Finally caught up on what were my shows...
So I have FINALLY finished watching this season of TVD and The Originals, which I think speaks to how unlikely me giving a damn next season is. But I will at least write up my thoughts on the last third of the seasons.
First, in general what I realized once I’d stopped watching was that I must have had enough give-a-damn left for one more season of this verse and with two shows I burned through that more quickly; even with the extra burst for how much I loved TO early on, it couldn’t last the whole season through. If I hadn’t had the episodes sitting on my desktop all this time I probably would have just forgotten about it even earlier. I had basically forgotten everything that had happened up to this point in the seasons aside from really broad strokes, which may have helped is some ways, but again shows how little passion remains for my with this fandom.
The Originals
Well, Mikael’s back, and apparently Esther and Finn (which is weird considering they didn’t spell out that that was Finn and I’m not sure he was even mentioned all season long). I’m pretty sure somewhere along the line Davina became my favorite character so a Davina-Mikael alliance (prime to be messed with by Esther’s return) does have some potential to bring me back to this show. Not enough to make it appointment viewing, but may maintain fits-and-starts watching status yet.
I continue to laugh my ass off at Elijah swearing vengeance on anyone who messes with their family. Genevieve was totally evil for driving Rebekah away, when Rebekah wanted to go, but Elena and co. killed two of his siblings and...nothing. When I could look at that disparity as being shippy as hell I could roll with it, but right now it just makes me incapable of taking him seriously.
Because I really don’t take him seriously anymore. I don’t have the faintest clue who he is or what he wants anymore (and yes I have wandered back into a B5 frame of mind). Nothing he says or does makes any sense to me at this point, I don’t even recognize this “Elijah” as the same one I used to love so very much; the show’s completely forgotten the character he used to be and what his story used to be so why should I attribute that Elijah’s characterization to this one? (Of course this goes at least double for Elena, but we’ll get to that when we get to TVD.)
Note to the show runners, this show was at its best when it was focused on the Originals. Elijah, Rebekah, and Klaus should be the show’s main characters; which is why having more of the Original family back in play is actually interesting (and didn't I say from the backdoor pilot that Mikael was totally coming back? It was so obvious that I'm not even sure I get I-called-it points but I did see it coming from the beginning. There have been some interesting ideas among the other plots the show has offered, but a lot of them have fallen flat too. The show needs to refocus its priorities so that the larger world could be interesting; but when the core characters are either ridiculous (Elijah and Klaus) or absent (Rebekah) it’s just not what it could be.
So...I’m completely confused how Hayley ended up a hybrid. The mystical chemistry doesn’t make any sense. Is the baby a hybrid? Is she a doppelganger? If the former how is she going to grow up since hybrids are dead and unaging? If the later shouldn’t that have messed with the TVD plotline having a new doppelganger in play? (Also, glad as I am to be wrong about calling her Nikki, Hope is a stupid name for that kid.)
Plus Hayley is easily the weak link in this show (well, besides relying on magical mystical baby and the fact that this timeline regarding the pregnancy makes no sense) so all the points the show could score with more Original family in play is soured by continuing to force Hayley on us so much.
In the end, I don’t hate everything about this show, but I don’t really have anything to hold on to in it either. Maybe we’ll see how next season goes eventually, but like I said, probably not right away.
Vampire Diaries
Well...that was really finale feeling. It even faded out to white in the end, so I would totally buy this as the end of the story. Basically having ended the Triangle of Doom with Damon being dead and Stefan/Elena effectively off the table; Elena, Jeremy, and Alaric can go on a long family road trip and you can imagine whatever kind of future you want for them from that; there are enough hints to think Stefan/Caroline will happen down the road; and I guess now it’s a new day for supernatural creatures that when they die they skip over the Other Side (while I dream that somehow Kol snuck out before getting pulled into oblivion (I was going to add Katherine but then I remembered it seems like she did get sucked off)) to whatever else there is.
But even if this was the end and I could imagine whatever future I wanted for the characters afterward, the last two seasons would still be a waste. If there’s one thing I hate about TO it’s that it makes it all the harder for them to do a hard reset of the verse back to before Elena died. S5 was maybe less awful than s4, but it’s all just so meh.
Remember how much I hated everything the show did in s4? If not, I just mentioned it. But when Jeremy died I was devastated for Elena because she was still my girl and I hated to see her hurt. I felt nothing this time around. ND was acting her heart out but all I could think was “Oh there are my Elena/Alaric shippy feelings coming back.” And while I’m sure a good chunk of that has to do with how little I care about Damon and D/E, I though several times in this watch that the long gap between watching episodes had done wonders for me not hating stuff so much, I just don’t care enough anymore the feel anything but occasional amusement with the show’s stupidity.
I think looking at this episode as a finale would do wonders for how I relate to it, or at minimum if I believed there’d be a large gap of show time before it returned. Because I don’t actually believe for a second that the Triangle of Doom is resolved, that Damon and Bonnie (and honestly Katherine either, I’ve always maintained that I don’t believe the show would shut the door on ever bringing her back) will stay dead, that any of the characters are going to grow and change from this experience. Again the problem with a shared universe comes in to play, because if it were just TVD I might hope that they would take this opportunity tat least fast forward so that it’s actually 2014 in show time (where it should still be 2012 I remind you) giving the characters time to have moved past these events and tell fresh stories instead of undoing everything right away to ensure that consequences are basically nonexistent in this world; but TO doesn’t have the same resting point in its arc right now so they can’t do a time jump like that.
Even if I had all that, damn the plotholes in this bugged me. Both Jeremy and Matt *would* be dead if magic was undone. How many times have the pair of them died and been brought back magically? Maybe it’s something about having one’s life sustained by magic rather than just undoing resurrection caused by it, but I spent a LOT of time distracted by that fact during the episode. Also, how is Tyler not a hybrid (possibly not even an active werewolf) anymore but Elena’s still a vampire? For that matter why didn’t Elena take the suicide run on her own? She would still be supernatural even if the magic undid her vampirism so she would always have gone to the Other Side instead of human afterlife. And, the one that’s been bugging me for like half a season, what in the sam hell good does vampire doppelganger blood do? If Klaus couldn’t use Katherine as the doppelganger in his ritual then I don’t understand this. Plus if they ever *had* bled Elena or Stefan out, they’d be dead, so that blood would become useless; how many times to the Travelers basically try and undo their own plan like that?
Which...was kind of a weird thing about these last episodes. I guess I’m really used to shows where characters feel a sense of obligation to saving the world so when all it would take to stop this potentially world-messing-up plan was Stefan or Elena dying and neither of them seem to even consider it...it feels like this show is doing things wrong. Plus when I think about it, it seems almost out of character for these two not to at least offer to die for each other when the magic twins confront them, and then add in everyone else they care about and how much of martyrs these two have been in the past and...yeah I think there’s a few reasons why this made it feel like something was lacking in this reaction.
While I’m cautiously saying I will in some form keep watching TO, I can’t say that for TVD at this point. It will probably call me back in eventually, but I’ve been expecting that to happen with DW for years and aside from the anniversary special it really hasn’t. So what will it take to make TVD call loud enough that I’ll just have to come back?
-Leaving Damon dead would help. My hatred of him may be a lot less passionate now that it was when I was actually caring about the show, but it’s still there.
-Katherine; yes I want Damon to stay dead but Katherine (and Kol and I suppose Bonnie but it’s weird how little I’m calling for that, I think because it kind of felt like a logical end point for her character) to find her (their) way back.
-Elena being single for at least a season AND getting a character arc where she becomes an actual character again. Let me hear good things about the character that used to be my favorite and I’ll want to support that.
-While I wouldn’t say no to some Originals showing up, I’d want Elijah to be the Elijah he used to be when he was a better character, I’d want Rebekah to be more than a gimmick, I’d want Finn and Esther to be played by their old actors so that the gang would recognize them, and I’d want Klaus to remain consistent with what’s going on on his own show instead of slipping back into the old character model (basically the opposite of what I want for Elijah). Mikael and Kol can just show up whenever without me having put thought into how they should go.
Plus, you know, telling a better story and not focusing on the Triangle. But I’ve wanted that for so long now we don’t need to point it out really.
So where see where I actually end up on this once the new seasons start I guess.
First, in general what I realized once I’d stopped watching was that I must have had enough give-a-damn left for one more season of this verse and with two shows I burned through that more quickly; even with the extra burst for how much I loved TO early on, it couldn’t last the whole season through. If I hadn’t had the episodes sitting on my desktop all this time I probably would have just forgotten about it even earlier. I had basically forgotten everything that had happened up to this point in the seasons aside from really broad strokes, which may have helped is some ways, but again shows how little passion remains for my with this fandom.
The Originals
Well, Mikael’s back, and apparently Esther and Finn (which is weird considering they didn’t spell out that that was Finn and I’m not sure he was even mentioned all season long). I’m pretty sure somewhere along the line Davina became my favorite character so a Davina-Mikael alliance (prime to be messed with by Esther’s return) does have some potential to bring me back to this show. Not enough to make it appointment viewing, but may maintain fits-and-starts watching status yet.
I continue to laugh my ass off at Elijah swearing vengeance on anyone who messes with their family. Genevieve was totally evil for driving Rebekah away, when Rebekah wanted to go, but Elena and co. killed two of his siblings and...nothing. When I could look at that disparity as being shippy as hell I could roll with it, but right now it just makes me incapable of taking him seriously.
Because I really don’t take him seriously anymore. I don’t have the faintest clue who he is or what he wants anymore (and yes I have wandered back into a B5 frame of mind). Nothing he says or does makes any sense to me at this point, I don’t even recognize this “Elijah” as the same one I used to love so very much; the show’s completely forgotten the character he used to be and what his story used to be so why should I attribute that Elijah’s characterization to this one? (Of course this goes at least double for Elena, but we’ll get to that when we get to TVD.)
Note to the show runners, this show was at its best when it was focused on the Originals. Elijah, Rebekah, and Klaus should be the show’s main characters; which is why having more of the Original family back in play is actually interesting (and didn't I say from the backdoor pilot that Mikael was totally coming back? It was so obvious that I'm not even sure I get I-called-it points but I did see it coming from the beginning. There have been some interesting ideas among the other plots the show has offered, but a lot of them have fallen flat too. The show needs to refocus its priorities so that the larger world could be interesting; but when the core characters are either ridiculous (Elijah and Klaus) or absent (Rebekah) it’s just not what it could be.
So...I’m completely confused how Hayley ended up a hybrid. The mystical chemistry doesn’t make any sense. Is the baby a hybrid? Is she a doppelganger? If the former how is she going to grow up since hybrids are dead and unaging? If the later shouldn’t that have messed with the TVD plotline having a new doppelganger in play? (Also, glad as I am to be wrong about calling her Nikki, Hope is a stupid name for that kid.)
Plus Hayley is easily the weak link in this show (well, besides relying on magical mystical baby and the fact that this timeline regarding the pregnancy makes no sense) so all the points the show could score with more Original family in play is soured by continuing to force Hayley on us so much.
In the end, I don’t hate everything about this show, but I don’t really have anything to hold on to in it either. Maybe we’ll see how next season goes eventually, but like I said, probably not right away.
Vampire Diaries
Well...that was really finale feeling. It even faded out to white in the end, so I would totally buy this as the end of the story. Basically having ended the Triangle of Doom with Damon being dead and Stefan/Elena effectively off the table; Elena, Jeremy, and Alaric can go on a long family road trip and you can imagine whatever kind of future you want for them from that; there are enough hints to think Stefan/Caroline will happen down the road; and I guess now it’s a new day for supernatural creatures that when they die they skip over the Other Side (while I dream that somehow Kol snuck out before getting pulled into oblivion (I was going to add Katherine but then I remembered it seems like she did get sucked off)) to whatever else there is.
But even if this was the end and I could imagine whatever future I wanted for the characters afterward, the last two seasons would still be a waste. If there’s one thing I hate about TO it’s that it makes it all the harder for them to do a hard reset of the verse back to before Elena died. S5 was maybe less awful than s4, but it’s all just so meh.
Remember how much I hated everything the show did in s4? If not, I just mentioned it. But when Jeremy died I was devastated for Elena because she was still my girl and I hated to see her hurt. I felt nothing this time around. ND was acting her heart out but all I could think was “Oh there are my Elena/Alaric shippy feelings coming back.” And while I’m sure a good chunk of that has to do with how little I care about Damon and D/E, I though several times in this watch that the long gap between watching episodes had done wonders for me not hating stuff so much, I just don’t care enough anymore the feel anything but occasional amusement with the show’s stupidity.
I think looking at this episode as a finale would do wonders for how I relate to it, or at minimum if I believed there’d be a large gap of show time before it returned. Because I don’t actually believe for a second that the Triangle of Doom is resolved, that Damon and Bonnie (and honestly Katherine either, I’ve always maintained that I don’t believe the show would shut the door on ever bringing her back) will stay dead, that any of the characters are going to grow and change from this experience. Again the problem with a shared universe comes in to play, because if it were just TVD I might hope that they would take this opportunity tat least fast forward so that it’s actually 2014 in show time (where it should still be 2012 I remind you) giving the characters time to have moved past these events and tell fresh stories instead of undoing everything right away to ensure that consequences are basically nonexistent in this world; but TO doesn’t have the same resting point in its arc right now so they can’t do a time jump like that.
Even if I had all that, damn the plotholes in this bugged me. Both Jeremy and Matt *would* be dead if magic was undone. How many times have the pair of them died and been brought back magically? Maybe it’s something about having one’s life sustained by magic rather than just undoing resurrection caused by it, but I spent a LOT of time distracted by that fact during the episode. Also, how is Tyler not a hybrid (possibly not even an active werewolf) anymore but Elena’s still a vampire? For that matter why didn’t Elena take the suicide run on her own? She would still be supernatural even if the magic undid her vampirism so she would always have gone to the Other Side instead of human afterlife. And, the one that’s been bugging me for like half a season, what in the sam hell good does vampire doppelganger blood do? If Klaus couldn’t use Katherine as the doppelganger in his ritual then I don’t understand this. Plus if they ever *had* bled Elena or Stefan out, they’d be dead, so that blood would become useless; how many times to the Travelers basically try and undo their own plan like that?
Which...was kind of a weird thing about these last episodes. I guess I’m really used to shows where characters feel a sense of obligation to saving the world so when all it would take to stop this potentially world-messing-up plan was Stefan or Elena dying and neither of them seem to even consider it...it feels like this show is doing things wrong. Plus when I think about it, it seems almost out of character for these two not to at least offer to die for each other when the magic twins confront them, and then add in everyone else they care about and how much of martyrs these two have been in the past and...yeah I think there’s a few reasons why this made it feel like something was lacking in this reaction.
While I’m cautiously saying I will in some form keep watching TO, I can’t say that for TVD at this point. It will probably call me back in eventually, but I’ve been expecting that to happen with DW for years and aside from the anniversary special it really hasn’t. So what will it take to make TVD call loud enough that I’ll just have to come back?
-Leaving Damon dead would help. My hatred of him may be a lot less passionate now that it was when I was actually caring about the show, but it’s still there.
-Katherine; yes I want Damon to stay dead but Katherine (and Kol and I suppose Bonnie but it’s weird how little I’m calling for that, I think because it kind of felt like a logical end point for her character) to find her (their) way back.
-Elena being single for at least a season AND getting a character arc where she becomes an actual character again. Let me hear good things about the character that used to be my favorite and I’ll want to support that.
-While I wouldn’t say no to some Originals showing up, I’d want Elijah to be the Elijah he used to be when he was a better character, I’d want Rebekah to be more than a gimmick, I’d want Finn and Esther to be played by their old actors so that the gang would recognize them, and I’d want Klaus to remain consistent with what’s going on on his own show instead of slipping back into the old character model (basically the opposite of what I want for Elijah). Mikael and Kol can just show up whenever without me having put thought into how they should go.
Plus, you know, telling a better story and not focusing on the Triangle. But I’ve wanted that for so long now we don’t need to point it out really.
So where see where I actually end up on this once the new seasons start I guess.