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selenakA challenge after my own heart. :) Bear in mind that one person's deserved and wonderful happy ending is another person's out of character travesty and/or unearned easy fix, mileage will vary, etc., etc. Also, before Ashes to Ashes, Life on Mars would have been on the list, but now it's not, due to the AtA revelations later. Now, let's have a go:
1.) All's Well That Ends Well tied with Measure for Measure. Bertram in the former is the kind of guy who makes Bassiano and Gratiano from Merchant of Venice look like price catches, and it will never not irritate me that Helena, for some bemusing reason in love with him, ends up married to him. As for the later, yes, ambiguous silence from Isabella is ambiguous, and much depends on the stage production, but still. Isabella is a woman who most emphatically did not want to get married and then randomly is by ducal power. Angelo/Mariana is also questionable but at least Angelo, while a villain and a wannabe rapist, has still more depth than Bertram plus Mariana's social lot is improved by the arrangement. In conclusion: later Shakespeare was in a cynical mood about the obligatory marriages at the end of nominal comedies, wasn't he?
2.) The endings of the last two seasons of Dexter. About I've complained enough in this journal, so I'll leave it at that. (If you're new to my ramblings and want an explanation why I had a problem with the ending of the fifth season already, here is the old post.)
3.) The Wedding of River Song, New Who season 6. Detailed explanation as to why here . Short version: I felt emotionally disengaged throughout except in three scenes, and because Amy and Rory had not been given the chance of believable emotional reaction throughout the season, these three felt unearned in a larger context. And for the second season in a row (s5: the cracks, which are universe-threatening important, except for all the standalone eps where the Doctor isn't bothered by their existence; s6: the little girl in the season opener whom he doesn't look for because if he did, the whole backstory would fall into pieces, but he doesn't know that yet), crucial bits of the build up and solution depend on the Doctor acting competely ooc for Doylist reasons without Moffat bothering to come up with a Watsonian explanation.
4.) Lindsey Davis: Rebels and Traitors. It's a perfectly good and satisfying novel until the ending, doing what I had in vain hoped The Devil's Whore miniseries would do in terms of the English Civil War and a female main character, and then all of a sudden there is a complete tone shift in narrative voice, characterisation and emphasis. It's just really bizarre. If you don't mind being spoiled for the ending, check out my review here.
5.) Alias. Not Sydney's personal fate. But yeah, everything else about the finale, and much - but not all! - about season 5 in general. (The ending of s4 would have been SO MUCH BETTER as a series finale, I'll never stop saying that.) (And it's not just the First Generation Spies fangirl in me talking.) However, the nature of the show was such that several finale issues are fixable in headcanon, so I'm not nearly as disgruntled with Alias' ending as I am with the other examples. Still, doesn't mean I like it.
1.) All's Well That Ends Well tied with Measure for Measure. Bertram in the former is the kind of guy who makes Bassiano and Gratiano from Merchant of Venice look like price catches, and it will never not irritate me that Helena, for some bemusing reason in love with him, ends up married to him. As for the later, yes, ambiguous silence from Isabella is ambiguous, and much depends on the stage production, but still. Isabella is a woman who most emphatically did not want to get married and then randomly is by ducal power. Angelo/Mariana is also questionable but at least Angelo, while a villain and a wannabe rapist, has still more depth than Bertram plus Mariana's social lot is improved by the arrangement. In conclusion: later Shakespeare was in a cynical mood about the obligatory marriages at the end of nominal comedies, wasn't he?
2.) The endings of the last two seasons of Dexter. About I've complained enough in this journal, so I'll leave it at that. (If you're new to my ramblings and want an explanation why I had a problem with the ending of the fifth season already, here is the old post.)
3.) The Wedding of River Song, New Who season 6. Detailed explanation as to why here . Short version: I felt emotionally disengaged throughout except in three scenes, and because Amy and Rory had not been given the chance of believable emotional reaction throughout the season, these three felt unearned in a larger context. And for the second season in a row (s5: the cracks, which are universe-threatening important, except for all the standalone eps where the Doctor isn't bothered by their existence; s6: the little girl in the season opener whom he doesn't look for because if he did, the whole backstory would fall into pieces, but he doesn't know that yet), crucial bits of the build up and solution depend on the Doctor acting competely ooc for Doylist reasons without Moffat bothering to come up with a Watsonian explanation.
4.) Lindsey Davis: Rebels and Traitors. It's a perfectly good and satisfying novel until the ending, doing what I had in vain hoped The Devil's Whore miniseries would do in terms of the English Civil War and a female main character, and then all of a sudden there is a complete tone shift in narrative voice, characterisation and emphasis. It's just really bizarre. If you don't mind being spoiled for the ending, check out my review here.
5.) Alias. Not Sydney's personal fate. But yeah, everything else about the finale, and much - but not all! - about season 5 in general. (The ending of s4 would have been SO MUCH BETTER as a series finale, I'll never stop saying that.) (And it's not just the First Generation Spies fangirl in me talking.) However, the nature of the show was such that several finale issues are fixable in headcanon, so I'm not nearly as disgruntled with Alias' ending as I am with the other examples. Still, doesn't mean I like it.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-14 01:06 am (UTC)It is indeed improbable that Helena should be in love with the man we see, given that she's a very sensible young woman who's known him all her life. So my conclusion is that the man we see is not the one she knows, and that he's acting out of character for the duration of the play.
It wasn't hard to think of an explanation: his dying father called him in and said "Look, lad, you seem a bit soft on Helena, but I'm afraid it's out of the question because I had a fling with the doctor's wife so she's really your sister. Don't tell anyone, I don't want her disgraced or your mother upset."
So from that moment on Bertram is desperately trying to convince Helena he's not worth it, and then he runs away to court trying to escape his feelings, only to find himself ordered to marry her, at which point he takes his strategy to even more extreme lengths.
But then he's told that Helena is dead and he's to marry Lafeu's daughter, at which point the Countess comes in and says "This is dreadfully embarrassing, but you can't marry Lafeu's daughter, I once had a fling with him so you're really her brother, but he's obviously too hazy about the dates to realise." At which point it dawns on Bertram that there was no reason to avoid Helena after all, and he's overcome with grief and remorse, except that it turns out she's alive and pregnant so it's a happy ending after all.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-14 02:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-14 02:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-14 05:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-14 06:01 pm (UTC)But it did strike me that Bertram seemed to have a particular horror of sleeping with Helena, on top of his snobbish objections to the marriage, and fear of incest struck me as a possible cause.