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What Ivy has been watching...
Mar. 2nd, 2007 11:29 am...because I know you're all interested.
I finally finished Andromeda. I've now seen every episode and never have to watch anything from the last three seasons again. The finale alone is one of the worst pieces of television ever created. I'd heard rumors about it. Since the show's premise is that Dylan Hunt (Kevin Sorbo) is trapped on the event horizon of a blackhole at a critical moment in history and emerges three hundred years later to find that civilization has fallen and the galaxy has been in chaos for the last three centuries, I'd heard that in the finale they'd hit the reset button: Dylan managed to go back and time and prevent the fall. This would have been bad enough. It would have erased the entire continuity of the show and made most of the characters never exist, though I expected some sort of montage where we saw how their lives would have been better, or something sappy like that. If the finale had done this, it would have been annoying, but it would have at least addressed the main themes of the show: Dylan's survivor's guilt and his desire to re-form the Commonwealth.
This is not what they did. ( Cut for length, not spoilers—it isn't possible to spoil something with no plot and anyway I hope that none of you ever watch season 5 of Andromeda. Ever. Don't say I didn't warn you. )
I also got up to season 5 of Xena. These I unfortunately own (they were cheap! I'm weak, I admit it). In the first episode of season 5, Xena and Gabrielle die by crucifixion. Yeah, you see where this is going. ( Xena does Milton, except without all the thought-provoking stuff )
Lately I've been watching ER season 6, my favorite season for the shallow reasons that it's in this season that Dr. Carter gets stabbed and addicted to drugs, and it's the first appearance of Luka Kovac, my favoritest doctor ever. But I tell ya, you watch a few episodes of this back to back, and the story-telling tricks become so obvious. They had maybe enough material for this show for one season. By the time you get to season 6 you just have to sit back and wonder—why can't any of these doctors get their shit together? Why is everything such a big production? God, I hope my doctors aren't all drama queens. It's always the same thing: the hectic surgery in the ER where the surgeon hesitates but makes the right decision. The long monologue about feelings with tears in the eyes. As soon as a patient shows up and a doctor says it's probably nothing you know they're probably going to die. Or kill themselves. Or kill one of the doctors. Can't these people handle anything?
I finally finished Andromeda. I've now seen every episode and never have to watch anything from the last three seasons again. The finale alone is one of the worst pieces of television ever created. I'd heard rumors about it. Since the show's premise is that Dylan Hunt (Kevin Sorbo) is trapped on the event horizon of a blackhole at a critical moment in history and emerges three hundred years later to find that civilization has fallen and the galaxy has been in chaos for the last three centuries, I'd heard that in the finale they'd hit the reset button: Dylan managed to go back and time and prevent the fall. This would have been bad enough. It would have erased the entire continuity of the show and made most of the characters never exist, though I expected some sort of montage where we saw how their lives would have been better, or something sappy like that. If the finale had done this, it would have been annoying, but it would have at least addressed the main themes of the show: Dylan's survivor's guilt and his desire to re-form the Commonwealth.
This is not what they did. ( Cut for length, not spoilers—it isn't possible to spoil something with no plot and anyway I hope that none of you ever watch season 5 of Andromeda. Ever. Don't say I didn't warn you. )
I also got up to season 5 of Xena. These I unfortunately own (they were cheap! I'm weak, I admit it). In the first episode of season 5, Xena and Gabrielle die by crucifixion. Yeah, you see where this is going. ( Xena does Milton, except without all the thought-provoking stuff )
Lately I've been watching ER season 6, my favorite season for the shallow reasons that it's in this season that Dr. Carter gets stabbed and addicted to drugs, and it's the first appearance of Luka Kovac, my favoritest doctor ever. But I tell ya, you watch a few episodes of this back to back, and the story-telling tricks become so obvious. They had maybe enough material for this show for one season. By the time you get to season 6 you just have to sit back and wonder—why can't any of these doctors get their shit together? Why is everything such a big production? God, I hope my doctors aren't all drama queens. It's always the same thing: the hectic surgery in the ER where the surgeon hesitates but makes the right decision. The long monologue about feelings with tears in the eyes. As soon as a patient shows up and a doctor says it's probably nothing you know they're probably going to die. Or kill themselves. Or kill one of the doctors. Can't these people handle anything?