TV or Not TV

[meddow]

I’ve been watching a bit of TV lately, and gotten into a couple of shows. I’m such a TV person; it’s my favourite entertainment medium. Unlike one off films, you can really get into characters and have very complex plots because you have the length to do so, but nicely cut up into bite size chunks so you can put it down and go to work or remember to eat, unlike a book (I can’t put a good book down, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell nearly killed me – 1000+ pages and I was working full time at the time. Guh).

Damages is pretty damn impressive. I’m forever lamenting the rarity of complex and strong female lead characters on television, and this show hasn’t got one complex female character as its lead, it’s got two. And one of them is played by Glenn Close. It’s a legal thriller which starts off by sort of giving away the aftermath and posing the question of how they got there in the first place. I’ve got to give it kudos, because legal thrillers of that type rarely manage to keep my attention and I’m up to the tenth or so episode. And I’m never going to look at Ted Danson the same way again.

And I’m now up to the second season of Rome it is still a load of fun, mainly because being an HBO production set in classical times, there is literally nowhere the show will not go, and graphically too. And I love its spin on history, for example, Caesar’s murder was masterminded by Brutus’ mother Servilia, Caesar’s former lover whom Caesar scorned, using information concerned about our hero Lucius Vorenus’ wife’s infidelities gained from Octavia, Servilia’s lover, which Octavia got by sleeping with her brother Octavian – the future Augustus. You’ve just got to love a plot like that. The soap operaness of it all combined with the historical context is glorious. Alas, there was no “Et tu, Brute?” - they decided to go with Plutarch and not Shakespeare, but I’ll live.

Shame the Doctor Who episode using Rome’s set isn’t going to be a crossover. The Doctor and Donna hanging with Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus would be tonnes of fun. Okay, Pullo and Donna hanging would be fun, if Vorenus and the Doctor hung out they would just end up angsting together.

Comments

[artic-fox.livejournal.com]

Unlike one off films, you can really get into characters and have very complex plots because you have the length to do so, but nicely cut up into bite size chunks so you can put it down and go to work or remember to eat

I always used to be much more of a film person, but I've come to realise how brilliant television is for the reason you have described. You get so much more invested in the characters, because you can keep following them, and as you said, take bite sized pieces when required :D

[meddow.livejournal.com]

Yep. And a lot of television shows have rather cinematic in visual style these days, in spite of limited budgets. I really don’t get why TV still gets so much slack for being inferior.

[artic-fox.livejournal.com]

Good point. People always want to make the jump from television to film, as if it is the pinnacle of acting, but really, playing the same character in and out and developing them, and keeping them consistent must be awfully hard work.