Veronica Mars and Manhattan 1.3.
In other news, some more reviews:
The Veronica Mars movie: charming fan service. I liked the show, though not so much that I watched the third season after finding the second already only so so. (You can follow the film without having watched the third season, btw.) The movie, which was, after all, financed by fans, doesn't bear examination when it comes to inner logic - as
abigail_n points out here, "the high school detective premise doesn't work very well when your detective is ten years out of high school, and yet Veronica Mars behaves as if the problems that plagued Veronica as a teenager are the same ones that will dog her for the rest of her life" - but it delivers exactly what its backers paid for: Veronica quips, Veronica and Keith are an adorable daughter and father together, Veronica has chemistry with Logan, the rich kids grown-ups are still mean, the Sheriff's department is still corrupt (though Sheriff Lamb has been replaced by his identical if played by another actor brother, also Sheriff Lamb - couldn't they get the actor back?), and not a single potentially unpopular storytelling decision is made. I enjoyed watching, a lot, but I certainly have no urge to watch again.
Manhattan, episode 1.03: In the second season of The Sarah Connor Chronicles, there is a mid season 2 episode which deals with the aftermath of the deaths of some redshirts, whereas the death of a main character near the end of the season is because of the narrative pace at that point NOT given the other characters mourning at leisure treatment. This was one of the reasons why I found SCC such a fearless show and loved it. Manhattan, if it can be said this early in the run, seems to be similar in that lost life matters, and the taking of it matters, not just if your name is high in the credits. Episode three deals with the fallout of Sid Lao's death, on every level. The panicked soldier who shot him gets as much narrative attention as main character Frank who goes into extra obsessive drive and doesn't admit to his grief until the end of the episode; we also see the other scientists deal with the loss of their friend. But it's the soldier's storyline which is the one that struck me as the most surprising and original. Because his superior hushes the event up by declaring there was compromising material found in Sid's car and promoting the Private, the young man gets celebrated by his comrades as a spy catching hero. But his awareness that this is a lie never lessens, and what he's looking for, finding out more about Sid while he does, is penance and atonement. This is first made explicit in his scene with Olivia Williams' character, Lisa, in which he mentions there's no priest to make his confession (and proceeds to almost make it to her), and it's a red thread throughout, as he allows himself to be punched by Sid's angry friends. But the very last scene - revealing that the letter to Sid's wife is of course intercepted by censorship and put away with his file, never reaching its recipient - underlines the merciless reality of the situation: in addition of the finality of death, you have the stranglehold of secrets making a "normal" grieving process impossible.
Meanwhile in other and yet mirroring plot lines, Abby gets a job as a telephonist, and told about certain words which, should they come up in conversation, should make her notify her superior. The telephonist scenes are seemingly harmless, when you see the women giggle or raise their eyebrows about someone having phone sex, but of course it's the same utter invasion of privacy.
The Akley and Charlie Isaacs conversation in which Akley compars Charlie to Werner Heisenberg - with the result that a photo of Heisenberg gets torn out and put on the pinwand as a reminder whom to beat - reminded me of Fray's Copenhagen again and really makes me wonder whether Niels Bohr is going to be a character on the show.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1006206.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
The Veronica Mars movie: charming fan service. I liked the show, though not so much that I watched the third season after finding the second already only so so. (You can follow the film without having watched the third season, btw.) The movie, which was, after all, financed by fans, doesn't bear examination when it comes to inner logic - as
abigail_n points out here, "the high school detective premise doesn't work very well when your detective is ten years out of high school, and yet Veronica Mars behaves as if the problems that plagued Veronica as a teenager are the same ones that will dog her for the rest of her life" - but it delivers exactly what its backers paid for: Veronica quips, Veronica and Keith are an adorable daughter and father together, Veronica has chemistry with Logan, the rich kids grown-ups are still mean, the Sheriff's department is still corrupt (though Sheriff Lamb has been replaced by his identical if played by another actor brother, also Sheriff Lamb - couldn't they get the actor back?), and not a single potentially unpopular storytelling decision is made. I enjoyed watching, a lot, but I certainly have no urge to watch again.
Manhattan, episode 1.03: In the second season of The Sarah Connor Chronicles, there is a mid season 2 episode which deals with the aftermath of the deaths of some redshirts, whereas the death of a main character near the end of the season is because of the narrative pace at that point NOT given the other characters mourning at leisure treatment. This was one of the reasons why I found SCC such a fearless show and loved it. Manhattan, if it can be said this early in the run, seems to be similar in that lost life matters, and the taking of it matters, not just if your name is high in the credits. Episode three deals with the fallout of Sid Lao's death, on every level. The panicked soldier who shot him gets as much narrative attention as main character Frank who goes into extra obsessive drive and doesn't admit to his grief until the end of the episode; we also see the other scientists deal with the loss of their friend. But it's the soldier's storyline which is the one that struck me as the most surprising and original. Because his superior hushes the event up by declaring there was compromising material found in Sid's car and promoting the Private, the young man gets celebrated by his comrades as a spy catching hero. But his awareness that this is a lie never lessens, and what he's looking for, finding out more about Sid while he does, is penance and atonement. This is first made explicit in his scene with Olivia Williams' character, Lisa, in which he mentions there's no priest to make his confession (and proceeds to almost make it to her), and it's a red thread throughout, as he allows himself to be punched by Sid's angry friends. But the very last scene - revealing that the letter to Sid's wife is of course intercepted by censorship and put away with his file, never reaching its recipient - underlines the merciless reality of the situation: in addition of the finality of death, you have the stranglehold of secrets making a "normal" grieving process impossible.
Meanwhile in other and yet mirroring plot lines, Abby gets a job as a telephonist, and told about certain words which, should they come up in conversation, should make her notify her superior. The telephonist scenes are seemingly harmless, when you see the women giggle or raise their eyebrows about someone having phone sex, but of course it's the same utter invasion of privacy.
The Akley and Charlie Isaacs conversation in which Akley compars Charlie to Werner Heisenberg - with the result that a photo of Heisenberg gets torn out and put on the pinwand as a reminder whom to beat - reminded me of Fray's Copenhagen again and really makes me wonder whether Niels Bohr is going to be a character on the show.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1006206.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.