My personal TV-flops

[wiseheart]

Sick leave is a practical thing, especially when all you have is a really ugly bronchitis. It's unpleasant, but it doesn't knock you off your feet completely, so you're actually capable of reading, writing, watching TV, thinking and the likes.

Not that I'd be happy with TV lately. Sure, the numerous German channels do bring a lot of reruns from older shows I love a great deal, but the new ones... God, be merciful to me! I realize that there are unnumbered people who love them, but God, I hate a great lot of them.

Let's start with "Life on Mars". I was so looking forward to this one, as several of my online friends seemed to like it a lot, and those are people whose taste I trust. Now it finally came to German TV (they're usually a year or so behind, and let me not even start with Hungarian TV here), and I was biting my nails in anticipation. Well... please, don't lynch me, guys, but I didn't even manage to suffer it through to the end of the pilot episode. It bored me to tears and I gave up after the first thirty minutes or so.

Perhaps it's my fault. As someone who still doesn't own a cell phone and never calls anyone on their own cell because it's too expansive from a traditional one, I simply couldn't really identify with the problems of the main hero. Not to mention that I didn't find him likeable at all and hated practically all other characters. Ah, well, that's a fandom I certainly won't get hooked on. The better for me. I've got more than enough on my plate as it is.

Then, there's "Criminal Minds". People are heals over head in love with that one (or the other way round?). I'm still unable to keep the characters apart, with the exception of Mandy Patinkin, and the cases are increasingly sick. Plust, the investigation is lagging and boring. For me, the worst things in a TC show are boredom and characters I can't care for. So, another fandom I won't get hooked on. Good for me!

Let's see. "Navy CIS". Well, what an utter crap it turned out to be! I dearly love the characters of Gibbs and Ducky, and I like the Goth girl Abby, but honestly, they're all cardboard caricatures. And don't even mention DiNozzo, that obnoxious, immature idiot (how in heck did he end up having such an important job) and the anorexic, genderless femme fatale of the season, whether she's called Kate or Ziva! So, no, no danger of me ever writing NCIS fanfiction, except in rage to kill off the whole bunch.

Well, "House M.D"? Since when is it an endearing character trait if someone is rude? Not in my book, sorry. And the other docs have no personalities whatsoever. And they all seem to be so horribly incompetent, the patients has to die three times until they figure out what's wrong with him - and then he dies a fourth time. Brrr. No. Just no.

OTOH, I'm warming up for "CSI New York", since they killed off that woman with the Botox-lips. I like Gary Sinise, and the new girl on the team, Anna Belknap is just the right type whom I'd buy the lab rat. Rather than Stella Bonasera - and just who had the brilliant idea to name a forensic specialist "Good Night", just because she's supposed to be Italian or whatnot? Anyway, I can tolerate the New York team a lot better in their new configuration.

What else is there? "Criminal Intent" - oh God, Vincent D'Onofrio's long-winded crime scene investigations, his stupid, theatral gestures and his annoying omniscience! And that blond chick who work with him, looking like an idiot all the time!

And then that Special Victims Unit stuff with Mariska Hargitay and whatshisname who plays her partner... Well, actually, I like the two, and I even like Ice-T and the ugly old man who plays his partner, but the show itself gives me the depressions. It always seems that the good guys lose, even if they sometimes, surprisingly enough, have to win.

So, what about older shows I used to like? "Stargate" went straigt to hell when Richard Dean Anderson left and TPTB turned it into a modified version of "Farscape" (another show I hated like the plague). "Atlantis" - I just can't connect to all those new characters. I mean, they had the greatest supporting characters of all shows - and where are they now? Where's Bates, Stackhouse, Kavanagh, Miko? I know I'll probably be lynched by Lornites for this, but honestly, Lorne doesn't do a thing for me. Gimme back Bates, with his paranoia, and keep the flyboy.

So, I'm back to the reruns; at least those old shows aren't full of gloom and doom and perversion - and they're most definitely not boring. I even returned to "Voyager", at least where fanfiction is concerned. I know the show was a criminal waste, but I still cared for the characters - and I could, at least see what was happening on the TV screen. Have none of the creators of these new shows paid their electricity bills that the things are so dark you can only guess what's happening?


Okay, you can start throwing the rotten tomatoes now. *g*

Comments

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Okay, you can start throwing the rotten tomatoes now. *g*

Never! I'd only ever throw the very best tomatoes at you! *ducks and runs!* Sorry you didn't like Life on Mars, I think a lot of the enjoyment is in the nostalgia factor.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

You're too generous. *g*

Actually, I liked the 1970s - does it say anything about my age if I tell you that I started working full time in 1975? - and perhaps was so disappointed because I remember them very differently?

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I think Life on Mars may well be a Very British Show. I don't remember the year in which it's set (1973 - I was all of 1 year old), but I remember a lot of the later seventies being exactly like that.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

That's possible. Those were very good years over here, and I always associate positive memories to them, so for me the show was a bit, well, repellent... as much as I've seen of it.

Wait... do you mean that you didn't have proper illumination in your country in the 1970s? *g*

[altariel.livejournal.com]

The 70s have a reputation for being a very dirty, very corrupt, very run-down period in British history. There were lots of strikes - rubbish not being collected, that kind of thing - and also powercuts, so, no, there wasn't proper illumination in the UK in the 1970s! A very early memory of mine is a powercut and having to use candles!

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Oh, I see. That explains the different associations, then. For Hungary, the 1970s were the decade when the slow, underlying inner changes have brought forth the first fruit, to put it poetically. We used to have a fairly good life then, for a country behind the Iron Curtain, we were allowed to travel to the West... that sort of thing. We used to love the 1970s very much.

[crowdaughter.livejournal.com]

Hi! I liked "Life On Mars" well enough, but the shows I really love to pieces are "CSI Las vegas" (thee is nothing that can top the original) and lately "Bones", which follows dirctly ater that one at RTL. I have seen a few episodes of "Dr. House", but cannot really connect to it. And "Criminal ntent" can be watched - right up to shortly before the end of the episode, when the "we trick the bad guy into revealing his guilt by psychological tricks no normal person would fall to" scene occurs. On the other hand, there is always "Law and Order" and "Law and Order - New York", I believe on RTL II. Those are really good, if not the newest.

Otherwise? Well,there is always my DVD player...

Greetings and Cheers!

Aislynn(who still hates it that her beloved Highlander series is not out on DVD with countrycode 2, but only in the US version) :(

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Yep, "Bones" I do like. Even though I have a hard time to keep apart the young guys in that Institute.

I actually enjoy "Criminal Intent" on Wednesdays when Chris Noth plays the detective. Vincent D'Onofrio is just too damn annoying for me. I actually prefer K11, even though it's not the same since we've lost the pretty Branco and got that boring Gerritt Grass instead. But Naseband's Glatze is still very appealing. *g*

Yep, "Law and Order - New York". That's the one with Mariska Hargitay. It's not a bad one, just, as I said, very depressing.

[rcfinch.livejournal.com]

Get better, but not to soon to cut your sick leave too short, if you see what I mean.

I haven't got any rotten tomatoes; will a mandarin do?

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Get better, but not to soon to cut your sick leave too short, if you see what I mean.

Hehehe... yes, I know. When I was young, I'd drag myself to work with such an ugly bronchitis as soon as my temperatures were down - now, I'm happy to cut a week of sick leave out of it, especially with Mum at work (poor thing), and me having the whole flat in peace and quiet for myself. It's better than antibiotics, and I can catch up with some creative work.

Also, the timing is excellent. An ungodly long conference is scheduled for tomorrow and the all-Friday school carnival for, well, Friday, and I'll be at home and pampering myself - can you imagine anything better?

[lhun-dweller.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry you're sick, but if it gets you out of a long meeting AND the carnival, might be a fair trade, eh?

As for TV, I've enjoyed some of the shows you mentioned, at least in their early days. And the Beloved still watches some, so I still see bits of them, alas.

The CSI shows have become almost pornographic in their treatment of dead bodies. Where we used to get a fast zoom into the body, now someone casually shoves a stick through a gunshot wound while chatting. Where we used to get a glimpse, we now have lingering shots of mutilated bodies. "Subtle" seems to have fallen from the director's visual vocabulary.

Navy CSI - too lame for comment.

House I still enjoy when I catch it, mostly because I like watching Hugh Laurie play a brilliant man who has no redeeming personal traits. That takes discipline and guts as an actor.

I am *not* head-over-heels for Criminal Minds: endless psychopath-of-the-week and Patinkin endlessly looking constipated.

The original Law & Order series was interesting. And some of its clones feature actors I have enjoyed in other work. Sam Waterston was in a well-done TV series called "I'll Fly Away," set in the US South in the '50s. The cop played by Richard Belzer, your "ugly old man," originated in "Homicide: Life on the Street," groundbreaking TV in its time. But even good actors aren't enough to keep me wading through the swamp of sleazy/perverted people doing sleazy/perverted things.

I have a couple larger issues with these crime shows as a whole. Besides the corpse-porn, I worry about how they affect the audience's beliefs about US crime and our criminal justice system. Nationally, most violent crimes are declining, but you wouldn't know it from these shows, which may leave folks fearing they'll be grabbed, tortured and murdered by some evil stranger when they're far more likely to die in a car accident.

We *do* have escalating murder rates in specific populations. I live in one of "those" neighborhoods and am horrified that our children are killing each other. But they aren't doing it because they are psychos - it's far more complex. Crime shows rarely bother to look deeply at the economic and social conditions that drive much of the violence in urban America today.

As for the psycho child-molesting stranger stories, enough already! Most victims know their abuser, and it is often someone within the family. Scaring parents with the sadistic-molester-of-the-week encourages them scream for sex offender registries while ignoring Uncle Bob or the priest.

I do wonder *why* we choose these kinds of stories. We choose to sit through tale after tale in which horrible and highly improbable, violent things happen to (usually) innocent people. "Evidence" is plentiful and clear-cut, collected and analyzed by senior-level, designer-dressed CSIs who spend days on a single case with nary a hairnet in sight. And they almost always get the bad guy. In Real Life, most crime labs are overworked, understaffed, short on funding, have old equipment and certainly do not work in skylit, glass-walled labs with mood lighting. Prosectors' offices AND court-provided criminal defense lawyers are overloaded and underpaid. Yet there are anecdotal reports that juries are coming to expect evidence to be as readily available and unambiguous as on TV. It's being called "the CSI effect"!

Personally, I'm ready for some different "crime" stories. How about a show focussed on the crime prevention unit of the NYC/Miami/LA police force? Or one about a group that tries to help former convicts re-enter the community after they've done their time (BIG issue in my city as guys put away under 1980s drug laws get out)? Or one about families struggling to manage life after one of their own is incarcerated? Or a show about a victim-offender reconciliation program? Lots of potential for drama, and we could even work in some sex, cute kids, ex-spouse issues, bad dates, great clothes, gorgeous hair and product placement.

But, alas, there would be no autopsies, very few psychotic killers. Just the reality of the rest of the picture of how crime touches people's lives and affects society as a whole. REAL reality...what a concept.

[Here endeth my rant.]

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Rant away to your heart's delight!

I agree with you about the corpse porn. I just can't watch any of the CSI shows any longer (or NCIS), for fear that I'd throw up from the sight of the dissected bodies in that specifically perverted kind of full-frontal nudity.

And perverted psychokillers actually bore me to the death. I think I'll stick to the German cop shows - they may be lame sometimes, these semi-documentaries, but at least you can have dinner while watching them. Also, some of them have actual cops playing themselves, and they don't wear Armani suits. *g*

My favourite is K-11, which still has two of the original true cop characters (and the guy is called Naseband in RL, to add insult to injury), and a true prosecutor dealing with them - it's actually fun.

And yep, I'm enjoying my sick leave enormously. I'm sick, but not that sick, just coughing and snot-nosed and a little feverish, but I have the flat all for myself, it's peaceful and quiet, and I can do a great deal of reading and writing, and it does me a wealth of good. I think my body must have succumbed to the constant emotional and work-related stress lately, and simply decided to go on a holiday - and who am I to argue against such a brilliant idea?

[rcfinch.livejournal.com]

Get better, but not to soon to cut your sick leave too short, if you see what I mean.

I haven't got any rotten tomatoes; will a mandarin do?

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Depends on how rotten it is. *g*

[rcfinch.livejournal.com]

It's turning a little mouldy.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Okay, bring it on! I need to exercise my ducking skills. *g*

[rcfinch.livejournal.com]

Consider it thrown!

Nice icon, BTW - it's Vladimir Kulich as Buliwyf in The 13th Warrior, isn't it?

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Yep, it is. I'm a member of the 13_warrior community, and someone was offering Vladimir/Buliwyf icons for the taking, so I snatched the prettiest one. *g*

Actually, I use the guy as the model for Prince Théodred in my Rohan-related stories. I think he's great.

[disthrainsdotte.livejournal.com]

I guess it is a matter of different tastes. I also hope you will be well from your bronchitis soon.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Thanks. :) It's not so bad, really, I enjoy the quiet at home.

As for the show, I know it's a matter of taste. I just wish they'd show more stuff that would match mytaste. *g*

[disthrainsdotte.livejournal.com]

True, I wish there would be more stuff that would match my taste also. *g*

I am happy to be well, so far I have avoided flus, colds and such. I hope this will continue but I know that it might not be so for long.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Yep, by this stupid weather the danger is actually greater than by a good, honest-to-earth cold winter.

[disthrainsdotte.livejournal.com]

True, it is hard to know what to wear when the temperature goes up and down all the time. It is better with an honest-to-earth cold winter, then it remains cold and clothing is easier. I wonder what is going on with the weather. *scratches head*

[the-wild-iris.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear you're not well *hugs*. I hope it's short-lived -or rather, that the unpleasant bit is short, and the resting part is long :)

As for the TV shows you mention, I barely know any of them, except for House of which I've seen a few episodes (and enjoyed). I never managed to get into Stargate, which makes half of LJ read like a foreign language :)

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Hey, you're still alive? *does happy dance*

Too bad you never saw Stargate. It used to be a great show as long as Richard Dean Anderson was still starring in it. The best of the whole thign was that they didn't take themselves so terribly seriously, you know? There was always an underlaying humour in the whole thing - and RDA is a terrific guy. He tells more with his mimic than all the other actors with thousands of words and big gestures.

Did you happen to see him in McGyver? He was great fun in that one, too, performing impossible tasks with safety pins and a roll of duct tape. *g*

Thinking of it, I need to steal an RDA icon from somewhere...