MovieChat Forums > A Touch of Frost (2010) Discussion > When is A Touch of Frost set?

When is A Touch of Frost set?

posted 16 years ago by Just_Call_Me_Nathan
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Until yesterday, I had believed that each episode was set in the year it was broadcast in, thus allowing the series to evolve with the times. That changed when I saw the episode 'Dead Male One' from 1995 and realized that

*SPOILERS MAYBE*

the body fished from the river was the same one that would play a huge part in the 1999 episode Appendix Man.

*SPOILERS END*

The only problem is that in Appendix Man Frost and his fellow police officers maintain that the body was discovered a year prior when in reality there were four years between the episodes. So in 1999 were the episodes set in 1996 and so on?, even when the car registrations etc. indicate that each episode is set in the year it was produced?

[–] scarlet1881 16 years ago

Like most long running TV shows, it seems to operate in a strange time frame. The episodes of 'A Touch of Frost' are set contemporarily to when they are made, but the time gap in between episodes do not seem to be taken into account very accurately.

Take a soap opera like 'EastEnders'. They'll have a cliff-hanger on the Thursday, and then it'll be three days (Monday) before the next episode. Therefore, there is supposed to be no actual gap in the show's time frame with those characters involved, even though other characters will be talking about the weekend they've just had. It can be rather bizarre, but it's just one of the paradoxes of a long-running show.

'Heartbeat' has been running for 15 years now, and when it started in 1992, it was supposed to be '1964'. It's still the 1960's now, 15 years later!!! The show no longer has a consistent internal chronology. The producers has said the show, however long it runs, will still be set in the 1960's, even though some characters have aged a great deal in the meantime. They even have a Christmas episode every year! They've had more Christmases than there have been years!!

You're right about the inconsistencies in 'Frost', but it's just one of those things, I guess. Another thing about 'Frost' is that, in real life, DI Frost would have been pensioned off several years back. When David Jason quits the role next year, he'll be nearly 70. I guess the producers will claim 'artistic licence' with issues surrounding characters aging and internal time frames.