Shows I've watched recently

[salinea]

Heroic Legend of Arslan

This is an oldish anime OAV series, military historical fantasy in a setting inspired by Persia, with lots of bishounen (and a couple of bishoujo) and gorgeous backdrops and lovely direction. Very good overall except that it has no ending. See shimizu_hitomi's picspam for it (which is what made me want to watch it) and her project of translating the light novels it was adapted from.


Homeland S1

This is a spy drama about a marines coming back home after years of captivity in the middle-east, and the CIA analyst persuaded that he's been turned and is now preparing a terrorist plot. I had a very weird reaction to this one. I really loved the texture of it, the acting (it has Clare Danes and Morena Baccarin in it), the direction and cinematography, the jazz soundtrack, the overall paranoid atmosphere; and it has a few absolutely brilliant scenes along those lines (every scene of interrogation are marvelously well done for example) and it has a lot of very interesting subtleties. And it totally lost me in term of the long term storytelling and plotting, about which I found the story deeply unconvincing and kind of really annoying to the point that I don't want to watch the second season at all.


Sanctuary S1

Some time ago I asked for recs of engrossing TV shows, and st_aurafina suggested Sanctuary and even kindly provided a list of episodes to watch to get into without seeing less good episodes. I'm not entirely sure what I think of it. The pilote was mostly crap - as expected - and i wasn't crazy about the finale either; but otherwise the episodes were overall mostly good. The direction/writing especially shines in huis clot episodes, which they are able to do with a lot of tension; but on a long term level, the show hasn't really earned my trust that they are tell an interesting story. Character wise the biggest draw (and the biggest draw of the story overall) is Helen Magnus, the boss of Sanctuary, brilliant scientist and stonecold badass (who I have a hard time not to think of as the daughter of Charles & Erik >_>;) who will be the most awesome middle aged female character to grace your screen since Roslyn. Also she's kind of creepy pretty often - and I mean that as a compliment. The rest of the cast is not quite to part. Our mandatory white male protagonist who serves a PoV character and is Helen Magnus' protégée (yup, female mentor & male protégée. How often do you see that?) isn't too bad if a little bit bland, but sympathetic enough - he's pretty low key and analytical in a way I dig. There is also action girl and daughter of Helen Ashley, whom I took a weird instant dislike to (I think it's the hair. She has really terrible hair). And then there's a couple of guys who have not a lot of personality or at least charisma so far; Errr, there was a Black guy in the pilot who was killed in the next episode I watched which, asides from the race fail is sad because he was the only male character I found attractive. There's a handful of more charismatic recurring characters, who feel very League extraordinary gentlemen in a way that, at this point, I find more tiresome than anything but in themselves are pretty interesting characters besides the fact that they kind of feel like Helen's reverse harem from her Victorian shoujo manga days or something.

The big weak point of the show however is the lack of attention paid to worldbuilding. The premise is simple enough : there are weird creatures out there, and the Sanctuary's goal is to study them - and provide a haven for them, or a prison, depending on their threat level. The execution though is really not convincing so far. The Sanctuary is this ridiculously huge, gothic, baroque, building apparently in the middle of a big city (not sure which one) and yet nobody knows about it. And the lack of forethought for me is emphasized in the way in the first episode Helen primly corrects the PoV character (who had a name, I just don't remember it :p) when he says "monsters" by saying they prefer to call them "abnormals", as if "abnormal" isn't a term as a pejorative and othering if not more as "monster" is.

So I'm still not sure if I want to watch more or not. It's definitly not bad; but I have a hard time motivating myself. Does it get better?

Comments

[veleda_k]

I gave up on Sanctuary halfway through 2x01. It wasn't that that episode was spectacularly bad, but it didn't seem any better than season one either.

I really got tired of the fact that while lip service was paid to "abnormals" being equal to humans, both the characters and the plot were so condescending. Plus, supposedly brilliant characters acting really stupid.

[salinea]

yeah, Sanctuary just doesn't seem to be trying very hard with that. I can't figure out if they realise it's a flaw in their characters or if they think that's the right way to approach it (creeeeeeepy!)

[st_aurafina]

Oh, well, it's not for everyone. I watched right through to the end of S4 and loved it, but I am so desperately in love with Helen Magnus that perhaps my standards are low.

[salinea]

Oh, I certainly do think that Helen Magnus is absolutely awesome. However I'm not sure I can watch the show just for her sake. Do the world building/metaplot storytelling improve in further seasons?

[st_aurafina]

Do the world building/metaplot storytelling improve in further seasons?

Hard to say, I guess? I think it did? There are some great episodes with the Five, and they build up a global network of Sanctuaries, that's pretty interesting. But I think if the premise hasn't caught you enough to outweigh the flaws in the show in first season, you're probably not going to enjoy further seasons much either.

Helen Magnus, I'm pleased to say, remains super hot.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_profiterole_/]

Ayant beaucoup entendu parler de Sanctuary sur LJ, j'avais regardé la saison 1, mais sans jamais accrocher même si je connaissais les acteurs jouant Ashley et Henry par la série jPod. Pour la saison 2, Un ami m'a dit qu'il l'avait trouvée moins bien que la saison 1, donc je n'ai pas insisté.

[williamjm.livejournal.com]

I think I might agree with you on Homeland, although I haven't finished watching season 1 yet. I agree it's a very well constructed show and there's some great acting, from Danes and Lewis in particular, but I'm not finding the plot to be as compelling as it could be. The premise is fascinating, but it's often not living up to the potential of the premise and occasionally seemed to be on the verge of turning into "24" with higher production values.

I've never seen Sanctuary, it sounds interesting enough that I might give it a try sometime although I'm not sure I'll get my hopes up too much about it.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

ah zut. Autant pour ça alors.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

There's something about the dramatic turn that just made me roll my eyes in a very unpleasant way.


It's a decent enough show, I think. But it's far from a great show.

[aeka.livejournal.com]

I honestly cannot bring myself to turn on the telly much these days outside of Doctor Who, Ringer (which was alright), and Futurama which are the only shows that manage to hold my short attention span long enough to keep watching. I've heard of Homeland and Sanctuary, but for some reason the premise for both shows didn't sound interesting enough for me to actually give them a shot. Good to know my feelings weren't wrong on that.

The anime show you linked to though looks interesting, so I may try that one out. I miss seeing good anime.

[twhitesakura.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised you hadn't seen Arlsan yet. I watched it as a teenager and remember loving it lots. Too bad they never continued making more episodes. =(

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

those things come and go. No point in forcing oneself if you don't wish to watch TV series.

Yeah, neither of those shows are must-see.

It was pretty cool! Well, mostly pretty XD

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

well, back when it was released I didn't have access to watching anime all that easily and I haven't heard of it a lot so few occasions to make me want to watch it then.

Yeah, that is too bad :/

[queenofthorns.livejournal.com]

Your feelings re Homeland are the same as mine (except that I disliked Claire Danes!) One ridiculous implausibility piled upon another made it hard for me to overlook all the enormous plotholes and I really wish they'd the ahead and killed Brody! No season 2 for me for sure.

[beniowa79.livejournal.com]

Sanctuary doesn't really get any better. It's okay, if a bit cheesy. Ultimately, I got bored and stopped watching halfway through the third season.

Part of the problem was what you already pointed out: the worldbuilding. There isn't much of it so there's a ton of stand-alone episodes. Also, the world and morality was a bit too black and white for my taste. Both of these were true for Stargate SG-1 as well but the show managed to make it work, while it really didn't for Sanctuary. And it helped that Stargate never took itself too seriously.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was disliking Brody and rolling my eyes at him a whole lot by the end!

(I've loved Clare Danes since My So Called Life!)

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

thanks for the tip!

yeah, the show probably would have worked better with more humour.

[queenofthorns.livejournal.com]

I loved Claire Danes in "My So-Called Life" too, but I found her so mannered in "Homeland" (not to mention that I couldn't suspend my disbelief to the point where I could accept that someone lime Carrie could hold down a job at all, considering her chronic lateness, publicly insulting her boss etc., let alone pass the intensive vetting done by national security agencies which would have found out about her drinking and sexual adventures - huge no-no because of the potential for blackmail.) Ok, maybe it was less Claire Danes and more the bad writing for the show ;)

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

aah yes. Yes, I thought her character wasn't extremely convincing either :)