Definition from TV Tropes site
The character who puts life and limb at risk by doing things that no sane human being would do. Walking down the alley alone to tell his friend about the Serial Killer. Telling everybody in earshot he has vital evidence that he'll be taking to the authorities very shortly. Hovering in a known dangerous area without backup. Not telling the rest of the heroes about the upcoming trap laid out for them...
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So I'm watching this show. It's called Stalker and has the impossibly pretty (IP) team of wonderfully clever police people dealing with stalkers in LA. It's very good. The acting is a little of the *stare moodily at the camera* type, but the storylines on some of the episodes are good.
Some of the stalker storylines are, in fact, so powerful that they make you want to check the corners of your house before you go to bed.
Of course there is the obligatory side stories, IP chief police woman with (we think) UST for IP new guy with a past... the misunderstood young guy, and the secondary woman who at the start slept with anyone because, fuck it, that's what men do and that is what I want to do, but doesn't seem to do it now... you know the characters. Throw in the streets of LA, the poor red-shirt (**) cops who are on detail outside victims houses who procede to die horrible deaths. Then add a 'little gruesome' in the ways people die, and the obligatory shots of shadows walking behind you in an otherwise empty house and voila, awesome is born.
So, there we have the series drawing to an end of season 1 (I haven't checked there is a season two, but there should be, or rather there should have been). There is an underlying horror surrounding one of the characters, a bad guy, two in fact, chasing down our heroes... and OMG they have to bring in outside help, because our heroine is compromised.
"I know," says the new woman in charge, "You should go home. You'll be safe there."
WTF
WHAT THE FUCKETY FUCK IS THIS FUCKERY...
No, our heroine will plainly be better off staying at the precinct, in an office with glass walls where a thousand cops work, where no one can get in to her... right? NO! She won't be better off at home, with just one other guy to look after her, and a security detail of aforementioned cops-who-die-and-should-be-wearing-red-shirts.
That's right, send her to the creepy house, virtually on her own. That is a GOOD MOVE... not
And there we have it. The whole TOO STUPID TO LIVE thing, because, GAH, stop doing shit like this is shows I like just to extend a storyline.
What would have been more dramatic? Keep her at the precinct and somehow the guys get into the precinct... and attack her there... WAY more dramatic...
I read a book in this genre recently where it seemed perfectly competent characters did things way out of character just to further the action. So I have this question - is it just me who gets annoyed by too-stupid-to-live characters? Have I ever written a TSTL character, please remind me if I have...
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/Edit - I just checked and Stalker has been cancelled... I'm not bloody surprised, wasted potential BIG TIME... so sad... and maybe they knew which is why they are now wrapping stuff up with TSTL events... ROFL
** Red Shirt Reference a la Star Trek
Yup...there are too many books with characters who are too stupid to live. Unfortunately we start to see it more and more in series to the last few years...
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