you are not your brother. stay and eat your sandwich. please.

[miss_universe93]

Apologies for the spam!
I was both amused and pleased that my downloading of this show's pilot caused lily_268's happiness to spike to "unsane" levels. As you do.

The Black Donnellys

• So, overall verdict first: initially it confused me. The skipping back and forth, corrections, the unreliability of Mr Ice Cream there, it all seemed a bit random or haphazard. The way it was told made it feel like I was watching a whole ensemble of different chracters even though I was only hearing the stories of four or five. I managed to half keep up with what was happening but my attention was wandering by about three quarters of the way through. But then that ending? Almost made me spill the soup I was drinking. There's still a few things I'm confused about, but that will probably be clarified when I watch it for a second time. I didn't realize how interesting these characters were until the ending.
  
• Now that I've said that, interesting to note that according to Wikipedia, the first American airing of the pilot began with 10 million viewers, which dropped to 6 million in the second half an hour, LOL. I think a lot people got confused and gave up on it - I know I've seen a few LJ-ers who did.
  
• To me, the meandering, drawn out, back and forth nature of the narration kinda works with the fact that jailbird Joey over there is retelling the story. You wouldn't expect him to have a photographic memory of the happenings of a family that aren't even his.
  
• The opening credits are SO AWESOME. Bang bang bang bannnng. That's one way to do those short opening credits that are so popular these days.
  
• I like how when Joey was lying about the year he got in the taxi to go to the Firecracker Lounge, there was music playing from that year. LOLLL.
  
• Jenny is hot. Olivia Wilde is so much prettier with black hair, doing that gothic alternative thing. Anyway, I kinda love Jenny. She knew exactly what Tommy was going to do and tried so hard to stop him without saying it. Perrfect.
  
• Tommy is the one I'm meant to find hot, right? Cause I do. I think. Once we hit the end and we did the whole montage thing, I completely understood his motivations and practically everything else that went on in the ep. The lengths he'll go to save his family is incredible, but you can see why because of all the guilt and torture he must have put himself through for what he did back in the day. (I am impressed by the lack of spoilers in that sentence, LOL).
  
• I like this show's score a lot. Also, Snow Patrol is now stuck in my head. interestingly, there's a vid out there of the end montage to Arcade Fire's "Rebellion", which apparently was the first choice for the song, but I like "Open Your Eyes" better with it.
  
• The very ending was intriguing. The wrong bodies, eh? Hmm.

Verdict: well worth downloading, as long as you stick around until the very end of the episode and don't switch it off halfway through. I'm looking forward to getting my greedy television-loving paws on 1x02. I'm certain though, with the violence in this show (though mostly concealed and not focused on), that it will probably be shoved to a late night timeslot down these parts. I would think it's a bit too graphic to get below an Australian MA rating.

Also, a thought: how many shows have used some sort of Snow Patrol song during a montage or scene? I know Grey's Anatomy, ER, The 4400, and One Tree Hill all have, and now this one. Seriously. There are other bands, LOL.