State of my shows check in
Mar. 16th, 2015 08:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedi_of_urthI want to do a few state-of-the-show updates about things I’ve been watching. Some of these thoughts have been idling for a few weeks, some are fresher, but here goes.
Agent Carter (full season/series)
It was...okay. I’m glad I watched it, and I would recommend others give it a watch, but that doesn’t mean it was super great. I liked the characters most of all, even when the plot was kind of muddled I could like characters. It’s flawed in a lot of ways, even beyond the muddled plot, that keep me from giving it high marks, but it’s worth seeing, and probably worth rewatching down the road to judge the series as a whole more easily.
But I kind of want to address some issue I have when it comes to relationships involved here.
-For one, the show seemed really confused for to treat the Peggy/Steve history from CA1, sometimes the show seemed to want us to think they had been some epic sweeping love story that they just weren’t; while at others they seemed much more in keeping with my reading of their relationship, that they were the great missed chance. Yes Peggy would grieve for him, but not as the love of her life, as someone she cared for, might have even loved, definitely believed in as a person but never got to be sure about as a partner. And that’s still tragic, and something worth grieving, something worth getting pissed off at the radio for exploiting, but the show couldn’t seem to take that track consistently.
-Secondly, I’m never going to be comfortable in fandom for this show because Peggy/Angie has no appeal to me. Don’t get me wrong, Angie reads as not quite straight and with either a girl crush or just a crush on Peggy, but I don’t get anything like that from Peggy’s side. I’m not interested in reading fanfic about it, because it just has no draw for me in it.
-Thirdly, for a short run show, I’m not sure why they needed Peggy/anyone teased when according to CA2 she’s not going to end up with anyone from the SSR. Especially not poor puppy Daniel. I really wish we hadn’t gotten anything in CA2 beyond the fact that she did go on and have this great life including getting married to someone, but now they’re kind of pinned in by a couple tiny snippets of dialog.
-Look, I’ll ship Peggy/Daniel if I think they have a chance; so far I’m much more into Peggy/Howard as fuck-buddies and feeling conflicted over whether I can ship Peggy/Jarvis when I don’t actually want to split Jarvis from his wife even though he’s clearly fallen more than a bit in love with Peggy.
Agents of SHIELD (2x12)
I’ve liked the couple episodes since the return more than I thought I would. I was worried the show was going to go back to being super focused on Skye when clearly the show getting good coincided with not focusing on Skye so much; may or may not be causical, but definitely not a coincidence in my book. Also Ward has not been seen and I approve of not seeing Ward. We did however see Sif, which I also approve of, more Sif ftw.
Personally, I think Bobbie and Mack are working with Hill who has decided that Coulson’s branch of SHIELD is a bad idea. I’m probably wrong and just wanting Hill to come back into the story, but it’s my theory. I was shocked to learn Mack’s cute little car was a spy device, but I do want to see how this plays out, apparently rather quickly since they’ve had to step up their game pretty quickly.
And just a note to both FF.net and AO3, did you have to start identifying Skye as Daisy everywhere? She’s clearly not Daisy, she’s Skye and I suspect will remain Skye as long as she has a say in the matter.
Arrow (3x15)
There’s really only one thing I want to discuss, and that’s that while I still ship Oliver/Felicity, I don’t really have a problem with the Felicity/Ray hookup. It’s going to hurt like hell when Oliver finds out, but I don’t blame Felicity at all for it happening, I’ll be more mad at Oliver for being a baby than I am with her. There have definitely been issues with Ray and the relationship between him and Felicity to date, but I *get* it. He’s basically meant to be Oliver with a few different turns in his life, so why wouldn’t he kind of fall for Felicity? And for her, he’s Oliver without the baggage of being desperately in love with each other but they are able do something about what feelings they do have for each other. He’s attractive, she can watch him work out, he wants to be a hero but needs her help to make it happen; and he doesn’t have his head stuck up his ass when it comes to being with her. I’m absolutely sure she loves Oliver more (and to be fair, I’ve never been as sure she loves Oliver as much as he loves her – she likes him, she’s attracted to him, she wants to be with him, she wants him to get his head out of his ass and give them a try – but the soul deep certainty that Oliver has about his love for her, I’m not sure I think she’s at that level) but I don’t really see a problem with her trying out her feelings for someone else while he’s being an asshat.
Castle /Flash
I’m not sure I have anything new to say about these ones, I was just listing off the things I’m watching these days. I’m not sure I’ve thought about them much at all during the hiatus, I guess they need more episodes.
Jane the Virgin (1x15)
Ever since that whole “And Michael did believe in them until the day he died” thing, I’m pretty much sure Michael’s going to die by the end of the season. And I’m not even sure I’ll be broken by that when it probably happens, but mostly because I’m not emotionally invested in anything on this show. It’s addictive, but not in the emotionally invested way. I don’t really have a lot to say, but I thought I’d say that much.
OUaT (4x15)
Okay, I have things to say, but first why do I keep watching this show? I’ve been saying that all season, but I keep doing it, and I don’t really know why. I’m not even sure I’d call it hate watching, I’m just in a relationship with this show that I’m getting nothing out of but I can’t seem to walk away from. And weirdly, I’ve never been terribly invested in it, and I’ve grown less and less so by the season (or even half season), but somehow it’s remained something that’s almost appointment TV for me, and I don’t really get it.
That said, I also want to do I little rumination on Emma/Regina. It’s an annoying case where I do get why it’s a popular ship, I’d go so far as to say the writers have been ship teasing it, and it’s almost a really reasonable reading of the characters’ interactions to a growing degree. But I can not ship it for the life of me. It will never make sense to me in a grand scheme of things no matter how much sense it wants to make in any given moment.
And it is connected with my main problem with this half season, but in the sense that they stem from similar roots than being plainly connected. And that’s that this show really has never made me really believe in any character’s “redemption arc.” I don’t think Regina deserves to have her story rewritten to have a happy ending; before anyone says anything, I don’t think Rumple does either; I can’t imagine any of the new villains are going to make me feel anything but a burning desire for them to die (and most of them are crappy actresses); I’d still be happier if Hook died. The closest I’ve come to believing any redemptive villain was Ana over on OUaTiW (oh we’ll get to that soon), and I don’t remember entirely believing that one. I’ve never felt like the show actually showed redemption just people choosing to ignore past villainy and sweep it under the rug in favor of claiming they want a fresh start. So yeah, I know why the people of Storybrooke might be dumb enough to fall for team villain’s story about wanting a fresh start, they’ve conned themselves into believing it was good enough for Regina for a while now; but I don’t feel that way so it just bugs a lot.
Now, about Will. I am really confused about what’s going on there. Is this before OUaTiW happened so this is heartless Will courting Belle? Is it after when he’s supposed to be married and as I recall the freaking king of Wonderland? I did watch OUaTiW show, I liked it better than anything the parent show has done since at least s2, and I understand to some degree that if you were going to pull anything from that show back into the parent show Will is probably the top available option; and I know not as many people watched it as you would have liked, but kindly make this make some sense to those of us who did watch it. Up until this Belle thing I was mostly going on the theory this took place after OUaTiW and that was why he was drunkenly breaking in to the library for Alice’s books, but this makes no sense with any interpretation. Especially when they aren’t interested in really discussing Will’s character in all this, I have a hard time the show ever giving him a platform to explain what’s going on with him, he’s just there; so why be Will at all and not some other minor fairytale character to get equally little development but at least be someone new?
Parks & Rec (series finale)
I’m still a little conflicted in how I felt about the last season. My opinion boils down to, I’m glad it was the last season, but I wish it had been a full season and possibly spread out the future flashes over more episodes. The pacing is just kind of weird to have a time skip between seasons then check in with the characters again for 10 episodes (with most of them comprising double length stories), then cram another 20+ years of future events into the last hour. It was good, and I don’t think the show should have gone past this season, but I wish there had been more within it.
But I do like most of the futures we saw as epilog to the story, everything made sense and it was right tonally for the show we’ve had through most of the story to have it end so happily. Except they never explicitly gave an explanation for why this all got filmed in the first place, although I think my headcanon that somewhere in the future they invent the ability to document the past like this is still the most reasonable explanation (I came to that conclusion as soon as they did the time jump between seasons and this season didn’t dissuade me from it), and the life of Leslie Knope was worth documenting.
The last episode was pretty much perfect, I just wish I didn’t have my issues with the structure of the season as a whole weighing me down.
Reign (2x16)
My thoughts on this haven’t changed much since my last check in; we’re still in the middle of a story so I’m sure how to judge it until I see more of how it plays out. Of course I could just go read a biography of Mary Stuart and get a roadmap to events, depending on how much this show has ever cared about the reality of this story. But I think I’m still content to let the show play out its version of things...maybe...I need to go to the library so I may change my mind.
And a couple shows that are in lead up right now but I have a couple thoughts regarding.
Community
I’m actually kind of surprised how little I’m excited for this season. I feel like I still want to see it, but I’m not actually all that interested/excited/invested in seeing it. There aren’t any characters I supper care about what happens to and/or don’t feel like we’re going to get a satisfactory story for. It’s a show that’s really limped its way through the years; and while that’s partly (maybe even largely) due to its struggles with staying on the air, it’s become steadily harder for me to really care. But I’ll watch this (probably final) season, and see if it comes off better than I’m foreseeing.
Game of Thrones
I still can’t commit to whether or not I’ll just stop watching the show. There are plot arcs I still want to see, but the latest preview I saw just made me angry. First and foremost, I want the next book way more than I want any more of the show; and it’s particularly frustrating to watch the show when it’s not what I want. But also the most recent preview I saw reminded me of how much I dislike Dany, and for all the issues I already have with Martin presenting her as probably the great hero but writing her in such a way that I hate her, the show even worse in that regard. And yet, Arya’s story, possibly Theon’s even though they’ve moved so much around, parts of Jon’s, Cersei goes even more crazy, I do want to see those happen. But ultimately I’m a little burned out even on the books, and my interest in the show was always based on my interest in the books, so I’m even more burnt out on the show.
Agent Carter (full season/series)
It was...okay. I’m glad I watched it, and I would recommend others give it a watch, but that doesn’t mean it was super great. I liked the characters most of all, even when the plot was kind of muddled I could like characters. It’s flawed in a lot of ways, even beyond the muddled plot, that keep me from giving it high marks, but it’s worth seeing, and probably worth rewatching down the road to judge the series as a whole more easily.
But I kind of want to address some issue I have when it comes to relationships involved here.
-For one, the show seemed really confused for to treat the Peggy/Steve history from CA1, sometimes the show seemed to want us to think they had been some epic sweeping love story that they just weren’t; while at others they seemed much more in keeping with my reading of their relationship, that they were the great missed chance. Yes Peggy would grieve for him, but not as the love of her life, as someone she cared for, might have even loved, definitely believed in as a person but never got to be sure about as a partner. And that’s still tragic, and something worth grieving, something worth getting pissed off at the radio for exploiting, but the show couldn’t seem to take that track consistently.
-Secondly, I’m never going to be comfortable in fandom for this show because Peggy/Angie has no appeal to me. Don’t get me wrong, Angie reads as not quite straight and with either a girl crush or just a crush on Peggy, but I don’t get anything like that from Peggy’s side. I’m not interested in reading fanfic about it, because it just has no draw for me in it.
-Thirdly, for a short run show, I’m not sure why they needed Peggy/anyone teased when according to CA2 she’s not going to end up with anyone from the SSR. Especially not poor puppy Daniel. I really wish we hadn’t gotten anything in CA2 beyond the fact that she did go on and have this great life including getting married to someone, but now they’re kind of pinned in by a couple tiny snippets of dialog.
-Look, I’ll ship Peggy/Daniel if I think they have a chance; so far I’m much more into Peggy/Howard as fuck-buddies and feeling conflicted over whether I can ship Peggy/Jarvis when I don’t actually want to split Jarvis from his wife even though he’s clearly fallen more than a bit in love with Peggy.
Agents of SHIELD (2x12)
I’ve liked the couple episodes since the return more than I thought I would. I was worried the show was going to go back to being super focused on Skye when clearly the show getting good coincided with not focusing on Skye so much; may or may not be causical, but definitely not a coincidence in my book. Also Ward has not been seen and I approve of not seeing Ward. We did however see Sif, which I also approve of, more Sif ftw.
Personally, I think Bobbie and Mack are working with Hill who has decided that Coulson’s branch of SHIELD is a bad idea. I’m probably wrong and just wanting Hill to come back into the story, but it’s my theory. I was shocked to learn Mack’s cute little car was a spy device, but I do want to see how this plays out, apparently rather quickly since they’ve had to step up their game pretty quickly.
And just a note to both FF.net and AO3, did you have to start identifying Skye as Daisy everywhere? She’s clearly not Daisy, she’s Skye and I suspect will remain Skye as long as she has a say in the matter.
Arrow (3x15)
There’s really only one thing I want to discuss, and that’s that while I still ship Oliver/Felicity, I don’t really have a problem with the Felicity/Ray hookup. It’s going to hurt like hell when Oliver finds out, but I don’t blame Felicity at all for it happening, I’ll be more mad at Oliver for being a baby than I am with her. There have definitely been issues with Ray and the relationship between him and Felicity to date, but I *get* it. He’s basically meant to be Oliver with a few different turns in his life, so why wouldn’t he kind of fall for Felicity? And for her, he’s Oliver without the baggage of being desperately in love with each other but they are able do something about what feelings they do have for each other. He’s attractive, she can watch him work out, he wants to be a hero but needs her help to make it happen; and he doesn’t have his head stuck up his ass when it comes to being with her. I’m absolutely sure she loves Oliver more (and to be fair, I’ve never been as sure she loves Oliver as much as he loves her – she likes him, she’s attracted to him, she wants to be with him, she wants him to get his head out of his ass and give them a try – but the soul deep certainty that Oliver has about his love for her, I’m not sure I think she’s at that level) but I don’t really see a problem with her trying out her feelings for someone else while he’s being an asshat.
Castle /Flash
I’m not sure I have anything new to say about these ones, I was just listing off the things I’m watching these days. I’m not sure I’ve thought about them much at all during the hiatus, I guess they need more episodes.
Jane the Virgin (1x15)
Ever since that whole “And Michael did believe in them until the day he died” thing, I’m pretty much sure Michael’s going to die by the end of the season. And I’m not even sure I’ll be broken by that when it probably happens, but mostly because I’m not emotionally invested in anything on this show. It’s addictive, but not in the emotionally invested way. I don’t really have a lot to say, but I thought I’d say that much.
OUaT (4x15)
Okay, I have things to say, but first why do I keep watching this show? I’ve been saying that all season, but I keep doing it, and I don’t really know why. I’m not even sure I’d call it hate watching, I’m just in a relationship with this show that I’m getting nothing out of but I can’t seem to walk away from. And weirdly, I’ve never been terribly invested in it, and I’ve grown less and less so by the season (or even half season), but somehow it’s remained something that’s almost appointment TV for me, and I don’t really get it.
That said, I also want to do I little rumination on Emma/Regina. It’s an annoying case where I do get why it’s a popular ship, I’d go so far as to say the writers have been ship teasing it, and it’s almost a really reasonable reading of the characters’ interactions to a growing degree. But I can not ship it for the life of me. It will never make sense to me in a grand scheme of things no matter how much sense it wants to make in any given moment.
And it is connected with my main problem with this half season, but in the sense that they stem from similar roots than being plainly connected. And that’s that this show really has never made me really believe in any character’s “redemption arc.” I don’t think Regina deserves to have her story rewritten to have a happy ending; before anyone says anything, I don’t think Rumple does either; I can’t imagine any of the new villains are going to make me feel anything but a burning desire for them to die (and most of them are crappy actresses); I’d still be happier if Hook died. The closest I’ve come to believing any redemptive villain was Ana over on OUaTiW (oh we’ll get to that soon), and I don’t remember entirely believing that one. I’ve never felt like the show actually showed redemption just people choosing to ignore past villainy and sweep it under the rug in favor of claiming they want a fresh start. So yeah, I know why the people of Storybrooke might be dumb enough to fall for team villain’s story about wanting a fresh start, they’ve conned themselves into believing it was good enough for Regina for a while now; but I don’t feel that way so it just bugs a lot.
Now, about Will. I am really confused about what’s going on there. Is this before OUaTiW happened so this is heartless Will courting Belle? Is it after when he’s supposed to be married and as I recall the freaking king of Wonderland? I did watch OUaTiW show, I liked it better than anything the parent show has done since at least s2, and I understand to some degree that if you were going to pull anything from that show back into the parent show Will is probably the top available option; and I know not as many people watched it as you would have liked, but kindly make this make some sense to those of us who did watch it. Up until this Belle thing I was mostly going on the theory this took place after OUaTiW and that was why he was drunkenly breaking in to the library for Alice’s books, but this makes no sense with any interpretation. Especially when they aren’t interested in really discussing Will’s character in all this, I have a hard time the show ever giving him a platform to explain what’s going on with him, he’s just there; so why be Will at all and not some other minor fairytale character to get equally little development but at least be someone new?
Parks & Rec (series finale)
I’m still a little conflicted in how I felt about the last season. My opinion boils down to, I’m glad it was the last season, but I wish it had been a full season and possibly spread out the future flashes over more episodes. The pacing is just kind of weird to have a time skip between seasons then check in with the characters again for 10 episodes (with most of them comprising double length stories), then cram another 20+ years of future events into the last hour. It was good, and I don’t think the show should have gone past this season, but I wish there had been more within it.
But I do like most of the futures we saw as epilog to the story, everything made sense and it was right tonally for the show we’ve had through most of the story to have it end so happily. Except they never explicitly gave an explanation for why this all got filmed in the first place, although I think my headcanon that somewhere in the future they invent the ability to document the past like this is still the most reasonable explanation (I came to that conclusion as soon as they did the time jump between seasons and this season didn’t dissuade me from it), and the life of Leslie Knope was worth documenting.
The last episode was pretty much perfect, I just wish I didn’t have my issues with the structure of the season as a whole weighing me down.
Reign (2x16)
My thoughts on this haven’t changed much since my last check in; we’re still in the middle of a story so I’m sure how to judge it until I see more of how it plays out. Of course I could just go read a biography of Mary Stuart and get a roadmap to events, depending on how much this show has ever cared about the reality of this story. But I think I’m still content to let the show play out its version of things...maybe...I need to go to the library so I may change my mind.
And a couple shows that are in lead up right now but I have a couple thoughts regarding.
Community
I’m actually kind of surprised how little I’m excited for this season. I feel like I still want to see it, but I’m not actually all that interested/excited/invested in seeing it. There aren’t any characters I supper care about what happens to and/or don’t feel like we’re going to get a satisfactory story for. It’s a show that’s really limped its way through the years; and while that’s partly (maybe even largely) due to its struggles with staying on the air, it’s become steadily harder for me to really care. But I’ll watch this (probably final) season, and see if it comes off better than I’m foreseeing.
Game of Thrones
I still can’t commit to whether or not I’ll just stop watching the show. There are plot arcs I still want to see, but the latest preview I saw just made me angry. First and foremost, I want the next book way more than I want any more of the show; and it’s particularly frustrating to watch the show when it’s not what I want. But also the most recent preview I saw reminded me of how much I dislike Dany, and for all the issues I already have with Martin presenting her as probably the great hero but writing her in such a way that I hate her, the show even worse in that regard. And yet, Arya’s story, possibly Theon’s even though they’ve moved so much around, parts of Jon’s, Cersei goes even more crazy, I do want to see those happen. But ultimately I’m a little burned out even on the books, and my interest in the show was always based on my interest in the books, so I’m even more burnt out on the show.
