[spoilers] Lucas. Just Lucas.

[Byatil]

(01-02-2011 06:39 PM)BravoNine Wrote:  I can forgive Series 8 because at least then, Lucas's love-sickness with Sarah had a lot of psychological roots underneath it all, the writers were still using a lot of his past and damaged psyche as a basis for his actions, and in that way, it was more believable. And like I said before, his love for Sarah wasn't really her as a person, but what she represented to him, a type of comfort and closeness that he desperately lacks. So from that story-standpoint, it made sense, and it created a more complex character in Lucas.

Whereas Series 9 tossed all that deep, complex, and interesting psychological issues away and created some new bizarre character with Lucas/John that simply did not mesh well together. He turned from a complex character to some one dimensional crazy psycho. It was just stupid.

At least Series 8 didn't have me climbing up walls, at least the Sarah/Lucas relationship had more of a meaningful purpose than John/Maya which had about the spark of a pathetic trash bin fire....:dodgy:

Yeah, his relationship with Sarah made "more sense", but I still feel like it was a bit uncalled for, personally. I thought his relationship with Elizavyeta was the only meaningful, interesting romantic relationship he really had. Sarah was believable to an extent, but having Lucas go through 3 different women in 3 different series just didn't appeal to me, on reflection :/ I think in S8 I would rather have seen Lucas craving that emotional support from one of his colleagues, rather than immediately rushing into a seedy relationship with a CIA liaison officer, which was so obviously bound to end in tears!

I think the Sarah plot would have worked better if the writers had actually explored it on a psychological level a little more. Sarah allowed us to see a side of Lucas which we hadn't previously encountered, but aside from that, I tend to feel their relationship was just as shallow as John and Maya's. As you say, at least S8 had some psychological props to make it believable, but I think it was an easy cliché to take a conventionally good-looking man and basically give him the opportunity to take his clothes off every other episode :P Obviously it formed a fairly integral part of the S8 plot-arc, but it might have been better to have seen the pair engage in a bit of "will they/won't they" (Harry and Ruth, anyone?) rather than a fairly simple "flirt then sex" relationship.

Interestingly (from the 3 series I've fully watched), we never see Jo or Ben engage in any romantic relationships. I believe Jo had a bit of a 'thing' going on with Adam (?) but throughout S7-9, the only people engaged in relationships are Lucas, Ruth, George and Harry. George is killed in order to let Ruth return to the grid/raise questions over Harry's morality, so I think we can conclude he was a plot-device more than anything else. Ruth and Harry obviously maintain a consistent relationship from S5 through to S8&9, whereas Lucas manages to get through 3 women in the same space of time. This does somewhat lead me to believe that Lucas' relationships were largely used as plot-devices. Obviously, in S7 Elizavyeta actually reveals things about Lucas' character, as well as being a 'convenient' link to the Russians. In S8, again, Sarah does reveal some aspects of Lucas' character, but she is 'conveniently' a member of Nightingale who just so happens to be so in love with Lucas that she can't bring herself to kill him and therefore execute her 'evil master-plan'. In S9, any hope of using Maya to develop Lucas' character even slightly is thrown out of the window as she makes no sense within the context of Lucas' life, or indeed, the Spooks universe.
Obviously, all characters are simply devices used to tell a story. However the contrast I'm highlighting is that Harry and Ruth seem to maintain a fairly consistent relationship, whilst the other characters seem to remain single. Lucas' relationships seem to have become more and more superficial, to the point where they just don't make any sense. Sarah was supposed to help tell the S8 plot-arc story, which worked reasonably well. Maya was supposed to tell Lucas' story, which didn't work, because her character made no sense in terms of the overall plot.

Not even sure if this makes any sense or is a valid point in any way, but I've come to the conclusion that I dislike the way Lucas' relationships were treated in general (aside from Elizavyeta) as they generally didn't make a lot of sense.