Love/Hate (v2) [** Spoilers **]

I read about the TV3 answer to Love/Hate earlier. The questions are here: what form will this take? How good will it be?

It is inevitable that with its success, Love/Hate would sooner or later inspire copies or derivatives. Until now, good quality crime based dramas like The Fall and Amber have come in its wake (none of which are copies or derivatives of Love/Hate of course) but it was inevitable that another station would try and emulate Love/Hate.

TV3's proposed drama could be the first of one of many Love/Hate answers, copies or derivatives to come. Crime drama has until Love/Hate been rather slow to take off in Ireland. This was due to until now a fear of showing violence. Some of the shows we got along the way like Making the Cut (with Sean McGinley (Tony)) were good but shied away from the violence. However, The Family (with Tony as well as Charlo) was the first not to shy away from extreme violence and was one of the best shows ever too. A decade or so later, the hopes of Ireland producing a crime based drama that was top quality seemed to be dead in the water with 2004's infamous The Big Bow Wow. By then, shows like this and Trouble in Paradise gave Irish drama a bad reputation. While Ireland could produce non-controversial largely non-crime orientated dramas of a high quality like The Clinic or Raw, the country seemed to create the likes of The Big Bow Wow when it tackled crime related ones. Then, a show called Single Handed came on that seemed to know what it was about and was quite good. It probably paved the way for Love/Hate. Then, Love/Hate came on and everyone expecting The Big Bow Wow 2010 were in for a pleasant surprise: series 1 was good, series 2 was better, series 3 really went places Irish TV never went before. And before long, we had an institution. Series 4 and 5 continued the series' dominance and by the end of series 5, we are left wanting more.

Now, the question needs to be asked is will the new TV3 drama be Love/Hate or The Big Bow Wow? RTE has been able to prove it can follow Love/Hate with other decent crime dramas like The Fall but these are touching on different topics. Amber the same. Now, can TV3 or RTE even do another gangland drama that is as good as Love/Hate? Unlikely, but I would settled for a decent one half as good.

A big mistake of love/hate was that we didn't get to see more of danos slutty crazy wife the little whoore

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

We genuinely don't know, except that RTE have commissioned a sixth series. Nobody has conclusively come out and said Nidge is in fact dead, but they have hinted very strongly that he is.
As I've been saying, I'm not believing anything about Love/Hate anymore until it happens. I genuinely reckon the crew are now deliberately f*cking with the media, just as they did with Darren's "return", "Elmo's" funeral and "Tommy's" balcony plunge.

I actually think it would be epically hilarious if the "not next year" thing was a ruse to prevent the crew being tailed by the gutterpress - and it worked

Yes. I am the same. I won't believe anything until the new series comes about. We could be lead to believe Nidge is dead but in fact could have survived - saved by the cops once more!!! The number of times the cops saved Nidge, he should be grateful: Moynihan cancelled his sure arrest of Nidge to save Tommy, Fran got arrested on the way to kill Nidge, etc.

For me, a series 6 with Nidge in it and Tommy awake and remembering would be more interesting. Tommy realises Siobhan is murdered and both team up to seek revenge on Patrick. Then, Tommy remembers Nidge hit him! Fran the man wants revenge too: first on Noelie, then on Pottsy and then on Nidge. Say if Pottsy got killed, then Ado could blame not only Fran but also Nidge for what happened. The possibilities are endless. Bring in characters like Terence, Tony and the like as powerful allies in the background for Nidge.

As the above shows, it is easier with Nidge surviving somehow. As someone else said, they would have kept Pauley alive if they were to kill Nidge. And would have set up a few storylines dealing with issues other than Nidge. So, it seems one of 3 possibilities here:

-Season 5 is the last ever series. This appears not to be the case.
-Love/Hate is left with a major cliffhanger in which we are lead to believe Nidge and Siobhan are dead. But Nidge survives and Siobhan probably does not.
-Season 5 is the end of Love/Hate as we know it. A new series could be called Love/Hate or something else and focus on traveller feuds or some other offshoot story from the series. The travellers and their dealings with Fran could well be the theme.