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Nov. 2nd, 2014 10:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatDear crazy network marketing folks, please stop it already with the hyperbole ads for "How to Get Away With Murder". I'm sorry but there' s nothing about the series How to Get Away with Murder that is the least bit jaw dropping, shocking, or surprising. Well, not unless you've never seen a trashy soap opera or watched a Sydney Sheldon or Judith Krantz mini-series. It's rather disappointing to tune in and discover - well, nothing shocking happened. If I hadn't been told in a million commercials - I might actually have been surprised or shocked. But telling me ahead of time - sort of results in disappointment.
I've just binge watched the 6-7 episodes of "Murder" and...while compelling here and there, it's sort of predictable. With one exception, I've seen the plot twists coming a mile away. And it's hard to care that much about any of the characters - the writers haven't bothered to develop them beyond being pawns of hair-pin plot twists. And as stated above, if you are at all familiar with Scandal or the trope, you can sort of see the plot twists coming. Once the writer sets the pattern - it's not hard to predict what will happen next - just come up with the most outlandish idea and there you go. Does have some interesting things to say about gender, sexual orientation, and race - as well, all of Shondra Rhimes series do, but other than that...
It's trying to blend trashy soap opera/murder mystery with a legal procedural. Legal procedurals rarely work for me - mainly because after a certain point I feel like I'm watching Perry Mason, and it bares no resemblance whatsoever to reality. Annalease, the protagonist, would be thrown out of the court-room by now for contempt. The Good Wife is the only legal drama that I've seen that is half-way realistic.
"Murder" reminds me a little of Damages, except Damages was better written, etc.
Yet another over-hyped series, proving that it is best to take social media and magazine reviews with a hefty grain of salt. I miss professional film and television critic reviews...I don't really see that depth of media criticism any longer - instead I see a lot of marketing hype. And they say evil marketing people don't rule the world?
On a brighter note? Saw Once Upon a Time tonight which continues to surprise me. I really didn't see the latest plot twist coming and it works. They built up to it rather well.
Apparently Anna's mother is Gerda. In this version the Snow Queen was Gerda's eldest sister. Somehow her older sisters, Ingrid and Helga disappeared. The rock trolls erased everyone's memories of them - due to the tragedy. But I think they was more to the story - since Ingrid was imprisoned in an urn and is convinced she was imprisoned because she was the odd one out and not wanted, that her family rejected her. And now wants desperately to rebuild that family. Replacing Helga with Emma, who apparently is Hegla's Doppleganger and like Elsa and the Queen, has powers. Anna didn't have powers - so the Queen couldn't keep Anna, also Anna had rejected the Queen - from the Queen's perspective.
The mirror is similar to the one in the original fairy tale - it's the "shattered mirror" which results in people turning on each other and themselves. It creates dissent.
Rumple has the Fantasia Hat which strips people of their magic - and imprisons them within the hat. Which is a bigger threat to Emma, Elsa, and Regina...than the mirror, in my opinion. Although not so sure Rumple will go there - with Henry looking on.
Henry might to save Emma from the Snow Queen.
Speaking of Henry - that kid is getting really tall. He's almost Emma's height.
I'm thinking Emma may end up being Kai in this tale, and Henry or Regina may find themselves in the role of Gerda - saving Emma from the Snow Queen? Although I'm more worried about the town than Emma, since the Queen wants Emma, who bears an eery resemblance to both the Queen and Elsa - making me wonder if David and Snow White had any distant relatives that they aren't telling us about? Can this town get any more incestuous? (Loved Hook's line regarding that - "Live here long enough and you'll discover everyone is related in some way." Regina was the other one with a good line, "I already have to put up with you and Captain Eyeliner making eyes at each other.")
Poor Belle is in for a crushing disappointment regarding Rumple - who got a wee bit hoisted on his own petard regarding the dagger. He had to pretend it was the real one.
Which the Snow Queen used to her advantage. However, Rumple is not someone, as Hook recently discovered, that you can blackmail or outsmart. He'll always find a way to outmaneuver you - unless of course he manages to outmaneuver himself - which is what happened with Belle.
And she wants to be a hero. Is it bad that I agreed with Mirror Belle? Actually was sort of cheering mirror Belle on. Shame Rumple stopped that. Belle is a pathetic, manipulable, weakling, who puts herself and her own wants above others. She did choose the rock over Anna, and she does tend to enable Rumple.
Oh as an aside, a friend related a story about a six year child that she is teaching, who is watching The Walking Dead - most likely with his 14 year old sister.
People? There are parental blocks on your cable boxes for a reason - utilize them. This is not rocket science. The Walking Dead is not a television series that anyone under the age of 18 should be watching - hence the 10 pm time slot, and "this program is for Mature Audiences Only, Parental Supervision is Strongly Advised, not intended for young audiences". The fact that people need to be told this...is mind-boggling, the fact that they ignore it...
Although it is possible he was watching it at a friend's house. My mother told me that she'd found it impossible to monitor half the things we saw - often at friend's houses, on the sly (true - I snuck in to see a PG-13 movie with a friend when I was 8 years old - it was "Fun with Dick and Jane" (the first version - hello, 1970s, Jim Carry and Tea Lonie were 8 years old back then). Ironically? 10 years later, I could probably have watched it on tv at 3pm. But hey, at the time, it was risque, and I got grounded. My brother meanwhile snuck in to see Porky's - at the age of 14. Of course this was after our parents accidentally took us to see Excalibar. So never mind.
I've just binge watched the 6-7 episodes of "Murder" and...while compelling here and there, it's sort of predictable. With one exception, I've seen the plot twists coming a mile away. And it's hard to care that much about any of the characters - the writers haven't bothered to develop them beyond being pawns of hair-pin plot twists. And as stated above, if you are at all familiar with Scandal or the trope, you can sort of see the plot twists coming. Once the writer sets the pattern - it's not hard to predict what will happen next - just come up with the most outlandish idea and there you go. Does have some interesting things to say about gender, sexual orientation, and race - as well, all of Shondra Rhimes series do, but other than that...
It's trying to blend trashy soap opera/murder mystery with a legal procedural. Legal procedurals rarely work for me - mainly because after a certain point I feel like I'm watching Perry Mason, and it bares no resemblance whatsoever to reality. Annalease, the protagonist, would be thrown out of the court-room by now for contempt. The Good Wife is the only legal drama that I've seen that is half-way realistic.
"Murder" reminds me a little of Damages, except Damages was better written, etc.
Yet another over-hyped series, proving that it is best to take social media and magazine reviews with a hefty grain of salt. I miss professional film and television critic reviews...I don't really see that depth of media criticism any longer - instead I see a lot of marketing hype. And they say evil marketing people don't rule the world?
On a brighter note? Saw Once Upon a Time tonight which continues to surprise me. I really didn't see the latest plot twist coming and it works. They built up to it rather well.
Apparently Anna's mother is Gerda. In this version the Snow Queen was Gerda's eldest sister. Somehow her older sisters, Ingrid and Helga disappeared. The rock trolls erased everyone's memories of them - due to the tragedy. But I think they was more to the story - since Ingrid was imprisoned in an urn and is convinced she was imprisoned because she was the odd one out and not wanted, that her family rejected her. And now wants desperately to rebuild that family. Replacing Helga with Emma, who apparently is Hegla's Doppleganger and like Elsa and the Queen, has powers. Anna didn't have powers - so the Queen couldn't keep Anna, also Anna had rejected the Queen - from the Queen's perspective.
The mirror is similar to the one in the original fairy tale - it's the "shattered mirror" which results in people turning on each other and themselves. It creates dissent.
Rumple has the Fantasia Hat which strips people of their magic - and imprisons them within the hat. Which is a bigger threat to Emma, Elsa, and Regina...than the mirror, in my opinion. Although not so sure Rumple will go there - with Henry looking on.
Henry might to save Emma from the Snow Queen.
Speaking of Henry - that kid is getting really tall. He's almost Emma's height.
I'm thinking Emma may end up being Kai in this tale, and Henry or Regina may find themselves in the role of Gerda - saving Emma from the Snow Queen? Although I'm more worried about the town than Emma, since the Queen wants Emma, who bears an eery resemblance to both the Queen and Elsa - making me wonder if David and Snow White had any distant relatives that they aren't telling us about? Can this town get any more incestuous? (Loved Hook's line regarding that - "Live here long enough and you'll discover everyone is related in some way." Regina was the other one with a good line, "I already have to put up with you and Captain Eyeliner making eyes at each other.")
Poor Belle is in for a crushing disappointment regarding Rumple - who got a wee bit hoisted on his own petard regarding the dagger. He had to pretend it was the real one.
Which the Snow Queen used to her advantage. However, Rumple is not someone, as Hook recently discovered, that you can blackmail or outsmart. He'll always find a way to outmaneuver you - unless of course he manages to outmaneuver himself - which is what happened with Belle.
And she wants to be a hero. Is it bad that I agreed with Mirror Belle? Actually was sort of cheering mirror Belle on. Shame Rumple stopped that. Belle is a pathetic, manipulable, weakling, who puts herself and her own wants above others. She did choose the rock over Anna, and she does tend to enable Rumple.
Oh as an aside, a friend related a story about a six year child that she is teaching, who is watching The Walking Dead - most likely with his 14 year old sister.
People? There are parental blocks on your cable boxes for a reason - utilize them. This is not rocket science. The Walking Dead is not a television series that anyone under the age of 18 should be watching - hence the 10 pm time slot, and "this program is for Mature Audiences Only, Parental Supervision is Strongly Advised, not intended for young audiences". The fact that people need to be told this...is mind-boggling, the fact that they ignore it...
Although it is possible he was watching it at a friend's house. My mother told me that she'd found it impossible to monitor half the things we saw - often at friend's houses, on the sly (true - I snuck in to see a PG-13 movie with a friend when I was 8 years old - it was "Fun with Dick and Jane" (the first version - hello, 1970s, Jim Carry and Tea Lonie were 8 years old back then). Ironically? 10 years later, I could probably have watched it on tv at 3pm. But hey, at the time, it was risque, and I got grounded. My brother meanwhile snuck in to see Porky's - at the age of 14. Of course this was after our parents accidentally took us to see Excalibar. So never mind.
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no subject
Date: 2014-11-03 12:28 pm (UTC)Last night's episode was better than I thought it would be given, the character.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-03 03:19 pm (UTC)That's the problem with dropping comments in without context. ;-) Sorry about that.
We were talking about how Halloween is about death or handling death and grief. And how, too often in our society, our method of handling death is to desentitize ourselves to it or not feel it. And in many of her counseling sessions with children who have ADD or heightened anxiety, which ADD often is a result of, she has managed to get the child to confront the emotion at the root. She discussed how she has been doing grief counseling with young children who have lost family members or fear losing them - and they'll cry for a solid half-hour, when they haven't for weeks. One five year old - told her, that he could handle "death", look how "brave" he was, and it was not a problem and he didn't have to grieve - he watched the Walking Dead.
We went on to discuss that the difficulty with television series like The Walking Dead and why young children should not be watching them is that over time they become desentized to the violence and the death. It's why, we end up with a kid coming to school one day and shooting everyone in his class - because death has become a video game - it's not real. OR they'll hit another kid. They've internalized so much of it.
The fact that they aren't freaking out to it - is frightening. Or perhaps they are - but in another less healthy manner?
no subject
Date: 2014-11-03 03:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-11-04 01:40 am (UTC)And Walking Dead - is too damn scary, also too damn violent. It borders on torture porn. (I gave up after the third Season, it went too far for me to handle.)
no subject
Date: 2014-11-03 03:27 pm (UTC)It's weird how they over-advertise very successful shows as much as the real dogs of the season. The shows that are doing okey-odey don't seem to get the same treatment, although those do often get the phony "smash hit of the new season" ads. Otherwise when they go overboard on a show which I don't watch, I not sure whether it's a week from cancellation or renewal.
About 15 or 20 minutes of one HtGAwM episode was plenty for me. It's kind of the same old pill in a slightly different flavor sugar coating. It's not necessarily bad, just not my cup of tea.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-04 01:50 am (UTC)Looking at the Neilsen Ratings posted in EW, the successes of the season appear to be by the book procedurals: NCIS Orleans, Mysteries of Laura, and Scorpion. Which is hardly surprising.
So, I can't help but wonder if there's an air of desperation behind some of the hyperbole?
I know various television critics adore HTGAWM - but I find it difficult to follow and somewhat predictable. Compelling in a few places...but...not enough to warrant the hype. I honestly don't know what they see in it.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-04 07:44 am (UTC)I watched it until this week, when Elementary started its new season. (Not even a contest, sorry).
Murder isn't bad, but I don't find it very compelling either, and I doubt I'll follow it anymore. I'm not sure what the writers are up to with the lead character-- is she supposed to be bipolar, or a dual personality? She's either tough as nails one moment, or all whiny / poor-poor-me the next. It's disturbing, and not in an interesting way. I don't blame the actress, I really don't think they understand their own character. I'd give the show a 5 out of 10 on my personal rating scale.
Best new show of the season so far is easily Gotham. I am totally, hooked on it, look forward to it eagerly every week. Every show so far is an 8 or 9 out of 10. The one last week was a 9.5.
Worst new show of the ones I've seen is Constantine. Ugh! I could barely sit through the entire pilot, gave it a 2 out of 10. The second ep was marginally better, but still maybe only a 2.5 or 3. Definitely not going to follow this one. NBC should have renewed Blackbeard instead for this time slot.
Grimm is going along nicely so far, another must-see show for me.
Sleepy Hollow has slipped a little, but is still entertaining me. 6 or 7 out of 10.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-04 02:53 pm (UTC)Worst series? Scorpion. But it's weirdly popular.
Thisclose to giving up on the highly touted Flash. I'm guessing that my favorite character tropes aren't the same as everyone else's? Campy superhero shows don't do a lot for me. And.. while I like the tortured and reluctant hero, who is struggling to do the right thing (Connstantine, Spike, Angel, Batman, Arrow) - I find the geeky boyish somewhat wet-behind-the-ears hero (Grimm, The Flash, Scorpion) grating. (Which may explain why Grimm, The Flash, and Scorpion don't work for me? And Fitz on Marvel Agents of Shield grates on my nerves. And Toby McGuire's Spiderman never worked for me, much prefer the darker version in the comics.) Gotham - I adore the trope - noir, with complex characters who struggle to do the right thing. Life isn't easy for them.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-05 01:38 am (UTC)Agreed.
I think they are going for the tough on the outside, marshmellow on the inside trope or at work, she has it all together, but her home life is a mess.
It's a common pattern with Rhimes series - Grey's and Scandal are similar, the tough career woman screws up at home - she can't keep all the balls in the air. It works in Greys, and to a degree in Scandal, but Murder feels uneven and jarring.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-03 03:43 pm (UTC)I also laughed that the "Evil mirror" was only telling Belle the damned TRUTH. (And I noticed that when Rumple looked in... there was only Rumple.)
no subject
Date: 2014-11-04 01:58 am (UTC)I also laughed that the "Evil mirror" was only telling Belle the damned TRUTH. (And I noticed that when Rumple looked in... there was only Rumple.)
Had the same reaction. [Wonder if that was intentional on the part of the writers? And meant to be ironic - possible and rather clever if so. But.. I'm trying to figure out if they are intentionally writing Belle in this manner? And why are they making someone who loves books - a complete doofus? (Weird - don't the writers like books?) And if so, is there hope that she might change her tune this season? Also they are still dressing and styling her horridly, that outfit and hairstyle was not attractive on her.]
And yep, Rumple apparently just sees his own reflection..nothing fancy. Not sure what that means - that mirror doesn't have power over him, or he's already shattered.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-04 07:59 am (UTC)Perhaps they're commenting on people who live in books to the extent that they can no longer distinguish literary reality from literal reality, or who read extensively but regularly misinterpret / misunderstand what they read.
I've always felt that an ongoing writerly mission of OUaT is to disassemble the concept of the "happy ending", show it doesn't exist outside of fantasy. For example, name one character in this series so far who has gotten one. There are many works in progress, yes, but...
no subject
Date: 2014-11-04 04:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-11-05 01:34 am (UTC)So yeah, it deconstructs itself. There is no such thing as happy endings..but stories can be comforting when they provide them, although weirdly they don't - since most stories tend to end in the middle, with the characters starting a new life together, but still in their prime..