Nip/Tuck and Supernatural

[timepiececlock]

Nip/Tuck

I've been watching the last few weeks of Nip/Tuck. Because my roommate is into it. Another roommate has also gotten sucked into it recently.

Let me just say that this is the most fucked up show that I've ever sat through more than five episodes of. Bless basic cable.

Let me also say "OH FUCKING SHIT THAT'S SO WRONG!" and "I KNEW IT!" and "They [Christian and Sean] will be sleeping together within two seasons."

Although, at the point at the end when Sean got out the knife to cut himself, I started giggling. I told my roommates, amongst my giggling, "Wow, this is almost Greek."

The levels of sordidness, passive and active violence, and incestuous tones in this group of people is practically absurd. I had to giggle once Sean held up the knife. Cause at this point it was getting funny. And Greek.

There should be a play.

Giggling aside, I'll be watching next week too of course! After all, a show with this many OMG!s is hard to turn away from. (Though I actually physically looked away on two occasions in this episode.) I watched the very early episodes when it first aired, but was turned off. I think watching with friends makes it more fun/easier to watch somehow.


Supernatural

I've been watching this show off-and-on too, though the entertainment factor has been significantly less than N/T. For one thing, I don't particularly like either character. And there's the fact that I don't think tney're "driving around randomly fighting ghost crime while searching for Daddy" is being very plausibly carried out. And there's the fact that it's not particularly scary or inventive or clever.

If it's not scary, it's not inventive, it's not clever, and I don't like the characters, why am I watching a cheap X-Files/Buffy rip-off anyway? Dunno. Because it's on and I'm easy when it comes to sci-fi/fantasy television.

Another thing I don't like: the fact that this "demons and bad spirits exist" premise isn't good enough for me anymore. I want the X Files, where you aren't told ahead of time that they exist, but instead are constantly chasing the mystery to validate their existence, because there could always be a scientific explanation if you look hard enough, but at the same time you're always asking yourself DO YOU BELIEVE? -- Or there's the Buffy/Angel premise, where demons and ghosts do exist, yeah, but something else exists that has a job to kill them, and that girl's existence is just as crazy and magical and demonic in origin.

I like my ghost/demon plot set-ups to come with a twist. "They're out there we are weak humans who such" isn't good enough. I've read a hundred books and watched a hundred movies about that and it's so old.

Also, turn a fucking light on. It's not THAT dark ALL the time. Sheesh. The world is not gray. The world is only gray at times. Take an art class. Walk outside. The world is not gray and it's boring to look at a show with a constant blue/grey/pink filter.

But about tonight's episode: for the first three quarters it was actually kind of creepy. Which surprised me, and I think only worked because I'd half-played Bloody Mary myself as a child.

But around the climactic battle in the third act, before the scene even started I was picking holes in the brother's plan. Seriously, there were holes. And I was explaining them to my roommates because dude, if I were there I wouldn't be that fucking stupid. And I don't even chase demons on a regular basis like these two clowns.

After the thing going wrong that I predicted did go wrong, my roommates told me I was right and I should be a demon hunter for a living. I think I'd be a bit of a Wesley in the beginning, but I'd like to think I'd make an okay demon-hunter after I learned to use a crossbow and stuff.

Comments

[donna-c-punk.livejournal.com]

What exactly is that show about? It's never particularly interested me, even though people say that's it's completely messed up and I should watch it once.

The only basic cable series I am faithful to which pushes the envelope is The Shield. Not true to police procedure, but damn if it doesn't mesmerize me for 13 eps a season. Then again, the cast is un-effin'-believable on that show. All hail Chiklis.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Well, the Shield and Nip/Tuck and Rescue Me are all FX shows, so you know those cats at FX have cajones in their greenlight department.

Nip/Tuck is about two plastic surgeons and their fucked up work and home lives. Which sounds really boring on paper, but these guys are SO fucked up that it's sickly fascinating. Kind of like The Sopranos, only it's easier to identify with these people as they're not mobsters.

Almost everything in the show has some kind of sexual element-- be it physical sexual stuff, gender and genderbending stuff, family/parenting stuff, beauty=sex stuff, violence=sex stuff, and psychological sex stuff.
The drama comes from their personal lives, which is often paralleled in their work lives. And since the two doctors/business partners have been best friends since college, their personal and professional lives are inseparable in many ways. Very VERY fucked up ways.

Addendum.

[donna-c-punk.livejournal.com]

Since you added on about Supernatural:

I have someone on my FL who is obsessed with that series. We don't generally share the same taste in ... um ... anything on television, but she was trying to sell it to me the other night. You and she look at things from totally different angles, and your angle is closer to how I'd go into it. Since we share XF and Buffy/Angel backgrounds (she never watched either of those), it's sounds like poorly executed stuff.

Eh. I'll stick with House. You can't go wrong with an acerbic Hugh Laurie.

Re: Addendum.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Poor execution is my main complaint. Also there's the fact that I don't identify with the two main characters at all (I keep wishing one of them was female, which is odd because I usually don't like or dislike main characters on a gender basis... maybe I keep thinking that if I [by extension a hypothetical female character] were there they'd not be so illogical and lame). But mostly it's poor execution of a C grade plot.

If they had a hook to offset the sucky elements, I'd probably be into it. But so far, there's no hook. It doesn't have the snarky soulmate UST of the two main characters, and it doesn't have the witty dialogue and thematic/symbolic metaphors, and it's not quirky/insane/angstier than anything you've ever seen (this time I'm referring to Farscape.) I'm not feeling a hook.


Besides. I've already seen the ultimate quest story about brothers and supernatural stuff. It's called Full Metal Alchemist and Supernatural could never fuck with my head and heart the way FMA did.

I've been reconsidering House because of your squeeing. Initially I couldn't think of anything about it that would appeal to me (not into doctor shows), but it is popular with the flist.

Re: Addendum.

[donna-c-punk.livejournal.com]

I never had an interest in House until I picked up the first season on DVD, on a sort of whim. I figured, "What the hell? It's only 35 bucks." I finally understood what everyone was raving about.

It's not even so much about the medical aspect than House verbally assaulting everyone (especially his patients) around him, and still managing to remain an endearing person. I've been gobsmacked plenty at stuff he's said, but I'm with him again by the end of the episode.

I like all of the characters on the show, except for Cameron. Talk about a complete waste of fucking space. I hate her. Hate hate HATE HATE. ::takes in a deep breath:: Yeah.

Either way, wouldn't hurt to DL the first few episodes. I don't recall any eps that fell flat with me early on. Maybe two in the whole first season. And I was extremely disappointed with the last one they aired before the show went on hiatus for baseball's post-season (season two, episode three).

[sunlit5.livejournal.com]

I am such a Nip/Tuck fan!

Feel free to come yack at me about it whenever.

Sun

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

THen let me yack:

OMFG!

Their new partner is the Carver. And he totally fucked with that woman's painkillers.

[sunlit5.livejournal.com]

No, no.

I think the carver is Kit!


Sun

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

who is Kit again?

[sunlit5.livejournal.com]

The cop that Christian was having a 3some with.


;)


Sun

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

That was before I got into it, I guess. But my roommate's convinced it's their new partner, and I'm in agreement with her. He's just too creepy for words. There's something very wrong about him.

[sunlit5.livejournal.com]

He has hit on both of them ...

But Kit (who's working on the Carver case) mentioned to Christian anal rape.

I still think it was her.

Sun

[thisficklemob.livejournal.com]

I never thought I could like a show about plastic surgery... and then I caught a bunch of reruns over the summer, and realized I wasn't supposed to like these people. That made it all much better. Plus, I don't empathize or over-identify with any of them, so they can fuck with them all they like and I don't turn into a wreck. Like I can over "my" characters. (My Scully, my Spike, etc.)

Alas, I cannot watch this show when my mom's present and awake, so while I caught this week's, I never know when I'll be able to tune in. It adds a certain suspense to the whole matter.

It is borderline ridiculous, and outrageously fucked up, and the previews for next week made me think something I was sure I was incapble of thinking: "Poor Christian!" Because you know they're gonna use all his avoidant behavior, (not getting counselling, not telling anyone about the rape, not calling the detective back), as evidence it's him. I personally don't think it is... I think he would have known right away that today's woman wasn't a Carver victim, rather than only when she asked him to fix her nose. Unless he's got some dissociative thing going on. (It would explain why Sean wasn't raped.) As for Sean... I do feel bad for him. Even though he did hit Matt. Matt's self-righteous behavior really doesn't work with what he's been up to. And it's almost bizarre to watch a show where hitting someone in the nose is assault. And not, y'know, foreplay, or just another day. I think BtVS has warped me...

[sunlit5.livejournal.com]

;)


Agreed with just about everything.

Sun

[araceli-maura.livejournal.com]

DUUUDE, wasn't that Nip/Tuck episode crizazy? My roomate and I were freaking out the whole episode.

And Sean and Christian need to just have sex already. I mean, seriously. It's so blatant. And the fact that Christian is the carver? WOA. Right the fuck out of left field. I about cried.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

It was insane. We were freaking out too, especially when the woman started screaming in the procedure. And then all the other freak-out worthy stuff.

And Sean and Christian need to just have sex already. I mean, seriously. It's so blatant.

I don't see it as them being attracted to each other because I think they are both heterosexual in the preferencial sense (by that I mean I'm sure Christian would share a woman with another guy because he's experimental to the extreme, though I haven't watched the show so maybe that's already happened). But I think their lives and love lives and work lives are so intertwined, and there's so much sex they deal with every day, and along the line they've shared practically EVERYTHING right down to Sean's wife and parenthood, that outright sex with each other is practically the only thing they haven't done yet. I can see them falling into it not as a romantic relationship but as a mutual pity party / comfort and "we might as well" thing. Then I think Sean would get more attached than Christian over it.

But I think one of them will have to operate on the other's penis first. I just think that's going to happen at some point with this show-- penis operation I mean. I predict it.

[sunlit5.livejournal.com]

It's happened.

Christian invited their new partner home to have sex with his two girlfriends.

Sun