Part 1 - The New Series
Nov. 16th, 2013 11:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellestraBefore the week of Doctor Who starts and Almost Human begins and takes over the fan part of my bain I want to talk about the stuff that has been here for a while.
I usually wait few episodes before I decide if I like new series. It's usually about 3 episodes that I decide if I want to keep watching
I really, really wanted to like Agents of SHIELD but it feels too much like a kids' show. And not in fun, Doctor Who, way but more like one of the Disney shows which might be both appropriate and unsurprising since it really is a Disney show but I expected something more. It never feels like there is really anything at stake. You know that no matter what happens everything will be OK and back to status quo and someone will learn an important lesson by the end of the episode. It's made even worse by the tired formula of concentrating on the new member who is an outsider and goes against the rules and is such a walking stereotype it hurts. Even her sob backstory is so tired there are few more shows who use exact the same plot (if I see another heroine in search of her bio-parents I'm going to scream ).
The antagonist are much more interesting than the protagonist. And you only care for agent Coulson because of the film. And he and Ming-Na's Melinda May are the interesting ones. Ward is pretty blank. You can say it's by definition of the character he plays but Melinda May manages to come off as stoic and badass and you want to know more about her with even less show of emotions. Ward you just don't care about. The Fitz-Simmons thing with them being fumbling scientist with no field experience, social skills and streotypes of nerds is made even worse by everyone treating them as infodump/tech repository thing that almost doesn't deserve a personality (see the combining of names). And as I mentioned before the superhacker new member is a walking stereotype.
The show also suffers from lack of defined arc - there's this thing with what really happened to Coulson when he died and the parents but they don't make you really feel invested in finding it out. The Centipede crime/terrorist/scientist organisation is more interesting and Ruth Negga's evil woman in flower dress was more interesting than the whole team but you lack a reason to care about what they are doing. If you could feel they are danger to world or at least heroes and maybe they gave us some reasons why they do it. Something is missing from making then an interesting opposition.
If only they didn't go about of the way to tell us that SHIELD is so great and wonderful and everything they do is right and they are the good guys who fight for the more wonderful world and if you disagree you must be evil (I'm so hoping that this will end up in reveal that SHIELD is really evil just to be done with the saccharine evn though that would be a cliche too). If only Rising Tide was actually fighting for something we care about and Skye had some goal better then her lost parents (even like the actual Annonymous). Or Centipede was really about helping people and setting them free from SHIELD imposed life long treatment like criminals for who they are (instead of teaching us how reporting to your assigned officer is for your own good). Maybe there would be some conflict I could actually care about.
There are some nice touches - like the agents from the movies and specials - Hill, Blake and Sitwell - and comics - Hand. The plots also got more interesting when they stopped focusing on Skye and the one with about Simmons two weeks ago (with her almost dying) and last one with Fitz going on a mission were finally making me care about the characters and even the plots. Still, I don't really care about the next episode coming. There is nothing there for me to wait for - except maybe the one tying to Thor 2 but you can build a show on the movie tie-ins.
Thanks to DVR I also keep up with the The Originals. I quit TVD because I ended up despising almost all of the characters there and I didn't have much hope for the spin-off but I have a soft spot for Elijah and Rebekah still so I decided to try it.
I'm one of those people who despises Klaus and want to see him die and now that I no longer care for TVD them dying with him would be a plus. I was afraid that The Originals would woobiefy him even more but it actually went the other way and I enjoy it much more this way. He is all the self-pitying, self-cetered whiny abusive asshole we all know and, at least in my case, hate. There is no Caroline for him to abuse and make thousands of fangirls swoon. Instead he's just awful to everyone. I'm still irritated by anyone even trying to care about him (Elijah for example) but that's an improvement.
I know Rebekah and Elijah have they share of the evils and I'm glad they were called on it but they don't have the same woe me so I will destroy you five year old temper tantrums. I can understand someone so old not caring for the lives of mortals. I don't care about the self-justifications Klaus makes that make him act like everyone deserves his abuse. Marcel is also starting to grow on me. I can't say I like him but he seems tolerable compared to Klaus and I would hope for his and Rebakah's plan to get rid of Klaus to work if there'd ever been any chance for it.
I'm not sure if I want Davina to live or die (the whole witches' bid for power thing) but I like her new friendships with Elijah and Josh the new vamp. I want Cammy to do something awful to Klaus and get away from Marcel (just like she knew she should before she was forced). It's not only wrong it's also creepy how both Klaus and Marcel fixate on women who look so much like Rebekah. I'm really starting to like Hayley now and her mama-wolf attitude. It took me some time - the whole lost birth parent thin strikes again - but I really like her now. I also like her interactions with Rebekah (H2O reunion ;P) and obviously Elijah. But what I like the most is that my loyalties are divided between different groups. Te show does a good job of showing both the awful things they do and the reasons behind it - like neither the vamps nor the witches are innocent in all of this but they have their reasons and goals and seeing them go at each other is more interesting than anything SHIELD has to offer.
I wanted to enjoy The Tomorrow People but it suffer from to many CW show problems.The insistence on using "teenager" (he so obviously isn't) hero and making him as bland as possible (look missing parent, constant pseudo-angst about choosing between things that are not really a viable choices - like genocide and living at home). He also is more special then all the other special people. There is a really forced creepy romance (he's supposed to be a teenager remember) and the most tired origin for female character (look rape attempt). There is also really ridiculous agency hunting the special people - it's not only randomly genocidal - who dies who gets "cured" is a random thing depending on the plot but also completely ineffective (how can they not know Stephen is double agent - and I don't mean suspect like Jed - know).
The sheer stupidity of everyone - like keep doing things they say they shouldn't and letting teenager decide what is right - or maybe complete lack of memory - like when they say Cara shows her power to people a moment after they say she shouldn't or Astrid being all upset about Stephen not telling her about a thing he told her weeks ago and she didn't believe in and so on. Also they forget their plans like half way through episode and then all goes to shit and basically Stephen ruins his cover but noone notices. And then in the last episode not only they killed off the black female character completely for nothing - they did it in a stupidest way (why didn't she teleport out of there). I also still don't understand why any of the specials are working for Ultra - it's not like they can live home like Stephen. Or why the TP don't neutralize the agents - they don't have to kill - they can do anything from taking their guns away to paralysing them (hey it's life and death situation). It's obviously the case of rules working how the plot dictates and hate that with a passion.
The only good part of Stephen story is his family. His uncle is played by Mark Pellegrino and he is the best thing on the show and one of really good and watchable scenes is a confrontation between him and the mother played by Sarah Clarke. I also wish Jeffrey Pierce was in the show more.
I can't stop the feeling that the show would be much better if we got rid of Stephen and his really lousy double agent stuff and father search he never really does. The episode that was a confrontation/cooperation/backstory between Jed and John was much better than all the others and their reason for conflict is much better - kill or not to kill and the consequences of those decisions. They also have much better pseudo-family dynamic and the backstory makes their current oppositon more relatably tragic (Jed saved Joh but John turned on Jed because Jed is really evil). Not to mention that John seems to be the most reasonable of all the TP - so we could have a conflict between them doing stupid things because they want to be normal and John being forced to protect them. It's still pretty stereotypical but also more interesting and coherent then what we have now.
Once Upon a Time in Wonderland - is also something I wanted to like. I have a fondness for the original with it's ridiculous over the top stories and characters and clothes. I like reimaginings of fairy tales and this is even more fun because they can go and play with Disney versions and noone else is allowed to do that. I hoped it would be fun to see more of the magic world with different characters who are not bogged down by all the meandering Storybroke family dynamic. However, the story turned out to be much less entertaining and only now it's slowly getting better (but it might be too late for the show).
It started well with Alice being pretty kickass and Knave being pretty funny but unfortunately the antagonists started way too one-dimensional and ridiculous and the greenscreen was pretty bad. Since then we got improvement in the baddies category - from the make up (both Jaffar and Red Queen looked atrocious in the beginning and now you can see they are actually pretty people but Anastasia looks are still so much better) to actual character development. Jaffar's back story was really interesting and I wish we could have more Zuleikah Robinson's evil witch because she was the best part of this show. And the love story of Will and Anastasia was much more interesting than Alice and Cyrus and I loved that she chose ambition over love all without ripping her heart out or giving in into darkness - just because it was better than being hungry and homeless in the woods and love isn't everything. I would never thought I would be rooting for Red Queen (and Knave because she still saved him - cheated Alice and saved him) when this show started.
Unfortunately Alice has become more and more reduced to running around and making cry faces with brief moments of action that are only semi-succesful. You never feel the same emotional attachment or relevance as with a lot of goals of the evil characters (seriously, I'd rather watch Jaffar change rules of magic). The constant repeating I must save Cyrus doesn't help either - especially since I don't think anyone cares about Cyrus. Most of all I don't understand why Jaffar doesn't just try to find another genie - one that is easier to capture and doesn't have a girlfriend hellbent on defending him. I'm sure there must be more then three of them. Even the Evil Queen got one. I hope that now that Cyrus escaped and Alice knows where to find him they will reunite and we'll be able to start caring about them.
Also, I'm predicting that the guy in the other cage is Jaffar's father.
Dracula is fun - the clothes, the over the top acting, weird high sequences. It's a little weird to see Katie McGrath with blond hair and Jonathan Rhys Meyers accent is often made fun off but I like almost everything about it - just because it doesn't hide how ridiculous it is but revels in it. Thomas Kretschmann and Nonso Anozie as new versions of van Helsing and Renfield are the best and improvements on the original characters. I also adore both lady Jane, the vampire hunter and Mina, the doctor. And there was Paul Muad'dib and madame Vastra in last episode (not to mention women mud wrestling).But I'm having a little problem to get invested into the plot since we know Tesla wireless energy never happened, oil took over the world and the books end with Dracula dying. We know how the story ends - they loose and the Order of the Dragon wins.
I usually wait few episodes before I decide if I like new series. It's usually about 3 episodes that I decide if I want to keep watching
I really, really wanted to like Agents of SHIELD but it feels too much like a kids' show. And not in fun, Doctor Who, way but more like one of the Disney shows which might be both appropriate and unsurprising since it really is a Disney show but I expected something more. It never feels like there is really anything at stake. You know that no matter what happens everything will be OK and back to status quo and someone will learn an important lesson by the end of the episode. It's made even worse by the tired formula of concentrating on the new member who is an outsider and goes against the rules and is such a walking stereotype it hurts. Even her sob backstory is so tired there are few more shows who use exact the same plot (
The antagonist are much more interesting than the protagonist. And you only care for agent Coulson because of the film. And he and Ming-Na's Melinda May are the interesting ones. Ward is pretty blank. You can say it's by definition of the character he plays but Melinda May manages to come off as stoic and badass and you want to know more about her with even less show of emotions. Ward you just don't care about. The Fitz-Simmons thing with them being fumbling scientist with no field experience, social skills and streotypes of nerds is made even worse by everyone treating them as infodump/tech repository thing that almost doesn't deserve a personality (see the combining of names). And as I mentioned before the superhacker new member is a walking stereotype.
If only they didn't go about of the way to tell us that SHIELD is so great and wonderful and everything they do is right and they are the good guys who fight for the more wonderful world and if you disagree you must be evil (I'm so hoping that this will end up in reveal that SHIELD is really evil just to be done with the saccharine evn though that would be a cliche too). If only Rising Tide was actually fighting for something we care about and Skye had some goal better then her lost parents (even like the actual Annonymous). Or Centipede was really about helping people and setting them free from SHIELD imposed life long treatment like criminals for who they are (instead of teaching us how reporting to your assigned officer is for your own good). Maybe there would be some conflict I could actually care about.
There are some nice touches - like the agents from the movies and specials - Hill, Blake and Sitwell - and comics - Hand. The plots also got more interesting when they stopped focusing on Skye and the one with about Simmons two weeks ago (with her almost dying) and last one with Fitz going on a mission were finally making me care about the characters and even the plots. Still, I don't really care about the next episode coming. There is nothing there for me to wait for - except maybe the one tying to Thor 2 but you can build a show on the movie tie-ins.
Thanks to DVR I also keep up with the The Originals. I quit TVD because I ended up despising almost all of the characters there and I didn't have much hope for the spin-off but I have a soft spot for Elijah and Rebekah still so I decided to try it.
I know Rebekah and Elijah have they share of the evils and I'm glad they were called on it but they don't have the same woe me so I will destroy you five year old temper tantrums. I can understand someone so old not caring for the lives of mortals. I don't care about the self-justifications Klaus makes that make him act like everyone deserves his abuse. Marcel is also starting to grow on me. I can't say I like him but he seems tolerable compared to Klaus and I would hope for his and Rebakah's plan to get rid of Klaus to work if there'd ever been any chance for it.
I'm not sure if I want Davina to live or die (the whole witches' bid for power thing) but I like her new friendships with Elijah and Josh the new vamp. I want Cammy to do something awful to Klaus and get away from Marcel (just like she knew she should before she was forced). It's not only wrong it's also creepy how both Klaus and Marcel fixate on women who look so much like Rebekah. I'm really starting to like Hayley now and her mama-wolf attitude. It took me some time - the whole lost birth parent thin strikes again - but I really like her now. I also like her interactions with Rebekah (H2O reunion ;P) and obviously Elijah. But what I like the most is that my loyalties are divided between different groups. Te show does a good job of showing both the awful things they do and the reasons behind it - like neither the vamps nor the witches are innocent in all of this but they have their reasons and goals and seeing them go at each other is more interesting than anything SHIELD has to offer.
I wanted to enjoy The Tomorrow People but it suffer from to many CW show problems.
The sheer stupidity of everyone - like keep doing things they say they shouldn't and letting teenager decide what is right - or maybe complete lack of memory - like when they say Cara shows her power to people a moment after they say she shouldn't or Astrid being all upset about Stephen not telling her about a thing he told her weeks ago and she didn't believe in and so on. Also they forget their plans like half way through episode and then all goes to shit and basically Stephen ruins his cover but noone notices. And then in the last episode not only they killed off the black female character completely for nothing - they did it in a stupidest way (why didn't she teleport out of there). I also still don't understand why any of the specials are working for Ultra - it's not like they can live home like Stephen. Or why the TP don't neutralize the agents - they don't have to kill - they can do anything from taking their guns away to paralysing them (hey it's life and death situation). It's obviously the case of rules working how the plot dictates and hate that with a passion.
The only good part of Stephen story is his family. His uncle is played by Mark Pellegrino and he is the best thing on the show and one of really good and watchable scenes is a confrontation between him and the mother played by Sarah Clarke. I also wish Jeffrey Pierce was in the show more.
I can't stop the feeling that the show would be much better if we got rid of Stephen and his really lousy double agent stuff and father search he never really does. The episode that was a confrontation/cooperation/backstory between Jed and John was much better than all the others and their reason for conflict is much better - kill or not to kill and the consequences of those decisions. They also have much better pseudo-family dynamic and the backstory makes their current oppositon more relatably tragic (Jed saved Joh but John turned on Jed because Jed is really evil). Not to mention that John seems to be the most reasonable of all the TP - so we could have a conflict between them doing stupid things because they want to be normal and John being forced to protect them. It's still pretty stereotypical but also more interesting and coherent then what we have now.
Once Upon a Time in Wonderland - is also something I wanted to like. I have a fondness for the original with it's ridiculous over the top stories and characters and clothes. I like reimaginings of fairy tales and this is even more fun because they can go and play with Disney versions and noone else is allowed to do that. I hoped it would be fun to see more of the magic world with different characters who are not bogged down by all the meandering Storybroke family dynamic. However, the story turned out to be much less entertaining and only now it's slowly getting better (but it might be too late for the show).
Unfortunately Alice has become more and more reduced to running around and making cry faces with brief moments of action that are only semi-succesful. You never feel the same emotional attachment or relevance as with a lot of goals of the evil characters (seriously, I'd rather watch Jaffar change rules of magic). The constant repeating I must save Cyrus doesn't help either - especially since I don't think anyone cares about Cyrus. Most of all I don't understand why Jaffar doesn't just try to find another genie - one that is easier to capture and doesn't have a girlfriend hellbent on defending him. I'm sure there must be more then three of them. Even the Evil Queen got one. I hope that now that Cyrus escaped and Alice knows where to find him they will reunite and we'll be able to start caring about them.
Also, I'm predicting that the guy in the other cage is Jaffar's father.
Dracula is fun - the clothes, the over the top acting, weird high sequences. It's a little weird to see Katie McGrath with blond hair and Jonathan Rhys Meyers accent is often made fun off but I like almost everything about it - just because it doesn't hide how ridiculous it is but revels in it. Thomas Kretschmann and Nonso Anozie as new versions of van Helsing and Renfield are the best and improvements on the original characters. I also adore both lady Jane, the vampire hunter and Mina, the doctor. And there was Paul Muad'dib and madame Vastra in last episode (not to mention women mud wrestling).
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-11-17 01:02 pm (UTC)Dracula annoys me a lot - the porn, the JRM, the boredom. I wish it could be more fun, but the seriousness ruins it for me.
Agents of shield - pretty much. Boring, boring, by the numbers of kids' show, yes.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-18 02:01 am (UTC)To me Dracula is being completely over the top stories with a steampunk undercurrent and that is fun. But the fact that I don't mind JRM probably helps.
AoS is so disappointing. Especially, since I know they could do fun stuff with this universe (not deep but fun) but instead they tell the dullest stories possible.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-17 03:09 pm (UTC)And I'm as surprised as you are that I like TO. I am 100% on board with you in regards to Klaus. And I agree that the new setting makes him tolerable. And Hayley is quickly becoming my favorite character on that show.
I guess I should give Almost Human a look. I'm leery of genre shows that try to package themselves as procedural cop shows in an attempt to gain a wider audience. Those often fail at both.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-18 02:16 am (UTC)I know everyone loves Sleepy Hollow but I have hard time to care - to the point I forgot about it when writing this. I like the characters - especially the two main heroes but I couldn't care less for the stories. It might be that I don't really care for horror. Or maybe the whole evil British demon forces and good Revolutionaries stopping world from ending with Nick Cage movie level ridiculousness that just kicks me out of the suspension of disbelief (although I enjoyed when they admitted to certain problems with slavery and adultery). I just watch for Abbie and her sidekick.
Almost Human - I'm switching between hope for good SF and being sure it's just going to be cringe worthy. I'll see tomorrow - I DVRed the first episode to watch two first episodes together tomorrow.