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shadowkatI'd meant to DVR HIMYM's finale, but forgot. And it's no big deal, that show frustrates me. Hence the forgetting. It likes to tease. That's my problem with a lot of tv show-runners/writers they like to subscribe to the Tom Anderson (Cheers Show-runner) school of thought - endlessly tease the audience about couplings because if you put two characters with sexual tension together in a romantic relationship - it will become boring and there will be no storyline. [The only thing worse than this is the "we won't solve the case or show you the killer or let the people off the island or back home until the series is completed" otherwise known as the proverbial carrot. Because if we do that there won't be any more stories to tell.] No, this is not true as various recent television writers, film scribes and novelists have proven over time. All you are doing is frustrating the heck out of your audience. And well, demonstrating that you are ahem, a tad limited as a writer. And the problem with frustrating your audience in today's world, as opposed to the 1980s and 1990s, is you audience has a lot more choices. As HIMYM may be discovering, not to mention Revenge - both shows have lost viewers.
Revenge had a frustrating season finale. To the point that I'm considering giving up on it. The series started out with a great concept. We'll do one revenge story arc a year. Then next year it will be a different character and a different arc. Then they paid attention to the audience and shippers, and decided to do something entirely different and dumped that initial concept altogether. Turns out many tv showrunners do plan out the story ahead of time, they just change it based on audience reaction. It also started out as more episodic - Emily Thorne would take out one person a week - and we'd see how she did it. There'd be a A plot line and a B plot line. The B was the revenge of the week, the A was the why and the end-game against the Grayson's, with the promise that she would get them by the end of the season, which would in turn shoot off a new Revenge storyline. That unfortunately is not the direction they went in, this thread got dropped. And instead we had a convoluted conspiracy thread that made no sense - with the evil "Initiative" (everybody uses that word in these series for some reason) and Emily's illogical mentor aiding her against it.
The finale involved one death, Declan, who had begun to grow on me and I was beginning to like. He'd gone from grating to likable. Can't say the same for his dumb brother Jack, who finally realizes Emily Thorne is really Amanda, and what it has been all about. Or about erstwhile Charlotte - who I keep wishing they'd kill, but alas, they never do.
Possibly two deaths. I don't know if Daniel succeeded in killing Aidan. I hope not. I like Aidan. But it would open up the storyline and give Emily a motive for destroying Daniel.
Plus the guilt.
And Nolan, the only character outside of Emily and Aidan that I still care about, got screwed by Padme and Edith - he's taking the blame for Carrion, just like David Clark took the blame for the airline explosion. Next season will be about getting him out of the slammer. This grates on my nerves - I preferred the character as the unseen and unknown cyber ally of Emily. Although it too could open up some storylines.
At least they resolved the dumb Initiative storyline. Turns out that it is a consortium of greedy business people who cause disasters so they can make money off of them. And now, Conrad Grayson has become part of their group. Victoria is horrified by this turn of events. I don't know why, it's not like she hasn't done nasty things herself. I guess she liked to believe there was a nastier villain out there than herself and her husband.
And Emily finally reveals all to Jack - which means they may team up next season to take down the Grayson's and free Nolan. Oh joy. Wish I liked or cared about Jack. But the actor playing the role walks through it. The Grayson's meanwhile are still on top. Broke maybe. But on top.
Last season was so much better. This is an example of a tv series that started out good and slid down-hill by falling into the trap of copying old and frustrating tv tropes.
Vampire Diaries right now is competing with The Good Wife for the best season finale. Although it's not fair to pit them against each other - two vastly different tv shows. Same with OUAT. Although I liked Good Wife and Vamp Diaries finales better. Vamp Diaries was so satisfying that I re-watched it. In part because it gave me the Spuffy speech and resolution that I wanted from Buffy but knew I'd never get. It also gave me a far more satisfying Angel/Angelus storyline in the characters of Nikklaus and Stefan.
I'll never be obsessed with Vamp Diaries. I think my days of being obsessed with tv shows are over - there's too many of them for one thing. And I've no time for it, for another. But I will give Vamp Diaries credit for giving me satisfying story arcs, that are well-plotted and move quickly. And are ultimately fun and entertaining. Also surprising. I never can quite predict what TVD will do.
* Stefan - the twist that Stefan is Silas' doppleganger and that the actor they hired to play Silas is the same one playing Stefan, was well-done. Also it works metaphorically. Because Silas' main gig all season was to reunite with his one true love and he was willing to do anything to make that happen. Anything. Stefan similarly wanted Elena back and felt that if he cured her of her immortality or vampirism and made her human again - she'd love only him and they'd ride off into the sunset - like they'd planned on doing when she died.
Stefan was willing to do anything to make this happen. He did not seem to care about the collateral damage - which included Jeremy. Or for that matter how Elena felt about it.
Stefan and Silas are similar in some respects. So the reveal worked - in Silas, Stefan saw his dark side. And the fact that the reveal is a reflection in the car glass was well done.
(In Vamp Diaries - vampires cast reflections.)
* Katherine - Katherine all the way through wanted immortality so she'd no longer be weak, no longer have to worry about Niklaus, or run from things. She grabs the cure to save herself from Niklaus and gives it to him - to ensure that. She kills Jeremy to make it happen. Elena wants to kill her - but finally comes to terms with her grief and guilt and lets it go. So when Katherine and Elena fight - Katherine is the one trying to kill Elena, and Elena thrusts the cure down Katherine's throat...making Katherine human.
* Damon/Elena - What's interesting is the writer's initially planned on Damon taking it. Which was my guess. He made the most sense. But they thought it through and may have realized it was too easy, too obvious, and a bit of a corner. Plus - it would be another obstacle in the Damon/Elena romance. Keep them apart at all costs, etc, more angst. But the writers chose another route. And I'm sort of glad they did.
The writer's also found a way to break the sire bound without the cure. Apparently Elena turning off her emotions then choosing to turn them on again - broke it. He can no longer compel her to do anything. That was clever. It also provided others options regarding the cure.
Damon's decision not to take the cure made sense. If he took it - they'd have to force it on him. Hence the werewolf venom and the mislead. But they didn't. Almost fooled me. This show manages to surprise me, which is hard to do.
Damon and Elena's scene was basically the scene that I wanted from Buffy, almost word for word. To such a degree that I can't help but wonder if Willaimson and Plec watched Buffy, and wanted the same thing - and decided to do it themselves. I adore Elena's speech - "I'm not sorry either. You are a terrible person who has made terrible choices. But you have made me question everything that I am. When I felt dead, you made me feel more alive than anyone.
So I'm not sorry that I fell in love with you. That's right, I'm in love with you, Damon."
Thank you. (Also works that they are both vampires when she does it, and she did horrible things as a vampire too.)
No, I loved this episode. So much that I almost, almost, want to go out and buy all the DVDs and re-watch them. But alas, no money and no time to do either. Which is probably a good thing. You could do that with Buffy - they were re-running the episodes on FX at the time, and I had taped them. Now - with DVR's, you don't save the recordings - you can't really, no space (well not unless you don't really watch that many tv shows), and they don't rerun them anywhere. Plus no time - back then I barely watched anything and was unemployed or bored at work with access to fanboards. Now, I'm overwhelmed at work, no access to any entertainment sites, and watch far too many tv series.
Once Upon a Time - did two posts on this, took both down. So..this will be brief.
Liked the episode. Had satisfying arcs. Surprised me. I did not see the finale twist coming at all. The twist on the Peter Pan legend was a stroke of genius. This series is doing interesting things with Disneyfied fairy tales - it's sort of de-disneyfying them? OR going in the opposite direction? I'd say it's taking the tale back to its roots, but I seriously doubt that this was what JM Barrie had in mind when he wrote Peter Pan.
Which is ironic, considering they are owned by Disney and financed by Disney. Disney is an evil corporation, no doubt in my mind about that, but they are like Fox in that they sort of leave their writers alone. Make us money and we don't care.
So Peter Pan turns out to be a not so nice guy. A bad buy actually. Seems we've traded up, the evil queen, hook, and rumplestilskin have banded together to go after...wait for it, Peter Pan? LOL! How much you want to bet Tinkerbell is the evil mastermind? Oh that would be fun. Or maybe she's leading the resistance?
Regina gets a nice arc - which for the first time makes sense. She is redeemed by taking responsibility for her actions. I did this, she tells Emma. This is all my fault. I have to stop it. Which may be why Emma decides to help her, either that or it's all about Henry.
Rumplestilskin and Belle/Lacy don't work for me. It's Belle/Lacy who is poorly written and acted. The character just feels flimsy. She's almost too forgiving?
Hook's arc was the best of the episode. It made the most sense why he shifted. The flashbacks are told mainly from his pov. And his yearning for the family he wanted but couldn't have.
The show's main theme seems to be family or core family. Mother/kid/Father. Not so much with the siblings. Lots of only children. Very odd.
See brief.
Revenge had a frustrating season finale. To the point that I'm considering giving up on it. The series started out with a great concept. We'll do one revenge story arc a year. Then next year it will be a different character and a different arc. Then they paid attention to the audience and shippers, and decided to do something entirely different and dumped that initial concept altogether. Turns out many tv showrunners do plan out the story ahead of time, they just change it based on audience reaction. It also started out as more episodic - Emily Thorne would take out one person a week - and we'd see how she did it. There'd be a A plot line and a B plot line. The B was the revenge of the week, the A was the why and the end-game against the Grayson's, with the promise that she would get them by the end of the season, which would in turn shoot off a new Revenge storyline. That unfortunately is not the direction they went in, this thread got dropped. And instead we had a convoluted conspiracy thread that made no sense - with the evil "Initiative" (everybody uses that word in these series for some reason) and Emily's illogical mentor aiding her against it.
The finale involved one death, Declan, who had begun to grow on me and I was beginning to like. He'd gone from grating to likable. Can't say the same for his dumb brother Jack, who finally realizes Emily Thorne is really Amanda, and what it has been all about. Or about erstwhile Charlotte - who I keep wishing they'd kill, but alas, they never do.
Possibly two deaths. I don't know if Daniel succeeded in killing Aidan. I hope not. I like Aidan. But it would open up the storyline and give Emily a motive for destroying Daniel.
Plus the guilt.
And Nolan, the only character outside of Emily and Aidan that I still care about, got screwed by Padme and Edith - he's taking the blame for Carrion, just like David Clark took the blame for the airline explosion. Next season will be about getting him out of the slammer. This grates on my nerves - I preferred the character as the unseen and unknown cyber ally of Emily. Although it too could open up some storylines.
At least they resolved the dumb Initiative storyline. Turns out that it is a consortium of greedy business people who cause disasters so they can make money off of them. And now, Conrad Grayson has become part of their group. Victoria is horrified by this turn of events. I don't know why, it's not like she hasn't done nasty things herself. I guess she liked to believe there was a nastier villain out there than herself and her husband.
And Emily finally reveals all to Jack - which means they may team up next season to take down the Grayson's and free Nolan. Oh joy. Wish I liked or cared about Jack. But the actor playing the role walks through it. The Grayson's meanwhile are still on top. Broke maybe. But on top.
Last season was so much better. This is an example of a tv series that started out good and slid down-hill by falling into the trap of copying old and frustrating tv tropes.
Vampire Diaries right now is competing with The Good Wife for the best season finale. Although it's not fair to pit them against each other - two vastly different tv shows. Same with OUAT. Although I liked Good Wife and Vamp Diaries finales better. Vamp Diaries was so satisfying that I re-watched it. In part because it gave me the Spuffy speech and resolution that I wanted from Buffy but knew I'd never get. It also gave me a far more satisfying Angel/Angelus storyline in the characters of Nikklaus and Stefan.
I'll never be obsessed with Vamp Diaries. I think my days of being obsessed with tv shows are over - there's too many of them for one thing. And I've no time for it, for another. But I will give Vamp Diaries credit for giving me satisfying story arcs, that are well-plotted and move quickly. And are ultimately fun and entertaining. Also surprising. I never can quite predict what TVD will do.
* Stefan - the twist that Stefan is Silas' doppleganger and that the actor they hired to play Silas is the same one playing Stefan, was well-done. Also it works metaphorically. Because Silas' main gig all season was to reunite with his one true love and he was willing to do anything to make that happen. Anything. Stefan similarly wanted Elena back and felt that if he cured her of her immortality or vampirism and made her human again - she'd love only him and they'd ride off into the sunset - like they'd planned on doing when she died.
Stefan was willing to do anything to make this happen. He did not seem to care about the collateral damage - which included Jeremy. Or for that matter how Elena felt about it.
Stefan and Silas are similar in some respects. So the reveal worked - in Silas, Stefan saw his dark side. And the fact that the reveal is a reflection in the car glass was well done.
(In Vamp Diaries - vampires cast reflections.)
* Katherine - Katherine all the way through wanted immortality so she'd no longer be weak, no longer have to worry about Niklaus, or run from things. She grabs the cure to save herself from Niklaus and gives it to him - to ensure that. She kills Jeremy to make it happen. Elena wants to kill her - but finally comes to terms with her grief and guilt and lets it go. So when Katherine and Elena fight - Katherine is the one trying to kill Elena, and Elena thrusts the cure down Katherine's throat...making Katherine human.
* Damon/Elena - What's interesting is the writer's initially planned on Damon taking it. Which was my guess. He made the most sense. But they thought it through and may have realized it was too easy, too obvious, and a bit of a corner. Plus - it would be another obstacle in the Damon/Elena romance. Keep them apart at all costs, etc, more angst. But the writers chose another route. And I'm sort of glad they did.
The writer's also found a way to break the sire bound without the cure. Apparently Elena turning off her emotions then choosing to turn them on again - broke it. He can no longer compel her to do anything. That was clever. It also provided others options regarding the cure.
Damon's decision not to take the cure made sense. If he took it - they'd have to force it on him. Hence the werewolf venom and the mislead. But they didn't. Almost fooled me. This show manages to surprise me, which is hard to do.
Damon and Elena's scene was basically the scene that I wanted from Buffy, almost word for word. To such a degree that I can't help but wonder if Willaimson and Plec watched Buffy, and wanted the same thing - and decided to do it themselves. I adore Elena's speech - "I'm not sorry either. You are a terrible person who has made terrible choices. But you have made me question everything that I am. When I felt dead, you made me feel more alive than anyone.
So I'm not sorry that I fell in love with you. That's right, I'm in love with you, Damon."
Thank you. (Also works that they are both vampires when she does it, and she did horrible things as a vampire too.)
No, I loved this episode. So much that I almost, almost, want to go out and buy all the DVDs and re-watch them. But alas, no money and no time to do either. Which is probably a good thing. You could do that with Buffy - they were re-running the episodes on FX at the time, and I had taped them. Now - with DVR's, you don't save the recordings - you can't really, no space (well not unless you don't really watch that many tv shows), and they don't rerun them anywhere. Plus no time - back then I barely watched anything and was unemployed or bored at work with access to fanboards. Now, I'm overwhelmed at work, no access to any entertainment sites, and watch far too many tv series.
Once Upon a Time - did two posts on this, took both down. So..this will be brief.
Liked the episode. Had satisfying arcs. Surprised me. I did not see the finale twist coming at all. The twist on the Peter Pan legend was a stroke of genius. This series is doing interesting things with Disneyfied fairy tales - it's sort of de-disneyfying them? OR going in the opposite direction? I'd say it's taking the tale back to its roots, but I seriously doubt that this was what JM Barrie had in mind when he wrote Peter Pan.
Which is ironic, considering they are owned by Disney and financed by Disney. Disney is an evil corporation, no doubt in my mind about that, but they are like Fox in that they sort of leave their writers alone. Make us money and we don't care.
So Peter Pan turns out to be a not so nice guy. A bad buy actually. Seems we've traded up, the evil queen, hook, and rumplestilskin have banded together to go after...wait for it, Peter Pan? LOL! How much you want to bet Tinkerbell is the evil mastermind? Oh that would be fun. Or maybe she's leading the resistance?
Regina gets a nice arc - which for the first time makes sense. She is redeemed by taking responsibility for her actions. I did this, she tells Emma. This is all my fault. I have to stop it. Which may be why Emma decides to help her, either that or it's all about Henry.
Rumplestilskin and Belle/Lacy don't work for me. It's Belle/Lacy who is poorly written and acted. The character just feels flimsy. She's almost too forgiving?
Hook's arc was the best of the episode. It made the most sense why he shifted. The flashbacks are told mainly from his pov. And his yearning for the family he wanted but couldn't have.
The show's main theme seems to be family or core family. Mother/kid/Father. Not so much with the siblings. Lots of only children. Very odd.
See brief.
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Date: 2013-05-18 10:12 pm (UTC)Not sure why Buffy and OUAT originally were just a bunch of only kids with no siblings. It might be that it is easier to write? Also to be fair on OUAT - Snow White was an only child in the fairy tale. And it doesn't quite make logical sense for Emma to have more than one kid wandering about, or Regina being able to adopt more than one. Or Rumplestilskin having more than one...at least there's an explanation, more of one actually than Buffy had. I'll give them that.