Viewer dissaffection, or not

[selenak]

Life is a show I've been following, liked well enough but never fell in love with. A good thing, too, considering that like some other shows, it's in severe danger right now, and I have enough fannish angst about The Sarah Connor Chronicles. However, even if it doesn't get axed after all, I'm not sure I'd continue watching. I think it's suffering from later X-Files-itis already, which in a second season doesn't bode well. What I mean with this: we just got illustrated that this show's creators can't plot conspiracies and conspiracy arcs any better than Chris Carter could. (I mean, "let's rule the galaxy as father and son" and "but why did Rayborn like you better than me, that's just MEAN" - really? And Dani Reese is already where Scully was in the later seasons; she's lost her own agenda and her own story within the larger narrative. Now, what reviews I read over the seasons mostly blamed Tidwell and the hair, but I don't think Tidwell was the problem. (Though admittedly I do like Tidwell and thus am biased in his favour. It's the fannish underdog lover in me, I suppose, plus I've got a soft spot for New Yorkers out of place in Los Angeles.) It's Charlie. One of the major reasons why I couldn't go "aw, partners" over the finale where he saved her, or the earlier expressions of faith, or the ending on the world "love", is this: Charlie should have told Dani about the conspiracy, and her father's involvement, ages ago, at the start of this season. That's what you do when you have a friend you've come to trust and respect. He didn't because the writers wanted to keep Dani in the dark because they wanted to keep Charlie as isolated investigator, with Ted as an occasional help but not a partner. Which illustrates my point about Dani in season 2 not existing for any reason of her own in this story. Her family background exited the show with her father, along with her own issues with him which were not just the result of the "how much responsibility did Jack Reese bear for Charlie's 12 years in prison" question. And the solution of how to deal with the actress' pregnancy was straight out of the X-Files as well - she gets kidnapped, he gets to angst. And she didn't get to make one single contribution to her own rescue. And as opposed to second season Scully doesn't get an awesome episode like Breathe to deal with the aftermath. What we do get hinted, with rather heavy anvils in the form of the "there is always UST between male and female partners" and "my wife used to be my partner" remarks, is an eventual romance between the leads. Don't get me wrong, this doesn't make Life less entertaining, but it means that in order to continue watching, I'd have to watch it for Charlie Crews, not for Dani Reese, and I'd have to abandon the hope for her to regain her own momentum. And Charlie, while not boring, just isn't that interesting a character to me, and I can get quirky mystery plots of the week elswhere.

I suppose what it comes down to is what you're watching a show for. Some of the reasons why my affection for Lost grew instead of lessened over the years - other than watching the first three seasons on dvd each time and thus without interruption - was that a) I (almost) never felt the show did wrong by my favourite characters, b) most of the new characters it introduced post season 1 I liked, found interesting in varying degrees and in some cases came to love more than most of the original characters, and c) that major switch of direction at the end of s3, which rejuvenated the show creatively just when one could assume they had now played out all the plotlines the original format allowed. This impressed me and made me trust in the writers' creativity. Had I been watching for Shannon, for Boone, for Charlie etc., I probably would have felt differently. As it is, I'm still on a fannish high due to the most recent episode, which someone did a great pic spam for. And thus inclined to draw sparkly hearts around the crazy, crazy show.

Then there's Dexter. I remember being considerably upset at the end of season 2, not for the usual reasons (there was no decline of artistic quality, no sudden disregard of the ensemble in favour of a central romance, no female characters suddenly losing their agency or anything like that, and the conclusion the season arrived at was logical in terms of character and plot alike), but I was upset, and it took me until about a third or so into the third season until this had settled down. So it was very interesting for me to read londonkds' season 2 review (no season 3 spoilers, and don't spoil him for season 3 if you comment).

Comments

[elisi]

I'm afraid this has nothing to do with the post, but I remember that you said you'd be interested in any Watchmen thoughts I might write down. Well I never wrote a review, but I *did* have a long discussion on my LJ with ibmiller that covers a lot of the points I would have written about. In case you're curious. :)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Oh, thanks! I am somewhat amused by the Incredibles comparison, because one of my reactions to the Incredibles was, check it out, "tries to be Watchmen for kids, and is failing". (Though my main problem with the Incredibles was how incredibly elitist it was by making ALL the heroes superpowered and the villain someone who got his powers via invention and technology. A single Batman-type character among the heroes - i.e. someone who became a superhero not because he/she has powers but because they have the smarts and the inventiveness - would have fixed that.)

(Oh, and the book - Watchmen, I mean -, as opposed to the film, really is crystal clear about the superpowers question. Nobody but Jon has some. The end. Yes, Ozymandias is able to catch a bullet, but nobody believed he'd be able to before Laurie shot him, that was just a joke among superheroes. Snyder couldn't resist some cinematic hyperbole; for example, in the book Dan and Laurie get cornered in the alley by five muggers, not more. Whom they beat up but do not kill. Snyder couldn't resist into making it a whole gang and adding some bone crunching.)

I'm also a bit confused why your conversation partner seems to be consider Snyder, Miller and Moore the same politically, when Moore, old fashioned leftist anarchist that he is, couldn't be further apart than the other two. (I remember back in the 80s when he was still giving interviews about Watchmen he said that he made Rorschach into his exact opposite politically; Rorschach would despise him.)

Rorschach as the moral centre: not so much. Yes, he doesn't compromise. He's still also a guy who fanboys the Comedian, dismisses the attempted rape as the occasional lapse a great man like the Comedian is entitled to, and can't understand why Laurie should be upset about this. He's also actually wrong in his crucial theory, about the murderer being a "mask killer"; it's Dan who deducts the truth, not just by opening Adrian's files on the computer but before that, when pointing out the death of the Comedian wasn't the event that came first but whatever the Comedian saw, as told by him to Moloch. (And indeed Adrian killed the Comedian because the Comedian had stumbled across his secret, then distracted attention from himself by using Rorschach's mask killer theory by staging an attack on himself.)

Alan Moore is one God gift's to comic readers, so your friend has no reason to be irritated by that assumption. *veg* (I'm actually more fond of Neil Gaiman, but Moore at his best is amazing, and truly revolutionary.)

[wee-warrior.livejournal.com]

I felt that the ending Life got was like this precisely because the creators know that the show won't come back and wanted to wrap things up - which they did extremely clumsily, I might add. The solution to the conspiracy really makes no sense at all, and though I love both Ted and Adam Arkin (and to a degree also Stark and Brent Sexton), I have no idea why he, or they, were even on the show this season. It would have been better for having ended after the first nine episodes.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

True. While not everything was wrapt up, the first season finale provided a sense of resolution and the show at its height, and all characters having a point.

[violaswamp.livejournal.com]

Dexter S2 was brilliantly written and plotted, but I can definitely see how it would be upsetting to the point of disaffection nonetheless. It wasn't for me, but the Doakes plotline could have that effect on people, all the more so for how well it was written.

I agree with londonkds's criticism of how Lila was written, though: that's my sole nitpick. She was a well-conceived foil for Dexter, but towards the end her particular style of villainy became more of a misogynistic stereotype than it had to be.

[callmesandy.livejournal.com]

I think it helped for me enjoying the season finale of Life that I haven't watched any of s1. Which I hear is AWESOME. And I should.