Tv Meme, spotted elsewhere

[selenak]

Which TV show did you start watching in 2013?

Borgen, Once upon a Time, Orphan Black, Bates Motel, Hannibal. I also marathoned my way through the entire Wire.


Which TV show did you let go of in 2013?

Hannibal; it simply wasn't for me. Also Homeland, which got ever more questionable ideologically while losing the characterisation that had made me interestedin the first place.

TV shows which ended anyway which meant their mixed quality last seasons didn't make me drop them: Merlin and The Borgias. There was enough in both that I still loved to keep me watching but also a lot that ticked me off, and if the shows had continued, I'd have been seriously torn whether or not to watch or whether to do stop. As it is, I loved the Merlin finale, and the last but one Borgias episode was superb. (The last one had some good stuff but also plenty of what had annoyed me in the season.) (It was still better than the ending otherwise planned, though.) (But, as I said: LOVED the last-but-one episode, which is my series finale.


Which TV show did you mean to get into but didn't in 2013? Why?

Slings and Arrows. Why not - err, availability? Time? Lack of same? All of the above? But it's still on my must see list. One day. Also, as mentioned, I tried Hannibal following everyone's reccomendation and decided it wasn't my type of unrelenting dark fic with screwed up relationships at its core. My serial killer prequel show of choice for 2013 became Bates Motel instead.

Which TV show do you intend to check out in 2014?

I'm undecided on whether or not to check out Scandal. On the one hand, the heroine is supposedly a female Walter White and it supposedly deconstructs team and romantic narratives, which could be interesting. Otoh, I don't think I can take several seasons with a toxic romance in them getting plenty of screen time where the male part sounds eminently hateable.

Slings and Arrows as mentioned remains a long term goal. Once the BBC series based on the Three Musketeers broadcasts, I'll at least watch the first few eps, because it has Peter Capaldi as Richelieu.

Which TV show impressed you least in 2013?

It's a tie between Homeland and Hannibal, for different reasons. Homeland because it lost the plot, see above; Hannibal because, well, it should have been tailor-made for me, and instead the most intense thing I felt was a gigantic squick at both the aestheticization of the various murder victims and the relentless Will torture. Also I feel absurdly resentful that this is the Brian Fuller show to get a mass audience, because it should have been Dead Like Me. *sulks like George Lass at her sulkiest* *admits, though, that AU!George Lass cameo in Hannibal was twistedly brilliant*

Which TV show did you enjoy the most in 2013?

Orphan Black's first season was the most flawless mixture of narrative quality and being emotionally gripping for me as far as new shows were concerned; Elementary is the one for character love and often comfort viewing, but I'm also aware of its weaknesses. The Good Wife had left me cold through much of its fourth season only to end on a high note that kept me watching, and I'm glad I did because the fifth season so far is so very, very good, and I love it. Breaking Bad ended this season, but enjoying is perhaps the wrong term for the breathtaking final ride it was which was also a relentless emotional pummelling and slack-jawed experience of awe.

...when it comes to "enjoying" in the sense of sparking my writing imagination and finding people to discuss it with, though, it has to be Once upon a Time, multiple crossover of fairy tales and children's books and horror films that it is. Not that it always does what I want, far from it, but it managed to make me ridiculously fond of most of its characters and keeps surprising me (in a good way) with how it treats its narrative twists and tropes. I'm just very, very fond of it.

Comments

[likeadeuce]

On the one hand, the heroine is supposedly a female Walter White and it supposedly deconstructs team and romantic narratives,

This is all kind of true though I'm not sure how much Scandal is doing it ON PURPOSE and how much is just a hot mess? Though I'm not up-to-date on the most recent season, maybe there's some more active deconstructing there.

Thanks for your rec of Bates Motel, btw, that was one of the most memorable things I watched this year.

[msilverstar]

I was just coming to say this (about Scandal), I weigh in on the side of the ultimate hot mess.

[selenak]

Yes, fannish opinion seems to be divided on whether or not it's intentional, which is one reason why I'm hesitant. Death of the author blah blah blah, I know, but I still find it jarring with a tv show (as opposed to a movie or a book) if I have the sense it's trying to tell me one thing while showing something completely different.

You watched Bates Motel? That's great! Hardly anyone else in my fannish acquaintance seems to have had, and while I wouldn't call it must-see-tv, I thought it accomplished a lot, including making me care about its doomed family and Emma who is darling.

[likeadeuce]

I understand 'death of the author' as a theory but I also think it's possible to figure out when a show has a consistent creative/thematic hand and when it happens to do a few interesting things but is mostly all over the place. I mean, there's plenty of value for a lot of people in viewing/analyzing stuff that's a hot mess but I don't get the sense that's YOUR viewpoint (and really, imho, talking about a show being a brilliant deconstruction of XYZ is making as many assumptions about authorial intent as declaring that the creators have no idea what they are doing.)

And yes! I didn't get around to posting about Bates but I enjoyed it very much. I felt like Norma had her own claim to being a female Walter White in terms of being a massively flawed female character who is central to the narrative. But then I've still only seen 3 eps of Breaking Bad :)

[selenak]

I mean, there's plenty of value for a lot of people in viewing/analyzing stuff that's a hot mess but I don't get the sense that's YOUR viewpoint

Unless I'm writing pretentious meta about James Bond movies.:) But generally, no, not really.

Now that's an interesting comparison, with Norma and Walter White. And when I blend out later developments for both (err, for Norma, I'm not spoiled for what the show will do in s2, I only mean her Psycho-ordained ending), I can sort of see what you mean. Practically the only meta on the show I've found compares her to yet another character, John Winchester, with the argument being that because she's Norma Bates and the audience knows how her story ends, it is more ready to see how damaging she is to her son than the Supernatural audience was re: John Winchester. Since I only ever watched the first season of SPN and otherwise only know the show via fannish osmosis, I wouldn't know about the later, but I think the comparison is also difficult because John Winchester is just a guest star (important for the backstory, yes, but not a regular) whereas Norma, more than Norman, is the central character in Bates Motel, the one whose actions and reactions most drive the narrative, which does make her more comparable to Walter White. And they're certainly both in their first seasons massively flawed people in a desperate situation who see themselves doing what they do for their family, and who have an instinct for manipulation.

Since you still haven't watched the fourth episode of the first season of BB, I can't say where the massive difference comes in because it's as early as that, and it says something incredibly important about Walter White. (Not for nothing did Vince Gilligan say this was the episode that determined the entire rest of the show.) Let's just say hubris is not one of Norma's flaws. Otoh, Walt doesn't have a past as the victim of incesteous rape and present boundary issues, so there is that.

[luminosity]

I watched Hannibal's first season, and I tried so hard to work up some enthusiasm. It's a gorgeous show, but I ended up feeling that they were insulting my intelligence. Surely, someone would notice a previously-troubled consultant falling into a bad situation. I also really like the casting in the show, but there was just something that didn't set right, all things considered.

Also, totally in agreement re Dead Like Me. I loved that show. And Wonderfalls, too.

[selenak]

I wrote a bit more extensively about my problems with Hannibal when I was still trying to watch it here. Wonderfalls I haven't seen yet! It never made it across the Atlantic, not even in dvd form.

[skywaterblue]

"Scandal" is Shonda Rhimes' "West Wing" fanfic. If you thought the Josh/Donna plotline on WW would be better if it was more like "Grey's Anatomy" and was actually about a morally ambivalent CJ Cregg and John Hoynes.

Plus some nonsense about super spies ala Homeland which is taking up an increasing amount of story time.

ETA: Being more serious about why I dislike it, it's because every episode features a new, convoluted surprise about the characters and their backstory and no sooner is the next episode on before we get the next one, all of it melding into one big OMGWTF. It's perfect TV for the Twitter age, because you can't keep your eyes away, and no sooner have you tweeted your shock, something else has happened. At this point, careening so wildly that only the motion of the careening carries it forward.

And I'm also serious about it being WW fic. Aside from Josh Molina (playing a character named David Rosen in what seems like an obvious hat tip) - if you had a drink every time a background character was named Moss or Ziegler or someone dropped a slightly cudgeled reference, you could easily be tipsy on this alone.

[selenak]

Never having watched "Grey's Anatomy", I'll take your word for it. :) No, but I know what you mean, and it does give an impression of what the show must be like.