Neil Gaiman’s American Gods is on my “marooned on a desert island” list and is, I think, one of the best novels ever written about America. So I was very excited too see the first season of Starz’ series, with Ricky Whittle, Ian McShane, and Emily Browning.
And I was disappointed. I’m not sure why.
There’s so much to like: Ian McShane’s Mr. Wednesday is nothing as I imagined him, but he’s perfect. Pablo Schreiber absolutely nails Mad Sweeney. And Laura’s expanded story is a great addition, as is Vulcan. Eostre’s Easter party, with the variety of Jesuses, was funny.
But it just never grabbed me.
I suspect it’s fundamentally down to the cinematography; the – for lack of a better description – sepia-toned and neon-saturated tones for some reason fatigue me. And I have some real disagreements with Bryan Fuller and Michael Green’s interpretations of some of the characters, namely Ibis and Jaquel, and Mister Nancy. The novel is about a war between the old gods and the new; shouldn’t the old gods be, y’know, old? Orlando Jones plays Mister Nancy as an angry young black man, which is fine; except that book!Mister Nancy is an elderly trickster, with a keen sense of humor and irony. Not Donald Glover-in-” This is America”.
So, yeah. Second season is out, but I haven’t bothered to watch it yet.
Yes, true. Had the same feeling. I have finished the series but watched the final season only from a sense of duty, didn’t really care about anything what happened and the jokes didn’t resonate. I’m not sure what happened: did the writers lose their touch or have we changed in what we find funny?
Law And Order SVU - I was a big fan of L&O at the time, and it felt like a variant on a thing that I like at first. But after maybe three episodes, I realized it didn’t have the stuff that kept my interest in L&O - the crime setups were more showy than interesting, there wasn’t really a courtroom part, and the issues L&O always ran into like evidence getting thrown out and unreliable witnesses either didn’t happen or were too unrealistic.
Pawn Stars - I liked it at the beginning when it seemed like they were taking interesting things that had turned up at the pawn shop and making a show about them and having a bit of interpersonal conflict. But after a season or two, they started doing lots of contrived drama, aspiring actor customers, and obviously made-up trades, which dropped my interest to zero. It did take a while, but was a dramatic drop from ‘like this’ to ‘don’t bother’.
Sometimes the timing has to do with the author - David Weber got big enough that it appears he doesn’t get edited anymore, and I don’t like the books after that point. I was following two of his serieses, for the Honorverse series this hit around book 9 IIRC, but for the Bazhell Bahnakson series it was a sharp turn from really liking the first two books to eyerolling at the third.
The TV series, “War of the Worlds”. After 3 episodes, I felt it was going absolutely nowhere. They just ran from those machines, that closely resembled mechanical dogs, from one place to another. I just stopped watching it after 4 or 5 episodes. Oh, it was also very cheaply made. It must be a very low budget production.
Agent X, a short-lived spy drama on TNT. From the previews it looked like a slightly campy, lightweight action adventure series about a secret agent who for some reason reports directly to the Vice President. I like those kinds of shows, so I watched the pilot.
The spy thriller/action/adventure stuff wasn’t anything particularly creative or memorable, and obviously filmed on a basic cable budget, but it was fine for what it was, and was reasonably fun and engaging. I liked it, and thought while it wouldn’t be appointment viewing, I’d probably watch the rest of the season.
Then came the exposition about the basic premise of the show. In the show, the VP has the power to appoint a secret agent who is not answerable to the President (!), Congress (!!), or the Courts(!!!), only to the VP; the very existence of this agent and the VP’s role is a secret that is concealed from both the general public and every other member of the U.S. government (!!!); and this power comes from a secret clause(!!!) of the U.S. Constitution.
I just…I just couldn’t wrap my brain around that set-up. I watch a lot of “high concept” movies and TV shows, and I can suspend disbelief with the best of them. I’ll accept just about any premise as a set up for fun action sequences, but…I just couldn’t. I struggled through the rest of the pilot, dumb founded and befuddled, and never watched the show again.
I forgot about abandoning Gotham, yeah it had great promise but it moved so slowly and most every character was unlikable except Gordon’s partner IIRC. Although the look of the show was good, the Christopher Nolan Batman movies were so much better.
I recall watching 2 more shows from that era, Grimm and Sleepy Hollow. Both started out strong. IIRC I stuck with Grimm for several seasons. Sleepy Hollow I think I abandoned in the first season. The storylines in both started dragging and it seemed like they had no direction, I just didn’t care any more.
Surprised that no one has mentioned Deadliest Catch. It started out as a very interesting look into a changing, but still horribly dangerous, industry; the show followed some very interesting skippers and crews. The death of Phil Harris really took something out of the show; also, around that time, the focus was starting to change from the struggles and dangers of crab fishing to interpersonal conflict. This culminated with the introduction of a new skipper (Eliot somebody), an absolute turd who complained nonstop about how horrible women are and how lazy his crew was. I gave up on the show after seeing one episode that consisted largely of the camera crew following Eliot around while he harassed an ex.
Just a quick note that when I’m stressed and overwhelmed, I just need something brainless, and “just more of the same” is perfect.
I often listen to a Janet Evanovich book in between serious books “just to clear my palate”. Or flip on Whose Line or Joel McHale or the Great British Baking Show (Oh, no, someone got too ambitious and their Obscure Welsh Pastry is going to fall apart. And then Paul will raise an eyebrow and they’ll try to keep from crying…)
Same ol’ same ol’… I’ll admit it angers me when I’m invested in a show that I’m expecting a lot from, but for mindless recuperation, it’s a plus.
I’d be rich if I had a nickel for every time I’ve had Seinfeld, Corner Gas, Frasier, Married … with Children, and other shows on in the background while I’m working. I wouldn’t be able to get through a day (or night) without them. The quality of mindless entertainment does vary a lot, though.
Oh, yeah, this. Many years ago, I was really sick one Saturday and came across a marathon of the first couple seasons. It sucked me right in - the derby style fishing, the fast paced, no sleep constant danger, the heart-stopping minutes when a crew member fell overboard and almost died. It was riveting stuff. So I became a regular viewer. I, too, stopped watching after Phil died, although the show was never as engaging after the quota system was put in place and interpersonal drama took over.
Thanks for suggesting I stick with it. Though a bit predictable at times, overall, it was a good story. Shame they decided to tie up all the loose ends so neatly in the last episode. I mean, I see how a third season would have been easy to do, but I might just prefer it ending the way it did.
Not everything was tied up at the end of the second season of Counterpart. One plot element could easily have led to something interesting in a third season.
Same here. I loved the first season, and I’ve liked Ellie Kemper since The Office. But I only got to the next-to-the last episode of the second season. I hated all the other characters, and it otherwise just got too silly. Also it rarely actually played on its premise of Ellie being ignorant of culture for the past 15 years. Too often she was just naive.
Unfortunately, I’m too anal to stop watching many series. I’m still hate-watching The Walking Dead, Vikings, and The Umbrella Academy long after I should have stopped.
I loved the first season of Westworld. The second season was good but so frikken convoluted I still haven’t figured out the details of what was going on (but don’t care enough to re-watch it to work it out). The third season is OK, but the Old West setting was really what made the show unique. Now that they’re in the “real world,” it’s just another super-powered robots against the world story, and far less interesting to me.
I was eager to watch Difficult People on Hulu. The cast list was impressive, and I liked Julie Klausner in her talk-show appearances. The first episode started out well, with good energy and nice chemistry between the two leads.
Oh, boy. A half hour later, I wanted to forget that show existed. It’s about a couple of grinning sociopaths who make the Seinfeld characters look like sweethearts. Ordinarily I have no problems watching TV shows about bad people (such as Breaking Bad and The Wire) but the utter lack of empathy on display in Difficult People was too much for me.
I’m going to go against the grain a bit and give a show that I quit watching because it was too good: Shetland. This BBC show set in seaside Scotland has wonderful, if sometimes depressing, cinematography. The casting is great, and the stories are gripping. I love it.
But it’s bad for me. They’re too good at getting into your head. Series 3 had an arc where a female detective was raped. It was the very opposite of “graphic”; absolutely nothing was shown. But you develop a feeling for the characters, and it really affects you. One night I had a dream that my wife had been raped, and refused to discuss it with me, pretty much like in the show.
It was then I realized I probably should pull away from this too-well-done show.
Yep, I really only liked the Old West setting- but some of the other fantasy setting were Ok, also. They went too damn fast to robots take over the earth.
