Research Texts

We were given the task of watching Silent Witness - Choices, written by Doug Milburn and directed by Andy Hay. In the opening scene we see a man named Ainsley Modest drop his girl-friend, Helen Roach, off at a nightclub. After he has dropped her off he parks the car and steps out. As he is walking towards the nightclub a car drives past and fires a machine gun at the nightclub. During the drive by two people are killed, Modest's girlfriend and a civilian.

The characters involved in the opening scene are; Ainsley Modest, Helen Roach, the doorman and the shooters who are unknown during the opening scene.


I think the primary audience for this television programme are both middle-aged males and females. The reason I think this is mainly due to the time that it is broadcast. It is broadcasted at 9pm which is when younger audiences will have gone to bed and just adults will be watching TV. Due to the themes and stories of the programme I think the age range for the primary audience is around 35-55. The stories are about crimes and murders which young people may find scary and older people may have no interest in.

I think the secondary audience for this programme are families and couples who may all watch TV together. I think the age of the secondary audience is around 18-30. The reason I think this is because anyone older than 55 may not have any interest in this programme and anyone younger than 18 may find the themes too horrifying.

The main thing I liked about the episode was the pacing of the story. It wasn't a very big story but they kept it moving for the run-time of around two hours. Due to it being a serial they have probably done a lot of stories before, when writing the script for my drama it is going to be a one-off so the ideas may appear more fresh than what they did for this show that was up to episode 63 when part 1 of the story started.

I really disliked most of the acting in this episode. The main characters were mostly well acted but the supporting actors were very poor that made the script look bad. I think if the lines were better delivered than it would have made the script look a lot better. I also disliked that they gave the audience big clues that made the suspect obvious. I think if the clues were a lot more subtle, when the suspect is revealed it will be a bigger shock to the audience.