in conclusion, cake.
Jun. 18th, 2010 10:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaydeefalls
I am seriously ODed on cake. And there's still more in my fridge. Now I remember why birthdays only come once a year, because jesus christ I have had too much cake over the past two days.
I've been failing on RL friends left and right these past couple of weeks. Urg. Oh well. Tomorrow morning I'm getting on a bus and going up to NYC for the first time since Thanksgiving, and tomorrow night I intend to get smashingly drunk with my closes friends from high school, and it will be marvelous. One pitfall of being an introvert, I suppose, is that I have many friendly acquaintances and very, very few real friends -- but I was extraordinarily lucky in my high school friendships. I can count on one hand the people I can truly, completely Be Myself with, and I will be seeing two of them at the same time tomorrow night, which makes me deeply happy. And almost makes up for the fact that the real reason I'm going to NYC this weekend is to sort out the last of my stuff at my parents' place, because they're moving out of my childhood home this summer. WEIRD. But inevitable, I know.
Oh, right, TV meme.
Day 11 - A show that disappointed you
X-Files went tragically downhill, and Sports Night had the Dating Plan (ARGH), and West Wing lost Sorkin and RTD's Whoniverse went batshit and really, any show that lasts long enough is bound to disappoint somehow. But -- and I say this with love -- the big one for me is Merlin. Which, okay, I adore the characters. I adore the fandom. I adore the ridiculous crack. But while it has flashes of brilliance, the show's writing is never, ever at the level I want it to be, and it deeply frustrates me. Two full seasons, and they fucking refuse to alter the status quo -- how much longer do I need to suspend my disbelief that no one knows Merlin uses magic? How much longer will Morgana -- and, to a lesser extent, Gwen -- continue to be relegated to the background, apart from rare her-centric episodes that try to cram a season's worth of wasted character development into forty minutes? How can you give us these four brilliant, well-rounded, funny, clever, loving, courageous characters and write such banal and empty plots for them? (There are exceptions to all of these complaints, obviously.)
But seriously, I say this out of love. Because while the silly fun is lovely, really, I think this show has the potential to be so much more. We have moments -- the Mordred arc, the entirety of "Sins of the Father", everything Gwen ever says or does. And maybe I'm asking for too much, but it wouldn't bother me so much if I didn't think it could be so much better. For the most part, I'm just left with a sense of wasted potential.
So I stick with the fandom instead, where the writing, as a whole, sets the bar much higher.
I've been failing on RL friends left and right these past couple of weeks. Urg. Oh well. Tomorrow morning I'm getting on a bus and going up to NYC for the first time since Thanksgiving, and tomorrow night I intend to get smashingly drunk with my closes friends from high school, and it will be marvelous. One pitfall of being an introvert, I suppose, is that I have many friendly acquaintances and very, very few real friends -- but I was extraordinarily lucky in my high school friendships. I can count on one hand the people I can truly, completely Be Myself with, and I will be seeing two of them at the same time tomorrow night, which makes me deeply happy. And almost makes up for the fact that the real reason I'm going to NYC this weekend is to sort out the last of my stuff at my parents' place, because they're moving out of my childhood home this summer. WEIRD. But inevitable, I know.
Oh, right, TV meme.
Day 11 - A show that disappointed you
X-Files went tragically downhill, and Sports Night had the Dating Plan (ARGH), and West Wing lost Sorkin and RTD's Whoniverse went batshit and really, any show that lasts long enough is bound to disappoint somehow. But -- and I say this with love -- the big one for me is Merlin. Which, okay, I adore the characters. I adore the fandom. I adore the ridiculous crack. But while it has flashes of brilliance, the show's writing is never, ever at the level I want it to be, and it deeply frustrates me. Two full seasons, and they fucking refuse to alter the status quo -- how much longer do I need to suspend my disbelief that no one knows Merlin uses magic? How much longer will Morgana -- and, to a lesser extent, Gwen -- continue to be relegated to the background, apart from rare her-centric episodes that try to cram a season's worth of wasted character development into forty minutes? How can you give us these four brilliant, well-rounded, funny, clever, loving, courageous characters and write such banal and empty plots for them? (There are exceptions to all of these complaints, obviously.)
But seriously, I say this out of love. Because while the silly fun is lovely, really, I think this show has the potential to be so much more. We have moments -- the Mordred arc, the entirety of "Sins of the Father", everything Gwen ever says or does. And maybe I'm asking for too much, but it wouldn't bother me so much if I didn't think it could be so much better. For the most part, I'm just left with a sense of wasted potential.
So I stick with the fandom instead, where the writing, as a whole, sets the bar much higher.
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no subject
Date: 2010-06-19 10:35 am (UTC)THIS. They've managed to be great characters despite minimal screen time, but they could be so much more. I adore all of the males too, but plenty of shows manage to juggle bigger casts without feeling like they're shoving important people with interesting stories into the background.
The goofy crack is a large part of why I'm so fond of this show. Maybe the powers that be are worried that allowing the characters to grow very much or the situation to change will risk making the show too much srs bsns. I think it's a delicate balance, but more could be done. As is, it does sort of feel like a newspaper comic where the characters stay the same age and rehash variations of the same plots for decades.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-19 09:39 pm (UTC)Yes! Okay, at this point we know a third season's in the works. How much do people want to bet that at the end of it, Arthur still won't know that Merlin's a sorcerer? I mean, really.
Thank god for fan fiction.