship": I think we are supposed to conclude that there was information in the digital coding, or possibly in an addition or alteration to the image, which indicated that Malcolm was the contact for the file itself.