Without a Trace First Season impression
Without a Trace vs. CSI
I borrowed it from a relative - because it was the only thing in his DVD shelf I hadn't watched yet. Like CSI, which I only got sucked into because the first two seasons were so cheap and nothing else was available at the time. :)
And, admittedly, because I knew Anthony LaPaglia plays the lead. :) And he's gorgeous.
The two shows have at least that much in common: they're both procedural crime dramas, which is not usually my cup of tea. I went into WaT with the same expectations as CSI:
Lots of teamwork, technical case descriptions, no private lives. I was disappointed, but in a good way. ;)
WaT has a team that is not as big, and not quite as interesting. On the other hand, there is *much* more going on in the characters' private lives, and it is written extremely well. Subtle, complicated, realistic.
The team
Anthony LaPaglia plays the boss, Jack Malone, as a "workaholic with a busted knee" (from Jack's own description).
He is a genius profiler (not that the word is ever mentioned on the show) and he's almost infallible when it comes to judging people. This makes it a bit predictable after a while, since you can always guess who's the bad guy if you listen closely to what Jack says. Very similar to Grissom, in fact. :) He is damn cute, though. From the purely physical, I find him a lot more attractive than Grissom. Not so much from his overall appearance, which is just as pudgy as Grissom and you can really see he has difficulty walking with his knee. But he's a really good actor, and his mimics are riveting - even though they milk that for all it's worth: he usually has to look sad and pensive. He also has an especially cute pout. :)
Then there are the two junior guys who take the places of Warrick and Nick, to stay with the CSI comparison:
Danny, played by Enrique Murciano. Flamboyant, quirky, funny, cute. It's a joy to just watch him and listen to him talk. Not much info about his private life in season 1, though.
Martin, played by Eric Close. Stuck-up, conservative, earnest, with his heart in the right place. I don't like the man too much, he's the typical good-looking guy who usually gets paired off with the good-looking female.
Which brings us to Sam(antha) Spade. Played by Poppy Montgomery, the second Australian on the cast after Anthony LaPaglia. I didn't notice any accent on either of them, though. Not that I'm an expert or anything. :) She's actually an interesting female character - she holds her own in a male-dominated profession. There are loads of unflattering (to me) publicity photos of Poppy Montgomery where she looks 100% the dumb blonde, but fortunately, her role in the series doesn't come across like that at all.
She has almost nothing in common with Sara, and there is none of the hate present in the WaT fandom that surrounds Sara in CSI.
The last person is Vivian, played by Marianne Jean-Baptiste. She's from England, and hearing her native London accent in the making-of at the end of the first season was disconcerting, to say the least. I could have sworn she had a New York City accent. Huh.
She is a mother, and I suspect that it's my personal opinion that makes her uninteresting, not the writing. We have learned more about her private life than Danny's, I think. I just don't care about it. :)
She is a lot less interesting than Catherine is on CSI. It effectively removes her from all the ships - I've never seen her mentioned in fic pairings at all.
That's all five of them. Simply because the combinations aren't as numerous, you're pretty much forced into one of the two three major ships:
Ships
Jack/Sam - Yeah. :) All SG-1 fans will see why this name combination makes it almost impossible to find fic. Seeing as the SG-1 fandom is so much bigger than WaT.
Of course, it's the canon het ship, and I'm all for it. :) Very similar to Grissom/Sara, just with the added problem that Jack is married. Also, they made it a *pre-series* affair, which I've never seen done on any other show before. I don't like the concept, either - but they're really writing it well and showing little pieces of tension throughout the season. Very well done, in fact, even if it's practically without hope. Yay, the angst.
Martin/Sam - which is not canon in the first season, but there are lots of places where they show Martin likes her. I don't like it, needless to say, as OTPish as I usually am about my major ship on any show.
Danny/Martin - the major slash pairing. Enrique Murciano purportedly plays Danny as bisexual, which is understandable, looking at the stuff he regularly has to say to Martin. It's hardly subtext anymore in some places. Since I don't like Martin overly much, I'm not too into this ship... but Danny is fine enough for me to ignore who he has sex with. So, Martin it is. :) The relationship is believable, I think, with Danny being the gay, pushy type, and Martin the typical repressed, closeted, "I didn't even know I was gay" opposite. It works quite well and there is good fic around.
I can't do it as well as the "real fans" did, so check out:
Without a Trace at ship_manifesto
Conclusion
WaT is more interesting, characterwise, than CSI has ever been. The writing is subtle and interesting.
What made me fall for the show was one scene in the fifth episode ("Suspect") where Jack talks to a paedophile. I have never seen anything this repulsive before. Not that the writing was bad, on the contrary. I was very very impressed. Maybe I'll make a clip of it so you'll see what I mean.
I do like New York as a setting. Even if it is just as fake as CSI's Las Vegas - both shows are filmed in California. :D
The cases, unfortunately, are very formulaic, and I find myself choosing CSI in favor of WaT. This might change with time...? If it were not for the fandom problem:
Fandom
This seems to be almost nonexistent, at least compared to what I'm used to now from my current favorite shows. As far as I could tell from forums and lj communities, WaT has managed to terribly drop the ball on *everything* after season 3. Unfortunately, the creator, Hank Steinberg, left the show at that point. It seems he was responsible for all the subtle character development that is what I (and apparently everyone else) loved about the show. CSI is still going strong after 7 seasons (even though everyone is resigned to the no-private-lives rule of the writing team there). WaT fandom, on the other hand, seems to have completely dissolved during season 4. The fifth season, which is currently airing, seems to be a bit better, but as far as I can tell, the lj communities are all still dead. I can't imagine the show will recover from this massive loss of fans, and I doubt there will be a sixth season.
Interesting links:
http://wat.mediablvd.org/ - The Source - WaT fan site
http://www.complicatedstory.com/ - Jack/Sam site
http://www.federalthreesome.net/ - Jack/Sam/Martin site
The most active forums are at YTDaW.
Almost all fic seems to be on ff.net (*blech*), except these:
http://www.dannyandmartin.com/ - Danny/Martin Slash archive
Jack/Sam Fic by MidnightCaller - a directory listing only
wat_slash
LJ comms I found that are only half-dead:
wat_icons
jackandsam_lca - Love Conquers All
new_wat_order - Canon? We don't need no stinking canon.
without_a_trace
That's it. Hope you liked it. Feel free to discuss WaT with me from now on. I will be making my way through the second season soon.
Also, icons. I have not made enough to post yet, but soon.
I borrowed it from a relative - because it was the only thing in his DVD shelf I hadn't watched yet. Like CSI, which I only got sucked into because the first two seasons were so cheap and nothing else was available at the time. :)
And, admittedly, because I knew Anthony LaPaglia plays the lead. :) And he's gorgeous.
The two shows have at least that much in common: they're both procedural crime dramas, which is not usually my cup of tea. I went into WaT with the same expectations as CSI:
Lots of teamwork, technical case descriptions, no private lives. I was disappointed, but in a good way. ;)
WaT has a team that is not as big, and not quite as interesting. On the other hand, there is *much* more going on in the characters' private lives, and it is written extremely well. Subtle, complicated, realistic.
The team
Anthony LaPaglia plays the boss, Jack Malone, as a "workaholic with a busted knee" (from Jack's own description).
He is a genius profiler (not that the word is ever mentioned on the show) and he's almost infallible when it comes to judging people. This makes it a bit predictable after a while, since you can always guess who's the bad guy if you listen closely to what Jack says. Very similar to Grissom, in fact. :) He is damn cute, though. From the purely physical, I find him a lot more attractive than Grissom. Not so much from his overall appearance, which is just as pudgy as Grissom and you can really see he has difficulty walking with his knee. But he's a really good actor, and his mimics are riveting - even though they milk that for all it's worth: he usually has to look sad and pensive. He also has an especially cute pout. :)
Then there are the two junior guys who take the places of Warrick and Nick, to stay with the CSI comparison:
Danny, played by Enrique Murciano. Flamboyant, quirky, funny, cute. It's a joy to just watch him and listen to him talk. Not much info about his private life in season 1, though.
Martin, played by Eric Close. Stuck-up, conservative, earnest, with his heart in the right place. I don't like the man too much, he's the typical good-looking guy who usually gets paired off with the good-looking female.
Which brings us to Sam(antha) Spade. Played by Poppy Montgomery, the second Australian on the cast after Anthony LaPaglia. I didn't notice any accent on either of them, though. Not that I'm an expert or anything. :) She's actually an interesting female character - she holds her own in a male-dominated profession. There are loads of unflattering (to me) publicity photos of Poppy Montgomery where she looks 100% the dumb blonde, but fortunately, her role in the series doesn't come across like that at all.
She has almost nothing in common with Sara, and there is none of the hate present in the WaT fandom that surrounds Sara in CSI.
The last person is Vivian, played by Marianne Jean-Baptiste. She's from England, and hearing her native London accent in the making-of at the end of the first season was disconcerting, to say the least. I could have sworn she had a New York City accent. Huh.
She is a mother, and I suspect that it's my personal opinion that makes her uninteresting, not the writing. We have learned more about her private life than Danny's, I think. I just don't care about it. :)
She is a lot less interesting than Catherine is on CSI. It effectively removes her from all the ships - I've never seen her mentioned in fic pairings at all.
That's all five of them. Simply because the combinations aren't as numerous, you're pretty much forced into one of the two three major ships:
Ships
Jack/Sam - Yeah. :) All SG-1 fans will see why this name combination makes it almost impossible to find fic. Seeing as the SG-1 fandom is so much bigger than WaT.
Of course, it's the canon het ship, and I'm all for it. :) Very similar to Grissom/Sara, just with the added problem that Jack is married. Also, they made it a *pre-series* affair, which I've never seen done on any other show before. I don't like the concept, either - but they're really writing it well and showing little pieces of tension throughout the season. Very well done, in fact, even if it's practically without hope. Yay, the angst.
Martin/Sam - which is not canon in the first season, but there are lots of places where they show Martin likes her. I don't like it, needless to say, as OTPish as I usually am about my major ship on any show.
Danny/Martin - the major slash pairing. Enrique Murciano purportedly plays Danny as bisexual, which is understandable, looking at the stuff he regularly has to say to Martin. It's hardly subtext anymore in some places. Since I don't like Martin overly much, I'm not too into this ship... but Danny is fine enough for me to ignore who he has sex with. So, Martin it is. :) The relationship is believable, I think, with Danny being the gay, pushy type, and Martin the typical repressed, closeted, "I didn't even know I was gay" opposite. It works quite well and there is good fic around.
I can't do it as well as the "real fans" did, so check out:
Without a Trace at ship_manifesto
Conclusion
WaT is more interesting, characterwise, than CSI has ever been. The writing is subtle and interesting.
What made me fall for the show was one scene in the fifth episode ("Suspect") where Jack talks to a paedophile. I have never seen anything this repulsive before. Not that the writing was bad, on the contrary. I was very very impressed. Maybe I'll make a clip of it so you'll see what I mean.
I do like New York as a setting. Even if it is just as fake as CSI's Las Vegas - both shows are filmed in California. :D
The cases, unfortunately, are very formulaic, and I find myself choosing CSI in favor of WaT. This might change with time...? If it were not for the fandom problem:
Fandom
This seems to be almost nonexistent, at least compared to what I'm used to now from my current favorite shows. As far as I could tell from forums and lj communities, WaT has managed to terribly drop the ball on *everything* after season 3. Unfortunately, the creator, Hank Steinberg, left the show at that point. It seems he was responsible for all the subtle character development that is what I (and apparently everyone else) loved about the show. CSI is still going strong after 7 seasons (even though everyone is resigned to the no-private-lives rule of the writing team there). WaT fandom, on the other hand, seems to have completely dissolved during season 4. The fifth season, which is currently airing, seems to be a bit better, but as far as I can tell, the lj communities are all still dead. I can't imagine the show will recover from this massive loss of fans, and I doubt there will be a sixth season.
Interesting links:
http://wat.mediablvd.org/ - The Source - WaT fan site
http://www.complicatedstory.com/ - Jack/Sam site
http://www.federalthreesome.net/ - Jack/Sam/Martin site
The most active forums are at YTDaW.
Almost all fic seems to be on ff.net (*blech*), except these:
http://www.dannyandmartin.com/ - Danny/Martin Slash archive
Jack/Sam Fic by MidnightCaller - a directory listing only
wat_slash
LJ comms I found that are only half-dead:
wat_icons
jackandsam_lca - Love Conquers All
new_wat_order - Canon? We don't need no stinking canon.
without_a_trace
That's it. Hope you liked it. Feel free to discuss WaT with me from now on. I will be making my way through the second season soon.
Also, icons. I have not made enough to post yet, but soon.