This week on BBC 1's Silent Witness, they reached new, dramatic heights... Properly scary, heart in mouth stuff, as Dr Harry Cunningham (aka actor Tom Ward) came face to face (or gun) with scary girlfriend murdering, Ukrainian mafia tattooed hit man. At the end of Monday's episode, we - the great British public -saw Harry killed, and then doused in petrol and burned...
Shock reverberated around Facebook, as my friends and I struggled to believe that they had killed off one of the main characters in such a horrible way. I'm sure the shock was felt more keenly as poor Harry was quite easy on the eye...
Not since Adam (aka Beautiful Adam / aka Rupert Penry Jones) was unceremoniously blown up on Spooks a couple of years ago had I been so upset by the demise of a fictional character...
I don't think I was just upset because Harry was (to steal my friend's phrase) pretty. Or because frankly seeing anyone shot and then burned is fairly horrific... I was sad for all the story lines that could never happen; for the seismic shift that would have to occur in every future episode. I guess it's testament to the good script writing that you actually end up caring about the characters. At that moment if I could have done, I would have found Tom Ward - and checked that he was actually alright; I know it sounds daft - but there we are, the instinct of the trained carer never really goes away, even if it's completely unnecessary...
I have to admit that I watched Tuesday's episode reluctantly, thinking that perhaps even more horrible deaths would occur (yes, I know, a drama about forensic pathologists is bound to contain horrible deaths...); but I felt that not seeing the end of the story-line would just make it worse... And so it was with great relief that I watched and saw not only no more deaths of major characters, but that actually Harry hadn't been killed after all, but had escaped his attacker who had inadvertently got himself knocked down by a truck whilst reloading his gun (there's swift justice for you!), and that Harry had swapped some of his clothes etc. with the hit man to make it look like he had died instead. And breathe...
Actually, I still hid behind a cushion for the rest of the episode, thinking that Harry (or Nikki, or Leo) could still get shot... And to think a bit of telly in the evening is supposed to be relaxing...
I didn't calm down until the credits were safely rolling. That said, I'll probably end up doing it all again next week. (I don't know much about being a forensic pathologist, but I would very much doubt there is as much imminent peril as occurs on Silent Witness...)
As an aside - BBC, (I know you're obviously reading my little blog...) do you think you could resurrect Adam in Spooks now? I know he was (supposedly) blown up by a humongous car bomb, but they couldn't find a body (no surprises there...) so could you not have had him in hiding for a while, just until Lucas threw himself off a building and you needed a new section chief?...
I know - I need to get out more!
See, I feel a bit cheated sometimes when characters are apparently dead and then turn out not to be. In one of Terry Pratchett's books there's a character who is a werewolf. She gets shot and you think she's dead, and I cried so much. And then it turned out that she wasn't dead because, being a werewolf, needed a silver bullet to kill her. I felt like I'd been manipulated into much more crying than was really necessary.
ReplyDeleteMaybe that's just me.
My view is similar...I loved both episodes and although the story line was great, it had very little to do with forensic pathology and could just as easily have been any other half decent cast thrown into that situation.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I was a little disappointed about the manner in which Harry managed to survive. It was a little unbelievable that the gunman just happened to be hit by a lorry (which didn't seem to even notice...but that is another story). It would have been more convincing if Harry's leg injury had not actually been as bad as he had first thought and when the gunman reloaded, to have tripped him over and dished out a good whack to the head with the petrol can.
Never the less - Silent Witness is definitely in my top 2 or 3 fictional dramas on TV (Spooks being another).
Jonny M