![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Jul. 18th, 2017 12:56 amFinally got through season 1 of The Sopranos after trying for a literal decade. The finale was a mostly good episode. The others were not. That was also my opinion of Deadwood's first season, but this was much tougher going.
Though even in the good episode the psychiatrist got BPD criminally wrong - "splitting" does not mean the act of driving wedges between other people, for one thing. She said a lot of silly things across the season, in fact, though for all I know some of those reflected late '90s c.w.
I was always bemused by Six Feet Under's (the first season of which I genuinely did like, though just the first - guess it had the opposite problem?) obvious reliance on the writers' memories of Psych 101. Clearly they were told by HBO to emulate this show, or were doing that anyway since it was their one model in the new R-rated cable drama genre.
Except for Oz, I guess. Wonder if the prison psychiatrist was an important character in that one? My old roommate's semi-criminal friends were into that show, but I never stuck around when it was on. There was an episode summary on the TV listings that read something like, "Frederick calls his wife. Jones rapes Sam. The warden introduces a new policy." And I was like, yeah, never ever watching that.
Might have anyway if I thought it would have been any good. But my assumption was that it would be what the first dozen episodes of Deadwood and The Sopranos were: just another dumb TV show, but with sex and violence clumsily amped up. What Game of Thrones largely still is. At least half of Twin Peaks' running time was just terrible, but there's a reason it's worshipped. Same reason The Sopranos is, or anyway that's why I long assumed The Sopranos is: because at its best it was a sign to viewers long resigned to awfulness that something non-awful was possible in the medium at all. But if it proves to be like Deadwood, which while it never broke wholly free of traditional tv awfulness did manage to gradually work in enough good stuff - dialogue, actual characters, a vision - that you forgave it ...
Then it will be worth continuing.
Though even in the good episode the psychiatrist got BPD criminally wrong - "splitting" does not mean the act of driving wedges between other people, for one thing. She said a lot of silly things across the season, in fact, though for all I know some of those reflected late '90s c.w.
I was always bemused by Six Feet Under's (the first season of which I genuinely did like, though just the first - guess it had the opposite problem?) obvious reliance on the writers' memories of Psych 101. Clearly they were told by HBO to emulate this show, or were doing that anyway since it was their one model in the new R-rated cable drama genre.
Except for Oz, I guess. Wonder if the prison psychiatrist was an important character in that one? My old roommate's semi-criminal friends were into that show, but I never stuck around when it was on. There was an episode summary on the TV listings that read something like, "Frederick calls his wife. Jones rapes Sam. The warden introduces a new policy." And I was like, yeah, never ever watching that.
Might have anyway if I thought it would have been any good. But my assumption was that it would be what the first dozen episodes of Deadwood and The Sopranos were: just another dumb TV show, but with sex and violence clumsily amped up. What Game of Thrones largely still is. At least half of Twin Peaks' running time was just terrible, but there's a reason it's worshipped. Same reason The Sopranos is, or anyway that's why I long assumed The Sopranos is: because at its best it was a sign to viewers long resigned to awfulness that something non-awful was possible in the medium at all. But if it proves to be like Deadwood, which while it never broke wholly free of traditional tv awfulness did manage to gradually work in enough good stuff - dialogue, actual characters, a vision - that you forgave it ...
Then it will be worth continuing.
