My shows...
Jun. 1st, 2014 11:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
potentiality_26So, I ended up watching four shows premiering this year from beginning to end, which is really sort of unprecedented for me. Anyway, some of them finished their seasons quite a while ago, but I wanted to post on them all at once.
So, without further ado:
The finale seemed to include a return of the kind of forced quippiness that I didn't love about the first episode. That said, I liked it a lot. It wrapped up quite a few major story-lines, which I like in a finale. When most of my unanswered questions are still unanswered after a whole season, I tend to get annoyed. That didn't happen here. There are still things I want to know, but at least they gave me something.
I loved Nick Fury's appearance (it made me ship Coulson/Fury a bit, to be honest) and I also loved that things sort of settled down at the end. Because there are still unanswered questions it was a little bit of a cliffhanger, but I could also see the show coming together into the kind of format it will probably have next season. That was nice to see.
I wonder how much of a part Ward will play in the coming season. If he's mostly replaced by Triplet and only gets let out of prison when they really need him, and he helps because of Skye, I will love it to death.
Welp, it was aired out of order and the finale wasn't much of a finale and now it's canceled (nice going, Fox, you done it again). I'm sad because the SF pickings have been getting slimmer and slimmer over the years, and it was something. I'd be lying if I didn't say that there are things about Almost Human that I won't miss. It had a tendency to deal really clumsily with its own moral issues, and since moral issues are big part of why good sci-fi is so good, and I don't think they should get a free pass in that regard.
See, watching the trailers and the first few minutes, this is what I thought Almost Human was going to be about: Kennex gets injured and his partner gets killed basically because a robot cop looked at the probabilities, decided said partner couldn't be saved, and basically left him to die. Kennex resents the A.I.s for that reason and is pretty prejudiced against them. He spends a long time in rehabilitation, and by the time he goes back to work for the police, A.I.s are all like Dorian. They look like cops, act like cops, and have synthetic souls. They're so much like people that he would meet one on his first day and think it was a human (This was Detective Stahl in my head. She grew on me with the chrome plotline, because at least they were addressing how pretty and perfect she is, but before that she didn't work for me). Then questions of whether or not these A.I.s really are "almost human" could be addressed through Kennex working through his own problems with them.
In the real Almost Human, the MXs are everything Kennex hates about AIs, and the essential thesis of the show is that he's right. Emotions and the ability to form emotional attachments are key to police work, and yet almost the entire society of Almost Human doesn't realize that. Sure, there's the concept that most DRNs are "crazy" but that seems pretty tenuous to me. It reads like an excuse the writers came up with for why 90% of the population doesn't believe everything that the show is telling us is true. DRNs are good. MXs are pointless.
But that isn't even my biggest problem. My biggest problem is Kennex killing MXs all the time. Here's the thing: either artificial intelligence is intelligence, or it isn't. If it is intelligence, if MXs really do think and reason, just in a different way than humans, then killing them is always wrong, and that makes Kennex a pretty icky character to me. If it isn't intelligence, if MXs are really just glorified computers, then there is in fact nothing inherently better about Dorian. He's more advanced, sure, but the same function that makes an MX appear to think makes Dorian appear to feel. He doesn't really, and there's a huge dissonance in the show between viewers not being meant to care at all about the destruction of an MX except in terms of how much it will cost to replace it, and viewers being meant to accept that Dorian is Kennex's new BFF because he's a real boy. At the very least they could have put Dorian into serious danger at some point to have Kennex truly address that Dorian dying actually means something to him, and maybe ask himself why. Probably they would have had the show lasted long than it did, but now we'll never know.
Anyway, there really were things I liked about Almost Human and I think it deserved a better shot than it got, but I really needed to get that off my chest.
While I'm on the subject of SF, though. I want a sci-fi show, you guys. Specifically, I want space ships. I want aliens and ships in space. It's part of why I'm so unenthused by this Stargate reboot news. For one thing, I'm tired reboots, but mainly- I didn't like early Stargate all that much. When I think of Stargate, I think of the huge world they built over the seasons, with the Asgard and the Wraith and the Ancients. I love all the cool tech they accumulated. I love the fact that these characters started out as regular 20th centuries humans and became part of this giant universe. How can anyone expect me to be excited about them taking it all away again? In the movie, the universe was tiny, and it's not what I want to see. I want them add more to what they built, not knock it all down again.
Anyway, moving on.
In comparison to the finale of Agents of SHIELD, I'm a little mad at The Blacklist, because a lot happened but very little was ultimately resolved. Almost none of the big questions we've been asking were answered. That said, it was a really good episode and I can't wait for more. As I've said many times, I don't think Red will turn out to be Lizzie's father. On the surface a lot of things seem to be pointing that way, but underneath it all there is a whole lot of subtext (and text, in some cases) saying that he isn't. The Blacklist has been consistently surprising and fresh, and at this point Red being Lizzie's father would be the single most obvious twist ever.
Yeah, it's been a while, and I miss it. It had a big cliffhanger ending, which I didn't love (especially because when every single character is in serious danger, you tend not to worry all that much because they can't all die), but I'm still excited for more. I loved the 100% commitment the show gave to being a giant, messy monster mash. It's so much fun to watch!
So, without further ado:
The finale seemed to include a return of the kind of forced quippiness that I didn't love about the first episode. That said, I liked it a lot. It wrapped up quite a few major story-lines, which I like in a finale. When most of my unanswered questions are still unanswered after a whole season, I tend to get annoyed. That didn't happen here. There are still things I want to know, but at least they gave me something.
I loved Nick Fury's appearance (it made me ship Coulson/Fury a bit, to be honest) and I also loved that things sort of settled down at the end. Because there are still unanswered questions it was a little bit of a cliffhanger, but I could also see the show coming together into the kind of format it will probably have next season. That was nice to see.
I wonder how much of a part Ward will play in the coming season. If he's mostly replaced by Triplet and only gets let out of prison when they really need him, and he helps because of Skye, I will love it to death.
Welp, it was aired out of order and the finale wasn't much of a finale and now it's canceled (nice going, Fox, you done it again). I'm sad because the SF pickings have been getting slimmer and slimmer over the years, and it was something. I'd be lying if I didn't say that there are things about Almost Human that I won't miss. It had a tendency to deal really clumsily with its own moral issues, and since moral issues are big part of why good sci-fi is so good, and I don't think they should get a free pass in that regard.
See, watching the trailers and the first few minutes, this is what I thought Almost Human was going to be about: Kennex gets injured and his partner gets killed basically because a robot cop looked at the probabilities, decided said partner couldn't be saved, and basically left him to die. Kennex resents the A.I.s for that reason and is pretty prejudiced against them. He spends a long time in rehabilitation, and by the time he goes back to work for the police, A.I.s are all like Dorian. They look like cops, act like cops, and have synthetic souls. They're so much like people that he would meet one on his first day and think it was a human (This was Detective Stahl in my head. She grew on me with the chrome plotline, because at least they were addressing how pretty and perfect she is, but before that she didn't work for me). Then questions of whether or not these A.I.s really are "almost human" could be addressed through Kennex working through his own problems with them.
In the real Almost Human, the MXs are everything Kennex hates about AIs, and the essential thesis of the show is that he's right. Emotions and the ability to form emotional attachments are key to police work, and yet almost the entire society of Almost Human doesn't realize that. Sure, there's the concept that most DRNs are "crazy" but that seems pretty tenuous to me. It reads like an excuse the writers came up with for why 90% of the population doesn't believe everything that the show is telling us is true. DRNs are good. MXs are pointless.
But that isn't even my biggest problem. My biggest problem is Kennex killing MXs all the time. Here's the thing: either artificial intelligence is intelligence, or it isn't. If it is intelligence, if MXs really do think and reason, just in a different way than humans, then killing them is always wrong, and that makes Kennex a pretty icky character to me. If it isn't intelligence, if MXs are really just glorified computers, then there is in fact nothing inherently better about Dorian. He's more advanced, sure, but the same function that makes an MX appear to think makes Dorian appear to feel. He doesn't really, and there's a huge dissonance in the show between viewers not being meant to care at all about the destruction of an MX except in terms of how much it will cost to replace it, and viewers being meant to accept that Dorian is Kennex's new BFF because he's a real boy. At the very least they could have put Dorian into serious danger at some point to have Kennex truly address that Dorian dying actually means something to him, and maybe ask himself why. Probably they would have had the show lasted long than it did, but now we'll never know.
Anyway, there really were things I liked about Almost Human and I think it deserved a better shot than it got, but I really needed to get that off my chest.
While I'm on the subject of SF, though. I want a sci-fi show, you guys. Specifically, I want space ships. I want aliens and ships in space. It's part of why I'm so unenthused by this Stargate reboot news. For one thing, I'm tired reboots, but mainly- I didn't like early Stargate all that much. When I think of Stargate, I think of the huge world they built over the seasons, with the Asgard and the Wraith and the Ancients. I love all the cool tech they accumulated. I love the fact that these characters started out as regular 20th centuries humans and became part of this giant universe. How can anyone expect me to be excited about them taking it all away again? In the movie, the universe was tiny, and it's not what I want to see. I want them add more to what they built, not knock it all down again.
Anyway, moving on.
In comparison to the finale of Agents of SHIELD, I'm a little mad at The Blacklist, because a lot happened but very little was ultimately resolved. Almost none of the big questions we've been asking were answered. That said, it was a really good episode and I can't wait for more. As I've said many times, I don't think Red will turn out to be Lizzie's father. On the surface a lot of things seem to be pointing that way, but underneath it all there is a whole lot of subtext (and text, in some cases) saying that he isn't. The Blacklist has been consistently surprising and fresh, and at this point Red being Lizzie's father would be the single most obvious twist ever.
Yeah, it's been a while, and I miss it. It had a big cliffhanger ending, which I didn't love (especially because when every single character is in serious danger, you tend not to worry all that much because they can't all die), but I'm still excited for more. I loved the 100% commitment the show gave to being a giant, messy monster mash. It's so much fun to watch!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2014-06-01 07:35 pm (UTC)*SQUISHES*
no subject
Date: 2014-06-02 01:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-01 08:52 pm (UTC)I also want aliens and space ships – so much! It’s long, long overdue and I miss shows like that. And I echo your thoughts on this new Stargate-films business; I don’t want all this excellent history erased.
I was okay with not really getting any answers in The Blacklist actually. It was a solid show from the beginning, but I loved how it really picked up pace when the Tom storyline kicked in properly. As you know I don’t want Red to Lizzy’s father and I hope next season will give more answers in regard to how they actually connect and how that connects to everything else.
no subject
Date: 2014-06-02 01:08 am (UTC)