At the end of the drive / the lawmen arrive

[dreamer_easy]

Now this Gene Hunt thing is not, thank heavens, one of those soul-devouring manic obsessions to which I am prone, the ones where I think I'm in love with God. It's merely lust. Much less exhausting.

I first encountered Mr Glenister in Hornblower, wherein I did note his extraordinary eyes, although I was a little distracted at the time by Mr McGann. As for DCI Hunt, I fell in love with the character the moment I saw that hysterical driving-down-the-alley-backwards scene, but didn't realise this had evolved into a flange until I realised I'd become strangely obsessed with Gene's gloves.

Mr Glenister is certainly handsome enough (and does have those eyes), but he's far from my normal type. What is it about the character that appeals? Presumably it's Gene's combination of hilarously unreconstructed masculinity, contrasting with his intelligence and sharp sense of humour. Definitely the sense of humour. He makes me fall off the sofa laughing.

Hilariously, our rent-DVDs-by-mail thing just coughed up the first episodes of The Sweeney. ETA: Even better, the Commissioner misses the good old days of the 1950s, when policemen were rugged individualists unconstrained by soft new-fangled ideas.


"If I was creating the world I wouldn't mess about with butterflies and daffodils, Hobbs."
"No, sir."


Eyes right, people.


Queues! How I love them! (Hornblower grabs by addygryff.)


Small role in Inspector Wexford, 1991, age 28 (grabs by jaceybatts).


(Naughty!)

I swear this man never smiles. Even for the CBeebies bedtime story he only managed half of one.

Comments

[hnpcc]

I have to admit to getting quite a lot of entertainment (possibly more than it's worth) by watching an episode of Life on Mars followed by one of The Sweeney. If for nothing else than to compare the Gene Genie to Young Inspector Frost in the "sex symbol" stakes.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

An anachronism in Life on Mars is the general attractiveness of the cast. Ray and Chris try their best to look horrible, but even minor characters in The Sweeney out-hideous them by miles.

(I cannot believe how young Dennis Waterman is. I wasn't even sure I'd recognised him!)

[hnpcc]

Oh yeah, the cast are far, far too attractive in Life on Mars. And their teeth are nearly all perfect!

And my God, how hairy are some of these blokes...

Dennis Waterman - having seen pretty much all of Minder before I'd ever laid eyes on The Sweeney I kept expecting his character to turn out to be corrupt. Even so, he is still a much more believable sex symbol than John Thaw, who appears to be far too old to be the character he's playing even at that stage (from memory another character comments on it too, something about "you look really aged for a 38 year old".)

Actually, while I'm rambling on about The Sweeney do you find the episode endings frequently really abrupt? They just cut off, without any kind of wrap up.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

I think I see what you mean - no denouement.