TV and the U.S. Perspective
1) Saw the series Jett on HBO Max and was sorry there was only the one season. It didn't end on a cliffhanger but it also wasn't neatly tied up. I was interested to discover it was fairly recent, 2019, and got cancelled in 2020 because Cinemax was stopping original content production (no doubt part of the mess AT&T created with its mergers and buyouts). It was a shame because it was a well plotted series that included various heists and also had a domestic side that didn't drag down the show. This may have been due to the nature of the lead character. Carla Gugino was quite good in it.
2) I liked Luther less, though I watched the whole series. It struck me that the show turned less on Luther than on Alice. I know nothing about the discussion in the fandom or anything creators may have said. But having watched all of it in about a week, it struck me that the creators were wrestling with the fact that Alice was a more interesting character than their lead. In S1, rather than try to pin her parents' murder on her, Luther quickly gives up, which certainly seems a novel sort of beginning to a detective series. But then they turn her into a stalker which suggested to me that they planned to kill her off by the end of the season. However instead she becomes Luther's ally when his own colleague betrays him which was a nice twist. However I felt like Mark's change of heart, the fact that he believed Luther at all, seemed pretty unconvincing and I noticed we never get a scene where that convincing happens.
Luther himself, aside from being smart and observant, didn't seem that much of a change in character from those that have come before, and I really didn't care for all the dramatic ragegasms he'd have over various things, primarily his ex-wife. It seemed like we essentially had yet another cop who felt it necessary to work outside the system to get his cases resolved.
But then in the next season we seem to have a correction, in that while he is often working outside of expectations, he is at least paying lip service to staying within the law and regulations in how work is done. This is particularly true in S3 where it's very hard to root for the cops trying to take him down because the whole thing is so heavy handed and underhanded.
Alice then returns so that it seems they might go off in the sunset in the final minutes, and Luther seems to have had real feelings for her beyond having her as a useful ally. But this is not to last as we have the brief S4 which seems to exist as much to kill Alice off and reboot than anything else. The very ending where Luther is told he and Alice could never have made it work, and we seem to be developing an Alice 2.0 suggests both that the show can't work without her and/or the viewer/fan opinion very much wants her back.
And finally there is S5 where it seems everything is designed to go to hell. We're left with the opinion that Alice may be right in her final accusations about him, and it seems that she and Luther are paralleled with the murderous couple who make up the central case of the season. And this time she dies and Luther is left finally disgraced and likely to be prosecuted for multiple murders, having left such a trail of bodies in his wake that I was glad that at least Mark made it out alive. Why he would ever continue to be open to Luther's requests for favors, I don't know. I can only assume it's for the same reason that he's trying to help Alice when we last see him.
So certainly S1 and S5 are a very novel take on a detective series, each of them particularly chaotic in how they unravel. But I suspect Luther's own characterization would have shown a clearer continuous arc had the show had fewer seasons.
I've since started Raised by Wolves which had an interesting premise but I haven't watched enough to see where it's going.
4) An interesting read about the history of monsters and horror films in the U.S. and how this spread to attractions and the growth of Halloween as a holiday.
5) Although this article focused on how U.S. journalism is very US-centric in its assumptions about readership, I would say this was just as true about who it expects its readers to be within the U.S. Some examples of comments from international readers: What is a Snickerdoodle? What is a quarterback? Why do people care about college sports? Why do you only count American citizens among the dead you have killed in a war? The scarcity of rapid Covid tests? An assumption that’s not true for many countries. Student loans? Not a thing in most of Europe. Universal healthcare? Not perceived as “socialism” in the majority of the world.
I would argue that assumptions about how capitalism should work is a huge one in the way that topics are discussed and is a never-questioned perspective. Also, the idea that the U.S.'s nationalism is common in the rest of the world.
View poll: Kudos Footer-339
Comments at Dreamwidth
.
2) I liked Luther less, though I watched the whole series. It struck me that the show turned less on Luther than on Alice. I know nothing about the discussion in the fandom or anything creators may have said. But having watched all of it in about a week, it struck me that the creators were wrestling with the fact that Alice was a more interesting character than their lead. In S1, rather than try to pin her parents' murder on her, Luther quickly gives up, which certainly seems a novel sort of beginning to a detective series. But then they turn her into a stalker which suggested to me that they planned to kill her off by the end of the season. However instead she becomes Luther's ally when his own colleague betrays him which was a nice twist. However I felt like Mark's change of heart, the fact that he believed Luther at all, seemed pretty unconvincing and I noticed we never get a scene where that convincing happens.
Luther himself, aside from being smart and observant, didn't seem that much of a change in character from those that have come before, and I really didn't care for all the dramatic ragegasms he'd have over various things, primarily his ex-wife. It seemed like we essentially had yet another cop who felt it necessary to work outside the system to get his cases resolved.
But then in the next season we seem to have a correction, in that while he is often working outside of expectations, he is at least paying lip service to staying within the law and regulations in how work is done. This is particularly true in S3 where it's very hard to root for the cops trying to take him down because the whole thing is so heavy handed and underhanded.
Alice then returns so that it seems they might go off in the sunset in the final minutes, and Luther seems to have had real feelings for her beyond having her as a useful ally. But this is not to last as we have the brief S4 which seems to exist as much to kill Alice off and reboot than anything else. The very ending where Luther is told he and Alice could never have made it work, and we seem to be developing an Alice 2.0 suggests both that the show can't work without her and/or the viewer/fan opinion very much wants her back.
And finally there is S5 where it seems everything is designed to go to hell. We're left with the opinion that Alice may be right in her final accusations about him, and it seems that she and Luther are paralleled with the murderous couple who make up the central case of the season. And this time she dies and Luther is left finally disgraced and likely to be prosecuted for multiple murders, having left such a trail of bodies in his wake that I was glad that at least Mark made it out alive. Why he would ever continue to be open to Luther's requests for favors, I don't know. I can only assume it's for the same reason that he's trying to help Alice when we last see him.
So certainly S1 and S5 are a very novel take on a detective series, each of them particularly chaotic in how they unravel. But I suspect Luther's own characterization would have shown a clearer continuous arc had the show had fewer seasons.
I've since started Raised by Wolves which had an interesting premise but I haven't watched enough to see where it's going.
4) An interesting read about the history of monsters and horror films in the U.S. and how this spread to attractions and the growth of Halloween as a holiday.
5) Although this article focused on how U.S. journalism is very US-centric in its assumptions about readership, I would say this was just as true about who it expects its readers to be within the U.S. Some examples of comments from international readers: What is a Snickerdoodle? What is a quarterback? Why do people care about college sports? Why do you only count American citizens among the dead you have killed in a war? The scarcity of rapid Covid tests? An assumption that’s not true for many countries. Student loans? Not a thing in most of Europe. Universal healthcare? Not perceived as “socialism” in the majority of the world.
I would argue that assumptions about how capitalism should work is a huge one in the way that topics are discussed and is a never-questioned perspective. Also, the idea that the U.S.'s nationalism is common in the rest of the world.
View poll: Kudos Footer-339
Comments at Dreamwidth
.