Post-Love/Hate Drama

BuilderPlumber

Yet another Autumn/Winter approaching. A few years ago, it was a time to look forward to a new season of Love/Hate and the goings on of Nidge, Fran and co diverted attention away from wet and windy weather and the cold.

Sadly Love/Hate is no longer being made and Irish drama has not produced anything as good as it since either. Clean Break in 2015 proved a one off sanitized version of Love/Hate that failed to satisfy fans of that series. Rebellion was a tame and soapy sanitized version of the 1916 revolution. The Irish Dr Zhivago it tried to be but does not have that quality. Striking Out then was another watchable but tame drama.

Try and name a standout character from Rebellion or Clean Break and you'd be hard pressed to do so. Recall Love/Hate and you can immediately name Nidge, Fran, Darren, Dano, John Boy or a host of others and that's the gangsters alone. The wives and girlfriends like Trish, Siobhan, Janet and Georgina proved to be strong characters too. All characters there ranging from the totally innocent (Grainne) to the truly vile (Christopher Git Loughman) alll had a purpose to tell a realistic story of how gangland affected everyone.

Sadly, Irish TV can have money to pay hosts of poor chatshows a small fortune and can make useless boyband fodder like Stetsons and Stilettos and can give us 1 reality show after another but they have decided to stop making good drama after Love/Hate finished up with Nidge shot up badly and Fran humiliated in the prison. I think it is time for a new Love/Hate series or a Love/Hate spinoff with John Connors' character and his story (assuming Nidge is dead).

gmisk

BuilderPlumber wrote: »

Yet another Autumn/Winter approaching. A few years ago, it was a time to look forward to a new season of Love/Hate and the goings on of Nidge, Fran and co diverted attention away from wet and windy weather and the cold.

Sadly Love/Hate is no longer being made and Irish drama has not produced anything as good as it since either. Clean Break in 2015 proved a one off sanitized version of Love/Hate that failed to satisfy fans of that series. Rebellion was a tame and soapy sanitized version of the 1916 revolution. The Irish Dr Zhivago it tried to be but does not have that quality. Striking Out then was another watchable but tame drama.

Try and name a standout character from Rebellion or Clean Break and you'd be hard pressed to do so. Recall Love/Hate and you can immediately name Nidge, Fran, Darren, Dano, John Boy or a host of others and that's the gangsters alone. The wives and girlfriends like Trish, Siobhan, Janet and Georgina proved to be strong characters too. All characters there ranging from the totally innocent (Grainne) to the truly vile (Christopher Git Loughman) alll had a purpose to tell a realistic story of how gangland affected everyone.

Sadly, Irish TV can have money to pay hosts of poor chatshows a small fortune and can make useless boyband fodder like Stetsons and Stilettos and can give us 1 reality show after another but they have decided to stop making good drama after Love/Hate finished up with Nidge shot up badly and Fran humiliated in the prison. I think it is time for a new Love/Hate series or a Love/Hate spinoff with John Connors' character and his story (assuming Nidge is dead).

Tbh I think love hate had run its course. No point in flogging a dead horse.
Acceptable risk trailer looks promising.

JohnFalstaff

Why do you equate Irish drama exclusively with RTE's output? I would agree that RTE drama has been of very poor standard for the past few years but the other stations in this country have produced a couple of gems. TV3's 'Smalltown' was a decent effort and their new series 'Darklands' seems to be along the lines of a Love/Hate style gangster tale.

But the stand-out Irish drama over the past few years has been made by TG4. Their series 'An Klondike' was excellent. It had a great cast, gripping storylines with strong characters, and high production values throughout. Hopefully a third series will be coming to TG4 soon. You can watch the whole series on Netflix and I would recommend seeking it out. It's far superior than anything RTE are producing these days.

Son0vagun

Love/Hate was terrible.

s3rtvdbwfj81ch

I can't see An Klondike on Netflix - is it on non-Irish versions?

gmisk

I also had a bit of a soft spot for RAW as well when it was on.

Agent Coulson

Joselyn Gentle Petroleum wrote: »

I can't see An Klondike on Netflix - is it on non-Irish versions?

It's called Dominion Creek internationally I think that's what it is under on netflix.

SpliffPolitics

Season 1 and 2 of love/hate were great, i still think it could make a comeback at some stage. Plenty of years have gone by and plenty has happend since then so the writers would have plenty to work with.

Not sure we have the actors to make it good though.

BuilderPlumber

SpliffPolitics wrote: »

Season 1 and 2 of love/hate were great, i still think it could make a comeback at some stage. Plenty of years have gone by and plenty has happend since then so the writers would have plenty to work with.

Not sure we have the actors to make it good though.

I just hope for 2 things: they make another series of Love/Hate and that it is good. I think Love/Hate was put off because they wanted to make Rebellion which turned out to show all that is wrong with Irish drama. Sure Rebellion was watchable and not the worst drama RTE did but it was not great either. Tame, sanitized and boring in many parts. It took an interesting topic and trivialised it. It also was expensive and not a success.

So what would a new Love/Hate look like? Seasons 4 and 5 are supposed to have continued one after the other. We see some of season 4 is set in April 2013 so I assume all 2 seasons are in that year? That means 4 years have passed. Fran out of prison, Elmo out of prison, Patrick Ward in charge of a gang aligned to Fran, Elmo taking over from Nidge, and a recovered Nidge is still alive and using Elmo to regain control. War between Fran/Ward and Nidge/Tony/Elmo/Terence perhaps? More use of the IRA Tony character and Terence would be welcome. Some of the minor characters introduced in seasons 4 and 5 could get bigger roles. Perhaps then have Moynihan or one of the Gardai going to the dark side more and more because of their obsession to do in Nidge or some other gangland figure. We saw how Moynihan's hatred for Nidge was more than just his job as seasons 4 and 5 progressed.

There is a lot of potential for a new season. Failing that, a spinoff featuring Patrick Ward and maybe Fran focused on a traveller feud would be good too.

brian_t

How about adding a poll to see if folk want another season or a spinoff or neither.

Occono

Netflix only has Season 2 of "Dominion Creek" on Irish Netflix due to some licensing confusion.

BuilderPlumber

gmisk wrote: »

Tbh I think love hate had run its course. No point in flogging a dead horse.
Acceptable risk trailer looks promising.

Love/Hate was great and was something that I looked forward to and I can enjoy watching the DVDs of the 5 seasons. Had it run its course? Yes in its seasons 1-5 guise but no in other formats. A spinoff focused on Patrick Ward or on corruption in the Gardai could have been options.

There were so many missed opportunities though in the post Love/Hate years. Look at Clean Break for example. Flawed, uneven and all that it was but the concept was interesting. Could it have been given a second and improved season? I see no reason why not. For example Love/Hate season one while good gave way to a vastly improved season 2.

Things like Rebellion were overhyped, restrained, watered down and sat somewhere between soap opera and historical drama. Watchable it may be, but it failed in what it attempted more than succeeded.

Striking Out is another example of a drama that could have been much better. An Irish take on Better Call Saul perhaps as a Love/Hate spinoff would have been much more interesting. A grittier season 2 of Striking Out could still be made and there is always scope for improvement in all these dramas.

For me, dramas like Amber, Paula. Charlie and especially The Fall were ranging from above average to very good (The Fall is generally excellent and the second best thing after Love/Hate). Some of these ended in a strange or unpredictable way but all these had their moments and were much better than Rebellion. Have not watched the TV3 or TG4 dramas but they are meant to be good.

Thundercats Ho

Occono wrote: »

Netflix only has Season 2 of "Dominion Creek" on Irish Netflix due to some licensing confusion.

Yea, that really annoyed me. I had season 1 recorded on TG4, but the last episode won't play even though it's recorded!

Hopefully it'll be repeated soon.

BuilderPlumber

I am recording Acceptable Risk and will watch later on in the week. I am not getting my expectations up but it should be watchable at least. I hope it is better than Striking Out or Clean Break. The backstory reminds me a bit of a good drama called The Jump with Adrian Dunbar. That had a man who gets a very long prison sentence in Greece and his wife arranges to break him out of prison totally convinced he is innocent only to find that he is not only guilty but plans to kill her.

walshb

Son0vagun wrote: »

Love/Hate was terrible.

I wouldn't go as far as to say terrible, but grossly overrated here in Ireland.

PTH2009

i liked Pure Mule (was a bit sad when they made the 2 part special a few years ago the first without Tom Murphy who sadly passed away in 2007)

Bachelors Walk was an amazing series too

Sierra 117

BuilderPlumber wrote: »

Striking Out is another example of a drama that could have been much better. An Irish take on Better Call Saul perhaps as a Love/Hate spinoff would have been much more interesting. A grittier season 2 of Striking Out could still be made and there is always scope for improvement in all these dramas.

They need to get a better handle on the law side of things in Striking Out going forward. The court cases were won thanks to conveniences that weren't believable. Just sloppy writing altogether.

It definitely has potential though. Particularly with her taking on her old firm.