RED ROCK [News, Spoilers and Discussion]

Strazdas

Dan Chipowski wrote: »

Not sure what to make of this really. It's one of those 'so bad it's good' type of things.

I enjoyed it anyway.

I don't think it's bad at all. Visually it looks like a drama you'd see on BBC1.....quite slick and stylish.

walshb

It needs a few more episodes before we start to slate it....:)

pmasterson95

I love every talking about this harmonica. Reminds me of Father Ted *WE NEED TO LOOSE THE SAX SOLO*

xalot

I think it got off to a reasonable start. The first episode should have been an hour to establish everything, felt like it was just getting going when it was finished. The acting varies from terrible to very good (Belton) imo.

JP Liz V1

Is it just two 30 minute episodes per week?

emanresu esrever

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

Is it just two 30 minute episodes per week?

they are not even 30 minutes, barely 20 minutes, and that is excluding the opening and closing theme music,various location shots and background music, amounting to about 15 -17 minutes dialogue at most. not near enough for a soap. Imagine if Coronation Street started taking camera shots of Manchester, EE of London etc it would get annoying after a while for a halkf hour soap.

This is why i cant classify it as a soap, it just doesn't have that feel. I think it would be better served as a drama, 45 minutes to an hour long, twice a week, or even once a week.

Elmo

emanresu esrever wrote: »

they are not even 30 minutes, barely 20 minutes, and that is excluding the opening and closing theme music,various location shots and background music, amounting to about 15 -17 minutes dialogue at most. not near enough for a soap. Imagine if Coronation Street started taking camera shots of Manchester, EE of London etc it would get annoying after a while for a halkf hour soap.

This is why i cant classify it as a soap, it just doesn't have that feel. I think it would be better served as a drama, 45 minutes to an hour long, twice a week, or even once a week.

Drama and Soap does always need Dialogue to provide a story, it can also be done through visualisation. The only soap thats a full 30 mins is EastEnders, Coronation Street and Emmerdale are both around 22mins.

emanresu esrever

Elmo wrote: »

Drama and Soap does always need Dialogue to provide a story, it can also be done through visualisation. The only soap thats a full 30 mins is EastEnders, Coronation Street and Emmerdale are both around 22mins.

i didn't say there were rules, i am saying there isn't a soaply feel due to the lesser dialogue than most soaps. corrie/emmerdale are on 5 times a week with ED on an extra episode also so they can afford lesser duration (even though i disagree that their episodes are that short, they generally touch 25 minutes).

A show that is on twice a week, and only starting out trying to find a niche needs to be more agressive, dialogue wise.

The more dialogue the better, and it will cost them a lot less than location shots.

There is a fine line between what people perceive as a soap opera and drama and i think the style of this production should have edged moreso to drama type and lengthened its episodes to accommodate for that.


ps, in retrospect i think that corrie would be only 21 - 23 minutes, as would ED but as i said, 5/6 times a week allows for that imo


pps, you mention visualisation, but pictures of the coastline/shots of dublin add little to the storyline!

Elmo

emanresu esrever wrote: »

pps, you mention visualisation, but pictures of the coastline/shots of dublin add little to the storyline!

Very true just becomes stock footage their for filler, but dialogue sometimes particularly in soap can just be filler for the sake of get to write 22 - 30mins. Wanna a cuppa of Tea? Love!? etc.

emanresu esrever

Elmo wrote: »

Very true just becomes stock footage their for filler, but dialogue sometimes particularly in soap can just be filler for the sake of get to write 22 - 30mins. Wanna a cuppa of Tea? Love!? etc.

ah, yeah but it gets you more familiar to characters. one sentence can tell a lot about a character. Like a snidy remark from Donna in Eastenders on the stalls to a cheery joke comment by someone like Bob Hope in Emmerdale. It gives a more homely and familiar aspect to the soap and its characters and attaches you to them.

pointless location shots add little apart from the overused comment of the week re Red Rock, "slick production"

Strazdas

emanresu esrever wrote: »

they are not even 30 minutes, barely 20 minutes, and that is excluding the opening and closing theme music,various location shots and background music, amounting to about 15 -17 minutes dialogue at most. not near enough for a soap. Imagine if Coronation Street started taking camera shots of Manchester, EE of London etc it would get annoying after a while for a halkf hour soap.

This is why i cant classify it as a soap, it just doesn't have that feel. I think it would be better served as a drama, 45 minutes to an hour long, twice a week, or even once a week.

Though the likes of Casualty, Doctors (and formerly The Bill) are classed as "soaps" in the UK. I think any sort of daily or weekly drama that goes out before the watershed and all year round gets lumped into the soap category.

I suspect Red Rock will go out three nights a week soon enough if it is a success in the ratings.

Elmo

Strazdas wrote: »

Though the likes of Casualty, Doctors (and formerly The Bill) are classed as "soaps" in the UK. I think any sort of daily or weekly drama that goes out before the watershed and all year round gets lumped into the soap category.

I suspect Red Rock will go out three nights a week soon enough if it is a success in the ratings.

They became Soaps as time went on. The Bill I think only had a half hour episode per week when it first started and slowly became an hour long and then into soap teritory towards the end of its run.

EB_2013

walshb wrote: »

She's a very attractive lady, is Belton. Her character is quite pantomime like. Not really believable.

I agree, I've only seen her in the children's tv show Roy before but she looks great in Red Rock. She's a very good actress.

I didn't think the second episode was as good as the first but I'm still going to keep up with it. I've been impressed so far with the characters and storylines.

maurv1

Haven't seen this yet, but I see there is an omnibus on TV3 on Sunday at 6.00 o'clock. Might have a peep and see what all the fuss is about

Strazdas

Elmo wrote: »

They became Soaps as time went on. The Bill I think only had a half hour episode per week when it first started and slowly became an hour long and then into soap teritory towards the end of its run.

Indeed, The Bill was quite a gritty police drama in it's early years, and Casualty was a hard hitting medical drama which went out post-watershed and was a lot more graphic than the current soapy version (in those days they scarcely focussed on relationships between any of the characters at all).

Elmo

EB_2013 wrote: »

I agree, I've only seen her in the children's tv show Roy before but she looks great in Red Rock. She's a very good actress.

I didn't think the second episode was as good as the first but I'm still going to keep up with it. I've been impressed so far with the characters and storylines.

I used to think she was the Bruce Wanye's mother in Batman Begins.

SMJSF

Am I the only one who sees it like a Romeo & Julie storyline? between the families hating each other and they are actually in secret relationships with each other!?

emanresu esrever

SMJSF wrote: »

Am I the only one who sees it like a Romeo & Julie storyline? between the families hating each other and they are actually in secret relationships with each other!?

the feuding family and star crossed lover secret affair thing is very cliche and cheesy. Not their most imaginative idea im sure we will all agree!

rogercar

I really like Red Rock, it's different, and as time goes on, we will get to know the characters better. I hope that they introduce more older charaters later, as all communities have people of all ages living and interacting with each other. My only gripe is that it's a long wait from Thursdays epiosode to Wednesday. I hope in time that TV3 will will put on a third episode and spread them out over the week. I saw the first two episodes and I liked them. Well done to TV3 and to all envolved.

AwaitYourReply

rogercar wrote: »

I really like Red Rock, it's different, and as time goes on, we will get to know the characters better. I hope that they introduce more older charaters later, as all communities have people of all ages living and interacting with each other. My only gripe is that it's a long wait from Thursdays epiosode to Wednesday. I hope in time that TV3 will will put on a third episode and spread them out over the week. I saw the first two episodes and I liked them. Well done to TV3 and to all envolved.

I also think any TV channel that takes a risk on producing OR commissioning home produced material from Ireland is to be commended. In this case, it happens to be TV3 with RedRock as I understand they have sunk something in the region of €7,000,000 into this programme. My biggest concern is that they were always gonna have a tricky time with placing it in a suitable prime-time slot in the TV schedule with so many soap opera slots running during early evening period 5 days a week.

The idea of no follow-up episode after the Thursday 8:30pm screening until the following Wednesday 8:30pm episode which is almost a whole week later (6 days later to be exact) may have earned the loyalty of TV viewers 20+years ago but I'm not confident this can work in today's tv schedules. TV3 have a very tough task on their hands to make this a success as all TV drama tends to be prohibitively expensive to produce. If they get this badly wrong, it could sink the station so the stakes are very high for them!

somesoldiers

Episode 3, can anyone remember what happened last week?

Strazdas

AwaitYourReply wrote: »

I also think any TV channel that takes a risk on producing OR commissioning home produced material from Ireland is to be commended. In this case, it happens to be TV3 with RedRock as I understand they have sunk something in the region of €7,000,000 into this programme. My biggest concern is that they were always gonna have a tricky time with placing it in a suitable prime-time slot in the TV schedule with so many soap opera slots running during early evening period 5 days a week.

The idea of no follow-up episode after the Thursday 8:30pm screening until the following Wednesday 8:30pm episode which is almost a whole week later (6 days later to be exact) may have earned the loyalty of TV viewers 20+years ago but I'm not confident this can work in today's tv schedules. TV3 have a very tough task on their hands to make this a success as all TV drama tends to be prohibitively expensive to produce. If they get this badly wrong, it could sink the station so the stakes are very high for them!

A good idea would be to move the Wednesday episode to a Tuesday, and then perhaps introduce a third episode in time.

Lapin

Dunno, but that young ban Garda in civvies

Oh yes indeed !

TOMs WIFE

My verdict of tonight's episode: Good quality drama and excellent (for a soap) acting.

Especially liked the treatment of the piece on the Gardaí going to the house to inform of the death.

desbrook

Enjoying each episode more and more. Scenes with female gaurds tonight was great. Only flaw tonight was the "climax " at the very end. It muddled and flat to be honest.

Also Starring LeVar Burton

I reckon it won't be long before Sharon Cleere (the young female guard) and Sean Holden (the young cares too much about his looks guard) start up a relationship - any time one of them is at their locker, the other is there right behind them...

Dan Chipowski

The theme music really is rubbish, and seemed to make a poor ending to the episode even worse.

The show itself is still a bit of a mixed bag. Thought the first half tonight was awful, with really dull and predictable dialogue. It picked up a bit later on in the episode though until a mediocre ending.

AwaitYourReply

Dan Chipowski wrote: »

The theme music really is rubbish, and seemed to make a poor ending to the episode even worse.

The show itself is still a bit of a mixed bag. Thought the first half tonight was awful, with really dull and predictable dialogue. It picked up a bit later on in the episode though until a mediocre ending.

Maybe it will pick up after a while once the various storylines and characters are more established. The one thing that needs work is the anti-climax at the end of each episode alright as you feel a bit disappointed. TV3 will lose viewers if RedRock cannot give them a compelling reason to tune in especially by the close of Thursday night episodes when you consider viewers will not get a chance to see another episode until 6 days later! Theme tune is also weak

Elmo

I agree its very mixed bag. It is clearly written as a soap for the two families but they seem to be the only families in Red Rock so their is no sense of community that you would get in other soaps. Then is it a police procedural, it suffers as its not dealing with crimes of the week.

It reminded me slightly of soupy norman at times :eek:

podgeandrodge

Elmo wrote: »

Then is it a police procedural, it suffers as its not dealing with crimes of the week

I am hoping that last night was the beginning of a crime story with the finding of a body in that house. They did say they would have regular crime stories.