Hello,
Yesterday I watched the Season 1 finale of the bizarrely entertaining "Orphan Black". I was hoping for a bit more but it was a decent finale. The thing I like about "Orphan Black" is that the story is different from so many things we see on TV. I love the quirky music and all the great characters. Even the characters we are suppose to hate, I usually at least understand them.
Tatiana Maslany also deserves some kind of award for playing all the clones so effectively, she even needed to play a new clone in the finale, Rachel Duncan. The clones have vastly different personalities. Maslany has literally played five very different characters. From a crazy religious fundamentalist, to a suburban house Mom, to a drifter, to a manipulative overseer and finally to a German clone.
I do have a few questions though. Did Helena really die, it seems in these kinds of shows that no one really ever dies. Where did Mrs. S and Kira go? Will Duncan always side with the Neolutionists or will she join with her clone sisters eventually? Is Delphine really on Cosima's side now? I would say no on that.
Following "Orphan Black" I watched the two part season 3 premiere of "The Killing". If you've heard my opinion on the first two seasons of "The Killing", then you probably are wondering why I watched any more. To be honest I decided to give the third season of "The Killing" a chance after reading an enthusiastic review of it at EW.com. I thought what the hell and I gave it a chance and I'm glad that I did. If the show continues this quality throughout the rest of the season, then it will be a very successful season.
Although I had read an enthusiastic review I still wasn't expecting much. The first two seasons of "The Killing" were brutal. The season 1 finale is the worst finale that I can remember ever. I give them props for trying something different, but they were different in all the wrong ways. The decision to continue the boring Rosie Larsen case to a second season was nonsensical. Season 1 was already stretched out by at least 3 episodes. With 13 episodes each, the first two seasons were already 3 episodes too long. I only watched the first two episodes of Season 2 and at that point I'd had enough of this show, or so I thought. I didn't watch the Season 2 finale, but when I heard the conclusion of the Larsen case I shook my head in disbelief. 26 stretched out episodes and Rosie had been killed unknowingly by her aunt? Really?
However Season 3 seems to have so much more going for it, although it's only been two episodes. First of all I still wanted to watch it. I mentioned above I stopped watching Season 2 of "The Killing" after the first two episodes. I've never had a problem with either Holder or Linden. Holder is hilarious and I like Linden's quiet intensity. She's a dogged pursuer of the truth. I look forward to her finding out why the Seward kid keeps on drawing pictures of the tree area where the 17 bodies were disposed of? Does he know something about the case? Did his Dad make him help him with the bodies. Did young Mr. Seward repressed these memories and they force themselves out in drawings? If it wasn't his Dad, does he know who the serial murderer is? If this wasn't a place he's been, did he see it in some kind of dream or vision? Do the drawings have any known meaning to him?
With all the questions above, I'm reminded how much I like shows that make me think. I hope that Veena Sud et. al have learned their lessons from the disastrous first two seasons. I don't care how AMC or Sud spins it, the first two seasons were awful. One lesson they seemed to have learned is less episodes. Season 3 having only 12 episodes seems to be the right way to go. That's probably still a bit too long, but who knows?
Writing papers for school is similar to producing TV shows, it's much easier to be able to cut the weak material rather than come up with brilliant new ideas. If a show only has 7 good episodes of material, then there should only be 7 episodes made. Of course I'm just talking the artistic aspect of it, corporate America is going to have their opinions about how well can they add a little filler to stretch those 7 episodes to as many as possible. As long as people still watch the show of course.
Also Peter Sarsgaard as serial killer Ray Seward is brilliant. He plays a serial killer with so much skill and charisma. His outside cover hides a very dark soul. Although James Purefoy is also brilliant as a serial killer in "The Following" that show almost seems to glorify serial killers. That's not a message I want sent to impressionable people. I prefer my fictional serial killers to have to deal with karma, whether coming from man or elsewhere.
While I liked the first two episodes of Season 3, there was something I couldn't quite put my finger on. I realized what it was this morning, season 3 is so much better because the Larsen family is long gone. Wow, what a boring family they were. They were a fictional family, the producers could have made so much more of an interesting family. Every time one of the Larsens appeared on screen I anticipated some really bad acting or fake drama. Especially when that person was Michelle Forbes, she's a terrible actress and the character she was forced to play was so dumb. Also I'm glad this season has dumped the whole mayoral campaign storyline and all the loathsome characters associated with it.
While season 3 has started out so much better, I still do have a couple of quibbles. Why does this show focus so much on homeless teenagers? Also this show definitely isn't a tourist brochure for Seattle. The weather in the show makes the whole area seem so dark and dreary. It doesn't help that the show itself has an extremely dark atmosphere. In fact this show is so dark I'd doubt that even vampires would want to live in the area.
Although I generally liked the first two episodes of Season 3 of "The Killing", one thing I hated was the 5 minutes of blocks of commercials. Thank goodness for the DVR. AMC please stop following Fox's greedy example of having as many commercials as possible.
themusicaddict
No comments:
Post a Comment