The Autumn break, tv wise
Oct. 29th, 2011 07:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chaniSince I work on my thesis during the week days, I have decided to have real week ends. When this break is over, I will resume the busy weekends filled with preparations and marking.
So I'm treating myself with movies-- I saw Clooney's last movie, starring Ryan Gosling (who is in every films these days)--, books and tv shows.
Except that, when the week end comes I'm running out of tv shows!
Of course someday I'll have to watch the third and final season of Deadwood that I own on DVD, but I'm still postponing it, to keep it a bit longer, to save it for when I will have nothing really good left to watch. It's like having a great bottle of wine aging in your cave and wanting to keep it for the perfect day.
The fact that it's the second week sans FRINGE doesn't help, though. Not that FRINGE is in the same league, but it's one of those tv shows I'm hooked to and follow, like a good tv slut, so they make the Breaking Bad withdrawal easier.
BTW, do we know when the third season of Justified is supposed to start? I'm longing for my Raylan and Boyd. :-(
But I've received my DVD box of Caprica, so I spent yesterday evening (after watching the Bolshoi thing on ARTE), and today's grey and rainy afternoon, re-watching the series and listening to the episode commentaries (basically the podcasts they recorded when the series was on). I'm surprised to like some scenes I didn't like much when I saw the series in 2010 (like the dancing robot scene) and I don't think it's only because watching it on my big flat screen is better than on my laptop.
Also, I find Alessandra Torresani's acting better, or less cringe-worthy, than I used to and Esai Morales is really pretty on that big flat screen. He is really very photogenic.
Of course, Eric Stoltz is still the Awesomest Actor from Amazinga (in the commentaries they all keep praising his skills and saying that he is an acting genius and super professional, and also very smart and nice...), and I'm again completely crushing on Daniel Graystone. It would be "easy" to play the "crazy scientist" card but, as much as there's some Dr. Frankenstein in Daniel there's much more and Eric makes him so real, just like Bryan Cranston with Walter White. The more I think about it, the more I find similarities between the two characters (they are both very smart, fast-thinkers; they can rationalize everything; they both feel guilt; they can both be quite manipulative...), in spite of the fact that Walter basically started as a loser while Daniel was Mr. Success both as a scientist and a business man. They both belong to that new category of characters who are supposed to be good guys, and the heroes of the show and yet make decisions and do things that are definitely dark to the point that the audience wonders if it's still possible to root for them.
I say "new category" because, to me, it seems, that the usual anti-heroes nowadays are rather strong characters who are firstly introduced as "bad guys" ( like Al Swearingen in Deadwood, almost everybody in OZ, Dexter the serial killer, Tony Soprano the mobster, or Vic Mackey in the first episode of The Shield, or even like an antagonist like Boyd in Justified)but are revealed to be rather "grey" at the end of the day and more human than archetypal villains are supposed to be, so the audience can get behind those lead characters. In other words, television usually takes morally challenged characters and find the "human element" or the good in them, or the redeemable qualities, creating the grey zone anti-heroes live in.
However, in spite of the similarities between Daniel and Walter, even though what Daniel does, the lines he crosses(when he have the MCP stolen by the Ha'la'tha, when he advocates enslaving a sentient race just to keep his company or when he psychologically tortures Zoe-A in episode 8), put him sometimes in a darker place than Walter, and despite the grey in Graystone, Daniel still comes across as a much more likable and nicer character than Walter White.
I guess it's because it's a science fiction show while Breaking Bad seems to happen in "the real world" (so it's more difficult to accept what Walter does), but it's also probably because of how charming and cool Eric Stoltz is (Daniel is "real" but at the same time he is also strong and "above it" in a way that makes David Eick says in one commentary: "Daniel is superman"), and because Daniel is portrayed as a rather good and loving husband (the Daniel/Amanda relatiionship is nothing like the Walter/Skyler one!), and those moments of darkness he had, obviously don't change the fact that "most of the time" he is a decent guy. And, of course, by the end of season 1, he's definitely back to the hero status...which works nonetheless because we know what is going to happen 50 years later, so his heroic behaviour will eventually cause a tragedy instead of saving the day (in a way Daniel's journey reminds me of Londo in Babylon 5, except that in Daniel's case it took only 18 episodes, not 5 seasons!).
Breaking Bad, on the other hand, first gave us a Mr. White, then turned him into -- or rather revealed that he was -- a grey character, exploring and slowly emphasizing his flaws and weaknesses, so he has appeared darker and darker since the pilot, with fewer and fewer moments of "whiteness", to the point that many viewers think of him as a villain now, so corrupted that he is not redeemable, and consider he will end completely black. As tv characters go, Walter White is quite unique.
But let's go back to Caprica. There was definitely much more good than bad so it's a shame the show was cancelled. BTW it was nice to hear David Eick acknowledge some mistakes, like, for instance, the lack of chemistry between Lacy and Keon (although he didn't blame the wooden actor who played Keon!).
And, it's funny, but when I watch Paula Malcomson on screen, I see Amanda Graystone, not Trixie from Deadwood, but when I listen to Paula in the commentaries, I can't help thinking of Trixie!
So I'm treating myself with movies-- I saw Clooney's last movie, starring Ryan Gosling (who is in every films these days)--, books and tv shows.
Except that, when the week end comes I'm running out of tv shows!
Of course someday I'll have to watch the third and final season of Deadwood that I own on DVD, but I'm still postponing it, to keep it a bit longer, to save it for when I will have nothing really good left to watch. It's like having a great bottle of wine aging in your cave and wanting to keep it for the perfect day.
The fact that it's the second week sans FRINGE doesn't help, though. Not that FRINGE is in the same league, but it's one of those tv shows I'm hooked to and follow, like a good tv slut, so they make the Breaking Bad withdrawal easier.
BTW, do we know when the third season of Justified is supposed to start? I'm longing for my Raylan and Boyd. :-(
But I've received my DVD box of Caprica, so I spent yesterday evening (after watching the Bolshoi thing on ARTE), and today's grey and rainy afternoon, re-watching the series and listening to the episode commentaries (basically the podcasts they recorded when the series was on). I'm surprised to like some scenes I didn't like much when I saw the series in 2010 (like the dancing robot scene) and I don't think it's only because watching it on my big flat screen is better than on my laptop.
Also, I find Alessandra Torresani's acting better, or less cringe-worthy, than I used to and Esai Morales is really pretty on that big flat screen. He is really very photogenic.
Of course, Eric Stoltz is still the Awesomest Actor from Amazinga (in the commentaries they all keep praising his skills and saying that he is an acting genius and super professional, and also very smart and nice...), and I'm again completely crushing on Daniel Graystone. It would be "easy" to play the "crazy scientist" card but, as much as there's some Dr. Frankenstein in Daniel there's much more and Eric makes him so real, just like Bryan Cranston with Walter White. The more I think about it, the more I find similarities between the two characters (they are both very smart, fast-thinkers; they can rationalize everything; they both feel guilt; they can both be quite manipulative...), in spite of the fact that Walter basically started as a loser while Daniel was Mr. Success both as a scientist and a business man. They both belong to that new category of characters who are supposed to be good guys, and the heroes of the show and yet make decisions and do things that are definitely dark to the point that the audience wonders if it's still possible to root for them.
I say "new category" because, to me, it seems, that the usual anti-heroes nowadays are rather strong characters who are firstly introduced as "bad guys" ( like Al Swearingen in Deadwood, almost everybody in OZ, Dexter the serial killer, Tony Soprano the mobster, or Vic Mackey in the first episode of The Shield, or even like an antagonist like Boyd in Justified)but are revealed to be rather "grey" at the end of the day and more human than archetypal villains are supposed to be, so the audience can get behind those lead characters. In other words, television usually takes morally challenged characters and find the "human element" or the good in them, or the redeemable qualities, creating the grey zone anti-heroes live in.
However, in spite of the similarities between Daniel and Walter, even though what Daniel does, the lines he crosses(when he have the MCP stolen by the Ha'la'tha, when he advocates enslaving a sentient race just to keep his company or when he psychologically tortures Zoe-A in episode 8), put him sometimes in a darker place than Walter, and despite the grey in Graystone, Daniel still comes across as a much more likable and nicer character than Walter White.
I guess it's because it's a science fiction show while Breaking Bad seems to happen in "the real world" (so it's more difficult to accept what Walter does), but it's also probably because of how charming and cool Eric Stoltz is (Daniel is "real" but at the same time he is also strong and "above it" in a way that makes David Eick says in one commentary: "Daniel is superman"), and because Daniel is portrayed as a rather good and loving husband (the Daniel/Amanda relatiionship is nothing like the Walter/Skyler one!), and those moments of darkness he had, obviously don't change the fact that "most of the time" he is a decent guy. And, of course, by the end of season 1, he's definitely back to the hero status...which works nonetheless because we know what is going to happen 50 years later, so his heroic behaviour will eventually cause a tragedy instead of saving the day (in a way Daniel's journey reminds me of Londo in Babylon 5, except that in Daniel's case it took only 18 episodes, not 5 seasons!).
Breaking Bad, on the other hand, first gave us a Mr. White, then turned him into -- or rather revealed that he was -- a grey character, exploring and slowly emphasizing his flaws and weaknesses, so he has appeared darker and darker since the pilot, with fewer and fewer moments of "whiteness", to the point that many viewers think of him as a villain now, so corrupted that he is not redeemable, and consider he will end completely black. As tv characters go, Walter White is quite unique.
But let's go back to Caprica. There was definitely much more good than bad so it's a shame the show was cancelled. BTW it was nice to hear David Eick acknowledge some mistakes, like, for instance, the lack of chemistry between Lacy and Keon (although he didn't blame the wooden actor who played Keon!).
And, it's funny, but when I watch Paula Malcomson on screen, I see Amanda Graystone, not Trixie from Deadwood, but when I listen to Paula in the commentaries, I can't help thinking of Trixie!