Somewhere Between - General Discussion

[Cigale]

[jhlipton]

I was reading recaps and they seem to have abandoned the prophecy that figured so heavily in the first episodes.  "For one to live, one must die!"  But the school councilor died and... [crickets].  Just plain dumb.

[Anakerie]

When the kid was complaining about "never having a shower again" I actually said to my TV "Well, you're about to have a nice long bath soon."

[jhlipton]

2 hours ago, Anakerie said:

When the kid was complaining about "never having a shower again" I actually said to my TV "Well, you're about to have a nice long bath soon."

Ba-dum BUMP!!!

[Free]

8 hours ago, jhlipton said:

I was reading recaps and they seem to have abandoned the prophecy that figured so heavily in the first episodes.  "For one to live, one must die!"  But the school councilor died and... [crickets].  Just plain dumb.

The whole thing is so inconsistent between the prophecy and the time travel aspect that's not defined well at all.

That and it doesn't help that Laura's actions in trying to save her annoying daughter makes no sense at all, she's just making herself look even more crazy.

[LakeGal]

I just shake my head at how often they ignore the kid.  I know the daughter is annoying.  But the adults seem to forget where she is all the time.  I thought they were trying to save her life.  But most of the time they turn away from her to have a silly conversation.  Of course the child was going to call her Daddy.  We all saw that coming.

[Free]

On ‎9‎/‎3‎/‎2017 at 8:24 AM, LakeGal said:

I just shake my head at how often they ignore the kid.  I know the daughter is annoying.  But the adults seem to forget where she is all the time.  I thought they were trying to save her life.  But most of the time they turn away from her to have a silly conversation.  Of course the child was going to call her Daddy.  We all saw that coming.

Agreed and she's the whole catalyst for this situation to begin with.  What did they think would happen with the way they were acting and keeping her out of the dark?

Not to mention the whole time travel aspect was just wasted since they went nowhere with that concept.

They're not actually trying to come up with feasible ways to try and protect her daughter instead of dragging her along with no questions asked and acting erratically.

Edited September 6, 2017 by Free

[sweetandsour]

Oh man, this show. I want to like it for JR and Devon, but wow. I think I read a while back that ABC ordered this show to series without a pilot. Yikes. Mistake. If they had had to shoot a pilot to present for a pickup decision, I have to think the odds of the show making it to air would have really gone down. But no, they ordered it based on the concept and Paula Patton's being attached. But Paula is easily the worst part of a bad show. I liked her in MI: Ghost Protocol, but she is just awful here.

To be clear, I've watched every episode so far so I'm commenting on the entire series to date, not just one episode or part of one. The writing is terrible and they seem to have forgotten that they need to have likable characters. Flaws and conflict are a-ok, but when everyone is annoying and does stupid things, you haven't made a watchable product. Paula's character is scared for her daughter's life, sure, but she needs to stop and think for even half a second, please, instead of acting so erratically and being petulant when no one believes her. I'm okay with suspending disbelief when it comes to law and order proceedings, but come on, put on some fucking gloves if you're going to put your paws all over everything??? But they do touch everything (like combing through Haskell DeBray's apartment and Devon's fresh prints all over the other detective's apartment). How in the hell did Devon cradle the dying, hemorrhaging detective in his arms and get no blood on him? Or drag him out of his apartment in the bright light of day to prop him up in the junkyard?

In this last episode yesterday, they reminded us that only four days have passed. Oy. Feels like a lot longer. And I'm okay with conspiracies, but make them interesting at least! I don't care about the governor's office or the pop star's old band of friends. I knew nothing about and didn't like the pop star - why would I care about his homicidal friend?

[Free]

5 hours ago, sweetandsour said:

Oh man, this show. I want to like it for JR and Devon, but wow. I think I read a while back that ABC ordered this show to series without a pilot. Yikes. Mistake. If they had had to shoot a pilot to present for a pickup decision, I have to think the odds of the show making it to air would have really gone down. But no, they ordered it based on the concept and Paula Patton's being attached. But Paula is easily the worst part of a bad show. I liked her in MI: Ghost Protocol, but she is just awful here.

To be clear, I've watched every episode so far so I'm commenting on the entire series to date, not just one episode or part of one. The writing is terrible and they seem to have forgotten that they need to have likable characters. Flaws and conflict are a-ok, but when everyone is annoying and does stupid things, you haven't made a watchable product. Paula's character is scared for her daughter's life, sure, but she needs to stop and think for even half a second, please, instead of acting so erratically and being petulant when no one believes her. I'm okay with suspending disbelief when it comes to law and order proceedings, but come on, put on some fucking gloves if you're going to put your paws all over everything??? But they do touch everything (like combing through Haskell DeBray's apartment and Devon's fresh prints all over the other detective's apartment). How in the hell did Devon cradle the dying, hemorrhaging detective in his arms and get no blood on him? Or drag him out of his apartment in the bright light of day to prop him up in the junkyard?

In this last episode yesterday, they reminded us that only four days have passed. Oy. Feels like a lot longer. And I'm okay with conspiracies, but make them interesting at least! I don't care about the governor's office or the pop star's old band of friends. I knew nothing about and didn't like the pop star - why would I care about his homicidal friend?

Not to mention that she shouldn't be behaving this erratically at all, it doesn't help her or her daughter's situation and only made things worse.  She should be more self aware of how other people were going to react, let alone pulling out a gun in front of police, especially since she's a new producer, she should know better.

 

The timing has been pretty messed up, they didn't do much with the time travel aspect.

[sweetandsour]

Penultimate episode tonight and things continue to be as illogical and unsatisfying as ever. They've officially removed one of the people I was watching the show for, although his character was pretty unlikable the whole way through. Devon is insane if he thinks producing the stolen evidence will really help his brother since the chain of custody was so corrupted. (Though I'm not sure - maybe it would at least trigger a temporary stay of execution, even if it did nothing in the long run.) The hit squad coming to Jenny's place and opening fire in broad daylight vs. taking care of the problem discretely. Oh yes, I'm sure the governor's family and Chief of Staff would love that loud display of violence. Then throwing the grenade to blow it up - yeah, sure, why not make a bigger circus show? I don't know why the bad guys didn't think there were any home surveillance cameras or hiding scared people filming with cameraphones.  OK. Naturally, as Paula and Devon drove away, people had already started to gather.

I didn't think the twist with the real mastermind was very surprising, nor her relationship to the apparent killer, but the identity of the real killer was I guess kind of nice (in the scheme of this show).  LOL the elevator declaration! And Devon saying he has a niece and an eight-year-old.  LOL!

[Free]

5 hours ago, sweetandsour said:

Penultimate episode tonight and things continue to be as illogical and unsatisfying as ever. They've officially removed one of the people I was watching the show for, although his character was pretty unlikable the whole way through. Devon is insane if he thinks producing the stolen evidence will really help his brother since the chain of custody was so corrupted. (Though I'm not sure - maybe it would at least trigger a temporary stay of execution, even if it did nothing in the long run.) The hit squad coming to Jenny's place and opening fire in broad daylight vs. taking care of the problem discretely. Oh yes, I'm sure the governor's family and Chief of Staff would love that loud display of violence. Then throwing the grenade to blow it up - yeah, sure, why not make a bigger circus show? I don't know why the bad guys didn't think there were any home surveillance cameras or hiding scared people filming with cameraphones.  OK. Naturally, as Paula and Devon drove away, people had already started to gather.

I didn't think the twist with the real mastermind was very surprising, nor her relationship to the apparent killer, but the identity of the real killer was I guess kind of nice (in the scheme of this show).  LOL the elevator declaration! And Devon saying he has a niece and an eight-year-old.  LOL!

It's probably the most convoluted plot ever, and as you said, it's happening in broad daylight instead of being discreet.  

[RainbowBrite]

Paula is unwatchable. I don't think I've seen her in anything before and I cannot fathom how she got the lead role in this show.

Beyond that, I don't think I pay close enough attention when watching; I didn't even recognize the lady with the bad wig who was conspiring to save her son from going to jail...

[Free]

2 hours ago, RainbowBrite said:

Paula is unwatchable. I don't think I've seen her in anything before and I cannot fathom how she got the lead role in this show.

Beyond that, I don't think I pay close enough attention when watching; I didn't even recognize the lady with the bad wig who was conspiring to save her son from going to jail...

The show itself has been pretty bad, so I don't think they have standards on that front.

The plot itself doesn't make any sense so you're not missing anything there either.

[look here]

The lady with the bad wig is the governor's wife.  She met Serena when she came with her Dad (DA hubby of Paula) to the Governor's Mansion when he had to watch her (possibly when Paula was in hospital).  She and Serena spoke about their common support of environmental causes, I believe, setting First Lady up as a good person; so, huge surprise when she is the mastermind behind the plot to frame Danny and thereby save her son.  Her son turns out to be the heretofore unidentified fifth person and friend of the dead singer, all of whom showed new tattoos in the photo. First Lady hopes to save her son by losing the jewelry evidence that points to him as the murderer of Nico's blonde fiancee (chain of evidence notwithstanding).  Captain NIco put two-and-two together when he saw Danny's newly-developed photo of the five, as he met the son at the Mansion party [son also had an 8-year-old girl, which made Nico leave and go try to save Serena]. {It was a nice touch that First Lady OK'd his admission to Security, who refused as Nico was "not on the list".}  The kidnapper is the 'adopted' son who stole from Gov & stayed; he tells Serena that he learned to save his bad brother from consequences.  My head hurts from trying to make sense of this.  They are not making it easy on us, for sure.

At least the bad wig stuck out like a sore thumb, so it makes her easy to ID.  Not so easy to recognize any of the settings as San Francisco, though.  There are a few stills of a sunny(!) city to establish place, but otherwise the Toronto locations bear no resemblance to anything Bay Area.

[formerlyfreedom]

You know there is a dearth of new programming when this show was featured on TVGuide's Top 25 What To Watch Tonight list's yesterday, AND at number 3. I winced.

[Free]

1 hour ago, look here said:

The lady with the bad wig is the governor's wife.  She met Serena when she came with her Dad (DA hubby of Paula) to the Governor's Mansion when he had to watch her (possibly when Paula was in hospital).  She and Serena spoke about their common support of environmental causes, I believe, setting First Lady up as a good person; so, huge surprise when she is the mastermind behind the plot to frame Danny and thereby save her son.  Her son turns out to be the heretofore unidentified fifth person and friend of the dead singer, all of whom showed new tattoos in the photo. First Lady hopes to save her son by losing the jewelry evidence that points to him as the murderer of Nico's blonde fiancee (chain of evidence notwithstanding).  Captain NIco put two-and-two together when he saw Danny's newly-developed photo of the five, as he met the son at the Mansion party [son also had an 8-year-old girl, which made Nico leave and go try to save Serena]. {It was a nice touch that First Lady OK'd his admission to Security, who refused as Nico was "not on the list".}  The kidnapper is the 'adopted' son who stole from Gov & stayed; he tells Serena that he learned to save his bad brother from consequences.  My head hurts from trying to make sense of this.  They are not making it easy on us, for sure.

At least the bad wig stuck out like a sore thumb, so it makes her easy to ID.  Not so easy to recognize any of the settings as San Francisco, though.  There are a few stills of a sunny(!) city to establish place, but otherwise the Toronto locations bear no resemblance to anything Bay Area.

They don't seem to be trying, other than making up a convoluted plot, especially relying on so many dumb characters.

[sweetandsour]

I'm looking forward to seeing how tonight's finale does nothing to redeem this show.  I mean, JR is gone so how could it really be better than the first nine episodes?  This is the kind of show where, if the final scene was the main character waking up in bed and telling their spouse they just had the strangest dream, I would nod matter-of-factly, like, "yep, sounds about right, I'm perfectly okay to erase everything that happened."

I don't know what they're going to do with this whole "for one to live, another must die" theme. People have already died who didn't die in the original timeline - namely JR and Detective Cupcake - so are we still to believe that there must be another death, but this time, someone more core to the story, in order for Serena to survive?

I'm going to go ahead and predict tonight's body count at ... 3.  Serena will not be one of the three.

[Free]

3 hours ago, sweetandsour said:

I'm looking forward to seeing how tonight's finale does nothing to redeem this show.  I mean, JR is gone so how could it really be better than the first nine episodes?  This is the kind of show where, if the final scene was the main character waking up in bed and telling their spouse they just had the strangest dream, I would nod matter-of-factly, like, "yep, sounds about right, I'm perfectly okay to erase everything that happened."

I don't know what they're going to do with this whole "for one to live, another must die" theme. People have already died who didn't die in the original timeline - namely JR and Detective Cupcake - so are we still to believe that there must be another death, but this time, someone more core to the story, in order for Serena to survive?

I'm going to go ahead and predict tonight's body count at ... 3.  Serena will not be one of the three.

When you think about it, the whole prophecy and time travel aspect was completely pointless, this show would've been the same without it.

[jhlipton]

34 minutes ago, Free said:

When you think about it, the whole prophecy and time travel aspect was completely pointless, this show would've been the same without it.

They didn't even save either of the serial killer's victims!

[Free]

13 minutes ago, jhlipton said:

They didn't even save either of the serial killer's victims!

Exactly, none of those things they set up in the pilot mattered and it felt like they already changed directions anyway.

[sweetandsour]

5 hours ago, Free said:

When you think about it, the whole prophecy and time travel aspect was completely pointless, this show would've been the same without it.

Laura's knowing her daughter was going to die could have been achieved through a fortune she was told, and she could have been convinced that the fortune was true if other details predicted came true before the fateful event. I don't think an audience necessarily needs an explanation for that, but to have a time rewind that only affected two at-the-time unconnected people DOES need some kind of explanation. But of course there was none of that.  At least tell me something dumb like the fucking bay they both almost drowned in is rumored to be magical or something!

I did sort of enjoy the mountain scene at the end since we got resolution that those two losers and the redeemable foster son died. How did Kyle get to the helicopter in time to fly to Black Pine Cove?? And did the losers just bark orders at "Javier" without getting a response so they didn't know it was him? And why bother to fly far enough to mountains when he could just down the helicopter in the ocean? Logan was so lame and one-dimensional, the least they could have done was develop him a little bit more in earlier episodes so he didn't come across as solely a whiny toddler. I'm assuming five-fingered Ruskin bled out tied to that chair, which is fine by me!

Was it me, or did the role of the safety pin on the clothing not warrant two excessive close-ups (one last episode, one in the finale) plus Laura's exclamation over it?  In case anyone watches Zoo (mwahaha), Susanna = Tessa from Zoo.

What in the hell was that last scene? Was that just a celebration or was it a casual wedding? And why did they have a dessert table stocked with enough desserts for a 100-person event when there were only 9 people? I'll give them credit for including Laura's over-the-top mother and making it clear Jenny survived that gunshot wound.

I'll still mourn JR even though no one onscreen did and the character was an asshole.  I too get the feeling that things changed course a lot from the pilot OR the show runner didn't really have a plan at the outset.  Geez, it's 10 episodes, how is that not manageable from the start?  It's not a meandering seven-season show that should have lasted three seasons but kept getting renewed with no real storyline in sight.

I feel like I should say something nice, so I'll say ... thank you for giving me so much JR in a suit???

[Free]

5 hours ago, sweetandsour said:

Laura's knowing her daughter was going to die could have been achieved through a fortune she was told, and she could have been convinced that the fortune was true if other details predicted came true before the fateful event. I don't think an audience necessarily needs an explanation for that, but to have a time rewind that only affected two at-the-time unconnected people DOES need some kind of explanation. But of course there was none of that.  At least tell me something dumb like the fucking bay they both almost drowned in is rumored to be magical or something!

I did sort of enjoy the mountain scene at the end since we got resolution that those two losers and the redeemable foster son died. How did Kyle get to the helicopter in time to fly to Black Pine Cove?? And did the losers just bark orders at "Javier" without getting a response so they didn't know it was him? And why bother to fly far enough to mountains when he could just down the helicopter in the ocean? Logan was so lame and one-dimensional, the least they could have done was develop him a little bit more in earlier episodes so he didn't come across as solely a whiny toddler. I'm assuming five-fingered Ruskin bled out tied to that chair, which is fine by me!

Was it me, or did the role of the safety pin on the clothing not warrant two excessive close-ups (one last episode, one in the finale) plus Laura's exclamation over it?  In case anyone watches Zoo (mwahaha), Susanna = Tessa from Zoo.

What in the hell was that last scene? Was that just a celebration or was it a casual wedding? And why did they have a dessert table stocked with enough desserts for a 100-person event when there were only 9 people? I'll give them credit for including Laura's over-the-top mother and making it clear Jenny survived that gunshot wound.

I'll still mourn JR even though no one onscreen did and the character was an asshole.  I too get the feeling that things changed course a lot from the pilot OR the show runner didn't really have a plan at the outset.  Geez, it's 10 episodes, how is that not manageable from the start?  It's not a meandering seven-season show that should have lasted three seasons but kept getting renewed with no real storyline in sight.

I feel like I should say something nice, so I'll say ... thank you for giving me so much JR in a suit???

Yeah it was weird how it was all handled, it could've been done straight to the point without the time travel aspect and fortune about 'one will die', when that could've easily been written off as getting caught in the crossfire.

Yeah, it's assumed all the entire villains die at the end, hence the overly happy ending at the end.

That guy probably did die from blood loss since we didn't see anyone try to help him and the show itself felt like it was rushing towards the end.

As for the villains, they have to be some of the most incompetent villains ever, it's a wonder how they didn't get caught any sooner with how much they fumbled things up especially with the rich people covering up crimes tropes.

JR Bourne was pretty much a waste, even as a 1 dimensional asshole dad/husband.

[walnutqueen]

I'm just glad this is over.

[ribboninthesky1]

On 8/24/2017 at 10:48 PM, TimetoShine said:

I'm enjoying it.

Yeah, I ended up enjoying the show.  The pilot was quite terrible, and I can understand why people lost interest.  But I thought each episode got a little better.  Was a lot of it implausible? Absolutely.  But I was genuinely interested in whether Serena would be saved and if the brother would be pardoned.  Paula Patton and Devon Sawa as the leads worked for me.  I'm probably the only viewer who didn't care about JR Bourne, so I was never invested in his character. And in general, I thought the writing came full circle.  I remember thinking early on that the Governor was part of the conspiracy and was protecting someone, so the twist that it was the mother was unexpected.      

Also, despite being terrible in the pilot, I thought Patton got better. The supernatural element made more sense to me because I binge-watched several episodes. I assume this is a one and done, and it doesn't need a second season. Thanks, Hulu!       

[look here]

I ended up enjoying the show, with a few caveats.  One, I don't enjoy or tolerate violence well, and I would think that they set this up as a successor to BIP for a reason.  If the people who watch that show want to see romance or mock stuck-up people, I guess there was the chance for some of that.  I didn't think it was necessary to perform a crude finger-ectomy on the Fixer.  How do they [the characters, legally, and the writers, figuratively] just get away with that?

Two, the Fixer complained to Wig Lady, "They took my fingers!"  Nobody would say that!  They'd say,  "They chopped off my fingers" or "I'm bleeding to death".  It is too gross to me for contemplation, but also seemed totally 'off'.  I didn't notice them making off with his digits nefariously.

Three, the Evil Son and Wig Lady went right along with Adopted/Ghost Son's five-second warning on the mountain crash, "because we'd all be recognized anywhere."  I wanted to scream at Wig Lady, "Just take off the wig, for a start! That'll help!"  (I mean, seriously, try a disguise before opting for oblivion!)

I guess that we got our money's worth (free) for the amount of plot that they crammed in, to save Serena and Ruby's Dad.  I was sure it would happen, in both cases, but it was kinda nice (if incredibly arduous and somewhat nonsensical) to see it play out.

Thanks for pointing out the presence of Paula's Mom in the final photo.  I had a woman on the right who was unaccounted-for.

[luckyroll3]

I really don't understand how Paula Patton gets any job.  She has always been an awful actress and she has not improved any in over a decade.  I used to think it was her affiliation to the Thicke's, but her and Robin are over.  

And that fucking kid is so obnoxious.

[Anela]

I finally caught up with this, two years later, thanks to netflix. It worked as something to watch as I was waking up, or doing something else, but it was getting to me at the end. So much happening, so many twists.

I figured the governor's wife was the main bad guy, as soon, as soon as they kept coming back to her, and that her husband wouldn't know what was going on. Also figured that the one guy would like the little girl.

[Zoe Hmar]

I'm surprised how everyone missed out the part where Laura comitted suiside after 3 months of Serena's death and Danny was getting executed on the same day. After the time travel Laura wakes up 8 days before Serena's death and on the 8th day Danny was getting executed while Before time travel Danny was getting executed after 3 months.