Forever (TV)
I caught my third episode of Forever on TV last night. As much as I like Ioan Gruffud, I'm not sure if I'm going to keep watching it. The writing is just horrible! They're really not giving him much to go on as far as character development, other than "know it all."
Last night's episode was about a "Fountain of Youth" drink that was killing people. (Not spoiling anything, this was in the commercials.) His son-who-is-older-than-him might have bought the deadly drink. In the show our hero discovers his son's name on the customer list. Does he call him on the phone? No, he dramatically runs home to the Antique shop and bursts in demanding, "You didn't drink it did you?" If I was the son I would have been all "WTF are you talking about you crazy old man?" And then he babbles on and never actually says the stuff is killing people. So I'd still be all "WTF old man, is being immortal making you crazy or whot?" Talk about a failure to communicate.
Basically the character is another spin-off of the Sherlock Holmes personality type, hyper-observant, brilliant detective, annoying as heck to be around all day. Think Holmes, Bones, Dr. House, and any number of other variants. I'm finding that even the actor's charm is having trouble overcoming my basic dislike of this character trope. Especially because I just think that someone who is SO brilliant would have managed to learn at least some rudimentary social skills after they've managed to live several lifetimes.
And last night's flashback was to a friend of his, a fellow doctor, who becomes ill over the course of the episode. But there's just something wrong when the makeup department paints his face grey to let us know he's dying, but the hairdressing department still puts a ton of mousse in his hair. Come on, if he's that sick, his hair wouldn't be that poufy!
Usually I give a show three episodes before I decide to ditch it. I'm going to give Forever one more, but at this point I strongly suspect it's not going to make it onto my "To be watched" list this season.
Last night's episode was about a "Fountain of Youth" drink that was killing people. (Not spoiling anything, this was in the commercials.) His son-who-is-older-than-him might have bought the deadly drink. In the show our hero discovers his son's name on the customer list. Does he call him on the phone? No, he dramatically runs home to the Antique shop and bursts in demanding, "You didn't drink it did you?" If I was the son I would have been all "WTF are you talking about you crazy old man?" And then he babbles on and never actually says the stuff is killing people. So I'd still be all "WTF old man, is being immortal making you crazy or whot?" Talk about a failure to communicate.
Basically the character is another spin-off of the Sherlock Holmes personality type, hyper-observant, brilliant detective, annoying as heck to be around all day. Think Holmes, Bones, Dr. House, and any number of other variants. I'm finding that even the actor's charm is having trouble overcoming my basic dislike of this character trope. Especially because I just think that someone who is SO brilliant would have managed to learn at least some rudimentary social skills after they've managed to live several lifetimes.
And last night's flashback was to a friend of his, a fellow doctor, who becomes ill over the course of the episode. But there's just something wrong when the makeup department paints his face grey to let us know he's dying, but the hairdressing department still puts a ton of mousse in his hair. Come on, if he's that sick, his hair wouldn't be that poufy!
Usually I give a show three episodes before I decide to ditch it. I'm going to give Forever one more, but at this point I strongly suspect it's not going to make it onto my "To be watched" list this season.