For something like ‘Line of Duty’ to work, it has to be both plausible and unexpected. Jed Mercurio Read Quote
It’s always useful to know that people are emotionally invested in a series because it means that you can take them down a certain road, and they should be interested. Jed Mercurio Read Quote
I love to do things that kind of mess with the movie formula that you can always find the right place to park; you’ve always got a phone signal. And I think audiences really respond to the limitations of real life when they intrude on drama. Jed Mercurio Read Quote
I think once you do the unexpected, and you take the viewers to a position of discomfort about being able to rely on characters surviving, then it does completely affect the way in which the drama is viewed. Jed Mercurio Read Quote
There’s a classic medical aphorism: ‘Listen to the patient; they’re telling you the diagnosis.’ Actually, a lot of patients are just telling you a lot of rubbish, and you have to stop them and ask the pertinent questions. But, yes, in both drama and medicine, isolated facts can accumulate to create the narrative. Jed Mercurio Read Quote
I think it’s hugely important to have a strong episode one; you can lose an audience so quickly now. You can’t afford to take the attitude that you will use the first one as an introduction and save the high drama for later. Jed Mercurio Read Quote
Some shows do nosedive at the end, or some piece of content could become incredibly controversial and affect the way the show is seen. Jed Mercurio Read Quote
Line of Duty’ is a social realist drama, so it’s set in a world that has the recognisable features of the authentic world we see around us. Jed Mercurio Read Quote
The idea of a physical stigma is quite appealing. When I wrote the book of ‘Bodies,’ there was a lot of that in the book about how there are physical manifestations of psychological problems – I think it’s described as ‘Narrativizing The Body.’ Jed Mercurio Read Quote
