Adolescence

nick79

RandallFlagg said:

I thought it was excellent, as a father, with a son, where in the final episode they could have been describing my own son and our raising of him, it touched home in a very poignant way.

I feel exactly the same - my lad is about the same age, I thought it was heartbreaking and terrifying in equal measure. 

Episode 4 was the toughest to watch for me. Watched it with Mrs Nick and afterwards she just wanted to go hug our son, as did I. 

vasselmeyer

We watched it over a couple of days. It was technically amazing but after a while that was forgotten as the performances took over.

The young lad was outstanding for someone who's never acted before. I thought the actor playing psychologist was brilliant along with whoever played the wife.

For me, Stephen Graham was magnificent. If he had a posh accent like Benedict Cumberbatch he'd have an even higher profile than he does already. He's amazing in whatever he's in; Boiling Point and Line of Duty were just precursors to this amazing performance. 

It was a hard watch but superbly done. If you look up the "Making of…" on YouTube you can see some of the technical stuff behind the camera including that astonishing shot from inside the car, over the town and down to the scene of the crime.

Philly_Q

I watched the whole thing last night, which probably wasn't the best of ideas as I had to get up relatively early this morning...

It's powerful stuff, and the "one continuous take" approach to each episode certainly added to the tension and drama.  I wonder if they really did manage to achieve that, or if there are some clever edits?  Whatever, the impact is the same. 

I'm not sure if it really shed any light or any deep insight into the problems created by social media and toxic masculinity, but I was certainly impressed with it as a drama.

It was interesting to see the comments above by fathers/parents about the fourth episode.  As a non-parent, I almost felt that episode was a little superfluous, at least in the context of watching straight after the previous three.  It felt like a great opportunity for "Stephen Graham does Stephen Graham" and, fine actor though he is, I was more impressed that he didn't go "full Stephen Graham" in the first episode (and also that Christine Tremarco didn't go full Christine Tremarco).  Overall I was more moved by the performances of Ashley Walters, Erin Doherty and young Owen Cooper as Jamie.

It's certainly well worth watching, but perhaps it is worth exercising caution if you're a parent and watching it with (or without) your teenage kids, I can't put myself in your shoes.

Teyeplayer

I’d agree it was a powerful drama and episode 4 definitely is one to make you reflect as a father on how your own actions perpetuate the toxicity of masculinity within society and your own home. I doubt there is a single one of us who on reflection wouldn’t change an element of our inevitably flawed characters and actions (whether it be a shortness of temper, division of home responsibilities, expectations of our children or things we expose them to) if it would lessen the negative impact we have on them. So the show is therefore a good catalyst for dialogue.

I am also currently reflecting on whether this show has the potential to impact young people (we’ve all noticed the mention in parliament). I’m a school leader in the real world, and I’m not sure (sadly) that this show can change anything other than our awareness. For the kids who are already expressing these views they are already too desensitised and exposed to things we struggle to imagine now, let alone when we momentarily reflect on when we were their age. Equally, the kids who will be shocked are the ones who find the world they live in scary and distressing already (and generally have a number of MH issues as a result). I guess it is more shocking for those of us in middle age looking in because it exposes how powerless we are to the monster we have created. To alter now we’d need social change on the broadest scale.

octatonic

I watched it.
It is brilliant.
I did not 'enjoy it'.
Not at all.
I actually found it kind of disregulating.

Never been so glad to be childfree in my life.

Philly_Q

I've just listened to Jack Thorne, the co-writer of Adolescence, being interviewed by Nihal Arthanayake on 5 Live.

I'm not Nihal's biggest fan, sometimes I found his weekday shows absolutely unlistenable, but he's a bloody good interviewer.  It's not an interview, really, it's a proper conversation and at times Jack even asks questions of Nihal.  Thorne's an interesting guy and I'm glad I listened to that (when I should really have been working...). 

Col_Decker

We watched ep1 last night. Traumatic.

TimmyO

I’ve skim-read this as I’ve only watched 1&2 and don’t want too much spoiler stuff (my fault for clicking I know - not moaning)  but I just want to say - the ‘one shot’ things is (imo) slightly less relevant than the effect that that has of it being in real-time.

That drive to the station wasn’t boring it was GRIPPING - the shots, the looks, the sound - you are forced to experience or wonder about what it must be like to be any one of those people - each in the middle of an impossibly difficult situation.

That is brilliant. So far, it’s all brilliant. 

exocet

I thought it was very well done, a harrowing / thought provoking storyline.
...but to digress from that and onto the technical/ production choices....how the heck did they manage the van driving scenes in Ep4?
Clearly he's not driving the van, it's on a trailer ala a lot of 00's Top Gear driving footage - but in the context of single shot / no editing - the timing of van with no trailer to van on trailer is quite something.
Then there's the return van journey - again, it's clearly on trailer but this time it's shot from behind the driver. Some kind of digital green screen at play to mask the towing vehicle? There's clearly some kind of clever focus / blurring effect involved but it's very well done. The Director of photography and Director of the show worked together on that scouse based BBC series "Responder" as well as the single shot "Boiling Point" movie.

digitalscream

It strikes me that many people are missing the point in the aftermath of this show, in the popular desire to jump on the toxic masculinity bandwagon, and the calls to ban social media/smartphones/etc for kids: the headline for me is that the true failure here was from the adults, all of them.

The parents, the teachers, the police...all were guilty of being convinced that the world the kids grow up in is the same as the one they did; they're stuck in the late 90s, oblivious to the fact that the world moved on without them over two decades ago. That results in a desire to minimise/dismiss the possibility that another culture has developed under their noses - and it's one that will now forever exclude them. That's where the damage happens.

Every single solution put forward is for somebody other than the parents to solve this problem. Yet...how much could've been avoided if, from an early age, the parents had taught their kids how to behave responsibly on the Internet, how to not be assholes, and how to spot and ignore the crap while simultaneously being aware of the consequences of the damage they do to others? I'm not just talking about the three boys, I'm talking about the girls as well. Probably every kid at the school, really. And not just teach them, but have honest two-way conversations about it all - the parents learning as much as the kids...because parents need to know this stuff in order to safeguard their children.

No amount of banned devices or apps will stop it; children are basically mini-lawyers when it comes to finding creative ways around restrictions. Content blocks don't work (remember the experiment where a new content filter was implemented at a school, and by the end of the same day something like 80% of the kids had a workaround for every device?). They have access to smart watches, computers, games consoles...all of which are communication devices at their core.

You can try to legislate around it, but then you just end up wrecking the Internet for everybody with unintended collateral damage while the kids have already moved on to something else.

Ultimately...the conversation after this show has become one of parents wanting everybody else to solve their problems for them, IMO. It's more complicated to be a kid now than it has been since the dawn of civilisation, and the parents are supposed to be the ones who make it easier for them to navigate. They can't do that if they don't put in the hard yards to keep up.

tone1

We watched the 1st episode tonight…..it had the feel of a Casualty or a Holby City on one of those live shoot jobbies……Early days….but mark me down as ‘intrigued’…..next instalment resumes tomorrow. 

m_c

exocet said:

I thought it was very well done, a harrowing / thought provoking storyline.
...but to digress from that and onto the technical/ production choices....how the heck did they manage the van driving scenes in Ep4?
Clearly he's not driving the van, it's on a trailer ala a lot of 00's Top Gear driving footage - but in the context of single shot / no editing - the timing of van with no trailer to van on trailer is quite something.
Then there's the return van journey - again, it's clearly on trailer but this time it's shot from behind the driver. Some kind of digital green screen at play to mask the towing vehicle? There's clearly some kind of clever focus / blurring effect involved but it's very well done. The Director of photography and Director of the show worked together on that scouse based BBC series "Responder" as well as the single shot "Boiling Point" movie.

I've seen a behind the scenes clip of that.
There's two vans, and they get swapped midscene when they walk back into the house. One is normal, and one has a remote driver on the roof with external cameras.

TimmyO

digitalscream said:

It strikes me that many people are missing the point in the aftermath of this show, in the popular desire to jump on the toxic masculinity bandwagon, and the calls to ban social media/smartphones/etc for kids: the headline for me is that the true failure here was from the adults, all of them.

The parents, the teachers, the police...all were guilty of being convinced that the world the kids grow up in is the same as the one they did; they're stuck in the late 90s, oblivious to the fact that the world moved on without them over two decades ago. That results in a desire to minimise/dismiss the possibility that another culture has developed under their noses - and it's one that will now forever exclude them. That's where the damage happens.

Every single solution put forward is for somebody other than the parents to solve this problem. Yet...how much could've been avoided if, from an early age, the parents had taught their kids how to behave responsibly on the Internet, how to not be assholes, and how to spot and ignore the crap while simultaneously being aware of the consequences of the damage they do to others? I'm not just talking about the three boys, I'm talking about the girls as well. Probably every kid at the school, really. And not just teach them, but have honest two-way conversations about it all - the parents learning as much as the kids...because parents need to know this stuff in order to safeguard their children.

No amount of banned devices or apps will stop it; children are basically mini-lawyers when it comes to finding creative ways around restrictions. Content blocks don't work (remember the experiment where a new content filter was implemented at a school, and by the end of the same day something like 80% of the kids had a workaround for every device?). They have access to smart watches, computers, games consoles...all of which are communication devices at their core.

You can try to legislate around it, but then you just end up wrecking the Internet for everybody with unintended collateral damage while the kids have already moved on to something else.

Ultimately...the conversation after this show has become one of parents wanting everybody else to solve their problems for them, IMO. It's more complicated to be a kid now than it has been since the dawn of civilisation, and the parents are supposed to be the ones who make it easier for them to navigate. They can't do that if they don't put in the hard yards to keep up.

I understand this sentiment, and to a large degree I agree with it. Ignoring parental responsibility, or rather continuing to think it has no role in these things is a trap.

But also.

Social media, the way it has become so prevalent and all-intruding, and the way it’s algorithms have accidentally evolved priorities that have the effect of polarising, exaggerating, distorting and ultimately harming people, especially young people. 

So I’d add too that ignoring or thinking it doesn’t have a significant role is just as much a trap.

I doubt there are many who would advocate making alcohol use or tobacco use or knife or gun ownership legal for the young (instead playing up the role of parents in teaching children how to do those things safely). 

And I get the (almost) impossibility of banning or controlling SM use but bloody hell - if there was an energy drink where an internal report by its makers had concluded that it significantly and predictably harmed the mental health of young people contributing to suicides, it wouldn’t be on Tesco shelves. 

But tech bro billionaires gonna tech bro billionaire. 

Jetsam1

Money. The only thing that has ever mattered. If we are honest this SM and the tech bros are just the latest in a cycle of greed and money worship with nary a thought to consequences that has always been. Humans humaning.

digitalscream

TimmyO said:

digitalscream said:

It strikes me that many people are missing the point in the aftermath of this show, in the popular desire to jump on the toxic masculinity bandwagon, and the calls to ban social media/smartphones/etc for kids: the headline for me is that the true failure here was from the adults, all of them.

The parents, the teachers, the police...all were guilty of being convinced that the world the kids grow up in is the same as the one they did; they're stuck in the late 90s, oblivious to the fact that the world moved on without them over two decades ago. That results in a desire to minimise/dismiss the possibility that another culture has developed under their noses - and it's one that will now forever exclude them. That's where the damage happens.

Every single solution put forward is for somebody other than the parents to solve this problem. Yet...how much could've been avoided if, from an early age, the parents had taught their kids how to behave responsibly on the Internet, how to not be assholes, and how to spot and ignore the crap while simultaneously being aware of the consequences of the damage they do to others? I'm not just talking about the three boys, I'm talking about the girls as well. Probably every kid at the school, really. And not just teach them, but have honest two-way conversations about it all - the parents learning as much as the kids...because parents need to know this stuff in order to safeguard their children.

No amount of banned devices or apps will stop it; children are basically mini-lawyers when it comes to finding creative ways around restrictions. Content blocks don't work (remember the experiment where a new content filter was implemented at a school, and by the end of the same day something like 80% of the kids had a workaround for every device?). They have access to smart watches, computers, games consoles...all of which are communication devices at their core.

You can try to legislate around it, but then you just end up wrecking the Internet for everybody with unintended collateral damage while the kids have already moved on to something else.

Ultimately...the conversation after this show has become one of parents wanting everybody else to solve their problems for them, IMO. It's more complicated to be a kid now than it has been since the dawn of civilisation, and the parents are supposed to be the ones who make it easier for them to navigate. They can't do that if they don't put in the hard yards to keep up.

I understand this sentiment, and to a large degree I agree with it. Ignoring parental responsibility, or rather continuing to think it has no role in these things is a trap.

But also.

Social media, the way it has become so prevalent and all-intruding, and the way it’s algorithms have accidentally evolved priorities that have the effect of polarising, exaggerating, distorting and ultimately harming people, especially young people. 

So I’d add too that ignoring or thinking it doesn’t have a significant role is just as much a trap.

I doubt there are many who would advocate making alcohol use or tobacco use or knife or gun ownership legal for the young (instead playing up the role of parents in teaching children how to do those things safely). 

And I get the (almost) impossibility of banning or controlling SM use but bloody hell - if there was an energy drink where an internal report by its makers had concluded that it significantly and predictably harmed the mental health of young people contributing to suicides, it wouldn’t be on Tesco shelves. 

But tech bro billionaires gonna tech bro billionaire. 

I don't disagree; however, it's not going away, no matter how much we want it to. My feeling is that educating people from an early age so that they can avoid falling into the traps social media lays for them...even if just 30% of them take that message to heart, it's going to massively reduce the impact that it has.

I personally think that algorithmic social media is the main problem; if all social media was simple datestamp-ordered posts from the people you follow or are linked to, it would be vastly less damaging to the world in general. I would absolutely support the idea of banning the use of recommendation algorithms in any user-to-user context.

TimmyO

digitalscream said:

I personally think that algorithmic social media is the main problem; if all social media was simple datestamp-ordered posts from the people you follow or are linked to, it would be vastly less damaging to the world in general. I would absolutely support the idea of banning the use of recommendation algorithms in any user-to-user context.

Agree wholeheartedly 

sinbaadi

Anyone else think Stephen Graham can be a bit OTT?

menamestom

After 3 episodes I'm thinking this could be the most overated TV Drama of all time.  I mean it's not terrible, the acting is okay, I just don't find it particularily believable. 

Philly_Q

sinbaadi said:

Anyone else think Stephen Graham can be a bit OTT?

Well, that's his thing. 

Seethe.... anger.... aggression.... emotional breakdown.... tears. 

He is very good at it, to be fair.

Hootsmon

So is teh wife