True Blood - this week's

[shadowkat]

1. Have given up on Sorkin's Newsroom - I don't like anyone and I find it boring. The pilot was great, but the episodes following it lost me. Too preachy, too sappy, and too relationship oriented. Plus I think Sorkin has some unresolved gender bias issues he needs to sort through.

2. True Blood however, is highly entertaining this season and the tightest written of its entire history on air. I don't know what happened. But all the stories are working for once.

* Sam's - I found amusing. Sam's storyline has always been either creepy or weirdly funny.

* Alcide is actually hot when he's not with Sookie. Although I think we saw more of his body than anything else in his storyline, luckily it is a hot body.

* Bill works better as sinister and a bad guy than a good guy. He's more interesting as a villain. And Eric works better as a good guy or reluctant good guy. It may be how the actors play it. Skarsdale has these huge and expressive eyes, you can barely see Moyers.
At any rate, I'm enjoying the vampire storyline and the Eric/Bill bi-play. Not sure how they are going to bring Bill back from this season. Will state they are sort of following the book's interpretation of the character - by the later books, Bill was an out-and-out jerk and ERic was the sweetheart.

* Sookie's storyline is the least interesting, possibly because I don't like or care about the character all that much. Will state I'm curious who the vampire is - Russell, Bill, or someone else? Rather like the Jason/Sookie bi-play though.

* Love Pam/Tara...which is alternately touching and creepy...Pam is slowly corrupting Tara.
Turning Tara into another version of herself. Also the two bitchest/snarkiest female characters in the series, not to mention my favorite, together. What's not to love.

* Terry/Lafayette story finally comes together - which worked for me. Both were equally scary and creepy and fit Southern Gothic perfectly.

The series has gotten more Southern Gothic and less satirical...which I think is why I like it better. Satire doesn't work in large doses for me, I tend to get bored. It's like all humor actually. Which may explain why sitcoms are only a half-hour long. You stretch it to an hour, you lose the joke. Or pull it too thin. Snark? In Bunheads and Newsroom there's too much of it. If you snark all the time, you sound like an ass. You have to temper it. This is why characters like Cordy, Anya, and Spike were not on all the time and their snark was often lightened with self-deprecating wit. Humor is always a balancing act, I think. Not sure if I communicated that well or not.

Okay, off to bed.

Comments

[flameraven.livejournal.com]

Definitely enjoying True Blood this season, although I wasn't sold initially. I think the whole season felt a bit odd as there was no immediate 'big bad' as we've seen in past seasons; instead this whole season feels like a bridge between the past events and Season 6, which will almost certainly be a supernaturals vs. humans out and out war.

But all the characters are working really well this season. Even Sookie. I really enjoy nihilistic Sookie who's realizing just how much she ruins everyone's lives. And her sibling moments with Jason are really touching.

Pam and Tara are amazing. Love it.

I wasn't really invested in the Authority storyline before, but I'm much more interested now that Bill has joined the Dark Side. Seeing Eric as he realized he was surrounded by fanatics was priceless. But Eric has always been a more interesting character for me.

I like that Alcide wasn't thrown at Sookie. But damn, we certainly did see a lot of him in this episode. o_o It's nice to see crazy gramma werewolf standing up to the pack too. I thought she had some kind of malicious hidden agenda but now it seems more like she just didn't know how far the pack had gone.

Definitely a strong season so far. I'm looking forward to the last few episodes.

[shapinglight]

True Blood is so much fun this season. Making Tara a vampire was the best thing that ever happened to that character. Her interactions with Pam are great. She's obviously worming her way into Pam's affections despite Pam's best attempts to pretend otherwise.

I really don't know what's going on with Bill. I like the character, but I can't see how he comes back from this. I suspect a Twangel-like ducking of responsibility, though, given that Alan Ball is on record as saying he thinks Bill and Sookie are soulmates.

The slight fly in the ointment for me this season is Norah (Eric's vampire sister). I find the character annoying and after what she said and did in the latest episode wish Eric would just stake her.

Is that character in the books?

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

I saw Newsroom for the first time last week while I was on a trip to Chicago...
there are good people on the show but it was kind of over-the-top wound up emotionally (of course the topic was a young man risking his life in a war torn area in order to get information out, which is worth a lot of emotion...).
Some how West Wing managed to cover huge emotional topics with a more under-played professionalism.... Not quite so melodramatic.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

The episodes I've seen are less melo-dramatic, and more "ranting".
Which I guess may be the same thing? The West Wing was more subtle, but it does bear keeping in mind that Sorkin didn't do the West Wing alone, John Wells was also involved. And Sorkin left in the midst of the 3rd Season due to a cocaine addiction and inability to deliver scripts on time.

For pure Sorkin - Sports Night. Which was also ranty at times.

The rapid-fire dialogue was definitely part of the West Wing, but I think the collaboration tempered it.

The thing about television writing is it really is about who makes up the writing and production and acting team and how they complement and work together. You can't just follow one writer about, any more than you can one actor or director - in tv - I've discovered. Oh, I do, but I'm always deeply disappointed. LOL! Britian? Maybe, since they do do things differently than we do. Moffat seems to write almost all the episodes of his series. But not so much with the US writers.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

The books and the series have sort split ways. I only vaguely remember the books and I only read 5 of them, but I think the only plot-line that is close to them at the moment is Alcide's attempts to take over the pack. That has a vague resemblance to the books, also the lack of an Alicide/Sookie hook-up.

Everything else is not related to the books at all. Except possibly the Shifter murders.

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

I agree, a good collaboration improves both writers' work....
Sports Night never actually grabbed me as much as it did most people I know (but then I'm not a fan of 'sport').

Yeah, most of the British TV shows I've loved have been the work of one writer, or a small contained group of collaborators (like Monty Python).

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I really don't know what's going on with Bill. I like the character, but I can't see how he comes back from this. I suspect a Twangel-like ducking of responsibility, though, given that Alan Ball is on record as saying he thinks Bill and Sookie are soulmates.

It's possible that snacking on Sookie could wake Bill up and out of his Lilith daze? Doesn't exactly redeem him, but they may not need to, just let him angst over what he's done.

Although one of the themes of this season appears to be "reap what you sow" or "payment for past crimes". Bill appears to want to lose himself in being a vampire, to escape it. They may be going down the addiction trip for Bill, certainly wouldn't be the first time a show did that. It does however get old after a bit.

Eric is more interesting to me. Bill, I'm somewhat ambivalent about. ;-)

Making Tara a vampire was the best thing that ever happened to that character. Her interactions with Pam are great. She's obviously worming her way into Pam's affections despite Pam's best attempts to pretend otherwise.

Agree. Best new relationship dynamic ever.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Wasn't a huge fan of Sports Night either for more or less the same reasons.

I like his rapid fire dialogue. But Sports Night...didn't stick for me.
I watched it, but I don't remember it.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Would agree on both Sookie and the Authority - both stories have gotten more interesting. This season the writers seem to be delving more into the characters and having the characters drive the plot, as opposed to being just the brunt of it or the joke. As a result the story is more interesting, I think. And holding together better.

Also agree on Eric and Bill. Find Eric more interesting... Bill, doesn't do that much for me for some reason.

Also gramma werewolf definitely is more interesting than expected.

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

I actually love rapid fire dialogue... I've always been into the articulate fast talkers, but I know that I only watched one or two episodes of Sports Night... I'm guessing it must have been up against several other shows I liked at the time. It just never made my 'appointment TV' list.