kieyra

I didn't know Katrina was supposed to be killed off in the pilot, but that makes sense. I'm not sophisticated enough to intrinsically understand the racial/genre stuff (although I appreciate you guys explaining what's really going on with it), but my story-loving soul always knew Katrina didn't fit. This is such an odd situation. I've certainly been involved in other fandoms, particularly genre fandoms, where a male producer appeared to be shoving a poorly written female character down our throats (*coughLaurelLancecough*), but I don't think I've ever seen a show so spectacularly squander their potential and cast chemistry. Take what's working, kill it, double down on the thing everyone hates? So very odd. And I've always had a limited amount of John Noble I can take (sorry fans), but after seeing a few episodes he's done on the Good Wife, I can say SH isn't doing that guy any favors either. TGW knew precisely how to play him.

Final O/T on this subject, with the point being we are discussing possible SciFi competition and the SyFy channel's recent commitment to going back to producing BSG style dramas: (Spoiler for Ascension on SyFy, airing this week): TL;DR, there COULD still be SciFi-based competition for The 100.

I've gotten to an acceptable level of suspension of disbelief with this show, but I will never not laugh when the teens just walk away to do whatever the adults explicitly told them not to do. They don't even bother sneaking now. And rather than tie them up before they get everyone killed, the adults just shake their heads. Those darn teens, always wandering off.

To be fair, it takes huge liberties with all of the science things.

New viewer, I just got to this episode. I think it was well-done in terms of emotional impact, but a lot of that had to do with a structural device that caused suspension of disbelief problems for me. They kept having characters tell other characters verbally about Will's death, and that there had been a shooting at the courthouse...LONG after the news would have been all over twitter and the media. It was most evident to me when: the shooting had happened, then Diane and Kalinda had time to go to the hospital, and hang around, and then find out Will was dead, and then travel BACK to the LG office ... where seemingly no one even knew there had been a courthouse shooting, even though it must have been hours after the fact? Active-shooter situations hit the news IMMEDIATELY now, and the people present in the courtroom at the time of the shooting would have been right there on the docket. Even if we don't assume a local crime reporter was nearby, all those people who survived had phones. Never mind the room full of journalists at the correspondents' lunch.

O/T Yeah, after I posted I went over to the threads to see people's thoughts, and I was disappointed by the stuff you spoilered. I'm really over that kind of thing. (Not sure about your reference to The Killing, though, do you mean tonally/direction-wise?)

SyFy has apparently recommitted to making actual SciFi, and a new space exploration drama mini, Ascension, is airing this week. It's only a mini, but I suppose if it's well received SyFy might make good on their threat. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascension_%28TV_series%29

My completely unscientific observation: By the time I noticed the MTQ videos were up, someone at reddit had posted a thread for each queen. At the time I was looking, Katya had twice as many comments on her thread as her next closest competitor, which I think was Pearl. Everyone else was in the dust. Looking back to last year, going on MTQ alone I loved Adore. This year I love Katya, and I'm calling her for top 3 at least, unless they pull another Willam.

I've rewatched most of the series now, and I find that Ali is the one piece I still don't understand. I also really dislike Gaby Hoffman, which is probably not her fault, but I've only seen her play similar characters and they are all nails-on-chalkboard to me. Especially towards the beginning of the series it almost seems like the show was written around her, not Jeffrey Tambor, and I also found that aggravating. I've tried to analyze why, and I've got nothing. She and Ali just bug the shit out of me. That said, I have a slightly different take on the 'why would you let a 13yo make that decision' thing, but I was a victim of absentee parenting so it resonated with me a different way. That may have been the only moment of genuine empathy I shared with the character.

Random, but: somehow I missed until this episode that Candis Cayne has a recurring role as Ms Hudson in this show. She just had a short scene in this one and I was thinking about how nice it was that gender was never even mentioned (she's a trans actress). I didn't realize she's been in a few other episodes, though. Can anyone tell me if the character is canonically trans in the show (a la Laverne Cox in OITNB)? Just curious.

I've done my share of word-of-mouth marketing on this. Not sure what's happening. Could be the name/premise that's causing a problem, I go out of my way to try to give people a better sell on it (it's like Ugly Betty meets Pushing Daises!). It seems like once people watch it they like it, it's getting them past the name. But this awards stuff has got to increase buzz, I would think. It will also make a killer binge show when it hits Netflix, and that matters more than it used to.

Delurking to comment on the Flash/Arrow refuge for bitter viewers: All of Arrow seasons 1 and 2 are now on Netflix. (Season 3 is airing now.) Binging S1 & S2 of Arrow over the summer 1) got me through many hours on the treadmill, 2) ignited my first 'shipper' spark after years of drought. Extremely general Arrow cast spoiler:

My favorite so far, merely from the MTQs.

Sorry, I did an eye scan for small talk and must have missed it, thanks!

Semi o/t, but I don't see a chatter thread, and I wanted to mention that if you like Rectify, there's a chance you may like Transparent, another indie family serial, produced by Amazon. That was a long sentence. Transparent is lighter in tone but still grapples with a lot of big questions with nuance and precision.

Random observation, and I stopped being able to even watch the show about four episodes back: My fanfic-writer's heart says what went wrong here is that Abbie and Ichabod already had enough tension due to the extremely interesting differences between them. Tension and differences equals spark. They did not NEED a love triangle here to create more tension. The audience knows this, even if not consciously, and resents the love triangle like hell. I don't even know else what went wrong after that, but it sounds like you guys are saying the showrunner just has his head up his ass with regards to the character/actress, and that's unfortunate. I always expected the Katrina angle to become more distant over time but pop up occasionally to tweak the Abbie/Ichabod sparks. If I'd known she would eat the whole show, I would have stopped a LONG time ago.

I don't often play the nitpick game, but yes, Hailey having a functional ID card meant that someone in IT or building security had seriously screwed up. I make video games at my office--a much less risky endeavor than cable news--and we deactivate those door keys pretty much AS the employee is having the Talk. They better bring Neal back soon.

I didn't completely understand the menu thing. It seemed overly complicated. They knew the feds were coming, why not just tell Neal to run before they got there? I think I must be missing a crucial piece.

I think Sorkin told us, in a meta way, what to expect in the first episode, with the bit about Euripedes and drama: "get your protagonist up a tree and throw rocks at him".

Hmm. I must be watching this show wrong. I'm familiar with all of Sorkin's tics, including the occasionally unsettling gender stuff, but I generally enjoy his shows (except for Studio 60), and I really enjoy The Newsroom. But my favorite recap sites (elsewhere, not sure if prev.tv is doing it), sites that will spend a very long time giving a detailed and loving analysis of shows like Arrow (and no, that's not a gripe against Arrow), and rarely have a negative word to say on any other show they take the time to recap, will rip Sorkin up on side and down the other, absolutely going for the throat. I thought those sites were blowing the bridesmaids outrage way out of proportion, but no, apparently it really bothered people? TL;DR: I feel like there is something wrong with me for liking this show, and liking it fairly unabashedly. I'm also familiar with Sorkin's long sordid history with the Internet (and TWOP), but I respect the way he's taking the time to break down the way it's affecting the way we consume news, while also giving technology its deserved shoutouts via Neal, if grumpily.

This episode felt about a million hours long, especially once I realized that "idiots plus cliff plus ropes" and "Anya plus Clarke plus mud plus ropes" was going to be 90% of the episode. I do find it interesting that some people are achieving suspension of disbelief with the show. Wish I could. I liked the season opener mount weather stuff, but at this point it just feels like there are about eight groups of random people with varying levels of mud walking around endlessly trying to find other people with similar mud levels, and frequently getting tranq-shotted.

My favorite part was the way she kept saying "December-ist" instead of Decembrist. Bless her heart.

I normally only half-watch this show so I'll have some context to read your entertaining snark afterwards, but my God, it's getting painful. I'm five minutes into this episode and even Spader couldn't convincingly deliver the full paragraph of cliches they front-loaded for him. I don't know how I'm going to get through the other thirty five minutes. Edit: And then the episode turned into Deliverance and I don't even know what the fuck.

Random, but: season 2 dropped a few weeks back on Netflix, making Arrow a legitimately bingeable product now (and word is spreading). The timing for my binge/discovery of the show meant that this week is the first week I am actually caught up. So there could be a netflix-inspired bump in live viewing.

I remember the first season when we were all so charmed by the show, especially by Marc and Amanda. But I hated Walter so much. Eight years! Lordy.