sholio | Traders

So I bought the first season of "Traders" after watching clips on YouTube (*glares accusingly at

with_apostrophe*) and we watched the first four episodes last night. It's fun! Who would have thought a show about stock trading could be this entertaining?

Sally Ross reminds me a lot of Elizabeth from SGA, except she's like a version of Elizabeth who actually achieved what the SGA writers never quite managed to do with the character -- strong without being bitchy, tough without being abrasive, vulnerable without being maudlin, moral without being cloying.

Grant is, of course, adorable. And so is Donald, whose eager-puppiness is a nice contrast to everybody else's "sharks with blood in the water" sort of mentality.

I'm still having to work to sell myself on Jack. There were some nice scenes with him and his father, but I'm having trouble getting past his corporate ruthlessness. With a character like Marty or Adam, you relate to them first as a total bastard and any shreds of human decency they may manage to muster are a nice bonus. With Jack, I feel like we're supposed to relate to him as a sympathetic character (a "nice guy" as opposed to the not-nice guys like Marty), but there's enough of the bastard in him that it's hard to empathize with him on that level.

ETA: Can people PLEASE not put spoilers in the comments, even vague ones? My favorite way to watch a show is completely unspoiled -- it's basically impossible in SF fandom to do that, but since Traders is kind of an obscure show, I really have no idea at all what's going to happen next and I like that. I'm sure I'll be wanting to talk about events in the more advanced seasons when I get there, but I'd really appreciate it if discussion could be restricted to the part of the series that I've seen (which is up to episode 7, as of tonight). I don't want to know which characters stick around, I don't want to know how the relationships develop, I don't want to know ANY of that.

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Okay, seriously -- can you guys PLEASE not spoil me? I know you want to talk about it, but I'm only up to episode 6 and I much, much prefer having no idea of where a show is going, including how the character relationships develop.

I am sorry that you feel spoiled by that - I don't like being spoiled either so I deliberately made that as general as possible.

I do appreciate that everyone has different levels for what they consider a spoiler, it does contravene "having NO idea of where a show is going".

I deleted a previous comment and have revised this one, because I was going to try to justify why I didn't consider it to be a spoiler. I changed my mind, because I do believe the individual (you) is the best judge of what is and isn't a spoiler for them - BEFORE they see or read what was spoiled.

On the other hand you did say at one point that your moratorium against small spoilers was off. Was that show-specific (I don't remeber)? Did I miss a post where it was back on? Was there something specific about that spoiler that made you react, because there are tid bits in other comments you didn't react to?

I'm sorry if I got smackdown-ish last night. I guess that the reason why I reacted so strongly was that ahead of time, dating back to long before I thought I might like to see the series, I'd run across one (pretty big) spoiler about it. I'm not sure why that particular thing stuck in my head, but at least I didn't know who it happened to or when. From the little hints in your and other posts, I feel like I now know who and when, which kinda ticked me off. On the other hand, I could be totally misreading things and maybe you're talking about something quite different.

I also felt like it was getting to the point where the discussion was veering into a pretty detailed discussion of future events (again, I could be mistaken, but that seemed to be the direction it was heading in) and I wanted to stop it before I got majorly spoiled.

I know I probably invited it by posting about the series before I'd seen all of it, but the thought hadn't really crossed my mind that people would start talking about the part I hadn't seen. (Which is silly, because I know how fandom works.) And I didn't mean to come down hard on you with the smackdown. I'll just wait'll I've seen the rest of it to post about it again -- no harm done.

On the other hand you did say at one point that your moratorium against small spoilers was off.

I did? Er, sorry. The only time I remember making a comment like that, I believe I was talking specifically about getting upset at other people for posting uncut SGA spoilers in their journals.

I think that the extent to which I mind spoilers depends for me largely on what kind of show it is. Some shows like SGA are very episodic and if you know something about one episode (unless it's a huge casting thing), it doesn't really affect any of the other episodes. You know that the characters in episode 50 will be relating to each other in much the same way as they did back in episode 30. But with a show like Traders, you really DON'T know that. 30 episodes down the line, the character dynamic might have completely changed. Same thing with Lost (back when I still watched Lost) -- each episode has the potential to completely change everything, so I don't want to know ANYTHING.

But, like I said, I didn't make that clear, so it's not your fault at all. And you *were* being vague. I just didn't make my wants clear from the beginning, and I should've.

Ok! ;)

To make you feel better, I don't think you are actually as spoiled as you suspect you are as a result of my comment. I don't think it is what you think it is, or you're right about what you think it is, but you're wrong about the consequences!

That tells you precisely nothing, but should get you guessing again!

I can't resist.

In Season Three, aliens invade Toronto and turn Jack into a Pumpkin, Marty into a dinosaur and Adam into a pickle. And, amazingly, they keep their personalities. Aliens are amazing.

Chris's hair eventually starts sticking straight up in a Beckett like ledge of black, and tiny wee people (all bearing a striking resemblance to a tiny Richard Dreyfuss) who believe they've been abducted try to scale it, looking for the aliens in the top. Turns out, there's a whole race of creaturs in his hair that communicate by 1980s Synth music. The trading floor starts wearing ear muffs to block out the sound.

Oh, and there's a dragon at one point. It's big and red and spits fire. It melts Grant's chocolate hoard, and the whole trading floor becomes a sort of hot fudge sundae for the monster. Sally saves them all by throwing some bottled sass (she learns to bottle it in Season 2, and sells it on the black market to up and coming pre-teen Hollywood actresses, and that's where she makes all her money) at the dragon, and it's so overcome by the girl power that the dragon disappears in a puff of alabaster colored smoke, with a hint of lavender after glow...

And, yes, I should cut down on the caffeine at work.

Darn you, I read this at work and was supposed to look like I was doing something serious and work-related on the computer. ;)

and Adam into a pickle.

This was the part where I really started cracking up...

LOL! That actually does help.

Traders

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