30 Days of [Any Favourite] TV Show - 8
Let's finish this meme, since I've said all I need to in the vid...
26. Favourite quotes
I included a bunch in my big Public Eye post, so I'll just find some different ones I also like, except for this, which is my favourite:
Helen: "A man seems to think all he has to say to a woman is 'I need you' - she'll pack a nightie and a toothbrush and run!"
Frank: "Perhaps some people don't mind all this soul-stripping. But I'm not an onion that you can all peel, one layer each all round. Like it or lump it, this is the way I am."
Ron: "You must have some ambition, some purpose, something to aim for?"
Frank: "Right now, what I'd like to aim at is the nearest pub. Half a bitter and a pork pie. Or is that too ambitious?"
Frank: "Responsibility. A quaint, old-fashioned thing that you seem a bit short on."
Tom Hooper: "One life. How many compromises?"
27. Favourite non-romantic OTP
Frank & Percy. There aren't a lot of contenders. (It's not really a coincidence that Frank's two main friends both decided fairly quickly to take an interest in him, whether he liked it or not, and are both quite persistent about it.) Anyway, Inspector Percy Firbank is intrigued from the start by a private detective who's more concerned about an old lady losing an item of sentimental value than the recovery of stolen property, and when Frank moves to Windsor, he does some background checks on him, and keeps an eye on him from then on - and even after he leaves the series.
"John VII. Verse 24" may not be great, but it is a good Percy & Frank episode - at the end of Frank's first year at Windsor, someone has information that Percy may be corrupt, so he investigates, because Percy's not his friend, that would be silly. And through the course of the episode he drives himself half demented over the possibility, and after that he's willing to go so far as to admit - on occasion - that they are friends. And Percy'll meddle in Frank's affairs to try and help him, but he doesn't give a damn about him, obviously. And then sometimes they get together and accidentally kill people. It's an interesting relationship. As Frank says, they should never swap information. They always do somebody no good.
28. Most surprising moment
The most surprising moment is so surprising that if I told you, you'd have to kill me. Or another answer might be that it surprised me from the start and kept surprising me right up till the end (well, at least the penultimate episode).
29. Favourite location
Hmm, I like what exists of the Birmingham location work - especially the first episode set there where Frank runs all over Birmingham New Street and you can see them still building it, but probably Brighton. 1960s Brighton in black and white, and bleakness contrasted with seaside trappings. Windsor/Walton/Chertsey just don't compare.
30. Favourite costume/clothing/accessory
Does a mug count as an accessory? I'm deciding that it does. I was going to do some screencaps, but I think everybody's got the idea by now, but Frank (not being a person who talks about his feelings much or really cares to admit too often that he has them) is given a mug by Mrs Mortimer at exactly the same moment he tells her he's leaving her. And so the series doesn't have to keep mentioning her, we just see that Frank still has his mug. When it breaks, he glues it back together, he puts a rose in it, and when Mrs Mortimer arrives to see him, it gives her some hope to see that he still has it. Mugs have meaning, you see. (The previous one that broke on the day he left her was the one she read his tea leaves in as a joke and told him that everything would work out...)
One of the things that amuses me, though, is that while Public Eye is impressively good with continuity, the props department are less so. I like to imagine someone there running round going, "Oh, what, that was supposed to be in more than one episode? Whoops, sorry, we broke it/sold it/lent it to Special Branch!" (They apparently really did run around panicking every time it came back trying to find Frank's mac.) Anyway, there are at least four mugs, if not five: The first one has lines on it, then the next time we see it (two episodes later) it doesn't, and the font's chunkier. Then they get one with the right font but no lines which lasts out from late S5 to early S7 and the F gradually gets rubbed out - Frank is turning rank in S6. And then, when he moves to Chertsey and gets his mug out again for the first time in four or five episodes, it's got its F back, before it loses it once more in another couple of episodes. The mug is also magic, you see.
Don't look at me. I'm not suddenly obsessed with items of crockery.
(Now, what show next for this meme? ;-p)
Crossposted from Dreamwidth -- Comments there:
26. Favourite quotes
I included a bunch in my big Public Eye post, so I'll just find some different ones I also like, except for this, which is my favourite:
Helen: "A man seems to think all he has to say to a woman is 'I need you' - she'll pack a nightie and a toothbrush and run!"
Frank: "Perhaps some people don't mind all this soul-stripping. But I'm not an onion that you can all peel, one layer each all round. Like it or lump it, this is the way I am."
Ron: "You must have some ambition, some purpose, something to aim for?"
Frank: "Right now, what I'd like to aim at is the nearest pub. Half a bitter and a pork pie. Or is that too ambitious?"
Frank: "Responsibility. A quaint, old-fashioned thing that you seem a bit short on."
Tom Hooper: "One life. How many compromises?"
27. Favourite non-romantic OTP
Frank & Percy. There aren't a lot of contenders. (It's not really a coincidence that Frank's two main friends both decided fairly quickly to take an interest in him, whether he liked it or not, and are both quite persistent about it.) Anyway, Inspector Percy Firbank is intrigued from the start by a private detective who's more concerned about an old lady losing an item of sentimental value than the recovery of stolen property, and when Frank moves to Windsor, he does some background checks on him, and keeps an eye on him from then on - and even after he leaves the series.
"John VII. Verse 24" may not be great, but it is a good Percy & Frank episode - at the end of Frank's first year at Windsor, someone has information that Percy may be corrupt, so he investigates, because Percy's not his friend, that would be silly. And through the course of the episode he drives himself half demented over the possibility, and after that he's willing to go so far as to admit - on occasion - that they are friends. And Percy'll meddle in Frank's affairs to try and help him, but he doesn't give a damn about him, obviously. And then sometimes they get together and accidentally kill people. It's an interesting relationship. As Frank says, they should never swap information. They always do somebody no good.
28. Most surprising moment
The most surprising moment is so surprising that if I told you, you'd have to kill me. Or another answer might be that it surprised me from the start and kept surprising me right up till the end (well, at least the penultimate episode).
29. Favourite location
Hmm, I like what exists of the Birmingham location work - especially the first episode set there where Frank runs all over Birmingham New Street and you can see them still building it, but probably Brighton. 1960s Brighton in black and white, and bleakness contrasted with seaside trappings. Windsor/Walton/Chertsey just don't compare.
30. Favourite costume/clothing/accessory
Does a mug count as an accessory? I'm deciding that it does. I was going to do some screencaps, but I think everybody's got the idea by now, but Frank (not being a person who talks about his feelings much or really cares to admit too often that he has them) is given a mug by Mrs Mortimer at exactly the same moment he tells her he's leaving her. And so the series doesn't have to keep mentioning her, we just see that Frank still has his mug. When it breaks, he glues it back together, he puts a rose in it, and when Mrs Mortimer arrives to see him, it gives her some hope to see that he still has it. Mugs have meaning, you see. (The previous one that broke on the day he left her was the one she read his tea leaves in as a joke and told him that everything would work out...)
One of the things that amuses me, though, is that while Public Eye is impressively good with continuity, the props department are less so. I like to imagine someone there running round going, "Oh, what, that was supposed to be in more than one episode? Whoops, sorry, we broke it/sold it/lent it to Special Branch!" (They apparently really did run around panicking every time it came back trying to find Frank's mac.) Anyway, there are at least four mugs, if not five: The first one has lines on it, then the next time we see it (two episodes later) it doesn't, and the font's chunkier. Then they get one with the right font but no lines which lasts out from late S5 to early S7 and the F gradually gets rubbed out - Frank is turning rank in S6. And then, when he moves to Chertsey and gets his mug out again for the first time in four or five episodes, it's got its F back, before it loses it once more in another couple of episodes. The mug is also magic, you see.
Don't look at me. I'm not suddenly obsessed with items of crockery.
(Now, what show next for this meme? ;-p)
Crossposted from Dreamwidth -- Comments there: