DVR Results: Dramas

It seems unlikely that anyone reading this has not read the previous few posts, but if you haven’t, go back to http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2012/05/10-reasons-you-should-be-watching-grimm.html. Grimm is the clear winner. If I could only pick on series to DVR, that would be it, end of discussion.

However, I have no such constraints, and while there is not time nor DVR room enough to watch every show I fancy (if there was, I would add a lot of USA network shows), it is not a Highlander situation where there can only be one.

Once Upon A Time: I go straight to the other fairy tale show to get it over with that thematically and stylistically they are completely different, and I like them for different reasons. This one is more traditional fantasy (whereas Grimm is a procedural with fantastic elements), and some people have called it more of a soap opera. That may make sense, in that you have a continuing storyline, an expanded cast, and much of the drama comes from relationships, but a lot of people will use that term negatively, and I am not. What the show is doing, it is doing well. It is hard to imagine where they are going to go next year, but I’m planning on watching.

Person of Interest: This was a pleasant surprise. I was mainly interested in Jim Caviezel. He beats people up well, and it looked like he was going to be having plenty of chances to do it. I was not sure about the premise, but I have been finding the plots really engaging, and also enjoying Michael Emerson. The two leads have a fun chemistry. Again, it’s not a comedy, but there is comedy, and they mine it pretty well. They bring in some interesting recurring characters too, so overall, this one is a win.

Leverage: This is where I have the most mixed feelings. It is filmed in Portland, so I want to be loyal to it, like Grimm and Portlandia. (I even have a friend whose firm does sound mixing for them.) I also enjoy watching it, unlike Portlandia, but I do not feel compelled to watch it like Grimm. It’s a good show, and maybe some of it is just television fatigue, so that I can only make room for my absolute favorites and others that are worthy don’t fit in. Maybe the cons are just too complex for me.

Alcatraz: And now to lay in to the one that displeased me. Actually, I started out fairly interested, but much like a developing allergy, there were little things that bothered me here and there that started causing worse reactions.

I didn’t mind that the mystery was convoluted and the plot was advanced slowly. If you give me enough other things, I don’t mind a long mystery, and I had quickly concocted a pretty decent explanation for everything anyway, so I could always just look for confirmation.

First of all, and I realize this will seem odd given that I just admitted to being interested in watching Jim Caviezel beat people up, but I did not like the violence. It seemed like every episode had to have some blood spurting somewhere. It was not realistic looking, which you would think would help, but actually making things realistic tells me that it is being taken seriously, whereas this violence felt tacked on and cheesy. I like action a lot, but I don’t take violence lightly, and I don’t want it to be gratuitous. People aren’t disposable, whether they are villains or uninvolved collateral damage, and that matters.

The violence also led to issues with the characters. For one thing, they generally made the escaped prisoners very sympathetic, while Sam Neill’s character (Emerson) was just an ass, with many of the prison staff being horrible as well. That could be an interesting way of treating it, where you were not sure whom to root for, and it could have created interesting conflict for the two other leads. Instead they would have all of these sympathetic characters murdering people, in increasingly inventive ways. This was completely unnecessary because most of the Alcatraz prisoners were not murderers. They were discipline issues, but not generally the type of clever serial killers that the show kept portraying.

Creativity is great, but it didn’t end up making the individual episodes more interesting or pleasant, and it limits the potential of the more interesting characters, who end up captured murderers that will just be rotting in their new jail cells.

They did end up adding some layers to Emerson, but the damage was already done, and it became a chore to watch. This is unfortunate, because I had a specific reason for wanting to watch it, which I will cover in a different post. Regardless, it is unfortunate, because that was a really interesting premise, and so it feels like the most squandered potential. Uh oh—maybe it reminds me of myself! Or they may be another factor, which shall be discussed in the next post.