Universe is garnering some pretty substantial hate. It got me my first dislike, and an impressively negative comment here. I've got to admit, I'm a tad confused.
Part of the point of not watching the other Stargates first was to give the opinion of a newcomer to the franchise. The other part of the point was that the other shows are dead, and so are no longer relevant. Yes, I've done dead shows before, but never irrelevant shows. Eastwick was good but cancelled prematurely, Numb3rs was said to have done well with one of my personal pet peeves so deserved a look, and Heroes had a great, original concept that went horribly wrong and is fun to hate. The other Stargates can make no such claims, or at least, no one has made me aware of them, and I don't want to have to plow through, what, ten? seasons of something else just to be able to make my review of Universe knowledgeable. Further, as I said earlier, I shouldn't have to.
You can make a decent case for books having must-read-to-understand predecessors, and you can argue that Star Wars Ep. 6 wouldn't be as good if you don't watch Ep.s 4 & 5, but can you say the same of television serieses?
I don't think so. Partly it's, as I've said before, that there's so much more to a television series. Watching a single season takes eighteen hours (if it's a full season. Summer shows have half seasons), so to punish new viewers for not having watched all umpty-whatever seasons of the show that came previously isn't fair, nor is it reasonable, nor is it sound business practice. You don't ever, ever alienate prospective customers! Yet, the producers and writers of these shows seem to assume that it's just fine to do so. It's not.
And the fanboys happily perpetrate that idea: That if you haven't seen everything that came before, your opinion doesn't matter.
Nice, try, bud. But I write for a living. I don't critique professionally, but I do write professionally, and I know what it is that makes my reviews worth it. I put considerable time and effort into making these reviews good and relevant, and I won't sink more just to assuage my ignorance, when it's my blank slate, critical eye, and high expectations that make me good at this. If your argument against me boils down to "Compromise your opinions by reading about the other shows," then you are just as unreasonable as those TV producers who are stingy with their exposition.
-Gets off soapbox-
Showing posts with label numb3rs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label numb3rs. Show all posts
Monday, October 4, 2010
Saturday, September 11, 2010
From the Audience
Way back in my Numb3rs review thread that I posted to The Escapist, there was some discussion about Castle. A viewer expressed disbelief that I'd actually liked Castle, to which someone (who I can't assume actually watched my review) responded:
"Castle's main problem is the cops. Nathan Fillion's character is great, the scenes with his mother and daughter are great, and the core concept is sound. Then they bring in the annoying female lead and her comic-relief friends and ruin the whole thing. The writing team on Castle need to take a long, hard look at The Mentalist to learn how to write Comedy Male Lead and Serious Cop Lead." --sosolidshoe (emphasis added)
I responded to that thread, but I think there's a concept here that deserves some thought. Sosolidshoe has implied that Castle would be better if it were more like The Mentalist. But they're different shows. Now, I haven't actually watched any of The Mentalist yet, so this is pure pre-review speculation, but it seems to me that the more one show is like another, the worse off it is. After all, they have to share an audience, so wouldn't it be prudent to be as different a cop show as possible in order to attract people that the other show doesn't?
That's the entire point of the gimmick. All procedurals have them to avoid being completely generic, some fail, but most do alright in that regard. And I'm sure this will earn me the ire of the Internet, but I actually hate procedurals. If I judge them by the standards of character shows, some can do alright, but procedurals are massively overdone and some just have to reach so far in order to provide a unique gimmick that my suspension of disbelief has fallen right from the start. Like Numb3rs. And White Collar (which I also have not yet seen, but it looks like a pile of shit with a side of fries, so I despair of the day when it comes up on my list).
And the Heroes: TABAtTE is ready to post tomorrow morning, so in response to sosolidshoe, next week's critique will be on The Mentalist. I just hope it's not as agonizing as Heroes.
Edited to add: Oh yeah, it's 9/11. It's not that I don't care... well okay, it is that I don't care. Living in the past never helped anyone, the dead are still dead, and we're still locked in a pointless war with a concept. Can't fight a concept, and it was a major conceit to even try. You can say that makes me un-American. I can say, "Bite me."
"Castle's main problem is the cops. Nathan Fillion's character is great, the scenes with his mother and daughter are great, and the core concept is sound. Then they bring in the annoying female lead and her comic-relief friends and ruin the whole thing. The writing team on Castle need to take a long, hard look at The Mentalist to learn how to write Comedy Male Lead and Serious Cop Lead." --sosolidshoe (emphasis added)
I responded to that thread, but I think there's a concept here that deserves some thought. Sosolidshoe has implied that Castle would be better if it were more like The Mentalist. But they're different shows. Now, I haven't actually watched any of The Mentalist yet, so this is pure pre-review speculation, but it seems to me that the more one show is like another, the worse off it is. After all, they have to share an audience, so wouldn't it be prudent to be as different a cop show as possible in order to attract people that the other show doesn't?
That's the entire point of the gimmick. All procedurals have them to avoid being completely generic, some fail, but most do alright in that regard. And I'm sure this will earn me the ire of the Internet, but I actually hate procedurals. If I judge them by the standards of character shows, some can do alright, but procedurals are massively overdone and some just have to reach so far in order to provide a unique gimmick that my suspension of disbelief has fallen right from the start. Like Numb3rs. And White Collar (which I also have not yet seen, but it looks like a pile of shit with a side of fries, so I despair of the day when it comes up on my list).
And the Heroes: TABAtTE is ready to post tomorrow morning, so in response to sosolidshoe, next week's critique will be on The Mentalist. I just hope it's not as agonizing as Heroes.
Edited to add: Oh yeah, it's 9/11. It's not that I don't care... well okay, it is that I don't care. Living in the past never helped anyone, the dead are still dead, and we're still locked in a pointless war with a concept. Can't fight a concept, and it was a major conceit to even try. You can say that makes me un-American. I can say, "Bite me."
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