Meta: Plot, what plot?
No, I'm not talking about porn for the sake of porn. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But I realize that after my days of Babylon 5, Heroes (until it jumped the shark) and West Wing, I have completely given up on t.v. having fascinating, driving, on-going plots.
Plots are nice; if the show has one, that's cool, but it's not what I'm looking for.
Which is good, since most shows I seem to be attracted to lately, really don't have one. Or, in the case of Hawaii 5-0, they have exactly one. For the last three weeks the plot has been "Someone on the team has a connection to the perp. Perp should be a good guy, but looks to be a bad guy, but ends up being a good guy after all." Three. Weeks. Running. (Seriously, if they can give Chin that plot next week, we'll have a quad-fecta.)
Do I care? No.
I'm in it for the characters, the character interactions and the dialogue.
I can't remember what the hell NCIS LA was investigating the week before election night (so, the ep from two weeks ago.) What I remember is the bombshell that Sam has kids. And that G knew and Kensi didn't.
I keep hoping H50 will toss us a bone and actually make the looks-to-be-a-bad-guy an ACTUAL bad guy... but I'm starting to see that they clearly aren't going to. I don't care. That last three minutes last night? Awesome. (And the costuming didn't hurt... Steve cleans up good. ;) But really, Steve's last line (see Waldo tap dance around spoilers) in that ep? *sigh*. Made my little heart happy. Probably even happier than the *phenomenally* funny scene in the car where Steve doesn't tell Danny to calm down, he just asks for pass the next time he goes bananas.
NCIS LA can't decide if they want to work long mythology arcs or not, so they start things (Methos Keelson has all this info on G (and Hetty), so it's out there to be found) but don't follow up on them. Hell, they start whole CHARACTERS and then decide they don't need them any more. I don't care. G camped out in Sam's house over the summer and as much as it made Sam nuts because G doesn't sleep, Sam actively dissuaded Kensi from trying to take him for a while.
Mothership (NCIS) bounces back and forth between a few loose on-going threads - Ziva's naturalization, Tony's dad, Mike Franks and his family issues - but we're out of the on-going attempts at plots like we had in season 4 (The Frog and Tony's undercover lover). We do know now that Tony goes over the Gibbs' house after bad days (the first time we saw dad; the dead ZNN reporter...) and that's what I watch for.
Most USA shows are great but couldn't find a good on-going plot to save their souls. Which is fine. Annie and her bum boyfriend Ben got old before the end of the 9(?) ep season, and they didn't even deal with him in the first 5 or so eps other than to set it up in the pilot. White Collar... the Kate/Plane/Music Box thing is so background that it only counts a little. The flipside there is, we do get some of our best character moments when dealing with that. But most of the 48 minutes is filled with the case-of-the-week. Psych couldn't find an ongoing plot with a hunting dog and a ouiji board. Royal Pains keeps giving it a stab and clearly not knowing where to go with it (German dude's illness, Divya's engagement and imminent shipping to London) so they just dangle it around for a whole season.
But again, I'm watching for something else at this point, so I don't care.
Which also means that if a show can't give me characters I can give a damn about, I don't care how cool their plot is, how awesome their special effects are or what brand name they come with. (Stargate: Universe, I'm looking at you.) You can't have a plot about "OMG will the baddie kill Character X or will the team get there in time?" that works worth crap if NO ONE CARES if Character X dies.
So I've reached a place where my mindset is "Plots are so 90's" (West Wing, X-Files, Babylon 5...) Apparently it needs to be about the characters and their interaction... preferably interacting with either a very sharp tongue. Or something that makes me think they want to shove their tongue down their partner's/friend's/teammate's throat. I'm good with that too. ;)
Plots are nice; if the show has one, that's cool, but it's not what I'm looking for.
Which is good, since most shows I seem to be attracted to lately, really don't have one. Or, in the case of Hawaii 5-0, they have exactly one. For the last three weeks the plot has been "Someone on the team has a connection to the perp. Perp should be a good guy, but looks to be a bad guy, but ends up being a good guy after all." Three. Weeks. Running. (Seriously, if they can give Chin that plot next week, we'll have a quad-fecta.)
Do I care? No.
I'm in it for the characters, the character interactions and the dialogue.
I can't remember what the hell NCIS LA was investigating the week before election night (so, the ep from two weeks ago.) What I remember is the bombshell that Sam has kids. And that G knew and Kensi didn't.
I keep hoping H50 will toss us a bone and actually make the looks-to-be-a-bad-guy an ACTUAL bad guy... but I'm starting to see that they clearly aren't going to. I don't care. That last three minutes last night? Awesome. (And the costuming didn't hurt... Steve cleans up good. ;) But really, Steve's last line (see Waldo tap dance around spoilers) in that ep? *sigh*. Made my little heart happy. Probably even happier than the *phenomenally* funny scene in the car where Steve doesn't tell Danny to calm down, he just asks for pass the next time he goes bananas.
NCIS LA can't decide if they want to work long mythology arcs or not, so they start things (Methos Keelson has all this info on G (and Hetty), so it's out there to be found) but don't follow up on them. Hell, they start whole CHARACTERS and then decide they don't need them any more. I don't care. G camped out in Sam's house over the summer and as much as it made Sam nuts because G doesn't sleep, Sam actively dissuaded Kensi from trying to take him for a while.
Mothership (NCIS) bounces back and forth between a few loose on-going threads - Ziva's naturalization, Tony's dad, Mike Franks and his family issues - but we're out of the on-going attempts at plots like we had in season 4 (The Frog and Tony's undercover lover). We do know now that Tony goes over the Gibbs' house after bad days (the first time we saw dad; the dead ZNN reporter...) and that's what I watch for.
Most USA shows are great but couldn't find a good on-going plot to save their souls. Which is fine. Annie and her bum boyfriend Ben got old before the end of the 9(?) ep season, and they didn't even deal with him in the first 5 or so eps other than to set it up in the pilot. White Collar... the Kate/Plane/Music Box thing is so background that it only counts a little. The flipside there is, we do get some of our best character moments when dealing with that. But most of the 48 minutes is filled with the case-of-the-week. Psych couldn't find an ongoing plot with a hunting dog and a ouiji board. Royal Pains keeps giving it a stab and clearly not knowing where to go with it (German dude's illness, Divya's engagement and imminent shipping to London) so they just dangle it around for a whole season.
But again, I'm watching for something else at this point, so I don't care.
Which also means that if a show can't give me characters I can give a damn about, I don't care how cool their plot is, how awesome their special effects are or what brand name they come with. (Stargate: Universe, I'm looking at you.) You can't have a plot about "OMG will the baddie kill Character X or will the team get there in time?" that works worth crap if NO ONE CARES if Character X dies.
So I've reached a place where my mindset is "Plots are so 90's" (West Wing, X-Files, Babylon 5...) Apparently it needs to be about the characters and their interaction... preferably interacting with either a very sharp tongue. Or something that makes me think they want to shove their tongue down their partner's/friend's/teammate's throat. I'm good with that too. ;)