![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
May. 16th, 2014 12:32 amRIP Deadwood. I guess I knew how it would turn out going in but it's still a startling cutoff, naive to the (presumably) sentimental of The Sopranos.
No idea if I'd recommend this show, what with its starting lousy and ending up assassinated. And being far from flawless in between - among other dubious aspects that implicit pun on swear-engine sent it down some odd roads. But it tried things. Its basic assumptions about people were interesting: every character's testy but in a slightly different way, everyone outside the wholesome lead cluster is fueled by self-loathing and self-sabotaged yearnings to connect, everyone's a little afraid and a little hopeful speaking to someone new to them. Made interactions endearingly awkwardly and vice versa. Approaching character from this root assumption that we all hate having one makes inertia an ever-present danger, though. And the inwardness-lacking ostensible leads are worse, at most points little more than ciphers - Olyphant, Hawkes and Gunn aren't served well here, to the point where you're surprised by their acting (even having been hired) elsewhere.
It's a show you're surprised to forgive as often as you do. Probably because it's doing the hardest thing, trying to show how individuals take advantage of lulls in the fearful historical ongoingness trapping us to angle off into moments of bemused fantasy or commentary. Which here in life is most of what we get - this is art respecting its origins, the bits of proto-art we never call that but all of us live on. Reminds me a bit of the best strain of the Buffy shows in how it's essentially after a sort of comedy enabled only in the interstices of high stakes drama. Handles the latter well too, at many points, but that's not what it's in love with. Maybe you most forgive it because it's a show in love with something. Few of them are.
No idea if I'd recommend this show, what with its starting lousy and ending up assassinated. And being far from flawless in between - among other dubious aspects that implicit pun on swear-engine sent it down some odd roads. But it tried things. Its basic assumptions about people were interesting: every character's testy but in a slightly different way, everyone outside the wholesome lead cluster is fueled by self-loathing and self-sabotaged yearnings to connect, everyone's a little afraid and a little hopeful speaking to someone new to them. Made interactions endearingly awkwardly and vice versa. Approaching character from this root assumption that we all hate having one makes inertia an ever-present danger, though. And the inwardness-lacking ostensible leads are worse, at most points little more than ciphers - Olyphant, Hawkes and Gunn aren't served well here, to the point where you're surprised by their acting (even having been hired) elsewhere.
It's a show you're surprised to forgive as often as you do. Probably because it's doing the hardest thing, trying to show how individuals take advantage of lulls in the fearful historical ongoingness trapping us to angle off into moments of bemused fantasy or commentary. Which here in life is most of what we get - this is art respecting its origins, the bits of proto-art we never call that but all of us live on. Reminds me a bit of the best strain of the Buffy shows in how it's essentially after a sort of comedy enabled only in the interstices of high stakes drama. Handles the latter well too, at many points, but that's not what it's in love with. Maybe you most forgive it because it's a show in love with something. Few of them are.
