Archers thread #165: Bridge over troubled waters! Discuss The Archers here.

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Thank you, @PseudoBadger, for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads.

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This thread may well fill up as fast as the last one, so let's just get stuck in!

I didn’t get that. We need someone who knows about cars to tell us how likely that is

We were in fact told that the front of the car Mick was driving was "clipped" by the other (Alice's), in which case I find it very unlikely that not one of the available front lights on either car was broken, even before they skidded all over the place twice over, and finally fell in the water.

The synopsis says

"There is then the prolonged sound of a horn and George shouts 'O God!', tyres squeal, there is a thud, George grunts, more tyres squeal and there is a sound of running water as another vehicle brakes to a halt, and George whimpers 'No. No, no no no no no,' followed by a loud splash."

I found it a bit remarkable that after skidding that much, someone stopped and then started to skid again. Generally once the skidding stops, it doesn't restart, because when it stops that means the car making the noise has stopped. And only one car went in the river, so presumably the other had stopped already. The whole thing was weird.

I offer you this one of many times that bridge has been demolished

Yes I was worried that was a hint that Mick may have philandered in the past (if not the present!)

Haha I know that bridge well, it's a bloody nightmare! It currently has cones on it to try and dissuade people from passing on it (I assume), which is frustrating because there's plenty of space for two cars or a car and a van to pass, as long as nobody is driving like a dick.

I don’t think any of the sound effects of that night properly indicated what happened - I commented on it at the time. There was no squealing of brakes, crashing of masonry into the river much less the sound of crumpling metal, just a creaking sound (reminiscent of the Italian Job!), George’s no, no, no followed by a splash. It was impossible to picture the sequence of events, but I think that was deliberate to maintain the suspense so we would tune in the following evening to find out what happened. In reality the car must have crashed through the parapet - there’s no way it could have mounted the parapet and teetered on top. Did George just pull up at the side of the road? If so, how was he able to move Alice into the driver’s seat unseen?

I wonder if it was Nessa driving it.Tidy.

The alternative is that neither car hit or fell from the bridge, but instead George clipped the front of Mick's car when neither of them was on the bridge at all – and we know George wasn't, because he wanted Alice to hold in being sick until they got to the bridge so he could stop and she could get out to spew, and what he said was "we're nearly at the bridge", which he would not have said if they were on it or at the other end of it. Then Mick somehow went off the bank of the river at the end of the bridge he'd just crossed in order to be in a minor collision with George.

But there was definitely a whole lot of skidding involved. And how Mick managed to be driving in a westerly direction at the western end of the bridge and then end up in the water behind him, the opposite direction from the one he was travelling in, is a complete mystery. (I think someone must have tampered with the laws of physics, really.) I don't think it possible that George rammed him so hard that Mick's car was shunted backwards into the river; George would not have walked away from that unhurt.

No

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime I don't think it possible that George rammed him so hard that Mick's car was shunted backwards into the river; George would not have walked away from that unhurt.

Unless of course Alice's car has been retroactively armour-plated.

I put it to the good people of this thread that perhaps we are getting too hung up on the lack of realism of the sound effects of a radio show, when in fact what the producers were going for was more of a sense of drama than accuracy of what the crash actually sounded like.

I think the same can be said of a lot of the faults that we find in TA. It's a long running serialised drama (or soap or whatever the correct term is for it); it relies heavily at times on the suspension of disbelief, as most works of fiction produced for the radio do.

That's not to say it isn't fun to pick up on and pick apart though, so carry on as you were 😁

(and to totally ignore myself) In my view Mick's car stopped on the bank of the river, and then the river bank had a mini landslide caused by the weight of the car on it, causing the car to go into the water.

Could Paul be any more annoying?

That was a bit of a meh episode

So that random inspection visit by the Big Boss was also part of the setting up for this storyline/ scenario.

Also, remind me, just how was Alisdare allowed to practise again after the ketamine-dealing incident? I can't remember exactly what happened, and certainly not what ensued. There was court wasn't there?

It was. Heralded by the spoilers and last night's CA as Alice pressing self destruct.
It's quite a slow button.

For years we were told repeatedly and rather smugly about the wondrous board of doorbells, carefully crafted in the cause of verisimilitude (which might have been more accurately and less wankily served by giving everyone in the village the same sodding ding-dongs).

So now the all-knowing, detail-oriented, careful in their attention to the programme's history, SWs have pivoted to producing this nonsense where the rural atmosphere of the setting, developed over - what, 70 years? (can't remember) is completely ignored, not to make a better story but just because they are too sloppy to attempt consistency. The story is worse for being nonsensical, not 'more dramatic'.

That does not make me at fault if I find it irksome.

I think it’s because various bits of parapet are missing.

I wouldn’t like to try it at NSL

I'm really missing the farming now. If I want pure nonsense drama I can switch on Eastenders.

They should hand over the scriptwriting to John Finnemore. At least he is intentionally funny.

I'm too old to know whether all this baloney appeals to the precious 'young audience' the SW's crave. However a bit more cheese and the odd Monty would not go amiss in my opinion.

I don’t understand how Kirsty and Pip painted the boat. If it was damaged by the car then the damage must be waterline. How did they paint it??? I can’t get a mental image of it at all.

This. A close rel of mine lives in a boat and no way would they welcome people slapping paint around. Anything below the waterline needs to go down river and be hauled up in a special boatyard (at ruinous expense). They could also have fecked up any insurance claim by Rex by covering up the damage.

The boat painting was bloody weird. Thought the same about the logistics of it. And they just so happened to have the right kind of paint to hand as well?

Alistair and Denise just need to tell Paul now and let him deal with it. They are acting like he's about 12.