Three Current Series that Intrigue Me
I'm not sure what it is that make certain storylines 'work' for me, why they're something that intrigues me and makes me want to think and talk about them. At any rate the three that interest me most at the moment (in no particular order).
Being Human
I'm really enjoying this plot. It's chewy. Those who watched last season know that Mitchell did something horrible. I've really enjoyed how they have not let that slide, and how they have used that to reinforce their metaphors.
Being Human has always had that underlying subtext that vampirism is addiction (and far more clearly than BtVS/AtS ever did, because, honestly, I don't think BtVS/AtS ever did work that way... beyond lip service. AtS might say that it was a metaphor for addiction, but it was never shown in a convincing light. There might be 'falling off the wagon'- like dialog occasionally, but there weren't cravings, etc.
BtVS worked on the concept of demons representing Buffy's 'demons' (her inner demons, demons she had to face) and Angel and Spike were created and born in that context. Angel and Spike's journeys weren't their own until further down the line. And, quite frankly, there's always been something almost Calvanist in the Whedonverse with all it's dependence on the Chosen/Elect and the damned (and everyone else) ...with the occasional boon given to free will.
Vampirism in the Whedonverse always seemed to be far more about those concepts to me (and even some odd parallel to the concept of Original Sin). Vampirism in BtVS/AtS is a curse, an edict, or a judgement. It was more about falling prey to ones demons or subsuming (or Spike/Angel case an effort at) overcoming some 'fate' and fixed destiny. Whedonverse vampirism was completely bound up in the concept of souls and curses and whether or not vampires had any choice but evil. Were they even allowed to have free will? {Go team Spike free will!} Basically, in the Whedonverse it always seemed to me to be more of a dialog about the struggle of free will versus a somewhat Calvanist doctrine of fate, destiny, and inevitability, thus the emphasis on souls, being "Chosen", prophecy, etc.... which was always amusing to me because Whedon is an atheist).
Being Human's vampirism is very, very much a metaphor for addiction. The rationalization, the backsliding, the struggle. It's so easy to see Mitchell as some heroine addict and all that would entail. He fits far too well the sort of thing you see when you watch "Intervention" on A&E (as well as the problems of a drug addict that grew up down the street from me who was a nice guy when sober and yet could never overcome addiction and who in the end became a very real-life monster before his suicide). The aftermath of last year's story is being played out with this years and we see the way that Mitchell explains and avoids those things and how that is all very much a part of not only who he is but who he has always been and how that has very much informed his whole vampiric existence. And the story has worked very much in Annie's metaphor as well. Annie, the ghost. Annie who denied to herself that she was in an abusive relationship, painting a happy face on it, eplaining it away, even as it killed her, leaving her trapped in that place. She was a victim, invisible to many and unable to actualize herself. She has a history of falling into destructive relationships, of living vicariously through others, being the kind of 'giver' that doesn't understand that she needs to stand up for herself. Ah Mitchell/Annie your weaknesses were bound to...er... bind you. I've liked the way this story has gone and the way it's been quite subversive about its vampire romance trope.
Big Love
Yeah, last season was teh crazy, and this season is much the same. However, I really enjoy just how freaking screwed up these people are. (I've even gotten my mom into loving this show. Bill Hendrickson amuses the hell out of her). Bill is such a self-serving douche. He really, really is. Oh, he's so goooooood. So righteous. He goes on and on about serving God and begging God "why are you testing me so?" while he is so, so, so oblivious that he's a douchebag! Dude, it's not "God" directing you to do a host of self-serving things. It's your collosal, oversized ego! Oh, and your penis! "God" doesn't tell him to pick fights with wacked out cult leader Alby. 'God" didn't tell Bill to build a casino. "God" didn't tell him to run for the Utah State Senate. Nope. That was all Bill. He totally overlooks what he inflicts on the people around him with what he does, especially his cult-o-sister-wives and for his long suffering business partner. How much shit has he made them all take and eat? Because he thinks he's their 'priesthood holder.' Bill is a piece of work. So 'good', so 'righteous' ...such a self-serving douche.
And I've really enjoyed all the massively screwed-up sister-wives and their own dysfunctions that have led them into this life with Bill. Barb grew up in LDS and Bill dragged her into the church of his pants his own version of FLDS and it's only just now in her mid-forties that she's beginning to realize that she has been indoctrinated into a massively misogynist religion! She's only beginning to realize that her religion gives her no voice and no power and only counsels her to be subservient and to suffer... and boy does she suffer. Barb is a flipping dishrag of suffering. She packs on hell of a lot of passive-aggressive controlling... which is different from her sister-wife Nicki's straight up aggressive manipulation. Still, I have a lot of sympathy for Nicki. She is just so massively, massively broken. She was born and raised in an abusive cult. Her mother kowtowed to her vicious, crazy 'prophet' husband. Her father was the viscious, crazy prophet who manipulated, witheld, bused and sold his daugter into an ugly, ugly polygamist marriage when Nicki was only 16, very much against Nicki's will, and even though Nicki cannot voice or say it she was raped by that creepy, freaky husband she was sold to as a child. Nicki was indoctrinated with so much insanity, so much abusive homelife, and so much wacked-out-the whazoo religion that douchebag Bill actually is a step-up for her. No wonder she has such a difficult time even figuring out what makes her so miserable and so angry all the time. By the lights of her childhood this is wonderful. Nicki is a raging inferno of neediness and anger so as horrible as she is, I always feel for her. And Margene. Guh. I've liked what they've been doing around here. Yes, she is the kind of person who falls into cults. And she has. Repeatedly. As she's searched for... something. And you're damn straight right that Bill took advantage of her. She was sixteen years old when this middle aged man became sexually involved with her. She's the same age as his oldest kids. And, yes, Barb shares some responsibilty as she allowed him to 'okay' (more than once now) his infidelity by sealing it with yet another marriage, and she did it in her own admission because she thought that Margene would help sway the dynamics in the family such that Barb would have someone on her side against Nicki. Dude! You were indoctrinating a sixteen year old girl into your sister-wife-Bill cult because it would help you with intra-marriage rivalries. Margene was the same age as Barb's (and Bill's) children.
And those are the least crazy folks on the show, when they head out to Warren Jeff's inspired Alby and the rest of the Juniper Creek gang... dayum.
All these people are so very, very screwed up (and so very righteous and 'godly' about it. "God" tells them to do all these things. 'God' really really wants them to be rich and powerful and smite all their enemies too. And when things don't work it's because 'God' is testing their faith so they double down) . I can't help it. It's a trainwreck that I cannot help but watch.
Fringe
Mmm. Yummy sci-fi that hits so many kinks.
I love Olivia as a heroine. She's smart, competent, brave, and she tries so very, very hard. And, her life has been such shit. Her mother died. Her step-father abused her. She was used as a medical guinea pig in shocking horrific medical experiments as a kid that damaged her in ways she can't really explain but which also gave her and eidetic memory and the ability to walk between parallel universes. She has such a difficult, difficult time forming relationships, but her heart does love deeply. And things just never quite seem to work out for her. Yet she tries so hard to be fair and adult about it. She breaks my heart. I want her to be happy, damnit! (It hurt seeing her happy last night. It's so rare to see her happy, and we the audience know... something... is going to come down on her like a ton of bricks soon. So, even as she's glowing with new found happiness, I'm going "Poor Olivia"...)
And I thought that EW's Ken Tucker did a great job of explaining the show:
At its big, red, throbbing heart, the show tells the story of a love so powerful, it crosses universes: When Peter was seven, he died. His brilliant-scientist father, Walter, having discovered that there was a parallel universe containing doubles of everyone here, transported himself to that Other Side and brought back that universe’s Peter, to love and to cherish. In doing so, he created not just a rift in the universes (which are now dangerously, explosively out of balance), but also a rift between father and son (when Peter discovered who he really was, and grappled with the idea that he belonged to another Walter, a “Walternate”).
You've got your tortured redemption arc with Walter, the mad scientist who did such horrible things in the past in his pursuit of 'science', horrible things to Olivia (one of his test subjects) and to Peter (in an effort to 'keep' what wasn't his) and to all his other test subjects. He has the oppressive, overwhelming knowledge that he may well have destroyed not one but two worlds and has caused untold suffering, and all he wants is to make things right. To see Peter and Olivia happy and to prevent the apocalypse... that he caused.
And you've got that Olivia/Peter thing that is oh-so-starcrossed... and on a ticking time clock of an apocalypse where their relationship is pivotal.. and which may require Peter's death. This year so many of the episodes are clues to what is important to the mytharc (even if they're MOTW) or metaphors for the dynamics of the entwined relationships of Olivia/Peter/Walter... as well as things concerning the alternative_universe dopplegangers of both themselves and their friends.
Throw in some zeplins, an intact World Trade Center, an alternative-history (MLK asn't assassinated, Nixon was never impeached, Kennedy is still alive. An Alternative Olivia, an Alternative_Walter, an Alternative_Fringe {but no FBI...}) in the same but subtly different alternative universe, and pop me some popcorn while I sit in front of a television because I'm a sucker for this stuff.