Category Archives: we love tv

So, This Is How Accurate Crime Shows Really Are

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Nothing beats a good, cosy crime drama.

Following a detective as they retrace steps, interview suspects and wander into gruesome crime scenes without even a hint of hand sanitiser. All of that while having a cheeky late night cup of tea? Can’t beat it.

That being said, how accurate are these shows in depicting what actually happens during an investigation? We know that it’s not quite as glossy as it is on screen, but are the important details factual?

Well, not so much.

Digital Spy spoke with Sophie Harris, a forensic assistant apprentice who revealed that not only is most of it not factual, but for shows like Luther, even the premise is off.

Idris Elba as Luther
Idris Elba as Luther

BBC Studios

In a lot of crime and detective shows, there is one person fronting the investigation who not only does the paperwork, but gets their hands dirty in the nitty gritty of the crime scenes and is responsible for speaking to witnesses and suspects.

Harris explained that this isn’t quite so straightforward in the real world, saying: “On a lot of crime dramas, they show everything being done by one or two people, but that’s not true. You have a first officer attending the scene who alerts other people about what’s going on.

“After that, when forensics get involved, you’ll have a forensics scene investigator come, you’ll have crime scene coordinators, you’ll have all sorts of different people attending the scene.”

Another very satisfying plot point in many crime scenes is somebody being identified from a single fingerprint.

Usually, you’ll see one tech whizz sits in front of a screen, who scans the fingerprint and boom — we have our criminal.

Harris said: “On NCIS, I remember, they found a fingerprint and just popped it onto the system and then they got a suspect straight from that.

“But, you’ve got to be able to find a certain amount of characteristics on a fingerprint to be able to compare it to a mark, so it’s not that straightforward.”

Reality is, as ever, a little more admin-heavy than fiction.

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House Of The Dragon Director Clears Up Our 1 Big Question About Aemond’s Nude Scene

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One of the biggest criticisms levelled at Game Of Thrones was its disparity between male and female on-screen nudity – and it seems spin-off House Of The Dragon is keen to remedy that.

The latest instalment of the prequel series featured an extended sequence set in a brothel, which made TV history of sorts as the first scene in any Game Of Thrones show to feature an erect penis.

Not only that, the scene came to a climax (sorry!) with Aegon Targaryen catching his brother Aemond in the act, only to wind up humiliating him in a manner reminiscent of the bullying Aegon subjected Aemond to in their younger years.

At the end of the exchange, Aemond coldly walks away from the scene without bothering to dress, with director Geeta Vasant Patel telling Variety that Ewan Mitchell threw himself into going fully nude for the sequence, rather than using a double or prosthetic.

“Ewan is such a great actor. He understands what he needs to do in order to portray Aemond,” she enthused.

“When I spoke with him originally about the nudity, I said to him, ‘Let’s just go through the story. If you don’t feel comfortable being nude, then you’re not going to be nude’. We were both on the same page in that way. We started walking through, and he walked me through his character.

“One thing about directing that’s really important is to surrender to the actors, and the actors surrender. It’s a mutual surrendering. In this case, Ewan knew his character so well that I was listening to him and walking with him as we went through every episode before this.”

A (cropped) still of Ewan Mitchell's nude scene from the latest instalment of House Of The Dragon
A (cropped) still of Ewan Mitchell’s nude scene from the latest instalment of House Of The Dragon

She explained: “What we came to is that Aemond was hurt. He was bullied when he was little. Since he was hurt, he had created this persona that was the exact opposite of how he was feeling.

“He created the persona of a someone who is callous and has no regard for what others think of him. That shift, from someone who’s vulnerable to literally watching him put on his armour, was what we were going for in that scene. It’s one of the few times you see the young child in him and you see the pain in him.

“Slowly he starts putting on his armour and when he stands up, the fact that he doesn’t care that you see his penis is such a strong visceral shift. And so, of course, Ewan was like, ‘I want to be fully nude in that moment. It’s important to me because that’s who my character is. That’s what he would do’. And that’s what we did.”

Geeta Vasant Patel at the season 2 premiere of House Of The Dragon
Geeta Vasant Patel at the season 2 premiere of House Of The Dragon

Arturo Holmes via Getty Images

In a separate interview with Vulture, Ewan agreed it was “encoded in Aemond’s DNA” for the character to leave the scene in the way he does.

“He’s humiliated by his brother and all his crew, and it’s like this switch flips,” he said of his character.

“The madam is no more. All of these people in front of him? They mean nothing. He stands up, he owns it. ‘Yeah, I’m bulletproof. Anything you say, it will not work’.”

Ewan added: “Scenes like this start with a conversation about how far you’re prepared to go. It wasn’t a choice we made lightly. But it’s true to Aemond that he shocks the audience. Weakness is not part of Aemond’s vocabulary.”

House Of The Dragon airs on Mondays on Sky and Now.

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James Corden Is Taking Extreme Measures To Keep The Gavin & Stacey Script Under Wraps

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Gavin & Stacey creators James Corden and Ruth Jones are apparently taking no chances when it comes to protecting the script for the much-loved sitcom’s final outing.

James and Ruth finally gave fans the news they’ve been waiting almost five years for back in May, when they announced that Gavin & Stacey would return to our screens this Christmas for a one-off special that they’ve insisted will be its last ever episode.

And with production getting underway later this year, it seems the pair are taking security very seriously.

According to the BBC’s Director of Comedy, Jon Petrie, he hasn’t actually been allowed to see a copy of the script yet – despite being the one who commissioned the special.

Speaking at a comedy showcase this week, Jon said (via the Daily Mail): “I genuinely still haven’t seen the script, James and Ruth won’t let us look at it yet.

He added:”I think [that’s] great, they are really keeping it under wraps and don’t want people to see it outside of their very, very tight circle until they’re 100 per cent certain of it.

“I think it will be hard when they are filming it because it’s such a huge show and everyone will want to watch, everyone in all the locations where it’s shot, it will be obvious what’s being shot.”

Gavin & Stacey stars James Corden, Joanna Page, Mathew Horne and Ruth Jones
Gavin & Stacey stars James Corden, Joanna Page, Mathew Horne and Ruth Jones

Of course, you can’t blame James and Ruth for being overzealous, particularly as news of the special was leaked in the press weeks before they actually announced it.

Ruth has previously made no secret of her upset about this leak, admitting last month: “I wanted to give everybody a nice surprise and I think it was really mean that they leaked it.”

Meanwhile, James disclosed during a Radio 2 interview last week that the Christmas special’s script isn’t actually finished yet, telling Zoe Ball: “Ruth and I have to do one last pass and clean up of it, really.

“The cast are like, ‘when can I read it?’, [but] we don’t want to really give it to anybody if we feel like we have to make a few trims and adjustments. But I’m really excited to share it with people.”

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House Of The Dragon Star Opens Up About Filming ‘Animalistic’ Sex Scene That Was Eventually Cut From Show

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House Of The Dragon star Olivia Cooke has revealed not all of the sex scenes she filmed made it into the final edit.

The British actor played Alicent Hightower, who becomes the second wife of King Viserys I Targaryen, in the first season of the Game Of Thrones prequel, and reprises the role in the second run, which is airing now.

In a new interview with Elle, Olivia opened up about some of the show’s infamous sex scenes, recalling one in particular that wound up on the cutting room floor.

“It was messy as fuck,” she said of the “animalistic” and “carnal” sequence. “It wasn’t beautiful, and that was really fun to do.”

Rhys Ifans and Olivia Cooke on the set of House Of The Dragon season two
Rhys Ifans and Olivia Cooke on the set of House Of The Dragon season two

On why the scene ultimately wasn’t used, she claimed that showrunner Ryan Condal felt “we weren’t learning any more about the characters”.

“I disagree with [that] slightly,” she added. “But it’s okay. It’s his show.”

Asked more generally about House Of The Dragon’s sex scenes, Olivia shared: “I thought there’d be way more, and so I’m relieved that when it has been used for me, it’s showing Alicent being pleasured, which is amazing and doesn’t feel gratuitous. It feels like we’re telling a story.”

Olivia recently gave an interview to The Times, in which she shared how she really felt about playing a grandmother in the hit fantasy show, despite only being in her early 30s.

“I have really complicated feelings towards it,” she admitted. “If they can create dragons, they could have made me look younger – and then older. Or maybe they should have cast actors in their forties?”

“It’s strange,” Olivia added. “I bristle a bit because the years between being a teenager and now a grandma on screen were so short for me. There’s real reticence to see women age on screen.”

House Of The Dragon airs on Mondays on Sky and Now.

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Jessica Gunning Recalls Hilarious Encounter That Left 1 Baby Reindeer Fan ‘Terrified’

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Jessica Gunning has revealed she recently gave one Baby Reindeer viewer an inadvertent scare.

The British actor received widespread praise for her performance as a stalker in the Netflix show, which became a word-of-mouth global hit after it began streaming earlier in the year.

She and her co-stars Richard Gadd and Nava Mau recently sat down with Netflix to reflect on the show’s success, which its creator and leading actor revealed has surpassed his expectations.

“I really believed in it, I thought it was good, I thought it was different, I thought it would provoke conversation, but I thought it would probably be like a critical cult success,” he admitted. “[I thought] it would sort of sit on the platform as a bit of a sort of artistic gem.

“It’s just crazy that it has resonated with so many people.”

Jessica in character as Martha in Baby Reindeer
Jessica in character as Martha in Baby Reindeer

Ed Miller/Netflix

Proving Richard’s point, Jessica disclosed that she recently had an encounter with one Baby Reindeer fan that wound up giving them quite the fright.

“The other day I actually got out of my car, and I hadn’t had any makeup on and my hair was probably a little bit Martha-esque,” she explained. “And a lady just screamed when she saw me.

“I was like, ‘I’m so sorry’, and she went, ‘no I’m sorry – I just finished episode seven’.”

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For those who’ve already forgotten, episode seven served as the Baby Reindeer finale, and sees Martha tracking down Donny’s family before finally being convicted with stalking.

After that, Donny then becomes obsessed with listening back to voicemail messages that she left him, and re-reading her old emails.

Jessica added: “She’d finished episode seven, turned the TV off, walked outside and then I was like, ‘hello!’ Imagine! No wonder she was terrified!”

During the same interview, Richard also spoke about some of the show’s celebrity fans – including one he’s still struggling to get his head around for personal reasons.

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