Characters Of Crime Drama's

Stock Characters:
• Hero Cop: the main character in a crime drama who solves the crime and is always on the right side of law. E.g. Horatio Caine from CSI, Nick Rowan (Heartbeat).
• Heroine Cop: a female version of the main character who solves the crime and is on the right side of the law most of the time. E.g. Inspector Kate Longton (Juliet Bravo).
• Anti – hero: A main character in a dramatic or narrative work who is characterized by a lack of traditional heroic qualities, such as idealism or courage. E.g. Dexter Morgan (Dexter).
• Quirky Detectives: Detectives in Crime Drama’s which are quirky and not so experienced. E.g. Robert Goren (Law and Order: Criminal Intent)
• Bad tempered but brilliant detectives: Detectives which are very good detectives and on the right side of the law however they are bad tempered and in many cases they may be old in age. E.g. Inspector Morse.
• Rookie: Inexperienced and new to the show. E.g. Andy McNally (Rookie Blue).
• Buddy Partners: characters which are partners and they work together and help each other to solve a crime for example Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. They have a good relationship and are always on each other’s soldier to help them solve the crime out.
• Grumpy, world-weary superior officer: Bad tempered characters, end of career. E.g. Captain Cragen (Law and Order: Special Victims Unit)
• Forensic scientists/pathologists/other medical professionals: Detectives who solve crimes using forensics for example finger prints and other things they may find and analysing every situation. They usually tend to use science to explain the crime. E.g (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation)
• Psychology experts/ consultants/ helpers: Investigators and Detectives who use mind to investigate into the crime, their knowledge is used more than forensic science. E.g. Sherlock Holmes.


Officers of the law:
Codes and Conventions:
• What style of detective are they? What is their role? Who do they work for?

• Sherlock: Sherlock has a genius mind and can figure out and do an investigation straight away, although sometimes he is on the wrong side of the law which makes him an anti-hero. He is also very self centred, Lacks in social graces and Humorous. Sherlock is also superior towards the police, without problems to solve, it will tear itself to pieces (needs problems to live).

• Horatio Caine: Horatio Caine is all about getting the criminal. He is single minded and sometimes may be forceful. He is very intelligent and sometimes can be a bit cheesy with his ‘one-liners’. He is also a very heroic character with high morale and above all he is a calm character who is on the right side f the law and does his job very well. He is also very domineering and superior. Criminals in CSI range from everyday suburban parents to sinister gang bosses. Similarly the victims could be high profile officials or everyday teenagers.

Audience:
• What is the appeal of this character – who will they appeal to

• Sherlock: Sherlock appeals to the audience because he has a talent no one else has, it is a very good original idea and no other television detective works like Sherlock. He appeals to a varied audience for different reasons for example: Family audiences because families will watch Sherlock and enjoy watching a crime drama which is appropriate yet entertaining. Educated audiences would also want to watch this as they would understand exactly what happens in crime scenes however they would like to see something slightly different to their everyday lives yet very similar.

• Horatio Caine: Horatio Caine is a very appealing character to all types of audiences as he sometimes can be funny and brings a bit of a humour to the show however he also has the intelligent character with a high morale which would appeal to adults and teenagers. The audience pleasures at the end of the episode we watched which was ‘Last Stand’ was very challenging as we really wanted to know whether Horatio will kill Memo or not, and we all started guessing what he would do. As teenagers we always like a bit of a challenge for our mind and this makes it very appealing and we get hooked on it.

Representation:
How are they represented – personality, relationships, sub-plot, mise-en-scene
• Sherlock’s intelligence is a very good indicator of a character playing in a crime drama because his mentality is very good and he can figure things out very fast.
There was not a lot of technology used as Sherlock’s intelligence was good enough. The theme of intelligence links to the more intelligent you are the better character of crime drama you’re going to be and this links in well with Sherlock. Cunning in Sherlock is when the taxi driver does not want to get caught. If you do bad things the justice always ends with the bad person in court. The setting, where the whole series was set was in a city which makes it better to watch as it is more modern. There was a lot of flashbacks but mainly on the important bits and when Sherlock was trying to figure something out from the past for example when he was on the back of the taxi he had a flashback of when he first saw Dr Watson and he explains how he could figure out everything. The camera was moving fast when Sherlock was in the urge of finding something out and throughout the whole series it went into a medium pace. The dialogue was when Sherlock was explaining about the women who were laying face down on the floor. Also when Sherlock at the end met the killer and had a conversation with him he was trying to make him take the pill and they kept talking and having a conversation. The montage was 3 people taking pills to commit suicide.

Sub-Genres and Hybrids