This will come as a surprise to many who write for television, but the people who watch tv do (mostly) have brains and are sick of watching shows that are full of holes. You seem to think that all that is important is that each scene is dramatic and don't care at all if the story makes any sense. Series 2 of Baptiste is an example of this but it isn't the only recent British series where this has been the case (The Capture and The Bodyguard come to mind). It really is quite disrespectful that we are treated this way and has meant that my wife and I tend to watch more international television (e.g. Spanish are excellent but even so there are exceptions) where writers still care whether or not plots are sensible. Series 1 of Baptiste was okay and as we enjoyed the Baptiste character in Missing, we thought we'd persist with series 2 hoping for a return to form. We could have not been more disappointed.
If you don't want to know what happens in this series or don't want to see this show shredded, stop reading now.
But if you are sick of watching garbage like series 2 of Baptiste, read on and see if I've missed any of the plot caverns that I'm reciting off the top of my head.
Alex's body is found shot at the massacre. Hungary is not a third world with a corrupt incompetent police force. They know what they are doing. He was supposed to have been kidnapped earlier and his body shows up at the site of a massacre??? The police would ask questions, the major included. What about that execution video they were sent? What was the time of death? - i.e. Was he shot shortly after being kidnapped as seen in the video and just dumped at the massacre or at he shot at the massacre? Answer: just shot so at the massacre. So how did he get there if he had been kidnapped and executed in the video and why? No idea. What was he shot with? Even a brief examination of the body would show he was NOT shot with a high-powered assault weapon as the others were, but he was shot was a handgun at close range. Simple ballistics. Baptiste's gun (taken from dead policeman) was fired so they would check his gun. Basic reconstruction practice at any crime scene. The bullets fired from Baptiste's gun would match the bullets in Alex's body. How did that happen then? More questions etc. Etc. Etc. So many holes, so little time. Questions galore and none of them asked.
So Alex is discovered (at least by mother and Baptiste) to have joined the terrorists. Where is Will? Why is he still being held captive? Is he alive? At no time during the 14 months of searching (I think that was the number) does it seem to occur to either of them that if both Alex and Will disappeared at the same time when their father was shot and Alex later was found to have crossed over to the bad guy's side, then maybe Will has joined the bad guys too. Seemed 100% obvious to us as soon as the mask was removed from Alex's body and yet those two didn't even consider the possibility? Incredible. Inconceivable in fact.
Shortly after disappearing, Alex ends up massacring all the immigrants. Will, as we find out later, is also a supporter of Andras and his plans. So what happens to Will for those 14 months? Although Andras manages to use Alex in an attack almost immediately after he disappears, he decides to hold Will in readiness for some unknown plan for 14 months? Why? For Heaven's sake, why? It makes no sense. You have a weapon with a limited use-by-date, you use it. The answer, unfortunately, is simple and it is ridiculous. It is so the ambassador can recover from her injuries and continue her fruitless search and Baptiste can descend into his drunken hell and for them to eventually reunite to search for Will. That's the only reason that he is held back. So that the writers can have a story. It makes absolutely no sense from the point of view of the characters, but that's what the writers needed so that they had a story. That's it.
So ... let's ignore that bit of nonsense for the sake of argument. A year+ Andras has to get Will in a position to be used as a weapon. What does he do? Train him in the use of assault weapons like his brother? Nope. Indoctrinate him in how to be a suicide bomber? Nope. Have him recruit others from Britain to the cause. Nope. Hides him for the first year (!) and then has him volunteer at a refugee centre to show sympathy for refugees with no explanation given to Will as to why he is working with people he despises. Seriously? Well, why not.
So once we know Will has done that (after a year of doing nothing???), it is obvious what will happen, isn't it? Will will massacre all the refugees with the aid of Gomorrah and his thugs. But, no, that would be too easy wouldn't it? Too obvious. Turns out the great plan of Andras is to beat Will to death and blame it on Will's refugee friends. Seriously? That's the master plan that Andras comes up with after 14 months of hiding Will from the public? That's the best Andras he could do with such a potentially powerful weapon? Wouldn't the police actually ask questions as to why the ambassador's son, who had been kidnapped earlier, had been doing hiding for all that time rather than calling home and saying something like, "hey mum, I'm okay, don't worry about me." As a plan, it was just stupid.
The Major is assigned the rather important task of investigating the murder of the ambassador's husband and the kidnapping of the ambassador's two children. A political rally is to take place which is potentially explosive. A supervising officer is needed to provide security. So who is assigned the task of providing security? The one and only same Major. Seriously? In a city the size of Budapest there is nobody else who could do the job. Let's assume that there is an incident in the real world involving the murder of the husband of an ambassador and the kidnapping of the two children and the investigating officer is pulled off that case to provide security for a political rally, what would happen? The ambassador would be furious. She'd call her PM back in London. The PM would call the Hungarian head of state. He'd talk to the police chief. The police chief would be told to reassign the Major back to the murder/kidnapping and assign one of the other numerous detectives back to the rally otherwise you're fired. End of story.
Anyway. Will spends two months at the refugee centre volunteering. Will, who had been kidnapped back in episode 1 and whose face had been splashed all over the media at the time and whose mother had been keeping him in the public's mind for 14 all of those 14 months as she searched for him. Do not one of the many guards at the refugee centre watch television? Do they not read newspapers? Did they not once say to themselves, "gee, it's so funny but I can hear from your accent that you're British and you look just like the ambassador's son who was kidnapped ... ?" Would Andras and Will even risk the chance of his being recognized? No, they would not. Ridiculous.
Let's go back further. Ambassadors, and especially ambassadors to major countries like Hungary, tend to be medium term political appointments that last for a few years and change when there is a change in government at home. A few years being typical; more on occasion. They rotate through appointments to different countries sometimes. They do NOT owe any allegiance to the country they are appointed to. In fact, in our story it is made clear that this ambassador is there after being previous ambassador to Thailand and that wasn't too long ago in the past. All of that I mention to make it clear there is no strong tie to their assigned country. Even more importantly, families probably have even less of an attraction for the country they are only very temporarily living in. So, if Will and Alex are traumatized by their sister's death, what would their real world reaction actually be? Disgust for immigrants? Okay, I buy that. Disgust for the country they are temporarily living in? Almost certainly. A desire to get the Hell out of Hungary and go home? Definitely without question that would be the reaction of anybody put in that situation in the real world. No question. But these two? Despite having no close association to Hungary because they have only been there a brief time, Alex researches Gomorrah, a Hungarian specific anti-immigrant organization, makes contact and we know the rest. Sorry, I don't buy it for second. It just isn't believable.
Small point on a side note. The Major (well, ex-major by this point) tracks down Victor and then beats him almost to death with Victor's own skateboard. She then walks away leaving him still alive (what was the point of beating him almost to death without actually checking that he is dead) and then not bothering to remove her fingerprints from the skateboard? She was a policewoman! She knows how not to get caught. It was just stupid.
Another small point. Where did Andras get the jammer from when he was in the politician's house to stop his radio transmitter from working for the required few moments. It seemed to appear from nowhere. It seemed remarkably handy though and just all too convenient.
There was other stuff too but what's the point? It was painful viewing and not an experience I will want to be repeating any time soon.
The answer to my initial question in the subject is one I don't like: because too many viewers are idiots willing to accept this rubbish.
If you don't want to know what happens in this series or don't want to see this show shredded, stop reading now.
But if you are sick of watching garbage like series 2 of Baptiste, read on and see if I've missed any of the plot caverns that I'm reciting off the top of my head.
Alex's body is found shot at the massacre. Hungary is not a third world with a corrupt incompetent police force. They know what they are doing. He was supposed to have been kidnapped earlier and his body shows up at the site of a massacre??? The police would ask questions, the major included. What about that execution video they were sent? What was the time of death? - i.e. Was he shot shortly after being kidnapped as seen in the video and just dumped at the massacre or at he shot at the massacre? Answer: just shot so at the massacre. So how did he get there if he had been kidnapped and executed in the video and why? No idea. What was he shot with? Even a brief examination of the body would show he was NOT shot with a high-powered assault weapon as the others were, but he was shot was a handgun at close range. Simple ballistics. Baptiste's gun (taken from dead policeman) was fired so they would check his gun. Basic reconstruction practice at any crime scene. The bullets fired from Baptiste's gun would match the bullets in Alex's body. How did that happen then? More questions etc. Etc. Etc. So many holes, so little time. Questions galore and none of them asked.
So Alex is discovered (at least by mother and Baptiste) to have joined the terrorists. Where is Will? Why is he still being held captive? Is he alive? At no time during the 14 months of searching (I think that was the number) does it seem to occur to either of them that if both Alex and Will disappeared at the same time when their father was shot and Alex later was found to have crossed over to the bad guy's side, then maybe Will has joined the bad guys too. Seemed 100% obvious to us as soon as the mask was removed from Alex's body and yet those two didn't even consider the possibility? Incredible. Inconceivable in fact.
Shortly after disappearing, Alex ends up massacring all the immigrants. Will, as we find out later, is also a supporter of Andras and his plans. So what happens to Will for those 14 months? Although Andras manages to use Alex in an attack almost immediately after he disappears, he decides to hold Will in readiness for some unknown plan for 14 months? Why? For Heaven's sake, why? It makes no sense. You have a weapon with a limited use-by-date, you use it. The answer, unfortunately, is simple and it is ridiculous. It is so the ambassador can recover from her injuries and continue her fruitless search and Baptiste can descend into his drunken hell and for them to eventually reunite to search for Will. That's the only reason that he is held back. So that the writers can have a story. It makes absolutely no sense from the point of view of the characters, but that's what the writers needed so that they had a story. That's it.
So ... let's ignore that bit of nonsense for the sake of argument. A year+ Andras has to get Will in a position to be used as a weapon. What does he do? Train him in the use of assault weapons like his brother? Nope. Indoctrinate him in how to be a suicide bomber? Nope. Have him recruit others from Britain to the cause. Nope. Hides him for the first year (!) and then has him volunteer at a refugee centre to show sympathy for refugees with no explanation given to Will as to why he is working with people he despises. Seriously? Well, why not.
So once we know Will has done that (after a year of doing nothing???), it is obvious what will happen, isn't it? Will will massacre all the refugees with the aid of Gomorrah and his thugs. But, no, that would be too easy wouldn't it? Too obvious. Turns out the great plan of Andras is to beat Will to death and blame it on Will's refugee friends. Seriously? That's the master plan that Andras comes up with after 14 months of hiding Will from the public? That's the best Andras he could do with such a potentially powerful weapon? Wouldn't the police actually ask questions as to why the ambassador's son, who had been kidnapped earlier, had been doing hiding for all that time rather than calling home and saying something like, "hey mum, I'm okay, don't worry about me." As a plan, it was just stupid.
The Major is assigned the rather important task of investigating the murder of the ambassador's husband and the kidnapping of the ambassador's two children. A political rally is to take place which is potentially explosive. A supervising officer is needed to provide security. So who is assigned the task of providing security? The one and only same Major. Seriously? In a city the size of Budapest there is nobody else who could do the job. Let's assume that there is an incident in the real world involving the murder of the husband of an ambassador and the kidnapping of the two children and the investigating officer is pulled off that case to provide security for a political rally, what would happen? The ambassador would be furious. She'd call her PM back in London. The PM would call the Hungarian head of state. He'd talk to the police chief. The police chief would be told to reassign the Major back to the murder/kidnapping and assign one of the other numerous detectives back to the rally otherwise you're fired. End of story.
Anyway. Will spends two months at the refugee centre volunteering. Will, who had been kidnapped back in episode 1 and whose face had been splashed all over the media at the time and whose mother had been keeping him in the public's mind for 14 all of those 14 months as she searched for him. Do not one of the many guards at the refugee centre watch television? Do they not read newspapers? Did they not once say to themselves, "gee, it's so funny but I can hear from your accent that you're British and you look just like the ambassador's son who was kidnapped ... ?" Would Andras and Will even risk the chance of his being recognized? No, they would not. Ridiculous.
Let's go back further. Ambassadors, and especially ambassadors to major countries like Hungary, tend to be medium term political appointments that last for a few years and change when there is a change in government at home. A few years being typical; more on occasion. They rotate through appointments to different countries sometimes. They do NOT owe any allegiance to the country they are appointed to. In fact, in our story it is made clear that this ambassador is there after being previous ambassador to Thailand and that wasn't too long ago in the past. All of that I mention to make it clear there is no strong tie to their assigned country. Even more importantly, families probably have even less of an attraction for the country they are only very temporarily living in. So, if Will and Alex are traumatized by their sister's death, what would their real world reaction actually be? Disgust for immigrants? Okay, I buy that. Disgust for the country they are temporarily living in? Almost certainly. A desire to get the Hell out of Hungary and go home? Definitely without question that would be the reaction of anybody put in that situation in the real world. No question. But these two? Despite having no close association to Hungary because they have only been there a brief time, Alex researches Gomorrah, a Hungarian specific anti-immigrant organization, makes contact and we know the rest. Sorry, I don't buy it for second. It just isn't believable.
Small point on a side note. The Major (well, ex-major by this point) tracks down Victor and then beats him almost to death with Victor's own skateboard. She then walks away leaving him still alive (what was the point of beating him almost to death without actually checking that he is dead) and then not bothering to remove her fingerprints from the skateboard? She was a policewoman! She knows how not to get caught. It was just stupid.
Another small point. Where did Andras get the jammer from when he was in the politician's house to stop his radio transmitter from working for the required few moments. It seemed to appear from nowhere. It seemed remarkably handy though and just all too convenient.
There was other stuff too but what's the point? It was painful viewing and not an experience I will want to be repeating any time soon.
The answer to my initial question in the subject is one I don't like: because too many viewers are idiots willing to accept this rubbish.