Courtesy of streaming: shows marathoned
Jan. 31st, 2018 02:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakMarathoned in recent months:
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, first season: in a word, living up to its title. The heroine is indeed marvelous, most of the characters around her are endearing in varying degrees but always entertaining, the scripts are witty, and the overall premise of the season – 1950s New York housewife suddenly finding herself sans husband and home starts to strike out on her own as stand-up comic – is delivered with verve. It’s a show that passes the Bechdel test in every episode without even trying, not least because of the key relationship between Miriam „Midge“ Maisel, our heroine, and Susie Myerson, who runs a bar/improv stage and, spotting Midge’s talent, wants to become her manager. Ideal if you’re looking for smart entertainment without violence but with a (comic) punch.
Wynona Earp, season 2: continues to remind me of 1990s fantasy shows in its mixture of cheesiness and emotional power. I do have some nitpicks: For starters, it’s pretty obvious to me the show trapped itself with establishing Black Badge as this ominous überpowerful organisation capable and ruthless enough to bomb entire cities if they think the demons in same run amuck. Because that’s not something our heroine and her friends can go seriously up against and win, and thus Black Badge in s2 wildly varies between „yes, they are that powerful/ruthless“ and „no, they’re not, just kidding, and also, they seem to have just that warehouse near the Ghost River triangle to stash their prisoners and stuff“. One moment Dolls is a persecuted apostate to be killed on site, the next Black Badge is okay with him living in Purgatory (and apparantly pays him his salary again? Because if not, what does he live from?). And so forth. The basic problem ist hat you can’t remove Wynona and friends from Purgatory without destroying the other premise of the show, and if Black Badge were really what they seem to be in s1, Wynona et al would have had to go on the run post s1, never to see Purgatory again.
My other nitpick is that I’m not sure the show knows what it’s doing with Rosita. Not because Rosita switches sides in the season finale; she had more than enough reason to. But because of said reasons. And because a lot of summaries of the earlier episode where Nicole is saved include the remark that Rosita volunteers for Jeremy’s experiments. Err, that’s not what I saw. What I saw was that Wynona basically didn’t give her a choice. (If the choice is „either volunteer for gruesome experiment in order to save Nicole or be sent to hell by person whose best intention fo me is ‚I’ll kill you last‘ anyway, well, that’s not much of a choice.) There’s a certain irony here in that the very next episode, aka the show’s take on The Wish (of BTVS fame), positions that Wynona is the reason Dolls became more than a heartless bureaucrat on board with torture and Doc didn’t devolve into an evil overlord equally into torturing people. Now don’t get me wrong: I can totally buy that Wynona, in order to save a friend (which Nicole is to her, in addition to being Waverley’s beloved, and may I add, I deeply appreciate that Nicole’s interactions on the show aren’t solely defined by her being Waverley’s love interest, that the rest of the gang have their own relationships with her!) , would go so far as to put someone through torture. There’s s1 precedent. (And what else would you call burying Constance alive in salt so Doc doesn’t die yet Constance is still depowered?) And it’s also why I have no problem with Rosita no longer being on team Earp in the finale. But the dialogue between her and Wynona seems to make Rosita’s switch more about Doc than about the gruesome experiment interlude, and that’s why I’m not sure the show gets quite how Wynona’s „volunteering“ of Rosita as an experiment subject came across.
All this being said: still loved the season, everyone’s relationships developing further, the flashbacks with their new intel on pre-demon Bobo, and the general mixture of humor and drama. Keep at it, show!
Lastly, because watching Discovery made me hungry for more Star Trek again, I decided to give Enterprise another shot. To recapitulate: originally watched the first three episodes s1, was not impressed and dropped it, years later watched the entire fourth and final season atbimo‘s recommendation who also said it’s more or less its own thing, and I did like the fourth season, though not so much I was motivated to watch the rest of the show. Now I’m well into s1 and am happy to report that Archer, whom I found insufferable for the first three eps back then (still do during those eps; he wasn’t the only reason why I didn’t watch the show, but he certainly was one of them), later on becomes tolerable. (I’m prepared for this to change again later as I was warned s3 is when post 9/11 syndrome strikes in the writing.) And I do like the rest of the crew, plus the first season’s emphasis on exploration. (Had a weird moment when I realised the sight of the Klingons in their post TOS, pre-Discovery design Space Viking glory made me feel downright nostalgic, and the Klingons were never favourites of mine, but still – oh, for the days when the Klingon actors weren’t entirely covered in latex!) It’s not a series that captures me the way Discovery managed to once we were in 1.4 or 1.5. territory, but the first ENT season actually holds up reasonably well when compared to such duds as TNG’s first season (TNG together with DS9 is my overall favourite Trek, but I don’t think any TNG fan in the world will claim that the first season was good.) T’Pol being stuck with the cat suit, well, what else is new. (As has been observed several times, you can tell that Discovery is the first Trek show ever with a female costume designer.) There even are some not predictable episode endings, as with the last one I watched, with its emphasis on Dr. Phlox.
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, first season: in a word, living up to its title. The heroine is indeed marvelous, most of the characters around her are endearing in varying degrees but always entertaining, the scripts are witty, and the overall premise of the season – 1950s New York housewife suddenly finding herself sans husband and home starts to strike out on her own as stand-up comic – is delivered with verve. It’s a show that passes the Bechdel test in every episode without even trying, not least because of the key relationship between Miriam „Midge“ Maisel, our heroine, and Susie Myerson, who runs a bar/improv stage and, spotting Midge’s talent, wants to become her manager. Ideal if you’re looking for smart entertainment without violence but with a (comic) punch.
Wynona Earp, season 2: continues to remind me of 1990s fantasy shows in its mixture of cheesiness and emotional power. I do have some nitpicks: For starters, it’s pretty obvious to me the show trapped itself with establishing Black Badge as this ominous überpowerful organisation capable and ruthless enough to bomb entire cities if they think the demons in same run amuck. Because that’s not something our heroine and her friends can go seriously up against and win, and thus Black Badge in s2 wildly varies between „yes, they are that powerful/ruthless“ and „no, they’re not, just kidding, and also, they seem to have just that warehouse near the Ghost River triangle to stash their prisoners and stuff“. One moment Dolls is a persecuted apostate to be killed on site, the next Black Badge is okay with him living in Purgatory (and apparantly pays him his salary again? Because if not, what does he live from?). And so forth. The basic problem ist hat you can’t remove Wynona and friends from Purgatory without destroying the other premise of the show, and if Black Badge were really what they seem to be in s1, Wynona et al would have had to go on the run post s1, never to see Purgatory again.
My other nitpick is that I’m not sure the show knows what it’s doing with Rosita. Not because Rosita switches sides in the season finale; she had more than enough reason to. But because of said reasons. And because a lot of summaries of the earlier episode where Nicole is saved include the remark that Rosita volunteers for Jeremy’s experiments. Err, that’s not what I saw. What I saw was that Wynona basically didn’t give her a choice. (If the choice is „either volunteer for gruesome experiment in order to save Nicole or be sent to hell by person whose best intention fo me is ‚I’ll kill you last‘ anyway, well, that’s not much of a choice.) There’s a certain irony here in that the very next episode, aka the show’s take on The Wish (of BTVS fame), positions that Wynona is the reason Dolls became more than a heartless bureaucrat on board with torture and Doc didn’t devolve into an evil overlord equally into torturing people. Now don’t get me wrong: I can totally buy that Wynona, in order to save a friend (which Nicole is to her, in addition to being Waverley’s beloved, and may I add, I deeply appreciate that Nicole’s interactions on the show aren’t solely defined by her being Waverley’s love interest, that the rest of the gang have their own relationships with her!) , would go so far as to put someone through torture. There’s s1 precedent. (And what else would you call burying Constance alive in salt so Doc doesn’t die yet Constance is still depowered?) And it’s also why I have no problem with Rosita no longer being on team Earp in the finale. But the dialogue between her and Wynona seems to make Rosita’s switch more about Doc than about the gruesome experiment interlude, and that’s why I’m not sure the show gets quite how Wynona’s „volunteering“ of Rosita as an experiment subject came across.
All this being said: still loved the season, everyone’s relationships developing further, the flashbacks with their new intel on pre-demon Bobo, and the general mixture of humor and drama. Keep at it, show!
Lastly, because watching Discovery made me hungry for more Star Trek again, I decided to give Enterprise another shot. To recapitulate: originally watched the first three episodes s1, was not impressed and dropped it, years later watched the entire fourth and final season at
bimo‘s recommendation who also said it’s more or less its own thing, and I did like the fourth season, though not so much I was motivated to watch the rest of the show. Now I’m well into s1 and am happy to report that Archer, whom I found insufferable for the first three eps back then (still do during those eps; he wasn’t the only reason why I didn’t watch the show, but he certainly was one of them), later on becomes tolerable. (I’m prepared for this to change again later as I was warned s3 is when post 9/11 syndrome strikes in the writing.) And I do like the rest of the crew, plus the first season’s emphasis on exploration. (Had a weird moment when I realised the sight of the Klingons in their post TOS, pre-Discovery design Space Viking glory made me feel downright nostalgic, and the Klingons were never favourites of mine, but still – oh, for the days when the Klingon actors weren’t entirely covered in latex!) It’s not a series that captures me the way Discovery managed to once we were in 1.4 or 1.5. territory, but the first ENT season actually holds up reasonably well when compared to such duds as TNG’s first season (TNG together with DS9 is my overall favourite Trek, but I don’t think any TNG fan in the world will claim that the first season was good.) T’Pol being stuck with the cat suit, well, what else is new. (As has been observed several times, you can tell that Discovery is the first Trek show ever with a female costume designer.) There even are some not predictable episode endings, as with the last one I watched, with its emphasis on Dr. Phlox.
no subject
Date: 2018-01-31 03:41 pm (UTC)The episode where the plot switched from Black Badge Will Kill Us All to never really mentioning it again is pretty clearly the one where Andras found out Mel was pregnant and had to fit that in. There's such a HARD left turn in that ep. But no one seems to know who pays for anything. Waverly has some money from her aunt, I think. Doc has the bar, plus blackmail cash from Black Badge. Nicole's a cop. Everyone else is... unemployed?
no subject
Date: 2018-02-01 10:29 am (UTC)The episode where the plot switched from Black Badge Will Kill Us All to never really mentioning it again is pretty clearly the one where Andras found out Mel was pregnant and had to fit that in.
Okay, that's a good Doylist reason, but I'm still curious as to what they would have intended without the pregnancy, because how were Wynona & Co. supposed to provent a superpowerful state-backed military organisation (I knew they later in the season as broadcast declare Black Badge is not government after all, in which case: who does finance them? Why can they operate on US soil the way they do?) who already bombed a town into oblivion once from doing that again? Not with peacemaker and some plucky wiles.
You know, I'd never accuse J.J. Abrams of the most logical plotting, but he had that covered in Alias in that our heroine starts out believing she works for the CIA but finds out in the pilot she's really working for a nefarious organization pretending to be the CIA. She then goes on to become a double agent for the CIA proper. I don't know whether that means double salary, but everyone's finances are clear: SD-6, the organization pretending to be the CIA, is really part of the evil Alliance who finances itself via blackmail, drug trade etc. The CIA, well, you know. And when at different points characters are on the run from one of these two organizations, they don't stick around in their hometown.
Bascially: if you need your ensemble to stay put in one place without any military defense copabilities, best not plot in a way that sics a supposedly very powerful organization with access to bombing on them.
no subject
Date: 2018-02-01 03:06 pm (UTC)Presumably we'll learn why Black Badge DIDN'T murder them next year. Or not.
no subject
Date: 2018-01-31 04:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-01 10:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-01 02:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-01 07:46 am (UTC)There was a lot I enjoyed about Enterprise, but they're really not kidding about the whole 9/11 shift when you get to that, even though S3 does manage to pull out an interesting and complicated ending despite itself. And Dr Phlox is terrific!
no subject
Date: 2018-02-01 10:34 am (UTC)Well, yes, but the thing is, the Wish like episode endorses them in that when Doc mutters "is this who we are without her?", the episode literally claims this is true. I.e. this is who everyone is without Wynona in their lives. That's not something Doc speculates on, it's the premise of the canon AU we're watching in this episode.