Overwhelming Charm

I watched the entire first season of Justified today, and over all, I really enjoyed it. It was well made, compelling, structurally sound television with great acting. This conclusion is in no way radical. Neither is my main quibble, that it is so focused on it's hero to a point that all other characters are neglected.

Spoliers to follow.

Raylan is really awesome. I completely buy into the belief of his general awesomeness, which is the main hook for the show. Every member of the audience wants to be him or screw him or both. He's a nuanced anti-hero and obviously the leading man.
The problem is that in his shadows smaller characters don't grow so well.
Raylan's love interests Ava and Winona are both a little flat, and are only ever shown in relationship to their involvement with Raylan and other men.
His colleagues Tim and Rachel are intriguing, but unexplored. His boss, Art, has more screen time and development than the other too, but could still use fleshing out.

It's a rare breed of show where one off characters have chances to become more nuanced than returning supporting players. I appreciate the depth in the weekly stories, but it's puzzling, and I'd expect that character who reappar would get their time first.

The one character who really compares to Raylan's presence is Boyd, who is a wonderful balance of psychotic, confused, idealistic, and nuts. Boyd is awesome.

I hope that season two does more with the existing characters.

Fairy Tales

So, I started watching Once Upon A Time, and am now caught up. Thoughts. There shall be spoilers.

• I like how there are lots of female characters and they all manage to be fairly badass. Still, they talk a lot about boys, because Henry is a boy, so I'm not entirely sure if it's a Bechdel pass. Still, just the amount of female characters makes me happy.
• There are also boys! Graham had such an amazing accent, then he died, and I was sad, but then Eoin Bradley from Band of Brothers showed up and I was less sad. Go shows that have cool women and cute boys!
• About Graham's death: did not want. Not just that I'm sadened, but it seemed like a waste. I don't believe in killing characters when they could still to something interesting. His death seemed wasted as a plot point, unless they're planning on bringing him back. Which would rock, but would be hard to explain.
• Also Graham's death wrecked what I wanted from the fandom, which is lots of fluffy stories with summaries like "Henry has two Mommies, and they have a Sheriff, and he has a Wolf." So it's probably a good thing I don't write fic?
• Regina needs to be eviler. I think that she's evil in sort of a shallow way. Like, seriously evil, but we don't really see much, because, well, it's a family show.
• It really is a family show, but only for biological families. I am actually upset at how this show continually values genetic connection and disregards the ideas of found families. That just isn't how I operate, and also feel that it's slightly offensive to all of the wonderful blended, unconventional families that are around.

I think I have a type when it comes to cop shows...

...ones that are canceled in the first season. This revelation comes after the series finale of The Chicago Code last night. I have really enjoyed this show. It hasn't been perfect, but I know I would have kept on watching if it was on next year.
I want to see how they would have dealt with prosecuting Gibbons, seeing Liam/Chris being incorporated into the police force, and generally see more of these characters and this take on the city. It interests me.
Another example is Southland. I watched the first two seasons in the past weeks. (While Southland lives on, it was canceled, so it counts.) Watching the first episode my reactions were 1) this is amazing, and 2) I am not surprised at all that this was canceled from network TV. It's too difficult. Their isn't a main character. Not all characters appear in all episodes. I didn't even notice this at first, because it worked so well. Excluding a thread for an episode didn't make me feel like something was missing. Yet this is completely unlike any other show I can think of, except for maybe Game of Thrones, which is not really a relevant comparison. Like at all. Southland is really slow moving. The procedural aspect is relatively snappy and self contained, but the character development is glacial. We learn little pieces, but so far no full pictures. (Part of this is the low number of episodes in a season.)
Another cop show that I've just started watching (because it's on netflix instant, and the internet is offers dangerous suggestions, and because I only have three days of school left) is The Unusuals. It has a completely different charm. It wasn't canceled because it was too serious, or too...whatever The Chicago Code was, but too quirky and odd. It has too much character to watch mindlessly. One of the detectives started the show dressed like a hooker! Another pretends to be a cook! Another is pretending he doesn't have a brain tumor and his partner is convinced that he's going to die! Look at them, they're so not the normal tough badass cop cliche. They're weird!
And that's why the show didn't catch on. Network television doesn't want weird. (cough*pushing up daises*cough) And that's why I like all these shows, because they're not the typical procedural. So basically I'm screwed. But whatever.

STRAY THOUGHT
I had never seen Jeremy Renner in anything before watching The Unusuals, and this makes confident that he can totally be Hawkeye, which is very important.

Fringe Season Finale

I held off writing about this sort of because I had no idea what was going on. I enjoyed it, but it created tons of questions and didn't give any answers. The future was interesting looking. I wonder if we're going to see it again. I wonder a lot of things. I really have no idea where this show is going. Right now I trust them to figure things out and be aweseome, but the longer it goes without any hint of resolution the more nervous I get. Next season can not get here soon enough.

Chicago Code "Bathhouse and Hinky Dink"

This is was a very excellent episode but I don't really feel like talking about it because it's looks like this show will probably be cancelled which sucks, because it keeps on getting better.

hmph.

Castle, May 2nd, Observation

• sWhat the fuck Gene Simmons? Most random cameo ever.
• The movie versions of fake Ryan and Espesito were amusing. Fake-Ryan seemed pretty spot on, but it seemed that fake Espesito should have been more badass, and I'm pretty sure this is an actual criticism that makes sense, and not the result of rewatching Generation Kill.
• Their hotel suite was so pretty, I want it.
• No Martha or Alexis in this episode. Sad.
• Disolving bullets? Disolving bullets! I wish I had disolving bullets! (only, um, not.) Is it just me or does this show keep on getting more silly?
• The scene with the door handle and the will she won't she and the pacing was just great.

THE LAST SAM WEISS

Fringe's penulimate episode of the season and things just got extra crazy. Peter is unconcious, then he's amensiatic, and getting the universes confused, and I really don't know what's going on. There's lightning inside, Olivia's psychic powers return. It's nonstop.
And then Peter's in the machine, Olivia's the crowbar, and bang. Oh my god.

Do you think there could be more than two universes involved? That would just be...I can't really talk about this show coherently. It's blown my mind.

Sanctuary

Pax Romana
A messy episode in which a lot happened, wrapping all the stray plots, not making tons of sense, or being very satisfactory.
Everything was very epic. Political manipulations and potentialy world ending stakes, taking place in grand CG vistas.
Epic, but not very good. Not coherent, or moving, or funny. It was an episode that got a lot done, but without much style.

Hangover
Was the complete oposite. Magnus returns to the Sanctuary from a conference and finds the place trashed. It's a clear cut mystery, a monster of the week that gets discovered and resolved neatly.

I like the idea of Sanctuary reaching for more grandiose story lines, but not if they don't sucseed. It can be a very good show on a smaller scale. I appreciated the risk, but was happy to see the world reigned back in, concentrating on the simpler things that made me a fan in the first place.