Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by cmn32480 on Tuesday June 16 2015, @06:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the got-books? dept.

Mike Hale writes in the NYT that after Sunday night's Season 5 finale the wildly popular show seems to have lost its way, and to be losing faith with a growing number of its viewers. After two or three seasons of coherent and satisfying action, the show is spinning in place, stalling for time as it crawls toward an ending that will be more disappointing the longer it's delayed. Sound familiar? As with "Lost," there may be a blueprint, but it's not looking very sound. According to Hale, the escalating series of shocks in the season finale was a prime example of substituting sensation for imagination, busyness for drama. "Not content to kill off a mid-major character, the episode moved on to whipping girls, putting a major female character through an excruciatingly long, nude walk of shame and, in its closing seconds, assassinating a fan favorite who was one of the few wholly sympathetic figures in the show."

Amy Sullivan says that the problem is that it's incredibly hard to craft a epic series without getting necessarily bogged down in the middle installments. "Your protagonists are usually in some long-term predicament or up against an enemy who will keep winning until some resolution is reached in the finale," says Sullivan. "So the need to throw in a few shocking moments for the sake of surprise and to keep readers/audiences off-balance is understandable." According to Hale when you look at the overall framework, nearly all the characters are where they were when the season began. "The usurping Boltons are still in Winterfell; Sansa is still on the run; Arya is still hiding in Braavos; the dragon queen Daenerys Targaryen and the sly dwarf, Tyrion, are still marooned in Essos; the Lannisters still occupy the castle in King's Landing," concludes Hale. "This can be blamed on the show's semidependent relationship with Mr. Martin's novels, but viewers (like me) who haven't read the books don't care about that. The question is how much longer we'll care at all."

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by jbWolf on Wednesday June 17 2015, @03:57AM

    by jbWolf (2774) <jbNO@SPAMjb-wolf.com> on Wednesday June 17 2015, @03:57AM (#197136) Homepage

    These shows really would do better if they had the whole thing planned out right at the beginning, instead of making stuff up as they go. But they don't want to do that because it's difficult, and they never know how long these stupid TV networks will keep renewing them.

    Fully agree. Which is why I cry every time I watch the Firefly series. You could tell there were significant plans for the series. And some parts of that genius were shown in the Serenity movie. The creation of the Reavers was one. Mal's history in the military and brilliant escape from them shows him to be the one who would successfully lead the revolution against the Alliance. Zoƫ would have been an awesome right hand "man" because you can see the development of her character that hardens her against the Alliance at the end of the movie. And Mal was all about accepting people for who they were -- complete opposite of the Alliance. What kept the series grounded was that they were all human and made mistakes. What was awesome is there was character development -- even in the guy least likely to change: Jayne. Granted, it's limited, but only Mal could teach Jayne the benefits of friends in the episode Ariel.

    Never read the Firefly comics so I don't know how close I am. Anyone read them? Any good?

    --
    www.jb-wolf.com [jb-wolf.com]
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday June 18 2015, @11:15PM

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday June 18 2015, @11:15PM (#198024)

    Don't forget Shepherd Book. It's kinda hinted that he has a very interesting backstory, perhaps he was a high-up Alliance officer who maybe even took part in the Battle of Serenity Valley. Of course, we never got to find that out.

    The show, however, had a bunch of "secret backstory" things like that, especially the part about the Reavers, so I do wonder how it would have gone if the plug hadn't been pulled so early and had been allowed to progress according to Whedon's design. Would he have stopped the show at some point when the secrets were all revealed, or would it have jumped the shark too?

    • (Score: 2) by jbWolf on Friday June 19 2015, @06:56AM

      by jbWolf (2774) <jbNO@SPAMjb-wolf.com> on Friday June 19 2015, @06:56AM (#198139) Homepage

      Absolutely Shepherd Book is part of that. I hated that he died in the movie without knowing more of his story. With all of that, it makes you wonder a bit more about Kaylee. What secrets did she hide? Maybe not a lot. Maybe she and Jayne didn't have a lot of interesting background and were there just as interesting possibilities for character development.

      Ugh! So much potential. I have to admit, though, my biggest fear of investing in a series is watching it jump the shark. It leaves a sour taste in my mouth. The last Battlestar Galactica did that. I have the series, but seasons 1 and 2 are really good and then it it went downhill in season 3 and did a serious tanking in season 4.

      --
      www.jb-wolf.com [jb-wolf.com]
      • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday June 20 2015, @03:50PM

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Saturday June 20 2015, @03:50PM (#198722)

        Yes, exactly. BSG was absolutely fantastic at first: the mini-series was phenomenal. Then seasons 1 and 2 were great, and it was all downhill from there. That whole thing about the "Final 5" was so obviously tacked on after-the-fact, it was really painful to watch.