So I watched Dead Like Me over the course of the last week. And now it's over, and I'm feeling, well, dead inside, I guess. The last episode left me feeling really incomplete - there was no crazy cliffhanger that left me screaming, no wrapped up neat ending, just this slow fade to gray that I guess was really appropriate for the show (life goes on... and so does death... forever and ever) but had me feeling really unsatisfied.
Then I read in the Hulu comments there was a movie. So I thought "Great! I'll watch that! And that'll probably wrap up all the plot threads and leave me feeling all resolved!"
Turns out, no. Oh, all kinds of stuff gets resolved. But the script reads like it was put together by terrible fanfiction writers, with all kinds of ideas that sound cool in theory, and might have even been cool if they were executed correctly, but instead were so painful to watch I found myself skipping through large chunks of it.
What made the show so good was all the little interactions that made the characters feel believable. Honestly, I actually think the show had some major flaws, but the character development is among the best I've seen. And in the movie all of that is stripped away - all of the dialogue is there either to establish the blunt archetypes that the characters are supposed to represent or move the plot forward, with no time for them to do or say anything that make them feel human.
Bleh, this has me rethinking whether I really want them to make a Terminator DVD movie to resolve the gaping plot holes there.
posted
I liked the show just fine, flaming toilet seat and all. My only real beef with the show is the excessive narration. Lately a lot of shows seem to flood themselves with pseudo-philosophical-sounding-but-really-pretty-obvious voice overs to try and add depth. (Heroes and Sarah Connor are the biggest offenders, Scrubs sorta also is but gets away with it because it doesn't take itself seriously). Most of the episodes felt like they were padded out to the full 45 minutes with unnecessary George Monologues.
SPOILER
That said, the last episode (not the movie) was disappointing to me because two major story arcs just fizzled into nothing (one of them literally). It had felt like the show was building towards George and her mother working together or at least encountering each other again. I also was disappointed that the whole super-interesting "OMG they created a Graveling that's stalking them!" storyline ended with "Oh, I guess you can just reap them whenever they get in your way and it's not a big deal." I was hoping we'd get a sense of the repercussions of that.
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As it happens I'm in the middle of season 2 now, got the set for my birthday. So far I'm liking it almost despite itself. But I really wonder what it would have been like if it had gone the direction creator Bryan Fuller wanted to take it -- whatever that was -- before he left.
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In the defense of heroes, narration is only at the begginings and endings, and is pretty short winded. Its only there as a dramatic tie in of all the differant story-lines going at one time. Whats really annoying is the "BOOHH" in NCIS, I know its a visual forshadowing of the the next act... its really the fact that I know the sound is coming and it becomes repetitive.
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The narration in Heroes isn't nearly as excessive as in Dead Like Me, but it's still pretty pointless most of the time, not adding anything to the plot that wasn't already there. I'm also really frustrated by Mohinder's attempts to tie in evolution with fate and destiny, which are sort of... the opposite.
The only thing I know that Bryan Fuller was intending to do was have the father be gay (I didn't know Bryan Fuller was gay until today), and he was particularly pissed at how the studio changed that when he left, but interviews also seem to suggest that was a sort of "straw that broke the camel's back" thing - the studio was constantly forcing him to change things to the point that he couldn't stand it. I'm not sure the 5 episodes where he WAS involved even were what he wanted them to be.
That said, I think the show went on to be quite good without Fuller. Amazing characterization. (I also thought it was interesting to watch the in the wake of that crazy feminist Firefly essay... nearly all the characters are women and none of them feel stereotypical to me).
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: (I also thought it was interesting to watch the in the wake of that crazy feminist Firefly essay... nearly all the characters are women and none of them feel stereotypical to me).
George is treated like a child, even to the point of being called "Peanut" by the alpha male and likes it. Roxy, the tough black chick is there at the whim of Rube, a white man, also she wears a police uniform yet is a simple unimportant meter-maid. Daisy is always yearning for the acceptance of men, wears alot of make-up and revealing clothing, is also vindictive and manipulative in how she treats Mason by dangling the idea of sex in front of him as a ploy. There is no sexism to be found in the portrayal of a fat black woman with no sense of humor who serves the main characters.
There ya go, the great thing about conspiracy's is that they dont have to be true.
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: (I also thought it was interesting to watch the in the wake of that crazy feminist Firefly essay... nearly all the characters are women and none of them feel stereotypical to me).
George is treated like a child, even to the point of being called "Peanut" by the alpha male and likes it. Roxy, the tough black chick is there at the whim of Rube, a white man, also she wears a police uniform yet is a simple unimportant meter-maid. Daisy is always yearning for the acceptance of men, wears alot of make-up and revealing clothing, is also vindictive and manipulative in how she treats Mason by dangling the idea of sex in front of him as a ploy. There is no sexism to be found in the portrayal of a fat black woman with no sense of humor who serves the main characters.
Okay I feel a little dumb now. I still don't think it's as bad as that made it sound. Saying Roxy's there "at the whim of white man" seems a little off to me - they're all there are the whim of a white man. Roxy's also second in command, running things whenever Rube's not there, and becomes a police officer by second season. I don't think there's anything unfair about her position in the group. And George is treated like a child because she is and acts like a child. The whole point of the show is to watch her grow up, which she does.
Daisy is definitely stereotypical, and at first seems one layer deep and I only forgave her existence because the other characters were interesting, but over time she gained some depth with the whole religious arc thing. I think by the end of season 2 she had been set up to undergo some major character changes that we never get to see.
All the characters can be stereotyped in a single sentence but that sentence isn't going to do justice to who those characters are. Most shows try to do that but often do so by starting with a single clichéd trait and then slapping a few random traits on top of it. Dead Like Me's characters feel more organic to me.
I'll concede my original statement was overzealous. Allecto would probably still hate the show because it's filled with women who aren't super strong all the time, but I do think it shows a large number of women who are realistic overall, and each have their own form of strength that they use much of the time. Which I think is a good thing.
quote:There ya go, the great thing about conspiracy's is that they dont have to be true..
I have no idea what you mean by this. In which way is this supposed to be sarcastic.
[ July 22, 2009, 11:15 AM: Message edited by: Raymond Arnold ]
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quote:Originally posted by brojack17: It is really bad. It was a huge drop off from the show. Almost unwatchable.
Somehow, I got through it, but I felt dirty afterwards. I'm going to put it with Star Trek V, the second and third Matrix movies, and other things that don't exist.
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I will note - when first posted this, I actually HADN'T seen the whole thing (Megavideo let me watch the first 72 minutes of it then I had to wait an hour... and no I do not feel remotely bad for watching it on Megavideo). When I finally got to see the last 15 minutes, well, they were mostly still crap, but I actually liked the last 30 seconds a lot. Love the Boom Boom Ba music, reasonably liked George's last visit to Reggie, and loved the way George was "promoted." If I had gotten there before posting I may not have felt so angry. (I actually watched Star Wars episode I four times before realizing how terrible it was, because the last 20 minutes were pretty good).
So in my private canon, something happened in season's 3 and 4 that leads more or less to the last 30 seconds of the movie. The only thing that gives me some pause there is that I honestly DID think Roxy deserved to be leader of the group and was pissed about the way they undermined her whole character in the movie. I'll have to come up with some way that doesn't leave Roxy shafted.
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There is no season 3 or 4 - although I desperately wish there had been. I definitely got the feeling while watching that the producers were counting on another season or three and didn't get to write an appropriate series finale at the time. The movie is, in my best guess, their failed attempt at cleaning up the mess they left behind at the end of season 2. I didn't mind so much that Rube had finally gotten to move on, but it would have been nice if they'd attempted to write the movie in the same "voice" as the series had been.
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I know there's no season 3 or 4 - I'm talking about the seasons 3 and 4 that exist in my head.
The thing that seems most weird to me about the movie is the random decision to make it feel like a comic book. Nothing about the show felt particularly comic book like.
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I miss the show. It was one of my favorites of all time. I was heartbroken when it was canceled. I'm not one to watch tv shows on DVD, but DLM I would consider. That said, there was a huge drop off from the show to the movie.
I wonder if it were different writers or director? Really a disappointment.
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From what I heard, two of the same writers, although I don't know how many writers there were to begin with.
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Raymond, I wrote that to point out how simple it is to deviate and re-design something innocent, and turn it into your own personal conspiracy. What Allecto does is childish and comes from a superiority complex, lashing out in an attempt to have people applaud her. My first post was to show how easy that is.
Its not hard, and yes the last line of my first post was to show my sarcasm. Dead Like Me will always be one of my favorite shows, and cast's, the day that I realized that Mandy Patinkin (Rube) played Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride was a very good day indeed.
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Shortly after I posted that I was reread your post and was "wait, was he sarcastic? Jesus if he was sarcastic then I feel even more stupid."
So... now I feel even more stupid. Heh. (I do think your post was actually "correct" at least insofar as calling me out on claiming the characters weren't stereotypical).
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