this is mostly about prison break
Aug. 23rd, 2011 01:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
carmen_ljI think it's very unfair of telly shows to put Nana Visitor in things when I decided to stop watching them. That is cheating. Bad form, Torchwood, BAD FORM. (Here is a lovely picture of her being adorable with Terry Farrell.)
This week I finally finished Prison Break, several years after I stopped watching about six episodes from the end of the show. I blame this vid. It is Micheal/Mahone and is pretty much the vidly embodiment of my favourite thing about the show. Sadly, as soon as I started watching from where I quit it, I remembered exactly why I quit. WHAT HAPPENED TO THIS SHOW? It's like after 4.12 the writers were overcome by a bunch of vaguely sentient bananas, the bananas locked them in a cupboard and wrote the rest of the show. Then the writers made a heroic escape but there were only five minutes left to write and those five minutes had to be AMAZING to make up for a half season of wtf is this shit? Which is great, and I'm very glad the actual end is smashing. Sadly the ten episodes beforehand are the most sudden and disappointing deterioration of a show's quality I can think of right now.
There's so much wrong I don't know where to start. Lincoln is just awful. The whole point of the show is Micheal saving him from being executed for a murder he didn't commit and what's he doing in the second half of season four? CHEERFULLY GUNNING DOWN THE CANNON FODDER. Oh, the guns. I know the US has RATHER A LOT OF THEM but Prison Break always made them scary before, made them dangerous and have consequences. But here it suddenly decides that what would be REALLY AWESOME is ENDLESS GUN BATTLES OF TEDIUM where no-one important ever gets hurt and our heroes can have many a shoot-out in broad daylight in the middle of Miami, surrounded by The Public and there are NO CONSEQUENCES. Then there's all the convenient Nick Of Time arrivals; the lobotomy suffered by the bad guys complete with half-assed, barely thought out plans that change for no particular reason; the endless swapping around of Scylla; their ridiculous opinion of the Indian Prime Minister, and worst of all the fact that Christina Schofield being alive should have been this AMAZING THING and it turns out she's a CARTOON CHARACTER. (Which is extra bloody annoying both because Prison Break has managed a lot of awesome, really scary villains - Gretchen and Wyatt esp - and it's so very not a show about women, but the women they have, even for the bit parts, I almost always found really well-written and Christina is just rubbish and painfullly uninteresting.)
And to top it all off, y'know how RTD has a habit of half-assed deux ex machina finales? IT IS NOTHING TO WHAT HAPPENS IN PB. NOTHING. I cannot BELIEVE THEY DID THAT. Just right out of the blue, no foreshadowing, no real explanation of how this magical solution would work. It was just THERE and it was terrible.
Thank goodness for the last five minutes. They were amazing. And then there was The Final Break, which partly made me bitter it wasn't a whole season, cause there was clearly too much plot for an hour and a half. But other than that it was just lovely. And like a proper pay-off for four seasons of watching these dudes, cause everyone was basically in love with everyone else and they were A TEAM who had managed to resolve their slight trust issues. And Team!Gretchen&Sarah made me very happy. OH FOR A SEASON OF THAT. And the way they were like "yeah, we shall just do another prison break" so casually as though it were NOTHING for they had had MUCH PRACTICE and the FBI dude was all "TOTALLY ON TO YOU" and Micheal was "WHATEVS I KNOW NOT OF WHAT YOU SPEAK."
So, not very well done Prison Break, not very well done at all. But at least it managed to finish well.
Apparently Doctor Who is back on on Saturday, hurrah! That didn't seem like a terribly long time away at all. This made me flail a bit, for it is lovely (Matt and Karen and Arthur behind-the-scenes, no spoilers):
This week I finally finished Prison Break, several years after I stopped watching about six episodes from the end of the show. I blame this vid. It is Micheal/Mahone and is pretty much the vidly embodiment of my favourite thing about the show. Sadly, as soon as I started watching from where I quit it, I remembered exactly why I quit. WHAT HAPPENED TO THIS SHOW? It's like after 4.12 the writers were overcome by a bunch of vaguely sentient bananas, the bananas locked them in a cupboard and wrote the rest of the show. Then the writers made a heroic escape but there were only five minutes left to write and those five minutes had to be AMAZING to make up for a half season of wtf is this shit? Which is great, and I'm very glad the actual end is smashing. Sadly the ten episodes beforehand are the most sudden and disappointing deterioration of a show's quality I can think of right now.
There's so much wrong I don't know where to start. Lincoln is just awful. The whole point of the show is Micheal saving him from being executed for a murder he didn't commit and what's he doing in the second half of season four? CHEERFULLY GUNNING DOWN THE CANNON FODDER. Oh, the guns. I know the US has RATHER A LOT OF THEM but Prison Break always made them scary before, made them dangerous and have consequences. But here it suddenly decides that what would be REALLY AWESOME is ENDLESS GUN BATTLES OF TEDIUM where no-one important ever gets hurt and our heroes can have many a shoot-out in broad daylight in the middle of Miami, surrounded by The Public and there are NO CONSEQUENCES. Then there's all the convenient Nick Of Time arrivals; the lobotomy suffered by the bad guys complete with half-assed, barely thought out plans that change for no particular reason; the endless swapping around of Scylla; their ridiculous opinion of the Indian Prime Minister, and worst of all the fact that Christina Schofield being alive should have been this AMAZING THING and it turns out she's a CARTOON CHARACTER. (Which is extra bloody annoying both because Prison Break has managed a lot of awesome, really scary villains - Gretchen and Wyatt esp - and it's so very not a show about women, but the women they have, even for the bit parts, I almost always found really well-written and Christina is just rubbish and painfullly uninteresting.)
And to top it all off, y'know how RTD has a habit of half-assed deux ex machina finales? IT IS NOTHING TO WHAT HAPPENS IN PB. NOTHING. I cannot BELIEVE THEY DID THAT. Just right out of the blue, no foreshadowing, no real explanation of how this magical solution would work. It was just THERE and it was terrible.
Thank goodness for the last five minutes. They were amazing. And then there was The Final Break, which partly made me bitter it wasn't a whole season, cause there was clearly too much plot for an hour and a half. But other than that it was just lovely. And like a proper pay-off for four seasons of watching these dudes, cause everyone was basically in love with everyone else and they were A TEAM who had managed to resolve their slight trust issues. And Team!Gretchen&Sarah made me very happy. OH FOR A SEASON OF THAT. And the way they were like "yeah, we shall just do another prison break" so casually as though it were NOTHING for they had had MUCH PRACTICE and the FBI dude was all "TOTALLY ON TO YOU" and Micheal was "WHATEVS I KNOW NOT OF WHAT YOU SPEAK."
So, not very well done Prison Break, not very well done at all. But at least it managed to finish well.
Apparently Doctor Who is back on on Saturday, hurrah! That didn't seem like a terribly long time away at all. This made me flail a bit, for it is lovely (Matt and Karen and Arthur behind-the-scenes, no spoilers):
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-08-23 01:36 am (UTC)I've been a little uncomfortable about Nana Visitor since reading an Alexander Siddig interview where he said that she changed their kid's last name after 9/11 so he wouldn't sound Muslim. (This factoid may or may not be strictly accurate, depending on the truthfulness of a) the journalist, and b) the woman's ex-husband.)
no subject
Date: 2011-08-23 02:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-23 04:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-23 10:31 pm (UTC)But I can't find it right now, and anyway I like yours better.
*has had crush on JW since I saw WARGAMES at the age of 13*
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Date: 2011-08-23 02:28 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2011-08-23 02:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-23 02:34 am (UTC)& yes, I almost didn't know Who was back until twitter informed me sometime this weekend. So now I get all the fun of waiting without any of the long wait!
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Date: 2011-08-23 03:14 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2011-08-23 04:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-23 06:53 am (UTC)I did exactly the same thing with Prison Break - gave up in season 4 about the time that Gretchen was shot. It was like they'd set up the most wonderful of premises and then decided to kill it with boredom. :/ I have the dvd's, but now that I know the last thingie is at least good, I shall have to revisit!
Also spoiler for next week of Torchwood is exciting! Damn.
OMG those three are gorgeous. ♥
:)
Jaydeyn
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Date: 2011-08-23 12:07 pm (UTC)That icon makes me v happy.
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Date: 2011-08-23 11:42 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2011-09-02 05:02 pm (UTC)