Arctic Air, and the weirdly inconsistent writing thereof.
Because, really. I love this show. I love the female characters and the humour and the scenery and the planes and I ship Krista/Bobby like I haven't shipped anything for years.
But but but but. Season two, looked at as an arc, is... weird. They seem to have this odd recall for small things - Blake's first aid skills, Mel's use of the word "porking" to refer to his daughter's sex life (which he needs to stop doing right now, seriously) - but then they just seem to leap from plotline to plotline in a way that makes me feel like whole episodes - mostly to do with Bobby and Krista's relationship - have disappeared into the ether, never to be seen again.
Take Krista and Bobby. This is how their storyline has played out this season:
- Wildfire (201) - Krista has spent three months not wanting to talk about that kiss, she's distraught about Bobby's possible death, Bobby's hopeful about the future of their relationship, there's the hug after they're reunited, the "I'm tired" head on shoulder thing at back at the hangar, and then Krista says she thinks they should just be friends. Fine.
- Bombs Away (202) - Bobby beats up a guy for information about the bomb on Krista's flight, although I think he would have gone to those lengths for anyone. Hug at the end, awkward look. That fits with where they're at.
- Open Season (203) - They don't even get a scene together, as far as I can recall.
- Stormy Weather (204) - And now, bizarrely, they're at a wedding, slow-dancing until five in the morning, unable to keep their hands off each other, and flirting. "Maybe it's time you get out of that thing." "That is the plan." The series has neither shown nor told us how they got to that point from where they were. Why did Krista invite Bobby to the wedding in the first place? Why has she now decided to let down those walls a little and maybe let him in? Their sleeping together at the end of that episode makes sense in context of the episode, and I can even buy it happening as a one-off sexual tension kind of thing, but it seems to have been the beginning of an actual relationship and we have no real idea why that relationship started when it did.
- Old Wounds (205) - They're giddy about each other, but it's a secret (Krista looking around the bar after their kiss, Astrid asking if she's meeting anyone). Well okay, that works, and they're ridiculously cute.
- Dangerous Cargo (206) - I think this episode did a great job of highlighting the essential difference between Bobby the idealist and Krista the practical without ramming it down our throats, and again, it works. But then there's the ending. Krista's line about Bobby wanting to prove he's a good guy was really harsh - she's right, in a way, I think being 'the good guy' comes naturally to Bobby but that it's also how he wants to see himself and how he wants others to see him - and then she walks away from him at the end after pointing out that he prioritised Lucy's life over his own. Which of course goes back to Bobby's tendency to act first and think later and his belief that everything really will work out okay in the end, and Krista's fear that everything will not be okay.
- There's Gold in Them Thar Hills (207) - In which I expected some exploration or resolution of what happened in 206, except now we're pretending that never happened. Instead, we learn that Krista's staying at Bobby's practically every night and that everyone knows they're a couple, and that they're committed even if Krista doesn't want to have a drawer, or lots of drawers, or to move in with Bobby.
It feels like there should have been another episode somewhere between 202 and 204, and one between 206 and 207. I mean, everyone finding out about Krista and Bobby seems like an entire comic sub-plot for an episode in and of itself. And while we're at it, how does Krista know about Blake and Alex, and where did that come from? They went on a date - one date - in 201, and now they're having a secret-but-not-secret relationship that effectively came out of the blue? There was story there and they didn't show it.
Then you've got things like Hailey and Kirby's marriage problems, which appeared in a couple of early episodes and have apparently now been dropped completely (although Hailey's been absent for at least two episodes running, so it's possible that the problem was Sera-Lys McArthur being unavailable). Mel's dating again as of 204 and apparently Loreen has feelings for him, but that's been dropped. Petra and Connor were given a five-second scene in 201 like some kind of Chekhov's gun and Bobby's Connor issues were given an airing in that episode - and then nothing until next episode, which will be 208.
I think the individual episodes are fine when taken out of context (admittedly, Old Wounds kind of bored me) but they're falling down on the overall story telling. Sure, it's not a soap opera but if they want their audience invested in these characters and these relationships they need to make sense. I will give the Krista/Bobby relationship a little bit of leeway because there's twenty or thirty years of friendship there, so in a way it wouldn't surprise me to see them go from sleeping together to a serious, committed relationship in a short space of time - but the series hasn't shown us how that happened. It's like a bunch of random storylines cobbled together.
I love this show, and I want to see them get a few more seasons, but they need to step back and take some time to tell their stories. They could have had Krista and Bobby start sleeping together when they did (complete with explanation as to how they got there) and then slowly drawn it out over the season - the misunderstandings, the Dangerous Cargo stuff, the resolution of that, the decision to make it an actual relationship rather than two people having sex, the Petra and Connor stuff thrown in as a bump on the road, Mel's reaction, gossip in the office, feeling like they have to prove their relationship won't change things at work, and then, at the end of the season, have them where they are now: they're committed, but not quite ready to take the next step.
They're ramped everything up so fast it makes me concerned about what they're (the writers) going to do next. I think Krista and Bobby is endgame (as long as they don't get abruptly cancelled) but it feels like they're going to drop some manufactured drama on those two when they could have had plenty of natural tension and challenges and kept the relationship growing organically with little scenes from episode to episode.
This show better not let me down, because I love it too much.
But but but but. Season two, looked at as an arc, is... weird. They seem to have this odd recall for small things - Blake's first aid skills, Mel's use of the word "porking" to refer to his daughter's sex life (which he needs to stop doing right now, seriously) - but then they just seem to leap from plotline to plotline in a way that makes me feel like whole episodes - mostly to do with Bobby and Krista's relationship - have disappeared into the ether, never to be seen again.
Take Krista and Bobby. This is how their storyline has played out this season:
- Wildfire (201) - Krista has spent three months not wanting to talk about that kiss, she's distraught about Bobby's possible death, Bobby's hopeful about the future of their relationship, there's the hug after they're reunited, the "I'm tired" head on shoulder thing at back at the hangar, and then Krista says she thinks they should just be friends. Fine.
- Bombs Away (202) - Bobby beats up a guy for information about the bomb on Krista's flight, although I think he would have gone to those lengths for anyone. Hug at the end, awkward look. That fits with where they're at.
- Open Season (203) - They don't even get a scene together, as far as I can recall.
- Stormy Weather (204) - And now, bizarrely, they're at a wedding, slow-dancing until five in the morning, unable to keep their hands off each other, and flirting. "Maybe it's time you get out of that thing." "That is the plan." The series has neither shown nor told us how they got to that point from where they were. Why did Krista invite Bobby to the wedding in the first place? Why has she now decided to let down those walls a little and maybe let him in? Their sleeping together at the end of that episode makes sense in context of the episode, and I can even buy it happening as a one-off sexual tension kind of thing, but it seems to have been the beginning of an actual relationship and we have no real idea why that relationship started when it did.
- Old Wounds (205) - They're giddy about each other, but it's a secret (Krista looking around the bar after their kiss, Astrid asking if she's meeting anyone). Well okay, that works, and they're ridiculously cute.
- Dangerous Cargo (206) - I think this episode did a great job of highlighting the essential difference between Bobby the idealist and Krista the practical without ramming it down our throats, and again, it works. But then there's the ending. Krista's line about Bobby wanting to prove he's a good guy was really harsh - she's right, in a way, I think being 'the good guy' comes naturally to Bobby but that it's also how he wants to see himself and how he wants others to see him - and then she walks away from him at the end after pointing out that he prioritised Lucy's life over his own. Which of course goes back to Bobby's tendency to act first and think later and his belief that everything really will work out okay in the end, and Krista's fear that everything will not be okay.
- There's Gold in Them Thar Hills (207) - In which I expected some exploration or resolution of what happened in 206, except now we're pretending that never happened. Instead, we learn that Krista's staying at Bobby's practically every night and that everyone knows they're a couple, and that they're committed even if Krista doesn't want to have a drawer, or lots of drawers, or to move in with Bobby.
It feels like there should have been another episode somewhere between 202 and 204, and one between 206 and 207. I mean, everyone finding out about Krista and Bobby seems like an entire comic sub-plot for an episode in and of itself. And while we're at it, how does Krista know about Blake and Alex, and where did that come from? They went on a date - one date - in 201, and now they're having a secret-but-not-secret relationship that effectively came out of the blue? There was story there and they didn't show it.
Then you've got things like Hailey and Kirby's marriage problems, which appeared in a couple of early episodes and have apparently now been dropped completely (although Hailey's been absent for at least two episodes running, so it's possible that the problem was Sera-Lys McArthur being unavailable). Mel's dating again as of 204 and apparently Loreen has feelings for him, but that's been dropped. Petra and Connor were given a five-second scene in 201 like some kind of Chekhov's gun and Bobby's Connor issues were given an airing in that episode - and then nothing until next episode, which will be 208.
I think the individual episodes are fine when taken out of context (admittedly, Old Wounds kind of bored me) but they're falling down on the overall story telling. Sure, it's not a soap opera but if they want their audience invested in these characters and these relationships they need to make sense. I will give the Krista/Bobby relationship a little bit of leeway because there's twenty or thirty years of friendship there, so in a way it wouldn't surprise me to see them go from sleeping together to a serious, committed relationship in a short space of time - but the series hasn't shown us how that happened. It's like a bunch of random storylines cobbled together.
I love this show, and I want to see them get a few more seasons, but they need to step back and take some time to tell their stories. They could have had Krista and Bobby start sleeping together when they did (complete with explanation as to how they got there) and then slowly drawn it out over the season - the misunderstandings, the Dangerous Cargo stuff, the resolution of that, the decision to make it an actual relationship rather than two people having sex, the Petra and Connor stuff thrown in as a bump on the road, Mel's reaction, gossip in the office, feeling like they have to prove their relationship won't change things at work, and then, at the end of the season, have them where they are now: they're committed, but not quite ready to take the next step.
They're ramped everything up so fast it makes me concerned about what they're (the writers) going to do next. I think Krista and Bobby is endgame (as long as they don't get abruptly cancelled) but it feels like they're going to drop some manufactured drama on those two when they could have had plenty of natural tension and challenges and kept the relationship growing organically with little scenes from episode to episode.
This show better not let me down, because I love it too much.