Detective Drama Tropes you Wish they'd skip

[Kreepture]

Been watching all the Morse, Lewis, Endeavour, Frost..etc series on ITV x recently, and i've spotted a few tropes they like to use, but there's a couple i'm really fed up of.

1. The new love interest turning out to be the killer/bad guy

2. Families of the dead refusing to answer perfectly reasonable questions/being hostile.

That’s what Midsommer murders is for. Everyone else has issues.

100% true of Columbo.

People pottering around their kitchen, office etc while being interviewed by the police

People just going about their business when the police visit them eg tinkering under the bonnet of a car or continuing to hang out their washing

i remember police coming to our house when I was young and the place got brought to a standstill. Even the tv went off!

Yes, they just treat it like a puzzle. "Oh dear, well I can't imagine who'd want him dead!"

There are some exceptions, like Unforgotten (especially the first couple of series) and Happy Valley, and actually this makes them a pretty hard watch.

There's a gun fight that would shame the OK Corral and no one even raises an eyebrow in the street. I'm looking at you, Black Doves.

The victim opening their front door and saying "oh it's you" to the unseen murderer seconds before having their head caved in

Everyone these days has to solve crimes that are related to crimes 30 years ago. It can't just be something that wants tidying up now, it has to be an event with massive cross generational repercussions and flashbacks populated with sad spooky children who dance slowly next to misty ponds. No wonder conviction rates are so bad. Up and down the country, coppers are refusing to look into mobile phone scooter gangs, cyber attacks and the like because although they might get a few convictions they won't solve a haunting decades old mystery, and everyone knows that's the main current function of policing.

DH and I read Chris Carter pulp fiction and every crime is the worst they've ever seen, the initial attending PC vomits, the killer always uses latex face changers and wigs and Hunter always gets naked 😂

But the ones that annoy me on TV are the ones who lost a partner in tragic circumstances, flashed to throughout. Creates a (yawn) overarching narrative that barely connects.

I loathe detectives not wearing coveralls at crime scenes, making spurious "mcguffin" connections, and having a trumped up nemesis who is always "out to get them".

And generally all detectives have women throw themselves at them and barely notice because they're "awkward/handsome/intense" types who never exist irl!

DS and I made the terrible mistake of watching season 2 of return to paradise

i I couldn’t get past her asking her boss to book her a ticket back to London having chosen not to get on the previous plane and he’s like ‘no, take the time you need to sort your affairs out’. As if the Met were paying for her ticket and her boss had to book it and as if HR wouldn’t be dealing with it and demanding she come back or use holiday.

anyway, another trope is either a lack of family or a family that are dysfunctional/criminal

The lead detective is usually an alcoholic. He ( mainly he sometimes a she) will be either a widow or divorced. If divorced his ex will have shacked up with another man who is much more reliable and stable than the detective. Whenever the detective goes round to his ex’s to see his children, the new man will always be there. Most likely he will open the door wearing an apron after spending valuable time with his partners children teaching them how to paint/bake/do their homework etc.
The detective will go home and knock back several shots of whiskey to drown his sorrows. Then fall asleep drunk on his sofa, miss his alarm and rush to work late the next day, whilst wearing the same crumpled up clothes that he wore the previous day.

Ruth Randell’s Inspector Wexford was happily married. Also Columbo seems to be, even if his wife never appears.

They’re the only ones I can think of though.

Reminds me of this

You to the maverick detective who breaks the rules.

TBH it’s interesting that in a lot of whodunnit books, the detective is a completely straitlaced guy who probably wrote the rules and never breaks them. That’s what i like. Maybe that’s what cosy crime is?

@EmpressaurusKitty Both Barnabys in Midsomer Murders.

Jim Taggart

Thurs Bina MURRRRRDURRRRR

I can’t understand why anyone still lives in Midsummer. Or on Shetland. Or in Oxford. Or Grantchester (you get my drift).

(Sorry that was an involuntary vagus nerve reaction)

There has to be a second murder before the end of the first episode.

The detective has to be suspended before he can solve the case off the books.

Meeting a contact in a pub

If the detective is an existing celebrity then expect them to bring a bit of their personality into the role - eg the guvnor singing jazz in Ridley (that show really ticks a lot of the bingo card mentioned already!!)

LOL this is the subject of my PhD - that behind every psychopath this is a crap mum!

"A boy's best friend is his mother."

😂 that is so true

Entire murder investigations carried out with just two officers (usually high ranking) especially when there are multiple victims.

There is a whole other genre we haven’t touched - the civilian ‘detectives’ that solve the murder with no resources because the useless detectives couldn’t catch a cold in winter.

Or could it be that it's because they are a psychopath that their mum appears to be crap?