Anyone watching the new series of Silent Witness ie started 2 January 2023 BBC1

[IwantToRetire]

Just asking as I started watching thinking back to the early days, and within minutes found the new version so ridiculous, nearly burst out laughing.

Or maybe it is just me stuck in the past.

I can't see how her being allowed in the offices isn't considered a massive risk to confidentiality and security! And technically she could get in the lab and skew results in which case their findings couldn't be relied on in court

It's so bad now! It's always been offensive to forensics but it was still intriguing. Now the actors are incredibly wooden, the writing is poor and half of it is non-sensical.

Has the writer or director changed?

I'm waiting for Cara to become pregnant and Nikki and Jack adopt said baby

Leaving aside all the other nonsense, I'm always tickled by the fact that the Lyall Centre (sp?) only seems to have three or four employees. It also clearly has no security which is a little odd given what it does!

Referring back to the unlikely seen where the police inspector gave birth in the Lyall Centre, and after Jack ask Nikki if she was alright.

Was that because in some earlier series it was revealed that Nikki had had a baby very young but had given it up for adoption? Or she had had an abortion. There was some scene when they talked about her not having children.

Or maybe I just made that up.

She had a still birth rather than giving the baby up I think.

Yeah, and that was done in such an annoying way: “let’s give Nikki a baby-related back story that we’ve never mentioned or given the slightest hint of in any similarly baby-focused issue before, but we’re running out of steam now and we need to over-egg the poignancy and make sure the forensic bit in every single episode somehow echoes the protagonists’ personal life”.

Jack is so annoying.

he is the bestest person ever to work in forensics.
he knows everything about everything
therevis no need for the police or the bomb disposal squad when he is around.

this is especially jarring when he knows more than the female pathologist and two senior female policewomen.

he even gets to wear a different coloured boiler suit to make sure he stands out as extra special

i can’t stand him

I think it was Sam Ryan who had the adopted son story way back in the early seasons.

Thanks for many of the back story reminders - and finding someone who thinks Jack must be one of the worst characters in a tv series!

Its strange because they whole forensic part could be interesting, and just like in long running dective dramas, it isn't necessary for the ongoing characters to do anything other than their primary job in an interesting, even exciting way.

And each episode can bring in different characters with different backgrounds etc..

Is it that the characters in the main roles gets bored and demand to be part of action scene even though they basically do a desk job?

It would be good if they had a storyline a bit like the one about finding the body of Richard III. And Nikki could do her facial reconstruction bit

meanwhile, Jack would muscle his way in, elbowing archaeologists to one side and head butting any police officer who attempted to stop him and manfully leap into the grave, clasping the body in his arms.

and sadly contract the plague/Black Death/Ebola and expire offscreen.

Just watched the latest one, set in Southbay. Brilliant.

My dd and I really enjoyed this weeks too @Italiangreyhound Felt much more like the old days with using their investigative skills. I think I said pretty much everyone was the killer, but I was right with the one who went in the boys bedroom.

It was much better. The first thus season was bad. The festival one was worse!!

totally agree that this week was much better. Absolutely typical that it’s the last in the series

This week’s was indeed much better, and I think it was because they went back to basics: there’s been a murder in a commonplace setting, we need forensics to determine what happened. Apart from the minor subplot of Jack going up against his supposed mentor, there were no needless personal dramas/parallels crowbarred in.

I cant say I found it that much better. To much of them being shoehorned into the action. And Jack having to have one of his strong man work outs.

And really, the lack of chemistry between Jack and Nikki is just hopeless.

And the set up of the local police station was just nuts. All that family linkage and just about everyone taking a back hander.

I think I preferred when we did have insight into the main characters lives, and then the lives of the people impacted by the crime. They can both be shown and not falsely intertwined.

I feel like in the train one they totally forgot that Nikki and Jack were a couple at all. And of course Jack’s got a mate on the board of the company Aoife is supposedly working at and it’s odd that he doesn’t know every staff member by name- what board director does? Also the climate protestors can’t even get the terminology right ( carbon sink not carbon sink hole) plus a train line was a weird thing to be protesting against. And remedial sign language is getting tedious. They need to go on a crash “simultaneous interpretation course” and all become amazing at it immediately.

why do I persist with this bollocks?

Some was better but on Mon they all sounded very stilted when in the lab. Awful acting. The ending was very unlikely and the old pathologist being horrible to Jack and going in when off duty wasn't explained. If he wasn't manipulated by the police why behave so unprofessionally. He was GMC disciplining level of negligence. Jack being thrown out originally also wasn't explained. They try too hard for plot twists and sensational endings. The Jack hard man act is silly

The Jack hard man bits just pass me by now, I don't think they even register enough to be an annoyance.

I did find the Southbay station set up completely unrealistic but amusing, because it kept making me think of Hot Fuzz.

The most ridiculous thing about this series is that everyone who works there has suddenly become so fluent in BSL. Surely to reach the level of fluency the new dude was at would take years!

Jack and Nikki are always do hostile and condescending towards any newcomers. Jack especially comes across as deeply unpleasant.

It's dreadful but I can't stop watching!

The Star one was so obvious but it took them so long!

When SW started, it was about a strong, capable, skilled and humanly flawed woman.

Now it is about Jack and how wonderful he is. At absolutely everything.

there used to be at least 2 pathologists, often 3 working at the Lyall.

what happened to the female pathologist brought in last series? (I’ve totally forgotten and just realised she wasn’t in this series)

I was thinking that too. I've tried to learn it and after some weeks had only got the alphabet and a few key words. They all seem to be fluent very quickly!