Paul and I cannot resist beautiful sceneries when selecting our TV or movies to watch, even though they might involve horrific murders or backwater ignorance. Since April back from our Shanghai trip, we have completed a number of TV series, such as Death in Paradise (Britain), Doc Martin (Britain), My Life Is Murder (New Zealand), Thursday Murder Club (Britain), and Untamed (US).
There is a commonality threading all those shows, stunning natural beauty juxtaposed with human crimes and foibles. Abundant are juxtapositions, e.g., Caribbean aqua blue water, golden beaches and lush forests vs. various killings and thinly-disguised bureaucratic power struggles, a physician's tireless efforts to cure and save local inhabitants in a sleepy fishing village Portwenn, or rather Port Isaac, on the Atlantic coast of north Cornwall, New Zealand's beautiful beaches and cityscape vs. endless murder cases and victims, killings at a retirement community in an idyllic seaside village of Fairhaven in Kent, and Yosemite National Park's magnificence vs. the patricide on Capitan.
Needless to say, the use of beautiful sceneries is not only an usual method for TV shows to retain and attract their loyal and new audience, but also a subtle device to display the cruelty of violence, or futile human enterprises against the background of blue skies and deep seas. This is especially true of Bert Large's series of failed businesses in Doc Martin, or Kyle Turner's outstayed status as a special agent in Yosemite Investigative Service Branch in Untamed.
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There is another underlined reason in adopting beautiful sceneries, namely the deep appreciation of nature on the part of main characters. For its natural beauty in Portwenn, Doc Martin would rather give up his prospective deanship at the Imperial College, while PI Lucy Crowe was content to bake bread for Baristas Café, and assist DI Kieran Hussey in solving murder mysteries in Auckland.
To Paul and me, there is a further reason to love those beautiful sceneries that open both our heart and mind. Life in places with beautiful sceneries is usually harder and more competitive. It takes a certain personality and resilience to make a living there. In those decades we have been living and working in Santa Cruz, so many people came and went like going through a revolving door. Like any beautiful places, Santa Cruz is not for the faint of heart.
