30 Day TV Meme
Okay, the first thing here is to separate out the season finale from the resolution to that finale. Which is hard, because I can think of any number of season finales that I dislike less because of the finale itself itself than because of how it was resolved. I've ranted on this many times before, but I loathe the artificial cliffhanger, the one where we're supposed to be worried whether the protagonist lives or dies, like we actually believe it might happen that the protagonist would be killed off. People always forget: no one was asking "will JR live?" We were asking who shot him. That was the interesting part, not just that a character had been badly wounded.
(As an aside, Burn Notice does a really good job at this, because for the most part, the suspense is not that Michael is in danger, but that a key puzzle might be solved.)
The second thing is to remember that OMG WTF? is not necessarily negative, but can be OMGWTFTHEYDIDTHAT? Fringe's this season was excellent in that regard.
So taking it like that, I'm going to go with a gold standard:
"Mister Worf, FIRE."
ST: TNG, "Best of Both Worlds."
Admittedly, some of the tension was Doylist, there, in that it did appear that they had created a storyline situation where either Picard of Riker would leave, and while it seems funny to say this in retrospect, we were genuinely not sure which it would be. People forget, but Riker was actually the protagonist of at least the first season, and while Patrick Stewart was Patrick Stewart, he was not yet PATRICK GODDAMN STEWART. At the same time, Frakes seemed to be following Nimoy's lead and moving behind the camera (have you noticed how many Trek alum do that? Or have you missed Robert Duncan McNeill and Roxann Dawson's names, like, everywhere?)
Point being, when Riker gave that command, we were actually tense over what would happen, because either way, it seemed like something would be shaken up.
Of course, in true Trek fashion, they blew it and restored the status quo, but that moment still stands.
Day 27 - Best pilot episode
Day 28 - First TV show obsession
Day 29 - Current TV show obsession
Day 30 - Saddest character death
As an aside: I'm heading to Cincinnati tonight, and while I will be checking my email, I will probably not be reading much else. Like many others, I think I need a break. Besides, both my mom and my kid get cranky if I spend too much time online. See you next week!
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have spoken there.