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( why I'll be posting less and mainly on innocuous topics )
Television
Watching Seal Team, which is better than I expected. It's well acted, and an interesting role for Boreanze, who for the most part is playing more of character role for a change, less romantic lead. (Of course he's not pretty any longer, somewhat rugged, sort of looks like a hockey player gone to seed, and more normal looking. And somewhere between Buffy S1 and Seal, Boreanze became a good television actor, although I never thought he was a bad actor. I liked him well enough in Angel and Buffy. Buffy, for the most part, was well cast, as was Angel, or I'd have never stuck with either.) It's a good role for DB, who is playing Jason, leader of the team, a conflicted solider with problems at home. DB does conflicted well. Also the rest of the heavy male-oriented cast is good. So far I don't see any weak links in the cast.
The pilot is exposition heavy and hard to follow as a result. There's a lot going on, and a lot of back story. The story picks up in the middle, with the team already established. Via flashbacks, we learn that Boreanze's character feels directly responsible for one of his team members' deaths who was also his best friend. That he's separated from his wife due to being married to his job and being away a lot, also not exactly into sharing and emotionally distant. Has three kids, all teenagers. We jump into the team mid-flow, with a lot of military jargon thrown at the screen, and the first job is your typical hostage rescue, failing to capture not kill the bad guy routine (Similar to The Brave's plot-line, but less suspenseful and far more realistic. Not to mention less predictable and cliche ridden.). The difficulty is there's a lot of
jumping back and forth between the flashback, the job, and the home lives of the team -- also a lot of characters are introduced at once and too many pov's.
The second episode is much better than the first. It was compelling enough to get me to watch the second episode "On Demand", which I guess is saying something, right?
This episode gives us more insight on how the team works together. It follows two main pov's instead of several, Jason (Boreanze), who is the seasoned leader of the team, with the world on his shoulders, and Clay Spenser, the young hot-head, who he kicked back to training and off the team. Both are compelling characters, and hit my story kinks pretty hard. (I like wounded/conflicted male and female heroes, with savior complexes, and who have to make tough and often ambiguous decisions. I'm not really gender specific.) The other thing about this episode is it is realistic -- they come upon a bunch of poisoned Syrian kids, and debate what to do about it. The debate is mainly, if you rescued them, then what? They spend their lives in a refugee camp? Will we even be able to do it?
And do we risk ourselves for a fools mission? With impossible odds? They win and lose the day. And Jason also has to make a decision about whether to tell one of his team-mates about his wife undergoing a difficult c-section to delivery her child. Each decision is realistic and fits the tough and world-weary character that DB is portraying. Seal Team, unlike The Brave, feels more like a character piece and the jobs are less important that the character's arcs. It's also not a soap opera, there's no romantic bed-hopping, or love triangles. It's a straight from the top military action drama.
The one draw-back of both episodes, and why my attention kept wandering, is I had to watch both "On Demand" and you can't fast-forward via On Demand. So you are stuck with about five-six commercials interrupting the flow of the drama. I wish the commercials would be before, at an intermission and after -- less disruptive.
[There are so many tv shows that I can't keep track of when they are premiering any longer. I've missed five pilots to date. And had to watch shows via On Demand. Part of the problem is they all have different start dates between September - November. And some of the date published in magazines and elsewhere were wrong. I miss the days when there were less shows and it was easier to track. There are now so many the entertainment mags have given up giving full reviews of all of them. (145 scripted each season). ]
I have the third episode of Seal taped apparently. I thought it was the second.
After seeing these two episodes, I may stick with it for a while. I'm not in love with it or anything, but I find it compelling in places and recommend it to people who enjoy strong albeit conflicted male leaders, military action dramas with heavy and somewhat diverse male casts (although this one is heavily white, but there are POC in it), with a few women characters in supporting roles. If that isn't your thing? Pass this one on by.
I've seen two of these military action dramas to date, The Brave and Seal Team, and I think "Seal Team" is better -- better written at any rate. Title sucks. While they are very different in some respects, they have similar set-ups, so it is hard not to compare them. Also of the two, one (The Brave) I don't buy at all (it reminds me of one too many similar top secret US government covert ops thriller television series that I've seen...which no, the government just doesn't operate like that. I can tell the writers don't know what they are writing about), and the other one I do (Seal Team - whoever is writing this appears to have done some serious research). And certainly more compelling. Of the two? I think Seal Team has more longevity. I could be wrong about that. Anyhow, considering I don't tend to like military action dramas and am not a fan of David Boreanze by any stretch of the imagination, yet of the two dramas -- watched the second episode of Seal Team (on "On Demand" no less) and didn't bother to record the second one of The Brave. Add to all of that? I wanted to like the Brave and not like Seal Team. In short, don't judge a television show by its title or the actors in it.
Television
Watching Seal Team, which is better than I expected. It's well acted, and an interesting role for Boreanze, who for the most part is playing more of character role for a change, less romantic lead. (Of course he's not pretty any longer, somewhat rugged, sort of looks like a hockey player gone to seed, and more normal looking. And somewhere between Buffy S1 and Seal, Boreanze became a good television actor, although I never thought he was a bad actor. I liked him well enough in Angel and Buffy. Buffy, for the most part, was well cast, as was Angel, or I'd have never stuck with either.) It's a good role for DB, who is playing Jason, leader of the team, a conflicted solider with problems at home. DB does conflicted well. Also the rest of the heavy male-oriented cast is good. So far I don't see any weak links in the cast.
The pilot is exposition heavy and hard to follow as a result. There's a lot going on, and a lot of back story. The story picks up in the middle, with the team already established. Via flashbacks, we learn that Boreanze's character feels directly responsible for one of his team members' deaths who was also his best friend. That he's separated from his wife due to being married to his job and being away a lot, also not exactly into sharing and emotionally distant. Has three kids, all teenagers. We jump into the team mid-flow, with a lot of military jargon thrown at the screen, and the first job is your typical hostage rescue, failing to capture not kill the bad guy routine (Similar to The Brave's plot-line, but less suspenseful and far more realistic. Not to mention less predictable and cliche ridden.). The difficulty is there's a lot of
jumping back and forth between the flashback, the job, and the home lives of the team -- also a lot of characters are introduced at once and too many pov's.
The second episode is much better than the first. It was compelling enough to get me to watch the second episode "On Demand", which I guess is saying something, right?
This episode gives us more insight on how the team works together. It follows two main pov's instead of several, Jason (Boreanze), who is the seasoned leader of the team, with the world on his shoulders, and Clay Spenser, the young hot-head, who he kicked back to training and off the team. Both are compelling characters, and hit my story kinks pretty hard. (I like wounded/conflicted male and female heroes, with savior complexes, and who have to make tough and often ambiguous decisions. I'm not really gender specific.) The other thing about this episode is it is realistic -- they come upon a bunch of poisoned Syrian kids, and debate what to do about it. The debate is mainly, if you rescued them, then what? They spend their lives in a refugee camp? Will we even be able to do it?
And do we risk ourselves for a fools mission? With impossible odds? They win and lose the day. And Jason also has to make a decision about whether to tell one of his team-mates about his wife undergoing a difficult c-section to delivery her child. Each decision is realistic and fits the tough and world-weary character that DB is portraying. Seal Team, unlike The Brave, feels more like a character piece and the jobs are less important that the character's arcs. It's also not a soap opera, there's no romantic bed-hopping, or love triangles. It's a straight from the top military action drama.
The one draw-back of both episodes, and why my attention kept wandering, is I had to watch both "On Demand" and you can't fast-forward via On Demand. So you are stuck with about five-six commercials interrupting the flow of the drama. I wish the commercials would be before, at an intermission and after -- less disruptive.
[There are so many tv shows that I can't keep track of when they are premiering any longer. I've missed five pilots to date. And had to watch shows via On Demand. Part of the problem is they all have different start dates between September - November. And some of the date published in magazines and elsewhere were wrong. I miss the days when there were less shows and it was easier to track. There are now so many the entertainment mags have given up giving full reviews of all of them. (145 scripted each season). ]
I have the third episode of Seal taped apparently. I thought it was the second.
After seeing these two episodes, I may stick with it for a while. I'm not in love with it or anything, but I find it compelling in places and recommend it to people who enjoy strong albeit conflicted male leaders, military action dramas with heavy and somewhat diverse male casts (although this one is heavily white, but there are POC in it), with a few women characters in supporting roles. If that isn't your thing? Pass this one on by.
I've seen two of these military action dramas to date, The Brave and Seal Team, and I think "Seal Team" is better -- better written at any rate. Title sucks. While they are very different in some respects, they have similar set-ups, so it is hard not to compare them. Also of the two, one (The Brave) I don't buy at all (it reminds me of one too many similar top secret US government covert ops thriller television series that I've seen...which no, the government just doesn't operate like that. I can tell the writers don't know what they are writing about), and the other one I do (Seal Team - whoever is writing this appears to have done some serious research). And certainly more compelling. Of the two? I think Seal Team has more longevity. I could be wrong about that. Anyhow, considering I don't tend to like military action dramas and am not a fan of David Boreanze by any stretch of the imagination, yet of the two dramas -- watched the second episode of Seal Team (on "On Demand" no less) and didn't bother to record the second one of The Brave. Add to all of that? I wanted to like the Brave and not like Seal Team. In short, don't judge a television show by its title or the actors in it.