TV Meta: Non-Recommendations for the Great Shows You're Not Watching
Inspired by a query chez azdak (who, I hope, is not furious at me for touting her on a distasteful media property. In order to say much of anything about what I mean by a "good" TV show, I'll have to be fairly spoilery, so I'm putting this behind the cut.
As I've said, I know it sounds funny, but I don't really watch much TV, although there are some series that I've marathoned on DVD, and I really don't like sci-fi or cop shows much. I've learned to avoid placing faith in labels, because I didn't watched the first two seasons of BtVS because I didn't think I wanted to see a show about a vampire-hunting cheerleader, and I didn't watch Firefly because I didn't want to see a space Western.
To get it out of the way, I guess I have to concede that, while I like HEX a lot (so much so that now those three letters convey "Buffy Goes British" rather than B7 fix-it fics), it's not really all that good. On the labeling question again, yes, the lead character *is* a dead lesbian, but the reason we hiss and throw popcorn at the screen for the Infamous Dead Lesbian Trope is that it originated as a way to allow the audience to thrill to the spectacle of Evil Perverts and be reassured that they would be vanquished by the end credits, whereas Thelma's death is a means of giving her occult powers. And there just aren't enough TV shows about women's love for other women. It's not a well-crafted show, but I spent actual money to find out what happened, which has to say something.
And what you damn sure never see US TV shows about is a man whose strongest desire is to be a really good Muslim, which would make sleeper Cell worth a watch at least as a curiosity. In contrast to HEX, I think it's a beautifully crafted show--everything that happens is in there for a reason, and the extremely complex plots (in both the lit-crit and conspiracy sense) are eventually resolved. The characters are fascinating, although it's impossible to be fully sympathetic to any of them, including the hero, and the show is very far from uncritical about the FBI agents. It's a hard show to fanfic, although I did have a few ideas--and the leader of the women's group at the Islamic Center was so interesting and charismatic that I wanted to ship her with the lead, even though she appeared in one episode for only a few minutes.
But the reason that I can't really recommend this show to anyone and eveyrone is that not only is it unremittingly violent, but it's the opposite of something like Burn Notice. In Burn Notice, if Michael has to get out of a tight spot and a beer bottle is handy (and in that show, when isn't it?) and hey! welcome to Molotov Cocktail time!--and stuff blows up and Michael gets away. In Sleeper Cell, the camera would hold not just on the person who got a shard of glass through the carotid artery, but on the person who was having a pleasant cup of coffee with the poor bugger who is now thrashing around in zir death throes.
So, lately I've been watching one show about nothing but vile and disgusting behavior in LA. And one show about terrorists. The first episodes of both Sleeper Cell and The Shield involve somebody getting murdered, which is not a bad sample of what's going to happen in the rest of the series. In Sleeper Cell, it's so upsetting that I can fully understand people switching off the TV set and refusing to watch any more of that series. In The Shield, it's practically a punch line, and the corpse's face has one of those "neat, round holes" normally found in the dislikeable person on the Oriental rug in Lord Cauliflowercheese's library./lj-cut>
Hey, if anybody wants to borrow My So-Called Life, I got a box set from Book Sale. I had trouble playing Disk 5 in my DVD player, but if you have the VLC codec, try playing it as an .avi. Highly recommended, although if you ask me, you will be a MUCH happier camper if you just skip the Christmas episode. The production company is called Bedford Falls, so I suppose that, like Michael Bluth looking in the bag o'dead dove, "I don't know WHAT I expected."
As I've said, I know it sounds funny, but I don't really watch much TV, although there are some series that I've marathoned on DVD, and I really don't like sci-fi or cop shows much. I've learned to avoid placing faith in labels, because I didn't watched the first two seasons of BtVS because I didn't think I wanted to see a show about a vampire-hunting cheerleader, and I didn't watch Firefly because I didn't want to see a space Western.
To get it out of the way, I guess I have to concede that, while I like HEX a lot (so much so that now those three letters convey "Buffy Goes British" rather than B7 fix-it fics), it's not really all that good. On the labeling question again, yes, the lead character *is* a dead lesbian, but the reason we hiss and throw popcorn at the screen for the Infamous Dead Lesbian Trope is that it originated as a way to allow the audience to thrill to the spectacle of Evil Perverts and be reassured that they would be vanquished by the end credits, whereas Thelma's death is a means of giving her occult powers. And there just aren't enough TV shows about women's love for other women. It's not a well-crafted show, but I spent actual money to find out what happened, which has to say something.
And what you damn sure never see US TV shows about is a man whose strongest desire is to be a really good Muslim, which would make sleeper Cell worth a watch at least as a curiosity. In contrast to HEX, I think it's a beautifully crafted show--everything that happens is in there for a reason, and the extremely complex plots (in both the lit-crit and conspiracy sense) are eventually resolved. The characters are fascinating, although it's impossible to be fully sympathetic to any of them, including the hero, and the show is very far from uncritical about the FBI agents. It's a hard show to fanfic, although I did have a few ideas--and the leader of the women's group at the Islamic Center was so interesting and charismatic that I wanted to ship her with the lead, even though she appeared in one episode for only a few minutes.
But the reason that I can't really recommend this show to anyone and eveyrone is that not only is it unremittingly violent, but it's the opposite of something like Burn Notice. In Burn Notice, if Michael has to get out of a tight spot and a beer bottle is handy (and in that show, when isn't it?) and hey! welcome to Molotov Cocktail time!--and stuff blows up and Michael gets away. In Sleeper Cell, the camera would hold not just on the person who got a shard of glass through the carotid artery, but on the person who was having a pleasant cup of coffee with the poor bugger who is now thrashing around in zir death throes.
So, lately I've been watching one show about nothing but vile and disgusting behavior in LA. And one show about terrorists. The first episodes of both Sleeper Cell and The Shield involve somebody getting murdered, which is not a bad sample of what's going to happen in the rest of the series. In Sleeper Cell, it's so upsetting that I can fully understand people switching off the TV set and refusing to watch any more of that series. In The Shield, it's practically a punch line, and the corpse's face has one of those "neat, round holes" normally found in the dislikeable person on the Oriental rug in Lord Cauliflowercheese's library./lj-cut>
Hey, if anybody wants to borrow My So-Called Life, I got a box set from Book Sale. I had trouble playing Disk 5 in my DVD player, but if you have the VLC codec, try playing it as an .avi. Highly recommended, although if you ask me, you will be a MUCH happier camper if you just skip the Christmas episode. The production company is called Bedford Falls, so I suppose that, like Michael Bluth looking in the bag o'dead dove, "I don't know WHAT I expected."