with an ep title like that, you're asking for it
Atlantis 2.5(?) A Fate Worse than Death
With so many references to the will of the people and of the gods, there were a dozen cancellation jokes to be made. Overall, what followed made me not particularly regretful that it’s been cancelled, although there were some good bits.
We’ll start with those - Stephenson’s Oracle facing off against Parrish’s Pasiphae. That was good - mother figure versus actual mother, slightly crazed or certainly intense seer on the moral high ground against an obsessed, power-hungry woman trying to deny her feelings and with a plan that the Oracle didn't see coming, both actresses giving larger than life performances to capture that but reined in just enough for the TV screen. And then the Oracle was killed off and we will have no more than that.
I also liked Pasiphae’s dress and the blue of Ariadne’s gown. I’ve always loved their royal blues.
Furthermore, the actress playing Ariadne really ramped up her performance, mainly in the voice, for when Ariadne faced off with the high priest. It was about the first time I’ve felt that Ariadne was really commanding - and this in an episode where I wished that more people would appreciate duty over twu wuv. I also liked that, at the end, she either realised the politic move to remain in power would be to stop fighting or realised that if Jason hadn’t done it, she should trust that the truth would come out.
Otherwise, we had the central dynamic of the Three Amigos, with Jason being Heroic, Pythagoras being Mr Spock when the script allowed him to be intelligent and, well, Hercules.
I am rather sad at what they did to Medusa. Making her kill another person to be freed of her curse was horrible - and it doesn’t matter who you killed, pet - of Pasiphae, but clever. That Medusa’d been broken by lack of human contact was sympathy-inducing, although I still wish she wasn’t so in love with Hercules. (Who should indeed be kicking himself, because he could have tried harder to find a cure for the curse, but kept being distracted by taverns and Jason’s latest shenanigans.) I wish Medusa hadn't been so brill when first introduced, because it's just been kick after kick since then.
You’d think the gods would step in, with the high priest being so corrupt, and the Oracle having been killed. I’d have liked to see a search for another Oracle, but I suppose it doesn’t work like that.
The new general was quite hard to understand, partly because of the accent, but his diction was poor in general.
Anyway, this episode confirmed that the show is a bit muddled about what it is - did Merlin go quite this dark (literally and in terms of material?), because I don’t know that all this would appeal to a family and for its swansong run, it’s been pushed too late for teatime. It’s not really sophisticated enough to be directed at just adults either. And despite having some great scenes between the female characters in this episode, you still have a male gaze (this episode’s example was the glimpse of Ariadne being washed before going to see the Oracle. We didn’t need to see that if we didn’t see the equivalent with Jason; it made the montage unbalanced, speaking objectively. The only reason for it was titillation, really.)
This entry was originally posted at http://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/166653.html.
With so many references to the will of the people and of the gods, there were a dozen cancellation jokes to be made. Overall, what followed made me not particularly regretful that it’s been cancelled, although there were some good bits.
We’ll start with those - Stephenson’s Oracle facing off against Parrish’s Pasiphae. That was good - mother figure versus actual mother, slightly crazed or certainly intense seer on the moral high ground against an obsessed, power-hungry woman trying to deny her feelings and with a plan that the Oracle didn't see coming, both actresses giving larger than life performances to capture that but reined in just enough for the TV screen. And then the Oracle was killed off and we will have no more than that.
I also liked Pasiphae’s dress and the blue of Ariadne’s gown. I’ve always loved their royal blues.
Furthermore, the actress playing Ariadne really ramped up her performance, mainly in the voice, for when Ariadne faced off with the high priest. It was about the first time I’ve felt that Ariadne was really commanding - and this in an episode where I wished that more people would appreciate duty over twu wuv. I also liked that, at the end, she either realised the politic move to remain in power would be to stop fighting or realised that if Jason hadn’t done it, she should trust that the truth would come out.
Otherwise, we had the central dynamic of the Three Amigos, with Jason being Heroic, Pythagoras being Mr Spock when the script allowed him to be intelligent and, well, Hercules.
I am rather sad at what they did to Medusa. Making her kill another person to be freed of her curse was horrible - and it doesn’t matter who you killed, pet - of Pasiphae, but clever. That Medusa’d been broken by lack of human contact was sympathy-inducing, although I still wish she wasn’t so in love with Hercules. (Who should indeed be kicking himself, because he could have tried harder to find a cure for the curse, but kept being distracted by taverns and Jason’s latest shenanigans.) I wish Medusa hadn't been so brill when first introduced, because it's just been kick after kick since then.
You’d think the gods would step in, with the high priest being so corrupt, and the Oracle having been killed. I’d have liked to see a search for another Oracle, but I suppose it doesn’t work like that.
The new general was quite hard to understand, partly because of the accent, but his diction was poor in general.
Anyway, this episode confirmed that the show is a bit muddled about what it is - did Merlin go quite this dark (literally and in terms of material?), because I don’t know that all this would appeal to a family and for its swansong run, it’s been pushed too late for teatime. It’s not really sophisticated enough to be directed at just adults either. And despite having some great scenes between the female characters in this episode, you still have a male gaze (this episode’s example was the glimpse of Ariadne being washed before going to see the Oracle. We didn’t need to see that if we didn’t see the equivalent with Jason; it made the montage unbalanced, speaking objectively. The only reason for it was titillation, really.)
This entry was originally posted at http://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/166653.html.