Line of Duty - what am I missing

[FreshJalapenos]

So many friends have nagged me to watch Line of Duty for ages, say it’s the best thing ever, and I finally cosied down this last week to watch it.

Finished season one

…Am I missing something?

It COULD be that I’m peri-menopausal and a bit tired and stressed lately, but I found it SO HARD to follow.

To clarify, I am an intelligent woman with a senior role in a scientific field. I also love a police drama so not new to a lot of terminology. I’ve never struggled to keep up with anything before

But I just did not know WTF was going on 🤣 it was SO fast paced I kept having to constantly rewind it to understand what was happening. I felt like I needed to start a spreadsheet of all the random stories - many of which are unresolved at the end of season one - and characters that kept popping up. The verbal diarrhoea of made up police lingo (“Twist it” - I’m sorry what?!?) and overly waffly declarations of “Arnott, that operation was not your fault, Fahrenheit is a tricky business which is why I wanted you to mosey on down and piggyback the twist operation here and nail this down before another man regrets his life choices and decides that the path he chooses has to impact public safety and terrorism. ARE YOU WITH ME ARNOTT”. Not to mention the overly complicated briefings “The murders at Greek Lane show a consistent finger stabbing aggression with what we’ve seen before - it’s a bluff operation, they have books that have words in and until we find a trace of the victim’s cousins dogs DNA, and visit the dodgy hairdresser, we’ll never crack this case.”

Then the twist at the end - well I think it was a twist, why can’t they just spell it out?! Im still confused.

The only courses of action is to:

1. rewatch season 1 and try to figure out what’s happening
2. Give up on it

Is it just me? I was hoping it would be as addictive as Happy Valley but it’s just added to my ever burdening mental load of figuring out WTF is going on 🤣

I did enjoy season 1, but there were diminishing returns as the seasons went on. Vicky McClure is wonderful in everything I have ever seen her in. But it was a while ago now, so can't really remember exactly what happened.

I didn't find it hard to follow at all, but I do get like that with series I'm not really interested in.

IMO life is too short (and there are too many good series) to persevere with something you aren't enjoying.

Were you really watching or also scrolling?

I think you should rewatch.

I've just rewatched the whole lot. It's excellent. Series 3 is the best where it's the build up to "the caddy" which you won't have encountered yet, but it's an absolutely epic moment of TV.

There are things I've rewound just to try and gather exact what one of them mumbled, but what I have noticed through the whole thing, is that if you miss the mumbling and can't quite follow one line of questioning, there are usually multiple lines that all result in the same person being found out.

Stick with it and don't worry too much that you've missed one revelation, they catch the baddy in each series by multiple revelations and most are quite easy to grasp.

Oh. I don't remember the hairdressers dog? 🤔
Sometimes I find subtitles help with the more wordy progs.

I'm enjoying Professor T at the moment. Much more straightforward.

Oh yes, you can't scroll and watch, you need to fully concentrate on it.

I loved it at the time. Was very tense and gripping with a great plot development. The finale was very underwhelming however and thus I've never felt tempted to rewatch any of the episodes.

I came to the party late when there was all the publicity about the final series. I thought it was brilliant but would need to go back and watch series 1.

Nah I couldn’t get on with it.

I'd like to petition the removal of posts mentioning p...m........ or m........ for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

You're asking why you don't like a TV show. What was the relevance.

You're triggering some people unnecessarily.

(Half joking. Mostly serious.)

It is a subtle and intelligent drama which needs full attention to spot things which will be relevant in later series.

Some decent enough programmes you can sort of watch with part of your brain whilst also planning dinner, thinking about whatever you forgot at work yesterday, having a conversation etc but Line of Duty needs 100% commitment!

It is really, really worth it though so I suggest rewatching unless you honestly feel it isn’t your thing.

Season 1 is watchable but it hasn't really got going yet, there's lots of stuff that makes sense when you go back and watch it after watching subsequent seasons.

IMO Season 2 and 3 are the best by far and a very different vibe to Season 1, also a bit easier to follow as well from what I remember - less random side plots.

You should watch Blue Lights ☺️

S2 and s3 are excellent

Do you know what, I think I stopped watching during my rewatch, will put it on now!

I didn’t get on with it either but I don’t understand a lot of the rankings within the police, who outranks who, which position is more senior etc and it all seemed to hinge on who was in authority in any given scene, found it too complicated and not engaging enough to bother persevering with beyond a few episodes into series 2. Don’t want to have to check things out on my phone when concentrating on a programme to actually decode wtf is going on so happy to draw a line under it and find something that suits me better.

No but I did have my kids being total bastards while I tried to watch it, teen DD calling me from the other room to ask things like if I can go out and buy her a chocolate orange and I think it broke my flow a bit

The brain fog is real though.

The thing is I think I actually DID like it, it just kind of gave me mental whiplash.

But I didn’t think “Wow I can’t believe I’ve never seen this before”

And I do like Vicky Mclure (was v disappointed Anna Maxwell Martin wasn’t in the series yet as expected)

The most recent series was terrible. Very disappointing 😞

I just streamed all the series over the summer mostly whilst cooking with my phone in its little wooden stand (2 quid Ikea). So I definitely didn't find it hard to follow.

It barely puts a foot wrong the whole way through. Just a few casting ifs and buts. It's a shame that some excellent actors aren't on the screen for a bit longer, namely Jason Watkins and Gina McKee. There's one iffy performance - Thandiwe Newton - and one absolute stinker of performance/misdirection - Anna Maxwell Martin. There's quite a fine line being trod between downright implausible scenarios - Ryan Pilkington character, Roz Huntley murder of colleague - and edge of seat/ makes you wonder if ... type plotting. Momentum is key and they do manage that very well.

What??? I was utterly blown away by Anna MM's performance, she played the role so brilliantly - her character was supposed to be utterly infuriating and she nailed it.

This was the first role I'd ever seen her in and after watching Motherland a year or so later I can't get over how good an actress she is.

Interested to know why you thought it was a "stinker" of a performance?

It seemed like she was in a different show. Sort of ott and slightly played for comedy. She definitely does better performances elsewhere. If you haven't seen Until I Kill You where she stars with Shaun Evans, she's really good in that.

Is series 1 the one staring Lennie James? If so, please try another watch because series 1-3 (as others have said) are superb - in my opinion! Don’t worry about missing things - it does all pull together. It’s not clunky exposition like Witless Silence (Silent Witness!) so does take a bit of investment of concentration but worth it I think!

Agreed, and Thandiwe Newton was great as well.

No one is saying it isn't (!) but some of us haven't had children yet and don't want the constant reminder we're running out of time (or have run out of time). It's painful to think about why you missed out and then for no reason at all (popular to say it now?? Empathy mining??) every woman around my age squeezes those words into every discussion and there is never even a proper justification. Also: tmi! (This forum notwithstanding) - in the real world: if it's something you discuss with a GP / has a diagnosis, don't talk about it with people you barely know!

Line of Duty is superb but yeah, you do have to focus to understand what's happening. And what makes it even better is the character development and progression across each series. It keeps getting better. The hype had mostly built up by the end - it was more like 'oh, this is good' at the start, so keep going!