My Recent TV Consumption...
Oct. 26th, 2012 07:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
windinthemaplesThe Vampire Diaries
Season Four of The Vampire Diaries is underway and I'm still loving it. Some of the cast pairings, in terms of who gets scenes with who--not necessarily romantically, are switching up which makes for a really interesting dynamic on such a big ensemble show. Is anyone else up-to-date and watching the show every week? My favorite weekly recaps are done by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
woodwitch, at her blog. I don't always agree with her, but she has a great sense of humor, is fiercely loyal to the show without being slavishly accepting of the missteps and plotfails, and she often says what I'm thinking about the episode developments. And, you know, she's really a fun writer to follow no matter what she's talking about.
Arrow
Because I have Hulu Plus and a teething-instead-of-sleeping baby, I started watching Arrow--a new series based on the Green Arrow. He was never on my comic book radar, so I have no preconceptions about the show, the character, or anything. I'm three episodes in and still on-the-fence about whether it will earn a regular place in my TV watching habits. The set-up is pretty simple--wealthy playboy is shipwrecked on an island for five years, presumed dead by everyone. The show starts when he is discovered and brought back to not-Gotham-City,where his family are Trumplike titans of business.
And there are some standard comic book tropes thrown in--the transformative life experience, the seemingly effortless construction of a top-secret high-tech super hero lair, expert tailoring of a leather/pleather fighting costume, the clueless love interest, and the gee-shucks alter-ego with a suspicious tendency to disappear from places just before things get interesting.
I'm just not sure if the cast, as a whole, is interesting enough for a series or if I can handle a 'new bad guy every week' format. What I love is that intercut with the present day are memories the main character has of his castaway days on the island. I, a sucker for all things survival and deserted island-y, want to see how a douche of a guy with minimal lifeskills survives and changes when he finds himself somewhere money doesn't buy him a pass (or even a sandwich). How does he go from his entrenched entitlement to a corruption-fighting superhero? I love that the answer to that might be strewn out, a little thread of insight at a time, episode to episode. So for now, I'm holding out hope for the show to grow on me. Anyone else watching it?
Beauty and the Beast
And, with all the cross-advertising on the CW, it was inevitable that I found myself watching the relaunch of Beauty and the Beast, too. I'm a sucker for Beauty and the Beast myths--my love for Damon and Elena evidence enough--so I was drawn into this one. I like that the 'beauty' is tough but it seems she is tough enough to defend herself for only enough time for the beast to show up to save her time and time again. Like, thank goodness he got there because she was going to eat it but geez--he could be a little speedier with his swooping in.
But really, this is probably going to drop off my watching list pretty quickly. I don't see the appeal of either main character and I can't quite figure out why I should value or even believe their instant chemistry. The man is gorgeous. Nothing beastly about him, unless he gets HULK-MAD but otherwise, this isn't the story of looking past the cover. No, he's gorgeous and he's intelligent and he's been cursed by the military like a lot of vets I know. He can't let other people see him, not because he's hideous or terrifying, but simply because he is supposed to be dead and can't be caught out and about, hale and hearty.
So it isn't Beauty and the Beast so much as it is Beauty and the Fugitive. If you've seen it--what do you think? :)
~*~
Other than that, I've been catching up on past episodes of So You Think You Can Dance and Master Chef here and there. (Don't tell me what happens, please.)
What are you watching? :)
Season Four of The Vampire Diaries is underway and I'm still loving it. Some of the cast pairings, in terms of who gets scenes with who--not necessarily romantically, are switching up which makes for a really interesting dynamic on such a big ensemble show. Is anyone else up-to-date and watching the show every week? My favorite weekly recaps are done by
woodwitch, at her blog. I don't always agree with her, but she has a great sense of humor, is fiercely loyal to the show without being slavishly accepting of the missteps and plotfails, and she often says what I'm thinking about the episode developments. And, you know, she's really a fun writer to follow no matter what she's talking about.Arrow
Because I have Hulu Plus and a teething-instead-of-sleeping baby, I started watching Arrow--a new series based on the Green Arrow. He was never on my comic book radar, so I have no preconceptions about the show, the character, or anything. I'm three episodes in and still on-the-fence about whether it will earn a regular place in my TV watching habits. The set-up is pretty simple--wealthy playboy is shipwrecked on an island for five years, presumed dead by everyone. The show starts when he is discovered and brought back to not-Gotham-City,where his family are Trumplike titans of business.
And there are some standard comic book tropes thrown in--the transformative life experience, the seemingly effortless construction of a top-secret high-tech super hero lair, expert tailoring of a leather/pleather fighting costume, the clueless love interest, and the gee-shucks alter-ego with a suspicious tendency to disappear from places just before things get interesting.
I'm just not sure if the cast, as a whole, is interesting enough for a series or if I can handle a 'new bad guy every week' format. What I love is that intercut with the present day are memories the main character has of his castaway days on the island. I, a sucker for all things survival and deserted island-y, want to see how a douche of a guy with minimal lifeskills survives and changes when he finds himself somewhere money doesn't buy him a pass (or even a sandwich). How does he go from his entrenched entitlement to a corruption-fighting superhero? I love that the answer to that might be strewn out, a little thread of insight at a time, episode to episode. So for now, I'm holding out hope for the show to grow on me. Anyone else watching it?
Beauty and the Beast
And, with all the cross-advertising on the CW, it was inevitable that I found myself watching the relaunch of Beauty and the Beast, too. I'm a sucker for Beauty and the Beast myths--my love for Damon and Elena evidence enough--so I was drawn into this one. I like that the 'beauty' is tough but it seems she is tough enough to defend herself for only enough time for the beast to show up to save her time and time again. Like, thank goodness he got there because she was going to eat it but geez--he could be a little speedier with his swooping in.
But really, this is probably going to drop off my watching list pretty quickly. I don't see the appeal of either main character and I can't quite figure out why I should value or even believe their instant chemistry. The man is gorgeous. Nothing beastly about him, unless he gets HULK-MAD but otherwise, this isn't the story of looking past the cover. No, he's gorgeous and he's intelligent and he's been cursed by the military like a lot of vets I know. He can't let other people see him, not because he's hideous or terrifying, but simply because he is supposed to be dead and can't be caught out and about, hale and hearty.
So it isn't Beauty and the Beast so much as it is Beauty and the Fugitive. If you've seen it--what do you think? :)
~*~
Other than that, I've been catching up on past episodes of So You Think You Can Dance and Master Chef here and there. (Don't tell me what happens, please.)
What are you watching? :)
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no subject
Date: 2012-10-28 01:08 pm (UTC)I've never seen Dexter.
Oh! I forgot about Revolution. I, sucker for all things desert islandy and nuts and bolts survival, had hopes for that, too. Daniel gave up, pretty much immediately, because of the whole science-doesn't-make-sense aspect. It drove him *crazy* that some random things would stop--even combustion engines. I don't know why these things have to become all Lost and magic and conspiracies and whatever instead of sticking to a basic premise like, "Holy shit, our global population is about to take a terrific swan dive because nobody, anywhere, has electricity." Why doesn't anyone ever make *that* show--where suddenly doctors have to operate back in the Dark Ages, with knowledge but little to no equipment or manufactured drugs--where local communities have to pull together because there is no shipping or transportation options to make your new world anything *but* a local affair. Instead it's like Lost and Hunger Games had a weird Fireflyesque baby. I'm just not sure how long I can hold out there and hope for interesting insight into their real-life problems, outside of militia and military dictatorship filling the voids left by government.
no subject
Date: 2012-10-28 02:00 pm (UTC)All that said, I would not suggest that you in particular watch Dexter, it can be incredibly disturbing.
For me the show Dexter is a special exercise in fascination and frustration. I read the first two books in the series the tv show is bases on. The author made it exceptionally crystal clear that Dexter is a complete sociopath, which makes the books both repellent and strangely interesting, in the way that watching aggressive insects is interesting. The show chose to depart from that in incredible and credulity stretching ways. Put very simply Dexter (as played by Michael C. Hall) is not a sociopath, he is an emotionally damaged victim, with low emotional affect and stunted social abilities, who has an obsession with blood and death and is also a vigilante. But he does to limited degrees show empathy and guilt, which a true sociopath couldn't and allows repeated ego assaults to occur without raging, controlling, anger or punishment which a true sociopath could not. The vigilante aspect cannot be down-played in the tv show, it is really the central controlling plot line. In the books Dexter is not motivated in the same way.
For me, there is something strangely satisfying about some vigilante plot lines in shows and movies. Sean is obsessed with them and has honestly watched every single vigilante movie ever made and some of them are just too way out there for me. However, I guess there's this dark aspect in me that I won't let myself consider ideas like that in real life, but there is something weirdly satisfying about seeing vigilantism in some tv and movies (like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo).
But Dexter troubles me deeply if we consider as something other than a comic book. Harry, Dexter's father, rather than getting him help, turned him into not just a vigilante but really in so many ways, a monster, but as the show progresses and we see that Dexter is clearly not a sociopath, then Harry's actions become about his own dark fantasies and has closed Dexter off from any possibility of a normal life.