Latest storyline in Doc Martin

[mr_colt]

I practically choked when I heard this in the episode that was on tonight:

 

The new village PC is trying to get the DR's receptionist to get his script dispensed as he doesnt want anyone to know he is on Ritalin. He offers to bribe with making parking tickets vanish then when that doesnt work; he offers her a "shotgun license" with no questions asked.

 

Some fantastic opinion the gulible general public are going to have of us now, I always thought they did some good storylines. But brandishing those sort of lines about isn't very considerate.

 

Anyone with me on this?

 

mr_colt.

[dustyfox]

I just watched it. No dout we get a load of chavs/neds applying for shotgun cetrificates now

[Cranfield]

I thought this was going to be about heavy duty footwear.

[Andy W]

When he mentioned shotgun licence, I cringed, he would not have the final say anyway would he?

[bugman]

I found it funny as a shooter and the fact the PC was clearly a sandwich short of a picnic! Must have been the kick to the head he had that has obviously brought on his need for Ritalin.

 

But you are correct it is things like that that give people who are not in the know about shooting ammunition (no pun intended) about how easy it is for guns to be bought or makes it appealing to less responsible members of the community to apply for one. As it would appear to them that all you would have to do is carry out a favour for your local bobby! Luckily as we all know it’s not like that.

 

Hopefully it wasn't taken in that way by anybody as I'm sure it probably wasn't meant like that by the script writer. Apart from that Dr Martin last night was most entertaining.

[LEFTY478]

Soap story-lines shouldn't be taken seriously by the public, they should treated for what they are, 'story-lines'. But, this just isn't the case. If it was then the government and other organisations like the police, AA, gamblers Annon and childline etc wouldn't be falling over themselves to get the shows producers to 'write-in' their lastest campaign propaganda to current plot lines.

 

Writers and producers of shows that can and do influence public opinion have a duty of care to present their 'factual representations' as just that, factual. The need for objective clarity is wey too often dismissed as artist licence, or the oft used line about 'trusting the public' to distinguish between fact and fiction. How the hell is a Joe public, that knows nothing about FA legislation - other than that which is pedalled by an already biased media, going to be able to tell the difference between ******** writing and what a lot of people see as an already out of control prolifiration of firearms, with no clear distintion between the law abiding and their authorised possession and government-inspired 'metropolitan getto-scum' drug barons', conducting their turf wars with their illegally owned Mac 10's.

 

What odds on the shows writer/producer being an anti-gun, anti-hunt, anti-countryside, lentil eating tree-hugging mumpet of the first order? Short, I imagine.