Television Notes

[osprey_archer]

I've been giving a few new television shows a go, so I thought I would collect my thoughts here.

1. I've heard great things about 30 Rock, but... I didn't like the pilot. :/ Now, I wasn't blown over by the pilot for Graceland either, and I actually kind of disliked the pilot for Castle (in fact the first ten episodes or so grated on me; she's not interested, Castle, leave her alone!), so this is not necessarily the kiss of death, but...

Has anyone watched this show? Is the pilot pretty much of a piece with the rest of it, or is there a great tonal shift? Does Tina Fey shove Jack Donaghey out a thirteeth-floor window, for instance?

This is also giving me second thoughts about giving Invincible Kimmy Schmidt a try.

2. I watched the first two episodes of Wolfblood, which is cute but didn't blow me away. Possibly I've outgrown teen dramas? But I'll probably give it a few more episodes to find its feet; I think five episodes is usually a good number, especially with half hour episodes.

3. Orphan Black. Oh my GOD, you guys, this show is amazing, and Tatiana Maslany is an absolute revelation. If I didn't know that she was playing all these different characters, I never in a million years would have guessed, because she's so good at making them all different - obviously with help from wardrobe and the writers in giving them different speech patterns, but still, the accents! The body language! The facial expressions! That's all her, and it's all amazing. And her control is so perfect.

I've only seen the first four episodes so far, so I don't have much of an opinion about the unfolding mysteries yet - although I will say, I loooooved the way that Sarah had to figure out Elizabeth Childs' life in the first few episodes after unwitting stealing her identity. The way that they set up this smaller mystery within the bigger mysteries of the season gives me a lot of hope for good payoffs: they clearly understand the pleasure of unraveling a mystery when the question is not whodunnit but "what the heck has been done and what does it mean?"

Comments

[silverusagi]

Tatiana Maslany is an absolute revelation. The body language! The facial expressions! That's all her, and it's all amazing.

It's strange that saying 'she's so good at playing different characters!' should be an amazing thing, given that that's what actors are supposed to do, lol. But it's still totally amazing. There are tons of actors who are just sort of... same-y, no matter what they're in. And watching shows like TVD and SPN (where people are possessed or have body switches) has made me realize that a lot of actors are not actually that good at really crafting characters or mimicking other characters. Tatiana Maslany would have been amazing on Dollhouse. And of course here it's doubly amazing because so often she's acting against herself, and doesn't have a real presence to react off of.

[davesmusictank.livejournal.com]

Now Dollhouse was a fine series indeed.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've always thought Eliza Dushku was miscast in Dollhouse. They tried to make it work for them by saying that the sameness of her characters was her underlying personality coming out, but honestly it always felt to me like Dushku just couldn't quite hack it.

They did a body switch episode in Lost Girl, which mostly showed the limited range of the actors. Except the guy who plays Dyson. He was body-switched to Kenzi and suddenly he had a sense of humor and goofiness and they had totally wasted his comedic potential for all those seasons by having him be all buttoned down and serious and boring all the time.

[evelyn-b.livejournal.com]

I don't remember the pilot very well, but I had a reasonably good time with the first couple seasons of 30 Rock. It was never my favorite thing, but it was funny a lot of the time. When it started to go downhill, it went very fast and very far.

My favorite characters were Grizz and Dot Com (Tracy's permanent entourage), and they were given less and less to do over time, probably because they are deadpan rather than wacky, and the show got more and more wackiness-dependent. I liked Jenna and Jack McBrayer's character at first, but they decayed into unfunny caricatures of themselves -- McBrayer almost immediately, Jenna over time. By the time I stopped watching, it had become a half-hour of lead.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

If it's going to fall apart just a couple of seasons in, I feel even better about my decision not to keep watching. Why subject myself to a sad break-up with a television show, right?

[evelyn-b.livejournal.com]

Probably for the best. It's not a show that gets better over time, and not worth the heartbreak of watching it slowly calcify into complete unfunniness, imo.

[entwashian.livejournal.com]

I can see where you're coming from about Wolfblood -- it's also a show aimed at children, so the target audience skews even younger than the teen drama group, really.

I'd selfishly encourage you to stick with it at least through the episode Maddy Cool! because it's such wonderfully ridiculous teen drama.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I looked it up on Netflix, and ahahaha it looks like Maddie is going to dye her hair and generally try to become a cool girl, and yes I think I'll have to stick around for that.

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

I agree with you on Orphan Black, but after a while I just got bored with the story. I think I watched about 2/3 the first season and then ditched it.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Well, we'll see how it goes! I was raring to keep going after I finished episode four, but then I had to wait for the next disc to arrive and since it has, I just... haven't watched it.