Television Overview, Part 4: Mysteries
Dec. 26th, 2015 08:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerMiss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, season 2. I watched season one last year (the year before last? sometime in the past…) and adored it, and I did enjoy season two but I didn’t think it was quite up to the mark set by season one. I find this happens with shows a lot: season one is great and then there’s a distinct falling off. It’s gotten to the point where I’m actually kind of glad when a favorite show gets canceled, because at least then I know it will remain undiminished by later, inferior additions…
Having said all that, I definitely plan to watch season three, which Netflix has helpfully put on instant. Thank you, Netflix!
Castle. I got halfway through season seven, to the episode where they resurrected the boring serial killer yet again. I realize that Castle is a show that likes to play with genres and genius serial killers are an integral part of the modern detective genre, but I don’t care for them and I care even less than usual about the particularly ludicrous serial killer concocted by Castle, so I skipped that episode and somehow never came back.
But at last Netflix has the DVDs! So I’ll skip that two-parter, watch the last few episodes of the season (one of them is an astronaut episode!!! The Martian has filled me with enthusiasm for all things astronaut this year), and then probably stop because I’ve heard season 8 has a lot of manufactured relationship drama. Oh, Castle. I guess all good things must come to an end.
Graceland, season 2. NETFLIX WHY DON’T YOU HAVE SEASON THREE YET??? I want to see the final season of this show so much!
I have a lot to say about this show and I’m not sure where to start, so I’m just going to redact it here in the (probably vain) hope that I’ll eventually write it a post of its own, as it deserves.
Although I will say here that I feel a burning desire for some Charlie/Amber. The undercover agent and her new bank robber buddy! The look on Charlie’s face when Amber first sashays into the diner to give the bank robbery deets: bored out of her skull as she waits for this “specialist” to arrive, surprised and interested when the specialist turns out to be a girl, and then - oh no she’s HOT as Amber slings herself into the booth and lists all the ways that their current bank robbery plan is the pits.
Nothing says super mega ultra hot like confidence and know-how! And THEN, Amber tests Charlie’s cool by having her rob a bar (“And get me a cheeseburger while you’re at it!”) and the two of them drive off together on Amber’s motorcycle, top speed.
Come on. Come on. That’s got to be followed by some exhilarated “Oh my God I just broke so many laws and it feels FUCKING GREAT” sex back at Amber’s crash pad, right? I want 500 fics of this on AO3.
...I could write ship manifestos like this for practically every character on the show, so you can see how the squee would take over this entire post.
Poirot. Still a delight. Acharming and always reliable period piece; occasionally the murder plots are a bit outlandish (I still think the ABC murders is silly), but really the murders are an excuse for Poirot to do his Poirot thing, and David Suchet is a marvelous Poirot. He owns that character. And I love the recurring side characters, too: Captain Hastings and Miss Lemon and Inspector Japp. In the later seasons they don’t always appear, but whenever they do I squeal with delight.
The X-Files. I saw the first half of season one, and… it’s just so nineties, you guys. I don’t mean the hair and the clothes - I don’t mind about those - but the mind-numbingly boring will-they-won’t-they sexual tensions (I already know they will, and I already know that I really, really don’t want them to) and the episodic storytelling.
I actually love episodic TV shows (see Poirot, above), but I think The X-Files would be almost immeasurably better if it had been written during the age of plot arcs. The fact that Mulder and Scully have to identify, tangle with, and (fail to) contain a new uncanny threat every single episode means that most of their antagonists feel woefully underexplored, and it also undermines the sense that these things are truly uncanny. After all, our heroes have figured them out in less than forty minutes.
Having said all that, I definitely plan to watch season three, which Netflix has helpfully put on instant. Thank you, Netflix!
Castle. I got halfway through season seven, to the episode where they resurrected the boring serial killer yet again. I realize that Castle is a show that likes to play with genres and genius serial killers are an integral part of the modern detective genre, but I don’t care for them and I care even less than usual about the particularly ludicrous serial killer concocted by Castle, so I skipped that episode and somehow never came back.
But at last Netflix has the DVDs! So I’ll skip that two-parter, watch the last few episodes of the season (one of them is an astronaut episode!!! The Martian has filled me with enthusiasm for all things astronaut this year), and then probably stop because I’ve heard season 8 has a lot of manufactured relationship drama. Oh, Castle. I guess all good things must come to an end.
Graceland, season 2. NETFLIX WHY DON’T YOU HAVE SEASON THREE YET??? I want to see the final season of this show so much!
I have a lot to say about this show and I’m not sure where to start, so I’m just going to redact it here in the (probably vain) hope that I’ll eventually write it a post of its own, as it deserves.
Although I will say here that I feel a burning desire for some Charlie/Amber. The undercover agent and her new bank robber buddy! The look on Charlie’s face when Amber first sashays into the diner to give the bank robbery deets: bored out of her skull as she waits for this “specialist” to arrive, surprised and interested when the specialist turns out to be a girl, and then - oh no she’s HOT as Amber slings herself into the booth and lists all the ways that their current bank robbery plan is the pits.
Nothing says super mega ultra hot like confidence and know-how! And THEN, Amber tests Charlie’s cool by having her rob a bar (“And get me a cheeseburger while you’re at it!”) and the two of them drive off together on Amber’s motorcycle, top speed.
Come on. Come on. That’s got to be followed by some exhilarated “Oh my God I just broke so many laws and it feels FUCKING GREAT” sex back at Amber’s crash pad, right? I want 500 fics of this on AO3.
...I could write ship manifestos like this for practically every character on the show, so you can see how the squee would take over this entire post.
Poirot. Still a delight. Acharming and always reliable period piece; occasionally the murder plots are a bit outlandish (I still think the ABC murders is silly), but really the murders are an excuse for Poirot to do his Poirot thing, and David Suchet is a marvelous Poirot. He owns that character. And I love the recurring side characters, too: Captain Hastings and Miss Lemon and Inspector Japp. In the later seasons they don’t always appear, but whenever they do I squeal with delight.
The X-Files. I saw the first half of season one, and… it’s just so nineties, you guys. I don’t mean the hair and the clothes - I don’t mind about those - but the mind-numbingly boring will-they-won’t-they sexual tensions (I already know they will, and I already know that I really, really don’t want them to) and the episodic storytelling.
I actually love episodic TV shows (see Poirot, above), but I think The X-Files would be almost immeasurably better if it had been written during the age of plot arcs. The fact that Mulder and Scully have to identify, tangle with, and (fail to) contain a new uncanny threat every single episode means that most of their antagonists feel woefully underexplored, and it also undermines the sense that these things are truly uncanny. After all, our heroes have figured them out in less than forty minutes.
