Oil rig eats promising production team
Not sure why some people thought the scenery was Dr Who cardboard with actors green-screened in. Despite the woeful CGI there is a real rig starring somewhere in here, complete with deck plates, pipework flanges and strings of open-tread stairwell, typical wear and ageing, grease marks, puddles and the multitude of work-related signage, notes and tools stuck in all the old familiar places. Just like the ones I worked on more than 40 years ago, with flat-screens (well, computers even) -and women- retro-fitted and apparently still no fixed line comms to shore. It's the best part. Only the control room and the video screens looked cod: they were fake.
Unfortunately the production still fails to deliver the requisite atmosphere for three main reasons: it sounds wrong, the acting mode is wrong and the procedure is missing. Oil rigs make a lot of very distinctive and continuous noise, even during production shutdowns. NO-ONE with a radio ever says "Kinloch Bravo to Coastguard" be they armed forces, tanker fleet or local bus company do they! It's "Stonehaven Radio this is Kinloch Bravo:" only a cheap TV luvvy and a pot-boiling script hack team with tin ears, not listening to their technical advisers, fail like that. That's just a basic example. People at war or at work speak instrumentally, and all the best dramas tune into the functional argot. Surely the Line of Duty people know this? People at risk in action or in danger don't wear their feelings - or their fear - on the outside like this, above all if they are in charge. They don't open their mouth and look aghast, they freeze and become gritty, staring and expressionless, especially when the peril continues over an extended period. Our director here seems to think that won't make great drama, but this way is definitely worse and it is not how tension is built. Yes, as another oilman has said here, there is some banter, but it's contrasting, minimal and doesn't affect the tone. Whilst we have no difficulty sprinkling the F-word, we go the whole series with no Scotsman taking a pot at the English or vice-versa. This never happens.
Oh yes, and even in a dead calm with fog, in reality it's always howling on the helideck and comms tower, and the swell will keep anyone away from the 50 foot level, let alone from landing by lifeboat: it's in the middle of the raging North Sea for goodness sake, not next to the Newhaven harbour wall. The real emergency process for transferring from boat to rig - craned by personnel basket up to the helideck - is much more dramatic. Shame the writers didn't know that.
Location: 9, plot, acting, effects and everything else 2 or less. Dross. Great shame as offshore installations can make for brilliant atmospheric drama. PS tip to fellow reviewers: scoring it a 1 spoils your vote: it will be discarded with the 9s.
Not sure why some people thought the scenery was Dr Who cardboard with actors green-screened in. Despite the woeful CGI there is a real rig starring somewhere in here, complete with deck plates, pipework flanges and strings of open-tread stairwell, typical wear and ageing, grease marks, puddles and the multitude of work-related signage, notes and tools stuck in all the old familiar places. Just like the ones I worked on more than 40 years ago, with flat-screens (well, computers even) -and women- retro-fitted and apparently still no fixed line comms to shore. It's the best part. Only the control room and the video screens looked cod: they were fake.
Unfortunately the production still fails to deliver the requisite atmosphere for three main reasons: it sounds wrong, the acting mode is wrong and the procedure is missing. Oil rigs make a lot of very distinctive and continuous noise, even during production shutdowns. NO-ONE with a radio ever says "Kinloch Bravo to Coastguard" be they armed forces, tanker fleet or local bus company do they! It's "Stonehaven Radio this is Kinloch Bravo:" only a cheap TV luvvy and a pot-boiling script hack team with tin ears, not listening to their technical advisers, fail like that. That's just a basic example. People at war or at work speak instrumentally, and all the best dramas tune into the functional argot. Surely the Line of Duty people know this? People at risk in action or in danger don't wear their feelings - or their fear - on the outside like this, above all if they are in charge. They don't open their mouth and look aghast, they freeze and become gritty, staring and expressionless, especially when the peril continues over an extended period. Our director here seems to think that won't make great drama, but this way is definitely worse and it is not how tension is built. Yes, as another oilman has said here, there is some banter, but it's contrasting, minimal and doesn't affect the tone. Whilst we have no difficulty sprinkling the F-word, we go the whole series with no Scotsman taking a pot at the English or vice-versa. This never happens.
Oh yes, and even in a dead calm with fog, in reality it's always howling on the helideck and comms tower, and the swell will keep anyone away from the 50 foot level, let alone from landing by lifeboat: it's in the middle of the raging North Sea for goodness sake, not next to the Newhaven harbour wall. The real emergency process for transferring from boat to rig - craned by personnel basket up to the helideck - is much more dramatic. Shame the writers didn't know that.
Location: 9, plot, acting, effects and everything else 2 or less. Dross. Great shame as offshore installations can make for brilliant atmospheric drama. PS tip to fellow reviewers: scoring it a 1 spoils your vote: it will be discarded with the 9s.