A Certain Slant of Light

Earlier this year, I decided now would be a good time to wrap up a bunch of old television shows that I left hanging by a few episodes (or in some cases a few seasons), but it’s becoming clear that there was a flaw in this plan: I may have abandoned those shows for good reason.

Case in point: Arrested Development season five, in which there’s a lot of activity but no actual movement: we are in exactly the same place at the end of the season as we were at the start. ( Is it a real spoiler if we're exactly where we were at the start? )

Mind, if there’s a sixth season, I don’t intend to watch to find out. I might read some reviews to see if anything at all gets wrapped up, though.

And second case in point: Graceland season 3, although in this case I think some of the fault may be mine: I watched the first half of the season two years ago and the second half just this month, so the finer points of the plot may have escaped me.

However, the main problem is not the finer details, but the big reveal. The show has always showed Briggs as a master improviser who always remains a hairsbreadth ahead of everyone else, but this season they’re suggesting that he’s been ten steps ahead at all time, which is not consistent with his previous characterization and also, frankly, not very believable. His supposed plan relies on too many variables: it feels like the writers are trying to make up for their own sloppy plotting by insisting, no really, there is a plan! Briggs’ plan!

This is especially sad because the plotting was so excellent in season one and pretty good in season two, also. I’ve noticed this in other shows that rely on season-long arcs - Veronica Mars has the same issue - the first season is great, because that’s the season the writers had all planned, and every character is there because they’ve got an important part to play.

In the later seasons, you end up with a lot of characters leftover from earlier mysteries who no longer have a part to play - but the writers don’t want to jettison them (and often neither do the viewers) so they spend a lot of time spinning their wheels, slowing down the story, taking away screen time that ought to go to developing the participants in the current season’s big arc plot.

It occurs to me that allowing greater ebb and flow in the characters’ relationships might help - you cut a character loose for one season (maybe not entirely; they could get a few cameos) and reel them back in when you’ve got an arc where they fit.

But of course acting contracts might make this difficult. It’s a little frustrating to realize how many of the things that go wrong with television shows, particularly American shows, are not a result of artistic choices but a reflection of the logistics of the way TV is made.

Miss 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.

I finished season one of Graceland! Spoilers to follow.

( Spoilers, spoilers, spoilers... )

One thing I really love about this show is that all the main characters are good people, or at least want to be good people - but the way they've chosen to do good, undercover investigations, inevitably ends up compromising them. Not only do they do bad things as part of their work, but the stress means that they end up hurting each other, too.

And then they get back up, dust themselves off, and try again. Because they'll keep trying to be there for each other, until all their second chances are gone.

This is probably the best show I've watched in a while. Bring on season 2, I say!