A-Z of TV Thrillers (part two)
Links: The third murder victim in any TV thriller always turns out to have had links with organised crime.
Meathooks: Always to be found in derelict barns. Whatever for?
Mirror: If you glance at your bathroom mirror for a mere three seconds, be prepared for a deranged murderer seeking revenge to suddenly materialize behind you.
Multi-storey car park: Even in the most serene multi-storey car park, there will always be at least six cars in a chaotic pursuit, screeching through U-turns, and occasionally engulfed in flames.
Neighbours: When you move into a new area, it’s the most cheery and welcoming neighbours who turn out to be the psychopaths.
Pet dog: Any dog barking suspiciously will end up poisoned.
Picture-Postcard Village: See Dark Underbelly.
Janet Leigh in Psycho. Shower: You’re never, ever alone in a shower
Plans for the future: The youthful soldier, policeman, or spy with extravagant aspirations for the future (such as proposing to Betsy and excelling in sports) will tragically meet their demise right before the first season concludes.
Pleasant-looking friend of the lead actress: Always the first to end up on the coroner’s slab.
Presence: Always sinister.
Questions: Need asking. If what DCI Penny told Sgt Farthing was true, then why the hell didn’t DI Shilling tell PC Pound what she’d overheard DAC Purse tell Sgt Farthing about what Constable Guinea had said to DCI Penny? Or did DCI Penny already know that DI Shilling would tell PC Pound what she’d overheard DAC Purse tell Sgt Farthing about what Constable Guinea had said to her? These questions need asking.
Respectable firm of solicitors: The more respectable it seems, the more likely it’s a front for the Mafia.
Second-in-command: The friendly, reliable, overweight deputy will always be gunned down 55 minutes into episode three. By the end of episode four, it will have begun to emerge that he was not quite so friendly or reliable after all. Questions need to be asked.
Secrets: Always dark.
Scandi-Noir: When a dismembered corpse with the words ‘brutally murdered by serial killer’ tattooed on its chest floats ashore in Norway’s darkest, coldest, deepest and most miserable fjord, the brilliant, one-armed, dipsomaniac detective Olaf Olaffsson suspects he might just have a serial killer on his hands. To make matters worse, an avalanche has triggered the eruption of a volcano, which smashes the local dam and releases millions of gallons of water onto the isolated town of Misserji, which is already struggling to recover from an outbreak of…
Shower: You’re never, ever alone in a shower.
Skyscrapers: No need to descend 17 floors by lift when it’s so much easier to throw a rope out of the window and climb down by hand.
Sleeping: When one half of a couple decides to get out of bed and creep away early the next morning, the other person is never woken up.
Small-time crooks: Always run up against big-time crooks. With disastrous results.
Stand still and widen your eyes in terror: What to do when threatened by a homicidal maniac.
Strangers: Always mysterious.
Trustworthy: The person you trust most – the avuncular police chief, the warm-hearted neighbour, the top surgeon, the perfect nanny – is always a psychopath, hell-bent on revenge.
Skyscrapers in Manhattan. Skyscrapers: No need to descend 17 floors by lift when it’s so much easier to throw a rope out of the window and climb down by hand
Try to get some sleep: Perfect thing to say to a young woman when a serial killer is on the loose.
Up from the dead: Despite being shot, strangled and repeatedly smashed over the head with an iron bar, the villain will rise up from the dead just as the heroine is breathing a sigh of relief.
Weird hobo: The character who doesn’t brush his hair and lives alone is always the prime suspect – until he, too, is found dead. What are you doing here? Don’t ask me, I’m not the writer.
What it seems: Nothing is ever.
Woods, Idyllic cabin in the: Where murderers always choose to live, decorating their untidy homes with bits and bobs they’ve purloined over the years from their victims.
