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 always amused me with A Touch of Frost, he had a WHOLE desk of paperwork, and half the humour is about him dodging doing any of it, despite being constantly nagged!

Or the IT specialist who can hack into anything and guess passwords

when in reality it would probably take ten months to get the work docket signed off

The Fall was the best at trying to portray how a real SOCO behaves.

(Disclaimer, it looked right – I have no other frame of reference!)

that's brilliant!

The endless bunting and the suspicious lack of children at carnivals, fetes and other occasions.

Neat as well

No one is off sick either for months on end.

The alcoholic divorced detective who is always late but a maverick and really good at his job. Always has a female junior detective who is studious but sexy.

The detective has to be personally targeted by a criminal, because they have an old grudge/they want to prove they are cleverer than the detective. Happens at least once in an entire series.

How often does a criminal go after a specific copper or tec in real life?

No one can turn the lights on in the offices. Anything that has random shit on computer screens can piss off too.

Had the ‘female detective who doesn’t take her coat off because she’s dead busy and not stopping’ gone yet?

@KittyEckersley DH pointed this out to me. Ruined every series/programme since.

The sidekick detective is just about to get married/his wife has just found out she's pregnant/is weeks away from retirement?

Not looking good - the sidekick detective will be dead by the end of the episode.

detectives with no phone manners. They just pick up the phone, start talking and then hang up.

attractive vulnerable woman wandering about in very dark places at night - multi story car park, shipping container place, spooky house, underpass etc.

terrible speeding with hapless cars crashed out of the way.

The most famous actor amongst the suspects is the murderer.

Yep. New Tricks - solved as soon as you saw the list of guest stars in the opening credits. (I missed the opening credits for one episode, then George Cole appeared, so that was that.)

The main character's superior officer is always an idiot who doesn't appreciate the main character's maverick genius.

Oh and some years ago, there was always a scene in the gents' toilets.

They’ll have moved to a different town/city, after a tragic case or a divorce. New colleagues don’t accept them, neither do the locals. If it’s a man, he’ll be divorced and spend his evenings in his flat drinking whisky and staring at pictures of his ex. If a woman, she’ll be aloof and unreachable. She’ll go on a few disastrous dates and have a chat about them with the desk sergeant.

They’ll be paired up with a copper who is their complete opposite and has lived in the town their whole life. Their DF will probably have been the Chief Constable. The locals will love that copper and our lead detective will have to learn the ropes for working in that town from them.

The sheer availability of car parking spaces in busy cities.

The strip club!

You've been watching Hot Fuzz again, haven't you?

It’s the incredibly dimly lit police stations that annoy me most.

And people behaving in really unlikely ways. Like one of the detectives discovers something, get in car with colleague, drives somewhere and then next shot is them getting out and first detective is only then starts to them the interesting discovery. What were they talking about on the journey??? If the first detective was being all mysterious why didn’t the second one ask or get pissed off with their secretive colleague?

And a strangely high proportion of the characters live in lovely, very modern houses (although often dimly lit).

The obligatory drone shot of the ocean/shoreline or the forest canopy as the credits come up at the start. Such a cliche but they all do it.

Main character throwing up to show how distraught they are at a piece of news. This happens in first episode if it's a commercial crime drama or towards the end if it prides itself on being a bit classier.

Main character doing a wild dance all on her own to express her emotions.

Main character throwing something across the room and breaking it to show they are angry, when it's clear from the context and most people just seethe inwardly or comfort eat a biscuit/make another coffee, not smash half the contents of their office.

Drinks are ordered in pubs and sipped or left untouched.

TV detectives always drive shit cars, like old Volvos. It's as if the car is meant to represent the turmoil and darkness in their hearts 😉

Superior officer threatens to take main detective off the case - worse thing that can happen to a detective in drama land.

The obligatory drone shot of the ocean/shoreline or the forest canopy

Yes! Especially forest canopies. You'd think that treetops were responsible for most murders, the amount of footage they get in crime shows these days.

I believe it started off due to the fact that some murdered people get buried in woodland. But now it is just "We've got this blimmin drone; what shall we do with it? More treetops!?"

That's the focus of We Need To Talk About Kevin.