Fannish 5: 5 happy endings that you don't like

[selenak]

A challenge after my own heart. :) Bear in mind that one person's deserved and wonderful happy ending is another person's out of character travesty and/or unearned easy fix, mileage will vary, etc., etc. Also, before Ashes to Ashes, Life on Mars would have been on the list, but now it's not, due to the AtA revelations later. Now, let's have a go

Comments

[likeadeuce]

In conclusion: later Shakespeare was in a cynical mood about the obligatory marriages at the end of nominal comedies, wasn't he?

Ha ha ha, yes. Also, much agree about Alias, though I do appreciate season 5 for Rachel & evil-Amy Acker & for miraculously and belatedly endearing me to Sark.

[selenak]

Oh, I had the same belated sark reaction myself, and I loved Peyton (evil Amy) and enjoyed Rachel. Plus I think Alias s5, whatever else it did wrong, come up with one of the best ways to use the leading lady's real life pregnancy in a way that works with the character she's portraying and strengthens instead of weakens it. But I STILL would give all this up if the s4 finale had been the series finale. (Minus the tag scene of course.)

[greenpear]

Can only speak about Doctor Who.

Moffat is leaving a lot of loose ends which bothers me at times. Something that looked so important is dropped cause it doesn't seem to fit into the finalé.

I like this version of the Doctor better than the last but RTD definitely wrote tighter storylines. Yes Rusty had his loose ends but nothing like Moffat.

But as I've said before. Don't like Docor Who? Wait a year or two, you'll get a whole new version... :)

[selenak]

Well, I'm not planning to quit on the show any time soon, don't worry.:)

[10littlebullets]

I think "unearned" is a perfect word to describe most of the emotional payoff of s6 (in the cases where Moffat did try to come through with emotional payoff instead of setting up an interesting situation and never developing it). Plus, you know, "_______ for Doylist reasons without Moffat bothering to come up with a Watsonian explanation" is pretty much the summary of the whole season--even when the Doylist reasons are awesome, the lack of development keeps it from feeling like a story instead of a glorified plot outline with cool whiz-bang ideas shoehorned in.

Ironically, though, I found myself much more engaged with s6 than with s5, which is technically much better-written. The Doylist machinations in s6 are more interesting to me than the ones in s5, plus its very flaws make it easier to grapple and engage with. It reminds me of this blog post about Teflon Writers and Velcro Writers--RTD is the ultimate velcro writer, even and especially when I want to punch him in the face, but up until this past season Moffat has always been

[selenak]

Now that's a good post, and I agree about the Moff and RTD assignations!

[zahrawithaz]

So with you on the two Shakespeare plays, especially M4M, which is the one I know better. It's such a discordant note, and always brought out the latent creepiness of the entire institution of marriage for me. And isn't that why M4M is often classified as a problem play, or even a romance, instead of a comedy?

I agree with you on the Wedding of River Song, but I'm not sure I agree for the same reasons. Whatever the cause, it didn't work, and River Song deserved better. I feel like I'm back where I started with DW; to wit, that I can completely and totally understand why some people would love this show, but it just doesn't work for me. Ironically, this is how RTD always left me feeling.

And alas! I've been meaning to get back into Lindsey Davis. I take it this is not the book to start with, eh? I guess I'll check out Gillian Bradshaw's take on the English Civil War first.

[selenak]

The book is fine except for the bizarro ending. Which novel did Gillian Bradshaw write about the English Civil War?