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Where are all my sucky shows?
Do you ever get so far behind you're not sure how to get started again? I am there. And I don't know what the hell it is I'm spending all my time doing, considering I never seem to accomplish anything. And I'm there not just in every day stuff, but as a result, also in all things fannish. I keep meaning to post posts, and reply to posts, and write stories, and vid vids, and the like, and I look at my flist and think "answer that" and put it to the side, in the big pile o' things to think about how to reply to, and by the time I look up again, it's three weeks later, and I haven't sent the reply, or written the rec, or even just posted the chatty nonsensical boring-ass LJ post.
While my own lack of organization is much to blame, I would like to dole out some complaints in the direction of the Hollywood, as well, for getting down to business this year and utterly failing to put forward their usual craptastic crop of shows. Usually, if I am lucky, I get 1.5 good new shows a year. This year? We're *awash*.
This season is a freakish mystery of... good shows. Shows that are not just not bad, but really really good. Shows that totally should have sucked, and do not. I don't have time for this many good shows. I'm having to outright ignore the existence of some of them, and hope I'll be able to catch up later. In the distance, I can hear tzikeh howling "HOUSE! HOUSE!" like a wounded moose. At even closer quarters, Thing 1 stomps about muttering "AlanDenny! DennyAlan! Cigars! In! Ears!" and I just make the sign of the cross at her and throw SG eps in her path with sticky notes on them that say things like "not yet catalogued" to distract her. .
Random Spoilers will follow on shows I'm watching this season, up through everything actually aired on television.
Veronica Mars
I think I first saw advertising for this show on one of those mall billboards. It was of some blond chick, wearing all sorts of scanty clothing, and it read something like "Veronica Mars lives in Neptune, home of the wealthy and privileged, and makes a living as a private eye while dodging her snooty classmates."
I thought to myself: "This is it. The stupidest idea for a show YET. BAR NONE. Ah, UPN, you never fail me."
Part of the above statement was based on my belief that when they said Neptune, they actually meant... Neptune. Something about the combination of her name and the town's name led me to believe the show was going to be set in the future, on another planet. I imagined domes and flying cars and all sorts of new gadgets private eyes used in the future, and private detective agencies being run by teenagers. Let's not dwell on that too closely, shall we?
What'd we get instead? A show with well-written plots, and well-developed characters. A show with an arc. A show with a surprising amount of slash, and people who I care about even while they act like complete assholes (I'm looking at you, Logan, yes I am).
A few weeks back, on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
marthawells livejournal, there was a discussion of heroines, and the categories they fall into. (Small spoilers for Martha Wells books ahead). Basically, Martha let us in on the fact that her Wizard Hunters trilogy was a hard sell to the publishers, because the main character, Tremaine, does not fall into the categories of heroines that publishers know and cherish as they wallow in narrowmindedness. Namely, the tough, Xena-like female capable of slashing and burning her way through the story physically, or the heroine who is swept along by emotions and events and powers. Instead, Tremaine has the annoying tendency to leap in and decide the direction of events herself, using mostly her brainpower.
At the time, I sat back, and reflected through shows I was watching, trying to place the women I found into these categories. Aeryn Sun? Brawn. Buffy? Ditto, plus a heaping of emotion and events. Sydney Bristow? brawn and events. Jordan (Crossing Jordan) is a all about the emotion. Joan? Emotion.
The only character I came up with on television currently, who seemed to be a match for Tremaine was -- Veronica Mars. It's a very strange comparison to be making, but it fits. She doesn't use brawn to win through a situation. In the very rare occasions we've seen her need muscle, she's provided it in the form of a taser, or a very big woobie of a dog named Backup. She *used* to be swept along by emotion and events. And those events made her a harder, pushier bitch, who decided she wanted to be the one in control of the situation. She's got the brainpower to get what she wants, and the will to use it. She is pushing this show along with her *intelligence,* and it's a welcome change.
Of the secondary characters? Duncan is more interesting than he first appeared. Logan is McKay-like in his ability to be an asshole who is not nearly that much of a jerk after all, and clearly deeply scarred (and scared) by the people around him. Weevil oozes charisma all over my television screen. Also, the show has a character called Weevil. Bonus points. Logan and Weevil acting in scenes together? Slash Overload. Duncan and Logan and their matching underwear? Um, well. Papa Mars is boatloads of fun. It's good to see Bay... Kyle Secor acting again. Wallace was a nice idea, but the actor seems to be terribly outclassed by the acting abilities of everyone else around him, and just comes off as sort of bland and cardboardish.
I have no idea how this show got passed the suits at UPN, and how it continues to survive.
Medium
Well, this should certainly have sucked. Besides being mostly a Dead Zone ripoff, and the fact that they've done a lousy job of defining exactly what her abilities are, or how she could have gone this long in her life without addressing their presence, etc etc.
But so far, they haven't fallen into any of the easy, stupid traps, and the acting abilities of the main character and her husband, and primarily, their interactions with one another, or holding it together. I like that they're working with a family here -- no easy going young single woman with super-powers. She's got three kids. They fight. She has a husband who isn't always that understanding. THEY fight. Beautifully. Like real people fight. And then they move the hell on, because life keeps going, and they've got three kids, and haven't got a whole lot of spare time to obsess in deep and unrealistic overly dramatic scenes about whether they'll ever be all right again, blah blah blah.
I'm not sure where they're going with this one. I hope they've given it some thought, because it would be easy to let it fall apart after the initial setup... but they're doing it well enough right now that they've already gained a lot of my faith in them.
Battlestar Galactica
I think I broke my own rules, and never gave it a chance the first time around. I just sat there, when the original mini-series aired, going "Yeah, whatever, PLEASE, I don't care, it sucked the first time around, when it wasn't in the hands of the Scare Tactics crowd over at SciFi."
So, this second time around was my first viewing of the show and I was... shocked. SHOCKED, at just how damn good it was. At how stressed out and freaked and tense the mini-series made me. 33? Nearly broke me, from the stress. I clearly care, as I want to reach over and slap Baltar around, and suchlike. I cannot imagine where they are going with Helo's character, stuck back on Caprica. I mean, he can't possibly catch up with the fleet at this point, right? He's stuck there, right? This is a story arc that just can't end well... can it? I'M SO STRESSED OUT! But in a good way!
This Starbuck is better than the last. I also find it fascinating that she seems to be the lead character this time around, among the younger generation, rather than Apollo. (Or at least, she's given billing in the credits over him). Apollo needs a bit more character, but maybe he'll get there. I'm always happy to see Olmos, and McDonnell is working out well for me.
In other news, there is Lost. Hmmm. I suspect Lost of not being as good as I think it is. They'll break me, sooner or later, with the forever building up the mystery and never actually getting anywhere. But maybe not. After all, the Alias fans all appear to still be glued to their sets.
Crossing Jordan, on the other hand, is losing me. At this rate, I will soon shake my head sadly, and wander away, thus freeing up a desperately needed hour of time. They've lost... something. The writing. The acting. They keep bringing in new characters who they try to make three dimensional, or something, and instead they just manage to produce stereotypes that were old and crappy in the 80s. Garret, Bug, Nigel, I will miss you! Woody, you are cute. But truly, you are the worst detective ever. My cat could kick your ass.
In the meantime, there is still SG1 and SGA. Joan continues! My addiction to The Amazing Race continues, although this season has definitely suffered at the hands of that utter asshole Jonathan, and the PTBs unrelenting overuse of bunching. Hey guys? What we like about the show is not the fear factor crap, it's watching actual people deal with traumas such as cab drivers and airports, strangely enough. Now. Win back my heart with an All-Star TAR that brings me back Kenny and Gerard, Danny and Ozzie, the Guidos, The Frats, the Bowling Mom, and the Clowns. Pronto.
I am all caught up on 24 because Thing 1 was all "I WILL pimp you into 24 even if it kills us BOTH." But can I discuss it with her? Nooooo. Because she's so far behind on *her* TiVo homework, she hasn't even *started* the season yet.
More good television than I can shake a stick at. And yet. There's something important missing from my schedule... a good, old fashioned, buddy show. On the one hand, I'm happy that the networks are finally focussing on plots and characterization. That they have started writing female characters who not only don't make me want to slit my wrists, but who can be strong without having to deck someone. But it does interefere with the slash ethic, yo. I have to make do with my Stargates, and what's present there, and while that's all well and good... I miss my buddy shows. I feel like Invisible Man was the last show that really fit that bill. Now I'm left to fish around in my otherwise perfectly good shows for scenes that might indicate some inkling of what we used to get all the time -- scenes such as best friends wearing the same dorky underwear.
In short... I watch too much TV.
While my own lack of organization is much to blame, I would like to dole out some complaints in the direction of the Hollywood, as well, for getting down to business this year and utterly failing to put forward their usual craptastic crop of shows. Usually, if I am lucky, I get 1.5 good new shows a year. This year? We're *awash*.
This season is a freakish mystery of... good shows. Shows that are not just not bad, but really really good. Shows that totally should have sucked, and do not. I don't have time for this many good shows. I'm having to outright ignore the existence of some of them, and hope I'll be able to catch up later. In the distance, I can hear tzikeh howling "HOUSE! HOUSE!" like a wounded moose. At even closer quarters, Thing 1 stomps about muttering "AlanDenny! DennyAlan! Cigars! In! Ears!" and I just make the sign of the cross at her and throw SG eps in her path with sticky notes on them that say things like "not yet catalogued" to distract her. .
Random Spoilers will follow on shows I'm watching this season, up through everything actually aired on television.
Veronica Mars
I think I first saw advertising for this show on one of those mall billboards. It was of some blond chick, wearing all sorts of scanty clothing, and it read something like "Veronica Mars lives in Neptune, home of the wealthy and privileged, and makes a living as a private eye while dodging her snooty classmates."
I thought to myself: "This is it. The stupidest idea for a show YET. BAR NONE. Ah, UPN, you never fail me."
Part of the above statement was based on my belief that when they said Neptune, they actually meant... Neptune. Something about the combination of her name and the town's name led me to believe the show was going to be set in the future, on another planet. I imagined domes and flying cars and all sorts of new gadgets private eyes used in the future, and private detective agencies being run by teenagers.
What'd we get instead? A show with well-written plots, and well-developed characters. A show with an arc. A show with a surprising amount of slash, and people who I care about even while they act like complete assholes (I'm looking at you, Logan, yes I am).
A few weeks back, on
marthawells livejournal, there was a discussion of heroines, and the categories they fall into. (Small spoilers for Martha Wells books ahead). Basically, Martha let us in on the fact that her Wizard Hunters trilogy was a hard sell to the publishers, because the main character, Tremaine, does not fall into the categories of heroines that publishers know and cherish as they wallow in narrowmindedness. Namely, the tough, Xena-like female capable of slashing and burning her way through the story physically, or the heroine who is swept along by emotions and events and powers. Instead, Tremaine has the annoying tendency to leap in and decide the direction of events herself, using mostly her brainpower.At the time, I sat back, and reflected through shows I was watching, trying to place the women I found into these categories. Aeryn Sun? Brawn. Buffy? Ditto, plus a heaping of emotion and events. Sydney Bristow? brawn and events. Jordan (Crossing Jordan) is a all about the emotion. Joan? Emotion.
The only character I came up with on television currently, who seemed to be a match for Tremaine was -- Veronica Mars. It's a very strange comparison to be making, but it fits. She doesn't use brawn to win through a situation. In the very rare occasions we've seen her need muscle, she's provided it in the form of a taser, or a very big woobie of a dog named Backup. She *used* to be swept along by emotion and events. And those events made her a harder, pushier bitch, who decided she wanted to be the one in control of the situation. She's got the brainpower to get what she wants, and the will to use it. She is pushing this show along with her *intelligence,* and it's a welcome change.
Of the secondary characters? Duncan is more interesting than he first appeared. Logan is McKay-like in his ability to be an asshole who is not nearly that much of a jerk after all, and clearly deeply scarred (and scared) by the people around him. Weevil oozes charisma all over my television screen. Also, the show has a character called Weevil. Bonus points. Logan and Weevil acting in scenes together? Slash Overload. Duncan and Logan and their matching underwear? Um, well. Papa Mars is boatloads of fun. It's good to see Bay... Kyle Secor acting again. Wallace was a nice idea, but the actor seems to be terribly outclassed by the acting abilities of everyone else around him, and just comes off as sort of bland and cardboardish.
I have no idea how this show got passed the suits at UPN, and how it continues to survive.
Medium
Well, this should certainly have sucked. Besides being mostly a Dead Zone ripoff, and the fact that they've done a lousy job of defining exactly what her abilities are, or how she could have gone this long in her life without addressing their presence, etc etc.
But so far, they haven't fallen into any of the easy, stupid traps, and the acting abilities of the main character and her husband, and primarily, their interactions with one another, or holding it together. I like that they're working with a family here -- no easy going young single woman with super-powers. She's got three kids. They fight. She has a husband who isn't always that understanding. THEY fight. Beautifully. Like real people fight. And then they move the hell on, because life keeps going, and they've got three kids, and haven't got a whole lot of spare time to obsess in deep and unrealistic overly dramatic scenes about whether they'll ever be all right again, blah blah blah.
I'm not sure where they're going with this one. I hope they've given it some thought, because it would be easy to let it fall apart after the initial setup... but they're doing it well enough right now that they've already gained a lot of my faith in them.
Battlestar Galactica
I think I broke my own rules, and never gave it a chance the first time around. I just sat there, when the original mini-series aired, going "Yeah, whatever, PLEASE, I don't care, it sucked the first time around, when it wasn't in the hands of the Scare Tactics crowd over at SciFi."
So, this second time around was my first viewing of the show and I was... shocked. SHOCKED, at just how damn good it was. At how stressed out and freaked and tense the mini-series made me. 33? Nearly broke me, from the stress. I clearly care, as I want to reach over and slap Baltar around, and suchlike. I cannot imagine where they are going with Helo's character, stuck back on Caprica. I mean, he can't possibly catch up with the fleet at this point, right? He's stuck there, right? This is a story arc that just can't end well... can it? I'M SO STRESSED OUT! But in a good way!
This Starbuck is better than the last. I also find it fascinating that she seems to be the lead character this time around, among the younger generation, rather than Apollo. (Or at least, she's given billing in the credits over him). Apollo needs a bit more character, but maybe he'll get there. I'm always happy to see Olmos, and McDonnell is working out well for me.
In other news, there is Lost. Hmmm. I suspect Lost of not being as good as I think it is. They'll break me, sooner or later, with the forever building up the mystery and never actually getting anywhere. But maybe not. After all, the Alias fans all appear to still be glued to their sets.
Crossing Jordan, on the other hand, is losing me. At this rate, I will soon shake my head sadly, and wander away, thus freeing up a desperately needed hour of time. They've lost... something. The writing. The acting. They keep bringing in new characters who they try to make three dimensional, or something, and instead they just manage to produce stereotypes that were old and crappy in the 80s. Garret, Bug, Nigel, I will miss you! Woody, you are cute. But truly, you are the worst detective ever. My cat could kick your ass.
In the meantime, there is still SG1 and SGA. Joan continues! My addiction to The Amazing Race continues, although this season has definitely suffered at the hands of that utter asshole Jonathan, and the PTBs unrelenting overuse of bunching. Hey guys? What we like about the show is not the fear factor crap, it's watching actual people deal with traumas such as cab drivers and airports, strangely enough. Now. Win back my heart with an All-Star TAR that brings me back Kenny and Gerard, Danny and Ozzie, the Guidos, The Frats, the Bowling Mom, and the Clowns. Pronto.
I am all caught up on 24 because Thing 1 was all "I WILL pimp you into 24 even if it kills us BOTH." But can I discuss it with her? Nooooo. Because she's so far behind on *her* TiVo homework, she hasn't even *started* the season yet.
More good television than I can shake a stick at. And yet. There's something important missing from my schedule... a good, old fashioned, buddy show. On the one hand, I'm happy that the networks are finally focussing on plots and characterization. That they have started writing female characters who not only don't make me want to slit my wrists, but who can be strong without having to deck someone. But it does interefere with the slash ethic, yo. I have to make do with my Stargates, and what's present there, and while that's all well and good... I miss my buddy shows. I feel like Invisible Man was the last show that really fit that bill. Now I'm left to fish around in my otherwise perfectly good shows for scenes that might indicate some inkling of what we used to get all the time -- scenes such as best friends wearing the same dorky underwear.
In short... I watch too much TV.