Whereas lately I'm coming to miss case-of-the-week storytelling. I think arc-based stories have perhaps been taken to too much of an extreme. It's good to have characters growing and events having consequences, but it can be overdone. One trend in particular I've noticed this past season is that because of the need to keep the overall storyline moving and changes happening, nobody seems to be able to keep a secret for very long. On Smallville, new characters discovering Clark's secret superpowers was something that happened maybe once every few seasons, but so far in the first season of Arrow, a new person has discovered Oliver Queen's secret identity roughly once every four episodes. And while in the original '80s Beauty and the Beast, Catherine was able to keep Vincent's existence secret for two seasons, in the new series they've both been absolutely incompetent at keeping their life-and-death secret from anyone in their lives, so that now, near the end of the first season, there's only one main cast member left who doesn't know about him. It's really kind of ridiculous. Sure, the approach in old, strictly episodic shows where such secrets were kept forever could be just as ridiculous, but both extremes are problematical. As with most things, I feel there's a happy medium somewhere between the extremes. I'm also getting so sick of the formula where every case of the week the characters encounter just happens to resonate with whatever's going on with the main characters' story arc at that particular moment. It got so bad on Fringe that the main character even commented on the coincidence once, wondering if there were some cosmic significance to it. I don't want arc-driven series to go away, but I think it would be nice to have some variety, to have the occasional series that was mainly about the crisis of the week. Not something like in the '60s and '70s where nothing that happened in one episode was ever mentioned again, but something more like shows in the '80s, say, Star Trek: TNG, where the focus was on the individual adventures but there was continuity, where an episode could have consequences down the road and characters' relationships evolved over time. I think the most recent show I watched that came close to that was Flashpoint, though it had its share of serialized character threads.
This is what I watch shows like CSI and Law & Order SVU for. Not every week, but whenever I'm not doing much on a particular evening and don't feel like dvr'ing the episodes. (I usually watch it live). Basically like a fast food or tv dinners meal.
^I used to watch CSI and CSI:NY, but I've found both of them deteriorating in quality and gave up on them, the Vegas show last year and the NY show early this season.
I got bored of following any of the CSI shows pretty quickly. I only really started watching the shows in reruns when they were on several times every day on Spike and AETV. Almost every day after supper, I was literally "binge watching" 4 or 5 different CSI and/or CSI:Miami episodes every day. At the time Spike was playing through so many CSI episodes every day, that it could churn through a single season in five or six days. Newer CSI franchise episodes were not as exciting anymore, after that huge binge.
I don't usually pick up new shows for the very reason that they may be cancelled, but to me Golden Boy looked interesting. And aside from a few issues, I've found the show to be fresh and exciting. It does the case of the week format while also managing to have an ongoing storyline with the main characters, neither gets in the way of the other. If you're the type of person who watches as show for it's story, you get catered to, and if you're someone who comes across the show randomly one night, well you won't feel left out either. It's a shame it's getting cancelled while CSI stays around.
There was a comic book called Ex Machina which is about the worlds first and only super hero, rallying his victory from saving one of the Towers from 911, to become Mayor of New York City. The story flips back and forth between his days as a hunted vigilante and his latter day troubles as a mayor with a haunted past from a crux of conspiracies. 50 issues. Awesome. Golden Boy, which has probably never heard of Ex Machina, is just a pale shadow of that. What Golden Boy should have been aware of however was Jack and Bobby or HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER! Golden Boy really needed more air time set in the Future.
That was one of my few problems with the show, the future scenes didn't really have any bearing on the plot. I imagine had the show stayed on they would have slowly been phased out, or brought up periodically such as how they do it on 'Mother now.
Well with Mother they shot the 7 years worth of the kids in the first year. The more they used, the less they had. The less they had, the less they wanted to use/waste. But thinking about it, the final scene where the kinds punk "dad" was shot seven years ago, when the producers had no idea that this would be the shape of the present day, and they still have to lego that together with what they expected was going to happen.
I had to stop half way through the final episode of Vegas for some important reason. I can't find a good reason to resume the video. Meanwhile I watched the last episode of Goldenboy last night, and I remember the beginning but the end is a blob since it was way past my bed time to be trusted to pay attention to anything properly. I consecrate both these sons of bitches to the dust.
One of my favorite parts about Vegas was playing "spot the red corvette" whenever they did an outdoors scene. I think that convertible was in every episode. Oh, and loved Vic's Lincoln with the rear suicide doors.
I miss traditional storytelling. Nowadays everything is to excess--massive roster of characters, interconnected dense plot, fast pacing. I miss a show like tng with a modest ensemble and weekly standalones that weren't formulaic,,,we would get variety ranging from character dramas to political stories to high concept sff mysteries etc. I also miss traditional serialized dramas that had a modest cast and only two or three parallel arcs that didn't go on forever or raised more questions continuously like hill street blues, Dallas 1.0, Melrose place 1.0, falcon crest, the practice etc. nowadays episodic tv is procedural so formulaic and serialized shows are limited premise interconnected mystery events.
When TNG was on, I was too young to understand that this monster wasn't serialized. Then I started reading Novels which were referencing important episodes, and bridging several episodes together like as if everything mattered. When I became a little older, and a little smarter, I got pissed that this had been my imagination.
I only watched the pilot of Person of Interest. I didn't keep watching it because the protagonist struck me as 'Jack Shephard lite'. Maybe I"ll give it another chance. I don't mind shows being episodic, so long as they have compelling characters and interesting writing. I loved House. Just, based on the pilot, Person of Interest only had one compelling character.
I think I gave up on it after the first couple of weeks for similar reasons, discomfort at the lead character's violence, but I gave it another chance soon thereafter and I've been a regular viewer ever since. It does have a lot of interesting ideas and is a well-made show. It's turned into a much more science-fictional show than it initially appeared, dealing with the emergence of a true artificial intelligence. Plus it's accumulated a good store of interesting recurring actors, including Paige Turco, Enrico Colantoni, Amy Acker, and Sarah Shahi.
^I wouldn't know. I'm not sure why you'd need to ask if you already know Amazon's price. Or are you asking if it's worth $15? I'd say that's a remarkably low price for a full-season set of any show. Unless you're totally broke or have more important expenses you need to save up for, I'd say it's easily worth it. Although you could also rent the set from Netflix if you have an account there.
Despite the Orwellian conspiracy and the constant murder it's a feel good franchise for broken people. What mistakes has Amy Acker every really made in her career other than Happy Town? Besides, if we're wrong, resell the dvds on ebay and make a tidy profit.
I've watched most of the season 1 episodes twice (on blu ray). For season 2, there's not many episodes I would consider watching twice. (Only ones I've been compelled to watch two times, were the first two episodes with Root, the final two episodes, episode #16 with the first appearance of Shaw, and episode #13 with with Kara Stanton being killed). Overall, I thought the season 1 blu ray set had some rewatch value for me. (I didn't really watch season 1 in its original first-run broadcast). Though I doubt season 2 will have much rewatch value for me, if I choose to buy the bluray (or dvd) set.