MOCK EXAM QUESTION PAPER 2A Television Crime Drama ( TEXT)

Even though 'Life on Mars' is a sci-fi crime drama and 'The Bridge' is a nordic noir crime drama, they both follow or subvert genre conventions to appeal more to audiences. In 'Life on Mars' it starts off like a generic crime drama with a car chase, running chase, fight and interrogation with all the normal conventions too like police officers with uniform, police cars and tape etc. with no signs of sci-fi conventions until the investigator "Sam" travels back in time. He travels to 1973 which changes all the modern conventions of crime drama to match with 1973 like the uniform police wore, police cars and equipment they had in 73 etc.. The reason they used very generic crime drama conventions at the beginning was to make the change more transparent for the viewer but also is more interesting for the viewer as its a change from repetitive crime dramas. Steve Neal's Theory of genres being recognisable but will change over time so it helps institutions to market their texts, supporting my point of 'Life on Mars' follows and subverts the genre conventions to appeal to audiences more. However, 'The Bridge' only follows its nordic noir conventions throughout the whole episode, its set in between Sweden and Denmark with bleak landscapes giving off a dark mood with all the generic crime drama conventions as well like 'Life on Mars' but there is no change or idea taken from another genre. It still does appeal to audiences though as the use of nordic noir itself is a change in crime dramas as its very different and successful because of the distinctive and appealing style, realistic, simple, precise and stripped of unnecessary words makes it much more relatable to real life.

The same character archetypes are used in both crime dramas but are used differently. In 'Life on Mars', the main character is Sam Tyler who is the investigator and, like generic crime dramas, he has personal problems to deal with and struggles with his work at the beginning. Tyler's first sidekick was Maya but we didn't see much of her so his main sidekick is Chris Skelton who is quite clumsy and not very professional but when Sam sorts him out then he works well. Their boss, Jean Hunt is quite different compared to other generic crime dramas as the boss is usually supportive or strict and stays in the office however Hunt is violent and is almost like a sidekick to Tyler as he always go to the crime scene with him. The villain isn't explored much in the first episode as it concentrated more an introducing all the characters. Now on 'The Bridge', the main character is Saga Norén who like Tyler, is an investigator and has personal problems which effect her work positively and negatively. Norén's first sidekick is Hanne Thomsen who is quite good at her job however doesn't stay long because of an accident and at the end of the episode Hendrik Sabroe is going to be Norén's new partner. The boss is very different compared to 'Life on Mars' as Hans Petterson is supportive and calm and stays at the office. Similar to 'Life on Mars' the villain isn't explored much as they focus on characters and the start of the investigation but as the audience, we slowly think Morten Anker is the villain because they give us hints with showing him being suspicious and stressed in a few scenes so we know but other characters don't know about it. 

'Life on Mars' and 'The Bridge'  represent women very differently in terms of showing them in a stereotypical way or interestingly different. 'The Bridge' represent women depending on their character, for example, the main character Saga Norén is suggested, but never stated, to have Asperger's syndrome, she is portrayed as completely oblivious to social norms, but a brilliant and devoted police investigator because it makes her character more interesting by breaking the ordinary stereotypical of women but Natalie Anker, the wife of the victim is a stereotypical woman of being overly emotional and weak. However, 'Life on Mars' does stereotypically represent all women as they were in 2006 and 1973, in 2006, it is mostly men in the work spaces however there are a few women, one example is Maya Roy, Sam Tyler's partner who takes danger into her own hands however she ends up becoming a victim of another crime showing that she is weak even though she tried to be brave, in 1973, there is basically no women to be found in work areas unless its a feminine job. Women are stereotypically represented even more as their either a housewife or works a traditional female job but Annie Cartwright who is Police Constable which is quite a rare job for women in 1970's is portrayed as strong and independent but the men in 1973 still don't treat her positively as they objectify her and push her around as men didn't like females working 'men jobs' in 1973. Liesbet Van Zoonen's feminist theory of the idea that gender is constructed through discourse, and that it's meaning varies according to cultural and historical context, meaning that because 'The Bridge' and 'Life on Mars' is set in different times, they represent women differently, and in 'Life on Mars' they had men sexually objectify women as that's what men actually did in the 1970's whereas ;The Bridge; is modern and represents women of the contemporary time which definitely has more variation of women.

Both 'Life on Mars' and 'The Bridge' use similar narrative structures. Firstly, 'Life on Mars' starts off with Sam struggling to figure out a crime while looking quite depressed like he doesn't want to to this job anymore, then he is sent to 1973, throughout the whole series, he sorts out problems he had in 2006 like loving his job again and being good at it again, while getting new problems but sorts them out in each episode, then the end of series 1 is him waking up and killing himself so he can return to 1973 which is his new life now. 'The Bridge' starts off with Saga who is very good at her job but not good with social skills, she gets a new partner who doesn't like her but gets replaced anyway because of an accident. Saga's new partner Hendrik helps her solve the crime for the whole of series 3 until they do solve it and sort it out, however the crime brought back some bad history for Saga and caused her to try to kill herself but Hendrik stopped her as he needs her to find his missing kids. They end up falling in love for the end of the series. Both 'Life on Mars' and 'The Bridge' follow Todorov's narrative structure which starts off with equilibrium which is their life with many problems, then the disruption which is a big problem or change which effects the main character a lot but they sort it out which actually sorts out most of their previous problems leading to their new equilibrium, their new life with no problems or new problems.

The two crime dramas, 'Life on Mars' and 'The Bridge' use open endings as both end with the story continuing to the next episode and still many unanswered enigmas at the end. 'Life on Mars' finishes with Sam still being in 1973 with not many questions answered and the investigation carrying through to the next episode, same with 'The Bridge', as it ends with the investigation still going on, with new characters and enigmas. Both crime dramas are restricted meaning that both 'Life on Mars' and 'The Bridge' let the audience know all of what the main character knows and maybe some extra information that the other characters don't know. Most scenes in the two crime dramas are Sam Tyler and Saga Norén as we are following them so we would know as much as them but there are a few scenes where the main character isn't in and we find out a bit more. For the first episode, both dramas seem linear as there are no flashbacks however 'Life on Mars' could be considered non linear as he goes back in time however we don't see much of 2006 so anything that happens so far in 1973 is linear and 'The Bridge' is realistic so they keep it linear. Both are also multi-stranded meaning they both have multiple plotlines, In 'Life on Mars' we have the modern plot but isn't as important, in 1973 we have the plot of Sam Tyler figuring out if this is all real or not and the main plot of solving the crimes in 1973. In 'The Bridge', you have the main plotline of the crimes and investigation, another plotline with Henrik Sabroe and his wife and smaller plotlines like Lise Frise Anderson and her life.

Enigmas are used frequently in 'The Bridge' and 'Life on Mars' to keep the narrative alive and entices the audience to continue their interest with the plot. The first enigma of 'The Bridge' is why has the murderer set out a scene like this and who is it. There will always be lots of questions about the main case but also about the characters as well, if the viewer hasn't watched the first two series then they would have more questions like why does Saga Norén act like that for example. 'The Bridge' has more enigmas but the most effective enigma in episode 1 which keeps the viewers watching is the cliff-hanger at the end with Hendrik becoming Saga's new partner and us as the audience wonder why he wants to work on the case which is actually an enigma for the whole series and is finally answered at the end. 'Life on Mars' starts off with many enigmas as it puts you straight into an action scene with no explanation, the audience slowly figures out what is going on but still with questions like who is the real suspect as their chosen suspect isn't the right one. Then 'Life on Mars' throw more enigmas at the audience as Sam travels to 1973 creating questions like why and how is he there and many more with many of them being only answered till the end of the series. Again, like 'The Bridge', the most effective enigma in the episode 1 is the cliff-hanger where Sam is tricked into thinking its all fake and he can get out by killing himself however Annie talks him out of it confusing Sam but also the audience as no one knows if is real, fake and something else. This is all supported by Roland Barthes theory that enigma codes are designated to help understanding structuralism of narrative, meaning without enigmas then, one, the narrative would be less interesting for the audience and two, keeps the audience actually watching as we cant just stop watching while we have all these questions in our head.