ironymaiden (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ironymaiden) wrote2018-01-08 03:20 pm
ironymaiden) wrote2018-01-08 03:20 pm
Entry tags:
Monday media loves Welshmen
what are you currently consuming?
hiatus is over! new The Good Place, new Agents of SHIELD, new Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. all three continue to hit it out of the park this season, with unpredictable plots and great character writing.
still slowly watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine as a (mostly) reliable palate cleanser.* yesterday we watched the first episode of Constantine and will probably watch more.
what did you recently finish?
Forever. there was only one season, but there's not a dud episode in the bunch and it ends in a pretty satisfying place. it's kind of Bones meets Forever Knight or Highlander, where our immortal protagonist Henry works as a Medical Examiner. one of the nice touches is that Henry lives with his son Abe, who is an ordinary human who has aged to look significantly older than Henry. Ioan Gruffudd and Judd Hirsch have done lovely work on their domestic moments and a vocabulary of shared gestures that gives a weight of years to the relationship. there's a season-long meta-plot involving another immortal who appears to be stalking Henry, and the gradual reveal of how various incidents in Henry's past life relate to the present (hella flashbacks, but i like them. flashbacks are one of the reasons i don't watch Arrow).
every episode has a crime drama "here's the body" cold open, and every episode ends with something life-affirming. there's definitely a formula to it, but if you find the familiar structural rhythm of, say, early seasons of Leverage to be soothing and you like a police procedural, then it's pretty great.
comment if you watched it, i'd love to talk about it more.
what will you consume next?
C is pretty interested in Constantine, so i think we'll continue, although maybe not too quickly since there's no way it's the last thing i watch before bed. one of the things that sold me is that the closing shot of the first episode shows someone furiously drawing what i assume are supposed to be prophetic images, and they include several recognizable Hellblazer covers.
*after Constantine, we felt a little traumatized by demons and cockroaches, and then tried some Nine-Nine, only to get the episode where Terry is racially profiled (it was very good, just differently upsetting when what i wanted was to wind down before bed).
hiatus is over! new The Good Place, new Agents of SHIELD, new Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. all three continue to hit it out of the park this season, with unpredictable plots and great character writing.
still slowly watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine as a (mostly) reliable palate cleanser.* yesterday we watched the first episode of Constantine and will probably watch more.
what did you recently finish?
Forever. there was only one season, but there's not a dud episode in the bunch and it ends in a pretty satisfying place. it's kind of Bones meets Forever Knight or Highlander, where our immortal protagonist Henry works as a Medical Examiner. one of the nice touches is that Henry lives with his son Abe, who is an ordinary human who has aged to look significantly older than Henry. Ioan Gruffudd and Judd Hirsch have done lovely work on their domestic moments and a vocabulary of shared gestures that gives a weight of years to the relationship. there's a season-long meta-plot involving another immortal who appears to be stalking Henry, and the gradual reveal of how various incidents in Henry's past life relate to the present (hella flashbacks, but i like them. flashbacks are one of the reasons i don't watch Arrow).
every episode has a crime drama "here's the body" cold open, and every episode ends with something life-affirming. there's definitely a formula to it, but if you find the familiar structural rhythm of, say, early seasons of Leverage to be soothing and you like a police procedural, then it's pretty great.
comment if you watched it, i'd love to talk about it more.
what will you consume next?
C is pretty interested in Constantine, so i think we'll continue, although maybe not too quickly since there's no way it's the last thing i watch before bed. one of the things that sold me is that the closing shot of the first episode shows someone furiously drawing what i assume are supposed to be prophetic images, and they include several recognizable Hellblazer covers.
*after Constantine, we felt a little traumatized by demons and cockroaches, and then tried some Nine-Nine, only to get the episode where Terry is racially profiled (it was very good, just differently upsetting when what i wanted was to wind down before bed).
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I agree about it being life-affirming, and there's something fundamentally hopeful about it, even when they're dealing with difficult things. I haven't rewatched it since just after it finished, and clearly I should do that again!
I also found the flashbacks worked pretty well for me, especially in the sense of unfolding character backstory in a way that was more - patient?- than you often see. (Actually, much the same way Leverage does, if a bit less sparingly.)
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Checking on imdb today, it looks like they only used one actress for Abigail? The age makeup was great.
The more I think about it, the more I appreciate having not one, but two characters who had lost a spouse. And Abe seeing himself as Henry's caretaker in the same way he would if Henry was physically infirm. And Jo and Mike's work wife relationship!
I remember that it was on after something I was making an effort to watch live - Agent Carter maybe? now it's on CW Seed.
So...why do you think Abe doesn't want Henry to drive? It was one of the few things mentioned that didn't get explored. (He clearly has been into cars, but he hasn't driven for ~30 years...)
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(On the other hand, he does that kind of thing so well, so I can't blame them casting him for it..)
I agree, on really liking the range of relationships, and exploring a lot that are not standard fare on TV.
As to the driving, apparently my brain assumed that Henry learned to drive in the UK, and that driving on the wrong side of the road in New York City was just not a thing with which Abe would agree. (Alternately, that he was able to get other documentation sorted somehow, but not sufficient unto a driver's license and insurance?)
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