If no other time 'New Tricks' "jumped the shark", this is it. This series excelled due to great writing and stories. Here is a blatant example. Instead of writing a story strong enough to stand on it's own, the writers collapsed and created still another of most found today on television: A personal story. More soap opera than mystery. Making this one particularly worse is that there is another soap opera involving a character also stuffed in to pad the mess. Both characters new without really seeing their development involving solving crimes, the intent of the characters. How is a viewer to care about all of this personal garbage?
This series has fallen down into still another mystery/crime drama that had an initial premise and devolved into a personal vendetta premise. All dumped into a distracting bed of more jungle drums and over synthesized droning noise, as most other programs of the ilk were/are doing. All signs the series' producers no longer believe they can create a strong program.
The base plot in this episode is strong. The writing is horrid. It would have been stronger stripping all of the character involvement. Unfortunately, the plot drowns in the faulty logic that emotional manipulation should be the foundation of the plot. The series started with strong mysteries with separated strong characters attacking the mystery. This episode is the direct opposite of that, involving execution.
The one saving grace is Dennis Waterman, whose personality carries past the poor writing. All of the other characters are tripped up in developing as law enforcement characters, as should be the series only intent. Either that or it should have dropped the mysteries and crime and just become a full scale soap opera.
If they wanted to go pure soap opera, they could have dropped all of the other characters and just streamlined the series to just focus on Gerry Standing. That would have been intriguing.
Obviously, I was not the only one watching the series come apart as it's existence was not to continue much longer.
This series has fallen down into still another mystery/crime drama that had an initial premise and devolved into a personal vendetta premise. All dumped into a distracting bed of more jungle drums and over synthesized droning noise, as most other programs of the ilk were/are doing. All signs the series' producers no longer believe they can create a strong program.
The base plot in this episode is strong. The writing is horrid. It would have been stronger stripping all of the character involvement. Unfortunately, the plot drowns in the faulty logic that emotional manipulation should be the foundation of the plot. The series started with strong mysteries with separated strong characters attacking the mystery. This episode is the direct opposite of that, involving execution.
The one saving grace is Dennis Waterman, whose personality carries past the poor writing. All of the other characters are tripped up in developing as law enforcement characters, as should be the series only intent. Either that or it should have dropped the mysteries and crime and just become a full scale soap opera.
If they wanted to go pure soap opera, they could have dropped all of the other characters and just streamlined the series to just focus on Gerry Standing. That would have been intriguing.
Obviously, I was not the only one watching the series come apart as it's existence was not to continue much longer.