shadowkat | (no subject)

(no subject)

I binged the first two seasons of From this weekend and am quarter of the way into the third. It's been renewed for two more seasons, with the fifth as the final season. S4 is currently airing on MGM+ in the US.

Damn thing is good. Each episode ends on a creepy cliff-hanger. I'd classify it as psychological/supernatural folk horror.

M: I thought you didn't like horror?
Me: Depends on the horror. (I'm not a fan of torture porn, gore, or body horror for example? Also slasher and rape horror tropes - I steer clear of. Most of the teen horror flicks - I'm not interested in, and I can't watch 98% of the stuff directed by Wes Craven.)
M: So as long as it doesn't have spiders right?
Me: well among other things. But yes, definitely not spiders.

I need characters that are interesting figuring out a problem, with some modicum of success.

From - does have some issues? It has a couple of annoying characters that I keep wishing they'd kill off - but nooo...instead they keep killing off minor supporting characters that I kind of liked? They can kill off that kid at any time - but alas, I don't see it happening. There's a lot of characters who have temper tantrums, almost every other episode, while other characters attempt to calm them down.

That said, right around the time I start wishing they'd kill someone off - the show makes them likable?

It's the folks lost in a nightmare/Twilight Zone style town, unable to find the way out, and the town keeps playing mind-games with them, and trying to kill them - trope. (See Lost, a lot of Stephen King stories, and there was a sci-fi horror series in the 1970s starring Ike Eisenman and Roddy Dowel about folks who end up on this island in the Bermuda Triangle and are kind of lost, and have nightmarish adventures. I've seen this done a lot - it was popular in the 1960s and 70s.)

The writing for the most part, is rather clever. Blending elements of folk horror with psychological and supernatural horror. Also rather innovative.

Also, for the most part, the main or lead characters are likable. Boyd, Donna, Kristi, and Kenny are among my favorites.

***

Mother called to let me know that her friend loved the book I self-published. The friend loved the cover, the title, and the writing. And wants to know when I'm going to finish writing and will publish another one.

When I manage to write one that I think is publishable? The last three weren't.

****

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Likable characters matters a lot for me.

I liked how The Walking Dead was quite good at killing off the people who annoyed me the most.

I can't watch shows without interesting or likable characters. I couldn't get past S3 of Walking Dead - but that wasn't because of the characters, it had more to do with the plot and the gore and the increasing level of violence. Also zombies bother me - maybe because they are more real or possible? (shrugs.)

I gave up on Walking Dead in the end because they just kept on with various iterations of our group of protagonists running into some brutal and difficult-to-avoid oppressive group and having to deal with all that, then it'd be a different antagonist group next season. It felt like there were all manner of interesting ways to develop in terms of how one reconstructs society with herds of walkers roaming but, well, apparently of more interest to me than to the writers.

That was my difficulty with it as well - it was more interested in being brutal, and depicting the horrible things people do to each other (very comic bookish actually), than world-building or focusing on how to build a new society. BattleStar Galatica, Lost, and From at least focus more on societal issues. I had the same issue with The Last of Us - I just couldn't do the shock value gore. (Oh let's shock the audience with how gory and nasty we can be. Hard Pass.) Station Eleven was more interesting - because it focused more on how folks survived and rebuilt communities post an apocalyptic crisis.

Actually, the video game that I've been playing "Tiles Survive" is more interesting. In it - you build a settlement, train heroes, train troops, upgrade, and have your heroes fight, aid other settlements, take out raiders, explore abandoned sites for supplies, scavenge, and clear infected threats. It's not great - I'll probably lose interest in a month or so. Also there's a lot of annoying kids playing it online - who feel the need to post odd photos of their legs and various body parts (no genitalia so far - thank god) in the chat, which I'm blatantly ignoring.

The thing with Ethan is, it's going to get to the "Taller Ghost Walt" stage eventually where it becomes obvious that the actor's getting older than the character (I don't think that much time's supposed to have passed) - whether that will end up being resolved by writing him out as per Yellowjackets' Javi, or filming him from odd angles as per Lost's Walt, or even a recast, I have no clue at this point. A hazard of working with children.

Speaking of annoying characters, it sounds like you might be about at the point of the arrival of the character currently most disliked by fans. She reminds me very much of a Lost character who was also not well liked at the time.

It may not be an issue with Ethan - since the series will end with the fifth season, it's on S4 now, and I think they are in the process of filming S5. But, yes, this is an issue with children in series television and in films. They had to film the Harry Potter films back to back and often concurrently to get around it. Game of Thrones also had issues. And it was a huge problem with Stranger Things - where there was a lag between seasons. This is an actually an issue with Netflix, which is prone to have long lag times between seasons - they have 6-10 episodes per season, and anywhere between one - six years between seasons. If it's more than two? I'm going to forget the television series and lose interest (which is what happened with the Witcher - also the kid grew up fast).

Disney is actually better at this sort of thing, as is Hulu and HBO Max. Prime and Netflix both have this problem, but among the streaming services? Netflix is the worst.

Regarding From's characters? I love Donna. Also Boyd, Kristi, Kenny, and Ellis and Fatima. And Elgin.

I began to worry about them? So decided to look up each and see when and if they get killed off.
Pesky television writers like to kill off my favorite characters and often on a whim - although From's usually propel plot and character. (I was very annoyed with Lost for killing off Juliet.)
I'm annoyed with From for killing off Tai-Nyun (I think that's her name) and Tom the Bartender.
They couldn't have killed off Jade or Dale or Raymond?

I've just finished watching the section in which Tai-Nyun dies, and Tabby has met Victor's Dad.
Midway through S3.

It's really good. Flawed in places, but tighter than Lost was (I liked LOST a lot and in some respects more than From).

They couldn't have killed off Jade or Dale or Raymond?

All I will say on that one is, if you're not quite there yet by the time you read this (you weren't far off at the time of writing) keep watching...But yes, there was no need to kill Tian-Chen (that's how her name is spelled) and Tom felt particularly futile considering Tabitha wasn't actually trapped.

I was very annoyed with Lost for killing off Juliet.

That one annoyed me at the time although the one that really got me was Sun and Jin (smoke monster is still dead to me). But there were a few on Lost that I wasn't happy about. Seen the story about Harold Perrineau getting blanked for 20 years by one of the actresses (he wouldn't name and shame) after the episode where Michael shot Ana Lucia and Libby? If that was Cynthia Watros (which I'm kind of leaning towards, since the story at the time was that Michelle Rodriguez had only ever signed up to a year anyway so it wouldn't have come as the same shock) then yes, I get why she was upset at being killed off so abruptly (and it bugged me that she never really got her story explained - I have a pet peeve about the same characters getting too much attention and others not at all) but I think blanking Harold Perrineau over it is petty considering he didn't make that call and didn't write the script.

Honestly, I'm starting to get worried for Ellis, because if Smiley, Granny, Cowboy and friends are determined to break Boyd, killing him is most likely what would do it. I will be happy to be proved wrong on that one.

On Lost, no, it wasn't Watros that did it. Watros was fired because she had a DUI, which was why she was killed off. She went to a cast party to watch the show - and had two glasses of wine, got picked up for a DUI, it made the tabloids, and she was fired. (She discusses it in a State of Mind podcast with Maurice Bernard - also I remember that happening at the time. The US tabloids are as bad as the British tabloids in this respect? TMZ is horrible.)

I'm almost positive it was Rodriquez. Although Perrineau's real problems were with the show-runners and writers. Lost had sexist/racist writers - who mistreated female and POC writers on the staff. (This is chronicled in "Burn it all Down - Power, Complicity and a Call for Change in Hollywood" (https://www.amazon.com/Burn-Down-Complicity-Change-Hollywood/dp/0063269279). ). Perrineau's problem was with them, but Rodriquez had a rep for being a problem. (Shame, I love watching the actress.) But she doesn't get along with cast mates. Had issues on every set apparently. And really ran into issues with Harold.

I agree - I did not like what they did with Watros, Sun, Jin, HP's character, or Juliette. Lost unfortunately went off the rails a bit - when it chose to focus too much on a handful of white male anti-hero characters. (Did I mention the sexual harrassment and racist bullying going on in the writer's room? That was a toxic set.)

Honestly, I'm starting to get worried for Ellis, because if Smiley, Granny, Cowboy and friends are determined to break Boyd, killing him is most likely what would do it. I will be happy to be proved wrong on that one.

Yeah, I looked him up to see if they killed him off in S1-3, because I thought he was an obvious target. But, then Elgin had those dreams about a wraith thin woman - who he thinks is connected to Fatima getting pregnant, and a wraith thin Fatima is eating rotten or poisoned fruit, because that's appealing to her. Add to that the creepy kids that both Jaden and Tabby see. So...I think "From" is going after Boyd through that angle? Which is honestly far worse. I'd rather they just kill off Ellis. I'm now worried about Fatima and that baby. (Sigh - horror writers and the dreaded demon baby trope - this has been done so many times, it's almost predictable.)

I'd not heard of From, and apparently it's available over here. I will check it out.

It's gory in places, but not overly violent. Yes, people shoot people - but not that often.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only