On TV shows and schtuff
Feb. 9th, 2005 09:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thebratqueenI am so not awake. I haven't been fully awake for days, I don't think. I'm either fighting something off or I'm still dealing with stress. Or possibly both. Still, 2 days and counting until I'm off to CA, so hopefully that will help reset the system.
Watched Veronica Mars last night. This makes 3 episodes of the show that I've actually seen, plus I've read all the recaps (thank you LJ blackout). My opinion is mixed.
I like the character of Veronica. I like how she's strong, but flawed. I like how she's had a lot of crap handed to her and she's elected to keep standing. I like that she still seems to have a sense of fun. I like the relationship she has with her dad.
I like the arc-y stuff, and the slow unfolding of information that makes you look at previous episodes in new lights.
But... I don't know that I like the show.
It's just not grabbing me. The stuff I like seems to be wrapped in a lot of stuff which is simply okay, or filler. Case in point the mysteries of the week. Now, granted, I've only watched 2 true MotW type episodes (last night's, and the one about the kid in the video store trying to find his father) and it's entirely possible they were both written by the same person who is very weak in this area. But when two random episodes not only use Ebert's Law of Economy of Characters ("Movie budgets make it impossible for any film to contain unnecessary characters. Therefore, all characters in a movie are necessary to the story—even those who do not seem to be. Sophisticated viewers can use this Law to deduce the identity of a person being kept secret by the movie's plot: This 'mystery' person is always the only character in the movie who seems otherwise extraneous.") but do so so obviously that I can figure out what's going on, you're just not writing your mystery very well. Particularly when in both cases the characters in question all but jumped up and down and waved their arms while holding signs saying "Notice me! Notice how I have nothing else to do with this storyline unless I'm the answer to the mystery!"
Now, granted, there's plenty of shows out there where the schtick of the show is really just a vehicle for other things. Buffy's monsters of the week, for instance, were rarely the primary draw. I don't think there's many people who watch Lost because they're that emotionally invested in how many fish the characters caught that week. But those shows also brought something else to the party and I'm just not seeing that yet in Veronica Mars. I'm not exactly sure what that certain thingness is that VM is missing, but it hasn't got it yet.
My feeling is that this is a show that's going to do really well in its second season. I feel like what we have now is kind of like first season Angel, where in order to get the show on the air they had to come up with a schtick, and it wasn't until the show actually got going that they realized that the show wasn't actually about the original premise but rather something else entirely. I think by season two VM will recognize what its real strengths are, and will have enough of a history behind it that it can shift its focus into the kind of storytelling that it actually wants to be about.
In the meanwhile I'm not writing it off entirely. I'll watch again when Aly shows up. It's just that for right now it's not capturing my passions enough to Tivo it, esp since it's on up against other shows that I like much better. If it was on its own that might be another story.
Watched Veronica Mars last night. This makes 3 episodes of the show that I've actually seen, plus I've read all the recaps (thank you LJ blackout). My opinion is mixed.
I like the character of Veronica. I like how she's strong, but flawed. I like how she's had a lot of crap handed to her and she's elected to keep standing. I like that she still seems to have a sense of fun. I like the relationship she has with her dad.
I like the arc-y stuff, and the slow unfolding of information that makes you look at previous episodes in new lights.
But... I don't know that I like the show.
It's just not grabbing me. The stuff I like seems to be wrapped in a lot of stuff which is simply okay, or filler. Case in point the mysteries of the week. Now, granted, I've only watched 2 true MotW type episodes (last night's, and the one about the kid in the video store trying to find his father) and it's entirely possible they were both written by the same person who is very weak in this area. But when two random episodes not only use Ebert's Law of Economy of Characters ("Movie budgets make it impossible for any film to contain unnecessary characters. Therefore, all characters in a movie are necessary to the story—even those who do not seem to be. Sophisticated viewers can use this Law to deduce the identity of a person being kept secret by the movie's plot: This 'mystery' person is always the only character in the movie who seems otherwise extraneous.") but do so so obviously that I can figure out what's going on, you're just not writing your mystery very well. Particularly when in both cases the characters in question all but jumped up and down and waved their arms while holding signs saying "Notice me! Notice how I have nothing else to do with this storyline unless I'm the answer to the mystery!"
Now, granted, there's plenty of shows out there where the schtick of the show is really just a vehicle for other things. Buffy's monsters of the week, for instance, were rarely the primary draw. I don't think there's many people who watch Lost because they're that emotionally invested in how many fish the characters caught that week. But those shows also brought something else to the party and I'm just not seeing that yet in Veronica Mars. I'm not exactly sure what that certain thingness is that VM is missing, but it hasn't got it yet.
My feeling is that this is a show that's going to do really well in its second season. I feel like what we have now is kind of like first season Angel, where in order to get the show on the air they had to come up with a schtick, and it wasn't until the show actually got going that they realized that the show wasn't actually about the original premise but rather something else entirely. I think by season two VM will recognize what its real strengths are, and will have enough of a history behind it that it can shift its focus into the kind of storytelling that it actually wants to be about.
In the meanwhile I'm not writing it off entirely. I'll watch again when Aly shows up. It's just that for right now it's not capturing my passions enough to Tivo it, esp since it's on up against other shows that I like much better. If it was on its own that might be another story.
