And in other news
Sep. 9th, 2012 01:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakA fantastic theory about the final l scene in the recent Breaking Bad episode. I almost hope it's true.
Elementary: saw the pilot, liked the pilot. No, not groundbreaking new television in any way, but you know, before all the kerfuffle about Female Watson OMG How Dare They! started (which made me want to watch the show), my main reason for not intending to tune in was: do I really need yet another version of the bratty jerky genius manchild and his devoted wrangler? Especially since, as far as recent incarnations of Holmes were concerned, I loathed Sherlock in Sherlock (though the second season made me thaw on him somewhat, but he's still my least favourite person on that show), thought the RDJ Holmes was way too much RDJ persona and way too little Holmes, and soured on House the ever unlearning in House rapidly through the later seasons till I stopped watching. One of the more pleasant surprises about Elementary was that this may be a version of the Holmes tale where I can like Holmes again. This is due to no end to the fact that Joan Watson calls him on his bullshit pretty much from the get go and that he seems to listen (of course the show proper may change that but I hope not), so that it's understandable why she would stick around beyond the pilot. If you want to sell me on a friendship as the central element of a show, you need to show me why these people actually are good for each other, not just one of them for the other, and you have to make me like both of them.
(Big obvious exception: Breaking Bad in that the Walter White and Jesse Pinkman relationship is central and deeply dysfunctional, and Walt is increasingly toxic to everyone he's involved with the longer the show goes on, but the relationship remains compelling. This is not least because BB doesn't glorify Walt, nor does it try to tell me Jesse should be glad to work with such a genius.)
Anyway, Joan Watson is a sensible, compassionate and smart (just not genius smart) person as all Watsons should be, with her own traumatic backstory (ditto) and her own life (many Watsons don't get to have one), and while I couldn't see her hanging around with the likes of Greg House or BBC Sherlock, I can buy her deciding Elementary Holmes is worth sticking around after all. So I'm mildly looking forward to the next few episodes.
Spartacus: Vengeance: aka the second season (Spartacus: Blood and Sand being the first, and Spartacus: Gods of the Arena being the prequel). Still trashy yet weirdly compelling and beating everyone's Slave AUs ever for over the top baroqueness. Between all the gore (now with new ways of decapitation), it does a surprisingly good job introducing new characters and making the audience care for them as well for previously introduced but barely sketched ones, who now get fleshed out, no pun intended, and while I doubt it would pass the Bechdel test as far as conversations without a man being in some way a topic is concerned, it has a lot of interesting women, and they get plenty of character development. Also, not surprisingly given the premise of the show, a very high death rate for both genders, so that bit where they're good in introducing new characters comes in rather handy. The most obvious sign for how this show is as addictive as fast food is that by the time the second season ends, all my favourites are dead but I care about the rest enough to look forward to the third season. In fact, I'm torn as to whether or not giving Lucretia one more season was a good idea despite her being my favouritest favourite, but then I come down to: yes, it was. Because while Ilythia actually got to grow up somewhat and show more emotions beyond hyper sexed malicious minx, she and Glaber as vipers turning on each other alone representing the Romans/villainous side would have meant too much evil McEVildom without anyone caring what happened to any of them. Lucretia, like her late husband, had that knack where despite all the despicable acts she made you (at any rate me) care. And the ending she did get (after a season playing "is she faking it or not?", though bearing the fate of her father-in-law in mind it was always worth remembering that Lucretia can wait, boy, can she wait) was suitably, insanely epic and what happens if you cross Greek myth with blackest romanticism. So hail and farewell, Lucretia, you and Quintus Lentulus Batiatus were ever so appalling and ever so fascinating, and I'm glad you're together again, as you were meant to be.
Mira's death, otoh, I resented because Mira had been developed from a cypher in s1 to a fantastic strong character in her own right in s2, so much so she quickly became my new favourite among Team Rebellious Slaves. Otoh thanks, show, for not letting Naevia overcome her multiple rape trauma overnight and not via The Power of Love (though of course being surrounded by friends and her lover after being freed helped) but with learning sword fighting and getting the chance to deal with her first rapist. Incidentally, making various of the women in Team Rebels learn how to fight may or may not be anachronistic (I can't remember right now, but I think at least one woman was mentioned as being in Spartacus' camp), but you know, in-show it makes sense not to waste half of your anyway meagre fighting force.
Because I just have to mention this: yes, everyone's German is spoken with very strong non-German accents. But it's still a refreshing twist to come across a bunch of non villainous Germans in a show like this, and not a single one named Herman, either. Am very amused about the constant Gauls/Germans bickering resolving itself into alliance, which clearly is foreshadowing what our politicians like to refer to as the biggest achievement of the European Union. :) (Only the fact they all follow aGreek Thracian somewhat inhibits that interpretation.)
I had wondered how the show would cope without their trademark gladiator fight scenes and was somewhat amused that one early solution was to give us flashbacks to Oenamaeus' youth and start in the House of Batiatus (Oenameus: also given the time to develop instead of instantly being happy to be on Team Rebels after having spent a life time defining himself through being a gladiator and gladiator trainer), but the fact they had the guts to actually burn down the arena mid-season (after which they really were no more gladiator fight scenes, only military skirmishes, brutalize-the-civilians scenes and harmless unbloody sports) was impressive. Also foreshadowing for the big clearing of the tables at the end of the season, when of all the characters introduced in Blood and Sands, only Spartacus himself, Crixus and Naevia are still alive. Presumably nex season's big bads will be Marcus Crassus himself and Caesar, Julius Caesar, with the Roman part of the plot lines moving to Rome itself since everyone in Capua is dead.
Lastly: I like Agron and Nasir, too, and get people are glad this season's pair of male gay lovers made it out alive and happy, as opposed to the ones from s1 and the prequel, but finding out 80 % of Spartacus fanfiction consists of "Agron/Nasir Are In High School/have a coffee shop/are at the university together" AUs still feels like a let down.
Elementary: saw the pilot, liked the pilot. No, not groundbreaking new television in any way, but you know, before all the kerfuffle about Female Watson OMG How Dare They! started (which made me want to watch the show), my main reason for not intending to tune in was: do I really need yet another version of the bratty jerky genius manchild and his devoted wrangler? Especially since, as far as recent incarnations of Holmes were concerned, I loathed Sherlock in Sherlock (though the second season made me thaw on him somewhat, but he's still my least favourite person on that show), thought the RDJ Holmes was way too much RDJ persona and way too little Holmes, and soured on House the ever unlearning in House rapidly through the later seasons till I stopped watching. One of the more pleasant surprises about Elementary was that this may be a version of the Holmes tale where I can like Holmes again. This is due to no end to the fact that Joan Watson calls him on his bullshit pretty much from the get go and that he seems to listen (of course the show proper may change that but I hope not), so that it's understandable why she would stick around beyond the pilot. If you want to sell me on a friendship as the central element of a show, you need to show me why these people actually are good for each other, not just one of them for the other, and you have to make me like both of them.
(Big obvious exception: Breaking Bad in that the Walter White and Jesse Pinkman relationship is central and deeply dysfunctional, and Walt is increasingly toxic to everyone he's involved with the longer the show goes on, but the relationship remains compelling. This is not least because BB doesn't glorify Walt, nor does it try to tell me Jesse should be glad to work with such a genius.)
Anyway, Joan Watson is a sensible, compassionate and smart (just not genius smart) person as all Watsons should be, with her own traumatic backstory (ditto) and her own life (many Watsons don't get to have one), and while I couldn't see her hanging around with the likes of Greg House or BBC Sherlock, I can buy her deciding Elementary Holmes is worth sticking around after all. So I'm mildly looking forward to the next few episodes.
Spartacus: Vengeance: aka the second season (Spartacus: Blood and Sand being the first, and Spartacus: Gods of the Arena being the prequel). Still trashy yet weirdly compelling and beating everyone's Slave AUs ever for over the top baroqueness. Between all the gore (now with new ways of decapitation), it does a surprisingly good job introducing new characters and making the audience care for them as well for previously introduced but barely sketched ones, who now get fleshed out, no pun intended, and while I doubt it would pass the Bechdel test as far as conversations without a man being in some way a topic is concerned, it has a lot of interesting women, and they get plenty of character development. Also, not surprisingly given the premise of the show, a very high death rate for both genders, so that bit where they're good in introducing new characters comes in rather handy. The most obvious sign for how this show is as addictive as fast food is that by the time the second season ends, all my favourites are dead but I care about the rest enough to look forward to the third season. In fact, I'm torn as to whether or not giving Lucretia one more season was a good idea despite her being my favouritest favourite, but then I come down to: yes, it was. Because while Ilythia actually got to grow up somewhat and show more emotions beyond hyper sexed malicious minx, she and Glaber as vipers turning on each other alone representing the Romans/villainous side would have meant too much evil McEVildom without anyone caring what happened to any of them. Lucretia, like her late husband, had that knack where despite all the despicable acts she made you (at any rate me) care. And the ending she did get (after a season playing "is she faking it or not?", though bearing the fate of her father-in-law in mind it was always worth remembering that Lucretia can wait, boy, can she wait) was suitably, insanely epic and what happens if you cross Greek myth with blackest romanticism. So hail and farewell, Lucretia, you and Quintus Lentulus Batiatus were ever so appalling and ever so fascinating, and I'm glad you're together again, as you were meant to be.
Mira's death, otoh, I resented because Mira had been developed from a cypher in s1 to a fantastic strong character in her own right in s2, so much so she quickly became my new favourite among Team Rebellious Slaves. Otoh thanks, show, for not letting Naevia overcome her multiple rape trauma overnight and not via The Power of Love (though of course being surrounded by friends and her lover after being freed helped) but with learning sword fighting and getting the chance to deal with her first rapist. Incidentally, making various of the women in Team Rebels learn how to fight may or may not be anachronistic (I can't remember right now, but I think at least one woman was mentioned as being in Spartacus' camp), but you know, in-show it makes sense not to waste half of your anyway meagre fighting force.
Because I just have to mention this: yes, everyone's German is spoken with very strong non-German accents. But it's still a refreshing twist to come across a bunch of non villainous Germans in a show like this, and not a single one named Herman, either. Am very amused about the constant Gauls/Germans bickering resolving itself into alliance, which clearly is foreshadowing what our politicians like to refer to as the biggest achievement of the European Union. :) (Only the fact they all follow a
I had wondered how the show would cope without their trademark gladiator fight scenes and was somewhat amused that one early solution was to give us flashbacks to Oenamaeus' youth and start in the House of Batiatus (Oenameus: also given the time to develop instead of instantly being happy to be on Team Rebels after having spent a life time defining himself through being a gladiator and gladiator trainer), but the fact they had the guts to actually burn down the arena mid-season (after which they really were no more gladiator fight scenes, only military skirmishes, brutalize-the-civilians scenes and harmless unbloody sports) was impressive. Also foreshadowing for the big clearing of the tables at the end of the season, when of all the characters introduced in Blood and Sands, only Spartacus himself, Crixus and Naevia are still alive. Presumably nex season's big bads will be Marcus Crassus himself and Caesar, Julius Caesar, with the Roman part of the plot lines moving to Rome itself since everyone in Capua is dead.
Lastly: I like Agron and Nasir, too, and get people are glad this season's pair of male gay lovers made it out alive and happy, as opposed to the ones from s1 and the prequel, but finding out 80 % of Spartacus fanfiction consists of "Agron/Nasir Are In High School/have a coffee shop/are at the university together" AUs still feels like a let down.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-09 11:48 am (UTC)This was my question, too, especially in making Watson female and Asian, both groups that get stereotyped as subservient helpers. Instead, they've completely turned it around and made them very much equals. One thing I like about the ACD canon which adaptions don't often preserve is the way that Watson has his own life quite apart from Holmes, but it's definitely true here. Plus, neither Watson nor the audience had to worship everything Holmes did, AND he was sympathetic to the abused mentally ill character and outraged at his treatment. I was surprised and thrilled.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-09 01:58 pm (UTC)Also, it occurs to me that this spin on Holmes-as-recovering-addict with Watson originally assigned to him in this capacity makes for a parallel/contrast to the case in the pilot, as the villain is a doctor who abused such a position of trust. Most often, villains dark-mirror the detective/hero; in this case, you could say he mirrors/contrasts Watson, and the patient/murderer-against-his-will contrasts/mirrors Holmes.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-09 04:26 pm (UTC)This is a very good point.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-10 12:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-11 10:37 am (UTC)