This and that
Oct. 27th, 2025 05:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakGot my Yuletide assignment, which is going to be fun - I just have to refresh my canon memories, and it's not a long canon. Also, I just finished the (short) first season of Dark Winds. Now I dimly remember reaidng one of Hillerman's novels decades ago, but only a very few details remained with me - the asking about the clans, for example - which meant that basically I went into this unspoiled. And was v. amused that apparantly Noah Emmerich now gets typecast as an F.B.I agent, though Stan from The Americans and High Pockets here are very different types.
Now I didn't feel swept of my feet, so to speak, and the final twist wasn't really one if you know how these kind of mysteries go, especially with the FBI versus Tribal Police set up, but the characters quickly became memorable, and I liked and appreciated that Emma wasn't "just" treated as Joe Leaphorn's wife by the narrative but that she had her own expertise and opinions and issues instead of being solely there to support him, and that the relationship between them was complicated yet strong; middleaged couples still aren't what most tv shows allow focus on. Joe and Emma's unhealed grief for their son, and how the show treated it, also reminded me a bit of Six Feet Under, which is high praise from me. Jim Chee as the young assimilated and ambitious officer/agent who has to rediscover his roots and has to decide between ambition and morality at the end had perhaps the most predictable arc, but I mind those only if they're badly executed, and this one wasn't. Bernadette as the Susan Ivanova of the Navajo Tribal Police completes the quartet of the four leads (so far), and very relieved was I when she got to save herself in the big finale instead of one of the two guys doing it; she is the prickly and competent female Faithful Liieutenant who feels like an excellent rendition of the trope.
The cinematography (do we use this word for a tv show) is gorgeous and makes the most of the location. Where, it seems, they actually shot. BTW, I am not surprised the story didn't get updated from decades before, because parts of the plot depend on our heroes not having access to a mobile phone because we're still n the era of landlines and radio for the police. (Otoh, the reveal of the backstory trauma for one of the villains feels like it is from the last fifteen years or so.)
Meanwhile, thinking back to ye olde days when shows had 22 episodes per season, I just found this well crafted retroscpective on Six Feet Under, which reminded me of how much I loved and appreciated it:
The Family Tomb: A Six Feet Under Retrospective
Now I didn't feel swept of my feet, so to speak, and the final twist wasn't really one if you know how these kind of mysteries go, especially with the FBI versus Tribal Police set up, but the characters quickly became memorable, and I liked and appreciated that Emma wasn't "just" treated as Joe Leaphorn's wife by the narrative but that she had her own expertise and opinions and issues instead of being solely there to support him, and that the relationship between them was complicated yet strong; middleaged couples still aren't what most tv shows allow focus on. Joe and Emma's unhealed grief for their son, and how the show treated it, also reminded me a bit of Six Feet Under, which is high praise from me. Jim Chee as the young assimilated and ambitious officer/agent who has to rediscover his roots and has to decide between ambition and morality at the end had perhaps the most predictable arc, but I mind those only if they're badly executed, and this one wasn't. Bernadette as the Susan Ivanova of the Navajo Tribal Police completes the quartet of the four leads (so far), and very relieved was I when she got to save herself in the big finale instead of one of the two guys doing it; she is the prickly and competent female Faithful Liieutenant who feels like an excellent rendition of the trope.
The cinematography (do we use this word for a tv show) is gorgeous and makes the most of the location. Where, it seems, they actually shot. BTW, I am not surprised the story didn't get updated from decades before, because parts of the plot depend on our heroes not having access to a mobile phone because we're still n the era of landlines and radio for the police. (Otoh, the reveal of the backstory trauma for one of the villains feels like it is from the last fifteen years or so.)
Meanwhile, thinking back to ye olde days when shows had 22 episodes per season, I just found this well crafted retroscpective on Six Feet Under, which reminded me of how much I loved and appreciated it:
The Family Tomb: A Six Feet Under Retrospective
no subject
Date: 2025-10-27 05:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-28 04:15 am (UTC)