Pirate's Cove

See, back in the day when you watched a show you saw it once a week, for typically 18+ episodes per season. So, you might not have noticed the DRAMA!!!!! being absolutely no fun. Or, that, nothing is getting solved, it’s just all too convoluted. Or that there is little development of characters. But, now, when you can blow through multiple episodes a day back to back? Those deficiencies show up.

Take a show like Lost. It was great back in the day when we saw 1 episode a week. Now, I tried to stream it and realized that it was just too weird, more and more weird was piled on top, the characters were actually pretty stupid, and we are not getting any real reasons for what’s going on. I gave up on it in season 3. The Sawyer character become incredibly annoying, as did Kate.

How about Manifest? The premise is fantastic. But, here’s what a few on Reddit wrote

• I have no doubt that the central mystery is explored in later season and episodes. They probably want a multi-season arc about it, like Lost, but where Lost effectively “teased” the central mystery throughout and gave ‘peeks’ into clues about in most plotlines (depending who you ask), Manifest instead tries to buy time by distracting the viewer with less-interesting side-plots and characters.
• It actually gets so much worse when they start to unravel the “mystery”. It got so convoluted so fast. Last thing I remember they were pulling shards of Noah’s ark out of the plane wreckage. Didn’t make it much longer after that.
• It the Wish version of Lost. The premise is good enough, so it keeps you in for that, but instead of trying to tell a tight version of what it is that is happening, they just start stacking more junk on top of it that makes no sense until the whole thing is a narrative mess. It doesn’t help that the side plots are dull and the acting is pretty bad. People love this show and I definitely don’t get it.
• Yeah. On paper it sounded like something I would like. I’ve tried to watch it 3 times now, and then get about 4 episodes in, and reminded how dreadfully boring it is, and how the main mystery is just… absent.

I made it to season 1 episode 14, and found it tedious, being DRAMA!!!! There was really no one having fun, no one smiling. If characters did stuff like have a nice dinner or end up in bed they’d have to then have a Serious Deep Conversation rather than just enjoying the moment. Everyone is always frowning or having a Serious Face. And who the hell is this The Major person. They keep mentioning her, and always capitalized. The Major. You might not have noticed if you watched it once a week.

I know everyone seemed to love The Sopranos, but, I found it got tedious watching so many episodes so close, where it seemed more about psychological venting than a mob show. Didn’t make it that far (I also cancelled HBOMax at the end of the special price time).

Falling Skies? Starts out depressing, wasn’t getting better.

I’m trying The Blacklist now, and, it seems to be going down the road of too much DRAMA!!!! Without James Spader it would be utterly tedious. Animal Control is interesting, a little lighter fare. Justified seemed too intense with no fun. It can’t be all frowning. Look at The Rookie, Landman, Tulsa King. Some serious crap goes down, but, they throw fun in. You have to humanize it. Even Grey’s Anatomy (which I gave up on in like season 21, just too much crazy), which could get stupid and had some really unlikeable characters when you think about them, had lots and lots of fun. It wasn’t all frowning. And you learned about the characters.

Alien: Earth? Still haven’t seen the final episode of season 1 (if there is going to be a season 2, no idea, no care). Just too convoluted, too DRAMA!!!! Couldn’t care less about the characters, who we barely learned about. The latest season of The Witcher? Forgot everything about the characters from the previous seasons because it was too long between seasons. Black Summer seemed interesting. Zombies! But, overly serious, no fun even while whacking zombies, no characterization. Only made it a few episodes in for Castle Rock, too serious, no fun. Give me some Psych, Eureka, Warehouse 13. Suits knew how to have fun, as absurd as the premise was. Blue Bloods was excellent, it was more than just procedural cop stuff. Characters were people. Vikings knew how to generally keep it simple. These were people to viewers. They were upset when a character was killed off.

With so many shows today, particularly on streaming, they throw so much into the show that it’s hard to know what is going on, and characterization suffers. I had also tried Dune: Prophecy, and it suffered from “what the hell am I watching? I have no idea what’s going on.” Not sure how much further I’m going to get for The Blacklist. Also slowly working through Star Trek: Voyager. Had given up on Strange New Worlds, when they did the cartoon crossover with Lower Decks, and knowing there was a musical episode coming up? Nah. Too bad, they did make the show about the characters first.