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[017] ...and none shall survive!
Since I'm completely incapable of anything else at the moment, some random thoughts about just a few of the television shows that I watched for the first time last year, shouldn't be too spoilery:
Adventure Time with Finn and Jake - Seasons 1-2 - This is probably going to seem like a really odd comparison, but I liked it in the same way that I liked the book The Road. Post-apocalyptic settings asides, I enjoyed the heck out of it, but the whole time, I couldn't help but feel like I'd seen/read very similar-in-tone things many, many times before. Most of them not nearly so well done, true, but it was still enough to give it a certain 'been there, done that' feel for me. Whatever, it's still some funny shit.
Big Love - Season 5 - "Hey, lets see just how many plots we can get away with not resolving!" But seriously, I enjoyed it, and it ended in about the only possible way that it could, which proved to be far more satisfying than I ever would have guessed. Although it says something about the pacing that I literally did not realize I was watching the series finale until about halfway through Bill's last scene. Devastation ensued. This was the show that took over Six Feet Under's time slot when it ended, and I tried so hard to hate it for that reason, but it just was not meant to be. All the bittersweet feelings all up in the place.
Boardwalk Empire - Season 2 - Yeah, I never even tried to hate this one, even as the new Sunday night HBO showpiece. I don't even know what to say, it's just the best show currently on TV, hands down. They're not afraid to do anything and I can't wait for the next season after the insane game changer that was the season finale. Watch this show, you guys.
Community - Season 2 - After seeing fandom slowly implode in black holes of rage on Tumblr, I was expecting this show to lose some of the magic, but whatever, I loved it just as much as the first season, if not more. There was a few things that I wasn't crazy about, but all the awesome more than made up for them.
Dexter - Season 6 - LOL, what even. For the most part, I enjoyed it more than the last season, I will say that much. Both were kind of crappy, but this season had a sort of gong show insanity to it that made it a lot more entertaining to me. Then it went right off the fucking rails in the last few episodes and I can see absolutely no way that next season will be in any way redeemable after the shit they pulled. I'll certainly be there for it with bells on, though!
Game of Thrones - Season 1 - What's to say? It's good shit, I'm sure you all know that by now. It was an interesting experience for me, since I basically read the book in some insane race with the show in order to avoid spoilers, next season should be a whole new experience. Winter is coming~
Harper's Island - Entertaining! I think I'd have enjoyed it more had I not marathoned it, because there is a reason horror movies don't last 12 hours. After a while, it's just like "I am so tired of being on edge all the time, jesus." You just get WEARY. But I enjoyed it overall, for all its faults. That 'twist' ending, though. About as laughably terrible as Dexter's, really, they're lucky I was still too devastated over Cal and Chloe to care.
Hell on Wheels - Took a few episodes to find its footing, but so far, I'm really digging it. I only started watching it because it slotted neatly in to this one-hour gap in my Sunday night shows, and I couldn't be more pleased. It's a bunch of pretty people running around pretending they look gritty, sure, but that offers just as much to enjoy as it does to complain about. And Colm Meaney is a fucking BAMF.
Hill Street Blues - Seasons 1-2 - Soooooo good! So good, in fact, that I've pretty much just been saving the rest of the series to watch later for months now because I never want it to be over (especially since I hear it gets kind of crappy after season 4). The quintessential cop show, this shit changed the way TV shows were done, and even though storytelling like this is the norm now, the quality still shines through thirty years later. Also, one of very, very few ensemble shows out there where the main protagonist is one of my favourites, not to mention the main romance. Furillo and Joyce are so perfect, so many hearts in my eyes. It also overcame one big mental block of mine, that is shipping guys in a partner relationship (this also applies to dudes in the military together, I just don't get it and find the natural closeness of these relationships to be way more interesting than just shipping them, this is a real feat). Nobody, and I mean nobody, will ever convince me that Renko was not secretly in love with Bobby, I mean come on. I don't want to live in a world without more of this show to watch.
How I Met Your Mother - Season 5 - I remember almost nothing about this season. In fact, I was genuinely surprised to see this on my list for 2011, it feels like way more than a year ago that I watched it. That's probably not good. I certainly don't remember hating it, though?
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia - Season 6 - The switch to a format with a bit more continuity between episodes than the show had up until then was interesting, minor enough to not make things feel too different, and probably inevitable given how long the show's been going. Funny shit, I really need to get around to season 7 now.
The Middleman - Why did I wait so long to watch this? It's just delightful, all around. BRB, forever upset that Lacey and the Middleman couldn't get together outside of AUs.
Skins - Seasons 1-4 - One of those shows that I enjoyed so much more than I expected myself too. It was a lot more whimsical and tongue-in-cheek than I'd been expecting, at least in the first gen, and it worked really, really well. Generation two, on the other hand, I'm conflicted on. I liked season 3 quite a bit, but by the end of season 4, it didn't feel like I was watching a show about teens anymore, it felt like I was watching a bunch of jaded, burned-out 20-somethings pretending to be teens and it was just... depressing. And not in the way that is fun to watch. And that ending, yikes. SO fucking unsatisfying, but I can at least respect that they were trying to do something different with it. It didn't work, but it wouldn't have been a dealbreaker if the rest of the season was alright. Mostly, I was just glad it was over, as much as I loved some of the characters.
The Walking Dead - Season 2 - This list was originally all in alphabetical order, but I moved this one up a spot because I didn't want to end on a bad note. I fucking loved season 1 of this show even with its flaws, but this year it was just... not good. At all. Absolutely nothing fucking happened, the pacing was practically suicide inducing for absolutely no reason. Two episodes worth of plot stretched out over seven. And almost every single character became intensely unlikable (with the exceptions of Daryl, Maggie, and Patricia with her slim screentime) at some point or another, and the shit they got up to was just not interesting in the slightest, so I couldn't even enjoy it on that front. The point of The Walking Dead is that it's a character-driven drama set against a fucked-up backdrop, but when you take away the zombies, what do you have left of this show? One extremely mediocre drama, terribly written and haphazardly acted. Just a mess. And they took one of my absolute favourite comic book characters and turned her into the most annoying, bitchy, fucking moronic people I have ever had the displeasure of seeing on television, so, you know, that grates a little, too. By the time the break in the season came, it was just a relief.
St. Elsewhere - Seasons 1-4 - THIS SHOW, YOU GUYS. This shit is my jam, I fucking love it. It's basically Grey's Anatomy, only the hospital is a piece of crap, that's the best way I can think of to describe it. This show just give ZERO FUCKS. They do absolutely anything they want, have characters do complete 180s, all manner of storylines that would be edgy on network television today, let alone thirty years ago, killing people off at random, getting super meta, they just do want they want. It is the honey badger of hospital dramas, I love it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and that's okay, they never let it hold them back from continuing to do whatever going forward. It's fantastic. I can't wait until I can finagle a way to watch the last two seasons. Also, I finally get why Mark Harmon was such hot shit back in the day. He was really fucking hot shit, that is apparently all there was to it.
And now I'm going to go smash my head against the keyboard for a few hours until tags magically come out. Wish me luck~
ETA: In my efforts to start reading more (this post serves as a nice illustration of why I'm doing that, actually), I think I'm going to start actually using my Goodreads account so feel free to add me there if you're into that sort of thing.
Adventure Time with Finn and Jake - Seasons 1-2 - This is probably going to seem like a really odd comparison, but I liked it in the same way that I liked the book The Road. Post-apocalyptic settings asides, I enjoyed the heck out of it, but the whole time, I couldn't help but feel like I'd seen/read very similar-in-tone things many, many times before. Most of them not nearly so well done, true, but it was still enough to give it a certain 'been there, done that' feel for me. Whatever, it's still some funny shit.
Big Love - Season 5 - "Hey, lets see just how many plots we can get away with not resolving!" But seriously, I enjoyed it, and it ended in about the only possible way that it could, which proved to be far more satisfying than I ever would have guessed. Although it says something about the pacing that I literally did not realize I was watching the series finale until about halfway through Bill's last scene. Devastation ensued. This was the show that took over Six Feet Under's time slot when it ended, and I tried so hard to hate it for that reason, but it just was not meant to be. All the bittersweet feelings all up in the place.
Boardwalk Empire - Season 2 - Yeah, I never even tried to hate this one, even as the new Sunday night HBO showpiece. I don't even know what to say, it's just the best show currently on TV, hands down. They're not afraid to do anything and I can't wait for the next season after the insane game changer that was the season finale. Watch this show, you guys.
Community - Season 2 - After seeing fandom slowly implode in black holes of rage on Tumblr, I was expecting this show to lose some of the magic, but whatever, I loved it just as much as the first season, if not more. There was a few things that I wasn't crazy about, but all the awesome more than made up for them.
Dexter - Season 6 - LOL, what even. For the most part, I enjoyed it more than the last season, I will say that much. Both were kind of crappy, but this season had a sort of gong show insanity to it that made it a lot more entertaining to me. Then it went right off the fucking rails in the last few episodes and I can see absolutely no way that next season will be in any way redeemable after the shit they pulled. I'll certainly be there for it with bells on, though!
Game of Thrones - Season 1 - What's to say? It's good shit, I'm sure you all know that by now. It was an interesting experience for me, since I basically read the book in some insane race with the show in order to avoid spoilers, next season should be a whole new experience. Winter is coming~
Harper's Island - Entertaining! I think I'd have enjoyed it more had I not marathoned it, because there is a reason horror movies don't last 12 hours. After a while, it's just like "I am so tired of being on edge all the time, jesus." You just get WEARY. But I enjoyed it overall, for all its faults. That 'twist' ending, though. About as laughably terrible as Dexter's, really, they're lucky I was still too devastated over Cal and Chloe to care.
Hell on Wheels - Took a few episodes to find its footing, but so far, I'm really digging it. I only started watching it because it slotted neatly in to this one-hour gap in my Sunday night shows, and I couldn't be more pleased. It's a bunch of pretty people running around pretending they look gritty, sure, but that offers just as much to enjoy as it does to complain about. And Colm Meaney is a fucking BAMF.
Hill Street Blues - Seasons 1-2 - Soooooo good! So good, in fact, that I've pretty much just been saving the rest of the series to watch later for months now because I never want it to be over (especially since I hear it gets kind of crappy after season 4). The quintessential cop show, this shit changed the way TV shows were done, and even though storytelling like this is the norm now, the quality still shines through thirty years later. Also, one of very, very few ensemble shows out there where the main protagonist is one of my favourites, not to mention the main romance. Furillo and Joyce are so perfect, so many hearts in my eyes. It also overcame one big mental block of mine, that is shipping guys in a partner relationship (this also applies to dudes in the military together, I just don't get it and find the natural closeness of these relationships to be way more interesting than just shipping them, this is a real feat). Nobody, and I mean nobody, will ever convince me that Renko was not secretly in love with Bobby, I mean come on. I don't want to live in a world without more of this show to watch.
How I Met Your Mother - Season 5 - I remember almost nothing about this season. In fact, I was genuinely surprised to see this on my list for 2011, it feels like way more than a year ago that I watched it. That's probably not good. I certainly don't remember hating it, though?
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia - Season 6 - The switch to a format with a bit more continuity between episodes than the show had up until then was interesting, minor enough to not make things feel too different, and probably inevitable given how long the show's been going. Funny shit, I really need to get around to season 7 now.
The Middleman - Why did I wait so long to watch this? It's just delightful, all around. BRB, forever upset that Lacey and the Middleman couldn't get together outside of AUs.
Skins - Seasons 1-4 - One of those shows that I enjoyed so much more than I expected myself too. It was a lot more whimsical and tongue-in-cheek than I'd been expecting, at least in the first gen, and it worked really, really well. Generation two, on the other hand, I'm conflicted on. I liked season 3 quite a bit, but by the end of season 4, it didn't feel like I was watching a show about teens anymore, it felt like I was watching a bunch of jaded, burned-out 20-somethings pretending to be teens and it was just... depressing. And not in the way that is fun to watch. And that ending, yikes. SO fucking unsatisfying, but I can at least respect that they were trying to do something different with it. It didn't work, but it wouldn't have been a dealbreaker if the rest of the season was alright. Mostly, I was just glad it was over, as much as I loved some of the characters.
The Walking Dead - Season 2 - This list was originally all in alphabetical order, but I moved this one up a spot because I didn't want to end on a bad note. I fucking loved season 1 of this show even with its flaws, but this year it was just... not good. At all. Absolutely nothing fucking happened, the pacing was practically suicide inducing for absolutely no reason. Two episodes worth of plot stretched out over seven. And almost every single character became intensely unlikable (with the exceptions of Daryl, Maggie, and Patricia with her slim screentime) at some point or another, and the shit they got up to was just not interesting in the slightest, so I couldn't even enjoy it on that front. The point of The Walking Dead is that it's a character-driven drama set against a fucked-up backdrop, but when you take away the zombies, what do you have left of this show? One extremely mediocre drama, terribly written and haphazardly acted. Just a mess. And they took one of my absolute favourite comic book characters and turned her into the most annoying, bitchy, fucking moronic people I have ever had the displeasure of seeing on television, so, you know, that grates a little, too. By the time the break in the season came, it was just a relief.
St. Elsewhere - Seasons 1-4 - THIS SHOW, YOU GUYS. This shit is my jam, I fucking love it. It's basically Grey's Anatomy, only the hospital is a piece of crap, that's the best way I can think of to describe it. This show just give ZERO FUCKS. They do absolutely anything they want, have characters do complete 180s, all manner of storylines that would be edgy on network television today, let alone thirty years ago, killing people off at random, getting super meta, they just do want they want. It is the honey badger of hospital dramas, I love it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and that's okay, they never let it hold them back from continuing to do whatever going forward. It's fantastic. I can't wait until I can finagle a way to watch the last two seasons. Also, I finally get why Mark Harmon was such hot shit back in the day. He was really fucking hot shit, that is apparently all there was to it.
And now I'm going to go smash my head against the keyboard for a few hours until tags magically come out. Wish me luck~
ETA: In my efforts to start reading more (this post serves as a nice illustration of why I'm doing that, actually), I think I'm going to start actually using my Goodreads account so feel free to add me there if you're into that sort of thing.
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Who is this? Because I feel like it may be the same character that I'm so disappointed in. XD
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Here is some fanart I commissioned, that is how much I like her. >_>
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Aaaand! Any ideas for a good PB for her? I'm using Amber Heard for now, but she has no freckles. I can overlook that, but I'm just not sure. :D
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I saw Amber in the meme though, and she looked good in whatever that movie you took those icons from was! I never would have thought she'd work so well otherwise, freckles or no.
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Andrea is HARD to cast for some reason. No one seems quite right.
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