History Series / StateOfPlay

* MoralMyopia: quite a bit of this going around. On an average everyday level, there is Stephen, who expects understanding and sacrifice from the people in his life when he has a year-long affair with his employee, yet [[spoiler: has a tantrum when his own wife has an affair afterwards when they are separated]], making those same people - e.g. his wife, who previously lied for him in a press conference to cover for his infidelity - suffer from his anger. On a criminal level there is [[spoiler: oil and lobby executives as well as significant parliamentary figures who believe they are perfectly justified in destroying people's lives and[=/=]or ''killing'' them, while taking immediate offense (read: intimidation, threats and ''proactive'' steps) to people digging into ''their'' lives to discover the truth]].

* BadLiar: Dominic Foy.

* BittersweetEnding
* ButtMonkey: Dominic Foy.

* CorruptCorporateExecutive
* CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot: [[spoiler:If the government had just let Stephen in on their conspiracy... ]]
* DaEditor: Cameron Foster, a combination of BigGood, MagnificentBastard and DeadpanSnarker played by a show-stealingly brilliant Bill Nighy.
* EveryManHasHisPrice: Dominic Foy certainly does.

* GambitPileup: Oh dear God yes. Just ''try'' keeping track of Stephen.

* HeroicBSOD: Cal, though fairly short-lived.
* IfItBleedsItLeads: The brutal murders are what kickstart the investigation.
* IntrepidReporter: Cal. And Della. And Dan. And Helen. And Pete. And Syd (sort of).
* JerkAss: Dominic Foy.
* LoveHurts

* NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: Poor Dominic. He just can't catch a break.

* NotQuiteDead: The motorcycle courier who witnesses the shooting at the start.
* PsychoForHire

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters

* YourCheatingHeart: The obvious one, of course, is the story set-up, Stephen screwing his young research assistant. [[spoiler: Then Cal has an affair with Anne, Stephen's wife, which develops after Stephen's own affair is made public]].

* AllForNothing: [[spoiler:Stephen finds out the secretary he's having an affair with is TheMole for the multinational oil company he's investigating. He feels both betrayed and in a bind (he can't just fire her) so he looks the other way when his old army buddy decides to kill her, only to find out afterwards that she had decided to stop spying for her employer.]]

* FriendOnTheForce: DCI Bell becomes this for the journalists when [[spoiler: it becomes clear that [[GovernmentConspiracy his superiors]] want the case prematurely closed]].

* HotScoop: Della.

Directed by [=pre-=]''Film/HarryPotter'' DavidYates. [[Film/StateOfPlay Later adapted into a film starring Russell Crowe]].

* BitchInSheepsClothing: a mild variation in Stephen Collins. On the outside he is a NiceGuy, a calm, quiet man, deeply saddened and sorry for what has happened, contrite and ashamed of what he has done. However, when something happens to make him angry he turns into a self-righteous hypocrite, viciously attacking whoever is on hand with scathing and cruel insults, where he [[NeverMyFault pushes any blame onto someone else]]. It's not that he's faking a mask, it's more that he can be pretty cruel and hypocritical when he gets angry.

* BitchInSheepsClothing: a mild version in Stephen Collins. On the outside he is a NiceGuy, a calm, quiet man, deeply saddened and sorry for what has happened, contrite and ashamed of what he has done. However, when something happens to make him angry he turns into a self-righteous hypocrite, viciously attacking whoever is on hand with scathing and cruel insults, where he [[NeverMyFault pushes any blame onto someone else]].

* YourCheatingHeart: [[spoiler: Cal has an affair with Anne, Stephen's wife]].

** The most telling example of his character is when he finds out that [[spoiler:his wife started an affair after she separated from him when his own was revealed to the nation]]. What he says to both Anne and Cal show that he really thinks of both of them as pathetic, damaged, disgusting and inferior to him (remembering that he has been crying for sympathy from both of them from the very start), and then he comes home and bitches out his own son extensively, blaming both him and Anne for "looking at him sideways" and "driving him away", essentially making him commit the affair in the first place by neglecting him.

** [[spoiler: "Sonia meeting Paul Canning on a daily basis down at the Trocadero, telling him everything!"]] Cal doesn't realize the significance of this at first, but when he plays the tape back, [[spoiler: he realizes only the PsychoForHire knew this information, and the only way he'd know it is if Stephen hired him]].

** [[spoiler "She'd fallen in love with Collins. She'd gotten herself pregnant to him."]] This inspires the NoHoldsBarredBeatdown.

** [[spoiler "She'd (Sonia) fallen in love with Collins. She'd gotten herself pregnant to him."]] This inspires the NoHoldsBarredBeatdown.

2003 BritishConspiracyThriller MiniSeries starring David Morrissey as Stephen Collins, a rising star MP whose researcher dies on TheLondonUnderground, and John Simm as Cal [=McCaffrey=], an old friend of Collins' who managed his first election campaign and now works as the reporter investigating her death. What starts out as a tabloidy hatchet job quickly turns out to be the tip of a ''very'' big iceberg, and the reporters manage to uncover all sorts of unwholesome facts about the government.

* ThirtyGambitPileup: Oh dear God yes. Just ''try'' keeping track of Stephen.