TV thoughts and ficcish things

[pellucid]

Why do TV creators who have broken my heart and then stomped around on it not impressed me have to do things like come up with new shows and then cast Stockard Channing in them???? How can I watch further work of Ron D. Moore???? How can I not watch Stockard Channing???? And it's a supernatural cop show. Also to star Jamie Bamber, apparently, which

Comments

[surreallis]

in which we learn that no, the white guy with manpain is really the centre of this show.

Oh god, if we all had a dollar for every time that happened, right? Ugh. None of us would have to work.

[ide_cyan]

Word.

[pellucid]

Whyyyyyyyyy must it be this way???????? *sigh*

[asta77]

I want to like The Chicago Code. All the critics tell me I should! ;p But, yeah, I'm growing tired already with the show's focus and I find it VERY hard to believe a city official can get away with murdering people for DECADES.

My squee over Jamie's casting got the attention of a former L&O:UK writer on Twitter. He was fearful my head was about to explode. ;p

[pellucid]

I'm willing enough to buy and/or handwave the corruption premise; it's like organized crime--very difficult to convict, especially the people at the top, and all he has to do to be a city official is to keep getting elected, so it's not like being quietly corrupt would necessarily impede that (and it might even help it). But all of that doesn't interest me much one way or another because I'm in this for one reason only, and that's Jennifer Beals. If she were really the protagonist and central figure of the show, I'd be happy; if she gets relegated to "also starring" while we focus on whatshisface and his manpain, I will probably stop watching. *shrugs*

And hee! You're so awesome in your Jamie love! ;)

[ide_cyan]

I just loved the bit where they retconned the scene from the pilot where Jennifer Beals (Theresa?) explains to the annoying cop that her aide insisted on giving up his vest because the officer she'd reassigned had threatened her, into an episode-long excuse for having the annoying cop mansplain that the shooting might have something to do with that to *her*.

it's worth noting that this show is done by the guy who sent Lie to Me

Oh, that was him? That explains why I hate Lie to Me now.

[pellucid]

Yeah, I was not impressed with that storyline. I'm glad they're not making Jennifer Beals's character (pretty sure it's Theresa or Teresa, yes) immune to the inevitable messiness of her job, but this was so not the way to throw a wrench in things. "If you'd just done your job and died like you were supposed to, none of these horrible things would be happening to this nice family." Ugh.

And yeah, Shawn Ryan came on as Lie to Me showrunner for season 2 and put that whole tailspin into motion: increasingly less attention to anyone who isn't the lead, lots of misogyny, lots of focus on risk and violence and almost none on the ethics of truth that I'd found so interesting in season 1, and an unrelenting focus on Cal all the time. He's most known for his work on The Shield, which I've never seen, so I don't know how it compares, but from my experience of his work, I'm a little skeptical.

[beccatoria]

I FEEL THE EXACT SAME WAY ABOUT THIS EXCEPT BEFORE I THOUGHT IT WAS A COP SHOW AND NOW I FIND OUT IT'S GENRE? STOCKARD CHANNING AND JAMIE BAMBER (WHO OKAY I MIGHT LIKE A FAIR BIT) AND GENRE? YET DONE BY RDM? ARGH.

In other news, yay! Fringe! Basically with Peter I...cannot begin to properly explain whether or not it all ends in tears, partly because they've just started telling the part of the story that might make it do so, and partly because, um, the show is super weird about his character. It's like the narrative almost NEVER focuses on him, except occasionally the show then has a panic attack when it realises it keeps passing over the emo white boy in favour of the serious girl and the crazy old man, and tries to foist narrative relevance upon him...which promptly turns into a focus on the serious girl and the crazy old man and how they feel about this. Which is sometimes hilarious, sometimes reassuring, and sometimes infuriating because there does reach a point where you've got all this narrative significance hanging on

[pellucid]

I...yeah. I feel like I really shouldn't put myself through another RDM show. But Stockard Channing!!!! (And Jamie Bamber, and maybe other people I like before this is all over with.) So torn! But it's early yet--they're still casting the pilot, so it's possible it won't even get picked up (though with all the press it's getting, I suspect it will).

At this point, I think my biggest problem with Peter is simply casting. Joshua Jackson looks like he's 22 (I also don't like his voice, but that seems like a less substantial problem). This makes it difficult for me to take him seriously, or to understand why Olivia takes him seriously. So far he's not taken over the narrative in any way that I find problematic, but I also sort of feel like if he's going to be this irrelevant, why is he even there? And my solution to this would be to get rid of him, not to give him something to do. :)

[gabolange]

I do not think I will watch another RDM show, unless all of you tell me it is made of cupcakes or something. Not to mention that the idea of a supernatural cop show really doesn't do it for me. Hmm.

But Galentine's Day was awesome! And yes, Castle is just delightful. :)

[pellucid]

At this point I'm more on the "not touching that with a 10-foot pole" side of things, but I will admit to a willingness to be swayed, and probably by less than cupcakes. But I suspect I will definitely let other people vet it for me. (Of course, vet for how long? Because we would all agree that there was a great deal of shiny awesomeness on BSG for a very long time before the at first slow and then catastrophic decline.) Ugh.

But at this point, let's put Castle's Andrew Marlowe in the categories of "show creators whose future work I will watch," yes. Along with TSCC's Josh Friedman, who really needs to do something new, I think.