Day #14 of the 30 Days of Television Challenge

[shadowkat]

This is Day #14 of the 30 Days of Halloween Challenge.

The prompt is:

Television Series you thought you wouldn't like and ended up loving

My choice:

Breaking Bad

I had to be talked into it. I tried it - didn't like it. Various people online loved it. Then I had a co-worker, frustrated screenwriter/current co-manager, who talked me into it. He intrigued me, and explained the third season is the best.

So...I gave it a second chance and got pulled in.

This happens more often than not with shows. Often I'll think, meh, and then somewhere around the second or third season - I get sucked in.

Comments

[cjlasky7]

I don't like reality show competitions, especially on the major networks. My wife LOVES that stuff--Big Brother, Survivor--so while she's watching, I have to either do errands around the house or peek in and pretend to care.

But The Amazing Race is different. Oh, it's still packed with the same reality show losers from those other programs (sometimes the exact same ones), but you can look past them and see Mumbai or Edinburgh or Sao Paolo. You can also laugh along with the natives as they watch the Americans embarrass themselves in silly contests.

I still don't like reality show contests; but in this case, I made an exception.

[atpo_onm]

Heh... I recall that I started watching this show on your recommendation some years back-- hadn't tuned it in before.

Why does it work? You called it! And inevitably I always start rooting for someone / some couple after about half the episodes settle in.

[atpo_onm]

As I've mentioned before, I'm not a great fan of Westerns. There are exceptions, of course, but generally it seems like a tediously overworked genre to me, not to mention how many Westerns that I saw when I was younger that happily portrayed the slaughter of Native Americans. There's also the whole gunslinger bit, which I tend to think had helped make so many contemporary Americans gun fetishists.

Much of the same feelings go for what I'd class as "Southerns". Replace the Native Americans with darker-skinned folks, throw in some good ol' down-homey country backwoods typecasts, and... no thank you.

So Justified did not strike up much interest when it first came along, but many, many people whose opinion I respect spoke highly of it, so I gave it a chance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm9CMKWUTXI

Well sir... mighty fine, mighty fine, ya'all!

[shadowkat]

Justified is kind of within the Modern Western trope. The Modern Westerns are more diverse and a tad darker than the Westerns you grew up with. I know a lot about Westerns. Kind of an expert. Took a class on it, and everything. Actually Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Star Wars are both templated off of the Western trope and structure.

Elmore Leonard is behind Justified, his son was on the writing team, and he executive produced and consulted on it. You may know Leonard - from such works as Get Shorty. He's a mystery/detective novel writer - who was the king of dialogue. Also wrote books as if they were screenplays - minimal description, emphasis on dialogue. Want to learn how to write good dialogue? Read Leonard. Good characterization? Again, read Leonard. There's a few writers who wrote similar.

Leonard also was very good at defying cliches and stereotypes, and writing well-rounded characters.

Justified is based on and adapted from a series of stories and books by Leonard. So good source material.

There are quite a few excellent Westerns out there that comment on the trope and explore it in a meaningful way.

BTW - your complaint about Western genre, can pretty much be applied to all genres at a certain point. Actually it can be applied to all media and art. Why? Because art is an expression of those creating at the time. And often in the case of television and film - those in power at the time. Being female I most likely notice more - mainly because the misogyny is obvious to me across all the genres.

So, it depends on which ones you see or discover.

Red River - isn't about Indians really at all. It's about a conflict between two men, John Wayne is actually the villain in the tale.
The Searchers - again Wayne is weirdly the villain, it's a fascinating twist of a story, in the end, it's unclear who the true monster is - both however are human ones.
The Wild Bunch - a dark Western about the collapse of an outlaw band - chased into Mexico.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Once Upon a Time in the West - Henry Fonda Plays the Villain
My Name is Nobody - about the contest between an up-and-coming sharp shooter and an aging gunfighter
High Noon - conviction vs. morality in an old town
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly - the height of the spaghetti western, no one is good in this one.
The Unforgiven - which comments on the negative tropes of the Western mythos
Big Country - a fight over water rights
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
My Darling Clementine - the first about the famous shootout at the OK Carrol in Dodge City
The Cowboys - about a bunch of boys moving cattle across the country.

Oh, there's so many good ones out there. I'm sorry you've only seen the bad ones.

(frozen)

[atpo_onm]

Of the ones you listed, I've seen and liked / appreciated Unforgiven and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. About half of the rest I vaguely remember from long ago, so I would have to hold off on any definitive opinion without watching them again.

I do stand by the gun fetishism bit, though. Gun sales are way up again as you know, including here in PA, where it seems to be considered increasingly immoral not to own as many firearms as humanly possible in many counties. Yyeeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaaa!!! Uhm... no thank you.

~sigh~

[wendelah1]

For me, that would be Fringe. I resisted it for the first three seasons, I think. But a friend from The X-Files fandom kept insisting that I would love it--that it wasn't a rip-off of TXF, it was an homage, that its creators were X-Philes. (It's even canon that Fringe and X-Files are in the same universe! I got to write crossovers!) So, just in time for season four, I watched it on DVD and by the end of season one, I was hooked. I even got my husband to watch--and he loved it, too, even though he kind of hated TXF.

Next to TXF, Fringe was my favorite fandom--I loved its fans and the fic was pretty great, too. My major complaint is that it was over too soon. But maybe that's just as well...

A lot of great series hit their stride in season three. Season three was Fringe's best season, for sure. You could easily make a case for season three of TXF, too.

[shadowkat]

I had a similar experience with Fringe, but for the same reasons your husband did. I wasn't crazy about the X-Files and thought it would be the same. It's not. Shipperx talked me into watching it. She was a huge fan - and her write-ups intrigued me. It had a fascinating mythology.

But like you, I resisted, and didn't really start watching until the third season - so I had to rent all the previous seasons via Netflix DVD.

It does have a great fandom - none of the idiotic shipper wars that you get in a lot of the other fandoms. I think people have done cross-over fics. Can't remember. It was a while ago since I've been interactive in that fandom.

[wendelah1]

Yeah, Fringe fandom was full of people who had multiple ships, and threesome ships. There were even a few gen people (like me). It was great. Everyone was welcome. I miss that fandom.

[shadowkat]

I was more gen in that fandom. (When I ship its always canonical anyhow. I'm not that masochistic.)

[tellshannon815]

I have definitely written Fringe crossovers with Lost - Daniel and Walter in St Claire's together, and Miles having been a Cortexiphan kid and crossing paths with Olivia, Peter and Walter on a case in later life. I miss Fringe.

[wendelah1]

I miss it, too. I might do another rewatch, at some point.

[deird1]

I clearly would love Fringe, if I could get past the gorey visuals. Alas, I cannot.

[wendelah1]

I'm a retired RN with a pretty strong stomach for gore--there were episodes that grossed me out, so yeah.

[shadowkat]

I agree - that was my difficulty with Fringe for a while as well. X-Files too. I had to get past both. (I fast-forwarded a lot on Fringe, or just jumped past the nasty visuals.)