Vacation, television catch-up, etc
Jul. 2nd, 2007 02:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
timepiececlockI'm back in California for a week, spending my first vacation with family. I'll be heading back to New Orleans next week--- fun fun fun. While here I've caught up with quite a bit of tv, and I plan to watch even more.
Heroes
I finished season 2 of Heroes. I certainly enjoyed the second half of the season more than the first, not the least because it moved at a much faster clip. I've also finally started to accept the ridiculous degree this show takes the "everyone is connected" concept to. I haven't really liked that aspect since it started to kick in, because it reduses the cast to a large number of characters who ALL have abilities.
Even getting past the ridiculousness of the multiple levels of conspiracy and connection between EVERYONE in the show, it's annoying because it ignores the rich story possibilities of having mutant characters interact with an equal number of non-mutant characters, and it means the now well-developed characters get all smooshed together, their uniqueness reduced to banality when surrounded by their peers. In order for this show to work for multiple seasons to come, it needs a lot more regular humans to balance out all the magic that's flying about. And honestly, I just really don't think it's necessary for every character to have a power and for everyone to have some secret connection. The writers make think it's "cool", but as a viewer I find it tiring and unbelievable. Thank god I have The 4400 still; that series is Heroes's older and more sophisticated sibling.
Some of the storylines I did enjoy to their ultimate conclusion, however. Among them: Sylar, Mohinder, and Mr. Bennet. The actor for Mr. Bennet did a damn fine job, and made his character feel more "real" than most of the others, despite quite a bit of over the top material. Mohinder's actor succeeded in this as well; sometimes when I'm watching this show I feel like the actors are trying so hard that they're going to hurt themselves. I also think the actor for Mohinder is one of the most attractive men on television right now. If he walked onto the set of Grey's Anatomy, the entire series would have to be rewritten just to accomodate for how incredibly hot he is.
I thought the final battle betwen the two "even more special" mutants was interesting, but not enough of an actual battle. If I had one complaint for this season finale, it would be that I didn't get to see enough flying objects, laser eye beams, and explosions. All that build-up and there was barely even a *fight*. Who watched the movieDark City? Now there was a righteous mid-air psychic battle! Nathan's climactic decision was one of the two solutions I thought of as soon as the major plot conflict of the seaon was introduced. I thought it was handled at least with grace, albeit without subtlety. I thought Hiro's time-travelling was great fun, but his hero journey took a little too long and felt a little to much like an anime. Ando's final scene in the season was a lovely one, however.
Because I marathoned episode 16-23 within two days, my viewing experience is different than typical, but I wonder if I'm the only one who got annoyed with the constant use of the word "hero" in the script? It's SO ANNOYING OMG. People just don't talk like that. Of course Hiro Nakamura would say stuff like that, and sure even the little girl would, because Hiro is living out his own post-adolescent comic book epic journey and because little kids actually think that way. Most adults, however, do not. And hearing the word pop multiple times out of the mouth of at least 3 characters an episode just gets pathetic. We GET it, okay? We got it after the first episode! When you want to use the title and such a connotation-heavy word in the story text itself, you have to wait for the right moment. Don't just toss it in any time you think you can twist the dialogue to include it. Save it, hold it, and put it out there once, at the right moment, when it gives the scene and the dialogue the most power it can. It's like a punchline: it only works the first time you say it, so you have to say it at the best moment.
Parting thought on Heroes: what the heck they were thinking when they cast that actress as Claire and then decided to have Claire be a Petrelli family member, I've no idea. Claire and Peter don't act like relatives, and the other characters act more like they're dating than niece and nephew. It's annoying because the actors have screen chemistry, but it's the wrong kind of chemistry, and it's getting in the way of my enjoying their storyline.
The 4400
I watched the first three episodes of season 4, and I dare say I enjoyed those three episodes more than the second half of Heroes. (And they're not even the bestest best episodes of the show, either. It's just on a higher level as a whole.) This show works with the same tropes as that show: mutant abilities, genetics, time travel, conspiracies, destiny... but this show fully commits to it. Instead of a small drama between a group of powerful characters that seems explosive but doesn't actually affect anyone outside of those already involved, The 4400 story involves the whole world. Many things are connected, but at the same time many things happen independentally of the conspiracies but still affect the main characters and storylines. The vast overlapping conspiracies of Heroes has the backlash affect of isolating the cast from the world they inhabit. If everyone you meet or know, even incidentally, is somehow connected to The Big Picture, then what you think is The Big Picture is actually one small, sectioned-off corner, and everyone you know exists in that corner. Their story is your story, and there is nothing else. The 4400 takes the opposite tact: they don't try to show how everything is connected or that everyone affects everyone else, so they're free to go off on tangent storylines to better develop characters as a whole, and to involve more characters. Instead of showing the whole of a small pie... they're showing all the random pieces you need to get a taste (a gist) of a much larger, multi-layered pizza.
And they're handling the messaiah thing *much* better, too. Just when you think you've got the characters figured out, they surprise you. The characters are more layered, more complicated, and more realistic than the "heroes" are. Their development and changes feel more real and more dynamic, in a large part probably because the series covers more time than a span of five weeks. They don't just talk about changing the world-- their world already has changed.
All the potential of the Heroes characters is actually being carried out by the 4400 characters. Sylar and Peter are becoming demi-gods... in last season of 4400, Isabelle *was* a demigod, and the writers ended that storyline because someone must have realized, hey, being all-powerful is not nearly as interesting as it sounds, and individuals with just one ability each are plenty intriguing on their own. I also like the fact that in The 4400, not every ability is actiony or exotic. A lot of attention is given to the smaller, more unusual talents: the person who can pick up any instrument for the first time and play like a prodigy; the teacher who just has to spend a little time with a kid before she brings that kid's inborn talents to the fore; the person who can let your mind live six years of memory in six minutes of hypnosis.
Heroes is fun, expensive, sometimes pretty escapism, a live action comic that feels like its written by a freshman comic-book writer who's got talent but too easily gives in to convention. The 4400 is a science fiction epic about the end of the world, and while it has its flaws, in terms of fantasy shows about people with superpowers, it remains the Bradbury to Heroes' Marvel.
Heroes
I finished season 2 of Heroes. I certainly enjoyed the second half of the season more than the first, not the least because it moved at a much faster clip. I've also finally started to accept the ridiculous degree this show takes the "everyone is connected" concept to. I haven't really liked that aspect since it started to kick in, because it reduses the cast to a large number of characters who ALL have abilities.
Even getting past the ridiculousness of the multiple levels of conspiracy and connection between EVERYONE in the show, it's annoying because it ignores the rich story possibilities of having mutant characters interact with an equal number of non-mutant characters, and it means the now well-developed characters get all smooshed together, their uniqueness reduced to banality when surrounded by their peers. In order for this show to work for multiple seasons to come, it needs a lot more regular humans to balance out all the magic that's flying about. And honestly, I just really don't think it's necessary for every character to have a power and for everyone to have some secret connection. The writers make think it's "cool", but as a viewer I find it tiring and unbelievable. Thank god I have The 4400 still; that series is Heroes's older and more sophisticated sibling.
Some of the storylines I did enjoy to their ultimate conclusion, however. Among them: Sylar, Mohinder, and Mr. Bennet. The actor for Mr. Bennet did a damn fine job, and made his character feel more "real" than most of the others, despite quite a bit of over the top material. Mohinder's actor succeeded in this as well; sometimes when I'm watching this show I feel like the actors are trying so hard that they're going to hurt themselves. I also think the actor for Mohinder is one of the most attractive men on television right now. If he walked onto the set of Grey's Anatomy, the entire series would have to be rewritten just to accomodate for how incredibly hot he is.
I thought the final battle betwen the two "even more special" mutants was interesting, but not enough of an actual battle. If I had one complaint for this season finale, it would be that I didn't get to see enough flying objects, laser eye beams, and explosions. All that build-up and there was barely even a *fight*. Who watched the movieDark City? Now there was a righteous mid-air psychic battle! Nathan's climactic decision was one of the two solutions I thought of as soon as the major plot conflict of the seaon was introduced. I thought it was handled at least with grace, albeit without subtlety. I thought Hiro's time-travelling was great fun, but his hero journey took a little too long and felt a little to much like an anime. Ando's final scene in the season was a lovely one, however.
Because I marathoned episode 16-23 within two days, my viewing experience is different than typical, but I wonder if I'm the only one who got annoyed with the constant use of the word "hero" in the script? It's SO ANNOYING OMG. People just don't talk like that. Of course Hiro Nakamura would say stuff like that, and sure even the little girl would, because Hiro is living out his own post-adolescent comic book epic journey and because little kids actually think that way. Most adults, however, do not. And hearing the word pop multiple times out of the mouth of at least 3 characters an episode just gets pathetic. We GET it, okay? We got it after the first episode! When you want to use the title and such a connotation-heavy word in the story text itself, you have to wait for the right moment. Don't just toss it in any time you think you can twist the dialogue to include it. Save it, hold it, and put it out there once, at the right moment, when it gives the scene and the dialogue the most power it can. It's like a punchline: it only works the first time you say it, so you have to say it at the best moment.
Parting thought on Heroes: what the heck they were thinking when they cast that actress as Claire and then decided to have Claire be a Petrelli family member, I've no idea. Claire and Peter don't act like relatives, and the other characters act more like they're dating than niece and nephew. It's annoying because the actors have screen chemistry, but it's the wrong kind of chemistry, and it's getting in the way of my enjoying their storyline.
The 4400
I watched the first three episodes of season 4, and I dare say I enjoyed those three episodes more than the second half of Heroes. (And they're not even the bestest best episodes of the show, either. It's just on a higher level as a whole.) This show works with the same tropes as that show: mutant abilities, genetics, time travel, conspiracies, destiny... but this show fully commits to it. Instead of a small drama between a group of powerful characters that seems explosive but doesn't actually affect anyone outside of those already involved, The 4400 story involves the whole world. Many things are connected, but at the same time many things happen independentally of the conspiracies but still affect the main characters and storylines. The vast overlapping conspiracies of Heroes has the backlash affect of isolating the cast from the world they inhabit. If everyone you meet or know, even incidentally, is somehow connected to The Big Picture, then what you think is The Big Picture is actually one small, sectioned-off corner, and everyone you know exists in that corner. Their story is your story, and there is nothing else. The 4400 takes the opposite tact: they don't try to show how everything is connected or that everyone affects everyone else, so they're free to go off on tangent storylines to better develop characters as a whole, and to involve more characters. Instead of showing the whole of a small pie... they're showing all the random pieces you need to get a taste (a gist) of a much larger, multi-layered pizza.
And they're handling the messaiah thing *much* better, too. Just when you think you've got the characters figured out, they surprise you. The characters are more layered, more complicated, and more realistic than the "heroes" are. Their development and changes feel more real and more dynamic, in a large part probably because the series covers more time than a span of five weeks. They don't just talk about changing the world-- their world already has changed.
All the potential of the Heroes characters is actually being carried out by the 4400 characters. Sylar and Peter are becoming demi-gods... in last season of 4400, Isabelle *was* a demigod, and the writers ended that storyline because someone must have realized, hey, being all-powerful is not nearly as interesting as it sounds, and individuals with just one ability each are plenty intriguing on their own. I also like the fact that in The 4400, not every ability is actiony or exotic. A lot of attention is given to the smaller, more unusual talents: the person who can pick up any instrument for the first time and play like a prodigy; the teacher who just has to spend a little time with a kid before she brings that kid's inborn talents to the fore; the person who can let your mind live six years of memory in six minutes of hypnosis.
Heroes is fun, expensive, sometimes pretty escapism, a live action comic that feels like its written by a freshman comic-book writer who's got talent but too easily gives in to convention. The 4400 is a science fiction epic about the end of the world, and while it has its flaws, in terms of fantasy shows about people with superpowers, it remains the Bradbury to Heroes' Marvel.
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no subject
Date: 2007-07-02 10:39 pm (UTC)On Heroes we've got the opposite, where the characters are still pretty much a secret from the public, although after the season finale I doubt that's going to be a problem anymore. For me personally, I think I would have been annoyed with the "everyone's connected" trope if it were more random, but there's a reason in canon for that connection between this generation of characters, and that's the former generation of superhumans -- the Petrellis, Linderman, Mr. Nakamura and Simone's dad -- who've been at work behind the scenes with all of them. I don't know ... that's why I let that particular angle slide.
They both make me happy, really. Heroes is like candy and The 4400 is like steak and potatoes. Just depends what I'm in the mood for. :)
(As for the Claire-as-a-Petrelli thing, my dad met his biological dad a few years back for the first time since he was a toddler and they are SCARY alike. Like, they look exactly alike, they like the same stuff, etc. But it definitely took work to act like family around one another -- since they found out the whole illegitimate-daughter thing only a couple of weeks before the blast in show-time, I didn't expect them to have anything remotely resembling a realistic familial relationship this season. Between Nathan and Claire or Peter and Claire -- hell, Mama Petrelli was acting her part more than they were, but Nathan was still getting over finding out she was really alive when he'd thought she was dead and Peter and Claire haven't exactly been a position to develop "no flirting with my uncle!" vibes just yet.)
no subject
Date: 2007-07-03 10:01 pm (UTC)That would have been one way to do it, but I don't think it needs to be public to have more characters who don't have powers. I don't mean the characters have to broadcast to the world, merely that it'd be nice to see them interacting more with non-powered characters. We saw this as each character was introduced, but about a third of the way through the season, it seemed like most of the characters who didn't have powers or have a clear purpose (like Mr. Bennet and Mohinder) were dropped. Most of the conversations happened between people with powers. You had one or two-episode characters like with Ando & Hiro's advntures, but only two real 'non-powered' major characters, compared to about a dozen major powered characters. I think the ratio would work much better at a 1:3 ratio. It can be done quite easily without the characters's abilities having to be public, the same way its worked with Mr. Bennet or Suresh. We need more Xanders, more Dawns, and more Anyas.
The whole generational conspiracy thing did explain away some of the connectedness, but I just felt it was overdone. I subtlety in that kind of thing... little touches. I'd rather two characters were mysteriously connected by passing obliviously at a bus stop than by the fact that their parents were in collusion to alter the fate of the world. I think a balance would have been better... some characters are connected due to conspiracy, others due to circumstances and story developments. That's probably why I liked Mr. Bennet's story. He was only connected to these people through his job, as far as we know. That's how he got his daughter, and how we got involved. He wasn't born into the mess, or lured into it. He willfully joined, willfully went deeper in his involvement, and ultimately demonstrated a greater freedom to control his part in the final culmination of events. That also bugged me--so many of the characters spent their time *reacting* instead of moving forward, so the final confrontation, even the bomb itself, was the result of everybody reacting. Reacting to the prophecies, the time travel, the extortion, the manipulation, the fear, each other, and their own abilities. Sylar was a notable exception to that, until the end when he learned about the bomb. Maybe Linderman and grandma Petrelli were movers instead of reactionaries, but they were minor characters and mostly off-screen the whole season.
Or maybe the revelations were just too fast-- this kind of conspiracy, if revealed over 3 seasons instead of one, might be more acceptable to my suspension of disbelief, not to mention more developed and explained. I'm sure next season will deal heavily with that, but there wasn't a need to show all their cards to the audience at once this season.