Former Exeter student dies in tragic accident

Image credit: The Express and Echo

Police have confirmed that a former Exeter student has drowned after becoming trapped in a sea cave during a storm on November 2.

Charlotte Furness-Smith, known as “Buffy”, had been coasteering with her brother Alex, when she was swept into the Tilly Whim caves off the coast of Dorset.

Her brother, a year older than Ms Furness-Smith at 31, appeared to be struggling when he was spotted by a member of the public, who contacted the emergency services at around 3pm.

When the coastguard helicopter rescued the man, who was unhurt, he was able to inform the Swanage Coastguard on his sister’s situation.

Coastguards spoke to his sister, a maths teacher, who graduated from the University of Exeter with a degree in engineering, for two hours through a blow hole.

Two lifeboat crews attempted to approach the cave, battling 50 mph winds, and waves as high as 10ft. Unfortunately, by the time a coastguard officer was able to bravely crawl into the 15ft deep hole, the 30 year old had died.

The body was unable to be recovered due to rough weather conditions, and she had been classified by the police as a “missing person.”

Ms. Furness-Smith joined the Royal Navy reserves while studying at University of Exeter before volunteering in the second Gulf war five years ago. She was dubbed a ‘poster girl’ for the armed forces as a photo of her was used a ‘stock image’ by the Royal Navy.

She also volunteered with the Navy during the London Olympics 2012, carrying out body and bag searches at Greenwich Park. She had begun her new job as a maths teacher only two months ago at the Bristol Free School.

Ms. Furness-Smith’s godfather, Jon Coles, told the Express and Echo that “she was a dedicated and vivacious teacher who loved the outdoor life.”

The tragic incident occurred close to Durdle Door on the Dorset coast where less than three weeks ago, on October 23, Henry Maunder, 21, went missing while swimming in the sea with his two friends. His body was believed to have been found on Friday.

The Met Office have warned of more stormy weather heading towards southern England, and the public have been advised to check the forecast before venturing into the sea.

Sara De Anghelis, News Team

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Mandatory Viewing: A Screen Guide

Megan Furborough, Screen Editor, tells you the two shows that you should be watching now Breaking Bad is over.

I know, it’s hard – how will you spend your days now? But don’t despair as this handy guide will show you just two of the quality series available to tear your attention away from frivolous course reading and essays.

 Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Fabulous and murderous: the Scooby gang.
Image credit: CW

With seven seasons, there’s certainly enough of Josh Whedon’s cult show to sink your teeth into.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the story of an American teenage girl, Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar), who is the ‘chosen one’ – the slayer. It is her job to protect the world from vampires, demons and other evil creatures. Despite this description, Buffy is not a sci-fi show. The creatures are ways to tell a story that has deeper meanings and metaphors, and it’s the problems the young characters face that are the real monsters.

The main cast – including Alyson Hannigan and David Boreanaz – are fantastic and form ‘the Scooby gang’, aiding Buffy in her fight against evil. The show’s tone ranges from painfully funny to heartbreaking (seriously, the finale of season four left me moping around the house for weeks) all with a massive dollop of pop culture and feminism.

What’s not to love about a series described by its creator as “My So-Called Life meets The X Files”?

Homeland 

(L-R) Damian Lewis and Clare Danes in Homeland.
Image credit: ABC

With the third season of the drama having just started over at Channel 4, this is the perfect time to get into the American thriller-drama. The premise of the show revolves around a CIA officer’s, played superbly by Claire Danes, belief that Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis), a recently released prisoner of the Afghanistan war, has been ‘turned’ by Al-Qaeda.

The problems arise when Brody becomes a celebrated war hero and no-one believes Carrie’s hunch, all whilst she attempts to hide her bipolar disorder from the CIA. Plus they begin an affair with each other. Complicated is an understatement.

With a story like this, the suspense could fade fairly quickly, but the high standard of acting and the quality of the writing mean that the twists don’t seem unrealistic and you become invested in the characters. The show invites the audience to view events with both sides of the moral compass and you can’t be sure if any character is truly a good or bad guy – in the almost uncomfortably authentic world of Homeland, nothing is truly what it seems.

So there you have it, two ways to numb the pain caused by the gaping hole Breaking Bad has left in our lives. And even if you never watched the show and are sat wondering who exactly is breaking what and why everyone’s so fussed, give these shows a try. The procrastination potential is well worth it.

Megan Furborough, Screen Editor

What are your post-BB picks? Tell us on Facebook, Twitter or by commenting below.

Same Old, Same Old: Are Spin-Offs Killing TV?

With spin-offs recently announced for Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead, Ife Omotola asks whether we should be worried about cookie-cutter TV.

In an attempt hold on to their viewership, many studios resort to making spin-offs when the lure of the original has dulled. Wikipedia has a whole page dedicated to listing TV spin offs – of which there is a surprisingly long number – but what does it say about the future of creativity in television when everything is simply a by-product of something earlier?

“Franchise”: the lucrative CSI.
Image credit: CBS

One thing I’ll say for the television industry is that they know a good thing when they see it: Grey’s Anatomy, for instance, is in its 10^th year with no signs of slowing down.

That’s not to say that the descendant shows can never be as good or as creative as the shows they originated from; some series go beyond mere spin-offs and end up spawning what is best described as a franchise – Law and Order and CSI are just two which have become lucrative empires.

Besides, the independence of spin-offs is not impossible to achieve, as sometimes the brand new premise can have nothing to do with the original. It’s not uncommon for a sequel series to appear years, if not decades after the original, whereas others run simultaneously (Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin off Angel did for about 3 years resulting in quite a few ‘crossover’ episodes).

A common tactic when writers or executives attempt to derive one show from another is to take a popular or controversial character from an ensemble cast and make them the focus of their own show.

The Breaking Bad spin-off puts Saul Goodman in prime position.
Image credit: AMC

The Breaking Bad spin-off, for instance, will focus on slimy lawyer Saul Goodman. This provides another way for a popular show to have an opportunity to explore the origin or mythology without risking deviation.

At the same time, it’s common for a spin-off to fail to overshadow its predecessor. They are not guaranteed success simply because it was held by original, and many a promised program has been pulled because market research showed that it would not have the support of the viewing public.

Whatever your opinion on spinoffs, be it that they are by-products of creative inspiration, an expansion on the story, or that they symbolise the death of originality, one cannot deny that there’s no signs of them slowing down. With more shows inspiring their own (Vampire Diaries, Breaking Bad, Grey’s Anatomy to name but a few), we must embrace the concept and hope that it means we can relive a small part of what we love about our favourite shows, even after their demise.

Ife Omotola

Do you think TV studios should be investing in new shows rather than rehashing ideas? Or are spin-offs a way of expanding TV’s creativity? Tell us your thoughts on Facebook, Twitter or by commenting below.