[Spoilers] Interview with S9 writers Sam Vincent & Jonathan Brackley

[Belle]

(08-03-2011 02:48 PM)HellsBells Wrote:  An interesting interview.

Were you concerned about how the audience would react to turning a lead character bad?

“Not half! We knew there was dedicated core of Lucas and/or Richard fans who would want our heads on sticks. But you have to balance that against the desire to deliver a big, unexpected, shocking story and do something really ambitious - like turning your alpha male hero into someone else entirely.

So basically they didn't care what Lucas fans thought of their storyline, they just wanted something big. If writers stop caring what parts of the audience think about the show, they may risk people not watching.

I think that it must be difficult, if not impossible, to please every single one of your viewers, that is not the intend of a good series, too, I guess. I think that it's part of a 'good' serie to encourage the audience to think for themselves about characters and storylines.

That the new writers didn't care about what the Lucas/RA fans could think of their storyline, so be it, this decision says more about them (wanting to shock more than to deliver a 'decent' story) than about the fans.
But I don't think the fans would have mind 'the alpha-male-hero' turning to be not quite what we thought him to be, if only the storyline that led up to this change was plausible and not filled with holes, with so much inconsistencies towards character and believabilaty (see the thread 'plotholes'), and cardboard past lovers. They easily could have solved the problem of Lucas' shift in personality by including a flashback or something like that, but they didn't, they chose to use a flashback in which we saw him blowing up the embassy (using a way too modern phone in a country that didn't had a decent mobile network at that time, b.t.w.).
I can only hope that 'Spooks' will not fall into the trap of becoming just mindless entertainment, aiming to 'shock' and filled with fast-paced action and explosions, with no room left for intelligent stories and somewhat detailed character development; there has to be such television, too, but this series isn't the place where writers only have to take their ego's in consideration.