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Sep. 27th, 2012 10:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. You know a sitcom (The Mindy Project) is too young for you or you are definitely not the target audience when the following exchange occurs:
Mindy: If I'm still single in my 40s, 50s and 60s...then we can continue to mindlessly bang each other.
Ben: Like I'd want to do it with you then.
Mindy: You don't know, I could be totally hot then and you a fat chub writing stories in Latin America
Ben: Actually, I'd be writing poetry in Cuba
Note to Ben and Mindy - 40 is only 9 years away. Trust me, you'll be singing a different tune then.
Any one else miss Murphy Brown?
It's a shame, I really like Mindy Kalling, I like the concept, I just dislike the execution. But again? I'm not the target audience.
2. Grey's Anatomy was odd. And surprising. It's a show that doesn't seem to mind killing off characters. But seriously, Doc Owen...why!Why!Why!
* Apparently the absence of the annoying April was short-lived. Doctor Owen decided to fly all the way to April's home on the farm to bring her back to Seattle. Who does that?
It's not like she was a good doctor. Or they were best buds. I could understand Owen flying to Minnesota, like Alex assumed, to pick up Cristina. That made sense. But April?
Annoying, poorly written, screw-up April? Why?
* For the longest time I assumed Arizona was dead. The show mislead me. But no, she just lost her leg. What makes no sense is why she's so upset about it. Yes, I get losing one's leg is traumatic, but.. It's not like she was an athelet. You can operate and do ped's care without a leg. Derek's handicap is worse, he's a surgeon struggling with his hand.
* I like that Cristina went to her fellowship. But how did she get there? I'm assuming she flew. And why can't she fly back to Seattle? If you can fly there once, can't you fly back?
It would make more sense if she wasn't able to get there at all, right? Sort of similar to Alex and Meredith who are both afraid to fly.
* Booty Call Baily. LOL!
* Medusa Grey! LOL! - She's become her Mom, it's hilarious.
* While Mark Sloan's death was touching, it was too emotionally manipulative to move me.
They didn't build it well. I knew the actor was leaving so assumed he'd be killed off.
Had somewhat the same reaction to Tara's death in Buffy, along with Spike's death and Anya's...they weren't built well. So didn't move me. If I can see mechanics behind the writting...I don't cry. The writing has to earn the moment. It has to move up to it gradually and feel real. If they started with the plane crash, showed them struggling to keep Mark alive and we went through the week in the woods with them - then yes, moving.
But we jumped ahead in time...so no, not moving.
A good example of how to do a moving death scene is The Body in BTVS. Another example of it is Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close...where the death itself isn't moving but the grief. That's the key - not to focus on the character's death, don't draw that out, focus on the grief that comes after it. A lot of tv series and films screw up on this point.
They don't get the fact that what resonates with the audience is the loss, the empty space left behind. Not the death. But the loss. That's why the scene with Dawn sitting with a dead Tara, finding her gone, is far more moving than the scene where Tara is shot in Buffy.
I don't know. It's hard to explain why it works for me in some shows and not others. Grey's has moved me to tears before, but not tonight's episode, because...it's like I knew the punchline before the episode started?
Overall an interesting episode. Some interesting writing choices. Also a few interesting cast changes. I thought from the rumors last season, that Cristina, Meredith and Derek were leaving. But no, just Lexie and Mark. Which was the exact opposite. That surprised me.
(Although I'd read that the actor who played Mark wanted out for some time. And they had no where to go with Lexie.) Sort of the doomed version of the Meredith/Derek relationship.
What I like about Grey's is the characters evolve and change, and in a manner that is organic and makes sense. You can see them do it. It's what I liked about ER as well.
Also shout-out to the old Doctor Thomas (Cristina's mentor), who was one of the lead doctors on the ground-breaking St. Elsewhere. Without St. Elsewhere there wouldn't be a Grey's Anatomy or an ER or half a dozen other shows. St. Elsewhere did for medical dramas what Hill Street Blues did for cop shows.
Mindy: If I'm still single in my 40s, 50s and 60s...then we can continue to mindlessly bang each other.
Ben: Like I'd want to do it with you then.
Mindy: You don't know, I could be totally hot then and you a fat chub writing stories in Latin America
Ben: Actually, I'd be writing poetry in Cuba
Note to Ben and Mindy - 40 is only 9 years away. Trust me, you'll be singing a different tune then.
Any one else miss Murphy Brown?
It's a shame, I really like Mindy Kalling, I like the concept, I just dislike the execution. But again? I'm not the target audience.
2. Grey's Anatomy was odd. And surprising. It's a show that doesn't seem to mind killing off characters. But seriously, Doc Owen...why!Why!Why!
* Apparently the absence of the annoying April was short-lived. Doctor Owen decided to fly all the way to April's home on the farm to bring her back to Seattle. Who does that?
It's not like she was a good doctor. Or they were best buds. I could understand Owen flying to Minnesota, like Alex assumed, to pick up Cristina. That made sense. But April?
Annoying, poorly written, screw-up April? Why?
* For the longest time I assumed Arizona was dead. The show mislead me. But no, she just lost her leg. What makes no sense is why she's so upset about it. Yes, I get losing one's leg is traumatic, but.. It's not like she was an athelet. You can operate and do ped's care without a leg. Derek's handicap is worse, he's a surgeon struggling with his hand.
* I like that Cristina went to her fellowship. But how did she get there? I'm assuming she flew. And why can't she fly back to Seattle? If you can fly there once, can't you fly back?
It would make more sense if she wasn't able to get there at all, right? Sort of similar to Alex and Meredith who are both afraid to fly.
* Booty Call Baily. LOL!
* Medusa Grey! LOL! - She's become her Mom, it's hilarious.
* While Mark Sloan's death was touching, it was too emotionally manipulative to move me.
They didn't build it well. I knew the actor was leaving so assumed he'd be killed off.
Had somewhat the same reaction to Tara's death in Buffy, along with Spike's death and Anya's...they weren't built well. So didn't move me. If I can see mechanics behind the writting...I don't cry. The writing has to earn the moment. It has to move up to it gradually and feel real. If they started with the plane crash, showed them struggling to keep Mark alive and we went through the week in the woods with them - then yes, moving.
But we jumped ahead in time...so no, not moving.
A good example of how to do a moving death scene is The Body in BTVS. Another example of it is Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close...where the death itself isn't moving but the grief. That's the key - not to focus on the character's death, don't draw that out, focus on the grief that comes after it. A lot of tv series and films screw up on this point.
They don't get the fact that what resonates with the audience is the loss, the empty space left behind. Not the death. But the loss. That's why the scene with Dawn sitting with a dead Tara, finding her gone, is far more moving than the scene where Tara is shot in Buffy.
I don't know. It's hard to explain why it works for me in some shows and not others. Grey's has moved me to tears before, but not tonight's episode, because...it's like I knew the punchline before the episode started?
Overall an interesting episode. Some interesting writing choices. Also a few interesting cast changes. I thought from the rumors last season, that Cristina, Meredith and Derek were leaving. But no, just Lexie and Mark. Which was the exact opposite. That surprised me.
(Although I'd read that the actor who played Mark wanted out for some time. And they had no where to go with Lexie.) Sort of the doomed version of the Meredith/Derek relationship.
What I like about Grey's is the characters evolve and change, and in a manner that is organic and makes sense. You can see them do it. It's what I liked about ER as well.
Also shout-out to the old Doctor Thomas (Cristina's mentor), who was one of the lead doctors on the ground-breaking St. Elsewhere. Without St. Elsewhere there wouldn't be a Grey's Anatomy or an ER or half a dozen other shows. St. Elsewhere did for medical dramas what Hill Street Blues did for cop shows.
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no subject
Date: 2012-09-28 05:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-28 11:11 pm (UTC)The acting, the direction, the writing - poorly executed.
So far none of the new tv shows are grabbing me. Granted haven't tried all of them yet.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-29 03:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-29 04:00 am (UTC)Too many tv shows, too little time.
It's hard for a sitcom to grab me. Big Bang and Community and Louis right now are the only one's that have made me laugh with any regularity.
Everything else is hit and miss.