Things and stuff
May. 15th, 2012 03:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
next_to_normalI have been watching a lot of TV lately, and what do we do with TV? We talk about it!
I've now made it through season 4 of Six Feet Under, which is still one of the best-acted shows in the history of ever. For real, Peter Krause and Michael C. Hall just amaze me at every turn in portraying their characters' grief and PTSD, respectively. (Oddly enough, I used to be impressed at how MCH could be so different as David and as Dexter, but as David becomes darker over the course of the series, I kind of am expecting him to start killing people at some point, lol.)
Speaking of which, man, it gets DARK in S3 and S4, doesn't it? And it was already pretty darn dark to begin with. I still love it, though - I love the dysfunctional Fishers, even while I just keep wishing for something GOOD to happen to them for once (though I don't really expect it to). Especially Claire, because Claire is totally me, if I did a lot of drugs, lol. But all the horrible things that happen to them are just so well-written! I mean, on a lesser show, the resolution of the Brenda/Nate/Lisa thing would seem like taking the easy way out by getting Lisa out of the way of the show's obvious OTP. Except it's not easy at all, because we spend an entire season with Nate freaking out and grieving and losing his mind, basically, before he can seriously consider a relationship with Brenda again. Anyway, season 5 is at the top of my Netflix queue, and I can't wait to see how it ends.
I also managed to get caught up on Being Human, which I don't know if I've mentioned before? I actually started watching aaages ago, but it's been sporadic viewing for the first couple series. Not that I didn't like it, but it just wasn't the kind of show that compelled me to want more as soon as humanly possible. I loved Annie, George, and Mitchell together, and I enjoyed the addition of Nina, but for some reason, it wasn't until series 4 when I kicked into overdrive and watched the entire thing in, like, a day.
Which is weird, because one of the charms of the show is that it's so... ordinary, you know? These are supernatural people living rather mundane lives, just trying to blend in and pretend to, well, be human. And then the series-long plots get more and more epic until series 4 is literally about how WE MUST SAVE THE WORLD, which is basically the antithesis of what the show was when it started. AND YET. I think a good bit of it was just the new characters shaking things up a bit. (Hal = new favorite vampire! Damien Molony, where have you been all my life?) But it also seemed like this series was more outright funny? The show always had a sort of dark humor to it, but Hal and Tom are so awkwardly hilariousespecially while hitting on girls and there seemed to be more in the way of witty one-liners. Anyway, while I will miss Annie the most, I am not at all sorry to be starting series 5 without a single original character left. Though I do hope it's more of the "vampire, werewolf, and ghost living together" adventures, and less of the saving the world business. We've got Buffy for that, yo.
One new show that I've started watching is Scandal. I've never been a particular fan of the Shonda Rhimes shows, but this one was sort of tailor-made for me, since it's about politics and set in D.C., lol. Kerry Washington plays a former Presidential aide who left the White House and now has her own consulting firm. One of the things I have learned in my career thus far is that "consulting firm" is such a broad catch-all description in this town, but here it means she's a "fixer" - when there's something the rich and powerful don't want getting out, she's the one who can make their problems go away. It's very soapy and melodramatic, but... well, it's basically Revenge with a side of politics, which is a lot of fun.
Which reminds me, have I mentioned that I've been watching Revenge, too? I started it on a tip fromsnickfic, although I'm pretty sure I'm much further along than she is now. :) This is the show that SMG's Ringer wished it could be. And now that we know both shows are coming back next season, the summer is a good time to catch up!
One final thing to highlight is The Booth at the End. It's a short (5 half-hour episodes) series on Hulu, centered around a mysterious man (played by 24's Xander Berkeley) who sits in the back booth of a diner and may or may not be the Devil. All we know is that he makes deals: you tell him what you want, he gives you a task, and if you complete the task, you get what you want. Some of the tasks are morally questionable or even outright criminal, and the characters struggle with how far they are willing to go and whether their desires are worth the price. It's a cool little psychological thriller/character study piece.
I've now made it through season 4 of Six Feet Under, which is still one of the best-acted shows in the history of ever. For real, Peter Krause and Michael C. Hall just amaze me at every turn in portraying their characters' grief and PTSD, respectively. (Oddly enough, I used to be impressed at how MCH could be so different as David and as Dexter, but as David becomes darker over the course of the series, I kind of am expecting him to start killing people at some point, lol.)
Speaking of which, man, it gets DARK in S3 and S4, doesn't it? And it was already pretty darn dark to begin with. I still love it, though - I love the dysfunctional Fishers, even while I just keep wishing for something GOOD to happen to them for once (though I don't really expect it to). Especially Claire, because Claire is totally me, if I did a lot of drugs, lol. But all the horrible things that happen to them are just so well-written! I mean, on a lesser show, the resolution of the Brenda/Nate/Lisa thing would seem like taking the easy way out by getting Lisa out of the way of the show's obvious OTP. Except it's not easy at all, because we spend an entire season with Nate freaking out and grieving and losing his mind, basically, before he can seriously consider a relationship with Brenda again. Anyway, season 5 is at the top of my Netflix queue, and I can't wait to see how it ends.
I also managed to get caught up on Being Human, which I don't know if I've mentioned before? I actually started watching aaages ago, but it's been sporadic viewing for the first couple series. Not that I didn't like it, but it just wasn't the kind of show that compelled me to want more as soon as humanly possible. I loved Annie, George, and Mitchell together, and I enjoyed the addition of Nina, but for some reason, it wasn't until series 4 when I kicked into overdrive and watched the entire thing in, like, a day.
Which is weird, because one of the charms of the show is that it's so... ordinary, you know? These are supernatural people living rather mundane lives, just trying to blend in and pretend to, well, be human. And then the series-long plots get more and more epic until series 4 is literally about how WE MUST SAVE THE WORLD, which is basically the antithesis of what the show was when it started. AND YET. I think a good bit of it was just the new characters shaking things up a bit. (Hal = new favorite vampire! Damien Molony, where have you been all my life?) But it also seemed like this series was more outright funny? The show always had a sort of dark humor to it, but Hal and Tom are so awkwardly hilarious
One new show that I've started watching is Scandal. I've never been a particular fan of the Shonda Rhimes shows, but this one was sort of tailor-made for me, since it's about politics and set in D.C., lol. Kerry Washington plays a former Presidential aide who left the White House and now has her own consulting firm. One of the things I have learned in my career thus far is that "consulting firm" is such a broad catch-all description in this town, but here it means she's a "fixer" - when there's something the rich and powerful don't want getting out, she's the one who can make their problems go away. It's very soapy and melodramatic, but... well, it's basically Revenge with a side of politics, which is a lot of fun.
Which reminds me, have I mentioned that I've been watching Revenge, too? I started it on a tip from
snickfic, although I'm pretty sure I'm much further along than she is now. :) This is the show that SMG's Ringer wished it could be. And now that we know both shows are coming back next season, the summer is a good time to catch up!One final thing to highlight is The Booth at the End. It's a short (5 half-hour episodes) series on Hulu, centered around a mysterious man (played by 24's Xander Berkeley) who sits in the back booth of a diner and may or may not be the Devil. All we know is that he makes deals: you tell him what you want, he gives you a task, and if you complete the task, you get what you want. Some of the tasks are morally questionable or even outright criminal, and the characters struggle with how far they are willing to go and whether their desires are worth the price. It's a cool little psychological thriller/character study piece.
no subject
Date: May. 15th, 2012 08:53 pm (UTC)GoldenUsagi
no subject
Date: May. 15th, 2012 09:04 pm (UTC)Heh, well, my reasoning on Brenda/Nate is pretty Doylist - Rachel Griffiths was always in the main credits, and Lili Taylor was a guest star. :-P And although Brenda/Billy was definitely interesting, Brenda didn't seem to have much of a story in S3 outside of Nate, so if she was sticking around, I figured she had to come back into the Fisher fold at some point, haha.