jedi_of_urth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jedi_of_urth) wrote2013-11-12 11:43 pm
jedi_of_urth) wrote2013-11-12 11:43 pm
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The Originals rambling reaction post
Well, our run of good luck had to run out at some point...
The Originals 1x07
And I don’t think it’s at all a coincidence that the worst episode to date is the first crossover episode. It’s not just Tyler himself dragging the overall quality down, pretty much everything except *maybe* Rebekah’s story was worse than it’s been all season so far.
Klaus was written the most shallowly he’s been all season. So far they’ve been doing a good job of balancing his distasteful actions with giving a lot of consideration to his motivations (petty though they may be sometimes...most of the time) and allowing him to have complexity to his attitude and behavior. This episode he’s pretty much a one-note villain even more than he was on TVD. Having him act like that to Tyler is one thing, but it should have been contrasted with say having him actually worried about Hayley and the baby; maybe that concern is as selfish as Tyler believes or maybe it’s genuine, but all we got is him being kind of pissy and condescending and gross. And it pretty much ignores everything going on on TO in favor of reverting to where his relationships, priorities, behaviors were in TVD.
While I don’t think Elijah’s characterization takes as much of a hit as Klaus’s (well it couldn’t unless he just disappeared the way he did on TVD), it wasn’t exactly captivating or nuanced. It was...stuff. You will get whiplash with Elijah snapping back and forth between attitudes towards Klaus that don’t exactly flow with his attitudes previously or obviously in the episode itself. Whoever wrote this episode doesn’t have much feel for Elijah’s complicated attitude towards Klaus, substituting random and changeable for complex. I don’t necessarily think it was OOC, but it shows a lack of thought for how his character and arc work.
Rebekah’s story...I want to like it. I want to love it in fact, given what it leads to. But it also shows a lack of care and subtlety. I’ve actually been cutting the idea of Rebekah/Marcel a lot of slack because I thought it could find is way to something interesting. But this took about five steps at once and face-planted something fierce. Their scenes lack a lot of the...energy I wonder if they’re actually supposed to have but the acting/direction is failing to bring it. I may dislike Elijah/Hayley on principle, I may not want to see it, I may spend most of their scenes grumbling, I may not get why the show insisted on going there; but you know what, I believed Elijah’s commitment to finding her this episode, I would even in a better episode not have much issue with him protecting her from imagined offenses of Klaus (actually, considering Klaus’s lazy writing in the earlier scenes maybe I buy it more this episode than I would have in other episodes, I have no problem seeing Elijah siding against this Klaus). I do want to like Rebekah/Marcel but something in its presentation makes this episode feel really unearned. And not being able to quite buy their scenes makes her turn against Klaus at the end less satisfying than it should be too. And surrounded by the rest of the episode, it’s like she’s back in TVD too; along with her relationship to Klaus. It’s not like she’s stopped hating him on TO, but what’s going on there feels like it’s taking some steps backwards from where they’ve gotten to with their hatred of late.
Sigh, I was hoping this would be a real Hayley episode but it’s not. Not only is it two episodes in a row of threats to her because of her status as walking incubator, which I pretty much worried about the show doing as soon as magical mystery baby (I should just start referring to her as Nikki since I’m convinced that will be her name) was revealed. The show has given her moments of being more than that (though never moving too far from it) but this really wasn’t.
Davina and...now former minion whose name I forget, again blunt force characterization, but it bugged me a little less than in the A-plot. I approve of Davina having more friends (she’s kind of becoming my Elena stand-in in that regard maybe) and being drawn in to more stuff because she’s wanting to have more than living in the attic. It’s not exactly well written but I’m okay with what it was doing, if not how it did it I guess.
Sigh, I gotta talk about Tyler don’t I? Tyler is far from the only thing wrong with this episode, but I think he’s to blame for its biggest problems; the writer(s) made this a TVD episode because of him, instead of a TO episode where Tyler was passing through. Plus Tyler’s TVD character shields were fully in place because TO-Klaus would totally have just killed him for going after Hayley like that. Tyler’s life does not suit Klaus’s plans and introduces an unstable element into his plots, and he attacked Hayley therefore he should be dead. TO has let Klaus be Klaus because he’s not being caged in by that kind of thing the way he was on TVD; even him not killing Marcel makes sense, the threat to Hayley kept him from just killing him right off and once he had time to plot and plan he knows he needs to take down Marcel’s organization instead of just cutting off the head. But this does not work. Plus...Klaus is right about the way Tyler’s acting (I’m not sure if he’s supposed to be, another sign that we’re back in a TVD mindset), going after the woman who helped him break his sire bond and worked with him to help others, who happens to now be pregnant, it’s kind of hard to see how TVD will expect us to see him as Caroline’s good choice boyfriend when he’s inevitably brought back to the parent show. Caroline and Elena need to ditch all their current options and go on a road trip searching for a way to bring Bonnie back (I guess Jeremy can come along, I’d say they should take Katherine but that doesn’t really work I suppose); then they decide to go to college in Oregon where the boys are not allowed to find them but Elena does occasionally go to NO to help Elijah negotiate with Davina (and have deep conversations about trust and honor, while there’s eye-sex). Anyway, Tyler, go away please, and let us get back to TO without you, it was doing so much better without you.
A few short issues (mostly from lack of TVD consideration):
-Um, Rebekah...Marcel wants to take down Klaus and has a depressing garden to store him in, I think the desiccation spell would work just fine, it’s worked before. And considering Elijah's attitude towards it last time you might suspect he'd let it happen this time (he probably wouldn't, it's just as easy to say last time was kind of a special case but it's got wiggle room; after all the show would have to acknowledge Elijah's change in attitude then).
-DOPPELGANGER BLOOD, WHEN DID YOU FORGET THIS SHOW??? Well, when it became inconvenient because ND’s on a different show. And I’d be willing to roll with this (with some grumbling because I want Elena references from or at least around Elijah) since these hybrids would be different than Tyler’s generation but why would TYLER run this experiment without it. (However, this may support my MMB/Nikki is the next doppelganger theory.)
-While I have no trouble believing the old terms have long since run out, and being connected with Hayley's abduction buried them even deeper, I would have liked some acknowledgement that Elijah was once responsible for protecting Tyler from Klaus. I want that, because I want Elena acknowledgement, but that actually didn't drag the episode down I'm just mentioning it.
-So Tyler is the last of the old hybrids? That just doesn’t seem reasonable, though it was probably what was implied by not having any more ever show up in s4. Klaus killed off the ones that had broken their sire bond to him, I would have thought there were more of them out there than that.
-You know who would have made a much better background threat to the Originals than Tyler? Katherine. Not that I dislike anything about her story on TVD this year, it’s really elevated TVD to something a bit more than watchable, but she would have made an excellent surprise “bad” for this story. Tyler’s just a jack ass. (Plus it would have put ND on this show where she’d get a lot better stuff to do I’m sure.)
-Okay, so it’s probably believable to assume that MMB/Nikki is a fluke, but has anyone up to and including Klaus considered that if he can father a child with Hayley it’s possible he could have more? Is it a right combination of factors issue or is it a straight miracle baby? This is something I considered really early on as a dark twist of Klaus going out and trying to literally sire his own army. And if the baby had some form of magic beyond being impossible I kind of think it should be addressed.
I can’t prove it I suppose, but I have always assumed a werewolf/hybrid bite to an Original did cause some serious mind frakking; it wouldn’t kill them, Elijah was clear on that back in s2, but I figured it had to have some effect; and Klaus implied that was what we’re in for with Elijah and I want to see that play out. I really hope next week’s episode is better than this one though, I was so loving this show before Tyler showed up.
The Originals 1x07
And I don’t think it’s at all a coincidence that the worst episode to date is the first crossover episode. It’s not just Tyler himself dragging the overall quality down, pretty much everything except *maybe* Rebekah’s story was worse than it’s been all season so far.
Klaus was written the most shallowly he’s been all season. So far they’ve been doing a good job of balancing his distasteful actions with giving a lot of consideration to his motivations (petty though they may be sometimes...most of the time) and allowing him to have complexity to his attitude and behavior. This episode he’s pretty much a one-note villain even more than he was on TVD. Having him act like that to Tyler is one thing, but it should have been contrasted with say having him actually worried about Hayley and the baby; maybe that concern is as selfish as Tyler believes or maybe it’s genuine, but all we got is him being kind of pissy and condescending and gross. And it pretty much ignores everything going on on TO in favor of reverting to where his relationships, priorities, behaviors were in TVD.
While I don’t think Elijah’s characterization takes as much of a hit as Klaus’s (well it couldn’t unless he just disappeared the way he did on TVD), it wasn’t exactly captivating or nuanced. It was...stuff. You will get whiplash with Elijah snapping back and forth between attitudes towards Klaus that don’t exactly flow with his attitudes previously or obviously in the episode itself. Whoever wrote this episode doesn’t have much feel for Elijah’s complicated attitude towards Klaus, substituting random and changeable for complex. I don’t necessarily think it was OOC, but it shows a lack of thought for how his character and arc work.
Rebekah’s story...I want to like it. I want to love it in fact, given what it leads to. But it also shows a lack of care and subtlety. I’ve actually been cutting the idea of Rebekah/Marcel a lot of slack because I thought it could find is way to something interesting. But this took about five steps at once and face-planted something fierce. Their scenes lack a lot of the...energy I wonder if they’re actually supposed to have but the acting/direction is failing to bring it. I may dislike Elijah/Hayley on principle, I may not want to see it, I may spend most of their scenes grumbling, I may not get why the show insisted on going there; but you know what, I believed Elijah’s commitment to finding her this episode, I would even in a better episode not have much issue with him protecting her from imagined offenses of Klaus (actually, considering Klaus’s lazy writing in the earlier scenes maybe I buy it more this episode than I would have in other episodes, I have no problem seeing Elijah siding against this Klaus). I do want to like Rebekah/Marcel but something in its presentation makes this episode feel really unearned. And not being able to quite buy their scenes makes her turn against Klaus at the end less satisfying than it should be too. And surrounded by the rest of the episode, it’s like she’s back in TVD too; along with her relationship to Klaus. It’s not like she’s stopped hating him on TO, but what’s going on there feels like it’s taking some steps backwards from where they’ve gotten to with their hatred of late.
Sigh, I was hoping this would be a real Hayley episode but it’s not. Not only is it two episodes in a row of threats to her because of her status as walking incubator, which I pretty much worried about the show doing as soon as magical mystery baby (I should just start referring to her as Nikki since I’m convinced that will be her name) was revealed. The show has given her moments of being more than that (though never moving too far from it) but this really wasn’t.
Davina and...now former minion whose name I forget, again blunt force characterization, but it bugged me a little less than in the A-plot. I approve of Davina having more friends (she’s kind of becoming my Elena stand-in in that regard maybe) and being drawn in to more stuff because she’s wanting to have more than living in the attic. It’s not exactly well written but I’m okay with what it was doing, if not how it did it I guess.
Sigh, I gotta talk about Tyler don’t I? Tyler is far from the only thing wrong with this episode, but I think he’s to blame for its biggest problems; the writer(s) made this a TVD episode because of him, instead of a TO episode where Tyler was passing through. Plus Tyler’s TVD character shields were fully in place because TO-Klaus would totally have just killed him for going after Hayley like that. Tyler’s life does not suit Klaus’s plans and introduces an unstable element into his plots, and he attacked Hayley therefore he should be dead. TO has let Klaus be Klaus because he’s not being caged in by that kind of thing the way he was on TVD; even him not killing Marcel makes sense, the threat to Hayley kept him from just killing him right off and once he had time to plot and plan he knows he needs to take down Marcel’s organization instead of just cutting off the head. But this does not work. Plus...Klaus is right about the way Tyler’s acting (I’m not sure if he’s supposed to be, another sign that we’re back in a TVD mindset), going after the woman who helped him break his sire bond and worked with him to help others, who happens to now be pregnant, it’s kind of hard to see how TVD will expect us to see him as Caroline’s good choice boyfriend when he’s inevitably brought back to the parent show. Caroline and Elena need to ditch all their current options and go on a road trip searching for a way to bring Bonnie back (I guess Jeremy can come along, I’d say they should take Katherine but that doesn’t really work I suppose); then they decide to go to college in Oregon where the boys are not allowed to find them but Elena does occasionally go to NO to help Elijah negotiate with Davina (and have deep conversations about trust and honor, while there’s eye-sex). Anyway, Tyler, go away please, and let us get back to TO without you, it was doing so much better without you.
A few short issues (mostly from lack of TVD consideration):
-Um, Rebekah...Marcel wants to take down Klaus and has a depressing garden to store him in, I think the desiccation spell would work just fine, it’s worked before. And considering Elijah's attitude towards it last time you might suspect he'd let it happen this time (he probably wouldn't, it's just as easy to say last time was kind of a special case but it's got wiggle room; after all the show would have to acknowledge Elijah's change in attitude then).
-DOPPELGANGER BLOOD, WHEN DID YOU FORGET THIS SHOW??? Well, when it became inconvenient because ND’s on a different show. And I’d be willing to roll with this (with some grumbling because I want Elena references from or at least around Elijah) since these hybrids would be different than Tyler’s generation but why would TYLER run this experiment without it. (However, this may support my MMB/Nikki is the next doppelganger theory.)
-While I have no trouble believing the old terms have long since run out, and being connected with Hayley's abduction buried them even deeper, I would have liked some acknowledgement that Elijah was once responsible for protecting Tyler from Klaus. I want that, because I want Elena acknowledgement, but that actually didn't drag the episode down I'm just mentioning it.
-So Tyler is the last of the old hybrids? That just doesn’t seem reasonable, though it was probably what was implied by not having any more ever show up in s4. Klaus killed off the ones that had broken their sire bond to him, I would have thought there were more of them out there than that.
-You know who would have made a much better background threat to the Originals than Tyler? Katherine. Not that I dislike anything about her story on TVD this year, it’s really elevated TVD to something a bit more than watchable, but she would have made an excellent surprise “bad” for this story. Tyler’s just a jack ass. (Plus it would have put ND on this show where she’d get a lot better stuff to do I’m sure.)
-Okay, so it’s probably believable to assume that MMB/Nikki is a fluke, but has anyone up to and including Klaus considered that if he can father a child with Hayley it’s possible he could have more? Is it a right combination of factors issue or is it a straight miracle baby? This is something I considered really early on as a dark twist of Klaus going out and trying to literally sire his own army. And if the baby had some form of magic beyond being impossible I kind of think it should be addressed.
I can’t prove it I suppose, but I have always assumed a werewolf/hybrid bite to an Original did cause some serious mind frakking; it wouldn’t kill them, Elijah was clear on that back in s2, but I figured it had to have some effect; and Klaus implied that was what we’re in for with Elijah and I want to see that play out. I really hope next week’s episode is better than this one though, I was so loving this show before Tyler showed up.
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I did wonder about this, haha. Maybe the baby is special enough that its blood is enough? MAYBE THE BABY IS A DOPPELGÄNGER. Maybe only Klaus was cursed by the witches so that requirement doesn't affect the other hybrids. idk.
and Klaus implied that was what we’re in for with Elijah and I want to see that play out.
I'm half looking forward to this and half not because of Elijah/Hayley. Ehh.
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Yeah, not so much looking forward to more pushing Elijah/Hayley that's probably going to happen, but there could be plenty of good stuff from it if done well.
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I feel probably better than you did about the episode but it is still my least favourite. Definitely no enthusiasm about this one but I did enjoy (and would gladly take it over any TVD episode these days). It was not that compact and built up as the episodes before. I had not been happy with Tyler coming to NO and I certainly didn´t enjoy his new self. For me, the more space between the two shows stays for now the better.
Really hope it won´t start spiralling down!
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And going the other direction I think Elijah guesting on TVD is easily the least possible option for a while even though obviously he'd be my top pick (kind of, in some ways better to keep him away and imagine ways he could return than actually see it where it would probably mess things up form wishes).