What I have been watching

[scripsi]

I’m currently re-watching Deadwood, inspired by the news that Ian McShane have been cast as Mr. Wednesday in American Gods. I really shouldn’t love Deadwood as much as I do. It’s rife with violence, often very explicit, which I don’t like watching. And it’s a Western which is a genre that has always bored me. But for some reasons I saw the first episode when it was first aired and got hooked. The cast is excellent and I love how most of the various characters have both bad and good sides. At first I thought it would be a black-and-white story with Ian McShane’s brutal brothel owner Swearengen as the baddie against Tim Olyphant’s “good” character Seth Bullock. But Swearengen has unexpected nicer sides, most notably in how he protects his handicapped maid Jewel and Bullock can be short-tempered and rather selfish. And though they initially dislike each other, they gradually build up a working relationship. I also love how people connect with each other in the show and how they adapt and change in regard to whom they are dealing with. Just as people do in real life. Most shows focus on a few characters, and of course there are some who gets more focus in Deadwood too, but over the course of the season you get to see people’s social contacts that work independently of other people’s. For example; Trixie, one of Sweaengen’s whore’s, have a rather complicated relation to him. But she also have a romance with Bullock’s partner Sol and strikes up a friendship with Mrs. Garrett and she is friends with Ellsworth too, and she works well with the camp’s doctor. She doesn’t like Bullock, though. Both Sol and Bullock are friends with a man called Utter and Utter in his turns is independently friends with Calamity Jane and Joanie Stubbs. Swearengen hasn’t friends, but he has minions, who all are their own characters with clearly different personalities and he has a fondness for a few people like Jewel, Trixie and the camp's newspaperman. And so on.

I’m no linguist, so I have no idea if there has been any effort to give the character’s speech patterns that is actually correct for the 1870’s, but they sure don't sound modern and I like that. I find it very likely that a well brought up lady, for example, would speak in very roundabout ways about more delicate matters. It’s not a show if profanity bothers you… And as the late 19th century isn’t my period of expertise when it comes to fashion history, I can watch without noticing all the flaws. I’m still miffed that the show was cancelled after three seasons. I read recently that they actually work on a TV-movie now, but seeing it’s ten years since the series ended, I wonder how that would work out.

I’ve also watched The Frankenstein Chronicles with Sean Bean. I had got into my head that it would be about the side plot in Frankenstein were a young woman is accused and hanged for the child murders the Creature commit, but it wasn’t. This story takes place in London in the 1830’s when a police officer (Sean Bean) finds the body of a child, only it isn’t one child but several, stitched together to form one. At this time surgeon could only dissect people who had been executed, which led to a black market in dead bodies, where dead people were stolen from their graves and sold to the hospitals. And even murkier, some went so far as murder for getting a fresh supply. This led to an act which also made unclaimed paupers available for dissection. There was a lot of opposition to this as man believed a person had to have his or hers whole body at the day of resurrection and this would condemn innocent people just because they were poor.

Well, back to the story. Children disappears in London and the hero starts to investigate, especially a young girl who disappeared on an errand. He finds her gown- on another girl, Flora. He also get to know a sister and brother who don’t want this new act to go through and he eventually finds and talks with Mary Shelley. The missing girl may have been murdered and sold to a hospital, or she has been taken by the person who stitch together children and tries to make the live. Or she may have been the victim to a sexual predator who preys on very young girls.

I really like the first five episodes. I liked the characters and the variou splats, but I tell you- don’t watch the sixth and last episode! By the end of episode five everthing has been solved apart from the exact fate of the missing girl. Yes, we get to know that it episode six, but we also get a whole slew of half-assed plot turns, mainly drawing on various horror clichés. It’s not good. It drags down the overall impression. It’s not even necessary. The mini-series would have been so much better if they had plotted a bit tighter and skipped the last episode.

The costumes were ok-ish. It was clear there was basically no costume budget because only Sean Bean got to change clothes as well as Flora, because of plot. Everyone else, including the very rich wears the same costumes throughout. The overall silhouette was good though, even if I got annoyed with the token love interests modern hair. But then the 1830’s had very weird hair and not something that appeals to modern people.

I’m still watching Lucifer because I really like Tom Ellis. He can switch from goofy charm to scary in a heartbeat and he’s very nice to look at too. The rest, well… I hate, hate, hate the therapist who he pays with sex. Stale and icky and not exciting just because the gender roles are switched. Also unnecessary. He is rich and can pay a therapist and the show can prove my other means that he is irresistible. As it is now she is extremely unethical as she is sleeping with a client. She is also discussing him with another therapist (well,actually angel, but she doesn’t know that). I can imagine you can need to discuss cases but I imagine you would not do it with someone you share a lobby with as it would be qute easy to figure out who it is. And you definitely don’t confide in someone you have just met. Yes, I know, we are talking angels here who can sway people, but it mostly feels like lazy writing to me.

Also, most people, like said therapist, are cardboard people who only exists to showcase Lucifer. You get no feeling of them as persons with actual lives, which makes them boring. This has been better in the two last episodes, though. The therapist has faded back and the cop and her cop-ex has started to feel more rounded. I actually feel that their relationship- separated but trying to be civil because they have a kid, feels very realistic. So I continue to watch and hope it will get better.

I watched the first episode of Doctor Thorne (hi Ian McShane) and enjoyed it. I have never read Trollope, so I have no idea of what will happen. Had it been Dickens I know the lovely and charming illegitimate girl would turn out to be legitimate after all and she would get all the money. The possibility is here, certainly, but I don’t know if Trollope goes for the happily ever after, or not. Lovely, lovely houses and parks, not so lovely costumes. The silhouette is good and the hair, though simplified, but no one of the ladies wore corsets and their bodies were appallingly fitted. I get distracted by things like that. As it has been heralded as “A new Downton Abbey” I had hoped they would have the same costume budget, but sadly that’s not the case. I think they have picked most stuff from the BBC’s wardrobes.

Comments

[scripsi.livejournal.com]

I think it's worth a re-watch. I always get something a little better for every time I do.

He had great wings, I agree with that! :D