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Jul. 11th, 2015 12:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. So, Roger Rees died. As did Omar Sharif this week. I'm more saddened by Roger Rees, he was younger and I adored him.
2. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is not really holding my attention, which makes sense the book didn't either. It's very "male" without really any women in it. And the two that are - look alike. Although, I'm not sure that's the problem...it may be a mood thing or television in general this summer?
3. The soap opera that I've been watching for the last 15-20 years, mainly as something to discuss over the phone with my mother besides health, family, books and what we are doing at this particular moment in our lives (lately from my mother's end of the conversation this has been my father's rapidly deteriorating digestive health, which has me worried and frustrated because I can't do a dang thing about it and it may result in a cancellation of their August trip, and because my mother has no filter and likes to go into gory details) ...has jumped the proverbial shark. (Okay I know that's an oxymoron, soap operas by design jump the shark on an annual basis. But this time I think they may have gone a step too far.) What did they do? Oh, they brought a five year old kid that had been killed in a hit and run by a major character, back to life. Apparently, after the kid donated his kidneys saving another character's life, he was hijacked from the hospital and raised on an island off the coast of Greece by the villains, just to torture the major character. The kid is now 10 and has no memory of his family, (wondering if he still has his kidneys?), and is just a tad creepy (possibly the actor not the character...not the most attractive or appealing kid on the planet).[Apparently they brought the kid back to life - so that they could send off the major character looking like an iconic hero...ignoring for a moment that he raped his one true love back in the day. Shame they couldn't ret-con that, not that they haven't tried.]
This story arc may spell the end of the soap opera for my mother and I. Apparently we're not alone...the ratings have dived and the writers are struggling to save it.
Sigh, how you know you are watching a soap opera?
* They bring people back from the dead willy-nilly, with insane explanations. (death really has no meaning in soap operas. The only people who aren't brought back from the dead are beloved characters who are strongly identified with a specific actor who has either died off-screen or has no interest ever showing up on the soap again, in which case they might as well have, or the writers couldn't figure out what to do with the character.)
* Kids pop out of nowhere. Someone suddenly has a sister, brother, child, etc...that did not exist previously.
* People can travel from place to place depending on the plot requirements either at the blink of an eye or at a snail's pace.
* People jump into bed with one another depending on the plot requirements, and often at the blink of an eye.
* People talk about their deep dark secrets in hallways or doorways, so anyone can overhear them.
* Villains don't die. (You can shoot them, poison them, drown them, freeze them, throw them off cliffs, but unless you chop off their head, burn the body and ensure no clones were made...)
* None of the romantic relationships are permanent, unless they are over the age of 60 and/or barely in the tv show
* If the character has more than one child - it's probably by separate parents.
* Characters go from good to evil and back again...often. Morality tends to be a sliding scale on soap operas.
* There's really nothing a character can do on a soap opera that makes them irredeemable or can't be retconned so that they can be redeemable.
*Rape is often used as plot twist or plot point
The problem with long-running serials is eventually you end up with writers writing their own personal fantasy fanfic about the characters and ignoring anything that gets in the way of their fantasy fanfic. Also the turn-over in writers is high - so as a result continuity tends to get lost in the shuffle. There's a reason people make fun of serials.
On the other hand - no one handles topical issues or emotional character arcs better than soap operas and long-running serials. But if you care too much about plot or logical plot progression - the soap opera will drive you batty. Just as if you care too much about character progression or emotional character arcs, the episodic procedural will drive you batty. Because characters don't change, grow or progress in episodic procedurals, even though the actors do.
American Television, unfortunately, is populated by both extremes. Which may explain my current boredom with the medium?
4. I'm tempted to rewatch Farscape or possibly Firefly -- except Farscape was more satisfying. (ie. I liked the actors playing the leads better. Ben Browder is sexier than Nathan Fillon and in my opinion a better actor. Clearly, I'm in a minority on this point.) Considered Buffy, but Farscape was more satisfying, the ending of Buffy disappointed me. Every time I re-watch it - I get annoyed with the writers...oh such great potential and so many things and ways you could go...and you did THAT? Really?
ARRRGH! It's like most television series, you want to re-watch about 50% of it, and ignore the other half completely. Farscape is more or less the same - 65% of it is great, the rest...not so much. I just happen to like the ending of Farscape better, not that it necessarily ended happily. I just felt it wrapped up all its emotional loose ends, while the writers of Buffy were more interested in the special effects and forgot they had to wrap up various emotional loose ends.
2. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is not really holding my attention, which makes sense the book didn't either. It's very "male" without really any women in it. And the two that are - look alike. Although, I'm not sure that's the problem...it may be a mood thing or television in general this summer?
3. The soap opera that I've been watching for the last 15-20 years, mainly as something to discuss over the phone with my mother besides health, family, books and what we are doing at this particular moment in our lives (lately from my mother's end of the conversation this has been my father's rapidly deteriorating digestive health, which has me worried and frustrated because I can't do a dang thing about it and it may result in a cancellation of their August trip, and because my mother has no filter and likes to go into gory details) ...has jumped the proverbial shark. (Okay I know that's an oxymoron, soap operas by design jump the shark on an annual basis. But this time I think they may have gone a step too far.) What did they do? Oh, they brought a five year old kid that had been killed in a hit and run by a major character, back to life. Apparently, after the kid donated his kidneys saving another character's life, he was hijacked from the hospital and raised on an island off the coast of Greece by the villains, just to torture the major character. The kid is now 10 and has no memory of his family, (wondering if he still has his kidneys?), and is just a tad creepy (possibly the actor not the character...not the most attractive or appealing kid on the planet).[Apparently they brought the kid back to life - so that they could send off the major character looking like an iconic hero...ignoring for a moment that he raped his one true love back in the day. Shame they couldn't ret-con that, not that they haven't tried.]
This story arc may spell the end of the soap opera for my mother and I. Apparently we're not alone...the ratings have dived and the writers are struggling to save it.
Sigh, how you know you are watching a soap opera?
* They bring people back from the dead willy-nilly, with insane explanations. (death really has no meaning in soap operas. The only people who aren't brought back from the dead are beloved characters who are strongly identified with a specific actor who has either died off-screen or has no interest ever showing up on the soap again, in which case they might as well have, or the writers couldn't figure out what to do with the character.)
* Kids pop out of nowhere. Someone suddenly has a sister, brother, child, etc...that did not exist previously.
* People can travel from place to place depending on the plot requirements either at the blink of an eye or at a snail's pace.
* People jump into bed with one another depending on the plot requirements, and often at the blink of an eye.
* People talk about their deep dark secrets in hallways or doorways, so anyone can overhear them.
* Villains don't die. (You can shoot them, poison them, drown them, freeze them, throw them off cliffs, but unless you chop off their head, burn the body and ensure no clones were made...)
* None of the romantic relationships are permanent, unless they are over the age of 60 and/or barely in the tv show
* If the character has more than one child - it's probably by separate parents.
* Characters go from good to evil and back again...often. Morality tends to be a sliding scale on soap operas.
* There's really nothing a character can do on a soap opera that makes them irredeemable or can't be retconned so that they can be redeemable.
*Rape is often used as plot twist or plot point
The problem with long-running serials is eventually you end up with writers writing their own personal fantasy fanfic about the characters and ignoring anything that gets in the way of their fantasy fanfic. Also the turn-over in writers is high - so as a result continuity tends to get lost in the shuffle. There's a reason people make fun of serials.
On the other hand - no one handles topical issues or emotional character arcs better than soap operas and long-running serials. But if you care too much about plot or logical plot progression - the soap opera will drive you batty. Just as if you care too much about character progression or emotional character arcs, the episodic procedural will drive you batty. Because characters don't change, grow or progress in episodic procedurals, even though the actors do.
American Television, unfortunately, is populated by both extremes. Which may explain my current boredom with the medium?
4. I'm tempted to rewatch Farscape or possibly Firefly -- except Farscape was more satisfying. (ie. I liked the actors playing the leads better. Ben Browder is sexier than Nathan Fillon and in my opinion a better actor. Clearly, I'm in a minority on this point.) Considered Buffy, but Farscape was more satisfying, the ending of Buffy disappointed me. Every time I re-watch it - I get annoyed with the writers...oh such great potential and so many things and ways you could go...and you did THAT? Really?
ARRRGH! It's like most television series, you want to re-watch about 50% of it, and ignore the other half completely. Farscape is more or less the same - 65% of it is great, the rest...not so much. I just happen to like the ending of Farscape better, not that it necessarily ended happily. I just felt it wrapped up all its emotional loose ends, while the writers of Buffy were more interested in the special effects and forgot they had to wrap up various emotional loose ends.
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no subject
Date: 2015-07-11 10:27 pm (UTC)Allow me to be another person who prefers Farscape to Firefly - it's funnier, more inventive, and has a much less creepy and hypocritical attitude to its female characters and their sexualities.
no subject
Date: 2015-07-11 10:47 pm (UTC)True. Unfortunately. When I realized Whedon was a Marvel Comics fan and a General Hospital Soap Opera fan...I thought, okay, that actually explains a lot.
I am too. But...
It's very frustrating. You get involved with the characters and story arc, and all of the sudden the writer decides to go off the rails, without warning. I keep wanting to smack them upside the head.
Allow me to be another person who prefers Farscape to Firefly - it's funnier, more inventive, and has a much less creepy and hypocritical attitude to its female characters and their sexualities.
As much as I'd like to think that we're not being fair to Firefly, and it would have gotten better with time....I've seen enough of Marvel Agents of Shield, Dollhouse, and read the plot breakdowns of upcoming episodes of Firefly that weren't filmed, to know that it probably would have gotten worse in that regard.
One of my issues with Firefly was Whedon was using The Killer Angels (a book about the Confederacy's point of view during the Civil War, specifically the battle of Gettysburg) as a template. He'd apparently gotten obsessed with the economic aspects of the war (which I understand, because I'd written an essay when I was 18 about how the Civil War was basically about economics), and the power imbalance between the industrialized North and non-industrial South, seeing a corollary between a technology driven Union and a non-technology driven one. Not a bad idea, nor a new one, also a great way to combine Western and Sci-Fi genre tropes. Unfortunately, also within that template were things like slavery, human bondage, sexism, and racism. And while the Civil War was about economics, it was also mainly about slavery and racism. Or the use of humans as commercial property, to trade, to use as free labor, etc. The War was at its core a fight over whether you can do that. Basing Firefly on a book and trope that had that argument at its core - is more than a bit dicey. As a result, I found Firefly fun to watch, as long as I turned off my brain and did not try to analyze it.
Then I saw Dollhouse...and went, okay, Whedon apparently is interested in exploring human trafficking from the perspective of the human traffickers and the slaves, but in a weirdly exploitative, erotic and comic-bookish manner...WTF?
And people wonder why these shows were cancelled?
no subject
Date: 2015-07-14 12:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-07-17 02:44 am (UTC)I don't think I ever saw it.
Sometimes I miss Bab 5 - that was a good show, uneven in places, but better than the current crop of sci-fi series.
no subject
Date: 2015-07-17 01:19 pm (UTC)