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.

If you see Jessica Fletcher staying in the same place as you then run as fast as you can, there'll be a murder soon.

They have a troubled teenage kid who’s always skipping school.

I’ve actually never seen it 🤣

Maybe I should take a look!

Distraught relatives saying "Why aren't you out there looking for him/her?" whenever a police officer pauses for a nanosecond to ask essential basic questions that will inform the search.

If you are friend or distant relative of Jessica’s you will be accused of murder at some stage in your life. But don’t worry, she’ll find out who it really was

Oh please do - you basically got half the plot right.😁

Dead naked female victim. Every creepy time, TV writers.

A friend of mine has a sweatshirt that implies Jessica is a mass murderer, brilliant at blaming others for her crimes.

The maverick detective, despite having a perfectly capable professional partner, has an epiphany and decides to immediately drive off alone and in the dark to meet a dangerous suspect in a creepy remote location. Without first calling for backup or communicating their plan to anyone. Extra points if a) the location includes a dank cellar or a ruined cottage in a wood and b) there's no phone signal when they finally do engage brain enough to try to phone for help.

But TBF he's a sanctimonious twit.

See also 'He/she was a good kid, never got into any trouble!'

Angry relative shouting about police "wasting time asking people questions, when you should be finding out what happened"
Oh yes. Because nobody ever found anything else by asking questions.

Agatha Christie did that too! Usually the dopey adenoidal kitchen maid who ‘saw something’ but doesn’t want to get mixed up with the police, so writes for advice to nice Mr/Mrs X, who then strangles her and shoves her in the broom cupboard.

The shouting angry relative is usually the culprit.

Pretty much every line on Grace is some kind of awful cliche. Also nauseating meaningful looks and people acting like the brooding main character can do no wrong but in reality people would be ripping the absolute p**s out of him for pouting on clifftops all the time

Aristocratic and/or erudite detective who can’t connect with the common folk. They need the side kick for that.

Confrontational interviews where the detectives reveal all the evidence they have rather than just asking methodical and innocuous questions to establish or discredit the suspects alibi.

Forensic labs whose tests take exactly the right number of hours/days to ensure that the results are not received until the optimum point for driving the plot forward and/or generating a startling twist.

Usually the twist means that everyone back at Police HQ now knows that the killer is the apparently kind and helpful person whose remote house the vulnerable lone female detective is currently driving towards. With her phone almost out of charge.

Wycliffe, happily married to his teacher wife.

No one is ever upset by the murders.

The sweet guy in the coffee shop who serves him every morning? - it turns out he is involved in the murder.

The cliched situation of the female detective’s obstructive male boss/
male detective’s female ditto, who won’t have them hassling Very Important Mr X who is clearly guilty or involved.

Absolutely brilliant 😂

Every new drama has to include some ‘topical’ sl - I’ve had to switch off when it turns out we’re going to have a for or against conversation. You can be sure the illegal immigrant is a thoroughly decent chap who worked as a doctor back home but had to escape because he saved a baby holding a puppy from being eaten alive by the countries president

Oooh, heavy-duty plastic sheeting draped vertically in the murder garage.