S03.E09: NIM / S03.E10: NeXT

[kieyra]

Sorry for a late bump that's going to be mostly content-free ...

Just now caught up on season 2, although I managed to miss episode 8 somehow and need to double back.

Bingeing the whole back half of season two made the Donna/Cam tension incredibly wearying. Cameron's relentless ... idealism? Perfectionism? was infuriating, and yet I know tech people like that. And I have been the Donna, and I have said, "Perfect is the enemy of good".

(Female IT worker here, in hardware and video games, and I grew up on those weird little compuserve-adjacent online services in the 80s, all of which makes this show 100 times more weird. Back in season 1, when Cameron had really fucked something up, I had to pause and catch my breath because I was empathizing too closely with being a Female IT Worker Who Has Broken Something Important.)

But as tedious as it could be, the actresses fucking knocked it out of the park. 

The Cameron/Joe thing is so weird for me. Their chemistry is off the charts--kudos to the actors, who utilize some very tricky body language--even when Joe is at his cipher-y-est, and I'm while I'm glad that television is beginning to address bisexuality/pan-sexuality a bit, I kept not being sure how I was supposed to feel about the pairing while simultaneously wanting them to GET IT ON RIGHT NOW. So when the show was like "yes, you are supposed to assume they want to get it on, and now they're going to", it was a bit of a relief. 

I watched the finale with the assumption the show had been canceled, and so I was kind of sad that it ended with Donna having to be the Bad Guy and drive off in a tearful rage. I didn't come away with the impression she deserved it--she's been the hero of the show for me ever since she fixed the Speak N Spell. So I'm glad to learn that wasn't the end.

[shaaylyn]

On 4/17/2017 at 3:41 PM, kieyra said:

The Cameron/Joe thing is so weird for me. Their chemistry is off the charts--kudos to the actors, who utilize some very tricky body language--even when Joe is at his cipher-y-est, and I'm while I'm glad that television is beginning to address bisexuality/pan-sexuality a bit, I kept not being sure how I was supposed to feel about the pairing while simultaneously wanting them to GET IT ON RIGHT NOW. So when the show was like "yes, you are supposed to assume they want to get it on, and now they're going to", it was a bit of a relief. 

I watched the finale with the assumption the show had been canceled, and so I was kind of sad that it ended with Donna having to be the Bad Guy and drive off in a tearful rage. I didn't come away with the impression she deserved it--she's been the hero of the show for me ever since she fixed the Speak N Spell. So I'm glad to learn that wasn't the end.

Lee Pace and Mackenzie Davis are amazing in this regard. It's so easy to throw a romance plot into a tech show like this, but it's damn near unique the level of chemistry that these two are managing to put into it. For more than a season their relationship has been in the little looks, and the subtle actions. I'm certainly happy that Joe is back in the picture for season 4.

I'm just about to start a re-watch, so my opinion here might change... But I've never been a fan of Donna. I think she deserved what she got at the end of season 3 but I think it sets her up for more of a villainous role in season 4, which will be interesting because I've always seen that dynamic to her character so now she can kind of embrace it.

Edited June 28, 2017 by shaaylyn

[stillshimpy]

Huh.  Well, whereas I liked several of the developments, I'm still a little stymied by some of the writing decisions.  I just have to assume that Ryan's character became a victim of an epic miscasting.  They really needed to figure out precisely the vibe they wanted for the character, seeing as his entire role was mainly constructed of a variety of reaction shots and then one utterly puzzling, "I'm not even sure if you like me!"  to indicate that the guy was having any kind of emotional dilemma.  So that was largely a bust and wouldn't have mattered so much except characters kept producing his name like it was supposed to still carry lots of weight years later.  

 

For Joe, I can really see that being the case, seeing as Ryan  decided to test out his flying skills from Joe's balcony.  So Joes being a bit tender and weird about even hearing Ryan's name would have made sense.   For everyone else, realistically he'd be the dude who worked for Mutiny for a few months, defected and then killed himself.  He wasn't well known enough to any of them to start laying blame at anyone's feet.  

 

But also, the decision to spend kind of a lot of time developing a character who was primarily emotionally inaccessible -- and the show really didn't need any more characters in that category -- was really not their strongest choice, they kind of compounded that by not showing us the moment that the Clarke marriage broke and they both knew it.  We're sort of left to assume, particularly given Gordon's pointed camping reference in the "must like trees and sleeping on dirt" type of dating video, that Gordon knew it was over for good when Donna shares what she thinks is her amusing dislike of camping, while Gordon goes all, "I don't even know you! My wasted life!" on the revelation.  It's just that we spent years with the characters so to have it be a case of watching their death throes for seasons but never seeing the time of death?  Weird and uneven writing. 

Similarly, the decision to marry Cameron off to Tom was understandable but giving him sort of a drastic personality change from bland good guy to insecure passive-aggressive tool might have worked better if it had made more sense for any of the characters.  Instead, that too is also all based on stuff we didn't get to see so the changes seemed abrupt.  It seemed plot device writing rather than organic character growth.  Maybe they just didn't want Cameron to seem like such an awful person for cheating on her husband and then never being able to forgive Donna for lying to her repeatedly.  They took a broad pass on letting Cameron learn from her own missteps.  

 

Instead, now she dumps Tom and the only hints we have about what their relationship might have been is that a formerly kind of sweet guy was medaling in the jerk Olympics so that he's insecure, snooping, brittle and unkind.  It's all played for the back rows and there's no way to view him as anything other than the plot contrivance keeping Joe and Cameron apart.  They kind of didn't need him, is what I'm saying.  

 

They did a bunch of weird character work in this season, some of it paid off but the majority of it did not.  Between Ryan, who is best described as perpetually unpleasant and strained-looking, and Tom who was once the bland uncomplicated good guy who has now morphed into a controlling weirdo with shaming and belittling tendencies.  Great.  How'd that happen?  More importantly, why include it?  

Cameron's wardrobe was peculiar too.  Little House on the Prairie meets the beginnings of anime costuming.   I feel like I should have spent a lot less time wondering what was going on with the hair choices for Cam and Tom.  Tom desperately needed a haircut and poor Mackenzie Davis just looked like she'd been rescued from a bunker.  

Okay, well, I'm excited to see season four next but the last two episode were largely inelegant and suffered from abrupt characterization decisions to get all piece onto a game board for the next round of whatever is next for our intrepid tech team.  

I love Lee Pace, so I'm glad to see that they may finally make Joe into a fully rounded human being.  

Also, it's like the old scifi "offscreen deaths don't count" (most onscreen deaths don't really count in scifi) ...but any marriage that is undertaken by characters and the ceremony is not shown onscreen screams divorce, don't get attached to the concept! 

It just feels like they had Cameron marry Tom mostly so that she'd understand what it was like to be the person responsible for hurting someone who simply didn't deserve it.   No matter how much retroactive jackassery they incorporate into Tom, he was just a nice bland guy who fell much harder than the other person in the relationship...and now Cameron has certainly made sure he paid with his own damage but by the same token?  He shouldn't have married her either. 

Although, I suppose that is one of the defining aspects of this show:  there are a lot of relationships that the audience can see, "Well, that's not working, don't push so hard on that because it's never really going to...oh...great, now you've incurred catastrophic emotional damage that you can all carry forth and have it inform all your relationships.  Yay?" 

Edited November 27, 2017 by stillshimpy

[paramitch]

This was absolutely not what I expected, but I was riveted anyway. Then dismayed, because, man, just seeing all of them in the same room together, talking about what they might create next, was so satisfying and exciting for me. Then, BOOM... Donna being willing to ice Joe from the deal (which I just don't quite buy), and then Cam absolutely destroying Donna in return... Sniffle. Donna bursting into tears in the car devastated me -- and it spotlighted something the show has been great about -- that the loss of a trusted friend or business partner can be just as devastating as the loss of a lover or spouse. It's the end of something precious, and that moment in the car really broke my heart. I care about Donna, and I care about Cam, and dammit... I wanted them to work together again so badly!

But I was interested, invested, and moved at varying moments, and I definitely want to know what happens next.

On 10/11/2016 at 9:10 PM, ketose said:

But Gordon is kind of right. The internet wasn't really a "thing" until the mid 1990's. I see more time jumps next season.

I was the editor of a computer magazine from 1992-1995, and the Internet was pretty booming even in 1990 or so, although you're right that it really took off in the mid-90s. But oh, I remember those early days of Prodigy and AOL and GEnie and BBSes galore. Good times!

 

On 10/12/2016 at 11:58 AM, dmc said:

Agree on Cameron but Joe seems different.  Old Joe would have looked at Donna's project and gone to Comdex for the sole purpose of recruiting Cameron without her knowledge.  He would have pretended he was there just to see her, got her vulnerable, and pitched it.  I saw some significant changes in Joe.  I liked the way when Donna called him  he totally seemed loyal to Cameron and I liked the way he leveled with Cameron about Donna calling him and then put Cameron over the project. Season 1 Joe wouldn't have done any of these things.

I agree on Joe, and think the show is trying to do something genuinely interesting here. Sometimes some people take awhile to mature, and while I've found the show uneven at times, I've really liked watching Joe go from unstable narcissist to -- over the course of several years in story time -- a guy I could actually really like and see as not just a visionary, but as someone who might be worth giving my loyalty to.

On 10/12/2016 at 6:22 PM, magdalene said:

I  liked Cam and Joe dancing to the Pixies, that really showcased the connection they have. 

I also liked the scene with Gordon and his daughter when in the morning he was struggling up the stairs and she saw his struggle and helped him up the stairs. We had seen her as this horrid brat just before, and now we got to see the loving daughter. 

Just like in real life, people are never just one thing on Halt.

Nice observation, and I agree. I do think the older daughter looks way, way too old for 14, and rolled my eyes as the TV-Brat syndrome raised its ugly head yet again (I mean, yes, teenagers can be awful, but she was awful here in TV-common ways that I think most parents would never accept). However, like you, I did like the little moments where she was kind to Gordon and helped him like an actual human being.

On 10/13/2016 at 4:04 PM, ganesh said:

I applaud the unanimity of Tom derision here. 

I like Tom and feel very sorry for him.

On 10/13/2016 at 6:53 PM, dubbel zout said:

It's not unanimous. I like Tom. I hate his pissing contest with Joe, and I hate that Cam cheated on him and neither of them have the guts to talk about it. But I think he's a decent guy.

Agreed.

On 4/17/2017 at 2:41 PM, kieyra said:

(Female IT worker here, in hardware and video games, and I grew up on those weird little compuserve-adjacent online services in the 80s, all of which makes this show 100 times more weird. Back in season 1, when Cameron had really fucked something up, I had to pause and catch my breath because I was empathizing too closely with being a Female IT Worker Who Has Broken Something Important.)

But as tedious as it could be, the actresses fucking knocked it out of the park. 

The Cameron/Joe thing is so weird for me. Their chemistry is off the charts--kudos to the actors, who utilize some very tricky body language--even when Joe is at his cipher-y-est, and I'm while I'm glad that television is beginning to address bisexuality/pan-sexuality a bit, I kept not being sure how I was supposed to feel about the pairing while simultaneously wanting them to GET IT ON RIGHT NOW. So when the show was like "yes, you are supposed to assume they want to get it on, and now they're going to", it was a bit of a relief. 

I watched the finale with the assumption the show had been canceled, and so I was kind of sad that it ended with Donna having to be the Bad Guy and drive off in a tearful rage. I didn't come away with the impression she deserved it--she's been the hero of the show for me ever since she fixed the Speak N Spell. So I'm glad to learn that wasn't the end.

Wonderful post! I'm with you on so much of the nostalgia. I worked in the tech industry on and off for 10 years before going off on my own to freelance, and I'll always love it. This show, so many times, has captured what it was like for me then, too -- casual sexism, the bro code, etc. I'll never forget walking into meetings as a young, female editor of a computer magazine, and the advertiser would walk up to my art director Steven every time instead of me, assuming he was the editor. 

For this reason I've been most invested in Donna's journey, and I didn't think she was the bad guy here... although I found her immediate willingness to jettison Joe to be a little unbelievable. She got them all into that room, so for her to walk away from what she had wanted so badly to build ... and for Cam to TAKE IT from her... aghghg.

On 11/27/2017 at 2:04 PM, stillshimpy said:

But also, the decision to spend kind of a lot of time developing a character who was primarily emotionally inaccessible -- and the show really didn't need any more characters in that category -- was really not their strongest choice, they kind of compounded that by not showing us the moment that the Clarke marriage broke and they both knew it.  We're sort of left to assume, particularly given Gordon's pointed camping reference in the "must like trees and sleeping on dirt" type of dating video, that Gordon knew it was over for good when Donna shares what she thinks is her amusing dislike of camping, while Gordon goes all, "I don't even know you! My wasted life!" on the revelation.  It's just that we spent years with the characters so to have it be a case of watching their death throes for seasons but never seeing the time of death?  Weird and uneven writing. 

I liked the time jump, and I do think the marriage was over right at that beautifully painful moment when Gordon realized he didn't really know her like he thought he did. Although I was conflicted to see how well they get along after the divorce... I liked their relationship so much this season that it made me sad in a lot of ways for it to end. But the revelation that they were divorced really affected me powerfully.

Quote

 

Instead, now she dumps Tom and the only hints we have about what their relationship might have been is that a formerly kind of sweet guy was medaling in the jerk Olympics so that he's insecure, snooping, brittle and unkind.  It's all played for the back rows and there's no way to view him as anything other than the plot contrivance keeping Joe and Cameron apart.  They kind of didn't need him, is what I'm saying.  

They did a bunch of weird character work in this season, some of it paid off but the majority of it did not.  Between Ryan, who is best described as perpetually unpleasant and strained-looking, and Tom who was once the bland uncomplicated good guy who has now morphed into a controlling weirdo with shaming and belittling tendencies.  Great.  How'd that happen?  More importantly, why include it?

 

You make some excellent points about some of the character notes, although I actually still like Tom even at the end. I thought he was tense and jerky because he knew that Cam had been unfaithful, and he knew she was gaslighting him about it. And he knew that Joe's pitch wasn't just for Cam's soul but for her heart, too. And he was being a total jerk, yes, but I liked the little moment when he referenced that he didn't know why he was acting like this, and came clean about reading her e-mails. To me it was clear (and he basically says this outright) that this was not the usual Tom. So I do end the season still liking him, for the most part, although there's no way that marriage is gonna last.

Quote

I love Lee Pace, so I'm glad to see that they may finally make Joe into a fully rounded human being. 

Oh, I'm so happy about that as well! This season really turned me around on Joe, and it's been wonderful to watch Pace inhabit a Joe I can actually like and understand. 

I'm sad about where this ended, but now I kind of want Donna to take over the world. Although some part of me still wants her to find a rapprochement with Cam. That relationship is the one I'm most invested in on this show, so it's what I'll be watching for in Season 4. I think the show makes a really lovely case for our work relationships (like Joe and Gordon, or Donna and Cameron) being every bit as important in their own ways as personal ones, and that interests me.