OUAT, Revenge and TV Meme

1. Once Upon a Time - is perhaps the tightest plotted network tv series I've seen in a while. Granted there are some issues, but they do lay the ground-work well in advance, and build up to things quite well. Was discussing it with a friend tonight, who pointed out that if you can figure it out - that means the writers did a very good job of laying the ground-work and building up to it. If it comes out of the blue and you never saw it coming, sometimes that means they writers fell down on the job. (Which was a problem I had with a lot of Whedon's plots - they often had plot holes you could drive a truck through. The writer was so concerned with fooling the audience, making the audience's jaw drop, that he sometimes jarred them to the point they went, wait-a-minute, I don't buy this. This is the plotting style of pulpy serial fiction - specifically daytime soap operas and superhero comic book serials...which we mock shamelessly, because their plots often make no sense. Part of the fun is being able to figure it out. It's a very fine line, as my friend pointed out to me and I'd forgotten, between figuring it out and predictable. Once is doing an excellent job of skirting it - kudos.)

Last night's episode was evidence of this. ( spoilers )

2. Revenge - this also surprised me.

( spoilers )

3. TV Meme

Day 03 - Your favorite new show (aired this TV season)

Eh. What new shows aired this season? Does Copper count? It sort of completed its S1 run in 2012. But it first aired in 2012. So there is that.

I'm going with Arrow. It's the most fun, requires the least amount of focus, and I actually remember its on most of the time. Copper - is the best scripted and has the best characters, but it is plodding at times. Call the Midwife is fun, but awfully sentimental, granted it has less violence...so there is that, as in no violence. Elementary...eh, I keep forgetting its own and it is a procedural and procedural's, I'm sorry, they are a dime a dozen in the US and terribly mainstream. It's all about the case of the week. The B story line or the character storyline gets short-shrift in US procedurals. That's why if you want to watch a procedural - you should watch the European and UK - they focus more on the characters for some reason. Elementary is admittedly the best of the US crime procedurals in my opinion but I still like Arrow better.

Arrow does two things - one it gives us Queen's back story via flashbacks, and it's a twisty survival story of a young wet-behind the ears playboy who is turned into a scarred assassin by his experience on an island that serves as a prison for trained killers. The front story concerns unraveling the mystery of how he ended up on that island, why his father killed himself, and what his mother is up to. And it's ambiguous and layered. Plus the actors are quite good. I like everyone in this series, rare that. Including the ambiguous and somewhat layered villain played by the ever charming John Barrowman of Torchwood fame. Darker than Smallville, Arrow has more in common with Chris Nolan's Dark Knight series, with a sly sardonic wit, and an interesting commentary on both a culture of violence and corporate greed.

( the rest of the days, no answers yet, I'm actually doing this meme the way you are supposed to for a change of pace, although may skip Day 4 and do it on Day 5 instead, since I'm busy tomorrow night. )