Making Waves

I remember a BBC series back in the Seventies called "Warship", and despite being made on a low budget and suffering from some theatrical over-acting, the stories were pretty gripping. You really got a sense of what serving on board a warship must be like.

So when I tuned in for "Making Waves" I was hoping for similar excitement - but what a disappointment. The first problem was that I could hardly understand what the characters were saying. Most of them had very strong geordie, scots or scouse accents, and while this may well be true-to-life it didn't aid communication with anyone not born in those parts. Added to this was a lot of music thumping away while people were talking. And if you can't understand what characters are saying, how can you care what happens to them? I got the distinct impression that the first episode was in fact two episodes that had been knitted together, so frantic and ill-explained was the action. I simply couldn't follow what the characters were doing or why, or why anything happened.

The series was performing so poorly for ITV that it was yanked after three episodes.

.... Went wrong with this production

I only caught the first couple of episodes of MAKING WAVES . I never saw the third episode and as I write this in the mid Autumn ITV hasn't broadcast the final three remaining episodes . I can't say I'll be too upset if they don't either but I doubt if it would have flopped so badly if it wasn't for these reasons

1 ) Bad marketing . MAKING WAVES was heavily hyped with trailers showing a warship meaning that much of the potential audience thought they'd be watching some military action adventure and so decided to miss it . It's only those who thought it was going to be a military adventure series who tuned in only to be bitterly disappointed that it's a very slow watered down ( Geddit ? ) version of SOLDIER SOLDIER

2 ) Bad scheduling . Bad enough that it was shown in the middle of Summer but was shown opposite THE LONG FIRM an outstanding gangster drama and possibly the best thing the BBC had produced for years

The stories themselves were uninteresting with the first episode introducing us to the characters with a subplot of illegal immigrants hiding on a ship that's slowly sinking . If I remember correctly the second episode opens in the control room with the warship coming under attack :

" Sir an exocet missile has been launched "

" Hard to starboard "

" It's no use sir "

" Hard to starboard "

" Impact sir . We've been hit "

The captain turns to his crew and replies

" Right we all could have been killed because you lot couldn't get your bloody fingers out "

Wow they weren't under attack after all . It's just like the opening of STAR TREK 2 when we thought the Starship Enterprise had been destroyed and a trick on the audience that had long been overused by then . It should also be pointed out that the trailers for the episode had shown us that it was an audience trick all along . When you've got this type of carelessness from ITV it's superfluous to mention the not very good camera work

I saw the first episode of "Making Waves" which was broadcast on BFBS (British Forces Broadcasting Service) 1 and Navy TV. As ex-Navy myself, I found the 1st episode very enjoyable, though with a level of 'soap opera' that is so prevalent amongst such series these days. It is the background details that they get spot on, all the language is accurate and the characters are believable.

Hardly surprising as it was filmed with the full support of the Royal Navy. Most of the extras are RN, and the Type 23 Frigate HMS GRAFTON stood in as the fictional HMS SUFFOLK.

Well worth a watch.