farscapin' and other

[jazzfish]

So almost a year ago I asked the internet what television I ought to watch. The consensus seems to be: Avatar is awesome, Babylon 5 is good but this may be colored by nostalgia, BSG is either really really good or pretty good and then it falls apart, and Farscape is kinda iffy although the people that love it really love it.

Avatar was, in fact, awesome, and I'd recommend it to pretty much anyone.

We then watched season 1 of Damages (ugh), and then the entirety of Slings & Arrows to clear the vile taste. After that, well, I'd acquired the first season of Farscape before the move thanks to rebelsheart, so we dived in.

We're eight episodes in so far, and... um. Of those eight:

• Two have been Pretty Good: "Exodus from Genesis" with the space cockroaches, and "PK Tech Girl" with the Peacekeeper love interest.
  
• Two have been Decent: "Premiere," and "Throne for a Loss" with the battle-drug junkies who kidnap Rygel.
  
• Three have been Interesting Premises With Meh Execution: "I, E.T." with the alien UFO watchers, "Back and Back and Back to the Future" with the flash-forwards and the !Luxans, and "Thank God It's Friday... Again" with Hippie Planet.
  
• And one, "That Old Black Magic," had a premise (an evil sorcerer? seriously, sci-fi show?) that snapped my Disbelief Suspenders enough that I couldn't muster up much caring about the (probably quite decent in retrospect) character development at the end.

Episodes tend to end on a pretty open note, which is good: it's setting up things to be carried forward and resolved later. Trouble is, nothing is actually getting carried forward. Every episode starts from the baseline and ignores anything that's gone before. This... is the opposite of what I'm looking for. I want story development. I want progression from episode to episode. In the absence of that I need a really compelling reason to keep watching, and a hit rate of 0.25 isn't doing it for me.

I'm not giving up yet. Right now I'm mostly watching for Aeryn Sun and Zhaan and the Creature Shop creatures, hoping each time for another Pretty Good episode, and waiting for something that'll blow me away. I've heard that parts of season 1 were weak and getting past those will help. Plus it looks like at least the first half of the season was originally aired out of order from how it was written and filmed.

So... it's got until the end of the first season to make me want more.

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At this point I'm also interested in any comments people may have on Burn Notice, Leverage, and/or Veronica Mars.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I loved Aeryn, but most of the rest of Farscape left me pretty cold. There were a few good eps, but far, far more of Planet of the Amazonian Women types of things.

I adore Burn Notice with a purple passion, but it pushes all my fiction buttons. Leverage is not quite as good (for me) in spite of Parker and Hardison and sometimes the martial arts guys.

Veronica Mars' first season, really good, and so was second. Third was pretty awful, though the last ep was fun.

[jazzfish]

*grin* I'm pleased to hear that Burn Notice works for you. It, and Leverage too, seem like they ought to be exactly the kind of thing I'd like: twisty plots, neat and occasionally snarky characters, etc. I'm a little hesitant on Leverage just because it seems to be much more purely episodic, and I tend to burn out on those.

It's sounding like if I want to get into VM I should stick with the first season, and the second if I really like the first. Which is perfectly doable. Thanks!

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Burn Notice actually has a semblance of overarching storyline, which I find the weakest aspect of the show. It's even painful at time, it's so cliche . . . but on the other hand, those scenes are very, very short. And don't impinge much on the awesomeness of the stings that are the backbone of the show.